Grip - 6. Chapter 6

A few hours later.

Mrs. Cooper’s Pajero came to the front of the garage a little bit after lunch. She and Boomer ate a little after she picked him up from the hospital. Aside from the bruise on his arm which he got from hitting it at his own door there was no other injury on him. That was good on two fronts. First, that meant that Boomer was in no critical condition, and second, Mrs. Cooper didn’t have to make up a big excuse for Boomer’s street racing activities. She simply said he got into a bar fight with a drunk.

“We’re lucky all you got was that bruise on your arm,” said Mrs. Cooper. “That crash could’ve been a lot worse.”

“But it wasn’t and I’m fine. Stop trippin’ already.”

“I knew it was a bad idea for you to take a challenge like that.”

“I had a flat!”

“That’s no excuse. If you were half the driver you were supposed to be back there, you would’ve checked your car after leaving it like that. You’re also lucky that both Max and Jae think that the Peugeot 206 can be saved. You’re not ready for this.”

“Yeah, I am. You’ll see in my next race!”

“Which will be a long time from now considering the damage to the Peugeot 206. What if Max wasn’t there to do a rematch? That would’ve been a major loss on Jae’s part.”

They both got out of the MG and Mrs. Cooper led the way into the garage. Boomer was a little bit upset. He had all the confidence in the world that he was a good racer. To get this from Mrs. Cooper, who he considered a very good friend, was just frustrating. Boomer didn’t even bother considering the fact that Mrs. Cooper had been racing much longer than he had and surely had some time-tested wisdom in her head.

He was also pretty upset that Mrs. Cooper brought up Max. Sufficed to say nobody saw him coming. Max had been delivering pizzas for the garage for just under two weeks, sometime more than once a day (Jae really liked those meat lover’s specials), and in that time he has gotten on friendly terms with all of them. Occasionally he would ask for a chance to prove his driving skills.

Almost every time he said that they all just pretty much passed it off as a joke. After all, the guy could barely deliver a pizza on time! Where the heck did he learn to drive? Well wherever it was, it taught lessons well. Last night left everyone no less than very impressed at Max’s skill behind the wheel. While Boomer himself was pretty amazed, he wasn’t too keen on finding out he had such competition on his hands.

Mrs. Cooper came through the front door where the general store was located. There they sold the usual stuff like motor oil, lubricants, belts, windshield wipers, and a myriad of other car accessories. Behind the cashier’s desk was one of Mrs. Cooper’s girls worked during the day who greeted them as they came in.

“Nice to see you back from the hospital Boomer,” said the cashier girl. “Saw you’re nasty crash last night. I’m surprised you can walk.”

Boomer sighed exasperatedly. The cashier girl took this as a sign that she should drop the subject for today. A stern look from Mrs. Cooper confirmed that suspicion.

“Anyway, the Peugeot 206’s in the back and Jae is already working on it along with that pizza guy.”

Both Mrs. Cooper and Boomer looked a little confused. “Max is still here?” asked Mrs. Cooper.

“Well, they did go out for a bit, and Pizza-boy did mention today was a day off,” She shrugged. “So I guess he’s been helping Jae since last night. You guys can go see him if you want.”

“Sure.”

Mrs. Cooper and Boomer exchanged brief looks with each other before heading toward the garage are through a door behind the cashier’s desk labelled “employees only.” The first thing they heard was Jae’s music playing in the background. What they didn’t notice was Max’s presence or anyone else’s for that matter. The garage was empty except for the cars.

“He ain’t here,” said Boomer.

Mrs. Cooper swivelled her head around the garage’s space. She was inclined to agree with Boomer until her eye caught something and she did a double take.

“No he’s here somewhere,” she said.

“What makes you say that?”

Mrs. Cooper nodded towards a car. “That.”

Boomer looked in that direction and found that he was looking at the black and orange Jaguar XKR that was now a bit popular among the race goers last night. The ride that was distinctly Max’s. The XKR’s driver side door was open. Max was probably doing something to clean the interior or something. Both Mrs. Cooper and Boomer moved closer to the car to get a better look at it.

Ever since last night Mrs. Cooper has been a bit fascinated by the XKR. She only got a taste of the car when she decided to tag along with Max in that race. She only knew the obvious modifications.

