Chassis – The steel structure or frame of the car.
By September, with two months to go in the season, I was driving anything I could but still focused on the Triple Crown title.
USAC ran on both dirt and asphalt tracks and the schedules were usually split evenly with thirteen races on each in the midget and sprint divisions. Some teams would only run the pavement tracks where other teams only ran the dirt.
Then there were teams running both, and only managed to be competitive on one, never both.
We ran them all with the help of Bucky Miers and Bowman Oil.
Between fighting the changing weather conditions throughout the season, we dialed in setups for each surface that worked well for us.
Because of that, we stood out, as did Justin, Ryder and Tyler. They were all winning but I was holding my own with the beasts from the east and feeling good about it.
The thing you don’t realize when you’re running all these races, fighting to make it to each town and a different track each night of the week, was how draining it was.
It’s different from the stock car tours because NASCAR usually raced on Saturday nights or Sunday afternoon.
The USAC divisions and The World of Outlaws raced multiple times throughout the week and at different tracks each night.
I went a step further and raced anything and everything I could. It wasn’t uncommon for me to get into a midget, sprint and late model all in one night. It was all about seat time to me. Wherever there was a seat, I was in it, learning.
That wasn’t to say there wasn’t a transition period between each series though.
Midgets were lighter than sprints and Silver crown cars were heavier than sprints. Then you had a modified or a late model that was an entirely different beast and weighed about 2,400 pounds and handled completely differently from any open wheel car.
When I was changing divisions, there were nights when I never got the hang of it and then there were nights I seemed unstoppable in anything I got into. It was crazy.
Most of the time I was racing our own cars my dad had, but other times I was racing for guys like Bucky and Bowman Oil or Ron Walker. When I raced dad’s cars, we worked on them and if changes needed to be made, we made them. If something broke, we fixed it.
ONE NIGHT WHILE racing at Sunset Speedway on the West Coast, a third-mile red clay track in Banks, Oregon, we blew the engine in our outlaw late model we were running and needed an engine. We didn’t have any spares that night because that was our spare in the car. I blew the original one up in Chico the night before.
Thinking our night was done for, I sulked for a good hour before Sway came walking into the pits holding a set of keys, dangling them in my face.
“What’s that?” I mumbled cracking open another beer and leaned back in the lawn chair I’d set up beside my truck.
Her smile widened as though I was her favorite flavor of ice cream. “Keys... what does it look like?”
I cleared my throat. “Whose are they?”
“Does it matter? He offered up the engine in his Mustang for you,” Sway stared at me.
I stared back wondering how the fuck she got him to offer up the engine in his Mustang.
When I didn’t move, she slapped the beer out of my hand while kicking my shin.
“Why the fuck are you still sitting there? Get up.”
Spencer and Tommy were already pulling the engine out of my car and preparing for the transfer.
At Sunset Speedway they liked to water the track prior to the main and then pack it down again to provide more grip for the cars. By doing that, it created better racing with a tacky track.
So there we were riding around the track packing it down for them, really just messing around, when I noticed a lot of the drivers slowing in turn four and revving their engines. Took me a good ten laps of them doing this before I figured out what the fuck they were looking at.
There was Sway, Emma, and Alley sitting in the pit bleachers. The guys were staring at them. I chuckled to myself as this happened more times than I could count.
When we got back to the pits and began lining up for the main, a couple of the local guys were standing outside their cars when I walked up and caught a part of their conversation.
“Did you see the one in the black tank top with the jean shorts on... I think she was the one with the reddish brown hair?” the driver of the number eight car, Mark Bayne, asked the driver of the six car, who I thought was Greg Ackers but I couldn’t be sure. I had never seen him race before.
Greg said, “Yeah, I did see her... I saw her earlier. She’s with Riley, I think. His arm was around her at least.”
That’s right. I thought to myself.
“Nah, I think that’s his friend,” Mark said.
“Fuck that,” another asshole said, walking up to them. “I’m gonna take her home tonight.”
I sure as shit wasn’t going to allow that to happen. I watched to see what car he got into and then decided to make sure he had a tough race.
