April 22 : Red Zone

Apr 22, 2008 15:20

This is completely what I get for watching the Top Gear guys run the 24 Hours at Silverstone, and then going, "That would be fun," and "Wow, you know, 24 hours is a long damn time...like certain TV shows."

So I looked it up. And then wrote it.

I'm a dork.

Prompt for April 22:
3) A rainy afternoon and 3) A locked door.

Red Zone

If you ever utter the phrase, "It seemed like a good idea at the time," it probably isn't.

Case in point, after watching the 24 Hours at Silverstone last year with my best friend, we got into a discussion about how it might be interesting to attempt the insane concept of a full day's worth of car racing. We started talking about cars, and then people who would be on our racing team, and one thing led to another until we'd actually decided to do it, just for the hell of it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.



Here are the only few problems with this scenario: none of us had ever done any share of auto racing in our lives (unless you count stunt driving on TV and a whole lot of time spent in the Universal City NASCAR Speedway), and none of us had ever seen the track, and because this was England, it also happened to be raining.

"Dammit," I muttered, glancing up at the sky with my best annoyed face. "I am so going to crash and die."

"Way to think positive," Cole snickered from behind me.

I turned and glanced at him, laughing a little through the absolute trepidation. I had managed to recruit him to our race team, considering that he had nothing else to do and he was the guy I spent half my time NASCAR racing against. His fiancee thought it would be fun, and they got a vacation out of the deal. "You say that now," I told him, "wait until we get out there and things start going nuts and I scream like a girl."

"You are a girl."

"Yeah. Well. You see my point."

He was leaning on the modified Aston Martin DBS that we would be driving for the next day. Being that my best friend would be behind the wheel, there really was no other choice -- and it was a car that I'd had a chance to take out on the Top Gear track while we had been filming for Quantum of Solace, so at least I wasn't totally in the dark. Cole, on the other hand, had never actually driven in England up until this weekend, and as for the fourth member of our race team? My fiancee had assured me that he knew what he was doing, but I'd believe it when I actually saw it.

So that was what it came down to. James Bond, Jack Bauer and the two of us in an Aston Martin for an entire day. If we managed to win anything, all we got was bragging rights. If we lost, the couple of press members camped out for the sight would have a field day with it.

I glanced over at Cole. "Remind me why I said this was a good idea again?"

"Because it'll give us a really cool story to tell when we get back, and it's something we haven't done yet."

"If I go up in a fireball, that'd be an even better story." I paused. "Well. For you. Not so much for me."

"I was going to say."

Our conversation was interrupted by my best friend, who had wandered his way over. Daniel was probably the only one of us who didn't look like a complete idiot in a racing suit, and he was also our best chance at not embarrassing ourselves, being that he had always driven on the correct side of the road and was by now an old hand at driving a DBS. "Shakedown's in fifteen minutes," he explained. "Figure we'd best get you two out there so you can learn the track. You'll do an hour each and Kiefer can pick up the last one."

"Sounds fine," I said. "I should probably get in the car before I start building up my demise in it to mythic heights."

Danny just looked at me, and then at Cole, as if to see if he really wanted to know what I was talking about. The slight shake of the head confirmed for him that he didn't.

I was done talking, though. Inspired by a sudden burst of confidence, probably because Daniel actually had a plan and I trusted him with my life, I'd stepped around Cole to get into the driver's seat of the Aston. It's my personal belief that the Aston Martin DBS is one of God's most perfect machines, so I had to admit that as terrifying as this was, it might also be kind of fun.

I grabbed the door handle and nothing happened.

Daniel was holding the keys, and to his credit, all he said was, "You might want to unlock the door first."

april 22, riskoblivion

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