She knew the brochure: With the AJ 20 Coupe, Arden contrasted the more delicate appearance of the production Jaguar with a muscular look. At the front, the coupe is given an impressive “face” by fitting the Arden front spoiler featuring large air inlets. New side sills, also incorporating air inlets, continue the front design and create the appearance of the car being lower to the road. Arden swapped the side vents in favour of their own, colour-contrasting versions. The rear end constitutes the logical conclusion defined by the front design. Like the front section, the rear apron also features cooling openings. To effectively reduce the lift and to make it more sure-footed, Arden equipped its AJ 20 with a distinctive rear spoiler, which blended perfectly into the basic design. But she also wanted to look at the suspension, the brakes, and especially…

“Pop the hood,” she blurted out like an order.

“Who? Me?” responded Boomer.

“The door’s open isn’t it? I have to see this.”

“You do know this ain’t your car, right?”

“That didn’t feel like a normal V8 engine during that race. I have to see what’s under the hood.”

Boomer shook his head but eventually went to the driver’s side, leaned into the car and found the lever he was looking for. The hood popped up an inch. Mrs. Cooper quickly stepped forward and opened the hood all the way up then prop it on the stand. It was as she expected and at the same time, as she didn’t expect and this mixture of feelings showed in her face. Boomer walked around to see what she was looking at. He also seemed to be pretty surprised at what he was looking at.

Mrs. Cooper was right. The normal 4.2 litre V8 powered Jaguar XKR had clearly undergone an engine swap modification. The displacement increase to 4.5 l was achieved by fitting a crankshaft specially produced for Arden, along with new con rods and pistons. The XKR optimised both lubrication and cooling. No wonder Mrs. Cooper felt something weird about the car.

“I thought that engine tone didn’t sound right for a XKR,” said Boomer.

“Yeah, it’s an Arden custom job.” The tone in her voice pretty much suggested that she was impressed.

“Blisk,” Boomer murmured in awe, “It’s what four hundred and fifty horse power?”

“Four eighty,” said a voice from the side.

Both Mrs. Cooper and Boomer quickly turned their heads to find Max standing there on the side, leaning against a Honda Civic Type-R. He had an entertained look on his face when they realized that he must’ve been watching them stare in awe at his car for a short while now.

“It’s capable of 0 to 100 km/h in 4.1 seconds. And it tops out at about 305 km/h,” said Max.

It was a general rule that when out hunting, big cats always maintained good contact with the ground. For this reason, the XKR also had a modified suspension. Max’s car had come with a complete sports suspension with specially produced shock absorbers. The fine tuning was designed to meet the needs of the ambitious driver and offered him the best trade off of comfort against sportiness. The XKR gave him superior handling to match the impressive power package inside.

However having a professionally tuned car was one thing, but knowing how his kitty purred, that was something only a true car lover could manage. For Max, he’d spent so long dismantling and reassembling the car, fine tuning each of the parts to match his own personal preferences… he’d wanted a grip car, and had come out with a beast which was pure claws.

Everything about the car screamed top performance. The only thing spoiling the theme of performance was the fact that Max refused to go all the way with stripping his car of unnecessary weight. He had already removed the backseat, floor carpets, and spare tire, replaced the two front seats, the steering wheel and some gauges, but other than that he kept the interior stock, refusing to remove the radio and CD player, the speakers, most of the interior trimmings and the air-conditioning system.

He figured that since this was the only car he owned at the moment he might as well make some small compromises to performance to make the car easier to live with.

Max spent nearly 3 months and a ton of cash rebuilding that car. When he’d first been introduced to the Arden XKR it had belonged to some rich kid too stupid to realize that Grip racing for pink-slips took more than buying a pre-tuned car and hitting the asphalt the first night out. Luck, skill, and determination had won him the car, after the idiot had nearly totalled it. Cast away, like discarded rubbish… Max had found a bond with the car… there was something about two strays suddenly finding themselves stuck with each other…

It was just a shame though that the car would not get a chance to achieve its original purpose for which Max intended. But it was a great car and Max loved it nonetheless. Also he had already proved its worth on the regular racing scene back in England, enough for him to finance his cross-continental trip dodging the law and getting to Moscow.

Max would tell Mrs. Cooper and Boomer about all of that later.

“Nice to see you guys back from the hospital,” said Max. “Nothing serious, right?”

“…Yeah, just a bruise on the arm. Nothing else,” replied Mrs. Cooper. “What about you? I’d expected you’d gone home by now.”

“Nah I expect to be able to at least replace the radiator by the end of the day. And maybe later get a new intercooler when Jae’s get’s back.”

Boomer smirked. “Man, you act like you work here.”

“I do now.”

Boomer’s smirk faded. “What?”

“That’s right,” said Jae’s voice from another direction.

The three of them turned to the door leading to the store front. Jae had just came in carrying a cardboard box. Jae turned to Max and tossed him the box. Max was caught a little off guard but managed to grab the box with both arms. He noted that it was a bit heavy.

