Shelby Manning (
shelbycobra) wrote in
muserevival2016-07-17 10:24 am
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124.2.3 - quote
"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength."
Sunday
Shelby will always remember where she was. Maybe five feet from the garage, gear bag slung over one shoulder as she had just started to make the walk back to her car. She had just raced 300 laps at Iowa and she was tired, not to mention ready to get away from corn. But then Terry had walked over to her with a bewildered look on his face, and Terry shouldn't have had that look on his face after a fourth-place finish.
"Have you seen Shane?" he asked her. "He just disappeared. And he's not answering my text messages."
"What?" she replied, staring at him. Shane didn't just walk off the job. Even if he had to go take a meeting, he always told Terry where he was going. And he also always stayed to make sure the load-in went well. Shelby reached into the pocket of her jeans, fumbled for her phone, and tried calling him.
Monday
The first time any of them saw him was when he showed up at the airport to catch the team flight back to Charlotte. He had no idea that they'd been debating whether or not to call the boss and report him missing. Shane just appeared right on time like he always did, the only thing different about him the fact that he was particularly quiet.
"What happened to you?" Shelby said, speaking for the entire race team once they got onto the plane.
"My mother died last night," he finally told them. "She had a heart attack at home, died before the paramedics could get there."
Shock didn't even begin to cover it. They all said how sorry they were, but it felt hollow. They didn't know what to do; Shane wasn't the kind of man that they could hug or even really offer to help. He did things his own way and usually alone. So alone that this was the first they'd heard of his mother even still being alive. But they had to do something. This was their teammate and he deserved their support.
Once Terry and Derrick had dozed off, Shelby got up from her seat and came to sit next to Shane, who glanced up at her from a pile of post-race reports. He knew this conversation was coming. Shelby was someone for whom family was sacrosanct and she had too big a heart not to make sure he was okay. Even though he knew he'd never quite be okay again.
They talked for the rest of the flight home sharing memories of their parents and talking about how they'd shaped them into the people that they'd become. Only once did he stop her, and that was when she asked if he wanted them to get a replacement strategist for Toronto.
"No," he said, and his tone was surprisingly sharp. "We're scheduling the funeral for Thursday. I'll be in Toronto Friday morning."
She just stared at him. His mother died and he wasn't even going to take time off work? "Are you sure?" she asked, more than a little bit incredulous. "Shane, you need to take care of you right now."
"I'm not leaving the team." He shook his head. "She would want me racing."
"Then I'm coming with you to the funeral." Shelby said it equally firmly, leaving him no room for argument. Never mind that she had never even met his mother. "If you're not going to take care of yourself, then we're going to take care of you."
Thursday
Shelby was there, along with her new boyfriend who had insisted on going despite being three degrees separated from the entire thing. So, too, were Terry and Derrick and Juan Pablo Montoya, who was the only one of them to ever actually have met Rebecca Worthington back when Shane had been calling his races in Formula 1. He told them that the son was very much like his mother.
For the first time they were seeing behind the wall that was Shane Worthington. They knew his work, but they rarely knew the man. Now they were learning about the mother who worked two jobs so that she could send her son to MIT and constantly pushed him to chase his dream, even if it meant he left her and moved to Europe. They learned that when he came home and took a job with Team Penske, he made the two and a half hour drive to Durham to see her every Tuesday. That he'd tried to convince her to move in with him but she wouldn't hear of it, not wanting to get in his way. Only two people had ever won an argument with Shane Worthington: Roger Penske and his mother.
They never once saw him cry.
Saturday
The news had made its way through the paddock by the time the team reformed in Toronto. NBCSN had made it one of their stories on the TV broadcast; the strategist calling a race just three days after his mother's funeral. Shane said nothing about it except to thank the people who expressed their condolences. He simply wanted to get back to work.
Shelby got distracted anyway, flooring it in qualifying, desperately wanting to break that sub-one minute barrier but also not wanting to destroy her tires and leave them lacking for race day. In the end she came up just short, close enough that she couldn't resist slamming a hand onto the steering wheel when she rolled into her pit box P3.
That was the only time Shane said something.
He looked her dead in the eyes and said, "Win this fucking race."
