After a few minutes, Maddie and I went out in my M6 again, but with her behind the wheel.

“Are you sure?” she asked when I suggested it. “Like, really sure?”

“I’ve seen your driving,” I said with a shrug. “And like Stein said, if you wreck it I’ll just buy another one. Maybe blue, this time.”

Maddie tip-toed around the track for the first few laps, uncomfortable in the BMW.

“I know it’s not much heavier than my car, but it sure feels a lot bigger,” Maddie said.

“That’s what she said,” I replied with a smirk.

“Tell me you didn’t just say that!” Maddie exclaimed. “My mom would have a heart attack, hearing you say that like that!”

“Hey, you gotta have fun, right? Don’t take it so seriously,” I said. “Oh, and use the pedal on the right,” I suggested.

“I am!” Maddie protested.

“Well, use it more. This car has twice the power your Evo has- put it to good use. Here- the straight coming up- slam it to the floor!”

Maddie did as instructed, but well after the apex. Still, the squeal of delight she let out as we rocketed towards the next turn was worth it.

“Wait for the brakes,” I instructed. “O.K., now!”

Maddie stomped on the brakes, terrified we were going to overshoot the turn, but instead almost brought the car to a halt. She corrected by getting on the gas again for the double-apex left-hander, saying, “Sorry!” as she did so.

“Alright,” I said. “So now you know this car can accelerate harder than yours, and the brakes work better,” I explained as we swept through the big right-hander. “What your car does better is maintain a clean line in the middle of the turn.”

“What do you mean?” Maddie asked as she set up for the two lefts and then an easy right onto the front straight.

“You’ve got all wheel drive, and a lighter car. Your car should be able to carry higher corner speed with more precision, right?” I asked Maddie as she overbraked for the quick right, then hard left after the straight.

“Um, yeah, I guess,” she said, trying to pay attention to me and the track at the same time.

“So the only way to not lose too much in the corners in a car like this is to lay it out and let the powerful brakes and motor do the work. So this lap, after the little straight after the hill, stay off the brakes as late as possible for the left, then trail brake in and use the gas to let the back step out. Let the brakes pull the front in, but use the gas to push the back out."

“What even do you mean?” Maddie asked in a near panic.

“Pull in after this lap, let’s switch drivers,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

Maddie did as instructed, and we quickly swapped seats and got going again.

“Alright,” I said as we entered the track behind a Subaru STI. “This guy has all wheel drive like your car, right?”

“Yeah…” Maddie agreed. “Sorta.”

“Let’s watch what he does,” I suggested as I parked right on the guy’s ass. “See, he takes the classic racing line. Wide, tight, wide, right?”

"Well, sure,” Maddie agreed. “I mean, that’s what you do, right?”

“Yeah, but some cars are better at it than others. That Subaru? Better than most. Notice how, when I follow his lines, he gets a little gap mid-turn?” I asked. By now we’d drafted off the guy for most of a lap, and when we got to the front straight he moved aside to let me by, no doubt tired of a rear-view mirror full of lava-orange BMW.

“So, in a car like this, with better brakes and much more motor, but maybe not as great corner traction, we say ‘fuck corner traction! Who needs it, anyway?’ and let the car play fast and loose.”

“Like what you were doing earlier?” Maddie asked as I slingshotted us out of the bowl.

“Right,” I agreed. “I use the tires breaking grip to rotate the car. I want to spend as little time in the corner as I can, so I do this,” I said, heel-and-toeing the entry to the double left to oversteer the car, kicking the back end out in a somewhat exaggerated over-rotation to make the point.

“Holy shit!” Maddie squeaked. “We almost spun out!”

“Nah, nowhere even close,” I said. “I was just showing you what I meant,” I said as I did the same thing on the following right, letting the BMW run wide to the outside of the track through the two rights so I could get past some little dark blue hot hatch who was hugging the clean line.

“If I do it too much, it slows the car down, but looks cool- which I guess is the whole point of drifting,” I said as I slammed the pedal to the floor as we entered the front straight. “The key is to get the balance right.”

I powered through another couple of laps, showing Maddie what I meant about rotating the car, then we pulled in for another driver exchange.