“There’s the new radiator,” said Jae.

“I’ll get right on it,” replied Max.

With that, Max disappeared into the back where the Peugeot 206 GTi was being fixed. Both Mrs. Cooper and Boomer turned their sights now towards Jae who was fully expecting their looks of curiosity.

“You hired him?” asked Mrs. Cooper.

“Well, I have been a little understaffed since Artem and Klinkov bailed on the shop last month.” Note to self, thought Jae, stop hiring Caucasus immigrants. They disappear faster than a professional drifter’s tires.

“So what, no more pizzas for us?”

“Nah, we both agreed this is part-time work. But the thing is I didn’t just hire him for his mechanical skills.”

“Then what is he really here for?” asked Boomer.

“To teach you how to handle your ride.”

Boomer went wide-eyed. “What?! I don’t need him!”

“Yes you do, brah.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Yeah, you do. From what I saw last night you do. Really, Boomer, if not him then I would’ve found somebody else. You really ain’t that ready for the streets yet. You need training.”

Boomer let out an exasperated sigh. “I can’t believe you guys!”

“We don’t think you suck, Boomer,” said Mrs. Cooper. “We just think you need a little more work.”

“Then why can’t I do it on my own? I can just practice on my free time and stuff.”

“Boomer, you can’t practice by yourself unless you know the right things to practice. Then you’d be just practicing bad habits and going nowhere. Trust me on this, I’ve been there. Max can’t handle a scooter for shit, but he obviously knows how to handle a car and he could teach you a lot, you know.”

“So you really think this is what’s best?”

“Boomer…” Jae’s tone was now very serious. “Do I have to remind you why Quai quit racing?”

With that Boomer went silent. He knew the story well enough. Quai was once a street racer as well but stuff had happened prying him out from behind the steering wheel. An accident he experience during a race one night forced him to quit the sport. Boomer remembered that from the start, Jae was never really comfortable with his decision to start racing on his own but he eventually convinced Jae to give him a chance.

He looked back on his few first victories. They were all against amateur racers like him and most of the time his victories seemed to have simply been due to luck. And in almost all his races he was a little bit reckless. He couldn’t remember just how many times his Peugeot 206 GTi narrowly missed lampposts and fire hydrants on the side walk doing over a hundred miles per hour.

“I’m letting you race for me,” continued Jae, “but I’m not letting you make a mistake.”

Jae left it at that and walked away. Mrs. Cooper had nothing left to say and Boomer wasn’t about to wait for her to come up with something. Boomer walked away a little dejected. Mrs. Cooper was left standing there with nothing to do.

Mrs. Cooper suddenly found herself being drawn to the Jaguar which still had the hood open. She slowly walked closer to it and peered into the engine bay a little deeper. She was quite impressed how the engine seemed to fit so well inside the frame and looked like it truly belonged there. She caught a glimpse of the two large superchargers under the engine block. She’ll find out about those soon enough.

All this though, as much as it made her praise the car, made her very curious about Max who up until two weeks ago was a total stranger to her. Now he pops out of nowhere with a car and skills that don’t fail to impress, and for her it’s rare to be impressed. That worried her.

The last time she was impressed by a white guy with a cool car and slick driving he had ripped her heart out and left her with nothing but a Phil Collins CD and a cluster of tarnished memories. That guy was lucky to be able to get some redemption and now he was half-way around the world. The last Mrs. Cooper heard about him was that he was somewhere in Europe, still racing.

Mrs. Cooper wondered if Max was the kind of guy to keep a few skeletons in his closet.

* * *

Beyond the Ring.

In a barely lit garage somewhere in what was lovingly called ‘the Outer Ring’, Bull and his posse were hard at work. The place they were working in was a fairly large establishment that looked more suited to scrapping cars rather than fixing them up. Everywhere there were pieces of scrap that came from some kind of car. There were a few cars there that have obviously seen better years.

Among those examples was the busted Toyota Maserati with a crushed rear end. Bull had since abandoned that car. No matter, it wasn’t his real car anyway. Just something he won off another punk racer on the mainland. It was of little consequence to him.

This was not the case with what the crew were building. It wasn’t done yet but one glance and one could tell that when it would be done it would be something to behold. Bull stepped back and looked at the near finished car he and his crew were working on. He couldn’t help but smirk. It was a beautiful sight indeed.

“Whoever you are,” he mumbled to himself. “Wherever the hell you came from…This is not over yet. Not by a long shot.”

He stared long and hard at his beautiful new 2008 Ford Mustang, tuned to perfection.

“See you soon, pizza guy,” he said while letting out a smirk of contentment.