Dialing In – A driver and crew making setup adjustments to achieve the car’s optimum handling characteristics.
My senior year I decided I was going to race with the World of Outlaws when they were in Skagit so that left Sway and I traveling together on a Tuesday night since the race was on a Wednesday.
After convincing Charlie that I needed her there, he agreed to let her skip school.
Spencer, Tommy and Emma also came along. This was our usual traveling team aside from Alley who decided to sit this one out.
We never had money to pay anyone who helped us since any money I did have went right back into my car. Tommy never once acted as though he wanted to be paid for helping. We did pay his way and fed him. If you knew Tommy, you knew that all he wanted was food and beer; money didn’t matter. It didn’t matter to any of us as all any of us lived for was the next race.
I always thought I was taking something away from Spencer and Emma being the only one who raced but I soon understood they loved it too. They loved racing as much as I did and being the supportive family we came from, they did everything they could to help me.
I was loved, that was for sure, but that didn’t mean they didn’t make me crazy. At the end of the day, we loved each other and they were the best fans I could ask for.
It wasn’t unusual for Sway and me to be riding together in my truck and the others to ride in Tommy’s car. I preferred it that way for less distractions but the trip there ended up being the worst distraction of all.
Just outside of Seattle, Sway was searching around in the backseat for a CD when she turned abruptly and sat back in her seat. I glanced around to see if she saw a cop or something but nothing, just open highway.
“Jameson, what’s that smell?” she asked, her hand flew to her nose.
“Huh?” I didn’t smell anything but her coconut perfume.
Sway slapped me. “Seriously, it smells in here. Roll your window down.” She instructed rolling hers down frantically. She turned around again and stuck her ass up in the air digging around on the floor. “I still smell it, what is it?”
“I don’t smell anything.”
She huffed dramatically flopping back in the seat. She kept looking at me before averting her disgusted gaze out the window as a red Lexus flew past us.
I thought she’d moved on from the smell but then she groaned.
“Christ almighty, what the fuck is that?”
“I don’t smell anything!” I snapped annoyed she was making such a big deal out of this.
“Of course you don’t,” she went back to searching around on the floor in the back seat, “you’re used to it!”
A few minutes later, she pulled out a box I didn’t recognize that clearly had something die in it. “Where’d that come from?”
“I don’t know—your backseat?” Her eyebrow arched.
I smelled Spencer behind this one. He once put a dead rat in the vent in my bedroom and if you have ever tried to get that smell out of a heater vent, it is fucking hopeless.
When Sway opened the box, I nearly wrecked the fucking truck at the site of week old sushi covered in maggots and God knows what else.
When she puked on me after opening the box, I did wreck the truck in the ditch.
We sat there for a moment when I finally brought the truck to a halt on the side of the road, after barreling into the ditch, there appeared to be a stump that came out of nowhere. I hit that, too.
“Really?” I simply said when the airbag blew up in my face after the wreck.
So much for safety.
There I sat alongside the road in nothing but my underwear waiting for the tow truck while Sway laughed.
“I’m so glad you’re amused by this.”
“Me, too.” She giggled again to the point she looked like she was crying. This was yet another instance in my life where I was not impressed with her lack of concern for me or my truck.
“I hope you piss yourself.”
She stopped laughing altogether and looked appalled that I said that. “That’s an awful thing to say. Why would you say something like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I gestured to the no clothes and wrecked truck. “You puked on me and made me wreck my truck.”
“Listen, asshole,” she scowled, her mood completely changing from appalled to pissed shoving me in the chest, “that wasn’t my fault.”
“Really?” I challenged.
She shrugged carelessly as if this wasn’t a big deal. “Well, maybe the puking part but you’re the one who left sushi in your truck for a week! Who does that shit?” she held her hand up when I went to speak. “And, worst of all, you couldn’t smell it! It was rancid.”
“I give up!” I yelled throwing my arms up against the deployed air bag.