Turns out, I didn’t have to, he wasn’t that great of a driver and turned himself around.
I never did have the balls to ask what Sway did to get that guy to offer up his engine out of his brand new Mustang.
After the race (that I won), we sat around drinking beer with the Mustang guy and, by that time, I was three sheets to the wind and could give a flying fuck about how the engine came about with the trophy girl sitting in my lap.
“We should change out the engines. We’ll be here all night if we don’t get started soon,” Tommy said, removing the beer from my hands but left the trophy girl there.
And, for the record, I couldn’t tell you her name.
“We ain’t changin’ shit,” I told him with a lazy grin. “Give ‘em the car.”
And, we did. The Mustang guy, Patrick, got to keep his car and my 800 horsepower outlaw late model, all for letting me run that night. I even went so far as to hand him the trophy afterward and the trophy girl once I was done with her.
I hated to admit it but I was at a stage in my life where I had a sex drive. I was eighteen, with wants, desires, and downright needs.
That need was being intensified by my best friend, who I couldn’t have.
All this resulted in me taking this trophy girl to the men’s bathroom when Sway disappeared with Emma.
Still not knowing her name, I never even asked if she wanted it. I assumed that was what she wanted. It was what they all wanted.
So there we were in the bathroom, locked in a stall.
Her legs wrapped around my waist, her kisses just as frantic as mine. The problem was that I felt nothing.
When I kissed Sway, I felt everything. Each kiss I felt with a burning desire for more.
This wasn’t like that, but it was providing a distraction.
I hesitated not knowing if this trophy girl wanted this or not but I figured when I unzipped my racing suit down to my waist and pushed her panties aside, that she would have stopped me if it wasn’t what she wanted.
She never did stop me, and, Jesus Christ, she was loud.
I think you could hear her moans outside. I was thankful Spencer had stuffed condoms in my racing suit.
This being only my second time, I only lasted maybe three minutes. I don’t think I knew what the fuck I was doing but, judging by her screams, she seemed to enjoy it.
I set her down when I finished. Pulling my racing suit back up, I tossed the condom in the toilet.
She smiled and kissed me again. “Thanks, Jameson. That was amazing.”
I untangled myself from her and smiled.
“Thanks,” running my hand down my jaw I smiled at her. “See ya around.”
Looking back on those times, I’m ashamed at the way I treated them but it is what it is. I wasn’t going to provide them with anything and I think they knew that. No one climbs on a man’s lap in the pits and asks for a ride without knowing it’s a one-time thing. At least this was my reasoning behind it.
When I got back to my trailer, Tommy was loading the rest of the tools by himself.
“Where is everyone?” I was surprised to see Spencer wasn’t helping.
Tommy’s head shot up when he heard my voice.
“Oh... well, Sway left with Emma. Said something about being tired. They caught a ride back to the hotel with some guy and then Spencer and Alley are over there somewhere.” He gestured to a field on the other side of the track before throwing my helmet inside the truck.
I wondered who Sway left with first and then felt bad because, for my own needs, I left Tommy to clean up by himself.
“Here, let me get that,” I told him carrying the chairs toward the bed of my truck. “Did you see who Sway left with?”
“No, didn’t ask.” Tommy let out a grunt as he pushed the toolbox on the trailer. “It was another driver from the looks of what he was wearing. It might have been Justin, I think, or maybe it was Ryder? Hell, I don’t know.”
“You okay?” he seemed irritated.
“I’m tired.”
I knew the feeling.
I was still amazed at the shit all of us did just to race. Yeah, I was the one driving the car, feeling the adrenaline rush but we all had the drive to go racing and would do whatever it took to make it to the next track.
Take Tommy, for example. He didn’t have to be doing this but he traveled with us helping in any way he could for what, a hamburger here and beer there? He never asked for anything. He just wanted to be there. But all that took a toll on us by the time October rolled around. We were all tired. We worked well together but we definitely had our moments.
