With having been together now for two years, Sarina Ott has watched herself grow closer and closer with each passing day to the love of her life, Chase Elliott. While previously purely independent, dead set focused on her future and leaving the past...
Sunday, February 18 – Daytona International Speedway
It may have been the biggest race of the year, but Chase began the day like he would any race day – a quick shower in the morning, along with breakfast, before heading out to go through the usual sponsor appearances. Each of those went according to plan with no issues, as each of them wished him best of luck along with a series of photos. He was getting finished up with the final one for the day – NAPA – and set to leave, when someone placed an envelope in his hand.
"We found this here addressed to you when we got here," the older man tells him and Chase simply nods his head in return. He didn't need to glance down at the envelope to know who it was from. He already could tell without even bothering to look, and didn't even want to figure as to how it had landed on his hands.
"Thank you sir," he simply replies, clutching it in his hand as he shoves the envelope in his sweater pocket. Perhaps if he quickly got rid of it he wouldn't think about it and everything would be okay.
"Do I want to know?" Morgan wonders as they leave and Chase just shakes his head. He wished she hadn't seen anything in knowing she'd make a big deal about it, just like everybody else. "I can take it if you wan-"
"All notes go to Jordan, and Jordan opens them. He lets me know if there's something important, and then passes it along to where it goes." Morgan was caught off-guard, but simply nodded her head in acceptance in return. "It's a system we developed when they started to try and make it easier on me."
"Okay. Well if I ever can do anything to help, just let me know."
"Thank you."
He makes his way to the garage area, seeing Jordan standing by with the team as they get ready to push the car out to the grid. He quietly slips him the envelope, with a nod, before continuing on his way back to the motorcoach.
Jordan lets out a sigh as he glances at the white envelope, slowly ripping away the back of it. He pulls out the slip of paper, looking around, before reading the writing inside.
"I hope the message is getting to you clearly," he reads. "A decision will be coming, and I hope you make the right one." Jordan was puzzled, and could only wonder as to what was going to happen next. With Alison, he could only guess on the variables – but knew it would have to deal with Sarina in some way, if she got her way. Taking a deep breath, he just hoped the measures put in place stopped that from happening. He then made the familiar phone call, speaking of the details, before agreeing to when they would grab the note and envelope for evidence.
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Sarina gets comfortable in her usual spot, as Jordan glances over with a pat on her leg.
"500 miles, 200 laps – you can do this," he tells her as she glances over nervously. It sounded so easy, but everybody knew from the way the weekend had gone that was the opposite of the truth.
"You saw me yesterday and you think today will be easy?" She questions and he shrugs his shoulders. In his belief, the driver was going to make it easy by staying up front all day long. They were going to have a great race, and a great beginning to the season - at least that's what they deserved after everything.
"Trust in your man....."
For both, it was relief to see him up front as the race didn't start off with the calm feeling that they had experienced in the Clash or Duel, with chaos from the drop of the green flag. Sarina even had to admit that she was caught off-guard when Kasey Kahne was sent out of line early, flying down pit road in the opening laps.
Chase wasn't making her nerves any easier, either, as he fell back some spots, running mid-pack after getting split down the middle. All she could think about was him being in the eye of the storm the whole way.
She got a small break with the field stringing out single file on Lap 31, but it wasn't a surprise to see that only last for four laps. It was actually her man ruining the calmness, too, as he made his move to get back to the front.
"That's how you do it!" She lets out as he takes the lead with 15 laps left in the stage. If he wanted dance, she had no problem with that – a s long as he was at the front of the train. That'd keep her nerves the calmest while accomplishing their goals, hopefully.
The first major wreck of the event happened five laps later, thankfully far behind pack as Kyle Busch blew a left rear tire, collecting some others with him. Reminding herself to take deep breathes, trying to kill the nerves, she knew that once when they went back to green, it was only going to get crazier. Everybody would want stage points, and her man was going to be right in the middle of that.
Right when the green flag flew with five laps left, the craziness began immediately with everybody switching lanes, attempting to block each others runs. Chase was one of those, going up to block a move, but ended up getting put the top with no help, causing him to slip back through the field.
Sarina didn't get a chance to calm down as three laps later (two left in the stage), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got sideways down the backstretch running second, causing the field to get all jumbled, resulting in contact with cars sliding every which way, whether grass or outside wall. Thankfully, Chase made his way through – barely – finishing the opening stage in eighth.
"Aaah nice job," Alan congratulates his driver as Sarina takes a couple deep breathes. That was too close to comfort, and she knew it was just the beginning with 140 laps still left to go. How was she supposed to survive the remaining laps?
"Holy shit!" Chase lets out on the radio, and Sarina couldn't help but nod her head in agreement.
"I'm going to need malox, tums, and whatever else you can find before this is over," she comments causing a chuckle from Jordan.
When they went back racing, the chaos didn't calm down one bit, with passes and blocking happening every turn. The front of the field saw Chase lead some laps, followed by Ryan Blaney leading some, back to Chase, before Ryan got back to the lead.
Running in second, Chase was riding behind him with 18 laps left in the stage, trying to plan his move accordingly.
"2 has a run on the top...." Eddie D'Hondt tells him, in which Chase was set to use to his advantage. Both of them came down at the same time, which caused Brad to make contact with the left rear corner, hooking Chase. "We're wrecking...."
The contact instantly caused Chase to spin up and hit the outside wall, before spinning around and hitting it once again as he also got hit in the door. The car then slowly rolled down the banking to the apron, damage seen at every corner.
"Are you alright?" Eddie asks right away, feeling every nerve pinched at seeing the incident.
"Yeah..." Chase answers, trying to take a couple deep breathes. Instantly upon hitting the wall initially, it had taken his breath away, with the contact afterwards not doing anything to help him. "Yeah...." He takes a couple more deep breathes, getting his wits about him, feeling a bit of pain up his back and especially through his ribs. "I'm alright..."
