ANTICIPATION
BY: SHAWN M. GMITTER
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You sit there waiting your turn. It’s your first time and you don’t know how you will do. Nervousness begins to take grip of you. In the deepest recesses of your stomach you feel it coming. The feeling that you were hoping to avoid all day. Slowly you begin to shake, only adding to your nervousness. The usually calming effect of your v8 rumbling does little to calm you today. As you pull around to the grid, you start to realize just how many people can see you. They are all expecting a good run from you so you don’t want to disappoint. You look to your right to see your opponent. He looks mean and his car is fast. You give him that macho nod and try not to look nervous even though your stomach is doing flips. Your warm up goes fine. The tires spin and spew smoke nicely, exciting the crowd further. You begin to feel more at ease when you look over and see him doing the exact same thing. Now you realize you have to stage your car. You have heard about this, “Pull up till the first light goes on then slowly inch your way forward until the second light illuminates. You know all about shallow and deep staging but all that knowledge has left you now and all you can think about is not going past that second light. Slowly you ease your car forward, never fully taking your foot off of the brake pedal. The first light illuminates and you freeze. All you have to do is inch your car a little more to make that second light come on and you cant. Sweat pours down your face as you try to regain your composure. Slowly but surely you feel your foot begin to lift off the brake pedal and you car inches forward to illuminate the second light. You now look right to see him staging his machine. Anticipation and nervousness are now doing battle for your full attention. You turn forward to see his first light go on. You know that any second that second light will go on and you will have mere seconds to go until the race. Will you be able to do it? Will you get a good launch? Will your tires hold? Will he beat you? All this races through your mind in about two milliseconds when you see his second light come on. Now the trees lights up and you both take off in frenzy. Both cars have tire spin and sit at the line for the slightest of moments before lunging forward towards victory. It’s hard to tell who got the whole shot as you speed off. You look towards your passenger side window to see him dead even with you. Your tires screech as you throw your car into second gear but you see his car leap forward as he does the same. He gains on you by half a car length and you think he has you when it happens. Slowly the anxiety leaves you. The pit of your stomach settles. All sweat on your brow dries up. You realize that you’re not scared anymore. You realize that those people back there don’t matter now. Nothing is going to stop you from winning this race. If his car is faster than yours then so be it but your going to put all of your heart and foot into this. You slam the ratchet shifter into third. The race is almost over now as you come up to be dead even with him again. You both look at each other and you begin to see that he is just as nervous now as you were at the start. As you floor the gas pedal and your car passes his, you take the win to you look back to see him pull off the track before you. He is beaten and he knows it. You go on to race again, but nothing will compare to this first win.
