Darlington Strip – Term used in NASCAR when a driver gets into the wall at Darlington.
“Don’t take it personal, Jameson.”
I fucking hated those words. Despised them even. Anyone who said that to me at the track, they better be ready for my temper, and maybe a fist or two.
When I thought about my kids growing up, I thought about every meal I’d missed with them. I thought about every race of theirs I’d failed to attend. I thought about missing Arie’s birth or Casten’s first birthday. I thought about how many dance recitals I’d missed. I thought about Axel’s first Dirt Nationals and the countless races on Sundays because I was racing. I thought about how many times I’d missed Sway’s birthday since it was the same weekend as the Richmond race. Then there were the anniversaries that were interrupted by the award ceremonies.
All these things ran through my mind whenever someone spoke those words to me. So to say this wasn’t personal to me was bullshit. This was personal. I put everything I had into racing, including my time away from my wife and kids.
Throughout the years I’d raced in the Cup series, I’d never had a problem with Paul Leighty—until the August Watkins Glen race. The heat wasn’t the only obstacle that day. Patience was.
Back when I was learning to race, I had to draw a line. You wanted to go out there and give it everything you had, but there were times when you had to think, “How much will this set us back if I wreck? How much will a blown engine cost me?”
After that, you looked at everything differently. In turn, your driving style changed and patience played a key role. That patience, for me, was there now. Drivers like Paul, not so much.
Besides Colin Shuman and me, Paul was one of the most aggressive drivers in NASCAR. He wouldn’t hesitate to trade paint with you each Sunday. Like I said, though, we’d never really had any run-ins.
Paul, unlike most, never faded. His three championships throughout his Cup career proved that. He was just as fast on lap two hundred as he was on the first lap. Being a soft spoken reticent, he never got into it much, until Watkins Glen.
You know, everyone said you couldn’t go two-wide through the fast uphill esses at Watkins Glen. I didn’t believe them. At first. Well, as it turned out, they were right.
Paul and I, both hungry racers, were fighting for position through there. I wasn’t about to lift and neither was he. I somehow clipped the inside curb, causing my back end to hit his left front. Before we knew it we were off the track and picking out a nice section of concrete to mark up.
I respected Paul. After all, we started the same season, and I also respected how he raced me these past thirteen years. So when we got back on the track after that, he pushed me up in to Tate, causing him to spin off in the grass and lose ten positions on the restart. Not cool. Respect was out the fucking window after that.
“Did you tell his spotter I didn’t mean to hit him back there?” I asked Aiden, hoping Tate knew I would never do that on purpose and he’d tell him for me. We frequently used our spotters to communicate with other drivers.
“Yeah... apparently he didn’t get the message.”
That was evident by the hand gestures I’d gotten.
“How many laps is this thing anyway? I feel like I’ve been out here forever?” We crossed under the bridge heading back into turn one, Paul on my inside. At that point I wanted out of the fucking car right then.
“There’s room on the outside if you need it,” Aiden added when we approached the outer loop.
Kyle chuckled. “Two thirty six.”
“Oh, geez. Did they increase it?”
They had to of. It definitely felt longer this year.
“No.”
“Well it feels longer.”
Another thirty laps and bumping and banging with Paul, my air went out in my helmet. While temperatures rose, so did my car’s internal temperature. It was well over one hundred and thirty degrees in my car at that moment. All things considered, I wasn’t in the best mood.
“I hate to say this, but my air just went out,” I grumbled. “It’s like a fucking oven in here.”
“Are you serious?”
“Do you honestly think I’d joke about that?” I laughed despite my mood. “There’s no fucking way I can finish the race like this.”
We made a pit stop after that, and they gave me a hose that ventilated air coming in from outside the car. “What do I do with this?” I asked, looking at the hose during the last pace lap.
“Hook it up to your helmet. We couldn’t get it in there with the net and still get you out in time.”
After some negotiating and yelling at my helmet and lack of space in the car, it worked, but did nothing for my mood.
Paul and I were running second and third with just a few laps to go when he, once again, got on my bumper on a restart. After fishtailing briefly, I got it under control and managed to finish second to Bobby with Paul behind me in third.
Wanting to show Paul just how pleased I was, I nudged him on pit road after the race. In my mind, I got my point across. Done deal.
Well, NASCAR had its own theory on that one. They didn’t want other drivers getting into the habit of running into each other on pit road. It was dangerous. We could accidentally hit either a crewmember or an official doing that sort of thing. I knew that, and I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. Honestly, I was going maybe fifteen miles per hour. It wasn’t like I hit him going full throttle and body slammed him. I had more respect than that. I wasn’t Darrin Torres. I was just simply expressing a little concern for his lack thereof on the track.