“As you should,” she smiled triumphantly. “This is one battle you ain’t winning, Riley.”
When we finally made it to the track, I was not in a good mood. This might have had something to do with the fact that my truck had a smashed bumper and reeked of puke but that was beside the point.
What was irritating me now was walking around the pits in my fucking underwear while other drivers whistled and made catcalls at me because I had no clothes to wear.
I found my racing suit so I had something to wear and then was met with Chelsea staring at me with her sister.
The day kept getting better and better.
“What are you doing here?” I asked zipping my racing suit. I told her to stay home but, no, she never fucking listened to what I said. I’m surprised she even listened to what track I was going to be at.
“I wanted to wish you luck,” She cooed with a smile and wrapped her arms around my neck.
I sighed pulling her away.
“I need to get to the drivers’ meeting.”
I didn’t have time for this shit today. A bad showing at a World of Outlaw race did nothing for your image in racing and nothing for my determination to step out of Jimi’s shadow.
I needed to be on my game and with the way the day was starting out, I wasn’t on my game.
“Where’s Sway?”
“She’s changing in the bathrooms.” I kept walking to my car as they followed close behind.
A few drivers glanced at Chelsea. There was no denying that she was attractive but their attention to her didn’t bother me.
Most of all, I hated when Chelsea came to the races. She spent the majority of the time bitching about dirt. Anyone wears anything white to a racetrack is asking for problems and she always did.
I made it about twenty feet from the pit bleachers where I stopped and signed a few autographs from some of the kids racing quarter midgets that night.
Chelsea sighed beside me, “Why do they always have to interrupt us?”
I scowled at Chelsea when the child frowned.
“Here you go, buddy.” I handed him his program back and offered him my hat as well.
“Thanks, Jameson.” He chimed skipping away, thankfully undeterred by Chelsea’s comments.
Sway walked out of the bathrooms in fresh clothes before I could say something sarcastic to Chelsea. I may or may not have turned a hose loose on Sway when we got here to get even but, in my defense, she deserved it. I had to walk through the pits in my black boxer briefs because of her.
“I hope you piss yourself...” Sway mocked walking up to me. “You’re such an asshole.”
“Do you always follow Jameson to his races?” Chelsea asked her as she wrapped her arms around me. “You don’t have much of a life, do you?”
I wanted to smack her for talking to Sway that way.
“I was invited.” Sway replied glaring in my direction. “Were you?”
Chelsea arched an eyebrow at Sway while running her right hand down my stomach—I caught it before it went further. “Well, I am his girlfriend.”
Not that word again.
I groaned in misery. “Sway, Tommy is looking for you. Can you give him this,” I handed her my credentials. “Chelsea, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked once Sway walked away.
She smiled possessively. “Sure, babe.”
Rolling my eyes, I walked with her toward the pit bleachers to get ready for the drivers’ meeting.
“You need to stay in the stands if you’re going to be here. Only crew members are allowed down here.”
“What about Sway? She’s not a crew member.”
I lost it and threw my hands up in the air.
“Will you stop it?” I yelled. “Just stop! Stop acting so goddamn possessive over everything.” My infuriated eyes focused on hers, wide with surprise. “Sway is part of my team. Every week she’s out here helping me, what do you do?”
“I help in other ways ... ways she can’t.” Chelsea purred in my ear standing on her toes to reach around my neck. My harsh clipped tone did nothing to deter her. “Did you forget what I did for you the other night?”
I hadn’t forgotten. Wanted too, but, unfortunately, I hadn’t.
Until the other night, I had only kissed girls and maybe the occasional dry humping session but nothing underneath clothing. Against my better judgment, I let Chelsea jerk me off after we went to the movies. Since then, she thought she had some materialistic claim over me as though I was hers.
“Are you for real?” I snapped and then realized how childish this all was. “I have to go,” I told her and walked away.
When I got to the pit bleachers dad was sitting there with Justin.
