With the qualifying results in, I realized that I would have to switch to Plan B.

B for Bitch, you better think of something fast, because Plan A ain't working.

I gave qualifying my best shot, but it was only good enough to earn a thirteenth-place start. Everyone's car seemed to handle better than mine, and they certainly were a lot faster, Griffin included. He qualified fifth, and with the information he had, we could hopefully get my car up to that standard. After all, I had the second-best engineering team of Roger Truscott Racing.

My new plan was to make my way up to first place, then lead the rest of the race. It was a bold strategy, but I liked to set my sights high. In this case, I had to. I liked my job, despite the bullshit that came with it, and I liked proving Roger Truscott wrong even more.

Besides, where would I go if I didn't somehow find a way to win this race?

That Sunday afternoon, just before the race, I walked down pit road, where all of the cars were lined up in order. It wouldn't be for the last time, of course, but just in case it was, I wanted to savor the moment. I had quite a few rivals, a couple friends, and a whole lot of people who didn't really care what I did, and in front of the entire line was Tyler Bailey, an old rival starting in first place for the race.

Our lack of positive feelings wasn't limited to the race track, though. We dated for a while, and when he got a little too insecure about my friendship with Griffin, I ended that shit.

"Tyler," I said as I approached his car. He drove the number ten car, and although my Alcoholics Anonymous black and gold paint scheme was pretty slick, his royal blue and white paint looked fit for a king. Of course, we all knew who ruled our rocky relationship, and it sure as hell wasn't him.

"What are you doing up here? Your car's way back in thirtieth or something," he replied.

I was probably drunk the entire time we were together. That was pretty much the only way I would be able to tolerate this shit day after day.

"Look, I don't mean to interrupt your pre-race ritual or anything, but—" What the hell was I even doing? I didn't have time to waste on his sorry ass. I stopped talking.

"But?" he asked.

His dark eyes looked into my grey ones, and I was reminded of just how good he had it with me before he ruined it.

"Nothing. Just wanted to say you're a fucking douche." I smiled. "Hope you wreck."

He rolled his eyes. "Classy as always."

I knew damn well I wasn't classy. Class didn't win races.

He went back to his number ten car, and I headed all the way back to my ninety-five. Alcoholics Anonymous was printed in bold white letters on the hood of my car, and even if I didn't win that particular battle, I was going to win the war with RTR.

***

As the field of cars, lined up in two rows of twenty, rounded the track before the green flag, a voice came over the radio in my helmet.

"Katie, all I want is for you to drive your ass off today," Paul, my crew chief, said. "If you stay out of trouble and the big one, we have a legitimate shot at winning this."

The big one was always a problem for me at Talladega. With cars flying around the track at about two hundred miles an hour, it wasn't difficult to grasp that every single race at Talladega, there would be a crash that collected a lot of the field.

Of course, I also told my team about my situation, but we had to be careful about what we said over the radio. Roger couldn't find out that they knew because if I won the race and the chance to stay at Roger Truscott Racing, he would make my job miserable.

You know, more miserable than it already was.

"Speed. I am speed," I mumbled to myself.

The cars roared to life down the straightaway as the green flag flew through the air. It was showtime, and I wasn't one to collapse in the heat of the race.

On my right, another line of cars shuffled farther back behind us, and I held my position between the yellow line on the track and the outside lane of cars. I picked up a few spots on the start with the inside line's good start, and I still had five hundred miles left in the race.

"The sixteen car is on your right quarter panel," Chris, my spotter, said over the radio. His voice kept me company and made most of my split-second decisions for me throughout each race, and I would need the second pair of eyes more than ever if I wanted to even make it to the end.

I zipped across the starting line. One lap down, only one hundred and eighty-seven to get from tenth place to first.

The steering wheel shook in my hands, and I pushed with my right hand and pulled with my left to get the car to turn. The back end was a little loose, like it would ignore the lead of the front tires and slide up the track. But I could ask to have that fixed during my first pit stop.

The cars began to spread out a little, and instead of two lines like we started with, we all fell into a similar line. I looked up into my mirror, and there was no one who threatened to immediately take my spot.

I let myself breathe.

I turned my attention back to my windshield, and I chased after an orange car with a yellow stripe on the back. A rookie in front of me? Not for long.

It was only a couple seasons ago that I had one of those rookie stripes on the back of my car, but there was no time for reminiscing with such an important race to win.

As the rookie drove to the bottom of the track, I continued on a high line by the wall around the turn. It was a longer and riskier way around, but it was so much easier to maintain speed for a pass.

He came back up in front of me, and I dove underneath his car to complete the pass for ninth.