Maddie was clumsy at it, but the technique was alien to the driving she’d learned behind the wheel of her Mitsubishi, so it was understandable.

Back in the pit, Maddie asked, “So, my car won’t do that?”

“Well, that’s up to you to try to figure out,” I said. “It might not, but if it does, I’d bet you could shave a little bit of time every single corner if you got comfortable with the car moving around under you.”

There was only an hour or so until the track went cold for the day, so I climbed into the GT3 for the remaining time, fine-tuning my shift points and braking markers, squeezing a little more speed out of the car than I had earlier in the day.

When they finally waved the checkered flag to bring everybody in, I found Maddie and Lainey waiting back at my pit.

The guys swarmed all over the car once I was out, lifting it immediately to change the fluids and download the data. I noticed Joachim collecting the four GoPros, and idly wondered if any of the footage was worth watching.

“I think I understand what you mean,” Maddie said when I settled down into my folding chair. “It’s gonna take me a while to get used to it, though.”

“It took me a while, too,” I said. “It’s kind of an uncomfortable feeling at first.”

“Will you be here tomorrow?” Lainey asked.

“Yeah, all day,” I said as I took the beer bottle Joachim handed me and knocked back a big pull. “I guess we’re going clockwise tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Maddie confirmed. “The better way.”

“You like clockwise better?” I asked, more to make conversation than anything.

“I think the track flows better that way,” Maddie said, helping herself to another Red Bull from the cooler.

“Hey, Liz,” Stein said as he ambled over. “Any plans for tonight?”

“I’m thinking of hitting the town,” I said, vaguely pointing off into the completely empty desert surrounding the track.

“It’s only an hour to beautiful Indio, California,” Stein said with a laugh. “There’s a great Mexican restaurant that has live bands on Saturday nights,” he continued. “It’s awesome for picking up hot Latinas.”

“I’ve got one of those already, thanks,” I said dryly.

“Yeah, you do,” Stein said, grabbing a beer from the new cooler that had magically appeared after the track went cold for the night. “But she’s back in New York with your wife, right?”

“Well, yeah,” I admitted. “Even still, I’m not in the market.”

“A chick in the hand is worth two on the opposite coast,” he replied with a smirk.

I just rolled my eyes and took another drink of my beer, leaning back and unzipping my race suit, kicking my feet out.

“You’re married? To a woman?” Maddie asked, intrigued. Lainey, in turn, looked a little bit displeased by the revelation.

“Not just any woman,” Stein interjected. “The hottest woman. She’s married to Emmy Lascaux.”

“You’re kidding me!” Maddie squeaked. “Emmy from The Downfall Emmy? You’re her wife?”

“Yeah, Emmy’s my wife,” I confirmed.

“Hey, how many are going to want dinner tonight?” Joachim interrupted. “We’re about to set up the grill,” he said. “We’ve got steaks, chicken, and burgers if that’s what you want.”

I looked at Lainey and Maddie. “You guys are welcome to stay for dinner if you want.”

Maddie looked pleadingly at her mom, who looked as if she was going to say no.

“That’s mighty nice of you,” Lainey said. “We don’t want to impose- we have stuff for dinner back in our motorhome.”

“Please, Mom?” Maddie begged.

“Are you sure it’s O.K.?” Lainey asked me.

“I wasn’t sure how many of my driving buddies were going to be here, so I made sure we brought plenty,” I answered. “It’d be great if you guys would have dinner with us.”

“Well, I guess, if it’s no hassle,” Lainey said, finally giving in to her daughter’s pleading looks.

“So I guess the four of us,” I said to my crew chief, indicating Lainey, Maddie, Stein and myself. “I’ll take a steak, medium rare, please, Joachim. Thanks a lot.”

The rest put in their requests, and soon the Brazilian crew chief was hustling off to get cooking with Manny, one of the three mechanics, while the other two continued washing the GT3. They’d already detailed the M6 while I was out on the track in the last session of the day, but now the GT3 was taken care of mechanically, it was time for its beauty regimen.

“Hey,” I said, sitting up. “I’m gonna grab a shower and change clothes. You guys can hang around here, or whatever. Dinner should be ready in half an hour? Something like that,” I said as I stood to go into the big toy hauler.

“Yeah, sounds good,” Stein said, also standing.