I had two of the best guys around working on my car each week. Alley did my schedule and talked to track owners and sponsors because I couldn’t, without saying something stupid. Emma could sell crack to a nun so she handled the promotional side of the sponsorship and any media events, and then there was Sway ... she was there to keep me sane.
Later that night, I voiced my gratitude to Sway.
“Thanks,” I told her as we slept alongside Nehalem Highway that night.
She left with Justin, which made me feel better. I nearly had a heart attack thinking she’d left with one of the douche bags who had been eyeing her.
“No problem,” she mumbled curling up with her head in my lap.
We slept this way a lot. All our money either went to food or racing parts. We didn’t have money to stay in hotels every night so we made due with sleeping in my truck most nights.
Recently we had purchased a few tents and sleeping bags, which helped so we weren’t all sleeping in the truck. Tonight, Sway, Tommy and I were in the truck, Emma was in the back of the truck and Alley and Spencer were sleeping in the tent.
Sway didn’t mean anything by it, I’m sure, but her hand rested against my upper thigh as she curled her arm under her head for a more comfortable position. Inadvertently, she had caused a rather intense reaction between my legs that was starting to throb painfully. I’d just had sex not more than a few hours ago but, with Sway, all she had to do was touch me innocently and I was hard.
She must have noticed, she had to have noticed, because she sat up, pulled her jacket from the floorboard, curled it up in a ball and placed it on my lap.
I couldn’t take it.
“I need to get up Sway. I’m not feeling good,” I lied pushing her away gently.
She sighed and curled up on the seat.
I got out and walked it off. I couldn’t believe the reaction she had on me. One simple touch and I was aching with need for her. Knowing exactly how men think, I chalked this up to wanting her because I knew I couldn’t, right?
Isn’t that how it worked? The problem with that was letting go, I couldn’t. I couldn’t let go because of the possibility that it might not work. I needed my support system now more than ever. What’s the most important part of your car? The chassis ... without it, you’d be dead. It supports you when pressure is put upon the car when you wreck. That was Sway. She was the steel cage protecting me from the blunt force of myself.
BY THE TIME the Triple Crown Nationals rolled around, we’d all been on the road for fifteen weeks. I wouldn’t say I was tired because I’d had a lot of fun on this trip so far but I was confused. In those fifteen weeks, everything I thought I knew about Jameson and myself had changed on me, over the course of 107 days, that night in Eldora changed things for me.
I saw the warning signs.
I got jealous when the pit lizards lingered too long. I got jealous when he glanced at women. I got jealous when he left discreetly with some and downright angry when anyone said anything derogatory about him. I had no idea what all that jealously meant until the last night of the Triple Crown Nationals.
Sitting in the stands, much like the night I met him for the first time, I watched as they announced his name over the loud speaker. During their salute to the fans he messed around, revving his engine and throwing the car sideways in the turns to rouse the fans. He knew how to put on a show. He had recently gotten the name Mr. Excitement in the USAC divisions by the fans because he’d wait until the last few laps and either let another car catch him or make his move on another to kick up the crowd.
Watching closely as he waved to the crowd, my thoughts swirled around wanting those very same hands touching me. Just the same as any other night, the same thrill shot through me when he revved his engine and the same erratic beating of my heart was there when he took the green flag.
One would think someone who was only eighteen years old would show some sort of rookie mistake but he didn’t. He rocked the house that night. His agile movements, his alertness, his adroitness shined.
Even Tyler and Justin, the only two who could stop him this season couldn’t touch him that night. He was in a league of his own.
I stayed in the stands until he took the checkered flag. Even when he did, I stayed back and simply just watched his unpretentious but confident side emerge in victory lane.
He glanced around when Tommy and Spencer darted down to the track. I thought maybe he was looking for me but I couldn’t be sure. He took his picture with the trophy girls and received his check for winning before making his way into the pits. I decided to catch him at the trailer to congratulate him when the trophy girl made her way there as well.
Lately, this would have infuriated me but seeing Jameson smile the way he did when he saw me, I realized, at the moment, what I felt for my best friend was way more than friends now.
