LDR Ch 14

“Don’t stay on the simulator too long. I’ll call you.”

As Leo held a dog’s nose toward Harrison, Harrison naturally tapped the dog’s nose lightly.

“Okay. I’m off. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

At Leo’s words, Harrison smiled naturally, gave Victoria a light hug, and said his goodbyes.

“I’ll get going.”

“Thanks for walking the dogs today.”

“It was good exercise for me too.”

Then Harrison grabbed the paw of the dog nestled in Victoria’s arms, shaking it as if saying farewell.

“See you later.”

Turning to Leo, Harrison gave him a light kiss on the cheek as a goodbye. The dogs, sensing Harrison was leaving, whimpered in unison.

“Don’t stress them out. Just go already.”

“Alright. I’ll call you.”

It made sense—they’d known him since they were puppies—but it was a bit much for dogs living here to be so eager to follow Harrison. As Leo soothed them, watching Harrison’s figure fade into the distance, Victoria suddenly spoke.

“You’d think you and Harry were parting forever.”

“Exactly.”

“No, I meant you.”

Leo thought she was talking about the dogs, but they were already settled quietly in his arms. It was Leo alone staring at the spot where Harrison had disappeared. Harrison had been the one to pick up these dogs from the shelter with Leo, so giving up on them so quickly felt a bit harsh.

Still, they were cute, so Leo scratched their chins and followed his mom to the tea table set up in a corner of the garden. Soon, the estate staff arrived, prepared tea, and poured it into their cups.

“Don’t you understand your mom’s heart by now?”

Victoria’s voice was calm as she sipped tea with a dog on her lap, but Leo caught the subtle reproach and stayed silent.

“My son always puts himself through unnecessary hardship.”

As Leo quietly petted the dogs on his lap, her next sentence carried a bit more intent.

“And makes his mom go through unnecessary hardship too.”

“But it turned out fine in the end, didn’t it?”

His weak attempt at a rebuttal was worse than anything Harrison could’ve come up with when Heather wasn’t around.

“I was just pretending it was fine.”

“Then why did you cheer me on when I was in F2?”

It was the first time Leo had asked this question. It was a long time ago now, but Leo had raced for just over 11 years, starting at age six. As time passed, the competition grew fiercer, the races more frequent, and the risks greater, leading to close calls or actual injuries.

Victoria, whose own father had been involved in racing, knew the sport from an era when safety regulations were almost nonexistent. Even though safety had vastly improved by the time Leo raced, she knew how easily drivers could get hurt—or die.

Leo had made Victoria endure that fear for 11 years. He couldn’t bring himself to ask about her feelings after he quit, but now, for some reason, the question came out. Perhaps it was her earlier remark about whether he understood her heart now.

“Before your F2 season started, I couldn’t bear it anymore, so I talked to Heather. I asked her to convince Harry to quit. I thought if Harry stopped, you would too.”

There were plenty of things adults don’t tell kids, but this was completely unexpected.

“I knew Heather was worried too. Her family loves that kind of thing, so she wasn’t like me, barely able to open her eyes until the first corner, praying the whole time. But still, both her sons were doing it.”

At that, Leo’s hand paused on the dogs.

“I asked if she didn’t want them to stop, and she said yes—without a moment’s hesitation.”

That was news to Leo too. Harrison’s family—William, Jude, and Harrison—all raced. Heather, though not well-versed in F1, loved MotoGP even before marriage and had put her sons on bikes around age five, so the idea of opposing it never crossed her mind.

“But she said there was nothing she could do. Her kids seemed most alive on a bike or in a car.”

Victoria’s voice faltered as she recalled Jude’s accident the following year, then continued slowly.

“She said if she worried and stopped them, they might quit racing. But she wanted to keep feeling that they were alive. They looked happiest and most alive when racing.”

Leo was hearing this for the first time, but maybe he’d always sensed it.

“Heather told me something else back then.”

Even after Jude’s accident, Heather never told Harrison to quit racing. William, though he didn’t say it outright, showed signs of wanting Harrison to stop, but Heather never did.

