Chapter 10: Testing The Waters

The official DTM test was scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. I would spend the day mostly alone as Jenny had decided to help mom out in the hospitality area. Our new truck and more precisely what was produced inside it, had proven very popular. Mom had of course learned many German dishes from Regina in the weeks she'd been in Germany, but she also mixed in some genuine American cuisine.

The same way I had arrived several months ago with many preconceptions about Germans, the Germans had had some of their own, mainly thinking that all Americans survived on a diet of two-pound burgers and buckets of cola. After tasting some of mom's cooking, most of them had chucked that preconception out of the window.

PM surprised me when I learned that his team was taking part in the DTM test, but would not be officially entering the series before the 2005 season.

"That's two years in the future," I stated the obvious and he just snickered.

"This isn't Formula 3, son," he told me. "I'm not spending a few million bucks on a season and then learn the trade during the races. I need to give the mechanics time to learn a completely different type of car and in DTM we don't get a free engineer from the manufacturer to prepare the engine. We have to do it all by ourselves. With that sort of work still needing to be done, two years are actually quite a short time."

"And then you waste a whole day on letting me test it?"

PM fixed me with a strange glance and indicated that I should sit down. Jenny came over bringing us two freshly brewed coffees and planted a kiss on me. I heard some French "Oh la la" or something and I was reminded where I was. The comment had come from none other than Jean Alesi, former F1 driver for Ferrari and now driving for AMG Mercedes in DTM. Being a huge Ferrari fan, Jenny nearly fell over on her hurried way back to the kitchen area when she realized who had watched us canoodling. PM was just grinning, but the he got serious as he stirred his coffee.

"When I offered you this test if you beat my two drivers in the final race, I was convinced it would never happen," he admitted. "I knew you had talent, but you wasted quite a bit of it goofing around on the track. But once you got your stuff together, you beat us fair and square, despite the fact that our team was much bigger than yours. We're still at least twice as big as your team."

"Size isn't everything," I teased him and he gave me a grin.

"No it isn't," PM agreed. "But normally a team as small as yours was last year, isn't supposed to score a podium or bring a year-old car home in the points. Those results in Hockenheim were down to you and your pretty girl. Your boss would never have gotten the exemption if he couldn't prove that the two of you have what it takes to be competitive."

"What exemption?" I asked. Peter had never said anything about an exemption.

"Neither of you was supposed to run any races last year, and the reason is that you were both too young. The minimum entry age in Formula BMW is fifteen. But when Peter brought your testing lap charts, the powers that be had very few arguments for denying you a license."

"Wow."

"Wow, indeed," PM parroted. "The two of you have a lot of natural talent. But therein lies the danger. I bet there are one or two Formula 1 team bosses already keeping an eye on you, if nothing else because you come from a wealthy background and Jenny as a competitive girl would be PR gold. Two fourteen year olds scoring points in a car race is the sort of news that gets around fast. Trust me, if you're still in the sport by then, the moment you turn eighteen, you'll get offers from Minardi, Jordan or perhaps even Sauber. You'll only have to cough up a million or twelve for the seat."

"Not gonna happen," I said, looking at PM over the rim of my cup. "First of all, the money is my father's and not mine. We have a clear deal. He's not going to open any doors for me. I'll have to do that myself. Once I'm in on merit, he's quite happy to spend though."

PM nodded with a grin as we looked around the top class hospitality area we were sitting in. It was material proof for dad's generosity.

"And besides," I continued. "I'd be a pretty lousy racer if my ambition was to race for Minardi. Mind you, them guys are quite lovable folks, everybody loves an underdog story, but I don't want to make my way through the ranks to fight for sixteenth places."

"That sounds all very brave and PR friendly," he answered with a serious look. "But the fact is you will fight for sixteenth places a lot in the next few years, for instance tomorrow. Our car is one year old, so you don't need to pay much attention to the top ten to begin with. And you're up against the likes of Schneider, Alesi, Aiello and Reuter, people who've been winning races and championships when you were still making a mess in your pampers."

I didn't answer, looking down at my coffee, chastised into silence.

"I got a lot of flak for the very idea of putting a fifteen year old kid in a DTM car," PM admitted. "But since Hockenheim I'm convinced you can do it if you put your mind completely at the job at hand. By the time my team enters DTM in 2005, your girl and you will either be out of the sport or in F3, which mainly runs as a support series for DTM. Do the job right tomorrow and you'll be the youngest DTM driver in 2005, in my team. Do it wrong and you'll prove all those people right who mocked me for putting you in the car in the first place."

"No pressure then," I groaned.

"Get used to it kiddo. It's nothing compared to going into the final weekend of the season with only a slim lead in the championship. It's all fun and games if you have no expectations to meet, like last year. But some people have written down the names of Jenny and you by now, and they will have a much closer look at you this year."

"Who's running the car today?" I asked, switching the topic to the job at hand. If he wanted me to put my mind on it, this was as good a time as any to start doing that.

"Uwe Alzen," PM answered. "He's not running in DTM this year, but I wanted someone with prior experience to sort out the car."

"I'd like to listen in on team radio and be included in the briefings," I said.

"Now we're talking," PM said with a grin as we returned the cups to the kitchen area. Mom seemed to have a telepathic episode again as her worried look left no doubt that she knew I had a lot on my mind.

"What's wrong?" Jenny asked when we were lying in bed in the hotel room later that night. It wasn't very often that I didn't react at all when she pressed her naked body into mine.

