Hairpin – A slow 180-turn which exits in the opposite direction the driver enters.
Toward the end of every season my life felt like I was going two hundred miles an hour down a straight stretch, and I was praying for a left turn in sight.
That year, after the plane crash and parenting, and racing, it couldn’t have been truer.
With everything that was happening with racing, sponsors, team changes, media, kids, my wife... I just needed... me time.
Was I ready to retire?
No. Not yet. But I did need to relax and take a step back.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that by just simply relaxing at home. That wasn’t me.
Naturally, I went sprint car racing. It was in my blood and essentially where I wanted to be. It was home to me.
The methanol, the dirt, the Saturday night lights... this calmed me in ways fishing or golfing might do for someone else my age. I needed the adrenaline to feel alive.
As it turned out, for turning forty-three that year I still had it in me. I won.
Life got to you at times, and you couldn’t help it. For a while you were going along thinking everything was good and then a plane crash happened or your daughter lost her virginity to an asshole. You were dealing with life the best you could and it was working for the most part.
Then it hits you that you were just like everyone else, trying to make it through each day. The only difference was that I was a race car driver. My life was constantly going two hundred miles an hour. It never stopped until it stopped you.
As a racer, you couldn’t just walk away. It was in your blood to keep coming back to what had been your life all those years.
Look at Bucky Miers, the man who took a chance on an eighteen-year-old kid. He retired last year only because he had a heart attack.
Look at Andy Crockett. He’d been at the peak of his career when he died. And Colin Shuman was a kid taken much too young. I didn’t always agree with Colin, but still, the kid had talent and his career was ended suddenly.
I don’t know. Maybe I couldn’t figure out where I was going with all this but my point was that you’re going along in your life the way you know how and my way was at 200 mph. I knew that no matter what direction your life was headed sometimes it took a hairpin turn the other direction. I had a feeling that turn was coming my way soon.
Like I said, you didn’t just walk away completely. Bucky was still at the dirt track every Saturday night, except he wasn’t in a car. You could take the racer out of the car, but you couldn’t take him off the track completely.
I knew the possibility, that each Sunday could be my last, but I also couldn’t think about it that way. The moment you were scared was the moment you needed to walk away. There was no room for fear.
The race season had gone on much like it always did, but there was a void that year for everyone we had lost. With my team, it wasn’t the same anymore. A part of Kyle was gone, a part of our family was gone, and that affected us in every way. We struggled each week in the pits, though we kept it together. Our romance was gone, and I knew it’d take some time to find a groove again.
IN NOVEMBER OF that year, right before the last race of the Cup season, Axel raced in his first World of Outlaw race in Charlotte at the World Finals. He’d raced Outlaws before, but never in a sanctioned point race.
This was also the first race where three generations of drivers ever started a World of Outlaw race together.
Nothing exciting happened. I started midway through the field and ended up blowing a tire with six laps to go. My dad started fourth, snagged a third place finish, but what really made the night for us was Axel.
He started last when he wrecked in his heat and charged through the field of twenty-four cars to win his first Outlaw race.
My dad and I let him have his spotlight with the media, laughing when Lane dumped a cooler full of ice down his back.
“There was a lot of talk during the break on whether or not we should change out the gears, but it looks like the call was right,” Axel told the reporter in his face.
I smiled.
My son had just won his first World of Outlaw race. Much like my own dad when I won some of my first races in my professional career, I didn’t have many words. It was kind of like his first Chili Bowl Midget Nationals win.
My dad sighed beside me, limping back to the haulers.
“Can you make it or shall I carry you, old man?”
He pushed me, knocking me sideways.
“Carry me?” he repeated with a snort. “Son... who finished ahead of you tonight?”
“I blew a tire,” I defended, watching the boys in the distance.
“Still, I beat you,” he laughed and rubbed the shoulder he had surgery on last winter. “I’m sure that’s all that matters.”
“Come on, old man,” slinging my arm over his shoulders, I pulled him into me. “Let’s go have a beer.”
Back at the hauler, we relaxed and threw back a few beers while Axel and his boys celebrated in victory lane. I enjoyed times like this with my dad. It reminded me of when I traveled with him when I was younger, and we’d sit around after the races, and he’d tell me how he thought I could do better.
Now it was different, though. Times like this we just enjoyed the company. That wasn’t to say we didn’t have the smart-ass comments from time-to-time, but it was nice.
Jimi tipped his beer toward me, his eyes tired.
“I’m getting too old for this,” he rolled his neck to one side. “It’s wearing on my body.”
