Stein’s vinyl guy was not what I expected at all- for the most part. The whole ‘covered in what look like gang tattoos’ thing, sure, but for the rest of it, not so much.
He had a shop in a nondescript commercial space in Burbank, with a fairly minimal sign indicating it was a detail shop as well as a wrap specialist. Around back there were a number of cars parked near the large roll-up door to the work space. Most were fairly high-dollar rides, things like an Audi S5, a few BMWs, a Porsche 911 of some type, and three Escalades. Some had been freshly wrapped and were waiting to be picked up, but most were waiting their turn for either a wrap or a detail job.
There were four guys working under a large canopy when I pulled around, busy detailing a black Mercedes sedan. They all stopped what they were doing to eye the Porsche, no doubt well aware of the rarity and price of the Spyder.
One of the guys, presumably the supervisor of the detail crew, walked over when I parked. “Do you have an appointment?” he asked.
“Yeah, at two,” I confirmed, checking my watch and seeing that it was very nearly that time.
“I’ll let him know you’re here,” he said, giving the Porsche one last, appreciative look before he went inside.
A moment later the garage door rolled up and a heavyset guy with a drooping mustache and shaved head came out.
“Leah Farmer?” he asked. “I’m Jorge Santos,” he said, extending his hand.
“My friend Stein recommends your work highly,” I said, shaking the man’s hand.
“Stein is one of my best customers,” he said with a hearty laugh. “Ain’t nobody else gets a premium wrap every month or two.”
“He gets it done on short order, too,” I commented.
“Yeah, for him, we put in overtime,” Jorge agreed, leading me to the little front office area, past the two cars being wrapped in the brightly lit bays. He pulled out some paperwork, to my surprise. Somehow I’d gotten the impression from Stein that the shop was a bit shady, but nothing besides the ludicrous amounts of tattoos on everybody working there seemed anything less that completely professional. The shop was immaculately clean, the workers (including Jorge, the owner) all wore perfectly clean uniforms, and the office was neat and tidy. On the sign-in desk there was a small sign that said, “No Cash,” which was the complete opposite of the image I’d formed in my mind from Stein’s hints.
After looking through the color samples, I opted for a striking dark lavender rather than the bubblegum pink I had been planning on. Somehow it seemed more ‘Porsche’ while at the same time, very feminine and/or gay.
I filled out the information and handed Jorge the key and my helmet, which gave him a laugh. “Is it alright if we do something a bit… creative with the helmet?” Jorge asked, looking it over. “We’ll stick with the same color for the most part, but maybe do some graphics?”
When I told him they could have fun with it, he gave me a big grin. “That, we can do.”
Paperwork done, he stapled a business card to the receipt he printed out, then asked me, “Do you have a ride?”
I held up my phone and said, “Ride share.”
“We have a courtesy service, if you haven’t already called for a car,” he said.
Once again impressed by the level of professionalism, I thanked him but said I’d already requested the ride and couldn’t back out.
“Next time, save yourself the twenty-five dollars,” he said with another big, friendly grin, showing off his gold tooth.
I was disappointed to not see the Spyder parked around back when Angela drove me in her little Z4 to pick up the car, so I had her park by the front door. She waited for me while I went inside to find out about the delay.
Jorge was all smiles when he saw me when he came out to see who’d just entered the office.
“You’re gonna love it,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him into the work bay area.
My car was done, I was happy to see, and wow, was it ever lavender. They’d set up a bunch of lights on tripods to shine on the car from different angles so they could spot imperfections, but to me, it looked amazing.
“Is it alright if post pictures on our website?” Jorge asked while I admired the glossy finish.
“No name, no license plate,” I said.
“Of course not,” Jorge agreed. “If you give me your email address I’ll send you all the photos we took during the process, and you can see for yourself before we put them up.”
“Sounds good,” I said, spotting my helmet sitting on the driver’s seat. I took it out to look at what they’d done, and was very impressed. They’d actually left most of the black carbon exposed, using the lavender vinyl to create a wide racing stripe down the middle with two smaller stripes on either side.
“Check out the back,” Jorge urged. Turning the helmet around, I saw that they had die-cut the Porsche shield into the lavender stripe, letting the negative space of the black carbon twill show through. Just above the Porsche shield were a small scattering of butterflies cut into the negative space, then extending out into the black carbon in lavender. It gave the design a whimsical feel, contrasting with the very masculine logo.