"This has all been just fun for me so far," I admitted. "But did you know that I could seriously embarrass PM if I fuck up tomorrow?"

"Why would you fuck up?" she asked in a disbelieving voice, as if I had just told her I might be subject to spontaneous combustion.

"I collected some info about that Uwe Alzen fella, who drove today. That guy has seen everything when it comes to racing and he called the car 'a handful' on more than one occasion today."

"Maybe he's just not used to it."

"It's his own car from last year," I replied dryly, which stunned Jenny into silence.

There was no love-making that night, and neither was there any in the morning after a night of fitful sleep.

Pulling the balaclava over my head had never been a conscious process, it was instinctive, like breathing, but this morning I was fumbling. Bless her, Jenny knew she was needed here more than in mom's kitchen for a while and she gently helped me with a task I had never needed help with before.

A hand landed on my shoulder and I yelped in surprise. I looked around and saw it belonged to the man whom I had mistaken for a mechanic two days before - record champion Bernd Schneider.

"Peter Mücke isn't an idiot," he told me in his firm but somehow soothing voice. "If he puts you in his car at that age, he has a very good reason for it. My team is doing aero runs. That means I'll be going around at sixty percent. Just follow me and learn the track."

"Thanks," I sighed, not sounding very sure of myself, but he just smiled and gave me a pat on the back before leaving.

Oh my god, this thing was a brute. The acceleration was ridiculous in comparison to a Formula BMW car, even faster that an F3, despite weighing more than Maryland. And you could feel the weight. Where I would normally chuck the car into a corner, the DTM car felt like the reaction came with a half-second lag.

I followed Bernd around for about twelve laps until I was positive I had memorized the track. I gave him a flash with the headlights and a thumbs up from behind and turned off the track into the pits. I actually stopped short of my pit box, not expecting that despite the car's weight, its brakes stopped it much more abrupt than our little Formula cars. The mechanics took it in good spirit and pushed me the two missing meters forward.

"Good job so far, Mark," came PM's soothing voice over the radio. "Try working up to speed, but stay careful. Once that thing spins you're not going to catch it."

I spent the rest of the morning working on my speed. I definitely loved those DTM cars. The raw feeling of speed was amazing, and the growl of that massive V8 engine in front of me was a veritable symphony of raw power. I was sure a seasoned Formula One driver like Jean Alesi, who had driven Ferrari F1 cars in the days when they still had proper V12 engines, probably found them a bit pedestrian, but for someone who'd never driven anything faster than a Formula 3 car, they felt massive.

Although PM had told me not to bother, I couldn't help but look at the standings on the big screen. Whenever I caught a glimpse of my name on the screen, I was dead last, but the gap to the car ahead of me in the list got progressively smaller until it dipped below six tenths of a second just before the track was red flagged for the one hour lunch break.

With so many people coming in for their meal it was very hard work for mom and Jenny in the catering truck and some of the driver wives who had accompanied their DTM driving husbands spontaneously took on waitress duties. There is something to be said for having your lunch brought to you by Jean Alesi's drop-dead gorgeous wife Kumiko.

Of course I was served by my princess Jenny. I could see in her eyes that she wanted nothing more than sit down with me and get a lap-by-lap account of my time in the DTM beast, but she had no time as other's needed to be fed too and Jenny was not known to shirk a commitment she made.

I progressively found my rhythm during the afternoon. The lines became better and I started to feel comfortable to push the car harder as the mechanics fiddled with the aerodynamic setup. With all of PM's mechanics being new to working with a DTM car, they needed to get a feel for the thing as much as I did.

I got the impression that this was part of PM's decision to honor his promise of giving me this test. The car was as new for the mechanics as it was for me, and some of Uwe Alzen's feedback the day before had been more confusing than helpful. I delivered my feedback from a complete novices point of view, making it easier for the mechanics, who were mainly newbies too.

Of course Peter Mücke had not put me at risk and two seasoned mechanics on loan from other teams oversaw the two testing days of PM's team. They did however keep from intervening unless the young mechanics were about to do a mistake. Some of them weren't much older than eighteen.

Around two hours into the afternoon the car felt completely transformed. We had softened the front and lowered the rear wing a click or two. Suddenly the nasty understeer and slight porpoising under hard braking was gone. I had suddenly a lot more confidence in the car and I went for it.

In the corners the rear end of the car tried to step out ever so gently, but this being how I liked my cars best, and with the power steering in the year-old Mercedes car, it was actually easier to wrestle it back into line than with the Formula-BMW cars which had no power steering. The excited whoops and cheers over the team radio told me we were no longer dead last.

When I came round the next time, I could see the pit board saying P12. Wow.

When I came back into the pits, I saw Bernd Schneider standing in our garage in full gear.

PM explained to me that Bernd had been keeping an eye on me and seeing that I seemingly found more than a second within a lap, he had asked to drive the car for a few laps. I let the mechanics unstrap me from the seat and it was exchanged for Bernd's own customized seat.

It wasn't long before my jaw hit the deck behind the pit wall. After familiarizing himself with the car, Bernd's name suddenly came onto the timing screens a second time. He still held the best time in his 2003 car, but now he appeared in P5 using our old one, just seven tenths behind his own best lap and a full second faster than I had gone on my best effort.

When he had come back out of the car he walked over to me, shaking his head.

"You know, a fifteen year old is not supposed to be able to control a car with such an aggressive setup. I nearly spun that thing."

"Well, I was too slow to actually have a crash," I mocked myself. "You went over a second faster than I in just five laps."