Like I said, NASCAR didn’t see it like that and sent both of us to the hauler to hash it out.
Paul and I left the hauler without speaking, and it took weeks to talk about what happened in Watkins Glen. He tried to talk to me when Casten and I were leaving the media center after the Bristol race, but I wasn’t having it.
“Listen, Jameson…” that was not the way to start a conversation with me. “I just don’t see why you’re upset. You race everyone that way. You can’t expect to run me off the track without me getting upset.”
“I don’t race you that way, that’s the point,” my eyes met his briefly. “I didn’t hit you on purpose.” I kept walking. Casten followed, paying close attention to what Paul was saying. Casten might’ve been the happiest kid on the face of the planet, but if you messed with his family, he threw down.
“Jameson, don’t take it so personal, it’s just racing. And if I remember correctly, you got the last hit on me,” he said condescendingly.
“I’m leaving.” I was thoroughly annoyed at this point and walked inside the hauler.
“That’s right, walk away,” he glared, holding my eyes for a moment before stepping back away from me.
“Fuck you, Paul,” I added before slamming the door shut.
Most guys, I thought Paul was one of them, knew what to expect out on the track. We usually never meant anything by the bumping and banging each week, and the drivers who did usually didn’t have many friends out there. Sure, we never forgot, but we didn’t go looking for trouble each week, which was why I couldn’t understand why Paul kept it up throughout the race. He knew I never intended to hit him in Watkins Glen, but he retaliated anyway.
As I headed back to my motor coach, Nadia caught me again. Nadia had caused just about every wreck this season and wasn’t exactly on any drivers’ good side. I’d been tangled with her a handful of times and usually got it turned around before the race ended—aside from Michigan when she took us both out just five laps into the race. Did I confront her?
No. I kept my distance.
“Not right now,” I told her when she asked if we could have a drink.
I knew where that was heading and I wasn’t in the mood for her shit again. In a season where she was barely hanging on outside the top twenty in points, she felt the need to get attention from the drivers, confirming Spencer’s theories about her sleeping her way to the top.
“You know, Jameson,” I actually acknowledged her and looked up. “Sometimes it’s nice to have a friend. That’s all I was wanting. Everyone hates me.”
I couldn’t tell whether she was serious or not, but given my shitty attitude for the night, I replied as I always would.
“Your temper is the reason you have every other driver on this series hating you.”
“Something you know all about,” it was meant to be sarcastic, and I knew that.
“I do,” I told her with the same amount of sarcasm. “You need to relax out there before you kill someone.”
“Also like you?”
I lost it.
“All right.” I turned to her, stepping closer, and had her backed against the side of her motor coach. “I’ve tried to be nice to you, but you don’t seem to get it. No one in this series will ever take you seriously, and no one will take it easy on you. If you wreck someone, you better be ready to defend that action, which is something I know very well.”
I walked away then. I could have said more, but I thought I got my point across.
When he came in and slammed the door behind him, I had a feeling something happened, but with Jameson, it was best to give him room. If you pushed, he blew. Just like the coals in a fire when the wind blew, they ignited. The more anyone tried to control Jameson, the more he defied them.
I knew this had to do with Paul as it had been all over ESPN and SPEED the last few weeks.
For about an hour, I left him alone until he tossed his phone on the table and stormed back into the bedroom of the motor coach.
“Fucking bullshit news reporters,” he grumbled as he pushed past me, his knuckles meeting the closet door. “Goddamn it!”
Casten smiled. “He’s had a bad day.”
Nodding, I followed Jameson, but before I did, I looked back at Casten and Axel playing video games. “I’d go find something to do outside of the motor coach if I were you.”
They knew Jameson just as well as I did. They knew he needed space.
Both of them were outside before I got the bedroom door open.
Jameson was lying on the bed with a pillow over his head.
“Don’t bother me,” his voice was muffled from the pillow.
“Don’t bother you, huh?” straddling his legs, my hands reached out to his.
“Yes, don’t bother me,” his tone was clipped and slightly edged the way he spoke with reporters. Not me.
And despite his shitty mood, his fingers wrapped around mine.
“I think I could improve your mood.”
He let go of one of my hands to rip the pillow from his face. “What did you have in mind?”
“Oh, you know... it’s been a while since I did any micro polishing,” my finger traced the line of his ready camshaft through his jeans. For being damn near forty now, Dirty Heathen and Mama Wizard had no problems with dyno testing.
“I think that might improve my mood,” his hands moved from mine to behind his head. “Let’s see what you got.”
