Knackered

Disclaimerland

Dearest government think tank intelligence analyst or to whom it may concern let me apologize in advance for the predictability of events, but often times life is poorly scripted in Disclaimerland. Why is the Minotaur half beast and half man? Well that's as nonsensical as car racing itself; racing as well as stories are often just about men who like things that are loud and go fast but there are other players in this traveling circus and let me introduce them before I drag you too far into this pop up weekends maze.

Judas: performance coach aged 34
Bianca: new money insta model aged 25
Stone: race car driver aged 26
Casanova: race car driver aged 24
Leo: new money race car driver aged 26
Hans: race car driver aged 24
Erik: team principal of the Minotaurs
L'Ingenieur
P.A.: Personal Assistant to executive team principal
Carleonesi: unreliable narrator and former executive team principal

I met a man on my way to St. Ives and his name was Carleonesi. I'd tell you about him but he tells his own story much better. "I tell the press when I get sacked," he laughs and draws a sip of calvados. "I'm just an orange farmer from the Italian countryside, what do I know about personality rights of publicity royalties?" I knew everybody. Don, l'artist, he said when I was still an uncooked noodle always in hot water, "When life hands you oranges—make blood." Best advice I ever got or gave, for that matter was, "play stupid." Kept my head down and my ears open while I climbed the ranks of Motorsport. I had an ugly face. People liked me. I learned garage talk early. I mostly liked hanging around the older guys and picking up their stories. Garages are great for gossip. Better than an Italian kitchen for saucy bits. I'd take my stories down to the village kids and embellish or embarrass someone with what I knew, innocent fun back then. I was untouchable. I was one of them. There were forty chances for someone to kiss and tell, and I got there first! Truth or consequences they wanted, ha! "Hand me over the bottle, I got a lot of talking to do and I don't want my tongue to go dry."
I'm not going to take you back to the beginning. It would take too long and it's not important to the story. Let's just say racing used to be different when I started out, none of this rockstar status crap that came with race weekends. Some handshakes and champagne, some photos and the press weren't even half bad. They liked me. I've always gone in for talking. Gift of gab. I won't tell you which one of the drivers got in over his head because it's always easy to spot the loser in a lover's triangle, he's the guy that's sad. I won't even tell you that the teams principal didn't deserve the tongue lashing he got, if I know him (which for twenty plus years I do) he deserved it. Times are different now like I said. Lot of hand holding these days, you can't treat a woman like a boy at the office—you can't be yelling and making demands. Sure that's racing, always a man on top but not in an office. In an office we all have to be friends. And not friends with benefits or whatever child's play the muppets want to play at these days, we have to be careful with what we do. Erik didn't make advances at his P.A. though that's what the press wanted to assume. A little birdie didn't even tell them that's just where their cold hearted selves went to first because scandal sells print. A little birdie did tell The Who's Who of Motorsport though, he was a performance coach for a batch of the drivers. He got burned and his insta model side piece got burned too and that's where the revenge plan got cooked up. I'd like to say, "Two dumb and young kids playing in the big sandbox got messy but Judas isn't young anymore and she's new money which should mean she'd have learned something by now too. If a poor kid from the groves can learn the rules, why couldn't these two?"
Judas the performance coach decides he's going to have a little fun, have the cake and eat it too sort of thing. Works great for years. He's got a steady gig going being the right hand man to a racing driver, he's traveling three worlds and he's dating his own models. Bianca is looking for that life that the new money generation seem to have become obsessed by: famous for looking good and doing nothing. She knew through the grapevine of an easy mark, he was a driver fresh off a break up and looking for love in all the wrong paddock's. Judas and Bianca liked each other instantly but neither of them had the finances to cover their living expenses if they dropped out of the pocket of a race car driver in Disclaimerland. They made hay when they could. It was a gig they both enjoyed until the racing driver got sacked and Judas had to find a new subject. Luckily he was picked back up in the Minotaur family with a new driver Casanova.
Casanova was a young driver after my own heart. He could swear up a blue streak when he got going. His first language wasn't English and his home culture was based on refinement and honor so when he got the tea spilled on him he didn't know what to do. Erik decided Casanova needed to go to a head shrinker and get himself sorted because his racing performance was going to pieces. Well, the first thing that shrink said when she heard Casanovas story of woe is, "tell a friend. He'll know what do and you'll feel better." Casanova left that tufted fainting couch and told his good buddy the driver of a rival team by now but still a confidant what he knew. That's all it took for a good nights game of telephone. Casanova told Stone. Stone tells Leo. Leo tells Hans. Hans calls up his old team mate and breaks the sad thing to him like throwing a water balloon into his face. This is all back story, not really relevant to the current news but I did say I loved talking didn't I?
Let's get to the nuts and bolts—the equality equation at team Minotaur. I don't actually know that Judas slept with the P.A. He might've just paid her off. She was always looking for a shoulder to vent on and his were broad shouldered and receptive. He used her regardless. He knew he could put out the sex angle in the WhatsApp universe and the truth would get buried in innuendos. I'd have suggested the angle myself if I was a sneaky bastard but I'm not, I'm still just a simple orange farmer and I'll stab people while I look at them not while their back is turned. Scruples, you either got them or you don't.
The driver had enough clout with the Minotaurs to get the performance coach fired. Judas decides he's had enough of smiling and playing nice. He's going to get what he deserves. He opens up his little black book of numbers and starts screaming. "Mr. Face! Mr. Love able! Destroy my career you think! You're not the best in bed or on the track. You'll see what happens when your benefactor isn't around to save you."
There are some sharp knives in the round dance of Motorsport. Erik states, "if a girl wants to be treated equally then she needs to know that this is the level of performance under pressure that I expect from her male counterparts." L'Ingenieur is not impressed. He's had his share of scuffles along the wind tunnel but this latest blow up he swears is going to be his last. L'Ingenieur says, "I'm tired of this tabloid era you've ushered in. I'm going gardening." This is where the rift gets heated on both sides. Neither are wrong, mind you, Erik didn't feel he'd done anything wrong and in the racing environment he hadn't. L'Ingenieur isn't wrong for wanting away from the speculative nature of the entertainment spectacle he didn't sign up for. There aren't many winners in racing, there's one per race so by the odds there's always more loser's in the stories of the day but this one hurts to tell. Two good friends torn apart by a gossipy couple that didn't have the, pardon my English, "balls" to own up to their own livestream. Pathetic.