In fact, Heather attended Harrison’s F2 races while Jude was still unconscious—races she normally wouldn’t go to, claiming she didn’t quite understand cars despite loving bikes.

“When Harry first rode a bike, Bill knew he wouldn’t be like him or Jude. He was fast and talented, but when he came home, that was it. But when he started karting, it was different. He’d practice more at home and eagerly wait for the next karting day. He’d never been like that before, and he’s never loved anything else that much since.”

Now, Leo watches Heather at every race. She doesn’t watch the races themselves but always calls to cheer Harrison on before and after. William, too, who can’t open his eyes until the first corner passes. Leo thought of his own mother, who did the same; his father, who came to the track but listened to the race on the radio in the parking lot because he couldn’t bear to watch; his grandfather, who Leo thought was proud of his racing but, like his mother, couldn’t open his eyes until the first corner, praying alongside her; and his maternal grandfather, who, without hesitation, drove Leo to the hospital when he got hurt karting for the first time. Through it all, Leo always felt a certain truth.

“Leo, you were the same.”

Some love transcends the person.

“I hated and resented your grandfather for taking you there, but I couldn’t help it. After you went, you loved waking up every morning. You said there was this kid who was really good at karting, and you were going to race with him. You loved every single day.”

Leo still doesn’t fully understand what kind of love can be set aside.

“When I had you, Leo, I decided to give you everything.”

Victoria gently pinched Leo’s cheek.

“Being a driver and loving a driver are completely different things, aren’t they?”

Leo nodded, petting the dogs that nudged his hand when he paused. Realizing this after seven years felt strange, yet inevitable. He’d always loved Harrison both on and off the track, never separating the two, so he’d never considered having to choose one.

Yet this newfound awareness didn’t feel new at all.

United States Grand Prix

Circuit of the Americas (COTA)

Leo’s maternal grandfather had paddock access but sometimes insisted on watching races from the grandstands. Before Leo even started karting, his grandfather took him to the stands to feel the cheers and passion.

That was why he loved motorsport and still did. Back then, Leo didn’t understand, but now, over 20 years later, sitting in the COTA grandstands, he gets it.

Leo sat in the electric atmosphere, filled with excitement and anticipation, watching the driver parade vehicle approach slowly from a distance. Before the race, drivers ride a low truck or classic car around the circuit to greet the crowd, and this time it was a classic car.

As the drivers drew closer, shouts of their names echoed from the crowd. The jumbotron caught a child wearing a shirt with Harrison’s driver number. The child’s parents noticed the screen first, and then the kid looked up, jumping excitedly and waving.

“Harry!”

A loud shout calling Harrison’s name erupted from the opposite grandstand. Following the driver’s gesture, Harrison checked the jumbotron, scanned the crowd, and waved at the section shouting his name, his smile especially bright.

Leo felt the fervor and excitement, watching the tail end of the car as it moved to another section.

He’d made time to come to the grandstands, but today, a representative from a new U.S. investment company sponsoring ABW wanted to watch the race, so Leo had to view it from the paddock club above the garage. It was time to go, so Leo took one last look around.

There were quite a few kids, banners and signs with drivers’ names, and team merchandise everywhere. Even before owning the team again, Leo often visited the grandstands. Though he came for his partner, he wouldn’t have bothered if he didn’t love the sport himself.

Sometimes, he needed that confirmation. Unsurprisingly, perhaps unfortunately, that confirmation had never failed. It was almost eerily easy to rediscover his love for it, feeling it grow stronger. So, he couldn’t blame anyone.

Feeling the buzzing anticipation for the race about to start, Leo finally stood up.

For the race beginning in two hours.

“Watching it in person for the first time is thrilling.”

Leo responded to Eric, a board member of the investment bank newly sponsoring ABW, trying to convey that he was excited too.

“Come to the garage next time. It’s even more fun up close.”

“I’ve seen it on broadcasts, and it looked so hectic. But I’d love to check it out next year.”

As they chatted casually, the formation lap began, with drivers circling the circuit to warm their tires before lining up in their qualifying positions. Leo and Eric fell silent, watching the track, waiting for the start.