Lowering myself down his body, his eyes lit up when I got his jeans undone. They rolled back when I went to work, and they squeezed tight, his legs stiffened, and he squirmed a little when he met his rev limit.
When I finished, I was a tad breathless and crawling up him. “How’s the mood now?”
Jameson chuckled, slightly breathless as well. I felt pretty good about my efforts there.
“Much better, honey,” his arms reached out to pull me close to him, holding me tightly against his chest. He was quiet for a while before he whispered into my hair. “Every year ...” His head shook. “It never gets easier. It’s the same shit. Same fucking story they always wanna print.”
“Do you ever think about walking away?” Deep down, I knew he never did, but I decided to test the water. Stick a toe in, so to speak.
“No,” his response was immediate. “I can’t imagine not racing.”
And he couldn’t. When I thought about Jameson, I immediately thought of racing. The two went hand-in-hand.
The season went on much the way it had in the past, Jameson and Paul never getting any better at communicating. But every week we just chalked it up to two hungry drivers. That was all any of this was, and you couldn’t read into it too much.
I’d pointed this out before, but pit lizards these days were constantly looking for new ways to get at me. The more I won, the worse it got. The older I got, the more they swarmed me. You’d think getting older would deter them. As rumor had it, I got better with age. At least that was what my wife told me.
So in October when I walked into my hotel room while in Las Vegas for the race, I wasn’t entirely surprised to see a woman in my room. This wasn’t the first time this happened. I once woke up with one naked in bed with me, only to find out my goddamn brother had bets with Colin Shuman she couldn’t get into the room. It was a complete misunderstanding and could have been a disaster if Sway didn’t believe me, but she did.
“Jameson, please,” the woman begged when I told her to get out. “God, you are so hot!” She was completely naked, her arms wrapped tightly around my neck, her legs around my waist.
I struggled against her grasp, but I had to give her credit, she was stronger than she looked, which was probably how she got past security.
“You need to let go, now!” my arms fought to get her away. “Get off me.”
“Just give in. Your wife will never know.”
Sway had the room key, and I told her to meet me in here. Oh, goddamn it.
“Get off me!” I roared at the woman and gave one final tug to her body as she crashed to the ground, naked. I quickly averted me eyes, not that I even found her attractive anyway.
“No, no, no, no.” I gripped my hair. “This can’t be happening.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Go away,” I said with a shaky breath and knelt on the ground so that I didn’t collapse.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“I said go away. You shouldn’t have been in here!” My chest vibrated with such a growl I almost sounded like something from a safari. “Get the fuck out of my room, right now.”
“You’re a jackass,” she huffed and stomped out, slamming the door behind her.
My breathing was to the point of gasping, and all I could think about was Sway.
Did I tell her?
What did I say?
I tried to shut the questions up in my head, but they kept coming. When I glanced up, I saw Sway standing in the doorway. “What happened in here?” she asked, her lips pursed as she saw the sheets and blankets ripped from the bed.
“Nothing,” I answered quickly, standing from my place on the floor. “I just... nothing.”
Way to go dumbass, lie to your wife.
“Who was in here?”
“Just me.”
“Jameson,” Sway let out a deep sigh shaking her head. “I opened the door to the bedroom when you told that woman to get out. I heard you, and more importantly, saw her.”
Goddamn it, I fucking did it again. Just like the girl in Texas and Charlotte. I lied because I thought she wouldn’t trust me, when she had no need not to. I’d had more women thrown on my dick than Hugh Hefner these days, and not once had I ever acted on it. But I lied to avoid telling her it was happening. Obviously, this had backfired on me. I also knew my wife well enough—she wasn’t stupid, she knew it was happening. How could she not?
“I need to go,” she said, turning toward the door. “I can’t keep doing this with you if you don’t understand why this is important to me.”
“Don’t do this honey, please,” I choked, following her. “I love you... just don’t leave.”
“It’s not about love, Jameson. That we have and always will,” her tear-filled, reddened eyes met mine. “You lied to me.” Her voice was soft, but her words stung because it was the truth. “I know you well enough to know that you had no intention of sleeping with her... but you lied to me. Why lie about it?”
“I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t intentional.”
“But you did, Jameson.” She stopped to look at me for a moment. “All I have ever asked from you was honesty.”
I hung my head. “I never meant to hurt you by it. I thought... I thought not telling you would be better. It looked worse than it really was.”
“I know what it looked like.” Her lips pressed into a hard line. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
Flinching at her words, it had to hurt her to see that, but I knew what stung worse was me lying to her face. “I’m sorry,” was all I could say.
