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Cal is 17, grounded, in Alabama, and sitting in the passenger seat of one of his uncle’s older— and in Cal's opinion shittier— cars, feeling absolutely miserable on a Sunday night as they drive who-knows-where.
He knows it has something to do with Thursday. That was a bad day. Not that he can complain, really, seeing as though it's his own damn fault.
See, a few years ago his dad and his uncle sat with him in a car for weeks in parking lots and empty roads and empty highways, teaching him in tandem everything they knew from how to shift without stripping the gears to some of the more fun tricks his uncle pulled out just for him. It was of of the best summers he'd had, spending that time with them.
All those memories are tainted now with the memories of what driving took from him. His mom and her warm hugs and strong moral compass and inside jokes. His dad and his endless support and kindness and the ability to come up with best pranks.
Driving’s tainted, but he can’t stop. Taking his uncle’s keys and putting pedal to the metal. Not really going anywhere in particular, just trying to get away. Maybe he’s hoping one day he’ll do something stupid enough to...
Well, either way, he gets dragged back to the farmhouse by a couple deputies and the night is all around bad. Ending the day in the back of a police cruiser is always shitty, made even worse when this time his uncle seemed to blame himself for Cal’s problems.
Friday was tense. He’s grounded, so fucking grounded, but with a race in Alabama on Saturday they spent most of the day on the road. Thankfully his aunt and uncle let Cal spend the whole eight or so hour car ride with his headphones on so it could’ve been worse. He basically spent the whole day blasting his music at ear-splitting levels and trying to stay out of their way.
Even Saturday sucked. The shit he pulled Thursday and the tension between them all making even a big race like one at Talladega just sorta... dull. His uncle was out getting prepped from the first thing in the morning so it was just him and Aunt Lynda. She tried to get him to talk, but he really, really didn’t feel like it. Eventually she got the message and let him just sit and watch the racers practice with his music blaring as loud as it’ll go.
He planted a smile on his face for the race, which wasn’t as hard as he thought it was going to be. By the time the race actually started, it felt like all his problems were just... far away. He can focus on the race, on cheering his uncle on, instead of all the shit that’s happened. Even Tex’s stupid joke about his Thursday escapade didn’t dim his spirits as much as he thought it should.
There was a big crash near the end, but his uncle was far enough ahead of the pack that he didn’t get caught in it. In the end, he landed second. It was fun but nothing too exciting.
Saturday night was fun. But it’s always fun after a race.
Sunday sucks.
The high of the race crashes and once again the tense atmosphere is back. As part of his grounding he isn’t even allowed to help with set up or take down, or hang out in the pits at all, so he spends all day sitting at the trailer waiting for everyone else to get home. Nothing to do but read whatever books his aunt packed for him. And try to catch some of the racers in conversation between Aunt Lynda coming to check on him. They even went so far as to disconnect the TV and hide the damn wires from him.
They’re staying in Talladega overnight since no one wants to drive home this late. It stinks being trapped in such a small space with no real space for himself when all he wants to do is be left alone.
He’s never been so grounded while on the road. Sure, he’s gotten in trouble, like the time he somehow managed to weasel his way into the pits during an honest-to-God race (Mr. Joey was not happy, and neither were his parents, but it was still fun). He’s thinking they’ll have dinner and then maybe spend the night watching TV, or if that’s still on the banned list ‘cause he’s grounded then his aunt will pull out an old board game like Monopoly or something.
What he doesn’t expect is his uncle coming back early from all the press stuff he does after races and telling him to grab his wallet and get in the car.
“Where are we going?” Cal asks, reluctantly putting down his MP3.
“Just get in the car, kid,” his uncle says unhelpfully.
Cal, already in enough shit as it is, does so with only mild prodding. “I thought we already did the heart-to-heart,” he tries to joke. His uncle shoots him a half-smile. Which is better than the almost sad-disappointment that’s been clouding all the looks from his aunt and uncle these last few days.
But he gets zero information. Twenty minutes into the car ride, Cal realizes he’s not going to get any information. Not until they get where they’re going.
So he has no choice but to settle in. His uncle turns the radio on to the same sports channel they always listen to. There’s another racer giving an interview. One of the newer ones, Cal thinks, but he doesn’t pay it any attention.
After, like, a whole hour and then some of driving around the backwoods of Alabama, they finally pull up to a place. His uncle parks the car and turns off the engine. Cal takes that as permission to finally say something.
“So?” he asks, not even trying to keep the attitude out of his voice because that was a long drive with no information on what's happening. “Where are we? What’s the point of this? You said you’d give me details when we got here and it took forever but here we are.”