“I feel you.”
Injuries have a way of catching up with you, too. In sprint car racing you could get in some of the most violent wrecks that did damage to your body. With Jimi pushing seventy soon, everyone expected him to announce retirement any day now. I knew it was coming, but as a fellow racer, you didn’t bring up retirement.
As a racer, Jimi couldn’t just walk away. Not without regrets.
“Hey, Jameson,” Tommy yelled from the back of the pit bike Lane was riding. “Can I get a ride with you back to Mooresville tonight?”
“Yeah,” setting my empty beer down, I jumped up to push Lane off the bike only to have him roost me in the face with gravel.
“Asshole!” I yelled after him.
Spencer, who ran up behind him, tried to knock him off, too, only to have Lane do a wheelie through the pits. He loved to show off these days and did so more often around his dad. It wasn’t like Spencer didn’t think he was something special because he did.
Lane laughed as we all took turns trying to knock him from the bike and grinned the same grin he had when he was three.
Lane was quite the racer on dirt bikes. He was racing in the GNCC which was the Can-AM Grand National Cross Country series, America’s premier off-road racing series. They ran a 13-round series, which raced on a wide variety of terrain that included hills, woods, mud, dirt, rocks, and motocross sections. They’re a test of survival and speed, two things any Riley was good at.
He’d just won the XC1 Pro Bike Class this year and had a very promising career ahead of him.
He circled around the pits and came back by me as I was walking to my car.
“How’s that dirt taste?” he smarted off with a smug grin.
“How’s that car taste?” I asked just as smugly as I kept my eyes forward so he wouldn’t notice the amusement. He was hardly paying attention.
“What ca—” he smacked right into the side of my dad’s truck, sending him flying over the hood.
“That car.”
Walking around the side, I laughed at him sprawled on the ground.
“Not such a hotshot now, are you?”
Glaring, Lane didn’t say anything.
“Lane!” my dad yelled. “Come back here, you little shit. You’re paying for that!”
Lane’s eyes got huge. “Hide me!”
“No way, kid. You’re on your own.”
AXEL ENDED UP partying all night with his friends and cousins while the old guys went home to our beds. I tried staying up when Axel won the USAC Triple Crown last year and ended up lying in bed for two days straight with the worst hangover ever. I wasn’t meant to be a party animal any longer; those days had passed me by.
Funny thing was, I was okay with that. I had something much better waiting for me in bed. I may not be able to party like a rock star any longer, but I had no problems showing my wife just how much life my camshaft still had.
I was able to sleep in my own bed that night before I left for Homestead to finish out the season.
Sway was packed and ready to go with Casten and Arie when my phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
Glancing through the numerous emails from Alley and Emma, there were about ten calls from Justin and four from Tommy.
I panicked, thinking something happened to Axel last night. Trying to keep myself calm and guarded from Sway and the kids, I excused myself and stepped back inside the house to call Justin.
He answered, his voice rough and drained from any emotion.
“Did you call me?”
“Yeah, did you hear about Ryder?” There was a distance in his voice that I hadn’t heard in a long time. At least not since the plane crash.
“No—why?” I stopped for a second and then panicked. Ryder wasn’t always the best influence on Axel and had gotten him in trouble on more than one occasion. “Hey, is Axel with you?”
“No, he’s with Lily celebrating. I heard something about them going to Jacksonville.”
“Oh, all right. What happened to Ryder?” Ryder was still racing in the USAC Sprint Car division and swore up and down this was his last season.
There was a long pause before he mumbled, “He wrecked at Perris Auto Speedway last night....” There was another long pause. “He died this morning from head injuries.”
I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my chest. Instantly I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Are you serious? Please tell me you’re not serious.”
I couldn’t understand why again.
Why did this keep happening? Couldn’t we catch a break?
“Justin,” I begged. “Jesus, please tell me you’re not serious?”
“It’s not something I’d joke about, Jameson.”
I didn’t say any more.
What could I say? Sorry? No, sorry wouldn’t do this justice. Justin and I grew up with him and Tyler. We made our way through the ranks together. Sure, most of us went different directions, but still, a bond had formed back then that was still there today and always would be.
We had always known the dangers; but there was also something about those dangers that urged us to put it all on the line. The danger fueled the adrenaline.
Justin said he was flying to Knoxville where Ryder had been living for the past few years to see his parents. I couldn’t, though. I had to be in Homestead tonight.
“Give his parents my best,” I told Justin before hanging up. With the Outlaws finishing up their season last night, he was free to go if he wanted, as no more races were scheduled until January.
