"We can't sell photos everyone can already see," the blue pick-up truck stretched his axles, checking the clock.
It was just past ten in the morning, the sun was peaking through the haze.
Grid shrugged, "Well, I guess we hit the breaks with our sales. She actually looks hot for once, not like a creepy doll."
The suite door swung open and Preston sped inside in a frenzy, scaring his friends.
"...Guys!...guys!... "
Grid looked him over incredulously, "Calm down, dude, it's freaking early."
"Two things..." Preston panted, out of breath from the short speeding journey. Grid and Tony looked him over, sudden eagerness on their hoods as they listened.
"What?" Tony asked, exchanging a questioning glance with Grid.
When Preston caught his breath, he opened his mouth to speak, only to begin panting again.
"McQueen's... coming back to race!"
Grid and Tony exchanged glances again, "No way," Tony spoke, wonder in his voice.
"I thought he was retiring," Preston breathed, a smile growing across his fenders at the inevitable cause being revoked.
"I thought he died," Grid commented, cutting the air thin.
"I thoooouuugh-uh heee diiied." Preston mocked, staring down Grid with a look of contempt, "You know how I feel about this, and you crap all over my moment as usual."
"Chill," Grid held forward his treads in defense, "Well good luck to him, he's gonna need a lot of that stuff."
The three soon exited the suite, cruising down the once filled halls with open space, "You said there were two things," Tony asked, "McQueen's coming back to racing, and what else?"
"Oh yeah!" Preston accelerated to face the pair, skidding on his tires as he swung himself in a messy U-turn, "Coach says we have to clean the oil lane, and track."
Grid and Tony's paint schemes seemed to get pale as the two stared in horror at their friend.
"CLEAN THE TRACK!?" Grid curled his lips in disgust, "DON'T THEY HAVE CARS FOR THAT!?"
"No way am I cleaning the freaking oil lane AND track!" Tony agreed, equally horrified of the idea.
"This is our last day on the job, this is how he wants us to spend it!?"
Preston hung his hood in shame, his two friends looking him over, Grid's eyes suspicious as he noted the sedan's guilty appearance.
"What happened?" Grid asked, his expression becoming worried as the answer was becoming clearer.
"Coach knows what we did," Preston answered, his voice gravely.
Grid accelerated forward, "So you decided to tell us that LAST!?"
"Hey! It wasn't my idea to sell photos of her with Storm was it!?" Preston's eyes narrowed.
"But you weren't reaping the benefits of earning bucks when we got requests were you!?" Grid snarled, the two boys were equally matched as the closed in, bumper to bumper.
Tony watched the pair shout obscenities, seeing the familiar white truck, his supervisor approaching, his expression a horrifying mix of annoyance and anger. He shook his tires, trying to alert the fighting pair.
"...At least I'm not a McWeenie wannabe! Don't you have your own image!?" Grid growled just as his back bumper collided with a predictable being. The grey coupe's mirror's adjusted, seeing the terror behind him.
"ALL THREE OF YOU, TO THE TRACK, NOW!"
Watching the trio stand erect as horror filled their windshields, the middle-aged white pick-up truck followed close behind them as they scurried silently to the track.
Passing vehicles young and old along the route, the supervisor's grille could have tugged into a grin at their expense. His anger kept his RPM's sky-high as the boys scuffled about, attempting to line up in U-turns on the pit lane, but only denting their metal in unison as they bumped into each other.
The coach scanned his eyes along his employees, the red sedan, his sides still donning the Piston Racing Series staff decal along with several '95' souvenirs. His expression was pure guilt, peer-pressured by his pals.
The other, the grey coupe, a hybrid Toyota of some kind, shot invisible daggers, a distasteful contempt on his grille as he was ready to protest his abuse.
The other, a navy blue 4x4 truck; his eyes rapidly shooting left and right, desperately trying to find his innocence as he witnessed his fellow oil runners sweeping marbles in the distance.
As far as the coach could reason, he must've had the worst array of hired runners this year. The boys had hardly paid attention, the job was half-assed each time, crew chief's muttering profanities under their breaths as quarts were half full, pints were received empty, or oil cars were absent from their stations.
For seventeen years, he had done this job, respected, rounded, noble. Merely a week ago, the coach had been threatened with termination, his training to blame, his advice to blame. His existence.
Now nonsense. High school behaviour that made him cringe.
Anger was an understatement.
He exhaled a breath through his grille, "Take a long hard look at them, you'll be joining in a minute" he gestured with his tread at the trio, their fellow entourage washing and dusting the asphalt. Their hoods grimed with dust that shined under the scorching sun. Their faces distressed with the aimless tasks.
Tony swallowed nervously, hoping the answer he could get was far from relating to a former co-worker.
"S-sir? Why are we being punished?"
"Why?!" his statement was cold and gravely, a pierce at the young truck's ego.
"selling unsolicited pictures online for dollars?!"
His cold stared crossed the Grid and Preston, the latter narrowing his eyes to the floor.
"Does that ring a bell?!"
Tony kept his bumper zipped shut, seeing Grid's tires roll forward slowly,
"With all due respe-"
"With all due respect?!" he cut off the grey coupe's watching his hood crinkle at the volume.
"Is this why you all refused to do your jobs properly?! You were making money selling pictures online?!"
The trio were silent. Their hood's low and submissive.
Sliding cans of white and yellow paint, the bucket's stopped against Grid's bumper, his kept his teeth gritted posture despite being briefly startled by their arrival.
Towing three paint rollers over, the coach's eyes narrowed as Tony and Grid became horrified once again,
"Paint the lines, all the ones faded and chipping."
Preston's eyes scanned the track, every line, every corner, all were chipped away from wear and tear of the stadium. He exhaled a defeated sigh.
"You have all day, bright and sunny to work. Get to it, now."
