He had to admire her. She was taking on a business that defined sexist. Sure, there were a few women in the business – a couple of drivers, some techs, and at least one mechanic he knew of. But the only female team owner was the wife of a driver, and she was only a partner in the business. No doubt, her husband's status helped her, where Caro was on her own. It took guts to do what she was doing.
But, damn, the woman was addictive. After their first kiss, he'd sworn he wouldn't touch her again. His resolve disappeared faster than rain in the desert, leaving him with an unquenchable thirst for Caro. The road she'd chosen was treacherous enough without him adding truth to the rumors flying around the circuit.
“We're good to go,” Russell informed him.
“Everything looks good here,” Dell said. “Let's race.” He pushed thoughts of Caro out of his head. His foot tapped the throttle. He couldn't think of a better place to work out his sexual frustrations than on the racetrack, pitting man and machine against each other for five hundred grueling miles. If he were lucky, he'd be too tired tonight to think about Caro, to dream of driving more than just her car.
* * * *
Dell pushed harder, squeezing every drop of power out of the car. Fifty laps to go and his car was held together by crash tape and a prayer. He threaded his way between two slower cars on the backstretch, dropped low on turn three and traded paint with another car to climb one step closer to the front of the pack. He cursed the cluster of cars in front of him and kissed the bumper of the one directly ahead.
“Move over, asshole,” he said.
“He's got nowhere to go, Dell,” Jeff said into his headset.
“Then they've all got to go,” he said, referring to the cars three wide out of turn four, blocking his way.
“Hang back. They'll break up on turn one,” Jeff said.
A string of curse words flitted through Dell's mind, but he kept them to himself.
“Go high in one, drop low in turn two and you should be able to sweep underneath the 15 car,” Jeff advised.
Dell tried the strategy, edging underneath the 15 car, but the driver wasn't ready to give up his track position. Dell jerked the steering wheel to the right, sideswiping the 15. The other driver backed off immediately and Dell shot past him, one more position closer to the front of the pack.
Two cars ahead of him ran side-by-side through the backstretch. Dell waited while they jockeyed for position through turns three and four. As the car on the outside tried to regain his position, Dell throttled up and squeezed in between the two cars.
“Three wide,” Jeff said, as if it were news to Dell.
Dell nudged the nose of his car ahead of the other two. Turn one loomed ahead. Neither of his adversaries was going to back down and let him go ahead. They couldn't go three wide through the turns. It was a high-speed game of chicken, and Dell wasn't going to be the first one to flinch. He throttled up when a prudent man would throttle back, but prudence was for stockbrokers, not stock car racers.
Adrenaline rushed through his system. This was the thrill he craved, the headlong plunge into unknown waters. The do or die scenario. The fight or flight reaction. The choice was easy for him. Do. Fight. What would the other drivers choose?
“Clear right,” Jeff said.
Dell glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the car to his right drop back. He'd chickened out – chose flight. That left the car on his left. Dell matched his speed, hitting the throttle as much as he dared, edging ahead a little before his opponent matched him. They battled side-by-side for an entire lap.
Back to turn one, still side-by-side. Someone tapped him on the left rear panel and he instinctively tightened his grip on the wheel. He throttled up, hoping to push past the car now plastered bumper-to-bumper down the left side of his car as it propelled them both up the track. The wall sped closer. The muffled, but unmistakable sound of metal scraping on concrete penetrated his helmet, and in the same instant his car bounced off the wall and elementary physics came into play. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And in Dell's opinion, the opposite reaction was rarely good.
Dell's car now became the one doing the pushing, maneuvering both cars back down the track toward the inside wall.
Screeching tires. Grinding, crumpling metal. The acrid stench of burning brake pads and disintegrating engines.
It took all of ten seconds, maybe less. Dell made a futile attempt to control his car as two, or was it three? others crashed into him, sending him careening one way, then another. The car tilted up on two wheels once, settled back, then spun a couple of dizzying three-hundred-sixty-degree turns before it mercifully came to a stop.
Smoke filled the interior, blinding him. Dell mentally took stock. Alive. Breathing. Hurting, but not seriously. Nothing broken. Car demolished.