The Great American Race

Race season had BEGUN!! All the fine tuning, wrench twisting, gut grasping practices all over...It was February 18th...the FIRST day of a LONG 36 race calendar, DAYTONA 500, the Super Bowl of racing events, the All American Race. And standing front line along the pits was Christine, back yet again for another season watching the sport she loved taking shape and form as the drivers walked to their cars, press everywhere getting in the way, the over the wall teams making last minute preparations for the 500 miles they would be jumping back and forth jacking up the car, changing the tires, filling with gas, turning wedge here or taking out a spring rubber there. Ever since Talladega she could think back to that night, high up on the banks of Turn 3, it STILL gave her goose bumps. But now things had changed a little. She wasn't just a bystander watching and dreaming, she was truly at one with her love. Over the off season she had gotten a job with the lucrative race company better known as Roush Racing. She was an intern, a stand in so to speak. But it brought her nose to nose with the smells, the touches, the feels of everything that was racing. She climbed over the wall into her designated pit for the race, she was to be watching the monitors in Matt Kenseth's pit this week, doing her job watching the numbers as they played across the screen for instant scoring. Suddenly she saw him. Her breath caught in her throat. An entourage of red flowing behind him. Dale Jr. was heading for his car. He didn't know she was there, hell he probably didn't even remember her. She put it out of her mind as the Grand Marshal called for the starting of the engines. Taking a few deep breaths as she watched Matt's car lead off pit road and immediately numbers started rolling across the telemetry screen in front of her. Oil temp, water temp, and lap times wouldn't take effect until the drop of the green flag but they rolled anyways. Everything computerized, nothing left to chance. Rolling at around 5500 rpm's the boys were warming up for the go. She felt the anticipation as they rounded Turn 4 heading down the backstretch, the flag man waving them down just before he dropped the green flag. The crowd of a few hundred thousand went wild as hammers were dropped and feet buried in their respective carburetors. She watched the entire race through the numbers piling on the screen. A few close calls plagued the team but after all was said and done Matt had finished in the top 10 and the crew was ecstatic. Saying nothing Christine took all of her reports from the telemetry screens and headed to her coach knowing she had a long night of work ahead of her. Though the computers had stopped scoring she would have to depict and read all the numbers and make sense of them, then turn them into the team. She walked back into the coach area slowly her nose buried in her paperwork when she heard, "Fancy meetin' you here." She froze, the drawl millions knew so well and to this day haunted her every dream was talking to her. She turned slowly and saw a very tired, but nonetheless hotter than ever Dale Earnhardt Jr. standing behind her. "Hi Dale." She smiled softly. "Well it doesn't appear that you're trespassin' again, but I would guess by all the papers you're workin' for a team?" He asked raising an eyebrow. "Roush." She smiled at him. He nodded saying nothing. "Well nice to see ya. Maybe I'll see ya around." He smiled one last time a kind of conceited, "I know you still want me smile" and walked off.

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