Chapter 19: Comeback

Master Wang was of course not the type to make empty promises. Ignoring the fact that I had to race the next weekend, an activity that would infinitely be helped if I could actually move, he thrust me right back into his training regime.

Granted, after several weeks of having gone through his brutal regime, it wasn't so much the exhaustion that got to me, it was the fact that I was far away from home and using my mobile phone inside the monastery was not allowed either. Things were not helped by the fact that we were both racing on the same weekend, so I wouldn't get to see Jenny either, at least not in person.

The time difference between Australia and Germany meant that I would be on the track when Jenny was still sleeping. That meant if the TV in the hotel would allow me to connect the little mobile satellite dish, I could perhaps watch the broadcast of the race.

Oran Park Raceway, which was notable for its figure-of-eight layout, similar to Suzuka in Japan, was located about forty miles from central Sidney, so we were descending into Sidney airport. Unlike last time, we were using a regular flight this time and since Master Wang accompanied me again, we had raised some eyebrows. Two Chinese monks of which one looked distinctively not Chinese is not something people seem to see every day.

The taxi driver brought us to a small hotel in Narellan, a suburb of Sidney. I did of course test if the satellite dish could be connected and to my great joy, it could. Master Wang, who was staying a room just down the corridor, had given me detailed instruction for practice and even though I could easily have 'forgotten' about it, somehow I couldn't bring myself to do so, although I did perhaps not practice with as much intensity as was expected of me.

Tired of being gawked at, I did not wear the monk suit when arriving at the track, but my clean-shaven head and rather big muscles, at least for a racing driver, were still enough to draw more attention than I was comfortable with. Thankfully I had a Chinese monk with me, and Master Wang was not the least bit bothered by the looks he got. If I didn't know better, I would have said he even enjoyed it.

The mechanics greeted me all Maori style, still hyped up from their weekend in the Netherlands. Many of them had never been anywhere outside New Zealand or Australia.

The track we'd be running on was the South track, which lacked the figure-of-eight part. Like the Queensland raceway it was a properly fast track with mainly fast sweeping corners and no hairpins to worry about. It was perfect for my driving style.

Master Wang's training had not only changed me physically. Most changes had happened inside my head. It began with a higher tolerance for pain or rather mundane things like being able to hold off an urge to pee for hours if needed. Then there was the trick that I could mask out pleasure, as witnessed by my poor mother when she had role-played as Maid Madeleine. I doubt Master Wang had planed to make me more resistant to the pleasures of oral sex when starting to teach me how to control my body using my will, but it was a side effect.

But the biggest change was that I felt a massive boost in confidence. Up to now I had always started a weekend hoping to do well. Now I went into it, knowing I'd do well. My body was functioning better than ever and courtesy of my Chinese friend my mind was more clear and calm as it had ever been.

Like many racing series outside Europe, the Australian Formula Ford awarded points for qualifying on pole and for running the fastest laps in the race. With twenty points for winning a race, a point for qualifying on pole and one each for fastest lap in the races, the maximum points haul of a single round was fourty-three, but that was a rather theoretical value. Forty-one was the more realistic one as the fastest lap was more often than not run by someone who had spun and had a few clean laps without traffic while catching up to the field.

The layout of the track was easy to memorize and even though we'd only done two race weekends together, my Maori friends back in the garage really knew their job and didn't need long to dial in the cars setup exactly to my liking. God these wing-less little buggers were a joy to drive.

Unfortunately Brett Francis beat me to the pole position by a laughable twenty thousands of a second. A few months earlier I would have been pissed off about that, but whatever Master Wang had done to mess with my brains, I felt rather relaxed about it. I knew my lap had been free of mistakes, so whatever Mr. Francis had done to eek out this little advantage, I doubted he could do it for an entire race, let alone two of them.

"Young Mark must come, people wait for haka dance," Master Wang interrupted my pre-race meditation.

It had taken me a long time to understand the virtues of just sitting around 'clearing my mind', and in the beginning I had merely endured it, because it gave me a much needed respite from the brutal physical training. But by now it had become an integral part of my preparation and it definitely worked brilliantly in connection with the haka. The half-hour meditation allowed me to push aside all distracting thoughts and the haka would then hype me up for the race.

Something was different however as the crowd did react rather lukewarm when we started our ritual. First I thought with New South Wales being on the east coast and therefore closer to New Zealand, that people had just seen it often enough, but then I saw a surreptitious sign from Winston that I should add some of my training moves, like I had done in Zandvoort.

As soon as I added a few flying kicks and some stereotype 'movie moves' to my routine, the crowd came alive with a vengeance. I couldn't believe they had really waited for me to clown around like that. But then I remembered Jenny's look after I had done the same in Holland. Maybe it looked better than I thought? There must be a reason why the Monks and there occasional exhibition tours were so popular.

Climbing into my car, I was hyped up just enough for the race. All my senses were on high alert and I nailed the start perfectly, beating Mr. Francis to the punch into the first corner. Who would have thought that playing Bruce Lee in a Chinese monastery would even improve my starts?

