Gar Samu-el

Before the machine wakes

A saw shop in Fernwood Hollow once had two employees named Gar. Gar Samu-el got the longer name on the workboard, including the spare hyphen, because he worked out that it fit between the pegs. The other Gar moved away and sent him a card written in a single very long line to see where he'd fold it. Samu-el puts his full name on everything now where the spacing is his business. The first time he had to account for a fault by himself, he turned a blade by hand and followed the little change in its note down to one tooth. The shop owner had already set out a replacement. Gar got to keep the test piece and learned to show a second person where to put an ear before explaining the story.

Ava Ost, who came to the shop after the town's training centre closed, can find the tooth on his old sample now without help. She asks about the wear along the side where he had polished it out of habit. He'd never thought it might be useful to see why that particular blade was worn on that side.

Quiet corner at DGM

When Gar arrived with his Mazda RX-7, he spent so much time listening for a little scrape that one of the track hands offered to give him a lift home. Gar assumed the noise belonged to an axle. He took every ordinary weight off the corner before getting a helper to roll the wheel slowly on the car the way it would move under load. The sound caught on one part of the turn, then showed itself again when Gar moved his head around to where his helper had been crouching. The wheel he'd been thinking about all afternoon could stay. There was one small bit of contact he hadn't been looking near at all.

At his next session he held out a wheel for Mateo Rusk, who was trying to describe a scrape in his own terms. They took turns turning it. Only one of them could hear a fault from the end of the bench. That turned out to be relevant.

The sounds on the fence

Justin Timberbrakes showed Gar how differently the same end of the course could sound in a recording. One turn gave a quick rattle early, and the other had a drawn-out noise most of the way to the marker. Gar thought about what helps him when he can take a progressive turn in the RX-7 and have just enough time to hear how the wheels settle. He used to wait further on to find out what the same sound meant. If he moved his hands when he first felt it, he could open the exit sooner. He spent the rest of that afternoon asking whether he'd heard the first half of it in the car or remembered it from Justin's recording.

Ava's first ride along

Ava is coming to the fence for both practice passes next time. Gar wants a description of one corner he likes to take in silence. He's asked her to tell him her version before he tells his. He'd also like to leave the pits the first time they call his name. There are two seats marked Gar at midday, both under a roof that makes one very conspicuous noise when it rains. That's Ava's favorite place to ask a question he would otherwise need five minutes to hear. With the rain coming down, he usually has to ask her to say it again.