บท 35: The first Race!
Having Jayden's full attention Kevin wanted to know everything he had done to prepare for the race. To his dismay, he found out Jayden had only done the minimum. He looked up the track layout and watched the last 2 races online thinking this would be enough preparation he left it at that.
Kevin sighed" I have to take some of the blame for this as I should have thought you the proper method to prepare for a race. The key word is visualization. I will leave it at that for now as we need to concentrate on the race. Well talk about this again after the race"
Jayden nodded and as Kevin started to explain all he knew about the track. The track itself was short but fast with fast sweeping corners and only one heavy braking zone which was at the end of the long start-finish straight. Qualifying as high as possible would be even more important than usual on a track like this as overtaking was close to impossible. You would have to be really aggressive with your overtaking moves or hope the driver in front makes a mistake.
Having this pointed out the decision was easy. Go for an aggressive setup for qualifying and survive the race. While they were busy preparing the kart his family was enjoying the ambiance you can only find on a race weekend. There where a lot of people walking around conversing and having fun. Conversations about which racers would have the best chance of winning the race and who would be the main challenger. The most heard name for the potential winner was Stephen by far and different drivers were named as potential challengers. Vincent and Octavia were the names heard most often but another name could also be heard thrown around a few times. Scott was a driver from the United Kingdom that wanted to start this racing career in the Netherlands. Becoming a stand out racer in the UK was exceedingly difficult because of the large number of talented people already having trouble going up through the ranks. He wanted to gain fame here and it was already working as he created quite a buzz. The final name that only a few people were talking about was, of course, Jayden's and this was by the few people that followed the amateur racing scene. They were hopeful Jayden would show them something exciting again today.
Preparations were complete and it was now time for practice/qualifying. Rocketing on track they all juggled for track position. Jayden wanted to get as far up front as possible. Having experienced trying to set a lap-time behind a slower driver he did not want this to happen to him again.
Trying to push to the front just like him were Vincent, Scott, and Octavia. Stephen did not seem to be in a hurry and kept behind. Jayden had to divide his attention 3way this session. Learn the track, discover how the kart behaves on the limit and post the best possible qualifying time! Compared to most other drivers he was at a disadvantage as most of them already had experience racing on this track. Last year the fastest time in qualifying was set by Vincent in a 47.39. Although he finished the race in second place behind Stephen he still showed he had the pace around this track. This year was no different and he even improved this year posting a time of 47.08. Octavia and Scott could not beat this time and posted a 47.12 and 47.20 respectively. Jayden waited until the last possible moment to set a time. He wanted to discover as much about the track and the possible racing lines as possible. His time of a 46.97 should have put him in pole position but out of nowhere, Stephen blitzed them all posting a 46.86 in his last flying lap. Staying at the back of the field had helped Stephen massively it seemed. He just dropped back the drivers in front and with a nice bit of clear track in front of him, he could go for an all-out lap without having to worry about other drivers holding him up.
Jayden was sweating buckets when got out of the kart. He had been concentrating so much during the session that he felt his head was going to explode. And even with all that, it was still not enough. Stephen had beaten his time by more than a 10th of a second. This might seem like a small difference but Jayden was not sure if he could achieve this time as he had been pushing for all he was worth. Looking at the faces of his team, family, and friends he could see everyone had a smile on their face. He had just posted the second fastest time on his first official qualifying session. This was a result to be proud off and after catching his breath Jayden finally managed to produce a smile. He discussed the session with Kevin pointing out small changes they could make to the kart before the race. He noticed that the track was bumpier than it looked so their solution was to soften up the suspension to cope with the bumps. While Kevin was making the setup changes Jayden took some time to speak to his family. He was joking around with his mother and Lyssa feeling better about his qualifying results. Anthony and James were discussing Jayden's potential and Damian was standing with them listening in on the conversation.
