Don't Let Go: Day 4

Word Count: 26,061

Summary of Events:

Tor and Opa went to visit the lawyer, who gave them the document in which Uncle Zikki had detailed his funeral arrangements; Tor was moved to tears by Uncle Zikki's choosing of him to be a pallbearer. Soon after, Opa had a meeting of everyone involved in the funeral, where a date was decided on specifically because it allowed Tor to participate in upcoming back-to-back race weekends. Many people felt that he should take time off to grieve — his team was more than willing to give him the time — but Tor refused, craving the escape from outside cares racing offered him. In Italy, where the first race was happening, Tor was given many hugs, handshakes, and condolences before he raced. Heading into the last lap, Tor had successfully passed a somewhat arrogant Italian rival and had his sights set on pursuing the Japanese driver who was close ahead…

Excerpt of the Day:

Tor pushed as hard as he could to shift the bulk of the gap between Valerio and Akio to be behind himself while being simultaneously offensively and defensively prepared.

“Who is next in front of Yamauchi?” Tor asked.

“Ventura,” his engineer replied. “The gap is six seconds, six seconds.”

Plenty of space.

Tor gained significantly on Akio — as well as staving off a few attacks by Valerio — by the end of the lap, and noticed by a glance to his pit board that it was the final lap. Even if he didn’t get past Akio, so long as he could hold off Valerio for one more lap, he was good.

What he wanted to do more than just stave off Valerio, however, was to get past Akio, which was an effort that was helped down the main straight, as he managed to close the gap between himself and Akio, and not to lose too much of it as they went into the corner.

Since Akio was not merely a better defender than Valerio, but a significantly better defender than Valerio, however, getting past Akio would still be a lot easier said than done.

Nonetheless, Tor focussed more on the task ahead of him than the pursuer behind him, seeking out every chance he could find against Akio until finally, just over halfway through the lap he was able to fake Akio out and sneak past him.

Tor’s engineer swearing startled him. “Well done!”

“I’m not catching Ventura, though,” Tor said.

“That’s alright,” his engineer said. “That’s alright.”

Tor wanted to catch Amaro Ventura, though, and so he pushed as hard as he could for the rest of the lap, but he hardly even got a glimpse of him.

“That is the chequered flag, chequered flag,” his engineer said. “You finish P-fifteen, P-fifteen.”

Tor sighed. No points.

“It was an amazing drive out of you,” his engineer said. “You finished, you made it.”

Lifting his foot off the throttle, Tor started into his slow lap.

“You did amazing,” his engineer said. “You did amazing Tor. It was a tough fight and you did it. And I’m sure your uncle would’ve been proud.”

Almost like a light being switched on, tears flooded Tor’s eyes and started streaming down his cheeks. He couldn’t hardly see. He slowed his car down to a crawl, then finally to a stop at the side of the track.

Lifting his visor with his fingers, he slid them into his helmet to absorb his tears into his gloves as sobs shook his body as much as his tightly-secured seatbelts would allow. There would be no text from Uncle Zikki waiting on his cellphone when he got to his driver room, no call to discuss the race,  not today, and not ever again.

Pronunciations:

Valerio: vahlehreeoh

Akio: ahkeeoh

Yamauchi: yahmahoochee

Amaro: ahmahroh