Switchback Ridge · Meet the driver

Rally Raptor

At the wheel: Pippa Adu

Ford Escort

A road made of bad books

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Pippa Adu knows which planks in the Hill Shed complain under a tire. Her closest practice partner is her aunt, who has strong feelings about the books Pippa keeps using as shims.

Pippa remembers the big book

It was an atlas, or that's what Pippa always says when she talks about the little practice strip through her aunt's hall. There was a bump where the stone floor met the mat, and the atlas was thick enough to bring the track back level. The green cover had two stamped edges that left parallel ridges in the carpet fuzz. As long as her aunt was cooking she could try the Ford Escort until she got bored. Getting bored took a considerable time.

She kept moving the atlas after she'd found a good level. On a perfectly straight strip she understood where she had to put the car. Over a bump she liked the split second in which she could tell where the road wanted it to go. Then she had to make a separate choice about where she wanted it. The hall was narrow. Some of these choices left dents in the doorstop.

Aunt Esi remembers the little book

The green book was a field guide to mosses, says Esi. Pippa is thinking of the atlas they kept under a loose end of the kitchen table. Esi can still find filaments of mat on a page she likes to use when she checks the wall by the cable station. They lived on the same steep road for most of Pippa's childhood. Any time the winter closure went on longer than expected, Esi took out that field guide and showed her a different corner of the station grounds she could reach without crossing the barrier.

Pippa calls Esi her first practice partner. Esi will accept that term if it includes someone calling from a kitchen to ask for quiet. It also includes the afternoon she brought out a second mat herself to see whether the Escort could take an irregular strip in one run without dragging through the last corner.

“Bring the green book. No, the little green book. Oh, don't ask her.”

Pippa Adu · Looking for a track shim.

The Hill Shed boards

Pippa eventually took a job at the station. She likes standing far enough back from the arriving cabin to see the riders catch a view of the town on the last part of the ascent. She is less good at telling the next operator which cabin needs a check. If she can step out and do a job herself, she will. This habit once turned a ten-minute handover into an hour while the next operator stood in the snow holding her bag.

She has tried sharing work at the Hill Shed. Tomas from Trail Storm walks a route while she drives it and tells her where the car jumps sideways in places she doesn't notice from behind the wheel. When she first met Ivo from Cosmic Crusher, his plank gave her a perfect straight edge to hold against a suspect board. She came to return it and arrived carrying a worse board to try.

The crack that keeps coming back

Pippa is lobbying to borrow a shut section of the practice course for an afternoon of rough surface work. She wants to bring several drivers up and switch who goes first. At the last session she got so interested in a joint that she took three goes before anyone else had turned a wheel. Esi counted while she stood beside a kettle and told her afterward. Pippa thought she had taken two.

The request for the next session has a line for a second organizer. Pippa has been carrying the paper around in her vest, bent to the size of the missing field guide. The guide is likely to be on Esi's hall shelf. The request is more likely to stay where it is until someone asks about the lump in her pocket.

“I know where it feels bad. Come and tell me where it looks bad.”

Pippa Adu · To Tomas at the Hill Shed.

Mic at the pits

The wrong green book

Mack Your aunt lend you that?

Pippa Adu She came to take it back. I told her the book was holding the track up. Now she wants the whole track.

Mack Fair exchange, really.

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