When he kissed me, it shook me to my core. I was weak and I’d never been weak. I was independent, but when he kissed me I was reliant and helpless.
Pit lizards surrounded us when Jameson hoisted himself from the car, his face flushed and his eyes glowing.
“Come here,” he mouthed.
Naturally, I pushed forward and approached his car. Why wouldn’t I?
I smiled, probably a sappy puppy smile but I tried to fight any emotion that would give away that I was most likely in love with my best friend.
“Good job,” I reached up to wipe some dirt from his cheek.
He leaned into my hand covering it with his own. He didn’t say anything but he stared into my eyes for a long moment before chuckling. “I can’t believe I won Nationals.”
“I can.”
The party in our pit that night was insane as it should have been. He had just won a national event and that was huge. Even though I felt my feelings shifting, I knew Jameson’s weren’t. When we kissed later that night, the uncertainty was clear. Even when we ended up falling on top of each other sitting by the fire we camped out next to, he tried to get up many times but came back again.
Once again, we slept in the same sleeping bag. We seemed to do this when we were drunk. Trying to avoid my own internal deliberation, I got so drunk I blacked out.
All I remember was making out with Jameson and when I woke up my bra was off, though my pants were still on and intact. My shirt was another story, as was Jameson’s.
Both of us were confused as to what happened but I was relieved to know that I didn’t have sex with him, at least we didn’t think so considering our pants were on. I later got a laugh out of Jameson when he admitted he needed to change because it was apparent he had gotten pleasure out of whatever we did in that sleeping bag. This entertained me. Poor boy had been so sexually deprived that he probably came just from making out. Not to say I didn’t because I probably did, too.
As usual, we never talked about what happened in the sleeping bag and, by the next weekend at the Williams Grove National Open, we were back to being our usual selves.
I think that was what I was beginning to love most about him. We had a good relationship and didn’t even need to try. We could get drunk, fool around, and we didn’t need to explain. It was just friends being comfortable. I knew we needed to have boundaries and I was certain we would never have sex, but we were sexually comfortable with one another as well as being able to not have to try. We were friends in his eyes but I saw more to the mystique that everyone else saw.
I saw Jameson Anthony Riley, my best friend, who inadvertently and unbeknownst to him, I had fallen in love with. I think.
Being in Williams Grove that weekend meant Jimi and Nancy were around. I thought I’d hidden my newfound knowledge of loving my best friend fairly well. I told him to fuck off on more than one occasion this weekend but, apparently, I didn’t slip this past Nancy. How could I? She herself loved a racer.
“I’ve seen that look before, sweetie,” she said to me as we watched Jameson and Jimi during hot laps.
I hid my face in my hands. “I’m so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.” Gently she rubbed my back. “I’ve been there before.”
I had heard from Emma how Nancy and Jimi fell in love but I didn’t know everything. By her expression, I was about to find out. I loved Nancy. I felt at ease in her presence and now wasn’t any different. She had a way of calming your nerves and you didn’t even know it until you sighed happily. She was literally like a breath of fresh air.
Tucking a loose strand of her rusty waves behind her ear, she smiled. “Do you want to hear how we fell in love?”
I nodded and positioned myself so I could hear her better. With the cars on the track, their roar could be deafening at times.
“My childhood wasn’t the greatest. After my parents died, my aunt Mae moved us to Elma where she met Terry, the owner of Grays Harbor Raceway before Charlie bought it. So like you, I grew up around Elma.” I knew this already as she’d told me once before as did Jameson. “So when I was seventeen I was running the back ticket booth when the sprint car guys of the Midwest were in town. This was before the World of Outlaw series was formed. There I was, working the booth when a handsome driver approached. I’d seen my share of roughed up drivers, so to see a handsome one I was looking.” She smiled again, her eyes lighting up when she looked over at Jimi sliding past Shey in turn three. “I watched him race in the heats and then made my way to the pit concessions. Jimi came over for a beer. I wasn’t sure he was twenty-one so, of course, I carded him. I handed him back his ID and beer to have him keep a hold on my hand and say, “Does this mean I get to take you out later.” We went out later that night and I was sure when he left town the next day that he would forget my name. I didn’t see him again for four months and, by then, I was eighteen. He came to town again for the track championship night but he wasn’t racing. I couldn’t figure out why he drove across the United States to not even race.”
