Jack asked me what my motivation for racing was.

“I’m just here to drink,” I answered.

He wasn’t buying it.

We were back from a track walk at High Plains, sitting on askew picnic benches in the pavilion, waiting out the rain that had cut our walk short. “Track walk after dinner?” I had asked Jack after our last race on Saturday. He’d raced. I hadn’t—I’d been driving alone, faster than Lori, who hadn’t raced with us in a while and was nursing a busted spring, but slower than everyone else.

Berck’s advice had been simple: “You’re doing all the right things—just do them faster.” And I couldn’t blame the car; it had taken first in class at Laguna Seca just two weeks earlier. At least I got to practice a start, which is terrifying—hurtling into Turn 1 surrounded by other cars, trying not to collide, something impossible to rehearse solo. My goal was modest: don’t get lapped by Nick Hill in his Mysterian.

I was essentially having a solo track day in my new-to-me car. Berck, meanwhile, was finally racing his very own Mysterian—after wrenching on it until at least 10:30 every night that week to get it ready in time.

Jack had shrugged grumpily at the idea, but he never says no to anything I request—ever since Sterling first encouraged me to ask Jack to ride with me in Sterling’s Rabbit, Wendell, to give me pointers.

“Everyone’ll get tired and come in when we get to the cut-off at Turn 8,” Jack had predicted.

For the walk, I enlisted Annora—my student from three years ago, and now a much better driver than I am—and her dad, who’s about my age. He got hooked after crewing for her one weekend and ended up buying a Formula Vee of his own. I also invited James, a regular driver who was volunteering instead that weekend, and Dennis, Steve Murphy’s student, who was renting Steve’s car for driver’s school. Jess joined too, which was great—he and Jack are two of the fastest drivers, and they could show us their different lines through each corner.

Berck claimed he wasn’t going to go, but changed his mind when he realized everyone he wanted to sit around, drink beer with, and talk racing to was already out on the track.

I tried to find Melinda to invite her along. She usually works grid, checking helmet straps and belts before each session. At the spring Pueblo race, we’d floated the idea of me instructing her at driver’s school, but she eventually chose Robin to instruct her in his “sheet brown Miata,” as Martin calls it.

High Plains is two and a half miles long, so I loaded a backpack with cans of cold beer and cider. Conveniently, there’s a port-a-potty at each bunker.

There’s a perfect way to take every corner: the ideal braking point, the right amount of input on the brake pedal, the spot where your tires kiss the apex just right, the throttle feathered so you use every inch of pavement without getting the tires on the opposite side of the car caught in the dirt. Get it right, and there’s a rush of exhilaration. Push too hard, and the car spins out. Back off too much, and there’s that gnawing regret, as you promise yourself, next time I’ll be braver.

It’s terrifying.

You can drive a track a hundred times, but walking it gives you something different. A slower, more intimate perspective. Jack kept squatting down to see it from car level. We noticed white painted rectangles along the left side of the back straight—easy to miss at full throttle. I realized for the first time that the brake zone numbers count down from five. For some reason I thought it was from three. I don’t brake until I get to one. I probably shouldn’t brake at all.

Down by Turn 6, near a little creek, the mosquitoes attacked, and I quick-marched up toward Turn 8, skipping the Turn 7 discussion. It’s a minor uphill kink—easy in a low-powered car like a Vee.

At the crest of the hill, I was thrilled to run into Melinda. She was with Robin and two other drivers, all on bikes. Melinda had dismounted and was pushing hers—it’s a steep hill. I asked her how her driving was going. “Are you pushing the throttle all the way to the floor up this hill?”

“You see,” she answered, “I get scared. Because I can’t see over the top of this hill.”

“Here’s what you have to remember,” I said. “The track doesn’t change. It will still be in the same place as the last time you drove it. You have to have faith that you will still have plenty of time to brake once you get to the top of the hill.”

Right then we reached the top, and there they were: two sets of fluorescent orange plastic bollards marking the braking zone for Turn 8. There used to be three sets—I’d been struggling with that all day, trying to remember which ones were still standing.

Melinda looked out over the curve and nodded solemnly. “The track doesn’t change,” she repeated. “That’s helpful. I’ll remember that.” She got back on her bike and coasted away down the hill.

Annora and Berck caught up with me at the crest. On the bright side, we were out of mosquito territory. On the other, a wall of thunderstorms loomed to the west, peacocking a disturbing amount of lightning.

Berck was lamenting the missing bollards—there were only two instead of the usual three marking the braking zone into Turn 8. As we walked the racing line—tracing our steps outside, to apex, to track-out—we spotted something fluorescent orange in the grass. Bollards. I said we should put them back. Annora picked one up and replanted it in the grass, and Berck inserted the other beside it.

We congratulated ourselves and laughed about how many students would go flying off into the grass the next day.

And then it hit me.

I had just promised Melinda the track doesn’t change.

And now we had changed the track.

Annora, said she was getting tired and suggested we cut across at Turn 8—just as Jack had predicted we would. Despite the forecast’s optimistic 5% chance of rain, a wall of thunderstorms was building to the west and north. We cut to Turn 13—or 14a, if you’re superstitious (or maybe 12b, depending on who’s labeling).

