Falling Sands
Friday Morning- Avsidesliggendevuoret, Aboveland
And so another race weekend had come and gone, and the next had come as well, but Jean Mercer-Daly was no closer to figuring out what was next for him.
Beforehand, there had seemingly been little time for him to think; he had been preoccupied with something else by the time he brought it up to himself. Now, though, there was enough time. So, he weighed all his options, working through them one at a time.
1. Try and find a WGPC race seat for next season.
It wasn’t the worst of ideas. He had still enjoyed being in the garage and running the car at Crossbay for testing purposes. And when compared with other drivers in the field (as seen at Atheara) he wasn’t the slowest. But, if he chose this option, he would no doubt be a free agent. There wasn’t room at Nexus to replace Lane or Laukkanen, both of whom were still doing fine and showed no signs of stopping soon. Plus, there was no telling which teams would make the grid next year, who would be competitive (as this season had already proved by completely destroying the old pecking order), and what young prodigies were waiting for their own chances- especially as WGP2 was rumored to be returning after the end of the main season.
So probably not.
2. Stick with Nexus as their test driver.
This one was something Jean was getting used to. He was able to help his team, Nexus, which had helped him for so long, and stay in the background as he stepped down from the hustle and bustle that was his career beforehand. But it was still true that it wasn’t… much. And he missed some parts of how things used to be. Could he just stay, and delay having to solve this problem for another year or so?
Maybe he could keep that in the back of his mind. Just in case.
3. Go to another sport, like NSSCRA.
While another sport wasn’t entirely off the table, NSSCRA definitely was. It was an even faster moving sport than what he had before, and there was little chance he could mentally keep up without getting swept away- plus, despite his WDC runner-up, there was little telling if that would translate into skill with stock cars.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the honestly ridiculous championship format. So, no.
4. Do a “homecoming” season in EGTC back home, like his father had planned.
It would be a sentimental move to make. His father, back in 2002, had planned to run one last EGTC season to close out his racing career, but he had suffered a career-ending injury before he could really do so. If Jean did so, at almost the same age Kristophe had been, the fans would support him. But it was equally true that this would effectively remove him from the spotlight altogether. The EGTC was popular at home, but it had little presence beyond. There would be a solid lack of a satisfying conclusion.
In the end, he probably was interested. But he didn’t know if it was yet time.
5. Forget everything, find his brother Evyn, and go street racing.
How odd might that be, if he chose it in the end? He knew his brother Evyn was also a racer, albeit in the street festival racing scene up north in Esterlon. The two had interacted from time to time, especially in the last few years, but Jean hadn’t felt it… going anywhere. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. And Evyn had since gone silent- Jean was confident nothing had gone wrong, but nothing had gone right, either.
It was another “probably not”, then.
Perhaps there were other opportunities he hadn’t yet found; opportunities that would reveal themselves at the right time. Like it or not, he was still Jean Mercer-Daly, the sporting hero of Esmerel that went where none from his homeland had ever gone before him, within touching distance of ultimate glory. Some curveball could be thrown at him, and maybe he would be interested in catching it.
And it felt good to get his thoughts down in a concrete place. He had options. They just… still couldn’t help him choose. So Jean continued to sit in his motorhome, looking at the team’s data heading into a weekend they had good experience with. Not many were in the area- just some technicians and other staff that weren’t the drivers or major team personnel, as the weekend press conference was underway. Jean felt lucky he wasn’t part of the conference. He had little to say- and inevitably, he’d be asked about what that even was.
For the record, he stood by Nexus in their recent debacle against the Hapilopper Television Network- anyone who had almost been killed in an accident the likes of which the HTN would promote would do the same.
Said press conference, meanwhile, was playing on one of the screens in the motorhome, broadcasted by the international TV feed. With little else to do, especially to avoid stressing himself out any further about his future which still remained undecided, he took a closer look.
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In view of the TV cameras were several drivers, all addressing the occasional questions posed at them by the media as they would on any other weekend. Nothing was especially special about that. What Jean found intriguing- to him, at least- was who one of the drivers being questioned was: Brendan Faloe, the name he had heard almost nothing of beforehand, and everything after.
“Question for you, Brendan,” someone from the press asked, as the cameras focused on the driver. “I think it’s the question we’ve all been asking, so: just how did you get here?”
“...That’s something I’d like to have the answer to myself,” Brendan replied, as he chuckled. “Seriously, I’m just keeping up with what I’ve already been doing from the start of the season. I’m driving the car, I’m keeping it on the track and up to speed, and I guess my success is coming with that. It’s as surprising to me as it is to you just how much that success has been.”
“And a quick follow-up from that: thanks to some great performances, you’ve taken the points lead heading into the penultimate round of the championship. Several fellow pundits are calling you a favorite to win the title from here, can you say you agree?”
“That’s a tougher question,” Brendan answered. “I don’t think anyone at Cygnus came into this season with the intent to win something that big. We’ve already achieved our goals for this year and then some, and we’re trying to keep things as realistic and subdued as possible.” He paused for just a moment. “To be honest, I’m comfortable in saying, and so is my team, that I don’t expect to win the championship. I’ll try, but that’s what anyone else would do. If you think my chances are high, then you can think that, but anything can happen in this sport, and these last two weekends are at treacherous tracks, so that’s true even more. I’m going to wait until the checkered flag of the last race before I celebrate anything. Will that include the World Championship? It’d be nice, but I’m keeping it down until then. That’s that.”
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The press moved on to ask some questions to other drivers, but Jean, watching through his screen, kept thinking about what Faloe just said. Jean knew of his success so far- he wasn’t that far out of the loop- but it wasn’t as if he was paying any super-serious attention. He knew little about his compatriots’ effort to break into the WGPC; thankfully it was with much more gusto than their predecessors. They weren’t on the map for a while- though now it seemed as if they had always been.
The statistics were at least easily available to anyone, Jean included. A couple of poor starts led to a hard charge in Round 3 and a fourth-place finish, then followed by a pole position (albeit one that failed to convert into a good finish), and back to the points the next round, and the round after that, plus another pole. Then came a race victory, charging to the front in the closing laps of Round 7- followed by yet more points (a podium, no less), which no other driver this season had managed yet.
In the end, this Brendan Faloe fellow had finished every race (which only six other drivers had done, the closest of which was 22 points behind) and taken the points lead by 4 over second place. From almost nowhere to leading the points standings with a decent chance to win it all. Jean himself had been in that same position before- for but a brief moment, he led the championship in WGPC16, and almost won it in the end, with perhaps a slim chance still remaining prior to his accident.
But what intrigued him the most was how Brendan already seemed to accept that winning the championship wasn’t guaranteed- in fact, in the face of a solid chance, he rejected it (though he clearly showed no intention of throwing). It could have been one of many factors that made him feel that way, and Jean didn’t know which it was. But it impressed him. To him, Brendan was good enough to win, and calm enough to lose.
And at 22, Brendan still had an entire career ahead of him.
So maybe…
6. Find an opportunity and meet with Brendan Faloe.
Yes. He didn’t know if it was a long-term solution or anything, but yes.
