Racing to Impress (Madison Beer/You)

Roar Before the 24

December Marched on and Christmas Day was magical. Lucky for us the forecasted Snow had fallen and I spend the whole day with Madison, Tracie and Ryder making memories that'll last a lifetime.

That first look I made over to Madison, The snow flakes resting on her wavy, newly-dyed black hair, the ring I'd bought her for Christmas wrapped around her finger and the look we both shared turned cogs in my brain that haven't been turned in a while. I was lucky to have her by my side. When I was down her gaze alone could fix me.

New Years wasn't much different. I took time to go collect my watch before we welcomed the new year together at the back of the garden, lips sealed under the bangs of the fireworks overhead, lighting up her hypnotising eyes with every flash. Even now, a few days into the new year, the words that formulated her new year's promise hadn't left my mind. She promised she'll be there for me, Support me and most importantly that she'll repeat those same words every year till I, in her words, "buck up my ideas" and drop the knee to seal what we have forever.

And that was why I fell in love with this girl. As little as a year ago I had nothing to lose getting into the cockpit every race but now I do. Every time I open my phone before a session my background greets me, the picture of us together staring back at me speaks volumes. It reminds me to drive safe because I do have someone waiting for me at home, someone who loves me for me and not just because I'm some racing driver which was evidently what my ex's view was.

But now, it was a few days later. The news of my manufacturer swap had been released along with the announcement I was most excited for, My IMSA SportsCar Championship drive with Heart of Racing. I was finally racing here in North America with my beloved Aston Martin. And well, I was trackside with it finally in Daytona for the Roar Before The 24, a weekend of mandatory testing the weekend prior to the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona so the Balance of Performance can be worked out.

I arrived into the track with Ross Gunn, one of the 4 drivers I'll be sharing the car with over the course of the Michelin Endurance Rounds this season. Both of us being British we jelled quite well and we kind of had to as we'd be sharing a motorhome together. Madison had stayed in Long Island and was going to watch the 24hr from home so it was purely a boys weekend of working and getting to know each other.

We unloaded all our gear from the car and hopped on the back of the teams golf cart to speed up our journey towards the Paddock.

"So have you met Ian yet?" Ross asked. He was referring to Ian James, the team boss and actually a driver himself, he'd be the 3rd driver in our car, the 4th was the Spanish Alex Riberas. Alex participated in basically the same path as me, Karts, dabbled in single Seaters, Porsche Junior then onto GTs so the chances of us getting along was quite high.

"Nah, been on and off over the phone but my sister which does all my managerial work has been taking lead in most of the back and forth chat"

"It's alright for some" He smiled. "Well he's British too so we'll get along like peas in a pod, Alex is just...there really" He joked

"And mechanics?"

"Oh they're all top notch mate, honestly some of the best I've worked with"

"Good, I'd like that for my first season in a GT3... still feels surreal to be here"

Despite it being the Roar there was still a heck of a lot of fans about the paddock. Luckily this wasn't no F1 so we could walk around paddock peacefully, the Endurance fans respected us as drivers and knew when it was appropriate to approach us so considering we had race suits, helmets and other gear in our hands they held back on approaching us. We headed into the Garage and met up with the mechanics who were flat out prepping the car for test runs later in the day. They seemed like a great bunch and so did Ian, who was sat amongst them watching over.