“Very fancy!” I said, running my finger over the design to feel the texture. “Very fancy indeed.”
Grinning like a proud father, Jorge signaled to his guys to take all the lights away, then ushered me back into the office to complete the paperwork. A few minutes later I pulled the Porsche around to where Angela was waiting.
“That looks amazing!” Angela said, her eyes wide. “I can’t wait for the guys to see it on Saturday!”
“I won’t be able to drive it this Saturday,” I said. “The Porsche dealer needs it until Wednesday.”
“That sucks!”
“I really like your vinyl guy,” I told Stein that Saturday morning while we waited for the stragglers to arrive.
“Yeah, he’s good,” Stein agreed, sipping his Americano.
“You really had it wrapped pink?” Geoff asked, surprised I’d gone through with it.
“Not exactly pink,” I said. “But close.”
“What’s close to pink?” Geoff asked, puzzled. “Red?”
“It’s, um, violeta,” Angela said. “Like, purple?”
“You’re kidding me,” Geoff said, aghast. “You actually had the Spyder done up in violet?”
“More like lavender. I tend to think of violet as a little more purply, and maybe darker?” I said with a shrug.
Just then Stephen pulled into the parking lot with Stephanie in the passenger seat. The two joined us after he parked, Stephanie looking a bit shy.
“Hey, Zeke, hey, uh… Stephanie, right? You were at Leah’s party- you kicked everybody’s ass at the pool table!” Jimmy said.
“Yeah, she sure did,” Stephen agreed.
“Hey, Leah, Angela,” Stephanie said. “Stephen said it was cool if I come riding with you guys this morning.”
“Yeah, sure, it’s great to have you along. Stephen isn’t going to go as fast as we did in the Porsche that one day, though.”
“Wait- you got to ride in the 918?” Jimmy asked Stephanie.
“Yeah, you weren’t here that day,” Teddy Bear said. “Leah called Stephanie, and she asked if she could get a ride in Leah’s new car. We’re at the gas station at the bottom of ACH, and she lives in, what, Echo Park, right?”
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“Silver Lake,” Stein corrected.
“Right. So Leah pulls up Waze on her phone, and it says, like, 20 minutes one way to Stephanie’s house. Leah says ‘I’ll be back in twenty’ and hauls ass outta here. Nineteen minutes later they pull in behind Stein’s car like it was just around the block,” Teddy Bear explains.
“So, like, she averaged a hundred twenty or something round trip?” Jimmy asked.
“Because Leah,” Teddy Bear said with a shrug.
“Because Leah,” Stein agreed.
When Angela and I told Emmy that Stephanie had ridden with Stephen, she looked thoughtful. “I wonder if they are together?” she pondered.
“She didn’t look like she was wearing last night’s clothes,” Angela said. “So I don’t think she spent the night at his place.”
“He’d said that he’d bumped into her before,” I said, thinking about it. “Maybe there is something going on.”
“How do you feel about that?” Emmy asked, concerned.
“I think Stephen’s a pretty good guy, so I’m good with it,” I said, realizing as it came out of my mouth that it sounded as if I’d somehow appointed myself Stephanie’s gatekeeper. “Really, it’s not for me to- I mean, it’s their business, not mine.”
Emmy didn’t say anything in response to that, but she did come over and sit on my lap. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and kissed my forehead, holding me close. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to express, but I enjoyed the attention anyway, so I kissed her, too. I had everything I wanted, after all.
Joachim and Manny came by the house the Friday afternoon before the track weekend to load up the gear in a big, white four-door Ford F 250, and load the car into a simple box trailer to take it out to the track. I’d rented one of the trackside garages for the weekend and the two guys were going to get everything set up so all I’d need to do is drive.
The Porsche was a very fast car, but still a road car, so it wasn’t really tunable the way the GT3 race car was. It had electronically controlled driving modes, so really all that could be done is just set it in ‘Race’ mode and let the digital brain do its thing. This meant that all Joachim and Manny really had to do was get the tire warmers on and off and swap wheels when the tires got too thrashed. And of course, make lunch.
Angela and Emmy said they’d come up Sunday afternoon, but other than that I was on my own, which was fine by me. Sitting around in the pits was a terrible way to spend a weekend if you weren’t really into the whole thing, and neither of them liked it all that much.