His uncle doesn’t answer any of his questions. Cal watches him grab a ball cap and a pair of his older reading glasses from the backseat and opens the door. “C’mon,” is all he says and then is out of the car.
Cal groans but follows suit. Now that they’re out of the car, he has a good view of the building they just pulled up to.
“A speedway?” He doesn’t quite groan but it’s a close thing. “Seriously? I just watched you race yesterday and now we’re gonna watch some chump change go around a local circuit? For fun?”
Again, his uncle just refuses to answer any of his questions. He starts walking towards the stadium with nothing more than a shrug and Cal jogs to catch up. He sticks his hands in his hoodie and curls in a little as his uncle sets the rim of the ball cap low. A racing legend going to a local racing circuit? Yeah, great idea Uncle Strip.
“Only one of us is gonna be doing the watching,” his uncle says cryptically and the gears in Cal’s head starting turning overtime to figure out what the hell he’s talking about. “You got your wallet?”
“Uh,” Cal stutters. He pats his pockets. “Uh, yeah.” He pulls out the old leather wallet his dad gave him right before his death. “Right here.” Again, he speedwalks to catch up. “Uncle Strip, what are we doing here?”
That makes his uncle stop in his tracks and turn to Cal with a single finger over his lips. “Trying not to be recognized first of all,” he drones, voice low and eyes shifting to the few people also in the parking lot. None of them pay the two any mind. “And secondly, we are getting some of this pent up energy out." He straightens Cal's zip-up hoodie before turning and continuing on towards a small shack labelled 'sign-ups'.
And then everything seems to fall into place.
He’s only lightly panicking when he catches up to his uncle for the third time. “Uncle— Uncle—” he stutters over not saying his uncle’s name and just skips over it, “this isn't doing laps in y'all's backyard, or— or driving with you on an empty highway or..." he looks up at the stadium, at the bright lights cast down and all the people cheering inside. Not as many as at a Piston Cup race, nowhere near that many, but still a good amount of people. "This is..."
His uncle picks up the rest of the thought for him. "What comes next," he says, stopping. "The natural next step." They're only a few hundred feet from the guy waiting for any last minute signups. He looks Cal dead on. "You don't have to. I'm not going to push you into anything you can't do. But," he stresses in a low voice, "I've been doing this a long time. There’s something in you, Cal. Racing's in your blood. You just gotta tell me this isn't what you want and we'll go home, but say the word and we’ll do this. Together."
Cal freezes. His heart is thumping hard in his chest at just the thought of going out there, on a real track, in a real car, for real.
He almost says no. It’s too much. He's never...
But...
But Cal's a Weathers through and through. He looks back at his uncle, face set, mind set, and nods.
“Alright.” His uncle throws an arm around his shoulders and drops the keys to the old 1960-something Montego into Cal’s hands. “Let’s see if we can’t get you signed up.”
His uncle walks him over to the booth for sign ups. The man there looks bored out of his mind, in a way his uncle will later describe as "looking to be anywhere else, with only the cigarette lit in his hand, the racing magazine in front of him, and a promise of a paycheck keeping him from straight up leaving".
Which is an apt description seeing as the man's eyes drift over Cal and his uncle without any signs of recognition despite having what Cal suspects is the interview his uncle gave last month literally open in the magazine right in front of him.
Cal kinda feels like he's in one of those spy movies his parents used to put on. He feels undercover. His already high anxiety is spiking even higher as he keeps glancing between the man, the magazine, and his uncle. Probably not helping the situation.
But the man just sighs and talks around the cigarette now in his mouth. "Which one'a you is signing up?"
He feels his uncle look down at him. "Uh, me," Cal stutters out.
Every time the man glances at his uncle, Cal's blood pressure skyrockets. But Uncle Strip nods once and the man pulls out a sheet of paper. "I’m gonna need your driver’s license and if he’s underage then I’m gonna need your signature too, sir,” he says to his uncle. Cal starts to get his wallet out after his uncle not-so-subtly elbows him. “I’ll also need a number for the car. The entrance fee’s $550.”
He can practically hear his uncle frowning at the fee but he takes out the wad of cash he carries everywhere with him and starts counting bills so Cal hands the man his driver’s license.
His uncle forks over the cash right as the man looks at Cal, then Uncle Strip, then the magazine, and back at Uncle Strip. He’s that look in his eyes that’s oh-so-familiar.
His uncle must notice the look in his eyes too because he sighs and digs out more money.
“You’re— ” the man starts to say but his uncle cuts him off before he can go any further.