“Girl problems?” he asked laughing.
“Fuck you,” was my reply.
Yes, I said “fuck you” to my dad. That was how annoyed I was.
I hated that I even had to deal with this shit in the first place. I pushed the thoughts aside when Clint, the chief steward for Skagit, rolled up on his 4-wheeler to begin the drivers’ meeting. I focused on what was important, racing.
He talked about procedures for the hot laps, time trials, heat races and then the feature events.
I glanced across the track when he started in about cautions and what to do when the yellow came out, as if we didn’t know. I watched as the stands began to fill with spectators.
The World of Outlaw series, being a premier division, drew in a hefty crowd. It wasn’t unusual to see at least five thousand fans at the track on nights like this.
Looking over at my dad, he was hardly paying attention, having heard this a million times by now. Instead, he watched the water truck as it made continuous laps. The smells of the wet clay surrounded us mixing with sweet methanol.
Justin was yawning. Shey was glaring at Bucky who took his last cigarette and I was irritable with my leg bouncing obsessively against the metal bleachers.
I told myself I’d be getting away from Chelsea and her self-indulgent attitude as soon as possible but I wasn’t sure I could.
She’s exactly why I found Sway’s company so refreshing. She never acted like that. Sure, she was my friend and had no claim as to who I kissed or flirted with but even if she did, Sway was above that, never juvenile. Chelsea was your typical high school girl.
MY THOUGHTS WERE focused once I slid inside my car. I qualified ninth for the main so that wasn’t exactly positive but the track was exactly the way I liked it. After a few final adjustments, my car was perfect.
“Do you want to set back the timing?” Tommy asked twirling a wrench in his hands prior to the main.
I shook my head. “No... it doesn’t seem to be changing out there. Just leave it.”
Usually if we thought the track was going to turn dry-slick, meaning the moisture had dried up, we would adjust the timing for less horsepower. If we had too much horsepower when the track changed that was when these monsters started with the wheel stands.
Sway—who I hadn’t seen since I handed her my credentials—threw a bottle of water my direction and then walked inside the hauler.
“You need to sign the release form again before the feature. They can’t read your writing. You’re lining up behind Cody in the feature.”
Visibly angry, I followed her.
“You okay?” I asked leaning against a stack of tires propped against the wall.
I watched her closely as she fumbled with a spare torsion bar laying on the counter. She was definitely angry but about what?
“Chelsea?” I assumed they exchanged a few words. This wouldn’t be the first time.
Sway nodded with her back still turned. “She’s a bitch. Don’t worry about it.”
I flipped out and punched the side of the hauler.
It was one thing to annoy me. It was something else entirely to involve Sway. While anger clouded my judgment, I didn’t look at what I punched until it was too late. Instead of punching the plywood, my fist hit a metal beam.
Naturally, this pissed me off even more and I did the only thing I knew to do being seventeen; I threw a childish fit and started throwing shit in an attempt to ease my frustration.
It didn’t. It only made me appear like more of an ass along with destroying about five-thousand dollars in race car parts.
Dad, visibly angry, caught me before I climbed in the car for the heat race. His face was a few shades lighter than his red racing suit.
“Get your shit together asshole,” he went on furiously. “And you’re paying for everything you destroyed.” His eyebrow arched as his voice rose nearly to a shout. “Do you understand me?”
“Whatever,” I replied. I was still fucking angry and didn’t care. I had a quick fuse and it didn’t cool off immediately.
He slammed me against the car and my head knocked against the top wing. His hands fisted roughly in my driver’s suit before he pulled me closer.
“You will show me respect, Jameson.” His usual bright blue eyes darkened as he glared. “I don’t care if you think you’re better than everyone out here ... you may be but if you don’t get that smug fucking attitude of yours under control, it will all be gone before you know it!”
I pushed back against him as pain shot up my wrist from my hand that had punched the wall. I knew it was broken but I refused to acknowledge it.
