Fernwood Hollow · Meet the driver

Ghost Runner

At the wheel: Ina Beck

Audi 2017 RS 6 Avant

The quiet half of the tape

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Ina Beck has years of race calls on tape and one gap where she should have heard her own name. She arrived early enough to fix that, then nearly went home before anyone asked.

Before anybody needs an answer

The Audi stood by itself at one end of the garage when Ina opened the side door. She set down a canvas bag and waited for the metal bolt to stop rattling. A man on the other side of the building was trying to remember which part of a thermos came off. Ina could hear a loose piece rolling in the lid. She was confident about the fix and decided to let him find it.

She wanted ten minutes in which to turn each wheel of the 2017 RS 6 Avant by hand. The back left had picked up a small but regular note. At speed the note disappeared inside other sounds, which made it easier to believe it had stopped. On a cold morning she could hear it from under the rear bumper. She had brought a small recorder in case it didn't happen again.

A shelf of whole afternoons

Ina wired the small radio station in Fernwood Hollow with help from a retired installer who insisted you could stuff a clean pair of socks into a rattling cabinet and still call it a repair. She took a sound job there and claimed the middle shelf for tapes. The oldest have handwritten race calls from when she first helped with a portable rig near the closed course. A small mirror behind the mixing stand let her see people waiting outside the spare booth. She kept the Audi behind it for whole afternoons while she watched other people go by.

She had signed up to drive once, then missed the window while she recovered the end of an interview another volunteer had accidentally erased. He had never asked her to stay. Ina was too relieved to be needed somewhere else to tell him she had intended to leave.

“Wait a second. It's quieter after the wheel comes to a stop.”

Ina Beck · While listening beside the Audi.

Room for a pause

During the Lantern Run, a closed and non-scored practice, Ina helped carry a battery work lamp forward while the crews restored a visible path into the pits. Vera from Night Sting was at the far side of that work area when the weather eased. She helped Ina find the source of little repeated clicks under an awning. Rain had dripped into the empty cap of the spare audio jack. The two of them leaned over to see who could flick it clean without soaking a sleeve. They were the only people laughing in earshot.

Vera still asks Ina to listen on the quiet side of private tests. Ina likes to ask in return what the wheel feels like the moment a rubbing sound appears. Her own weak point is a quick left-right change. She tries to join the motions so fluidly that the second one can arrive too late.

One track open

Before the garage filled, Theo from Shadow Strike came to see whether the repeat of the note said anything about where the Audi next asked for a correction. He marked a spot in his notebook. By the time the thermos owner had filled a cup, Ina had recorded the sound, found the little bit of grit and recorded the wheel without it. She will keep the first impression beside the second, including the few seconds she said nothing at the beginning.

Ina has asked to drive a full morning block without also running the microphone for the shed. A volunteer asked her how to work the equipment during the break. She laid it out on a square of oilcloth and pointed to the place an empty slot should stay empty. In the next slot over there is a recorder with a bit of clean tape across its lid. She has written her own name on it.

“If there's a little gap in the recording, leave it in. I was thinking.”

Ina Beck · Talking through a handover at the station.

Mic at the pits

The spare sock

Mack Why the spare sock?

Ina Beck Old trick. A cabinet rattled at the station, so we stuffed a sock behind it. The trouble is, that one's still there.

Mack Clean, I hope.

Meet the voice behind the microphone