Chapter 6: Tarzan and Jenny

The Monday morning was the foreseeable 'worship Jenny and Mark' event, with the principal making a PA announcement that couldn't have been more enthusiastic if Jenny and I had just scored a one-two at the Italian Grandprix instead of Barrichello and Schumacher. That it was a relatively obscure round of the European Karting Championship didn't seem to matter. We were the stars of the day.

In terms of school the day started off in the worst possible fashion with a dreaded Diktat in German. The concept is as simple as it is sinister, at least if you're an American taking German lessons that are meant for Germans. The teacher slowly reads a text and you have to write it down. Then you turn it in and get it back a couple days later with a grade, depending on how you did in terms of spelling and grammar.

It was one of the moments that reminded me of the fact that I could have had it easier by attending the consular height school, run by the American Embassy in Berlin. But that would not only have made it trickier to get as much track time as I did at the Eurospeedway, it would also make it harder to get a successful career off to a good start. The example of Michael Andretti hung like the sword of Damocles over every American who wanted to cut it in Europe. Mike was one hell of a driver, but had never adapted to life in Europe, which was the main reason for his ill-fated stint in Formula One in 1993. Well, that and driving for McLaren...

I glanced over at Jenny's sheet. She had adopted a writing posture that made it easy for me to peek at her text. I'm pretty sure the teacher knew I was cheating, but she never made a deal of it, having mercy on me, especially as she knew I was really trying hard. I guess it was her way of making it a little easier for me and I tried not to abuse the unspoken of privilege, only peeking at Jenny's sheet when I really got stuck.

At the end of the lesson I felt exhausted and it was only 08:45am, but I also felt confident. I had only needed to cheat three times, getting the rest on my own. Speaking German every day really made a difference and I became more confident every day. What I was most proud of was that I started to lose my accent a bit more. German is a language that has a lot of hard, raspy sounds, which is quite a stark difference to the rather soft sounds of English, but I got better at wheezing, grunting and growling my way through German sentences.

The rest of the school day passed relatively quietly, but things got really hectic when Jenny and I were arriving at the track for our two hours of evening practice. We were nearly run over by an ambulance, which left the track at break-neck speed. Once it had passed us, we practically sprinted towards the track, knowing that except for some people in the administration office and our team personnel there was nobody supposed to be at the track at that time.

Our worries were proven true when we saw debris scattered all over the back-straight of the oval. I could tell it was the sorry remnants of one of our shiny new Formula 3 cars, meant for the team's debut in the 2003 Euroseries. 2002 had been the last season for the German Formula 3. For the next year the French and German authorities had merged into a joint series, which Peter had taken as an incentive to step up. I felt a knot develop in my stomach. Since Jenny and I were supposed to run the Formula-BMW season next year, our two current drivers were slated to graduate to F3, so it could only mean one of them had just had a really bad accident practicing with the new cars.

"Who?" I asked breathlessly when Jenny and I came running into Peter's office.

"Marko," Peter answered, his face white as a sheet.

"How bad is it?"

"Both legs fractured, broken ribs and that's only what they could find immediately," Peter said and started to cry. I whipped out my phone.

"Regina? Mark here. Can you come to the track? There's been an accident ... No, none of us, a team mate ... Sure ... No, I think Peter shouldn't drive a car, he's quite rattled. Thanks, see you in a bit."

"Regina will bring you to the hospital," I told Peter and he gave me a grateful look through tear-filled eyes.

News trickled in the next day. Marko Holzcer, our second man had had a catastrophic engine failure at one of the fastest parts of the track. The engine had blown and locked-up, locking the rear-wheels which had caused the car to spiral out of control and disintegrate upon impact with the wall. The manufacturer Sodemo insisted it was a freak failure. I don't think we had been supposed to hear Peter's response. Let's just say they would have kicked him out for use of foul language had he used that vernacular in a truckers' bar. Half an hour and a phone call to dad later we had a deal with Mugen for some new engines.

The list of Marko's broken bones was impressive, but he would have no permanent damage. Broken bones healed slowly, but they healed. That ruled him out for the upcoming two final race weekends of the Formula-BMW season though. Putting me into one of the 2002 cars was a no-brainer, having collected my first experience in Austria, but putting Jenny in the 2001 car was a bit tricky. She didn't have the necessary license yet. She was slated to take the exam in March, but 'unexpectedly' a guy from the DMSB, the German motor sport authority called and asked us to be at the Motopark Oschersleben on Wednesday. Oschersleben is the second new track in East Germany, built after the fall of the Berlin wall. It looked a bit deus-ex-machina. That whole deal had 'Dad' written all over it, but we weren't about to complain. Jenny was nearly bursting with impatience.

The cars were being provided at the track, so all we needed was our team-colored Benz. Regina and Peter were sitting up front and Jenny and I were strapped in on our 'bed on wheels' in the back. It was the first time Peter had seen that arrangement and he just shook his head seeing me and Jenny lie down, looking at each other lovingly, despite the fact that it was early morning. We did actually sleep a bit, but the drive to Oschersleben was only three hours, so we soon had to crawl out of our love nest again.

