Cambridge, November 28, 1975 - 8:00 AM
Jack hadn't slept. He'd sat at the desk until dawn, filling pages with calculations and plans. The grief was still there, but he'd channeled it into something that felt like purpose. The rain had stopped hours ago, leaving the streets slick and silent.
Exhaustion burned in his eyes. Writing had cramped his hand. Yet his mind wouldn't stop moving.
The telephone rang just after eight. Still dressed, he was staring at the Brabham letter. For a moment, he was confused—thought it was a mistake. Nobody had this number except the landlord. Then he remembered: the phone line had been installed last week. Only one person would call.
He picked up on the seventh ring.
"Jack?" A woman's voice—older, warm, familiar in a way that made his chest tighten. "Jack, darling, it's Mum."
Mum.
Jack's throat closed. He remembered everything about her: Margaret Hartley, fifty-three, school secretary in Beeston. Kind face, patient voice. The woman who'd raised Jack Hartley from childhood.
This was the woman who had no idea her son was gone.
"Morning, Mum," he managed. His voice sounded rough, but she wouldn't think it strange after a Friday night at the pub.
"I'm not waking you, am I? I know it's early, but your father wanted me to ring before he left for the shop."
He could picture Howard Hartley clearly: mechanic, proprietor of a small repair garage in Beeston. Thick forearms, perpetual oil under his fingernails, that patient way he'd explain how a carburetor worked while Jack watched from a workbench stool.
"No, I'm up," Jack lied.
"We just wanted to say, before Monday, before you start at Brabham, we're so proud of you, love."
"Your father's thrilled you're going to Brabham. He says working for a racing team is a chance he never had—to learn from the best. He's so proud, Jack."
The guilt hit like a physical blow.
Jack's hand tightened on the phone. Howard Hartley had wanted this life. He had dreamed of working in racing, designing engines, and being part of the sport. But family responsibilities, mortgage payments, and practical necessities had kept him in Beeston, fixing Morris Minors and Ford Cortinas for forty years.
And now his son—not his son, but a stranger in his son's body—was about to walk into that very dream.
"Thanks, Mum."
"You sound tired. Are you alright?"
"Just... a lot on my mind. Big day Monday."
"Of course. Well, don't let us keep you. Ring us after your first week? Let us know how it's going?"
"I will."
"We love you, Jack."
The line went dead.
Jack sat there holding the phone, staring at the peeling wallpaper. For the next fifty years, Margaret Hartley would believe she was talking to her son. Howard Hartley would ask about the Brabham job over Sunday dinners, proud of his boy making it in the world he'd never accessed himself. They'd never know the truth.
I'm not just stealing a second chance. I'm stealing someone's entire life. And there's no way to give it back.
The guilt would never leave. He understood that now. Every conversation with Margaret and Howard would carry it. Every achievement would be shadowed by the knowledge that it should have been someone else's.
But guilt didn't change the choice.
He looked down at his hands—young, smooth, unmarked. Forty more years of work ahead, if he used them right.
He pulled the envelope from his jacket pocket: five hundred pounds in crisp notes, the graduation gift. The card inside, in Margaret's careful handwriting: Make us proud. Love, Mum & Dad.
I already wasted one lifetime, he thought. Spent thirty-four years surviving instead of winning. Missed my daughter's childhood. Missed my wife's calls. The safe play, the reliable play—that play kept me employed but never exceptional.
Jack opened his notebook and started writing.
I will honor this life.
Three Days Later - December 1, 1975
Brabham Racing Organisation
The Brabham factory wasn't glamorous. A converted industrial unit on the outskirts of London, it was surrounded by anonymous warehouses and the constant hum of the A3 motorway. Jack arrived at 7:45 AM, fifteen minutes early, wearing the only suit he owned. The suit was slightly too large in the shoulders—borrowed from his father for Cambridge graduation.
The reception area smelled of oil and metal shavings. A woman in her fifties sat behind a battered desk, typing on a manual typewriter, keys clacking rhythmically.