What Master Wang's training had thankfully not changed was the boyish glee I felt when sliding and drifting a car for which the setup was just right. One of the first things you learn as an aspiring racing driver, is, that once in the lead, you go as fast as necessary, not as fast as possible. That particular tenet was further from my mind than anything at that point. It was such a hilarious fun to drift and slide a car on a proper old-school racing track, I squeezed everything out of it and I was actually disappointed when I saw the checkered flag being waved for the end of race one. The Audience had to wait another eighteen seconds for Mr. Francis.

One who wasn't so impressed was Master Wang. Perhaps Cathy hadn't been so far off with her line about reading minds, except that he seemed to be the one capable of it. He knew I had let my emotions take control of my actions, and he wasn't impressed. His disapproval got me out of my temporary euphoria in a damn hurry. Looking at Winston, I knew that my needless pushing to the limits had also not been good for his blood pressure. Granted, it had given us the fastest lap and thus an additional point, but I had nearly given Winston a coronary.

The crowd had loved my antics, but nonetheless I had decided that you can only be one thing – a good team player or a fan favorite. I preferred to be the favorite for the win, and for that, I needed the team. Since the grid was decided by the result of race one, I was on pole and nailed the start again. This time however I paced myself once I had a gap of a few seconds, maintaining rather than extending my lead. It was certainly not the most fun race and it was even a bit frustrating, knowing that the car was capable of much more than what I asked of it.

But wasn't that exactly what Master Wang was doing every day? Yes, he had taught me to chop through wood with my bare hand. If I really needed to chop wood, I would use an ax though. There was no need for standing splits, yet it was good to know I had the capability. With that little epiphany running through my mind, I drove the race in a professional, certainly less entertaining way and finished in first, six seconds ahead of the next driver.

With me running on half throttle, the fastest lap had gone to some guy who'd finished sixteenth, but an overall points haul of forty-one was no mean feat. I certainly had put my name into the notebooks of some people.

Since our flight back to Zhengzhou would not leave before lunch-time on Monday, I could risk staying up late to watch how Jenny would be doing back in Germany. It should turn out to be an exercise in frustration management.

Our team looked like they had completely lost the plot. They had reverted to the standard setup on my former car, but that didn't help Aki much. But then, his seventh starting position for race one was still better than Jenny, who languished in ninth. To make the debacle complete, Vettel started on pole.

Qualifying for race two went a little better, at least for Jenny, who would start eighth. Vettel was beaten to pole position by a guy called Adrian Sutil, but he was still starting from the front row.

Both races were nothing to write home about, as both turned out to be processions. Vettel won the first race, extending his championship lead and an Austrian guy called Wassermann driving for Laufert racing, the guys who'd caused the incident with Regina back in June, won the second with Vettel finishing right behind him. It could really not get more frustrating. Jenny did some damage limitation by finishing sixth in race two, but all the way back from Australia I could see that her car had been an absolute pig to drive.

Three days later a letter arrived in China and it was an epic rant from Jenny, who was furious with herself for not having found what was wrong with her car. Of course, from the top of a Himalayan mountain I couldn't really offer much help, and just two days later another letter arrived, much less crudely worded, in which she told me they'd found a crack in her chassis and they were currently waiting for a new one.

What I could read between the lines was that she missed me just as much as I missed her. Thankfully none of our remaining races would be held on the same date and I knew I could rely on dad to make sure she'd be with me. Australian Formula Ford had only two more rounds with the last one on the weekend of September 13th and 14th. That would have enabled me to run in the last two of the three remaining Formula BMW rounds, but I was standing by the decision to pull out. I would have only stolen points from Jenny in her fight with Vettel anyway.

On top of that, I felt that Master Wang could still teach me a lot. No matter how much I missed the girls back home, I had the distinct feeling that I was improving myself in more than one way and I also felt I wasn't done yet. Sure Master Wang's training usually left me too tired to become aggressive, but with his meditation and his teaching me ways to channel the emotions if needed, I felt less and less threatened by the abstract danger of suffering another aggressive episode.

The next round of racing was mine – at Mallala Motorsport Park near Adelaide. This time Master Wang stayed in China. I had the feeling it had to do with the fact that the plane that collected me at Zhengzhou had already two passengers on it – both female.

Regina and Jenny showered my face with kisses as soon as I came aboard and the pilot discreetly closed the cockpit door to give us some privacy.

"Where's mom?"

"She had to stay at home," Regina explained. "We're still in the first trimester. That's when the morning sickness happens. I'm doing okay, but Cathy couldn't go through a ten hour flight without puking her guts out."

"So, how's things back in Germanyland," I asked, once we'd taken off. I tried to hide that the news about mom brought on a bad premonition I had had for some time.

"I'm still waiting for my new chassis," Jenny answered. "Man, was I pissed off. I can't believe I lost so many points because of a little crack in the sidepods. Vettel leads by half a win worth of points by now."

"Don't worry, darlin', you've still got a chance. And one thing I can almost feel is that you'll win."

"Some of your mind reading again?" Regin asked. I shook my head.

"Simple logic," I explained. "Look at the results. All year Eifelland have never managed to string two good race weekends together. It's always a good round followed by a mediocre one. If that trend continues, he'll have a rather mediocre one at Spielberg. And with a new chassis, I have no doubt that Jenny's back in the mix. She had no DNF all year, he did. One DNF and Jenny wins, and suddenly she is leading by half a win worth of points."