“Yes,” Uncle Strip says, leaning over the counter and sliding the additional cash over. “Take the hundred, I'll sign something for free, and no one else has to know. At least, not until after he and I are gone, deal?“
They hold eye contact for an uncomfortable amount of time, Cal’s license still in the man’s hands, before the man nods mutely, pockets the hundred and gets back to the paper in front of him with a wide-eyed zeal he definitely did not have before.
His uncle taps it before he can go any further with it. “And do me a favor, put his name down as Calum Martin, not Weathers."
Cal’s heart either stops or breaks, he can’t tell the difference. “That’s—” That’s his dad’s name. His mom gave Cal hers, Weathers, but Martin is, was his dad’s last name.
“I know,” his uncle says, looking at Cal with a sad smile on his face. He searches his uncle’s face, trying to figure out if he said that just so they aren’t recognized, or if there was something more to it. Because his dad loved going to his uncle’s races just as much as Cal and his mom. He was so supportive of Cal’s interest in racing.
He probably would have given anything to see Cal race today.
But his uncle is oddly hard to read right now. He drops it with a nod.
The man behind the counter looks between the two, coughs, then looks back down at the paper. "Alright, Calum Martin," he says it weird, like he's testing it. It sounds weird to hear. "I also need a number for the car."
Uhhhh.
Cal looks up at his uncle and panics even more when it looks like his uncle doesn't already have one. Seriously? He just wants to shake him and scream this was your idea!
But thankfully his uncle panics better than Cal does. He shoots Cal a nervous smile. “How about 42?”
Cal is trying very, very hard to breathe but there’s so much noise he can’t think enough to breathe, no matter how many times his uncle tries to remind him to.
His hands are shaking so badly as Uncle Strip helps clip the helmet onto the neck brace thingy. His uncle also made him put on one of his older fire protection suits, one that’s mostly black and less obviously one from one of the greatest racers of all time. It doesn’t say Dinoco all across his back like his uncle’s current one does so no one really pays them any mind.
"Don't jerk the wheel," his uncle says as he works Cal’s helmet. "Straightaways seem like your friends but don't get complacent. Folks like to pass on the inside, especially the 'chump change'." He taps the side of the helmet with a smile, quoting Cal's earlier words. "Watch what the cars around you are doing. And above all, remember to just breathe."
Cal nods, taking in none of it. "What happens if someone bumps me? They do contact here, right?" He’s never had a car tap his while driving, let alone driving a car at its top speed.
Uncle Strip nods. "Just try to keep it under control. Small movements, don't over correct. Do not jerk the wheel. Just like you're taught in driver's school."
Cal chuckles nervously, now looking at the other drivers getting ready. One of them is beating his chest, riling the crowd up. "This is a little different than doing slow turns in a parking lot."
"A bit.” Somehow more of an understatement than Cal’s.
A voice comes on over the stadium, loud enough to echo back. It calls for the racers to their cars.
And now Cal really starts to panic. His uncle squeezes his shoulder once and backs off. "Above all else, just drive the car!"
Cal wants to scream. "I thought breathing was above everything else!"
His uncle looks like he wants to say more but Cal really has to start heading to his car so all he gets is a double-thumbs up and a smile that’s badly trying to be more reassuring than nervous. It doesn’t help.
Fifty laps. Around a track approximately three quarters of a mile long. That’s nothing. That’s not even forty miles.
Cal’s hands grip the steering wheel so hard the tips of his fingers are starting to go numb.
Fifty laps. His uncle regularly does upwards of two hundred. Often more. Fifty is nothing. Fifty is just two twenty-fives. Five tens. Twenty-five twos. One-tenth of the Daytona 500.
There isn’t even a proper pit stop, just one or two for gas. Which is good because it’s just his uncle in the pits and his uncle is not Mr. Joey and the rest of the pit boys. It’d be morning before he gets all four tires switched out.
Another difference from his uncle’s races is that Cal doesn’t get to talk to his uncle. He’s all alone in the car. He thinks some racers have little handheld walkie talkies but not Cal.
Fifty laps. All alone. Just him and the car, and the ten cars between him and first place.
When the green flag finally drops, Cal just breathes and drives.
- - -
Strip can't talk to Cal.
It was how he started out, back when he was young and racing circuits like this with a fraction of the safety measures even this small-time ring requires, so he really shouldn’t be this worried.
But he is. Having the pit row be a zoo with no formal separation between the spectators and the crews helping the racers is not helping his nerves one bit.
Cal starts in the back of the pack and stays there for the first ten or so laps.