No circuit makes the start unimportant, but at COTA, the first corner after a steep uphill has a wide track. With multiple possible racing lines, it’s tricky for both defenders and overtakers to predict each other’s moves.

From the paddock club above the pit lane, the starting grid was in clear view, and Harrison’s car, in 5th, was unavoidably in Leo’s sight. The starting lights lit up red one by one, filling all five, then went out.

Instantly, every car surged forward, vying for position. Harrison, whose starting skill even his detractors acknowledged, matched the 4th-placed car up the hill before the first corner. Elias, in 4th, tried to push Harrison out without giving him space, but Harrison held his ground and entered the corner. A slightly longer straight, and their wheels would’ve collided.

At the same time, Elias tried to disrupt Harrison’s racing line, but Harrison took a wider line than expected, blocking Elias’s attempt to reclaim his position.

The crowd, along with those in the stands, erupted in cheers at the picture-perfect overtake. Amid the excitement in the ABW paddock club, Leo felt something going wrong.

“Why’s he pitting?”

Elias, who’d been chasing Harrison, nearly overtook him at the end but pitted for new tires. Eric’s puzzled question made Leo feel a subtle frustration at not having the garage’s real-time view, but he answered as kindly as possible.

“It looks like he’s trying an undercut…”

Leo trailed off, watching the screen showing Elias’s pit stop. Something went wrong—he didn’t emerge for ages, finally returning to the track after an agonizing 11 seconds, a time that would make any team wince. Worse, he rejoined behind a DRS train—a pack of cars stuck in traffic. Overtaking that would cost time, tires, and patience.

“They probably planned to switch to fresh tires, pick up the pace, and overtake Harry when he pitted later by capitalizing on the speed gain. But with a pit stop that long, an undercut is out of the question.”

Looking at Elias’s plummeting position, Leo spoke, and Eric followed his gaze.

“But if Harry builds a bigger gap, isn’t that fine?”

Before coming to the paddock club, Eric had briefly met the drivers, and somehow, in that short time, he seemed to have developed an unwavering trust in Harrison.

“As tires age, their performance drops. Harry’s good at tire management, but with the track temperature this high, they’ll wear out faster.”

Still, the undercut threat was gone, and soon Harrison pitted, changed tires, and narrowly escaped getting caught in traffic. After everyone completed their pit stops, Harrison comfortably held 4th.

But Elias, steadily climbing, was closing the gap with Harrison, and the high track temperature meant another tire change was needed. Soon, Harrison and Elias were within a 3-second gap, close enough for an undercut.

Harrison had managed his tires carefully, while Elias had pushed his hard to overtake others, and Harrison’s pit stop was later. Naturally, Harrison’s tires were in better shape, but Elias’s earlier failed undercut owed much to bad luck.

Even with Harrison’s tire management skills, he couldn’t finish on these tires, so a pit stop was inevitable. The question was when and how long it would take.

Then, Elias pitted first. Making up for the earlier mistake, he completed a solid 2.5-second stop and returned to the track with a noticeably strong pace, his new tires performing well.

Harrison pitted next, finishing in a decent but slower 3.2 seconds. Leo watched as Harrison exited the pit lane, with Elias speeding up behind him.

Harrison was ahead for now, but pit lane speed limits applied until fully rejoining the track. Elias’s car, meanwhile, was faster on the straights. The two cars ran side by side, almost touching, at the end of the pit lane. Just before Harrison fully rejoined, Elias narrowly took the lead.

“Oh…”

Cheers and groans erupted from the grandstands. In the ABW paddock club, it was all groans.

Some midfield cars had only pitted once, but those near Harrison had all pitted twice. Now, the race depended more on driver skill and car performance than strategy.

Harrison pushed his car to the limit, chasing Elias. He fell back on straights but closed in on corners, maintaining a gap just outside 1 second for a few laps before pressuring Elias again. Leo could almost hear the unheard team radio. Manuel was likely telling Harrison to manage tire and brake temperatures, pulling back briefly before chasing again.