“I will. I haven’t said anything to Axel. I thought you should be the one to tell him. Ryder’s dad just called me about an hour ago, which means it will be hitting the news any minute now. You might want to call him.”
“Thanks Justin.... I will call him.”
Sway walked in just as I hung up with her cell phone in hand.
She held the phone out. “Axel is looking for you.” Her eyes glazed with tears as she eyed me cautiously. She knew.
“I’m so sorry, Jameson,” she offered, wrapping her tiny arms around me.
Inhaling a deep breath, I pulled back to look at her. “It’s all right. It happens in this sport.”
My eyes focused on hers.
She didn’t even need to say it back, I already knew she wanted to comfort me, tell me everything would be all right.
“I love you,” she told me, running her consoling hand down my cheek. “I know that it happens too often, but it doesn’t make this any easier. Especially not when it’s a good friend of ours.”
Leaning into her touch, I dropped my head to pull her into a hug when Casten came inside.
“What’s the deal?” he threw his arms up. “I thought we were leaving.”
“Yeah, let’s go,” Arie added, stepping inside behind him. “It’s hot in the car.”
The kids took in our embrace and looked between each other knowing something was wrong.
“Is Axel okay?” Arie asked, her brow scrunched in confusion and nervousness.
“Yes, sweetie, Axel is fine,” Sway told her, walking over to them. I nodded when her eyes met mine and then slipped inside the bathroom down the hall to compose myself a little. Though I didn’t cry, I needed a few minutes before I told Axel.
I heard Sway through the door telling Arie and Casten what happened.
“Ryder wrecked last night at Perris. He died this morning.”
Neither of the kids said anything. Just like me, they knew the dangers. Again, those dangers didn’t make this any easier. It almost made it harder to accept the fact that it was happening because your mind was in denial that it could happen.
I must have sat in that bathroom for a half hour, just staring at the wall, trying to find the courage to call Axel. Over time, he and Ryder had shaped a bond together. They’d raced in the same division for close to ten years now. Ryder was not only a fellow racer of his, but someone he looked up to. Just coming off a World Final win last night, this was not something I wanted to tell him. But I also didn’t want him to hear it on the news or from someone else.
He answered on about the fourth ring with a groggy voice. “What’s up, Dad?”
“How are you feeling, buddy? Get any sleep last night?”
“Yeah, I got a couple hours once we got to Jacksonville. I was gonna head to Perris today, though. Shane sent me a text that Ryder got in a wreck there last night. I wanted to check on him.”
I couldn’t get the words out before he asked.
“Are you still there, Dad?”
“Yeah... uh, buddy... Ryder didn’t make it. He died this morning from head injuries.”
There was a sharp intake of breath from him followed by a deep shaky sigh before he asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
I wasn’t positive, but from the sound of the television in our family room, it was all over ESPN right now.
“You’re coming to Homestead, right?” Axel asked after a moment of silence. I could hear Lily crying in the background.
“Yeah, I need to leave now.”
“I’ll meet you guys there.”
“You don’t have to come, buddy. Just... enjoy some time off.”
“No, I need to be with my family right now,” he said this as though it was the only option.
I thought I’d said this before, but on the track, everything was up for grabs. Tempers flared, friends you thought you had no longer gave you room and would do anything to get a jump on you.
Off the track, the racing community was like your family. They’d do anything for anyone. That never changed. With the plane crash earlier in the year, we had all pulled together and did what we could do to go on, and now with Ryder, I knew we’d go on, but it didn’t stop it from hurting. We needed each other.
When Bobby cheated on his wife, multiple times, no one agreed with it. But when she left him, who do you think was there to offer him a beer?
Yes, guys like me and Tate who were fellow racers.
Then there was the time that Wade Simmons, a nineteen-year-old rookie NASCAR driver, was killed in Texas last year during happy hour. We all gathered together and made sure his young wife and little girl would forever be taken care of. We came together when we needed to.
Tate, Bobby, and I made sure those families, who lost their loved ones in that plane crash in May, were taken care of and had nothing to worry about financially. The heartache alone would be enough. They didn’t need to worry about trying to make a home for their family and deal with that. This was what made us champions in our sport. Sure, winning them defined the trophy, but being a champion, there was a difference between earning the title and being it.
