Race With a Heart
Chapter 165: A Heart for Racing

Chapter 165: A Heart for Racing

Don was so excited when he got a spot at the Fergus Stables! Unfortunately, it turned out that Martin was here before him. Martin was only a mechanic, but he was here, he had friends here, he beat him in the race to a real professional stable. Alston had to jump over him, he had to be better than him. He had to be on a real professional track.

The young driver clenched his fists. He was angry with himself. After all, he really loved the sport! He loved the adrenaline that pulsed through his veins as he competed in the race. Waiting for the start, then a direct fight on the track - it was something beautiful! The feeling of winning the track over Martin, his long-time direct rival, was ecstatic! This was exactly the feeling he should have wanted against Paxton.

"You look like you are fighting with your thoughts," remarked Lambert. "Who is winning?"

Alston shook his head.

"I really love this sport. I don’t understand how it happened that I did what I did. After all, the rival has to be beaten on the track! This is the best taste of victory!"

"And that’s why Steve forgave you" Jack replied with a simple, warm smile.

"What?"

"You may not like someone in private. You may really hate him. But as long as you work together, you should respect each other for the sake of sport, don’t you think? " Jack was still smiling now more like understanding older brother.

"I still don’t understand."

"You will" Lambert patted him on the shoulder again. "You’ll understand it perfectly well when Steve’s gonna kick your ass on the track..."

***

"It’s Steve Paxton! Steve Paxton! Steve, is that really you?"

A dozen or so overjoyed men in mechanics’ overalls left their work and surrounded the driver who had just appeared in the stalls of the stables. Their cheers suggested that they were really enjoying the sight of him.

Such a greeting intimidated Steve, but it also made him smile involuntarily. At the sight of this, some people began to poke their arm, but there was no hostility in their behavior, on the contrary, there was a certain familiarity in them. But no one dared pat Paxton on the shoulder.

Steve instinctively looked for Martin. The boy was already dressed up in the driver’s suit - no longer Jack Lambert, but his own, so it fit him perfectly. In this jumpsuit, Martin looked extremely attractive and Paxton decided that he needed to distract himself from Martin as quickly as possible so as not to reveal that his head was starting to run dirty thoughts.

Martin was definitely right in saying they couldn’t work together.

So Steve looked at the faces of the mechanics, who were sincerely pleased to see him. To their worried questions, he replied that he was doing fine and that although he would not get into the car yet, he was going to come to the stable. This information surprised even Martin, who blushed charmingly. Paxton, who had been watching his reaction surreptitiously, had to hold back his smile.

Although everyone greeted Steve warmly, only Allen dared to pat him on the shoulder and ask more direct questions. Paxton replied that he had spoken to Walton about a small project and would like to discuss the details with Abe, so they both disappeared into the chief mechanic’s office.

"What did you want to talk about?" Abe Allen asked, seating himself comfortably. He showed Steve a second chair.

"About Martin. In my opinion, he has real potential, but Karl says that Martin can’t handle the stress during racing. What do you think?"

"It’s hard to say," Abe admitted, and he looked at Steve very carefully, as if to ask why Paxton was so interested in this boy. "Martin has the potential, but it looks like he doesn’t have the heart to race."

Steve frowned.

"How’s that?" he asked surprised. "I thought he competed in races and he was good ... When he competed with me in training, he had a sporty fierceness."

Allen took a deep breath. He looked and acted exactly like an older, experienced man who has some knowledge and is considering sharing it with the younger generation.

"Abe ... You don’t want the boy to be one of our drivers?"

"Tell me, why are you so interested in him?" the chief mechanic narrowed his eyes.

The question was not entirely unfounded. In theory, Steve should stay away from the extra driver case, but he was deeply involved in it. Paxton knew that Allen was privy to his earlier request to bring Martin back to the stables. It looks like he got suspicious. Considering that it was he who brought Martin to the stable for the first time, he could see himself as his mentor or guardian in a way.

Steve sighed. He didn’t want to talk about the most intimate details of his relationship with Martin. He wasn’t afraid that Allen would condemn them, that he would show a lack of understanding, it was just that Steve was not one of the people to talk easily about his privacy.

"Martin, he... he helped me through the Hannah crisis," Steve explained to the chief mechanic. "He has something warm about him. I guess... we became friends."

Allen smiled and nodded contentedly.

"I suspected so," he nodded, laughing. "When he worked here, for anyone it was no secret that he adored you. He kept following you with his eyes and followed you like a duckling after its mother. He is a good boy and I’m glad he helped you get through that period. But the fact that he is a good boy prevents him from being a professional driver."

"Why?" Paxton was surprised.

"You know, I knew his father. Harry was a great man. Martin looks a lot like him, not by appearance, but by character. Only Harry didn’t like competition very much. He always preferred cooperation. I think Martin, like his father, does not like competition and sports competitions, especially individual sports, require just that."

"But he did great in amateur competitions," Steve remarked.

"But it was fun, not real competition," Allen pointed out. "As the stakes got higher, so did the pressure. Martin is great as a team player, but on the track the driver is alone and I think that’s what weighs him down the most."

A lot of professionals took part in the preparation for the race, a whole group of people responsible for various tasks. The stable was teeming with life and noise. People had to work together to make everything sound great. There was a lot of contact between the driver and the mechanics as they constantly exchanged information. Questions, answers, suggestions, doubts and decisions - communication was continuous, because there was always something to be improved, refined, to make this perfectly functioning machine work even better and that there were absolutely no problems on the track. But just on the track, while waiting for the start, the driver was left alone with his thoughts and his fear.

Car racing was not a terrible sport. Even after the spectacular accident he experienced, Paxton missed the track. He had to admit, however, that it was a lonely sport, because once he was in the car, he had to concentrate so much on what was happening on the track that the messages from the mechanics were only an occasional necessity. During those hour and a half, there was only the driver on the track, his car and his thoughts surrounded by competitors and the awareness that one false move of his or a colleague could result in the loss of several points or in an accident. And here there were real millions at stake.

But for Steve, racing was the greatest fun of this life (not counting sex with Martin). He really wanted to share this pleasure with Martin. Back then, in training, with Martin helping out with the data collection, and they were both on the track head-to-head, Steve felt like he had been given wings. He knew that it was an exceptionally intense experience for Martin as well. The boy loved racing, he had a competitive spirit, but maybe the loneliness of this sport was something that brought him stress.

But when they are on the track together, Martin shouldn’t feel so alone. Perhaps when they are both on the track, they will both get wings that will take them higher and farther than ever before. Not only would that be great for the Fergus Stables, but they themselves would experience something extraordinarily wonderful, wonderful ecstasy, as if they were racing with their own heart.

Is Steve very selfish wanting to repeat that training experience and intensify it in a real competition? Martin would also experience something special.

"I’d like to do some mental work with Martin," he told Allen. "I spoke to Walton and he agreed to let me work on Martin’s stage fright. I am not a psychologist, but I am a driver and I know what the driver is afraid of, what his thoughts are on the track and how to deal with them, and besides, Martin and I are close, so we can allow ourselves a certain freedom and openness. "

The chief mechanic nodded.

"Hmm, that’s not a stupid idea," he admitted. "You are his idol, and who better inspire than idol?"

Idol - in all this beautiful madness that has become the relationship between him and Martin, could you still talk about the influence of an idol? There was something more... intimate between them now.

But being an idol kept its privileges.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.