Nissan Sentra SE-R Spec V

The deafening wail erupts from behind the Nissan trailer, slides through its Doppler shift for a fraction of a second and disappears behind the Acura trailer into the cacophonous din of background noise. During the relative calm between passing cars, I'm feebly attempting to shout out a conversation.

"THI-"A Porsche, two Vipers, and a Cadillac, each distinct in its auditory assault, cut off my attempt at chit-chat."THIS IS REALLY..."Viper, BMW."ah.."Porsche, Porsche, Viper, Corvette, Cadillac, Porsche. "GOOD CHICKEN!"

I feel like an ass, wasting that much time and vocal energy on such a trite observation. Conversation is as hopeless in the pits at Sebring as in a nightclub, and the dull, patronizing grin I get in response is the same one you'd get after three or four attempts, to yell "I WANT TO DO A SWAN DIVE INTO YOUR PANTS," into the ear of the hottest girl in the club.

"Of course, you want into my pants," the look says, "the chicken is always this good."

That the Realtime Racing crew doesn't talk much could be a result of the noise. The 12 Hours of Sebring is preceeded by a day and a half of opening races, so the track is constantly swarming with World Challenge GT cars, World Challenge Touring cars, Star Mazdas, ALMS prototypes, Barber-Dodge cars, or vintage racers each going through a week-long ritual of testing and qualifying. The paddock is completely enveloped in racetrack, with a long, loud straight on both sides, and the sonic bombardment is relentless. It could also be because they don't need to talk.

At any given time, there are five crew members ready to take on any task, and all of them are overqualified. The Realtime Racing crew is the real deal. They live and breathe this car. Between races or in the off season, they're not back home being beancounters or bartenders, they're working on this car. Designing, fabricating, testing, dialing it in, tuning, learning, searching for any crack in the rulebook that might give them an advantage. They spend so much time with this car that nobody needs to tell anybody what to do. There are no lists, few instructions, and most communication is less than a word.

This makes it difficult to just slide in and start being useful. It also doesn't help that nobody seems to have expected me to try. They were told a journalist would be here, so they probably expected some hairy guy with a pen, not an over-eager goofball rummaging around in their damn toolboxes. Fact is, I'm much better at working on racecars than I am at being a journalist. It only takes three days before I'm able to do something marginally useful, but it takes four before I remember to bring a pen to the track.