“I can’t keep doing this with you. I know you would never cheat on me, but you’re constantly lying to me.”
“I’ve never cheated on you, Sway,” I reassured her, despite her just saying it. “I never would.”
“I know that, but you still lie to me,” she moved toward the door.
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“What about Nadia?” She remained facing the door, her breathing light and calm.
I felt like someone had just punched me as she spoke those words.
“What about her?”
Sway turned around, her eyes searching mine for an answer that would have her doubting my love. “Have you ever been with her?” Her body trembled as she reached for the handle behind her back.
Was she really asking me this? She just said she knew I’d never cheat on her and now she had the nerve to ask if I’ve been with Nadia? My eyes darkened as anger spread throughout. It wasn’t an anger like before. Now it was almost rage.
How can she ask me that?
“Are you honestly asking me that question?” My tone was bitter and sarcastic, something I hardly ever did around Sway.
Her right hand quickly swept across her cheeks, brushing away her tears. She turned to face the door again.
Fuck!
I panicked and ran over to her. “Don’t go.”
“I can’t stay right now,” she said, quickly wiping her tears away again. “I need some time to think.”
“What does that mean?” My voice was harsh, my eyes flared with anger. The thought that she would ever leave was real now, and I’d admit, it pissed me off because I didn’t do anything. Yeah, I lied, but only to protect her. I never meant to hurt her.
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and I wasn’t sure she was going to until she sighed. “I came to Vegas this weekend because I wanted to be alone with my husband for once. Just for one evening, I wanted him all to myself. I can’t even get that anymore.”
“Sway, I—”
She shook her head. “Jameson, I came up here to be alone with you, and I see another woman, naked, wrapped around my husband. I just... I’m not leaving you—that’s not me. I wouldn’t do that. I know you didn’t do anything with her, but you lied to me; you always lie about them. I just need some time to think.”
“That’s leaving!” I snapped back at her brusquely.
I stepped closer to her, reaching for the door, slamming it shut.
“Anyway you look at, if you walk out that door, that’s leaving me.”
“This is why I need to be alone. You’re acting like a child about this.” She pulled away from my grasp. I knew she was referring to my temper and my inability to control it when it came to us.
“We need to talk about this!” I shouted.
“We need to think about this before we say something we’ll regret. I need to go,” she replied calmly because I was inept in doing so, and then she left.
This time I just stood there until her actions caught up with me.
“Sway!” I yelled after her, but she never stopped.
I think I laid on the floor for close to an hour before I realized I was lying in the middle of the hallway. Pathetic, yes, but if you knew our past and what lying to Sway meant, you’d understand my frustration with myself and my option to just lay there.
“Are you all right, Jameson?” the timid sound of Alley’s voice made me look up from the floor. I shook my head at her question.
I wasn’t all right. I was far from all right.
Spencer, who walked in behind her, sighed, and put his hand on my shoulder. “Sway left.”
She had every right to leave. I lied to her... I yelled at her... I deserved this. I was hardly the model husband here, and in the fifteen years we had been married, she came second to racing, and she never deserved that. I knew how Sway felt about these women, and she had every right to want the truth. I didn’t know why I felt the need to lie because I’d never acted on one advance. I had nothing to lie about, but I did. I lied because I never wanted her to know how bad it really was.
My eyes fell back to the floor. “Did she say where she went?”
“Casten’s racing in Williams Grove tonight.”
“Shit.” I scrambled to my feet. I remembered he asked me to come with him the other night.
“Go talk to her and see your son’s race,” Spencer squeezed my shoulder. “The longer you wait, the harder it will be.”
Alley stopped me at the door. “Jameson, you have an autograph session in an hour, followed by an interview with ESPN. You can’t leave.”
“Fuck that, I need to see my son race and apologize to my wife.”
“So you want me to call up Simplex and tell them what?”
“Jesus Christ!” I threw my arms up in the air. “I can’t be in two places at once.”
“I’ll go watch Casten and talk to Sway,” Spencer offered.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I clipped. Spencer meant well, but I just wasn’t in the mood. Besides, the last time Spencer intervened in an argument we had, I ended up doing more apologizing.
There was no way out of the obligations, and I knew it. If I cancelled, I had to re-schedule, and with everything else, I just didn’t have time.
So Spencer, once again, went to Casten’s race and to Sway. Spencer, Van, and Aiden saw my kids more than I did these last few months. I was once again battling for the chase this year, and time wasn’t on my side.
I’d done a lot of fucked up shit in my time, but nothing compared to the way I felt knowing Sway didn’t want me around. After my interview and autograph session, I flew to Williams Grove, but Sway had already left for Mooresville with Casten. On the way there, I called.
