Stories of The Queen's Reign (Narrative Short Stories)

June 6th, the morning after the Daytona All-Night Endurance Trophy.

"A 14th place finish isn't what we aimed for, but it's certainly an improvement from last year's #DaytonaEnduranceTrophy. Eyes forward to Road Atlanta, I suppose!"

That was what Emma Pergusa had said over on her socials last night, but it wasn't how she felt in her heart. Five years in the IMAS GT Championship had yielded a few early podium finishes which became increasingly difficult to come by; while she was right that this result was better than the DNF they took last year, the Le Mans dream was no closer. The Ford GT JS-ONE the team fielded was one of the strongest cars in the hands of other racing teams... what was she doing wrong for so long? She pored over the telemetry data logged between herself, her co-driver Amber Sebring, and their newest hire - Yuyuko Maeda, an actress also chasing an eventual victory at the famed French endurance race. Yuyuko had originally been hired in 2019 to handle the team's financial aspects thanks to her secondary professional expertise in business, which made her apparent showing up of her boss and her girlfriend a rather awkward affair.

"I'm at a loss here, Frank. The telemetry suggests we're extracting every last bit of traction out of the exits, and yet Amber and I are nearly eight to ten seconds behind Maeda by our 25th lap in our respective stints." Emma shook her head, bewildered that an actress - albeit one who could've taken the fight to Audi and Porsche's factory drivers on a good day - could outdo her on race pace in a car and track she thought she knew well.

"This might explain it," Frank stated as he rewound onboard footage from Emma and Yuyuko. "Listen to this closely. This is just one section, but pay attention to how you and her exit Turn 6." That corner at Daytona was a sharp, flat left-hander that required heavy slowing of the car on entry, but its exit trajectory onto the steeply banked perimeter oval gradually opened up, allowing for a driver to increase their speed early after they entered the corner. First, Frank played the clip of Emma taking Turn 6; soft but pained groans of heavy tire scrubbing could be heard, before it peaked to a shriek as she laid the power down. Then he did the same for Yuyuko driving the same corner, and throughout the entire clip, only a brief buzzing of the traction control (TC) could be heard as the actress exited the infield stage and transitioned onto the banking. "She's running TC setting 4 through here, where you're running it set at 1. You're faster doing that over a single lap, but you're also fighting the car the entire way through, miss. There's similar things going on throughout pretty much the entire lap."

The actress had been watching over her racing squad-mates as the exchange occurred. "Emma, the biggest mistake you've made these past few years wasn't the leap to IMAS EC and GT. And the car is not to blame either; the Ford GT JS-One was practically born to win this championship," Yuyuko stated rather bluntly. Emma looked like she was holding back a blazing fury upon realizing the potential implications of her co-driver's words, but allowed her to finish making her point. "No, what's holding you back is the want to drive purely by your instincts alone. These cars have a soul, a personality; the sensors, the data logging, the diagnostics, they talk to you directly. When you drive this one, the car screams at your attempts to wrestle it down."

Suddenly, Yuyuko's purple prose and Frank's analysis clicked together in Emma's mind. Her internal raging inferno was immediately replaced with a disappointed sigh, wondering why she didn't catch this sooner.

Back at base, a week later...

"Check this out, you two! Our new, state-of-the-art simulation center is complete~!" Yuyuko opened the doors with giddiness, revealing a full-motion hydraulic motion rig with a replica interior and body shell of the team's Ford GT race car. But this was no high-dollar toy of whimsy; it would be the training grounds for the three drivers between race weekends. An array of computer terminals hooked up to the simulation gave them and their engineers a detailed real-time look into their technique and setup without wasting a dime on fuel or tires, and it was even equipped with the same telemetry software suite their car in the real world used to log driving and systems data.

Yuyuko Maeda, as both assistant team principal and now driver coach, would need all these tools to train Amber and Emma into a new style of driving, and the mentality to match it. She would waste little time or breath in committing the changes needed to adapt the future power couple, as her first task for the day was hardly a simple one. "Next race is at Tohno Raceway Road Atlanta; this was the one place I was an equal to the factory teams and drivers in my time as a Prototype class owner-driver. At this level, pure instinct is no longer sufficient. Like a delicate dance, your inputs need to be deliberate and measured. If you insist on turning up the traction control to accomplish this, do it. We shall be running fifty lap stints, to test your endurance and monitor your ability to manage tire wear."

Initially, the drills were unfruitful: Emma insisted on charging through Turn 1 of Road Atlanta, an uphill fast right-hand corner, with hardly a touch of the brake, instead using steering and a rapid lift of the throttle to snap her car around the corner entry. Every dozen or so laps, she would crash spectacularly trying to repeat this feat on increasingly worn tires. A couple weeks of simulator work made the picture much clearer to her, however - Emma needed to listen to her car, and show a sort of mechanical empathy. The aggressive techniques she learned in karting, the Endurance Challenge, and in junior single-seaters would have to be reserved for when a battle turned desperately against her. These drills of her coach's were going to be yet another challenge to overcome, but one that may hold the keys to future success.