Note: based on a true story!
When Rolando Coronado walked through the Andretti Green Racing garage after the Kansas Indy 300 April 29, conversations stopped. Heads turned away. One young tire changer curled into a fetal position and let out a whimper.
“Don’t make eye contact,” a veteran mechanic whispered to a visitor. “That’s the viuda negra, the Black Widow. You got a wife and kids? Then look away, man. Look away. You don’t want any of that bad juju. We don’t even look at him. We use mirrors.”
Coronado, who has spent nearly a decade with AGR/Team Green, is currently a lead mechanic on the Motorola car driven by Danica Patrick after spending the previous three seasons with Bryan Herta. By all accounts, a good guy and an even better mechanic, Coronado cannot keep a partner front-end mechanic on any of the race cars he’s worked on.
In fact, of the last eight mechanics he’s been paired with, all but one have resigned or been fired. The lone survivor still with AGR moved to a different car in 2007, barely escaping the from the career-swallowing black hole that is Coronado. The situation appears to have reached its zenith in 2007. Since the beginning of the current IndyCar Series season, Coronado has blown through two mechanics in the first three race events.
“Last guy made it six days,” said an AGR insider. “He was like dead man walking from day one. Felt bad for the guy.”
A source within AGR quoted the sole survivor of the Black Widow (Latrodectus mactans) a saying, “Man, I’m just glad that I made it off of that car and still have a job. I love AGR. It’s a great place to work. But I feel sorry for the next poor sap who walks into the jaws of that."
Actual black widow venom is extremely potent, (15 times as potent than that of the rattlesnakes; it is also
reported to be much more potent than the venom of cobras and coral snakes). Although death from actual widow bites is relatively rare, stories of AGR's Black Widow's career body count have cooled applications for the job next to him in the garage.
“It’s unusual to have applicants for a job ask about severance packages during the interview,” said an AGR HR specialist, “but when they find out they’ll be working with The Widow the subject seems to come up.”
Although the position is certain to be filled, AGR insiders confide they’ll immediately start a pool to see how long it takes before the Black Widow strikes again.
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