Two years had passed since Bailey had gotten his professional racing license, and was now qualified to race in historic cars. He had made plenty of nemises, including a legend who was the one and only Sterling Barrera. A man who had an intense rivalry with his father for nearly twenty years, from 1977 to 1997. Bailey had still not formed his collective identity that he longed for his drunkard of a father to give him ever since he was thirteen years old.
It had been a season of racing with Sterling Barrera, and Bailey was already exhausted and burned out. Upcoming was the Historic Group C racing season, and Bailey had successfully managed to seal a contract with the Konica-Minolta historic racing team, where Bailey would once again drive the 1989 Minolta Toyota 88C-V, but this time he had to drive with a teammate he hadn't met. It was the day of practicing at the Mugello Autodrome, in Scarperia, Italy. This event would go all over Europe. It starts in Italy, and ends at the Donington motorsports park, in Donington, England.
He currently awaited his teammate's arrival in the pit row, as he leaned against the Toyota's front fender while smoking a cigarette. It was currently cloudy, with an 85 percent chance of rain. The distant turning of wrenches in pit lane was present, as the other racing teams were away at working on getting their eighteen year old race cars into optimal condition. Suddenly, there was a light tap at his shoulder, Bailey jumped up, and then looked to his side. At his side was a petite blonde girl who barely came up to his shoulder. She had this crazy hairstyle that looked like a generic hairdo from one of those anime things, and lastly, she looked barely thirteen.
"Bailey-san?" The little girl asked "Are you Bailey-san?!"
"Uh… yeah. Why?" Bailey looked her up and down, noticing she had the same racing suit as he did, except in a smaller size.
"It's so nice to meet you! For a year I've been your biggest fan!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, while blushing and smiling widely. Her big blue eyes portrayed some kind of innocent little girl on the outside, a part of Bailey thought she surely had a deep, dark anger lurking within.
"My name is Alyssa. But you can call me Allie." She grinned widely
"What about Lista?" Bailey joked sarcastically, despite she didn't seem to notice the sarcasm on his tone, she immediately grinned widely
"Ooooh! I love that!" She shouted
"You're gonna need to calm down, Lista." Bailey replied flatly "We don't want to make a scene."
"Mister Ottobrini Junior." A familiar voice with a Brazilian accent growled "Get your useless ass over here."
Bailey passively paced over to Sterling, who was wearing a Sauber Mercedes racing suit, which signified he would be driving the Sauber C9 for this event.
"I see you're driving for Toyota… again." Sterling facepalmed "You could've driven for Porsche like your father did 18 years ago." Sterling mocked him "You're going to be granny shifting for days in that piece of shit."
"Just shut up Sterling." Bailey passively replied "You still don't know what I can do."
"Oh, shut the hell up, Ottobrini." Sterling growled through gritted teeth "Don't run your mouth, just like your father used to." Sterling cynically growled once again "You may have bested me five times out of the eight races last event, but now we're in my specialty. This is going to hurt you, more than it hurts me."
"We shall see." Bailey snorted "I managed to dominate more than half of Call of the wind in this Toyota."
"Call of the wind my ass." Sterling shouted while clasping his hands "This isn't racing on ovals. This is real circuit racing."
Bailey grunted, Sterling's cynicism was definitely getting the best of him, sort of making his own father look like a saint. He wondered internally how anyone, including the guy's plastic trophy wife was able to handle him. He put his hands in the pockets of his Minolta racing team suit and paced back to Alyssa, who was sitting on the fender of the Minolta.
"Who is he, Bailey-San?" Alyssa asked, all googly eyed and sounding quite concerned
"He's Sterling Barrera." Bailey mumbled flatly "You don't want to talk to him."
"Why?" Alyssa asked, sounding extremely concerned "I'll beat him up for you!"
"Don't." Bailey grunted, sort of frustrated and confused "He's not worth getting disqualified from this event for."
"Okay." Alyssa pouted subtly while folding her arms and standing from the fender of the toyota.
"Just to remind you, he's not only gonna make this event hell for me, but he's going to make it difficult for you too, since he knows we both are on the same team." Bailey looked down, maneuvering his left foot outwards.
"I can take him." Alyssa snorted while staring Bailey down "That old man can't learn new tricks."
"Because he already knows all the tricks in the book." Bailey replied flatly while putting his hands on his hips.
It was two days before the first race of the event, and tensions were high in the pit crew. Alyssa's bubbly personality didn't help either, as the mechanics were working to detune the car from racing in Call of the wind. Every thirty minutes, the mechanics would take breaks to smoke cigarettes. Bailey stood beside Minolta, occasionally speaking to the mechanics, who were dead set on fixing the car, as it had misfired on the first practice run.
Alyssa sat in the cockpit of the Minolta. The mechanics were beyond annoyed with her, as her high pitched voice coupled with her tendency to go on tangents wasn't helping. At all.
((Two hours later))
The second practice run was about to take place, and would be a forty five minute period of hard driving on one of the most grueling racing circuits in Italy. It was currently lightly raining, with the skies being a sort of whitish gray.
The rain tires had been fitted onto the Toyota, as the engine was fully repaired and was ready to go back into action. Bailey slipped his Simpson racing helmet on, and climbed into the low slung GTP race car. He attempted to get comfortable in the extremely uncomfortable bucket seat, as he fastened his two point racing harness.