Jimi pushed me back again. “I don’t know what’s going on with you but if you want this,” he motioned toward the track. “Stop acting like a goddamn child!”
His hands dropped and he walked away without another glance.
I knew he was right but then again, I was seventeen. Like most seventeen-year old males, I didn’t care what anyone thought.
I was black flagged four times in a matter of six laps before I finally wrecked myself and Justin coming out of turn three when I tried to pass him four-wide.
Justin was pissed and he had every right to be.
When he came to my pit after we made it back to the pits, I stood there. I had no excuse. It was my fault and I knew it.
“You know,” his eyes met mine, hard and irate. “I take a lot from you out there Jameson. We’re friends,” Justin barked. “But that was bullshit and you know it!”
“I know,” I dropped my head as Tommy and Sway approached us. They hung back trying to judge what Justin was about to do, his fists clenched at his sides.
I wasn’t sure what he had planned. I was sure I could take him but seeing how it was Justin West, a kid I respected, I probably wouldn’t have put up a fight.
Justin stepped closer, and for a moment, I thought he was about to punch me but then again, that wasn’t Justin’s style.
“You’re talented, Jameson. I’ll give you that.” His head nodded at the mess in the hauler from earlier. “But your temper will destroy everything you’ve worked for.”
He turned sharply and walked away.
Thankfully, he did because I was so pissed that I had ruined my chances of a good finish at a World of Outlaw event because of high school bullshit that I had taken it out on Justin, and that wasn’t at all what I wanted to do. Justin was my friend and these days I had very few.
I sat there huddled in the corner of the hauler against the tires with my head buried in my hands for a good thirty minutes before Sway approached me when the feature was finished. She didn’t say anything, just sat down next to me.
After a moment of silence, she sighed pushing her auburn locks away from her face and pulling her knees to her chest.
“I fucked up,” I muttered watching her trace the outlines of a two-inch scar she had on her left knee from when she fell trying to escape from being chased by a bull the first summer we met.
“Who doesn’t fuck up at one time or another? You need to focus,” Sway told me. “Too many distractions ... you know?” her knees knocked against mine.
“Yeah, I guess.” I crossed my arms over my knees, resting my forehead against my forearms. “What did Chelsea say to you?”
“Nothing really... normal high school insecurity shit... the usual for her.”
“Figures,”
“Why do you even bother with her?”
“I have no fucking clue.”
I didn’t have a clue either. I didn’t love Chelsea. I hardly even liked her. There wasn’t a single redeeming quality about her but yet I found myself giving in to her. I began to comprehend I was comfortable with her for some reason. I knew she was using me but it seemed tolerable because I was doing the same thing. No one would get hurt because it meant nothing.
ONCE WE ARRIVED home, my mom, who had stayed up, caught me before I made it into my room. Her face was the same shade as dad’s was earlier which confirmed my theory he told on me.
“I will not have my son acting like a spoiled asshole all the time!” she said pushing me against the wall. I offered a grin down at her but that didn’t work. “Your Dad told me what you did at the track.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Jameson, you need to pull your head out of your ass. Your Dad is trying to help you. Judging by that hauler outside, you need help!” She poked my chest before walking down the hall and slamming her door shut.
Dad strolled up the steps as I sat in the hallway. I had intended to go to my room but instead sat in the hallway.
He didn’t say anything, just smirked, as he made his way past me to their room. It was late, at least two in the morning by now but mom always waited up for him when she knew he’d be home.
I never paid real close attention to the relationship they had but I knew it was a good one. I’d never seen them fight at least. She’d tell him to shut the fuck up at times but they never all out argued, at least not in front of us kids.
With the lifestyle we lived, you would think it would cause tension for them but it never seemed to, from what I saw.
Picking myself off the floor, I made my way inside my room and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I was exhausted.