Now wasn’t any different. After the Homestead race, about five hundred fellow racers attended Ryder’s funeral in Knoxville to pay their respects for one of the greatest drivers the USAC division had ever seen. Not only had Ryder won the USAC Triple Crown ten times, he’d won events like Chili Bowl Nationals eight times, Turkey Night, the Hut Hundred and the Cooper Classic, just to name a few. Basically, every race I’d ever won in a sprint car or midget, Ryder Christensen had done, too, only multiple times.
As a racer, you never wanted to attend another racer’s funeral.
It made the possibility of it happening to you and your family real. You saw it. You saw the family suffering and knew that it could have been you. Death was suddenly right there in your face, taunting you. It reminded you just how precariously you were balancing on the edge of disaster.
Here was the thing about warning a race car driver. We did not listen.
We never listened, or ninety percent of the time we didn’t listen. Just like an engine light in your car. Most waited until they were left stranded on the side of the road, cursing themselves for not taking that damn orange light seriously. We were no different when racing. Dangers, well, they didn’t exist to us.
A few months after Ryder’s death, a little too late I thought, he was inducted into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame.
Too bad he wasn’t around to give his standard humble response, “Ah, well, I’m not that good. I just know how to go fast and turn left.”
I heard those exact words from him a lot over the nearly thirty years I had known Ryder.
Ryder’s death took the biggest hit on Casten actually. He quit racing altogether after that. Casten never really showed as much interest as Axel did anyway, but after Ryder, he just said it wasn’t fun for him anymore. He never set foot in a race car again. I thought part of the reason was because the midget he’d been racing was one that Ryder owned. It didn’t feel right to him anymore.
I respected his decision, because like I said, if you were scared... you had no business strapping into that car.
FOR THE PAST few years, it seemed our entire family was spread across the states and even into different countries for the holidays. But that Christmas, after all the loss we’d suffered, everyone was home. Our championship team was together and pulling through this as a team.
This was both a good thing and a disaster.
Sway loved having everyone together at our place. I couldn’t understand why it always had to occur at our house, but I kept my mouth shut when I saw how happy she was.
Christmas morning started simple enough. The kids opened presents with us, and I gave Sway her gift, alone.
For a while, I’d been thinking about what I would get a woman who had absolutely everything she could ever want. With the help of my mom, I found a picture of Sway and me when I won Knoxville Nationals during our summer together in 1997. Sway had always been fond of the picture and told me that was the night she knew she’d fallen in love with me. The picture was the one they had used on the front page of the newspaper the next morning, but from at a slightly different angle.
I was still sitting inside my sprint car, leaning toward Sway, who was leaning inside the car. Her arms were around my neck with one of my gloved hands touching the side of her face as we kissed. Up until a couple weeks ago, I’d never seen the picture.
My first thought: Wow, look how young we were.
My second: She was just as beautiful so many years later as she was that night.
Though my early years of racing were becoming vague, I still remembered that race and the feeling that washed over me when I saw her waiting for me.
I thought deep down that was the night I realized what her being there for me meant. I wouldn’t say I knew I loved her then, because I did love her, but my realization didn’t come until a few years later, having been too caught up in racing to see anything past that. But I did love her back then.
Sway would never understand what that summer meant to me. You could say it was just the summer I made a name for myself, but back then, it was more than that. We were all just a bunch of kids, but you honestly couldn’t tell any of us that.
For Christmas, I had that picture transferred into a canvas painting and hung it above our bed as she slept that night. When she woke up Christmas morning, naturally, we made love. Carefully, I pulled her on top of me, and she straddled me for a better angle. Her head tipped back and she saw the picture.
“Holy shit, Jameson. Where did that come from?”
She remembered the picture. I was sure of that when a smile tugged at her lips. “That’s the night,” she whispered so softly I had to strain to hear her. “How did you....”
“My mom found it,” I told her, leaning forward to sit up. My arms wrapped around her backside, pulling her closer as my lips found her collarbone. “Merry Christmas, honey.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” her lips met mine with a sudden sense of urgency.
Though we were good at the dyno testing and align boring, that morning in bed with my wife of the last eighteen years was all about love. The love I’d felt for her our entire lives. It was slow, passionate, and all that storybook love you read about. Over the years, I would like to think I provided Sway with the fairytale fantasy she wanted to remember. Now I knew I had.
There was no doubt, looking at that painting, and then looking at us now, we had something noteworthy of a fairytale.
After we made our way back downstairs, Lily was there along with Kale, her younger brother who was convinced he would marry Arie someday. I had a feeling my headstrong little girl liked him, but wasn’t ready for anything serious after what happened with Ricky.
Kale cared about none of that, and he claimed he’d wait for forever.