"Alright Bailey, I have good news and bad news What do you want first?" The team's mechanic addressed him.
"Lay the bad news first." Bailey mumbled flatly
"The brakes and tires are stone cold, so the car may feel a little jarring to drive in the corners."
"Alright. What's the good news?"
"The good news is that we upped the torque, instead of running the default 650 lb-ft, you're running 745 lb-ft." The mechanic replied, folding his arms "This means you'll have better acceleration once you've left the turns."
"Okay." Bailey replied
"Without further ado, start her up." The mechanic smiled, as Bailey disabled the Toyota's killswitch, and flipped multiple switches to get the various parts of the race car's engine to work, before pressing the START ENGINE button, as the Toyota's small V8 engine made a brutal rumbling stutter before coming to life. The car's little engine sounded like heaven, sounding meaner than the other GTP race cars in this event.
Two mechanics got behind the car, as Bailey pressed down on the clutch and let off the gas to shift into first gear. He lightly pressed on the gas as he let off the clutch, as the two mechanics pushed the car out of pit row, onto the narrow road, cutting Sterling's Mercedes off. Bailey readied himself, as he travelled down pit row at 36 miles per hour. He looked into his mirror, noticing Sterling had something planned, as he left pit row and graudally applied throttle, as the nimble Toyota glided down the rest of the home straight.
"You can do it, Bailey-san!" Alyssa shouted into the pit crew chief's microphone, as Bailey prepared to enter the first turn in third gear. The Toyota decelerated from 120 to 70 in half a second, as Sterling's Mercedes was hot on his tail. Leaving the first turn, Sterling had blasted from the turn and overtook him. Bailey shifted from third gear to fourth gear and remained behind Sterling in an attempt to break the wall of defense that Sterling had built up.
They were about to enter the second turn, as Sterling had taken the turn too wide, allowing Bailey to pass.
"Too wide, Barrera." Bailey smirked as they were about to enter the third turn. Sterling immediately took the inside line to take back his position, as Bailey entered the line closely behind him, as the entered the fourth turn.
The Mercedes and the Toyota blazed down a small straight line as they began to steer to the right in the next turns, as Bailey and Sterling were neck and neck. Bailey took the inside apex line, as Sterling kept to the right, taking the inside line of the next turn, rightly overtaking Bailey. They both stayed to the left hand side of the track, entering a light chicane. Bailey shifted down from fourth to third gear, still trailing Sterling.
They began to enter the fourth turn, as the beefy V8 of the Sauber zoomed past him at ninety miles per hour. Bailey quickly took the inside line while lightly pressing down on the brakes and shifting up to fourth gear, remaining in the fifth turn at ninety miles per hour.
Sterling was beginning to break away from Bailey's offensive line, with as much of an assertive and defensive racing line through the back straight, as Bailey began to use Sterling's draft as the Toyota accelerated, successfully catching up to Sterling's Sauber C9. They rounded a long hairpin at eighty five miles per hour, both of them nearly making contact. Bailey began to slightly overtake Sterling but then pressed on the brakes in the last turn of the track, while taking the inside line.
Coming up was the home straight. Bailey began double clutching from second gear all the way to fifth, as the Toyota would violently jolt forwards, with its rear wheels providing a massive burst of speed, as they were neck and neck once again, with Sterling at the advantage.
The other drivers were coming out to play with Bailey and Sterling. Bailey knew he could use the traffic as an advantage over Sterling, as they entered the first turn once again. Sterling was forced into the outside line, as Bailey managed to fit himself between Sterling's Sauber C9 and a Nissan R89C.
Bailey accelerated out of the turn, double clutching again into fourth gear in time for the second turn. The Nissan had overtaken Sterling in the turn, providing Bailey an advantage, as the Minolta chugged along in the second and third turn. He figured he was at a two second advantage over Sterling, as he looked into his mirror, as the Nissan kept Sterling at bay.
He looked ahead, getting ready for the next turn. He lightly pressed down on the brakes while matching RPMs as he downshifted from fifth gear to fourth gear, staying on the inside line. Looking into his mirror again, it seemed Bailey had a three second advantage over Sterling, as he was stuck in between the Nissan and a Lancia LC2.
Coming up was the tenth turn, Bailey looked into his mirror, as Sterling managed to find an opening in the Nissan GTP's defense. Sterling began to bear down on Bailey's minolta. Bailey kept vigilant, as the next turns were coming, and the rain began to pour harder. He looked into his mirror, watching a Porsche 962 spin out and end up in the grass, he then focused back on Sterling, who had managed to reel him back in.
Bailey and Sterling were neck and neck once again. Bailey began to break a sweat in his racing suit, as he enabled the Minolta's windshield wipers. Coming up was the last turn on the track, as Bailey managed to stay to the right, while Sterling did the same, as the Nissan and Lancia were in tow. As the four GTP race cars left the last turn, the home straight was opened and the Nissan began to tear past Sterling and Bailey, as its aggressive small V8 made ghastly noises as it tore past the two prototypes.
Bailey began to enter the Nissan's slipstream, as the Minolta picked up in speed, accelerating from 90 to 175 and eventually 210. Him and the Nissan were neck and neck, as Bailey looked behind and watched the Lancia aggressively overtake Sterling's Sauber, and begin to draft behind Bailey.
((To be continued))