I felt a couple of rain drops land on me as we wound through the corkscrew. We hustled back to the pavilion in the paddock just in time before the heavens opened.

And boy, did they. It rained hard. Then came hail. Charlotte, head of tech, suddenly appeared, attempting to pull her Mini into the pavilion. We scrambled, dragging picnic tables out of the way to make a makeshift carport. Water rivered across the concrete, and I climbed onto a table to keep my feet dry.

As the rain eased up, Melinda arrived at the pavilion. I confessed immediately: after solemnly promising her the track wouldn’t change, we’d gone and changed the track, or at least adding to the number of bollards into the Turn 8 braking zone. I felt lighter having confessed, getting that guilt off my chest.

More people filtered in, including Sean and Nathan (our chief driving instructor, fresh from watching F1 qualifying). They swapped stories with Berck, the kind of tales that only come from shared risk, oil-streaked weekends, and the mutual respect of racers, each narrative ending in laughter.

But Jack wanted something else: he wanted to know my motivation for all this.

The truth?

It’s the hanging out. Sitting around after the track’s gone cold, drinking beer, telling stories, then and then crawling under the covers and falling asleep on an air mattress in our tent to fall asleep.

The other truth?

Racing is hard. It’s terrifying. I’m strapped into a thick fireproof suit and tight helmet, sweating in the sun, waiting to be let loose. I come back to the pits bruised. And those intervening 20 minutes on track take everything—intense full-body concentration, a constant dance with fear. Each corner is a wager, a calculated risk, finding the right balance between valor and discretion. Push too hard, I spin. Too little, I get passed. Maybe twice.

Jack grabbed another beer from my backpack, now perched on one of the now sideways picnic tables. I related to him about a tight race with Taig nearly two years ago. When we got back to the pits, we jumped out of our cars and shouted in unison, “That was awesome!”

Then Dan fixed up Taig’s Vee and I never saw that black and yellow paint job again—at least not after the green flag.

Back in Competition School, Lynn tried to explain this feeling. He had plastic pieces shaped vaguely like cars and moved them around a diagram of a turn. Whichever car reaches the corner first owns it. The other yields. But if two cars arrive together—and they trust each other—they can take it side by side.

“There’s no feeling like it in the world,” Lynn said, looking wistful.

At the time I thought he meant terror. But now I think he meant trust.

The rain stopped. Our tent had mostly stayed dry, and I got a solid night’s sleep. During the warm-up session, I tried out some of the things Jack and I had talked about the night before.

Then it was time for the morning race. We gridded up based on Saturday’s finish. I promised myself I’d be brave at the start—not let the whole field sail past me into Turn 1. I was starting on the right again, which I liked—I could hug the inside of Turn 2.

Despite my best effort, Steve Murphy, driving Jean’s car, got past me off the start. But this time, I wasn’t letting him get away. I stuck to his gearbox down the back straight, drafting hard. I pulled ahead well before Turn 4.

Mort was out showing Katrina the ropes at a leisurely pace, and I caught them quickly. Dennis, Steve’s student, had pulled off track near Turn 7 with a mechanical. The combination of a yellow flag tow and Mort’s rolling chicane gave Steve the opening to slip by me again. But I reeled him back in on the straights, using his draft and the Zink’s power.

It became a back-and-forth game—Steve would catch me in the corners, I’d pull away in the straights. He was learning my weaknesses, but I wasn’t making it easy for him.

On the final lap, we came charging onto the front straight, Steve tight behind me. I stayed flat to the floor until Turn 1, then eased off to let him pull up alongside. We went around the turn side by side, as I gave him a big thumbs up as high as my arm restraints would let me. Steve did the same, pumping his fist in excitement.

We completed our cool-down lap and drove back to the paddock where we were pitted next to each other (well, almost next to each other; Berck and I had arrived around 10:30 Thursday night, after last minute car preparation and trailer loading, and pitched our tent in the spot next to the spot next to the Murphys, as they had put some cones up to save the spot next to their trailer, only to have them tell us the next morning, “We were saving this spot for you!”) I unbuckled my seat belts and helmet strap and peeled off my helmet and balaclava, and stepped out of my car completely spent but with a giant grin. Steve and I met between our cars, shouting about how amazing the race had been. We both whipped out our phones to check our lap times.

Then I found Jack. He’d climbed out of his car and lit his post-race cigarette.

I held up three fingers. “Three seconds,” I said.

I’d beaten my previous fastest lap by three full seconds—thanks to Jack’s coaching, and to the pressure of trying to stay ahead of Steve.

The afternoon race played out much like the morning one—except this time, Mort and Katrina weren’t in our way. Steve and I went at it again. I started experimenting with different lines through corners I knew were slowing me down, trying to anticipate where Steve would try to pounce. We finished in the same order, giving each other a thumbs up again through Turn 1.

Turns out—racing can be fun.

As we packed up our gear and loaded the cars onto the trailers, Melinda found me.

“I improved my time by 20 seconds!” she announced proudly.

Sure, it’s easier to make big gains when you start out slow—but I was thrilled for her. We hugged and promised to see each other at the next race in Pueblo—her working grid, me in my race car.