So this one's kinda short, but hopefully they will get a little longer as the story goes on. Again, any & all reviews are seriously appreciated! Enjoy! :)

It was cooler today than it had been seemingly all summer, which was finally coming to a close. Autumn was only two weeks away now, and Georgia was thankful for the cooler September air.

She drove down to the track, which was mostly deserted. Her eyes had already adjusted to the o'dark thirty light of the day. The sun hadn't even peeked over the horizon yet when her wheels hit the track.

'I have to do this. I can do this.' Her thoughts quickly wavered in the other direction. 'Who am I kidding? I can't even see what I'm doing. How stupid am I?' She idled in the cool morning air, listening to her engine be the only sound that broke the silence. 'No. I have to do this. I'll take it slow, get a feel for the track. Best way to do that is in the dark with just my sense of touch...'

Georgia took a deep breath, driving forward, feeling around for the asphalt beneath her. She kept it slow, her eyes wide open. All she could make out were shapes, just faint smudges in the dark, but she could sense the wall dividing the track from the makeshift stands and smell the grass in field.

She wavered to the left, carefully, until she felt grass beneath her tires. She drew away again, drifting back to the middle, counting the seconds it took on the way to the grass and back. 'I think I'm in the middle of the track.' She felt the road incline slightly at the curve, after which she slowed down, keeping left slightly so as not to hit the wall.

She kept this up for a little while, doing a few laps around the practice track, knocking out lap after lap as the sun showed its first signs of awakening. The buttery golden rays washed over the track as Georgia continued to cruise, simply letting herself feel the asphalt beneath her tries. Her engine was warm now, the exhaust from her tail pipe still visible in the cool air.

As the sun began to rise, she sped up, trusting herself to the track. "I've got to make it in this world. It should be in my oil; it's my destiny!" she told herself, taking a sharp curve. But Georgia went a little loose, her tries grasping at the pavement as she tried to get a grip on herself.

She straightened out, racing forward to regain her lost ground. She needed to have this down before her father showed up, she needed to show him that here heart was here, all over this track. 'I can do this. I can get it.'

Georgia increased her speed as she burst down the track, feeling the wind against her chassis, brushing over her hood, her eyes watering slightly as she came up on the next turn. She pressed forward, settled low on her wheels as her father did, but when she came off the curve, she came off wide. She saw the wall rushing to meet her - or felt herself rushing to meet the wall - and quickly swerved left. She didn't have any desire to taste the wall as many cars before her had.

She skidded to a halt, breathing heavy as her engine rumbled, practically roaring, despite her shaky frame. She idled for a moment, shaken by her close encounter. 'Papa's come close before, too. Everybody has close calls, right? Even the best of the best.' But she couldn't deny that she was a little frightened.

Georgia spent a few days getting things together before her trip out to Radiator Springs. She had to take time off work, get someone to watch the house, make sure everything was in order. After a long discussion with her mother, she had decided to stay a month in the small town, so she would have time to get a feel for what life might be like there. Besides, her mother had said, since the racing season was about to start, she'd have time to see the more hectic side of life.

The car gathered up her belongings, making sure to stow them in her trunk. She had kept up with the weather forecast for Radiator Springs all week, and it looked like it was going to be hot. It always seemed hot at the start of the racing season; her father had always come out of his races with a heated engine and the want for nothing more than a cool ration of oil, something Georgia had admired. Strip had always seemed to savor the little things in life.

She paused to look out the window at the thick green leaves on the trees, flirting with the wind as they always had, and the buttery sunshine pouring through the window as she had always remembered it. Why would I want to move away from this place? Things here are beautiful and quiet. The town was her safe haven; it acted like a wall against the world, a world she had seemingly lost all flavor for.

Georgia turned off the television, reversing and pulling away from it to drive towards the door that separated the kitchen from the garage. The faded, off-white garage door was up, revealing more of that warm, buttery sunshine. But as she looked on, something about her mother's words stirred up her tank. No, no, she thought, shaking her hood. This is home, isn't it? Everything is here. The track, the house I grew up in... Her tank still churned; her engine wouldn't settle. She left the garage, pulling out onto the quaint neighborhood street she remembered playing near as a child.

Georgia knew the way to the old practice track like no other - she could have driven there with her eyes closed. And now that she was grown, it all seemed smaller, shorter than she remembered. Her emotions, however, remained the same. Mixed. There was the lingering feeling of fear, pressure, and the smell of oil, sweat, and tears never left the path. But there was joy, pride, and a calm quiet feeling that caused her to slip into her memories.

When she came upon the gate that now had rust, ten shades deeper than the rusty eyes she had inherited from Strip, it reminded her how long ago it was that she had trained here. She pushed open the gate, listening to the creaking noise it made. Her tank churned, her breakfast sloshing around nervously like it had all those years ago.

She drove down to the track, idling by the asphalt, which was an exhausted, lifeless gray. But she knew better than to think that this track was lifeless. It still held all those memories, the memories of her father guiding her around the curves, Tex's words and thick Southern drawl, lighter than Strip's, but equally as syrup-y. She could close her eyes and smell the fuel, hear the laughter of the crew, and hear tires - her tires, her father's - zooming across the once midnight black pavement.

Even though the color faded from the track long ago, the piece of her life that she had lived out on it still remained prevalent.

Georgia didn't stay long at the track. She didn't really need to. Her mother's words, ringing in her ears, made sense to her now. She needed a life away from memories that suffocated her.