Besides that, our uphill neighbors Margaret and Livy had invited us all over to meet their new baby and there was no way that Emmy and Angela were going to miss that. They’d been cooing over photos of little Lawrence (definitely not Larry, Livy had said) for days, and were just dying to get their fix of baby smell.
I kinda wanted to meet the little guy, but I’d already committed to the track weekend, so I just asked Emmy and Angela to take lots of pictures.
I followed the guys up to Willow Springs in the X6, since we might need a car with more than two seats, but the truck would probably just stay at the track.
It was well after sunset when we pulled up in front of the garage I’d rented for the weekend. I was secretly pleased, since I wanted the car’s new color to be a surprise in the morning. We unloaded the car, taking the time to lift it and wrap the warmers on the tires, just so we’d have less to do first thing in the morning.
We also unloaded all the rest of the stuff, most of which was the grill and tables and such for lunch. I appreciated that Joachim and Manny were good with the barbecue, so there was no way I would ever complain about the amount of stuff they brought just for lunch for a couple of days. After all, I was the beneficiary of their culinary skills, right?
Everything unloaded and the truck and trailer parked out of the way, I took the guys to the nearby little airport and its strange but good steak restaurant.
“This place is a bit strange, isn’t it?” Manny asked, agreeing with the description I’d given the guys earlier.
They both spent a few moments looking at the decor, which featured cowboy spurs and experimental aircraft photos.
“It is,” I agreed. “But the steaks are good.”
“Best in the high desert,” the waitress agreed as she signaled for us to follow her to a table.
Over our steaks, we got to talking about Manny’s kids and his crazy ex-wife, Joachim’s childhood in Salvador, things like that. I realized that I really didn’t know the two very well, even though I’d thought we were sort of friends. It was nice, getting to know them as people and not just ‘my mechanics’. I’d like to think that it went both ways, too. Being sociable like this was good for them to know me as something other than ‘the rich woman who hires us to take care of her toys’.
The next morning we were at the track nice and early. I wanted to get the car inspected right away so that I wasn’t rushed getting to the drivers’ meeting. And, of course, so most wouldn’t see it until I took to the actual track.
The tech inspector looked the car over, a smile on his face. “I see you’ve got the requisite tow points, extinguisher, and even the five point harness,” he said. “And I really like the helmet, too. OK, you’re good to go,” he said. He checked his list and found my name in the green group. Puzzled, he said, “You do know you’re signed up for the fast group, right?”
“Well, it is a very fast car,” I said, playing innocent.
“Green is for experienced track drivers only,” he said. “It has nothing to do with how fast the car is.”
Dropping my act, I said, “Seriously, I’ve done plenty of track days. The only reason I’m also tagged for the new driver orientation is that it’s my first Porsche Club day, and that’s a requirement.”
“Ah, O.K., that makes sense,” the guy said, then slapped the green sticker and the new driver’s orientation sticker on my windshield for the marshals to see.
At the new driver’s orientation, the instructor went on and on about proper track entry and exit, and passing only on the straights in the red (beginner) group. I sat patiently through it all, sipping the coffee that Joachim had brewed while I was in line for tech inspection.
After the talk was over, the instructors were paired off with the drivers for their first session. In theory, this driving coach would work with the driver for the first hour, before the track went hot for the normal three-session rotation. One coach in particular had been eyeing me during the track rules talk, and he bee-lined over.
“You’re Leah Farmer, right?” he asked.
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said.
“I’m Pete Miranda,” he said, holding his hand out for a shake. “When we saw there was a 918 in the new driver’s school, we drew straws,” he admitted, looking a little sheepish.
I laughed, and said, “I hope it’ll be as fun for you as I expect it will be for me. Um, can you be ready quickly? I want to be first on the track,” I said, starting to walk as we talked.
“I just need to grab my helmet,” he said. “Why the rush? We’re going to be out there for a full hour.”
“I want an empty track for the first few laps,” I said. “It might be the only time that’ll happen all day.”
“Want to stretch the Spyder’s legs?” he asked, knowingly.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “See you out front in five?”
I made sure to drive up and down pit row with my helmet off before picking Pete up. I wanted everyone to see the very freaking lavender supercar, and see that a blonde chick was driving it.
