Posted: Wed May 15, 2019 4:17 pm
Novoya River, Vanov Oblast, Sorlovia
Three days earlier
The longest moment in a man’s life was this one. That pause between asking the woman you loved if she would marry you and hearing her answer. It seemed to drag out for an unbearably long time and your heart skipped a beat or two in those tense moments. Even if you knew she would say yes there was still that tiny scrap of doubt. Asking a woman to marry you was always accompanied by a degree of uncertainty. Perhaps you were asking too early or had mistaken the depth of the relationship. Had she changed her mind? Was she having second thoughts? These were the thoughts that preyed on a man’s mind in those long seconds.
“Yes! A thousand times yes!”
Tears welled up in Elena’s eyes and she clasped her hands to her mouth. Her long curls bobbed and danced as she nodded briskly. She dropped to her knees next to Gregori and fixed her eyes on his. Her soft green eyes locked with his own and she smiled as he planted a soft kiss on his lips. That first tender kiss that served as both a reassurance of love and a way of claiming him as her own. Gregori rose to his feet and gently slid the engagement ring onto Elena’s slender finger. All thoughts of races and the WGPC had faded from his mind as soon as they’d set foot on the soft grass of the river bank. It could wait. This was a moment that went beyond the mundane things of life. It was as if nothing in the world existed in that moment. Nothing except Elena, the river, the willow tree and him.
“Elena,” Gregori said with a fondness few ever heard “You have just made me the happiest man in the world!”
“You’ve made me the luckiest woman,” she replied wiping a tear away “there is nothing I want more than to be your wife. I can’t wait to be Mrs Krupin.”
“And I can’t wait to be your husband. Meeting you is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Viktor would’ve thought the whole affair sickeningly soppy. He was a man who preferred to live the bachelor’s life and viewed romance as the domain of emotional movies. But despite this he would be immensely happy for Elena and Gregori. After all he’d been the one to introduce them and had been unashamedly trying to get them together for a long time. He wanted to live the bachelor life but he knew that Gregori didn’t. Viktor knew that Gregori was a closet romantic and, although he teased him for it mercilessly, he wanted him to be happy. But Gregori knew that deep down under Viktor’s womanizing bachelor exterior lived a man who wanted something more serious. He knew that he was tiring of the one night stands and ‘The Game’. That was the domain of immoral college students and party-boys. It wasn’t the life of a WGPC-ranked mechanic who wanted to be respected in his field.
Gregori and Elena walked back to the car hand-in-hand. The tradition that had begun with his great-grandfather had continued in him and he’d found the woman of his dreams. He’d begun courting her because he’d grown to love her and not because she happened to be a successful model and some of his more outspoken critics had suggested. Things like wealth, fame and beauty had never factored into it. Focusing on such things made a man shallow and materialistic. Gregori had promised himself that he would never become that manner of man no matter how famous he might get.
Autodromo Internazionale del Rivoli
Post-Race
Gregori leaned back in the driver’s seat as he sat in the pit. The way things were going it seemed he was about to enter another slump. A slump like the one that had plagued him for a significant period of time in WGPC16. He’d fallen back to sixteenth place in the final stages of the race due to unknown reasons that were still being looked into. He’d performed with the same level of skill and focus that had seen him take out his first win but something hadn’t gone quite right. He’d felt a distinct change during the fifteenth lap and had done his best to compensate. The style of track had once again been in his favour but something had seemed off with his car. Lap nineteen had only confirmed a sneaking suspicion.
His car was booked into the Race Workshop at MRT HQ for a re-evaluation and full service. His race crew would accompany it to provide the full diagnostic details and post-race analysis. But Gregori sat in his car going over every detail of the race as he watched his Gran Prix racer being loaded into the back of an MRT Race Transport. It had been through a number of races at this point and perhaps it was time for a trip back to the engineers at MRT for a tune-up and examination. Sigur’s own car would likely be receiving the same treatment at the moment. It wasn’t an uncommon practice for a race team to recall its competition cars during a WGPC season for routine maintenance and updated optimization according to WGPO regulations. Gran Prix cars needed to be regularly serviced in just the same way as a regular passenger car. Mechanical parts eventually wore out no matter how finely made or heavy duty they might be. During the course of the season parts had to be replaced even if they were still in reasonable condition.
Swapping out worn brakes for new ones improved the performance of the car even if the old brakes were still in reasonable condition. Scuffed tyres had an impact on how a Gran Prix car preformed in a race meaning that brand new tyres gave it an edge. Gregori’s car would be fitted with a new brand of tyre, given an intensive service complete with an oil change and fuel system clean, an engine wash and even a full car wash. A few barely visible marks on the paint work and chassis were to be touched up with the car essentially coming back to him reborn. He’d grown attached to the car so watching it being loaded into the truck was like watching an old friend being put into the back of an ambulance. In the meantime, to allow him to continue his training regime, he’d been provided with an MRT back up Gran Prix car.