Today was also Axel’s eighteenth birthday.
And where was my son?
He was flying home from Australia, where he’d been racing for the past few months.
Much like me at his age, he lived to race. And since our weather here didn’t permit winter racing, he flew to Australia where it was. I’d spent many winters racing down under, but these days, I enjoyed the time away. Every January, though, I was itching to get back to it. That was how I knew retirement wasn’t near.
Axel ended up arriving shortly before the rest of the family arrived with a big smile on his face when he saw Lily had made it.
The real fun began when my sister’s asshole children showed up with the Double Mint twins, and they started hitting on Axel. Up until that night, I had never heard Lily swear.
But when the Double Mint twins cornered Axel, she got her point across.
“Most guys may fall for your fake breasts and your bleached out hair, but Axel’s different. Leave him alone,” she told them in a civilized manner. Listening to them around the corner in the family room, Sway, Casten, and I stood in the kitchen.
Casten giggled, and that was when Sway slapped her hand over his mouth and pulled him to her.
“Shhh,” she urged, trying to suppress her own giggles.
“Maybe he needs more than just a small town girl from Hillsboro,” one of them snarked back.
Lily laughed. “Yeah, because being from LA is so much better.”
Axel interrupted.
“You guys should leave,” he told the girls.
That caused an actual fight between him and his cousins, which Aiden and I had to break up. Axel was not a big kid by any means. Noah and Charlie looked more like one of Spencer’s kids with their burly builds.
Axel didn’t stand much of a chance, but when Lily was involved, Noah and Charlie didn’t stand much of a chance.
Axel ended up breaking Charlie’s nose and gave Noah a large, gaping cut just above his eye before we got to them.
See, I told you our family gatherings never went well.
Emma got upset with Axel, which made Lily even madder. “If your sons would keep their fucking hoes under control, this would have never happened.”
Emma stood there, dumbfounded, because she knew her sons were jerks and couldn’t say much about their girlfriends. She hated them, too.
Sway laughed and stepped in between them. Slinging her arm around Lily she pushed a plate of brownies toward Emma.
“You’re going to fit in nicely with this family,” she told Lily.
The rest of the night seemed to go smoothly, which was a nice surprise. With Speedweek just around the corner, I needed smooth and relaxed.
THE REST OF winter went by quickly as usual. Sway and I managed to sneak away to our other home in the Florida Keys a few weekends, but most of the off-season was spent restructuring Riley-Simplex Racing.
Jimi Riley was hanging up his helmet after forty-three seasons with the World of Outlaws. Though he was keeping his position as the owner, he was no longer racing in the Outlaw series.
So he said at least. We all knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t be able to stay away completely. I had a feeling if it was me, I wouldn’t be able to either. He would still be the owner of the Cup team and his sprint car team as well, so he wasn’t walking away completely. He’d still be around to tell us how badly he thought we were fucking up his business.
I wasn’t retiring, though; I was on top of my career right now. Having just won my fifteenth career championship, I felt like I could still give this sport a run. I was a champion, and in my mind, I could be that legend everyone was pegging me to be.
With Jimi retiring, guess who he hired to take over his position?
The kid.
Axel would be racing his first season in the World of Outlaws.
I had mixed feelings about this. Though USAC resembled NASCAR with its frequent rule changes and drama, the Outlaw series was where the big money was at in sprint car racing. When drivers entered into that series, they usually stayed. Axel and I had a long talk when my dad came to me with his plan.
“Did you know what series you wanted to run in right away?” he asked me one day when we were at the sprint car shop. I was finalizing the schedules for appearances for the guys and going over any sponsorship appearances we needed to attend.
“I knew I wanted to race. That’s all that mattered to me,” I told him, pushing my laptop aside to look at him sitting in front of my desk. “I did look at everything from Indy to even drag racing. In the end, I looked at where I could get the most exposure and that led me to NASCAR. It wasn’t about the money for me, it was about being me. My dad raced sprint cars, and while my love for racing will always be related to sprint cars, NASCAR gave me the opportunity I was looking for.”
“Was it hard for you being his son?”
I thought about this for a moment because any pressure I ever felt from being Jimi Riley’s son, Axel felt, but doubled. He not only had everyone telling him how good his grandfather was, but then they told him how great his dad was.
“It was hard, but I think if anyone, you understand that feeling.”
That legendary bloodline just added that much more pressure to what you already felt.
Axel sat there in the leather chair across from me, twisting a spark plug around his fingers. “I want to race sprint cars,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “I think that’s where I’ve always belonged.”