They both knew who it would be for.
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
952 words
Sunday
Shelby will always remember where she was. Maybe five feet from the garage, gear bag slung over one shoulder as she had just started to make the walk back to her car. She had just raced 300 laps at Iowa and she was tired, not to mention ready to get away from corn. But then Terry had walked over to her with a bewildered look on his face, and Terry shouldn't have had that look on his face after a fourth-place finish.
"Have you seen Shane?" he asked her. "He just disappeared. And he's not answering my text messages."
"What?" she replied, staring at him. Shane didn't just walk off the job. Even if he had to go take a meeting, he always told Terry where he was going. And he also always stayed to make sure the load-in went well. Shelby reached into the pocket of her jeans, fumbled for her phone, and tried calling him.
Monday
The first time any of them saw him was when he showed up at the airport to catch the team flight back to Charlotte. He had no idea that they'd been debating whether or not to call the boss and report him missing. Shane just appeared right on time like he always did, the only thing different about him the fact that he was particularly quiet.
"What happened to you?" Shelby said, speaking for the entire race team once they got onto the plane.
"My mother died last night," he finally told them. "She had a heart attack at home, died before the paramedics could get there."
Shock didn't even begin to cover it. They all said how sorry they were, but it felt hollow. They didn't know what to do; Shane wasn't the kind of man that they could hug or even really offer to help. He did things his own way and usually alone. So alone that this was the first they'd heard of his mother even still being alive. But they had to do something. This was their teammate and he deserved their support.
Once Terry and Derrick had dozed off, Shelby got up from her seat and came to sit next to Shane, who glanced up at her from a pile of post-race reports. He knew this conversation was coming. Shelby was someone for whom family was sacrosanct and she had too big a heart not to make sure he was okay. Even though he knew he'd never quite be okay again.
They talked for the rest of the flight home sharing memories of their parents and talking about how they'd shaped them into the people that they'd become. Only once did he stop her, and that was when she asked if he wanted them to get a replacement strategist for Toronto.
"No," he said, and his tone was surprisingly sharp. "We're scheduling the funeral for Thursday. I'll be in Toronto Friday morning."
She just stared at him. His mother died and he wasn't even going to take time off work? "Are you sure?" she asked, more than a little bit incredulous. "Shane, you need to take care of you right now."
"I'm not leaving the team." He shook his head. "She would want me racing."
"Then I'm coming with you to the funeral." Shelby said it equally firmly, leaving him no room for argument. Never mind that she had never even met his mother. "If you're not going to take care of yourself, then we're going to take care of you."
Thursday
Shelby was there, along with her new boyfriend who had insisted on going despite being three degrees separated from the entire thing. So, too, were Terry and Derrick and Juan Pablo Montoya, who was the only one of them to ever actually have met Rebecca Worthington back when Shane had been calling his races in Formula 1. He told them that the son was very much like his mother.
For the first time they were seeing behind the wall that was Shane Worthington. They knew his work, but they rarely knew the man. Now they were learning about the mother who worked two jobs so that she could send her son to MIT and constantly pushed him to chase his dream, even if it meant he left her and moved to Europe. They learned that when he came home and took a job with Team Penske, he made the two and a half hour drive to Durham to see her every Tuesday. That he'd tried to convince her to move in with him but she wouldn't hear of it, not wanting to get in his way. Only two people had ever won an argument with Shane Worthington: Roger Penske and his mother.
They never once saw him cry.
Saturday
The news had made its way through the paddock by the time the team reformed in Toronto. NBCSN had made it one of their stories on the TV broadcast; the strategist calling a race just three days after his mother's funeral. Shane said nothing about it except to thank the people who expressed their condolences. He simply wanted to get back to work.
Shelby got distracted anyway, flooring it in qualifying, desperately wanting to break that sub-one minute barrier but also not wanting to destroy her tires and leave them lacking for race day. In the end she came up just short, close enough that she couldn't resist slamming a hand onto the steering wheel when she rolled into her pit box P3.
That was the only time Shane said something.
He looked her dead in the eyes and said, "Win this fucking race."
They both knew who it would be for.
Shelby Manning
Need For Speed OC
952 words