“We’ll be back in half an hour, then,” Lainey said as she urged Maddie to get up and get moving.

The shower in the hauler was surprisingly good, and washing off the day’s sweat felt great. My race suit was as good as they get, but the idea of a cooling system sure had its appeal on a hot day at the track. I’d have to talk to Joachim about getting something fitted to the car, I thought as I threw on a pair of jeans, T and hoodie.

I was back outside and settled into my chair, enjoying the smell of the grill when that same track official came over to talk.

“That smells good,” he said as he walked up.

“I can have the guys throw a burger on for you,” I offered.

“I appreciate it, but I can’t stay. I just wanted to talk a few minutes about your driving today.”

“Sure,” I said, indicating a chair for him to sit in.

“Look, I watched you, and like I said earlier, it’s obvious you know what you’re doing out there,” he began. "Like I said, a few other drivers complained about your passing. No, wait,” he said, holding up his hand as I was about to protest. “I watched, and your passes might have been hard, but you never put any other drivers at any real risk, so if this was a race, you’d never hear anybody complain at all. The thing is, like I said earlier, a lot of these other drivers have never actually raced, you know? They’re used to gentleman’s rules on passing during a track day- you wait to pass until the driver ahead gets over for you, and maybe signals. They just aren't expecting a pro who is used to actual racing.”

“But-” I started to say, but he held up his hand again.

“I understand- most of the other drivers here don’t look in the mirror often enough to see you coming up hard on ‘em, so they don’t get over when you’ve run up their tailpipes. I get it, and I’m on your side on this. This is an open track day, and these guys should be ‘A’ level drivers, and we expressly have no restrictions at all on passing. You heard the drivers meeting this morning- keep it safe was all we said. Which you did. I’m sure you noticed that we didn’t black flag you, right?”

“I did notice that, yes,” I agreed with a smile.

“So here’s the thing. You’re signed up for tomorrow, so at the drivers meeting in the morning I’ll talk a little bit about it and make it clear to everyone. I don’t want a free-for-all out there, you know, but I don’t want people getting all bent out of shape just because somebody passed ‘em when they weren’t expecting it.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “I appreciate you being a good sport about it.”

“Well, all that said, you might really be better off renting the track for your own testing days, you know. That way you won’t have to deal with these sorts of complaints- you’ll be able to get all the track time you want and not have any other cars ruining your laps.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I conceded. “But I need practice passing slower drivers and taking alternate lines, too,” I said.

Laughing, the guy stood up to leave. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” he said. “See you in the morning.”

After he left, a couple of guys in their early twenties came over to say hello.

“Hey- the guy that drives the BMW GT3- is he around?” The first guy asked.

“You’re looking at him,” I said, finishing off my beer.

“What? You were driving that?” he asked, pointing at the now-covered race car.

“Well, it is my car,” I said.

With perfect timing, one of the mechanics came over to ask a question.

“Leah, will you be using the M6 much tomorrow? The tires have taken a beating- you want us to change ‘em for fresh?”

“I might,” I said. “How bad are the tires on there now?”

“You’d notice,” he said. "The fronts aren’t too bad, but the back tires are pretty far gone. On the street, I’d say you’d need to change them soon. For the track, I’d say they’re done.”

“Go ahead and swap ‘em out then, Brian,” I told him. “But you don’t have to do it tonight. I’ll start out in the GT3.”

“Cool,” he replied. “I’ll get it done while you’re out on the track.”

The two guys watched the whole interchange silently, then when Brian left one of the guys said “That BMW of yours is bad-ass!”

“Wait-“ the second guy said. “You were also driving that?” He asked, pointing towards the M6 that Brian was buttoning up for the night.

“Yeah, about half and half today,” I said. “What are you guys driving?”

“I’ve got a Civic R,” the first guy said.

“Dark blue?” I asked.

“Yah, that’s right,” he confirmed.

“I’ve got a Subaru WRX STI,” the second guy said.

“I’ve seen a couple of those out here,” I said. “Which one- the yellow one or the green?”

“Yellow,” he said. “With the black graphics.”

“Cool,” I said. “You guys have a good time today?”

“Yeah, it was great, until somebody in a BMW race car smoked past me so hard I had to check to see if my parking brake was on,” the second guy said with a laugh.