I knew that already. Even when USAC went to asphalt, he hated it. Much like me, his love for dirt would always be there. Both for different reasons. Asphalt scared Axel; I don’t know why, and neither did he, but some of his worst wrecks occurred on asphalt tracks. Dirt felt comfortable for him.
For me, dirt was home. It reminded me of the greatest summer of my life, both frustrating and exciting. When I got inside a sprint car on dirt, to me, it was like coming home.
“Do you think I can do this?” Axel asked when I smiled at the picture on my desk of us when he won the Chili Bowl.
“I do, buddy. Without a doubt, I know you’ll be good in whatever series you run. Go with your gut instinct.”
His gut instinct was to race.
“Have you ever felt pressured to race?” I asked him after a moment.
Sway and I always worried the boys felt as though they had to race, given my profession and my dad’s. While we knew where Casten stood with it, I wasn’t sure about Axel. Maybe that was why he constantly needed reassurance that he could do it.
“No, I’ve always wanted to race,” he smiled, remembering why he did. “I don’t remember how old I was, but I think Mom was pregnant with Casten. I just remember watching the memorial race for Grandpa Charlie... I remember standing in the flag stand holding the flag when you, Grandpa, Justin, and Ryder came by on the front stretch four wide, engines rumbling... From then on, that’s what I wanted to do.”
“That sound gets most people.” I nodded with a smile, remembering the thunderous rumble from my childhood and watching guys like my dad and Bucky Miers.
“What made you want to race?” he asked, glancing at the other picture on my desk of Sway and me on our honeymoon in Rio right after he was born. I had to chuckle as it was one with my leg bleeding and her with the jellyfish sting.
“Same as you,” my gaze shifted to the photograph beside that of Sway and I at Elma last spring. “I grew up watching Grandpa race, just like you.”
My eyes shifted to a photograph of my dad. It was the one of us singing “Barton Hollow” by The Civil Wars at a bar outside of Williams Grove after a race. That was when I felt the pain in my chest that he was hangin’ up his helmet, something I thought he’d never do.
“Racing has always been there for me, and after a while, it was just the natural way to go.” I smiled at my son. “I could never imagine my life any other way than inside a race car.”
Axel knew exactly what I was trying to say without me needing to go into any more detail. Like I said, racing was his gut instinct, just like mine was.
He left after that, and I sat there in my office looking over the pictures Sway and I framed over the years. It was hard to believe how quickly that last twenty years had gone by, but I never regretted this lifestyle. It was me. I gave this sport what I gave to racing. Myself.
A racer couldn’t be labeled or molded.
Most guys in the garage area would agree with that statement.
A racer didn’t race for anyone but himself.
Another statement most would agree with.
Some had different theories, but really, the victory was what you raced for. Now that victory could be, and was, owed to more than you, but to get there, to get inside the car and decide to race, came from within.
At some point, you were nothing, until one day, you were suddenly something. Worshipped by millions for something you did for yourself. Why was it that they suddenly thought you were different?
What made them love you now when they didn’t before?
I could tell you why. You had the balls to do what they never did. You got inside the car and pushed yourself to be the best. You did that. No one else did.
What they didn’t understand was that there would always be confessions that bared no sound and lived inside my head, my heart, and were my own desire. They were my own aspirations and something they never took the time to discover.
I raced for me. It wasn’t selfish. It was me being me.
I did it because that’s who I was and who was embedded into every fiber of my being.
I raced for the adrenaline, the power, the rumbling in my chest when behind the wheel. The sense of belonging in a sport that was quick to prove you were nothing, but still, I raced for me. That was what defined me.
I couldn’t say every racer was the same, but for the most part, they were.
So now, with time, as one career was ending, another was just beginning in a sport that was forever changing.
Throughout death and despair, our family had once again kept it together. Through the birth of our kids, season after season of the same rival drivers, doubts, marriage troubles, loss and life changes, we did it. We were, just as we always had been, a woven mesh window net holding it together. It was funny how your life, or maybe just mine, went similar to a race. You got the laps of happiness, laps of sadness, laps of success and laps of hardship. No matter what lap you were on or what stop you were trying to make it to, gambling with fuel mileage, or holdin’ on with worn tires, you could count on your crew to get you through it. I could do that.
In my mind, we were a championship team who kept together no matter what. Maybe there’d be more races like the last eighteen years, but I was ready for that. As a champion, I was ready for that.
But I wanted to be a legend, not just a champion.