Maybe he should have brought a walkie or something. A headset, maybe. How could he remember to dig out his old fire suit but not a headset?
But he learns very soon that the fear is misplaced.
Because between laps 12 and 13 Cal passes four cars.
Seventh place. Thirty-eight laps to go.
He watches the car with the hastily painted on 42 like a hawk. Even though he can't talk to Cal, that doesn't stop him from saying— and sometimes yelling— advice out loud.
"Watch the inside, he's lookin' to get in."
"Shut the door on him, c'mon."
"Smooth, bring it around smooth."
It startles him just how much he sounds like Joey, his own crew chief.
In the next fifteen, sixteen laps, Cal passes two more cars and gets passed by one before having to come in to pit.
He's not the only one but they don't get a yellow. Strip fills the car with the can of gas he bought from the organizers— for a steep price, holy hell, he forgot how hard it is to race these circuits without a buttload of money behind you— and has the quickest chat with Cal.
"Good to go?" he asks.
Cal nods, breathing heavy.
"Alright, twenty-two laps to go. Get these guys."
Cal nods again and speeds off, back onto the track before a couple other racers. He rejoins the pack.
Eighth place. Twenty-two laps to go.
Something must click because Cal slowly makes his way up the pack. Eighth. Seventh. Sixth. Back to seventh, but then within a lap has jumped up to fifth.
The car in third experiences a tire blowout. Cal's in fourth. Eleven laps to go.
Fourth place. Now this is where Strip's blood pressure skyrockets. The leaders have been very aggressive with one another. They bump and push each other constantly. Cal's managed to get through the race without having any major sort of contact.
But as he pulls around the yellow car in third, the other racer swerves and side slams the front of Cal's car. Hard.
For a heart-stopping moment, Strip thinks Cal's gonna spin out. Crash, even.
The 42 car wavers dangerously. It falls behind and the car in fifth creeps up to it looking to pass.
Ten laps to go.
But Cal doesn't let him. He jerks the wheel and forces the other racer back down to fifth, effectively closing that door on him, and speeds up to be back with the yellow car in third.
Cal passes him with eight laps to go and Strip is dumbstruck. He was expecting Cal to get middle of the pack on his first race, like most racers. Not on the podium.
But there he is, in third with now seven laps to go.
Cal creeps up to the second place car. For a couple laps they ride side-by-side until Cal gets that one too coming down out of a turn.
Second. Four laps to go. Strip is dumbstruck.
The leader has got a good lead on the others, but not for long. It takes one lap for Cal to catch up with the Mustang painted with the number 01.
Strip recognizes the number as the humble young man that was beating his chest earlier.
Cal slots in right behind him. The cars inch closer to each other, closer, closer, until the number 42 is almost kissing the bumper of 01.
Three laps.
Strip watches with bated breath.
Two laps.
The deafening noise of the stadium fades into background noise as the number of laps slowly counts down. Cal's car stays neatly tucked up behind the lead car.
One lap. Final lap. Four turns.
Time slows to a crawl. Strip tracks the two cars drafting, splitting from the rest of the pack at the second turn.
The cars' engines roar as they're pushed to their maximum and then some.
Third turn. Strip sees Cal's car jerk out of the drafting position and then back in again.
An excited chill runs up his spine as Strip realizes what Cal's planning.
Forth turn.
Cal splits to the outside of the 01 car and guns it. The last stretch, the checkered flag.
It's a near perfectly executed slingshot. The cars are side-by-side until half a second before they cross the finish line, when the 42 crawls just ahead of the 01.
Just enough.
They cross the finish line and the checkered flag drops.
And Strip cannot, for the life of him, believe what he just witnessed.
- - -
The checkered flag comes down and suddenly Cal can think again.
Did he just...?
He lets the car idle, listening to the announcements, and when he hears his name, his name announced as coming in first, he does the only reasonable thing he knows to do.
He kicks the car into gear, wheel turned to the stop, and burns rubber. Just like his dad and his uncle taught him that one time in his high school’s parking lot when the two were supposed to be teaching him the basics of driving.
It’s a good memory.
He sees his uncle bounding to him. Cal doesn’t even think. Just stops the car, puts it in park, and is out of the car and jumping into his uncle’s arms. Both of them are laughing and Cal knows he’s smiling so hard his face is starting to hurt. Uncle Strip picks him up and swings him around.
"How the hell—!" His uncle's too excited to make full sentences apparently. "You—" He sets Cal down and lifts the ball cap up long enough to run a hand through his hair. "How the hell did you—?"