“Dood- you, too?” The first guy said to his pal. “I thought I was kickin’ it hard until that BMW came by, spitting fire and shit!”

Laughing at the two guys’ antics, I asked, “Hey, I have a serious question. I guess some drivers complained that I passed uninvited- I mean, passed ‘em when they weren’t expecting it. I didn’t pass either of you like an asshole, did I?”

“No, not like an asshole,” the first guy said. “I mean, like, you passed me all freaking day, so I sorta got used to it, you know? It spooked me pretty good the first time you passed me around the outside between three and four, and then again coming out of the bowl, but after that I kept an eye out for your car. I didn’t know it was the same driver in the orange BMW, but you passed me pretty good in that, too.”

His friend said, “The first time you passed me in the orange M6 was in the little straight after the hill. I thought you were gonna blow the turn and run off the track for sure the way you were on it so hard, but then you threw it in and got all sideways like a fucking boss and you just vanished off into the distance.”

“You were getting so sideways!” The first guy said. “I got so I was waiting, hoping you’d pass me where I could watch you go through a turn.”

“I’m glad you guys enjoyed the show,” I said with a smile.

“She does it on the street, too,” Stein said as he walked up, his thinning hair still damp from his shower. “You should see Liz terrorizing the soccer moms in Malibu.”

“Liz? That’s your name?” Asked guy number one.

“Leah,” I said, holding out my hand for a shake. “For some reason I still don’t understand my driving buddies call me Lizzie.”

“Danny,” the first guy said, shaking my hand.

“June,” the second guy said when we shook.

“This here is Stein,” I said, introducing him to the two guys. “He drives that McLaren over there.”

“That is one hella sweet ride,” Danny said, admiringly.

“I like it,” Stein said, somewhat self-consciously.

“I bet she doesn’t pass you like she does to us,” June said, eyeing the low-slung car.

“Oh, trust me, she lets you guys off easy,” Stein replied with a laugh. “Hell, now she knows you two and knows your cars, you can expect her to cut you a whole fucking lot less slack.”

“What do you mean?” One of the two asked.

Lainey and Maddie showed up about then, looking curiously at the two guys.

“Well, we’ll see you out there!” One of the two guys said, and they left to go back to where they were pitted.

“Who was that?” Maddie asked.

“Just a couple of guys who wanted to get a closer look at the race car,” I said.

The crew had set up a couple of folding tables and were starting to set out the food, so we all took our seats for dinner. I was slightly bothered by the way it shook out, with the mechanics at one table and the drivers (and Lainey) at the other, but that was just how it happened. I made a mental note to make sure mechanics and drivers mixed it up at meals in the future. I didn’t want the crew thinking they were somehow separate from the drivers in any way, socially.

I spent a lot of time during dinner fending off Maddie’s questions about Emmy. I understood that rock stars are inherently interesting, but it seemed that Lainey wasn’t too comfortable with the topic of me being married to another woman, and I didn’t want to cause any friction about something that doesn’t concern driving, anyway.

Stein did a good job of being a pain in the ass in his usual way, but generally the conversation flowed smoothly enough. I’d been worried that Lainey would be anti-lesbian enough that she’d want keep Maddie away from me, but it didn’t seem to really be the case.

Eventually Maddie and Lainey went back to their motorhome for the night and Stein climbed into the back seat of his truck to sleep, so I helped the crew clean up after dinner, then went out for a walk. It was a surprisingly bright night, with a nearly full moon shining down from the absolutely clear desert night.

I wandered out onto the track, idly thinking I should walk it clockwise, to get a feel for tomorrow’s layout. Silly, since it was light enough to see the track but not really light enough to make out the kind of details walking a track would normally provide, but hey- at least I knew I was going to get a nice and peaceful late-night stroll.

I paused for a moment on top of the little hill which marked the farthest point on the track from the pits. Walking, my mind had been something of a jumble, not really organized in any way, just random thoughts bouncing around. Taking slow, relaxing breaths and looking around the empty desert, up at the stunning number of stars, and back towards the diminishing activity of the pits, I felt a sort of calmness wash over me.

“This is my life,” I said out loud, even though there was nobody to hear it but me.