Jenny was on fire. She was sent out in various cars. An old Formula-Opel racer, and a Cup Lupo, which she already knew from one of our early practices, were first up. What really made her day occurred when she got to drive a 1992 DTM Mercedes 190E. She could barely look over the dashboard of the thing. It was really fitting, though. It was the car that Ellen Lohr had driven to victory in Hockenheim ten years before – the only ever win by a woman in DTM. I would have bet they had selected that particular car deliberately.

Fear of exams seemed to be something that was utterly alien to Jenny. She mastered all tasks like a pro. There she was – a fourteen year old girl in a 250 horse power DTM racing car passing the wet-track braking test with meters to spare. Her lap times were competitive and after two hours the DMSB guy just signed the papers. My girl had just passed her license test.

I do not know what Regina and Peter had done to amuse themselves, but considering that they arrived at the car just mere minutes after Jenny and I had finished fucking the living daylights out of each other, they must have known why the car had been rocking the way it did. And if not, the unmistakable smell of sex was hard to miss. Both of them just grinned at us.

The next day started relatively quietly, although our principal couldn't quite resist the temptation to tell the whole school that Jenny and I had been missing the day before because Miss Marx had become a full-fledged, internationally licensed racer. Thankfully most of our class mates knew that we just wanted to be left alone and the odd congratulatory pat on the shoulder was the only hero-worship we had to cope with.

The afternoon however was hectic. We left school after lunch, with the approval of our favorite principal. Jenny only had that afternoon to get in a last training with the 2001 Formula-BMW car and I had never driven the 2002 car before.

The moment I drove out of the garage I knew I was in a completely different beast. I nearly froze in awe of myself that I had beaten some of those in Austria. On paper the differences were minor, but on track the 2002 car was so much better. It had over a dozen more horses under the hood and the front end grip was phenomenal. I had gotten used to the skittish handling of the 2001 car, but this one felt like you could just point it at the corner and it went into it at any speed you chose.

We both went through two sets of tires, completing two race distances each. Considering that Jenny had only had limited training in the car, her best lap time, that was only two tenths off my best in the 2001 model, was boding well for the weekend. We left the track when it started to get dark and stopped half-way on the way home to make love in a forest clearing. Happy, sated and with grass stains on our butts we finally arrived home where a laughing Regina only needed a single look at us to know what we'd been up to.

Jenny and I just grinned at each other knowingly. We left for the Netherlands somewhere around midnight. We had commandeered the 'bed on wheels' again and – surprise – Peter wasn't traveling in the team's van but with us. Granted, from a practical point of view it was better to have a second driver, so Regina wouldn't have to go the whole distance on her own, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to work out that practical considerations had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The ride to Zandvoort was about the same distance as the drive to Spielberg in Austria – just short of five hundred miles. This time however, most of it would be spent on the German Autobahn and Jenny and I were not only having an ordinary 'bed on wheels', we had the fastest bed on wheels. Holding each others hands we slept through most of the eight hour drive, waking up right at breakfast time as we pulled into the car park in front of the hotel.

A joint shower, a quick and intense fuck, and a nice breakfast later, Jenny and I were ready to take on the opposition. Seeing us glowing in the aftermath of a bout of love-making, Peter quipped we should at least not make it part of our podium celebration. He seemed to be convinced we'd end up there one day.

Like the race in Spielberg and the one next weekend at Hockenheim we ran as a support series to DTM. It was too bad we had had to leave Austria right after the race. Apparently the DTM race had been an absolute shambles with people kicking each other off the track as if nobody had told them that the transparent bit of the helmet goes to the front.

When free practice started, I spent the first half hour trying to learn the track. Unlike Hockenheim or Spielberg it wasn't part of any computer games I could get my hands on. Grand Prix Legends had it, but only the old layout that was no longer in use. Something I noticed quite quickly, was that the lap time depended on two corners only – Tarzanbocht, the 180 degree right-hander after the start-finish-straight and Arie-Luyendijk-Bocht at the end of the lap, a long sweeping high-speed corner where you really had to have big balls to keep the foot on the loud pedal.

Jenny, in absence of any balls, seemed to have a case of overcompensating going on. I saw her plow through the gravel at Luyendijk after she'd stubbornly tried to take it flat out. I reported in to Peter over team-radio, asking him to tell her that the 2001 car lacked the front-end grip to try that. Heck, even in the 2002 car I nearly shat bricks when trying it.

By the end of the practice I ended up a surprising 7th, my team mate in the other car 9th, but it was Jenny who raised some eyebrows, finishing 12th on her debut.

Lunch was an animated affair with Jenny, Peter and I exchanging our wisdom of what we'd learned during the practice. Regina looked completely bedazzled as if we were speaking Swahili. It wasn't the most professional thing to do, but after lunch I dragged Jenny towards our car and we boinked each other silly right in the middle of the paddock car park. Thankfully dad had thought about having curtains installed for all but the windscreen in the Merc.

Properly sated and probably grinning like idiots, Jenny and I nailed the first practice. She plowed the gravel trap again at Luyendijk and I jumped over the kerbs at the Audi-S once, but we both got in a good lap with Jenny qualifying 13th, Harald putting it on tenth, and I had planted the thing on 6th position, the best ever qualifying position for the team. I was not sure though if I would ever survive a second drift like the one I had in Khumobocht. It had been one of those moments where you would claim 'I meant to do that' while rectally giving birth to a very large brick.