I smiled warmly. “He came for you?”
“Yes, he said he knew what he wanted and that was me.” Nancy put her hand on my back again. “Once the Riley men figure out what they want, they’re persistent and relentless.”
I knew this well. This season couldn’t have begun any worse for him when he started USAC and now, look at him: two points out of the lead in the Triple Crown heading into Pontoon Beach with six weeks to go. I had no doubt in my mind he’d pull this off. When he wanted something Nancy was right, he was like any other Riley, he persevered against all odds.
“I won’t say anything,” Nancy offered observing me watching Jameson sign some autographs in front of the pit gate. “But once he figures out what it is that he wants, I get to say I told you so.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way,” I responded disheartened.
Nancy laughed quietly. “I know my son. Of all my children, I can read him the best.”
I was about to tell her she was wrong when Emma dropped down beside us in the bleachers. “I swear to God, the longer we are around each other the more I want to kill him. He’s such a jerk these days.”
“He’s not that bad,” I replied gazing at him like a goddamn idiot. A few pit lizards had surrounded him when he got out of the car.
“Bullshit, he’s not that bad. That asshole punched Trace!” Trace was another midget driver that Emma had been hanging around with. She apparently didn’t get the memo when he told her she wasn’t allowed to date other racers.
“Why do you think we intended to stop having kids after Jameson? He’s been that way since he was a baby. You should have seen the fit he threw when we took his bottle away.”
“What do you mean intended to stop having kids?” Emma asked skeptically.
“Emma,” Nancy sighed but had a wide grin as if she’d won the lottery. “You were an accident.”
“I was?” she balked.
I laughed, scratch that, I fucking fell over laughing hysterically. Not because Emma was an accident but because of her expression of pure mortification.
Emma leaned over and pushed me off the bench. I landed on my ass, still laughing next to the bleachers. “You bitch.”
“Emma, watch your language.”
“What’s up asshats?” was Spencer’s greeting to us.
Nancy shook her head. There was no hope for us. You’d think truckers raised us all but when you grow up at dirt tracks, cussing is part of the game. “He’s in a mood tonight,” Spencer said nodding to Jameson who was still signing autographs and glaring at another driver, Alex Reed.
“Isn’t that the kid who wrecked him in Dodge City back in June?”
“Yeah,” said Spencer before standing. “Come on, Sway, he wants us to get him away from them.”
“When did he say that?”
“Five minutes after they surrounded him... I thought I’d take my time though.” Spencer found it funny when the women mauled him.
I shook my head. “And you two wonder why he’s such an asshole all the time.”
Later that night, prior to the B-Feature, Jameson found me inside his hauler avoiding the pit lizard convention outside. “Where have you been all night?” his voice was laced with tetchiness.
“I... was with your mom.”
“Oh, I didn’t know she was here.”
I wasn’t surprised he didn’t know. He’d barely been able to leave the hauler tonight and when he did there was a crowd surrounding him.
My eyes found his. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he let out an enervated sigh. This season had done a number on him. “Only six more weeks,”
“Yeah... then what?”
“Home for a few weeks and then off to California for Turkey Night and then back to Eldora in February.”
“Have you thought about Australia?”
Bucky had been pressuring him to go to Australia right after Turkey Night to race in their sprint car series for the winter. Sprint car and midget racing was huge down there.
“I don’t think I’m going to. Maybe next year. I need to regroup.” He stepped closer and threw his arm around my shoulder. “You know,” he smirked. “I always race better when my good luck charm gives me a kiss.”
I giggled. “What kind of a friend would I be if I said no?”
“Clearly not a good one.”
“Fine.” I acted like this was no big deal but any time Jameson had kissed me these last few weeks, it was all I could do not rape him.
“Try to control your excitement just a little,” he derided.
