The 28 Day Race

Chapter 2

Vale

I turned my head to my right as I watched my teammate, Mike Winston, or Mikey as our whole team calls him, stick his head out of the window. I send the car speeding down the streets of Monza as we enjoyed the views of the third largest city of Italy. We both admired the architecture of the buildings that surrounded us,  all carrying a neoclassical feel to it. There was so much to take in, with every structure built in this city having its own intricate designs and details all around it, even on its edges.

As we slow down at the traffic lights, some fans notice us and rushed over to our car to ask us for a picture. Mikey and I agreed to take some photographs with the fans, before the red light turns green and we wave a final goodbye before we continued to head down the streets. 

"Hey, you excited for the Singapore Grand Prix?" Mikey asked, his prominent Australian accent showing. Mikey is British by blood, with both of his parents from the United Kingdom themselves. But their whole family moved to Australia due to other relatives moving over as well when Mikey was nine. With Mikey living in Australia for some time now, he has caught onto the local's accent and doesn't possess any traces of a British accent, except when he talks to his parents. The Australian slangs can be a little confusing to the British. 

For instance, we call those rainbow things you put as decoration on top of cupcakes "sprinkles", but oddly Aussies call those "Hundreds and Thousands". The part I'm confused about is, how do you Aussies know it's hundreds and thousands? What if they are millions of sprinkles in there? Who even took the time to count and estimate? 

There's another weird one. There are those sandals you commonly see people wearing to the beach, with a section to separate your big toe from the others. Back at home, everyone refers to them as "flip-flops". But the last time Mikey had a team bonding session on the beach with us (me and the garage team), he called those "thongs". We were dumbfounded, confused and disgusted, all at once. We thought he meant the undergarment. But turns out, when he was showing us what he was referring to, we were all simply astonished to know that Aussies call them that.

Aussies are built different, and no one can tell me otherwise about it.

"Excited might be a overstatement. It's the only race I got to prove myself to the top teams on the grid that I have the potential to be one of the drivers. As much as I love it here at Lurgan, I want to grow and evolve, which means being in a better car and a better team." I replied, my hands starting to feel sweaty on the steering wheel even though the air conditioner is blasting.

Mikey gently placed his hand on my shoulder, not wanting to startle me since I was driving, and squeezing it, reassuring me without words that he had faith in me. That everything was going to go the way I want it to.

"Thanks Mikey." I smiled briefly at him.

We drove past a cafe as we navigated around the city, which Mikey then told me he wanted to get a cup of coffee from there. I made a U-turn when I could and drove us back to the cafe he wanted to visit. When we got the car parked at the parking lot next to the cafe and making sure to lock it up, we were instantly swarmed by fans, wanting our autographs and pictures. 

As much as I love our fans, sometimes I do wish I could have some private time to myself without needing to cover up or take on a fake identity. I just want to go to a random cafe and grab a cup of coffee, sit down on one of the benches outside and read a book. But unfortunately, with my rising fame and popularity, the chances of that happening is now slim to none.