“If you have any questions after qualifying, let me know,” he tells me.
“Are you promising me insider information?”
The corners of that sexy mouth pull upward into a smile.
Damn, that’s so freaking hot, and I’m in danger of combusting whenever I see it.
“Perhaps. It depends on the question,” he says.
Then Caleb turns back and walks over to the section of the garage that has a space for his helmet and gloves, which are right next to Mason’s. Mason has the other half of the garage, and I see he’s already in his car.
Caleb slips in his earpieces, known as Driver Comms, and then reaches for his balaclava and pulls it over his head. It shields his hair and most of his face, the fireproof protective covering merely leaving a spot for his eyes and nose to be visible. He puts on his silver racing helmet and walks past us, his eyes meeting mine for a second before he looks straight ahead.
SWOON.
He gets into the cockpit of his car as the crew continues to work on it. He pulls on his gloves, and his steering wheel is snapped into place.
Catherine glances at her watch. “He’ll pull out in about ten minutes or so.”
I nod. I have headphones so I can hear all the conversations between Caleb and JP, his race engineer. I’ve listened to these conversations before during races, thanks to the driver cam on The Downforce Network app, but there’s something about being here that makes the experience different. The air is thick with anticipation. An eagerness to see the car fire up, exit the garage, and head out to the track to see just how fast it can go. I want to hear that familiar noise of the engine, feel the vibrations of the car as it pulls out, and watch Caleb show why he’s one of the best drivers in the world.
The Downforce Network has a cameraman at the edge of the garage, aiming his camera right at Caleb. I turn to the monitor that is showing TV coverage, and OH MY.
It’s a close-up of Caleb in his helmet. His visor is up, but all you can see are his eyes, fringed by long, inky-black eyelashes, and the strong line of his nose.
I swallow hard as I see the fierceness in his gaze. He’s dialed in and ready to attack that track, and I think it’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.
Finally, Caleb leaves the garage, and goose bumps sweep over my skin as I put the headphones over my ears. He lines up with the other cars on pit lane heading out onto the track, and I find my heart thumping. Caleb isn’t on a timed lap yet—he’s on his out lap—and over the radio he’s told who the drivers are behind him, who is pushing, etc. It’s truly amazing how much information Caleb has to process—the radio, driving the car with a steering wheel like a video-game controller, and what is happening on the track around him at insane speeds.
Like two hundred miles per hour. Where one tiny mistake can send your car into a wall.
And all of this makes this sport so incredibly dangerous.
Caleb takes off on a timed lap, and I watch his car on one of the monitors. He’s flying, absolutely attacking this course. I find myself holding my breath as he navigates all those turns and elevation changes. A clock is rolling on the bottom of the screen, and he puts up an incredible time as he runs through the first sector of the track. And the same pace through the second and third sectors.
But so does Xavier, who is still faster by 0.154 seconds. Mason isn’t far behind Caleb, just like how they performed in the last practice.
Caleb easily makes the second and third rounds of qualifying, and you can feel the tension building as his car is pushed back into the garage after Q2. The top ten drivers are getting ready to fight it out for that pole position. Everyone quickly goes to work on the car, the tire blankets put on to keep them at the optimal operating temperature, and now we wait for the green light to come on and for Caleb to get back on the track. This is the session that means EVERYTHING.
It’s what we’ve all been waiting for this weekend.
Suddenly the tire blankets are removed, and a crew member standing outside of the garage motions for Caleb to exit. There’s a largevroomas he pulls out and enters pit lane, and I have to remind myself to breathe. The green light is on. This session is twelve minutes, and Caleb is the first car out. I bite my lower lip as he does his out lap, followed by Mason, then some other cars. Xavier is one of the last cars to leave pit lane.
Caleb is on his timed lap, flying around the course at insane speeds. On the monitor, the clock is running on how fast he’s going through sector one. Then it starts running for Mason, and the graphics compare their times side by side on the bottom of the screen.
Come on, Caleb,I think, watching him aggressively drive his car.
When their times on the first sector are compared, Caleb istwo-tenthsof a second up on Mason. That’s the margin.
When he crosses the start line, his time is 1:14:956. Mason crosses next at 1:15:137.
As Caleb heads back to pit lane to come into the garage, I keep my eyes glued to the monitor. Xavier is flying through the circuit, also at insane speeds.
He’s running faster than Caleb did at his sectors, and he crosses the line with a time of 1:14:846, knocking Caleb out of the top spot and into second.
Oh my God, it’s THAT CLOSE.
Other drivers take their laps, but none are close to the top three.