"Jack Hartley," he said. "I'm starting today. Junior Design Engineer."
She barely looked up. "Third door on the left. Charlie Whiting will sort you out."
Jack froze.
Charlie Whiting.
The name sent a jolt through him. The man who would become the FIA Race Director for decades, the iron-fisted ruler of technical regulations, the voice on race control radio—the person who would shape modern Formula 1 through sheer force of will—was right now a twenty-three-year-old mechanic fresh from Hesketh Racing.
And Jack was about to meet him on his very first day.
He walked down a narrow corridor lined with filing cabinets and parts bins, then through a doorway that opened into a cathedral of engineering.
The workshop was vast. Fluorescent lights hung from exposed steel beams thirty feet overhead. Three Formula 1 cars sat on stands in various states of disassembly: the Brabham BT44B, the car that had carried Carlos Reutemann and Carlos Pace through the 1975 season. Mechanics moved between them with practiced efficiency. The air smelled of paint, metal, solvents, and something indefinable that Jack recognized instantly: ambition.
Their voices echoed across the workshop floor.
Bernie Ecclestone stood near the lead car. Short and slight, mid-forties, he already carried himself with a compressed intensity. He wore a crisp white shirt and slacks, looking more like a banker than a team owner, locked in conversation with a taller man in grease-stained overalls. That was Gordon Murray, technical director, South African, the design genius.
"—don't care what Ferrari's doing," Bernie was saying, sharp and clipped. "We need an edge, Gordon. The Cosworth is a known quantity. Everyone's got one. We need something different."
"Different doesn't mean better," Murray replied, his voice tight with frustration. His South African accent made the words precise, almost clipped. "The flat-twelve is a packaging nightmare. It's wide, it's heavy, and it raises the center of gravity."
"Then make it work. That's what I pay you for."
Murray's jaw tightened, but he nodded. Bernie's eyes locked onto Jack, who stood awkwardly near the doorway.
"You're the Cambridge boy."
"Yes, sir."
Bernie walked over, quick strides closing the distance. He sized Jack up in three seconds flat: his eyes moved from face to posture to hands, reading everything.
"Can you weld?"
Jack blinked. "No."
"Can you machine parts?"
"No."
"Then what exactly did they teach you at Cambridge?"
"Mathematics. Engineering theory. Structural analysis."
Bernie's smile was sharp. "Theory. Lovely. You know the difference between a good engineer and a great one?"
Jack hesitated. A test. "Vision?"
"Pragmatism." Bernie's smile was sharp. "Vision is cheap. Every graduate from Cambridge has a vision. Pragmatism—knowing what's possible versus what's wishful thinking—that's what separates good engineers from great ones. You figure that out, you'll do fine here. Charlie!" He turned without waiting for a response.
A young man emerged from underneath one of the BT44Bs, wiping his hands on a rag. Sandy hair, lean build, watchful eyes that took in everything. Charlie Whiting looked up at Jack and nodded once: a gesture of acknowledgment, nothing more.
"Show him where the tools are. Maybe he'll learn something useful."
"And Gordon. My office. We're not done with Alfa Romeo," Bernie added.
Murray sighed and followed Bernie toward a glass-walled office at the far end of the workshop.
Charlie tossed the rag onto a workbench and extended a grease-stained hand. "Charlie Whiting. Welcome to the madhouse, mate."
Jack shook it. "Jack Hartley."
"I know. Bernie said you were starting today. Cambridge boy, yeah?" Charlie's accent was pure working-class London, but his eyes were intelligent and assessing. "Come on. I'll show you where things are. Then we'll get you sorted with Jack North. He runs the engineering group you're assigned to."
Charlie led Jack through the workshop, pointing out key areas as they walked.
"Fabrication bay's over there. Tony runs it; don't piss him off or your parts will take three weeks instead of three days. Parts storage is against that wall; everything's supposed to be labeled, but half of it isn't. Wind tunnels in the back building, though Gordon barely trusts it. Says he can see airflow better in his head than the tunnel can measure it."