I ended up working off everything I broke in the hauler that night and wasn’t allowed to race the following weekend. Not because dad wouldn’t let me but because my hand was most certainly broken.
I skipped school that week to get my car ready for Chico the following weekend. I had some shit to fix on it.
Sway stopped by after school on Thursday to help me when Chelsea showed up not long after that.
The door had been locked so I’ll give you one guess as to who I have to thank for unlocking it. Spencer.
“So I’m not allowed to come by but she is?” Chelsea asked standing by the door.
I caught a brief glimpse of Spencer before I heard his annoying booming laughter as he trucked back to the house.
“I’d help you hide their bodies if needed,” Sway said, with a smile and a deserving glare at Chelsea.
Chelsea looked ridiculous dressed in a white summer dress. But that wasn’t what was so ridiculous. It was her attempt at looking like she was heading out for a strip club was with heels that could kill someone.
Sway, who’d been roughing tires, stood, and brushed the rubber shavings from her worn jeans.
“I’m going to go talk to Emma. I’ll be back later.”
My eyes shot to hers, frantically pleading for her not to leave me alone but she didn’t. I growled at her, actually growled and then turned toward Chelsea.
“What do you want?”
“You,”
Chuckling to myself, I turned and walked back to my car.
She followed and approached me from behind. Leaning against my back, she wrapped her arms around my waist, slipping them down my hips.
I caught her hand before it slipped inside my jeans.
“I need... you to leave,” I told her trying to control my emotions and not freak out. “I have work to do.”
“I can take care of you,” she offered kissing down the side of my neck. It felt good, but it also felt wrong. While her touch physically felt welcoming, the emotions I felt weren’t.
“I don’t think so. I have a lot of work to do here.”
“Are you really that mad at me? I only told Sway she should keep her hands off my boyfriend. I hardly think that’s cause for the silent treatment.”
I threw a nearby wrench across the shop, the crack it made when it hit the metal doors and forced Chelsea to step backward, her face frightened.
“Get the fuck out of here!” I yelled without turning around to look at her. “I mean it. You need to leave.”
Her heels clicked loudly as she stomped away, slamming the door behind her.
I knew I would eventually turn back to Chelsea, as I always did but I also knew in that moment that if she so much as mentioned Sway’s name again, I would have thrown the wrench bar at her.
I only wanted to race but because I was seventeen and my hormones seemed to rule over my actions I found myself wrapped up in the middle of this bullshit.
Something had to give and I knew what it was. Me. I couldn’t take much more of any of this and it wasn’t what I should be focusing on.
That weekend was our senior prom and after last weekend I wanted nothing to do with anything related to high school. I needed to be alone. Chelsea wanted me to go to prom and asked endlessly the following day despite my snide comments to her. I could care less what she thought. The one I was worried about was Sway.
I could tell Sway wanted to come with me to Chico but I didn’t want her following me around and forgoing any normal high school experience. When Cooper Young came to me earlier in the week asking if I thought she’d say yes, I told him she wouldn’t go, but after some convincing on my part, she said yes to him. I hated that she was going with him but on the other hand I would rather she went with him instead of Dylan.
The drive to Chico was not the same without Sway harassing me about my music choices although Spencer more than made up for it. I almost threw him out once we reached Portland and he stuck in a Britney Spears CD. Not having a pit crew this weekend, I endured it.
Justin, whose hauler was parked next to ours, approached me after I made it into the pits while Spencer and I were unloading my car.
“Hey, dude, can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked leaning against the side of my car crossing his arms over his chest.
I nodded. I hadn’t said much to him since the wreck two weeks ago in Skagit. Part of me felt I needed to apologize, but the other part thought it’s just racing. I never expected anyone to apologize to me after wrecking so why should he?
He surprised me though when we made our way over to the concession stands.
“Hey, Ami, can we get some service around here?” Justin teased handing her a twenty. “I’d like a beer,” he told her with a grin.