"I don't even know!" Cal screeches, somehow even more excited. He smacks the top of the Montego, which is dented and scratched to all hell. One of the side mirrors is missing. "This was your ugliest car but now it's the best one you’ve got! Screw the Superbird!"
That makes his uncle pause in his celebration. “Ugliest? Now wait, hold on—”
But Cal doesn't even notice, he's still going. "That was so much— I've never—!"
"Hey, kid!" Their celebration is put on hold. They turn to the source of the voice. The 01 driver, the one that ended up in second place, is headed in their direction.
Cal sees his uncle stand to his full height, which is very tall. He takes off his helmet to look the other racer in the eyes.
But the guy seems to bound up to them without any real malice. Which is good because it’d be really embarrassing if his uncle ended up in an altercation with a small-town driver.
“How the hell did you pull off a move like that?”
"That was a damn perfect slingshot," another driver says from behind the 01 driver. Cal recognizes her color scheme as the driver he bumped into third place. "Thought those were damn impossible at these speeds."
Cal shrugs awkwardly, then flinches as another driver claps him on the shoulder as he comes around to stand by the other two. More drivers are starting to crowd around them and it’s freaking Cal out. He can tell it’s also putting his uncle on edge.
“Uh,” Cal just stutters out. “I just watch a lot of racing, I guess.” He says it with a pathetic laugh and a shrug because it’s not technically wrong, they’re just missing the context.
Said context coughs next to him and the 01 driver shifts his attention to Uncle Strip.
"You this kid's dad?" he asks bluntly and both Cal and Strip flinch because that’s always a tough question to answer. But the man bowls over their awkward silence with a smile and a playful whack against Cal's chest. "I wanna see this kid at ‘Dega in the next few years," he says. "Don't let talent like that go to waste."
Cal doesn’t know what to say to that, but his uncle just nods and shoots the man a two-finger salute.
The drive back to Talladega is the polar opposite to the drive to the small speedway. Cal's almost buzzed on the energy of the race. The little trophy the officials gave him sits in his lap and he twists it and turns it over the entire trip. He keeps rubbing his thumb over the Calum Martin freshly engraved on it.
He barely stops to breathe. The whole car ride, he's talking about the race. He barely lets his uncle get a word in.
"But it was like," Cal says, breathless, cutting his uncle off again for the upteenth time as they pull up to the stadium where the motorhome’s parked, "I knew. At some point it wasn't scary anymore because I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew to watch what the folks around me were doing. I knew to draft behind them. I knew how to break away from the pack at the end. And I knew how to do that slingshot 'cause I've seen you do it, so many times."
His uncle goes quiet at that. “Oh,” he just says softly, pulling the car around. “Cal...”
“Thank you,” Cal blurts out. They’re pulling up to the motorhome. “Seriously, I...This meant a lot to me.”
His uncle puts the car into park and turns to him. “Cal, is this something you want to pursue?” he asks, deadly serious. “No pressure, I just need to know.”
“I...” He hesitates, not really knowing why. Is there anything else he wants to do? Is there truly anything else he can see himself doing? Is there anything else he’s ever imagined himself doing?
When he comes up lacking, he looks his uncle dead in the eyes. “I think it is.”
And something settles in him at the way his uncle smiles at him. “Great,” he says, turning the car off and opening his door. “Then you can explain it all to your aunt.”
Cal’s heart stops. He looks up at the motorhome and there, on the steps into the home with her arms crossed, is Aunt Lynda. Who does not look very happy. At either of them. He tries to discretely lower the trophy out of sight but he’s afraid she’s already seen it.
His uncle steps out of the car while Cal sinks in deeper into the seat. "I know what you're gonna say," he hears his uncle say to his aunt, already laughing a little. "And I just want to say: It's all Cal's fault."
A-
Wh-
T-
"Hey!"
Years later, almost to the day, Cal races for the first time at Talladega Superspeedway.
And he pulls out a win, almost an exact mirror to his first ever win those years ago.
It's also his first win in the Cup series.
Same as last time, as soon as he hears his win confirmed, he does the first thing that comes to his mind.
He whips the car up near pit row, climbs out of the window, chucks the helmet off, and jumps into his uncle’s arms.
His uncle hugs him back just as hard and swings him around, just like he did years ago. Both are laughing and Cal swears he sees a few tears in his uncle’s eyes.
He hugs his uncle back harder.
- - -
This kid is going to do fantastic.
And when Strip finds out someone snapped a photo of that hug, with Cal’s beaming face visible to the camera, he cuts a copy of it out from whatever sports magazine it was published in and keeps it in his wallet.
Just for safekeeping.