Chapter 18

Wildcard 

Thursday : March 6th 2025

Ruby pulled on a helmet to see if it would fit. After a rousing speech and a show of hands, the patrons had agreed to Stella Star's challenge, and now, whether she liked it or not she was racing. On one hand she was excited, she loved racing go karts here when she could, but on the other was the odds. It was three vs fifteen, and with a big chunk of money now on the line, Ruby desperately didn't want to be the reason Star lost this race. 

Speaking of, Star had put on her whole driver's uniform, helmet and all, which she had retrieved from her car.

“I carry a spare one in my trunk, never know when you might need it for an appearance.” She laughed, seeing Ruby's glare of confusion in the visor as she stepped out of the changing room. Dick meanwhile looked like a man on death row, almost as if he was terrified of the man he would become when he put his helmet on. He kept muttering excuses to himself…

“I'm too old for this… this is foolish… why are you doing what a random girl says… Do you have no pride as a man?!” But eventually he overcame it all and slid the helmet over his noggin.

“You look good Dick.” Star said, genuinely trying to be encouraging, but he clearly took it as sarcastic dribble.

“Whatever, let's get this over with.”

 As everyone took to their karts in the pit lane, the staff members started them up one by one and allowed them out onto the track to assemble on the starting grid.

For all the executives this was only a little out of the ordinary. They saw it as nothing more than a bonus race because a loud mouth staff member had something to prove. But for Star, it was something different. Not only was she attempting to uphold the honor and excitement of the sport she participated in and loved deeply, but she was also trying to prove to an old man that there was no shame in walking away all those years ago. That he could once again enjoy the sport he now, in a very small part as a manager of a Go-kart track, oversaw. Ruby was the odd man out. She had nothing to prove, no hurdle to overcome, and she certainly wasn't a business woman wanting to let her hair down to feel like a kid again. So as her kart rolled to a halt on the last row of the grid, all she could wonder was… why? 

Why does Star want me to race? Was it just because she wanted to involve me? Does that match up with her driving two hours to find me? Dressing up like an employee, sneaking in amongst the crowd, just to talk shit and hang out? What did she mean she knew Dick from another life? Was this all planned?

The more Ruby thought about it the more her head spun. This felt like a test or a ritual. Like she was trying to join some sort of sorority club, that or she was turning into a sort of crazy conspiracy theorist. Or perhaps God has heard her prayers for a second chance in the motorsports world? As the red lights illuminated on the grid, the groan of twenty or so go kart engines revving up became deafening, and Ruby had an epiphany. 

Whatever the reason, luck, fate, conspiracy, divine intervention, Ruby was here, now, in a race. She could do what she had planned, and stay out of the way. Maybe pick off a person or two when the opportunity presented thanks to her track knowledge having worked and raced here before. Or she could be the true wildcard, and race to win. 

That was the point of Star’s impromptu driving lesson right? Teach these guys how to race!

As the lights went off, her left foot came off the brake pedal and they were away. A pack of twenty Karts racing for the big banked left hand turn. As the Executive's dived down towards the bottom of the track, trying to take the inside line, their karts clinked together with a uniform metallic conformity. It was the sound of nineteen people fighting for the same piece of race track at the same time, no one going fast enough to actually squeeze past each other. Instead they just harmlessly bumped into each other like kids in a playground playing tag.

 Star on the other hand was taking no prisoners. She pulled to the right, intentionally staying up against the wall where the track was not crowded. It was the longer way around the track, but with everyone bumping into each other and slowing themselves down it, was the faster way. She got flung out of the corner like a rock out of a slingshot, bodyslaming her way back into the pack of over vehicles having picked up five or six spots. With one move, Pandora's box was opened, as everyone who had seen the maneuver now knew that was possible. 

A gentle double apex right-hand turn was next, and now almost all of the Executive's had formed into a single file line except those displaced by Star’s madman maneuver. Ruby meanwhile was stuck behind Mr. Collins at the back of the pack. At the next major turn, the second banked corner, a right-hand hairpin, Star pulled the same around the outside maneuver, but this time she wasn't alone. The line split, with some choosing to follow Star. Two turns in, her plan was working. 

Ruby knew she needed to get past Dick, and decided to do the opposite of him. When he predictably dove low, she went high. Unable to ride the wall like Star had done, she didn't quite get the same slingshot effect, but she had managed to get alongside Mr. Collins. Glancing over, she saw a man almost in disbelief of what he was doing. Looking over at Ruby, she could see the sorrow in the man's eyes. Not fear or terror at what he was doing, but sorrow. Ruby shook her head, No time to worry about him right now. She had the advantage for the next turn, being in the inside of a long left-hand sweeper, and quickly spotted into place. The track then wiggled through a switchback to the right and into a hairpin that led back into the long flat out section, under the employee bridge and back to turn one.

By the end of the first lap Star had climbed up to mid pack, but she hadn't made a single friend doing it. Some people were following her because she was faster, others were outright trying to take her out in revenge for getting slammed out of the way. As a result, the once single file affair that was turn one in every other race was now a scatter shot of vehicles taking every line imaginable in an effort to one up one another. The small clunks and clicks turned into smashes and crashes as the karts came back together on exit. It wasn't ramming, like Mr. GTR driver on the highway, it was rubbing. 

And Rubbing son, is racing.

Much more quietly, Ruby was picking off people one by one. As people started experimenting with their lines, Ruby, who already knew the fastest way around the track, found the seas splitting for her and a clear track ahead. At times even she couldn't believe it, having to glance over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't imagining things. However this chaos only lasted a lap or two. Soon people were learning and dialing in what they needed to do naturally. Racing lines, braking zones, when to bump someone to push them wide, when to slingshot around the outside. It was all being learned naturally and in real time. The lap times universally were coming down, and the crowd was even starting to get involved. The Wives, who had mostly been uninvolved most of the night, now leaned over the railing, cheering on their husbands as they passed. The atmosphere was electric and you could feel it in the air. This race meant something.

As the race passed lap seven and into lap eight, you would have believed a F1 race was going on. There were no more free lunches, no more easy passes, and everyone was on attack. As Ruby's kart clanged between her competition and the wall, she just barely fit into a space that wouldn't have existed a second later. The man in the kart beside her looked white knuckled and determined. They sideswiped each other through the second to last right handed for squeezing through their final hairpin with Ruby getting the lead. However then the yellow lights started to flash, and the motors lost power. A second later, the red flag came out and the Karts coasted to a stop. The reason, someone had finally gotten to Star's bumper and turned her around like the NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt was famous for. As the staff rushed in to get her facing the right way again, she was laughing and clapping.

“You wait buster, I'll get you back for that!” The small break in the action allowed Ruby to get a look at the leaderboard. Star was now in fourth after getting spun, she was in eleventh and surprisingly, Dick had climbed up to thirteen. Eight laps remained, and as the lights went yellow again, the Karts slowly rolled into motion. After everyone was moving again, the green came back out and racing resumed.