“Yeah, sure,” she smiled at Justin. “In four more years, sweetie,”
Justin laughed leaning against the counter. “Fine, then, I’ll take a hamburger and coke.” He nodded his head back toward me. “And whatever he wants,”
“I can cover it, Justin.” I pushed his money aside and handed her another twenty.
“After Skagit... you owe me. Just let me buy this.”
I laughed. “So I wreck you and you buy me dinner. Isn’t that a little backwards?”
“Probably,”
Ami handed us our food and we walked back to the haulers. “Listen... I wasn’t going to say anything last week. I knew you had your hands full with... women problems but I would hate for you to lose any chance at a sponsor because of it. They’re not worth it.”
“You have your fair share, too?” Justin was definitely a favorite among the women at the track. He usually had three or four around him at all times.
“Yeah... after a while though... they only want one thing,”
I nodded taking a bite of my hamburger and then a long pull from my drink. “They do complicate things, don’t they?”
“That they do... wait until you find one you love. That’s when the shit really hits the fan.”
“And I take it you found one?”
He smiled looking over his shoulder at the pit concession where Ami was. “Yeah, she’s pretty special to me.” he turned his gaze back to me. “Just remember why you do what you do. If you want it bad enough, everything else falls away. Look at Jimi, he knew what he wanted and look at him now.”
Justin had dreams of racing in the World of Outlaw series someday so he looked up to my dad, as I did, but I wanted more than that.
I wanted to race sprints but I also thought maybe there would be something more for me out there. Not sure which way to go, I decided that, for now, USAC was the way after graduation. With three different series’ to compete in, I could strive for the Triple Crown National title and that was where my interest was. Justin competed in USAC events as well but he attempted to qualify for every World of Outlaw race he could. Funny enough, he did qualify for most of them.
That night I broke the 410-Sprint track-record of 10.918 that was held by Tate Harris, a NASCAR Cup driver out of Charlotte, with a new record of 10.032.
It was a good night that got even better when I won the A-Feature with an entire lap lead on Justin. Compared to that weekend at Skagit, I was on fire. It took me a good hour for the adrenaline to subside and stop shaking from the thrill of the win.
Justin and I talked again after the race with Cody Bowman. Cody was twenty-one now so, of course, he brought us over some beer as we sat around the haulers.
“You two did good tonight,” Cody said hunching over a stack of rear tires lined up right outside the doors of my hauler.
Justin glared toward Cody as they didn’t get along. Not sure why. All I knew was if they were on the track together, one was trying to take the other out.
Cody left with Spencer after that to go check out a group of girls who had gathered near the gates. Though Spencer was now dating Alley on a regular basis, it didn’t stop him from eyeing the opposite sex.
Justin watched me closely as I left a message for Sway letting her know where I had finished. I promised I would and knew that if I didn’t, she’d have my ass when I got home.
“What’s with you and Sway?” he asked patiently gauging my reaction.
“She’s my best friend,” I shrugged. “Not much to explain. It’s not what you think though.” I added.
Justin scoffed. “Yeah—sure,”
“It’s not,”
“Really?” he countered. “I see the way you watch her ... she’s more to you than that. You just haven’t convinced yourself of that.”
Was she more? Well, of course she was, but I was also not willing to take any chances.
What Sway and I had was good so why complicate it for the unknown because I was physically attracted to her?
No one seemed to understand me.
I had my reasons and they were mine. They may be wrong but they were still mine. Sway never asked me to be someone else. She never asked me to change and when the weight of the world was on me, she was there, lifting it away. But that wasn’t exactly why I wasn’t willing to change anything. This worked for me. She was mine, just in other ways. My friend.
A friend was exactly what I needed right now. I didn’t need complicated. I needed to keep focused. I needed to be the best. I needed unrivaled greatness and, to do that, I needed to be vigilantly focused.
Easier said than done when you’re seventeen but I also knew if there was one thing I was good at, it was being focused on what I wanted... racing.