“Oh, sorry,” I threw myself into a balls out kiss.
I knew anytime I put everything I had into our frequent boundary pushing, he panicked and pushed me away. I tested him.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and wiped that goddamn smirk off his face. His tongue was the first to brush across my lower lip. Within seconds of his tongue entering my mouth, he let out a groan and pushed me against the side of his hauler, his strong hands moved from my hips to my thighs and pulled me up around his waist.
Instinctively, I wrapped my legs around him and felt what I was doing to him. I was counting down the seconds before he put the brakes on and wrenched himself away but it took more time than usual. This time he let it go on and I was the one to stop. He needed to focus and not be doing this. Jameson had enough distractions lately and making out with his best friend should not be one of them.
“Jameson,” I breathed in his ear but he didn’t stop, instead he pushed me back further, grunting as his hips met mine. “Stop,” I said, softly, and I’m not sure he heard me because he didn’t stop.
I pushed against his shoulders only to have him push back against mine and wrap his arms around me tighter. He strained closer and moved his hips again.
As much as I enjoyed it, we did need to stop or I knew where this would be heading.
“Jameson, you... I need you to stop.”
I moved my mouth from his gasping for air only to have his lips travel to my neck, kissing and sucking along my collarbone. Running on instinct, I wiggled against him because this felt so good I couldn’t stop myself, his hips twitched forward and the sensation caused us both to gasp, that brought him back to reality.
His face was pure mortification as he stumbled backward against a set of tires. “Shit. I am so sorry, Sway. Fuck!” he cursed himself. “I can’t believe I did that... Jesus Christ, what the fuck is wrong with me?” he punched the side of the hauler before storming out, cursing at himself.
Well, then.
I slumped against the side of the hauler, confused.
I knew Jameson well enough to know that he was just horny. Being on a road trip with all of us didn’t provide much time to bleed his pressure valve as Jimi would call it. I knew he’d slept with someone a few weeks back, but other than that, the poor boy was in a constant state of arousal. I couldn’t blame him. He was eighteen. It had nothing to do with me. I was just there and I was safe. He didn’t have to worry about me wanting more or expecting anything from kissing. There was only one problem with that situation. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. For so long I was all right with that but now, I didn’t know. I had begun to analyze everything.
Eventually when I heard the cars lining up for the feature event, I made my way outside. Jameson’s car was lined up but he wasn’t. It was just Tommy and Spencer standing beside it.
“Where’s Jameson?” I asked looking around.
“Who knows,” Spencer grumbled kicking the rear tire and then gestured with a head nod to the pits. “Asshole told us to line his car up and then took off the other direction.”
Tommy looked perplexed. “We thought he was with you.”
“I was with him earlier but... he left... I haven’t seen him in probably thirty minutes.”
Right when we were starting to get nervous because the rest of the Outlaws were making their way onto the track, Jameson came running from the bathrooms, zipping his driver’s suit as he slowed to a jog. Without looking my direction, he hoisted himself inside his car. I watched him lock in the steering wheel before sliding his gloves over his bloody knuckles. Before putting his helmet on his eyes met mine, he mouthed “sorry” and then winked.
I gave him a smile and winked back before mouthing “good luck.”
I had no idea where he disappeared to but I assumed he did some speed bleeding with either some pit lizard or himself. I hoped it was himself but doubted it. This made me sick to my stomach to even think about and, frankly, ready to vomit so I pushed those thoughts aside and focused on making fun of Tommy, always a good time.
“Looks like fire crotch got a little too much sun today.” I slapped the back of his red neck.
“That’s it!” he shouted chasing me toward the pit bleachers. “And you wonder why I shot you with a staple gun!”
Being distracted by Tommy was good because when Jameson won the race, I saw the girl I assumed he fucked somewhere in the pits sitting on his lap.
When he saw me, he removed her but I knew, a girl always knows. I was observant enough to know that he was hanging on to his sanity by a thread and I wasn’t helping.
I didn’t believe in regretting anything in life but I was wise enough to master avoidance and denial, two of my best traits I thought.