"This is just a slump Gregori," Gregori said to himself softly "you'll get out of it just like you did last season. Remember that."
Three days earlier
The longest moment in a man’s life was this one. That pause between asking the woman you loved if she would marry you and hearing her answer. It seemed to drag out for an unbearably long time and your heart skipped a beat or two in those tense moments. Even if you knew she would say yes there was still that tiny scrap of doubt. Asking a woman to marry you was always accompanied by a degree of uncertainty. Perhaps you were asking too early or had mistaken the depth of the relationship. Had she changed her mind? Was she having second thoughts? These were the thoughts that preyed on a man’s mind in those long seconds.
“Yes! A thousand times yes!”
Tears welled up in Elena’s eyes and she clasped her hands to her mouth. Her long curls bobbed and danced as she nodded briskly. She dropped to her knees next to Gregori and fixed her eyes on his. Her soft green eyes locked with his own and she smiled as he planted a soft kiss on his lips. That first tender kiss that served as both a reassurance of love and a way of claiming him as her own. Gregori rose to his feet and gently slid the engagement ring onto Elena’s slender finger. All thoughts of races and the WGPC had faded from his mind as soon as they’d set foot on the soft grass of the river bank. It could wait. This was a moment that went beyond the mundane things of life. It was as if nothing in the world existed in that moment. Nothing except Elena, the river, the willow tree and him.
“Elena,” Gregori said with a fondness few ever heard “You have just made me the happiest man in the world!”
“You’ve made me the luckiest woman,” she replied wiping a tear away “there is nothing I want more than to be your wife. I can’t wait to be Mrs Krupin.”
“And I can’t wait to be your husband. Meeting you is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Viktor would’ve thought the whole affair sickeningly soppy. He was a man who preferred to live the bachelor’s life and viewed romance as the domain of emotional movies. But despite this he would be immensely happy for Elena and Gregori. After all he’d been the one to introduce them and had been unashamedly trying to get them together for a long time. He wanted to live the bachelor life but he knew that Gregori didn’t. Viktor knew that Gregori was a closet romantic and, although he teased him for it mercilessly, he wanted him to be happy. But Gregori knew that deep down under Viktor’s womanizing bachelor exterior lived a man who wanted something more serious. He knew that he was tiring of the one night stands and ‘The Game’. That was the domain of immoral college students and party-boys. It wasn’t the life of a WGPC-ranked mechanic who wanted to be respected in his field.
Gregori and Elena walked back to the car hand-in-hand. The tradition that had begun with his great-grandfather had continued in him and he’d found the woman of his dreams. He’d begun courting her because he’d grown to love her and not because she happened to be a successful model and some of his more outspoken critics had suggested. Things like wealth, fame and beauty had never factored into it. Focusing on such things made a man shallow and materialistic. Gregori had promised himself that he would never become that manner of man no matter how famous he might get.
Autodromo Internazionale del Rivoli
Post-Race
Gregori leaned back in the driver’s seat as he sat in the pit. The way things were going it seemed he was about to enter another slump. A slump like the one that had plagued him for a significant period of time in WGPC16. He’d fallen back to sixteenth place in the final stages of the race due to unknown reasons that were still being looked into. He’d performed with the same level of skill and focus that had seen him take out his first win but something hadn’t gone quite right. He’d felt a distinct change during the fifteenth lap and had done his best to compensate. The style of track had once again been in his favour but something had seemed off with his car. Lap nineteen had only confirmed a sneaking suspicion.
His car was booked into the Race Workshop at MRT HQ for a re-evaluation and full service. His race crew would accompany it to provide the full diagnostic details and post-race analysis. But Gregori sat in his car going over every detail of the race as he watched his Gran Prix racer being loaded into the back of an MRT Race Transport. It had been through a number of races at this point and perhaps it was time for a trip back to the engineers at MRT for a tune-up and examination. Sigur’s own car would likely be receiving the same treatment at the moment. It wasn’t an uncommon practice for a race team to recall its competition cars during a WGPC season for routine maintenance and updated optimization according to WGPO regulations. Gran Prix cars needed to be regularly serviced in just the same way as a regular passenger car. Mechanical parts eventually wore out no matter how finely made or heavy duty they might be. During the course of the season parts had to be replaced even if they were still in reasonable condition.
Swapping out worn brakes for new ones improved the performance of the car even if the old brakes were still in reasonable condition. Scuffed tyres had an impact on how a Gran Prix car preformed in a race meaning that brand new tyres gave it an edge. Gregori’s car would be fitted with a new brand of tyre, given an intensive service complete with an oil change and fuel system clean, an engine wash and even a full car wash. A few barely visible marks on the paint work and chassis were to be touched up with the car essentially coming back to him reborn. He’d grown attached to the car so watching it being loaded into the truck was like watching an old friend being put into the back of an ambulance. In the meantime, to allow him to continue his training regime, he’d been provided with an MRT back up Gran Prix car.
"This is just a slump Gregori," Gregori said to himself softly "you'll get out of it just like you did last season. Remember that."