Anthony was showing increasing interest in Jayden's future career. He wanted to know what his next step should be if he performed exceptionally this season. He had learned somewhere that racing in other countries was a lot more popular and race winners gained fame easier. And with this fame, of course, came new sponsors. James pointed out to Anthony that Trough the sponsor team OW Racing had the option to extend Jayden's contract. If Jayden were to extend his contract they would be first in line. Only if they wanted to pass on the opportunity would it be possible for Anthony to look elsewhere. Damian made a mental note of this point. This meant he had at least one extra year to prepare.
The qualifying sessions for the other classes had just ended. The fastest time of the day was set by a driver in the KZ1 class posting a 41.26. That was more than 5 seconds faster than Stephens pole time.
The track was cleared and it was time for the youngest group to start their race. Jayden lined up on the front row next to Stephen with Vincent and Octavia right behind them. They started the formation lap with Stephen weaving his kart vigorously from left to right trying to generate heat in the tires. It was easy to see why he was the favorite for winning the race as he was the most professional looking driver out on the track.
Completing the formation lap they sprinted to the first corner. Jayden learned a lot since lost those positions during his first amateur race. He kept his position next to Stephen. He had the outside line for the first corner so his plan was to immediately go for the overtake in the first corner by trying to out-brake Stephen. This failed miserably as Stephen had the inside line and just pushed Jayden wide. This caused him to almost run of the track. Barely managing to keep his kart pointing in the right direction he now had to pay more attention to Octavia as she was looking for a way to use this opportunity to get past him quickly. He managed to fend of Octavia's attack with some effort and tried to catch up to Stephen again.
The track consisted out of mostly fast corners and this suited Jayden nicely. It looked like he was slowly catching up to Stephen but every time it looked like he got closer the gap increased again. No matter what he did it seemed that Stephen always had a bit of extra pace in hand. To make matters worse due to his request to soften up the suspension he was starting to struggle with understeer. Turning into the corners his front tires took longer to grip up and he kept sliding wide. Trying to correct this by turning harder into the corner helped in the beginning but had the adverse effect of wearing out his tires faster. Now instead of catching up to Stephen, he had to defend from Octavia and Vincent.
Jayden was now really in trouble! The race had more than 10 laps left and his pace was dropping off compared to the others. He was starting to create a queue of drivers behind him. His only saving grace was that the track was notoriously difficult to overtake on. This would only help him for a short time though as his inability to take a turn at his usual pace slowed him down in corner entry and exit. Octavia was now poking her kart in the gaps that were slowly getting bigger and bigger. Jayden knew he would not be able to keep her behind for longer if he kept driving like this. Thinking about how he could fix this he got a idea and immediately put it into action.
Seeing as the front tires had little to no grip he would steer the kart by sliding the rear. By forcing the kart to oversteer he could enter the corner carrying more speed and by sliding the kart point the nose in the right direction. His lap times improved drastically but the problem now was that his rear tires were wearing out a lot quicker! With 9 laps to go, he had no other options. Extending the gap a little to Octavia he tried to conserve his tires again but this just slowed him down again. Trying to find the best way he could fix this he decided to only slide the rear end of the kart in corners where the drivers behind had a chance to pull off an overtaking move. Like this, he was barely able to keep his rear tires alive for the remainder of the race.
The race ended with Jayden crossing the finish line in second place and Octavia in third. She was less than a tenth of a second behind him at the end but he managed to keep her behind him. He ended the race more than 10 seconds behind Stephen but he did not care. He was so tired racing while looking behind for most of the race that he was happy it was over.
Getting out of the kart his whole body was trembling from exhaustion. Seeing this Stephen came over to give him a helping hand. Jayden looked up at him surprised. He had figured that Stephen was an arrogant person but it looks like he would have to change his view of him.
Stephen, on the other hand, was secretly surprised. Jayden had just finished his first official race in second ahead of far more experienced drivers. This was quite an accomplishment. Last year he was able to easily win every race but this year he might have a challenger who can give him a run for his money. He wasn't expecting Jayden to beat him but having a driver who could push him would give his championship more credibility.
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