I could hear the announcers in my head. "Katie Moore is driving with a chip on her shoulder today, and her car seems to be handling great."

The back end of my car wiggled behind me, and I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and straightened myself out.

The imaginary announcers laughed. "Well, it seemed to be handling great."

"I need this shit tightened up. It's so loose, I can barely drive," I said.

"Just hang in there until the next caution. We'll make the adjustments you want then," Paul replied.

There was no telling when that would be, so I shut up. They had to deal with my singing and screaming on the radio, and I was pretty sure that they didn't want my whining.

I ran lap after lap, and each one was its own battle. The back of the car turned far more than I wanted, and the heat of the track didn't alleviate any of that trouble. It was a hot afternoon in Talladega County, Alabama, and all of the rubber from the Goodyear tires created a slick surface to drive on.

But until I could get in for a pit stop, I just had to suck it up.

My pit crew wasn't as fast as Griffin's, since he was the proven winner, but they were pretty good when they weren't pissed at me. I made the mistake of dating my rear tire changer once, and when that ended, I swore to myself that I wouldn't do something like that ever again.

There wasn't much of a chance of passing other people with the loose car, and as long as no one passed me, I could live with gaining four spots by the end of the first stage of the race. It was divided up into three stages, and based on the way a driver finished in those, he (or, in my case, she) would get points to help them in the playoff chase. But those points didn't matter to me at all. I had my eyes on victory lane.

In my rearview mirror, a cloud of smoke puffed far behind me, and Chris's voice came over the radio. "Caution's out, caution's out."

I slowed the car down and, once again, treated myself to a breath.

Someone was having technical difficulties, and as long as it wasn't me, I didn't care.

"Is the ten car still out front?" I asked.

"Yep. Bailey's in first, and Gallagher's in fourth," Chris replied.

Griffin picked up a spot since the start. Nice.

Too bad I would eventually have to take it from him.

Everyone lined up single-file, so we could hit pit road, and with the feedback I had given to my crew chief, Paul made the call for adjustments and four fresh tires.

While the slow caution laps were great to provide a second to collect myself, I couldn't lose the edge that I had been driving with. The second my team lost focus, we'd end up making some mistake that would put us right back where we started.

Pit road wasn't open quite yet, and I had a lap or two to kill before getting my car fixed.

"Hey Paul," I said. I was pretty sure that he only listened to me half the time, but we had worked together for so long that he didn't always need to hear my words to know what I was thinking. But when he didn't reply, I said his name again. "Paul. Paul. Answer me. I have a crisis."

"What now?" Paul replied.

"So I have a song stuck in my head, and I wanted to know if you would play it over the radio, so I won't think about it anymore. It'll be easier to focus then," I said.

Paul chuckled. "What song?"

"Rosanna by Toto."

"After your pit stop, okay? I want to make sure everything goes perfectly, because we can't afford to lose any positions."

I smiled inside the helmet. "Cool. You're the best."

When we went back to green and the full-speed race, the cruel laps added up, and by the end of the second stage, I had driven myself all the way up to fifth place.

Tyler Bailey in the number ten car still led the field around the track, and Griffin was just behind me in sixth place.

I wasn't sure how Tyler's car was so damn good, when even though mine was getting better, it was still loose. He had stolen a year of my life from me, but I would never let him steal the win from me. The stakes were much higher than they had ever been, and I had seventy-eight laps to remind Mr. Truscott just why he signed me to a contract in the first place. I was a fucking champion, and when the pressure was high, I rose above it.

When I looked out the side of the car to my right, I was reminded of why I signed with RTR. Griffin Gallagher in that sixty-six car.

He had beaten me to the finish line a few too many times, and even though I always rooted for my best friend, it was my turn. It was finally my turn to get what I wanted. And if I had to wreck half the field to get my win, it sure as hell was a good thing that I didn't have any morals.

Speed. I am speed.

The green flag dropped again, and the cars rose a thunderous roar as we sped across the track. We were all close together once again, and any time someone approached my car, the back end wiggled just enough to remind me that I didn't have the best car on the track. That belonged to Tyler Bailey, who dominated the field like the rest of us drove Barbie jeeps.

Losing may have been a part of life, but it wasn't an option for me. It would take an upset to win, but I believed. I was a comeback kind of kid, anyway.

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Hey! How's everything going? I hope you're having a good day and week, and thank you so much for reading!

It's go time for Katie, and she has less than eighty laps to prove to the world that she belongs on the race track. Is she going to pull it off?

I am traveling for a few weeks, so I don't know how much I'll be able to update this book, but I hope that I'll be able to publish the next chapter soon. Besides, we need to know whether Katie wins or not. It's crucial to our plot.