They passed a workbench where a young man with dark hair was sketching wing profiles on graph paper, his tongue caught between his teeth in concentration.
"That's Ralph Bellamy," Charlie said quietly. "Came over from Lotus six months ago. Sharp aerodynamicist, but Gordon overrules him on everything. It's frustrating for Ralph, but that's how it works here: Gordon's word is final on design."
Jack filed that information away. Ralph Bellamy: Aerodynamicist. Talented but constrained. Someone to remember.
Climbing a metal staircase, they reached an upper level where a woman in her early thirties sat at a desk. The surface was covered in papers, a mechanical calculator, and what looked like hundreds of handwritten timing sheets.
"Sarah Fielding," Charlie said. "Data analysis. Only person here who actually understands what the numbers mean."
Sarah glanced up, gave Jack a brief professional smile, then returned to her work.
Sarah Fielding. Data analyst. Underestimated. Another detail to remember.
"And this," Charlie said, stopping in front of a cluttered office, "is where you'll spend most of your time."
A man in his forties looked up from a drafting table covered in technical drawings. Thick glasses, thinning hair, the build of someone who'd spent twenty years hunched over engineering calculations.
"Jack North," the man said, standing and extending a hand. "You're Hartley?"
"Yes, sir."
"Don't call me sir. It just reminds me I'll have to babysit Cambridge graduates now." North's handshake was firm, his eyes sharp behind the glasses. "You'll be working in my group: suspension geometry, weight distribution, structural analysis. The paperwork. The grunt work. It's the foundation everything else is built on. Gordon designs the concept. We mop up the mess and make sure it doesn't fall apart at 180 miles per hour."
"Understood."
"Good. Listen up, Hartley. You picked an interesting time to start." North paused, looking Jack over. "We're on a knife-edge. The new engine deal means we have to redesign the chassis from the ground up, and Gordon wants it ready for the wind tunnel yesterday."
North's smile was thin, patronizing. He adjusted his glasses, looking Jack up and down. "Professor Hartley, let's see if your book smarts are actually worth what Bernie's paying you."
He slid a thick folder across the desk. "BT45 suspension calculations. Gordon's geometry, my structural loads, Ralph's downforce estimates. It's a mess ,nothing matches, tolerances are wrong, and we need to start fabrication Monday." North tapped the folder. "Verify the numbers. Find the errors. Fix what you can. If you're as clever as Cambridge says, you'll have it done by Friday."
Jack opened the folder. Pages of hand calculations, sketches, and conflicting specifications. A week's work, maybe more.
North was already turning back to his own drawings, dismissing him.
For a moment, the old, cautious Jack would have panicked—stammered about needing more time or more help. But James had spent thirty-four years in paddocks where being clever wasn't enough. Where the only currency that mattered was proving you could deliver when it counted.
Not again.
Jack picked up the folder, feeling its weight. "I'll have the verification done by Thursday morning."
North glanced up, eyebrows raised. "Thursday? That's optimistic."
"Thursday," Jack repeated. Not a question. A commitment.
Charlie, leaning against the doorframe, whistled low. "Bold."
North studied Jack for a long moment, then a thin, appreciative smile touched his lips. "Go on then, Hotshot." He added, "Your desk is downstairs, second row. Don't bother me unless you find something actually wrong."
Jack descended the metal staircase, folder under his arm. The workshop floor buzzed with activity: mechanics stripping the BT44B, fabricators cutting metal, Gordon Murray arguing with someone about wing angles.
His desk was exactly what he'd expected: battered, cramped, wedged between filing cabinets and a parts rack. He set down the folder and opened it.
The numbers swam before his eyes ; suspension pickup points, spring rates, roll center heights. This was the grunt work he had to do. The mess he was paid to mop up.
He didn't start writing because North had asked, or because Bernie was paying him. He started because thirty-four years of failure had taught him one inescapable truth: the only way to earn your place was to prove you belonged there.
Jack Hartley was done surviving. Now he would carve out his own space in this paddock.
Starting with these numbers. Starting tonight.