I put my helmet on as Pete opened the door and got in. “I just had to laugh when I saw the color,” he said, a big grin on his face. “And of course, your helmet matches,” he said, shaking his head. Looking closely, he asked, “Um, that helmet’s set up for a HANS device?”
“Yeah, but since this is just a track day I didn’t bother with it today,” I said.
“Wait a minute,” Pete said as we rolled up to the hot pit starting lane, thankfully first in line. “I’m starting to think I’m getting punked.”
“Not you in particular,” I assured him as I made the mode adjustments with the buttons on the steering wheel. “The whole club.”
Pete took a moment to think about that while the marshal waved us to the line. While the marshal gave the ‘hold’ hand signal and looked to make sure the track was clear, I toggled the race start and revved up the motor.
The marshal waved us to go just as Pete was starting to protest, so I stomped the pedal to the floor and we tore out of there like the proverbial bullet from a gun. I’d never accelerated so hard in my life, and the feel of getting smashed back into the seat was exhilarating.
“Cold tires!” Pete shouted in warning as turn one came up very, very quickly.
“Warmers!” I shouted back as I slammed us through at nearly a hundred miles an hour.
“Oh, fuck!” Pete said as we slingshotted through in the classic out-in-out line, taking us tight into two. Hugging the inside through two, I stayed right late for three, then cut left and uphill into three.
“You nailed the line on that,” Pete said, starting to recover.
By the time we got to eight and I kept my foot flat, Pete had realized that I knew the track really quite well.
“Holy fuck, that was fast!” he said as we drifted wide to late apex nine and get back onto the front straight. Unfortunately, I could see the parade of beginners up ahead that would be a rolling roadblock for us. I kept my foot down until it was time to drop in behind the last car in line.
“That might have been the fastest lap I’ve ever been in the passenger seat for,” Pete admitted as we tooled gently around behind the other ten or so cars.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said.
“So what’s with the whole ‘rich princess’ thing?” he asked. “I mean, you clearly know how to drive.”
“I’m freaking tired of the misogyny I get all the time in the club,” I said. “These middle-aged guys look at me and see, well, like you said, a spoiled princess trophy wife or something, with a car her daddy or husband or whatever bought her and she has no idea how to drive properly.”
“So this is a kind ‘rub their noses in it’ sort of thing?” Pete asked, starting to understand.
“Got it in one,” I confirmed.
“Go ahead and pass here over six on the left,” he instructed. “There’s no reason to stay back here.”
I passed a few more cars around the outside on eight, disregarding the rules about only passing on the straight, since my instructor told me to do it. I got by the rest on the front straight, so once again I had the track to myself for a while.
“I think it’s pretty clear that you don’t actually need any coaching,” Pete said when we got back to the front straight. “You can pull in if you want and just wait until the green group goes out, or we can keep doing this for the rest of the hour.”
“What would you prefer?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“Honestly, as much as I’m enjoying riding full blast in this car, if you want to play the princess thing until the last moment you have two options. Pull back into the pits and we can make it look like I’d been driving, thus preserving the image and surprising the guys you want to prank, or we could just pull in behind this group and play follow the leader for the rest of the hour. That way if anybody is watching they’ll assume I was showing off at the start, and after that, you were driving.”
“That wasn’t full blast,” I said.
“Oh, well, O.K, then,” Pete said with a laugh. “If that wasn’t the fastest you’ve ever gone around this track, when was?”
“Last fall, in my GT3 car,” I said, trying to not fall asleep at the pace we were going.
“You have a Porsche GT3? In addition to this 918? You really are a princess!”
“BMW M6 GT3 race car,” I corrected. “And before that, a GT3 GT-R.”
“And that explains the HANS device mounts on your helmet,” Pete said, nodding. “You’re a racer. And you want to humiliate the jackasses that can’t imagine a fast woman driver.”
“It’s petty, I know,” I said. “But if it gets some of these assholes to shut up, I’m all in favor of it.”
“And that’s enough to risk trashing a two million dollar car?”
“It’s just money,” I said with a shrug.
“A lot of it,” Pete retorted.
“Yeah, it’s a lot of money for a car,” I admitted, passing a handful of cars on the front straight. “But it’s a nice car.”
Pete let out a snort. “Yes, it is that.”