“Sway?”
“Jameson, what are you doing?” she asked in confusion, the hum from the jet caused static on the line, making it hard to hear her soft voice.
“Well, I tried to catch you guys in Williams Grove, but I just missed you. I’m on my way to Mooresville now.”
“We’re not there.”
I was silent for a minute before asking, “Where are you?”
She was silent for a few moments. “I took Arie and Casten back to Washington for a little while.”
“Then I’ll come there.”
“No, you have to be in Richmond on Wednesday. It’s Tuesday. You don’t have time.”
“I’ll make time,” I quickly said. “Practice isn’t until three.”
Again, there was a silence on the other end before I could hear her sniffle. “Jameson, I just need some time to think. Stay in Mooresville for now.”
“Sway….” My voice broke as I tried to catch my breath. “Honey, please, I need to see you. I can’t leave it like this.”
“And I need to be alone right now.”
“For how long?” I pressed, getting impatient. I was finding it hard to breathe so I leaned forward in the captain’s chair. My hands obsessively ran through my hair. “How long?” I asked again when she didn’t answer.
“I... don’t know.”
“So that’s it?” I snapped. “I don’t get a say in this?” I knew I shouldn’t get mad but I was.
“I told you why I needed to think, and as my husband, I hoped that you could see that.”
I threw my hand up in the air. “What does that even mean?”
“Okay, stop!” she snapped. “Stop being an asshole. I don’t want to see you right now. You lied to me, again. I asked you if someone was in there, you said no. I saw her. All you had to do was tell me the truth. Just like in Texas when that girl kissed you. You told me she didn’t, and then I see a picture of her kissing you. Or what about the time in Vegas when you woke up with a woman in your bed? You denied it, and I later found out why she was in there. I know that wasn’t your fault. Or what about the drink you had with Nadia in the bar that I had to hear about from her? I don’t understand if you have nothing to hide, why do you lie about it?”
“Because... I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you did! Lying to me hurt worse than knowing. You, of all people, should understand why that hurts me. I know you don’t sleep with any of them. Hell, the entire time we’ve been together I’ve never seen you give another woman an ounce of attention, but you can’t tell me the truth.”
The line was silent for a moment before I finally made it worse. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I said I was sorry.”
“And I said I needed time to think.”
“Think about what?”
“Everything,”
“Are you... thinking of leaving?” The dead silence said it all. I lost it. “Goddamn it, Sway, answer me!”
I threw a water bottle across the cabin. I never meant to yell at her like that, but the thought of her leaving me was not an option.
“No, I’m not, but I shouldn’t be treated like this.”
“Sway?” I looked down at the receiver to see she hung up. I couldn’t blame her.
I wanted to drown my sorrows. I wanted to numb the pain I was feeling, but I also knew that wouldn’t solve anything. I had done that for years, and it had never worked in my favor anyway. This was all on me, and I needed to just face it.
Once I got home, I did have a beer, or two, or maybe it was three, but who cared?
Axel was home, which surprised me. I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks and thought for sure he was supposed to be in Terre Haute this week.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, peeking inside his room.
He was sitting on his bed staring down at his laptop.
“I don’t have to be at the track until Friday so I thought I’d sleep in my own bed. Spencer just dropped me off,” he looked up from his computer. “Where is everyone?”
“Elma,” I mumbled, stepping inside his room to sit on the beanbag in the corner.
“Elma?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
He looked at me, confused for a moment, and then raised his eyebrows. “Are you two fighting?”
“You could call it that.”
“Care to talk about it?”
“Nope.” I took another swig of my beer. “She made it pretty fucking clear what she wanted.”
“And that was?”
“Space... or whatever.”
I eventually stopped talking. Axel didn’t need to hear about my problems, and he especially didn’t need to hear about my problems with his mother.
“How was your race in Grand Rapids?”
Axel shrugged. “Won my heat, dash, and took fourth in the main.”
“Not bad.” I nodded, taking another drink of my beer before setting it down on his nightstand. “I see you took over the points lead last week, though.”
“Yeah, but Woods is only ten points behind me.”
Smiling at him, I chuckled softly. “You’ll get it.”
I spent the majority of the night sitting in his room with him talking racing. Even though everything was so shitty with Sway, it felt good to be alone with my son. I hadn’t realized how long it’d been since we were together that way, and eventually we found ourselves hovering over his car looking for things that could give him a little more edge over Woods.
I knew Sway simply needed some time to think. She never stayed angry with me, even when I deserved it. That wasn’t Sway. But she did need space, or whatever.