Seat Time – Time sitting behind the wheel, competing in a race, qualifying and practicing.
There was something that I learned back when I raced for the Triple Crown at eighteen. Seat time was the most imprtant part of your development as a driver.
]Whether it be racing, qualifying, or even just logging laps in heat races, you eventually get a handle of the way your car responds in different situations and track conditions.
With all that seat time comes an understanding and a sense of respect for what each can teach you. I knew that no matter what the track conditions were or how my car handled, I could never run high at Terra Haute. I knew that if Skagit was dry and slick, the high line was the only place I could run. And Lernerville, I knew that when the track glazed over, with my driving style, I would end up in the field at some point. It was
There was something I learned with all the seat time. No matter what, no matter how many laps you logged, nothing prepared you for when the track changed. When the conditions you set your car up for no longer worked and you had to hang on and hope for the best. In many ways, it was happening to me now.
Track conditions had changed. Now we had to make adjustments and see if we could make the car work.
Sitting in the family room, Spencer looked over at me, his eyes rimmed with tears. “Does it feel real to you?” he asked softly looking at a picture of our dad on the mantel above the fireplace. The picture was of me and Spencer standing beside him and his sprint car after he won Knoxville Nationals the year before he retired. The memory stung like acid, a reminder that I could still feel the pain of his absence.
I’d never seen Spencer cry other than the time I smacked him in the nose with a crow bar for stealing my birthday cupcakes when I was seven.
When I was with my family, it didn’t hurt as bad because I knew they felt the same way. It wasn’t any easier on me or them. We all felt the same pain. And in a way, that was comforting to know that someone understood.
“No,” I mumbled dropping my eyes to my cane. “It doesn’t feel real. I keep thinking he’s going to walk through the door and call me an asshole.”
“Oh, I’m sure Emma has that part covered,” Spencer chuckled sitting on the couch across from me.
It took him a few moments but he eventually asked what I knew he was going ask.
“Was Grady arrested?”
I gave him a tight nod and he knew I didn’t want to talk about it. Grady had signed a few documents when he started with JAR Racing that prohibited him from stealing among other things. He also had to answer to the charges brought against him for what he did to my car. It was considered attempted murder.
Needless to say, he would be going to jail. But I was done talking about it.
I didn’t dwell on it nor did I have any feelings about it the next day. With all the time spent thinking about how it would make me feel, honestly, I was done and it didn’t make me feel anything. Pissed? Fuck, yeah, I was pissed but that was about the only reaction I had from it.
“When are you coming back to racing? We miss you out there.”
Getting back to racing was on my mind a lot lately. Easton was doing good and keeping the sponsor happy but I wanted back in that car badly. Fuck the double vision. I wanted to race.
“I have a test session in two weeks in Charlotte. I have to pass an exam by NASCAR before they will grant the license again—something about vision and stability.”
“That’s probably a good idea though.” Reaching forward, he took his beer from the coffee table. “What do they make you do... a sobriety test or something?”
“Something like that.”
As I understood it, they wanted an exam performed by a doctor they authorized, a vision exam, and mobility test. So yeah, pretty much a sobriety test. I kept thinking they would make me walk around the track on the yellow line just to be sure I could.
Regardless, the only things I was looking forward to were getting back in the car and having sex with my wife. Everything else, I ignored and pretended wasn’t happening.
What was happening was life around me and that was a good thing, aside from Rosa. She pissed me off daily because every morning after physical therapy, she came into our room and decided at that time to vacuum. Once again, I came out of our bathroom and she was there looking at the vacuum cleaner like it was a bomb.
“You have no idea how to clean, do you?” I turned to the dresser to pull out my jeans and then made my way inside the closet. She followed me and then shoved the vacuum into my heels.
“Get out of here!” I shouted back only to have her laugh. “Stop it,” I demanded trying to keep my towel in place. “Go someplace else in the house.”
Rosa always had something to say so I sat there staring at her waiting for her next remark, one hand securing my towel. Her eyes ran up and down my stomach and chest and then lower. I felt like a piece of meat.
“Jameson?” she looked up to give me the news. “Your ass is showing champ.”
“Stop looking.” I quickly righted my towel. “Go clean.”
“I’m too tired today. Maybe tomorrow,”
“You’re the worst maid ever.”
“Isso é discriminação, que você sabe.”
“Oh, my God,” I walked past her to the bathroom again, shouting over my shoulder. “That’s Portuguese, not Spanish, which you said you spoke last week! You really should figure out what language you’re going to speak and stick to one. Half the time you don’t make sense. And no, it’s not discrimination. Nice try.” I slammed the door shut and felt damn good about it.
When I got downstairs, I wanted food after my workout but there only seemed to be healthy shit. I wanted a fucking hamburger badly or even better, barbeque.
Sway made me eat healthy after the accident. I had eaten healthy before for as long as I could remember so it wasn’t much of a change. The problem was that I couldn’t taste much so nothing sounded good aside from barbeque.
She wouldn’t let me have barbeque and that wasn’t gonna fly with me. I wasn’t happy. Did she want me to stop living?
Since my encounter with Rosa this morning and no barbeque, I wasn’t in a good mood when Casten rolled his ass out of bed at noon.
“Nice of you to join the living today,” he mumbled some sort of reply to my comment but said nothing until he found coffee in the kitchen.
“Aren’t you too young to drink coffee?”
“Uh, no, I’m fifteen. I can drink coffee if I want. Besides,” he gave me an eye roll. “I was up until three this morning. I need coffee.”
“Why were you up until three?” I looked around the house to see if I missed a party or something.
“Fucking Tommy took a wrong turn coming back from Farmer City. We ended up in Bloomington before he figured it out.”
“That’s thirty miles out of the way.” Pushing the laptop aside, I laughed at him.
“Exactly.”
“What are you doing?” Casten sat down next to me and changed the channel from Sports Center to some shit movie he found on HBO.
“Give me that.”
He held the remote above his head knowing with the soreness I felt after physical therapy that I wouldn’t move to get it. “Come get it then.”
“You jerk.” I punched his shoulder but he did nothing but hold it even higher. “Give. It. Back.”
“Jesus, you’re so moody,” he said tossing the remote back in my lap and relaxing into the couch. “What’s your problem?”
“I’m hungry,” I told him and then remembered that Sway wouldn’t be home until later tonight. “If I give you a hundred bucks, would you go get me something?”
Casten eyed me curiously and then crossed his arms over his chest, “Keep talking.”
“Go get me barbeque at Lancaster’s.” Leaning forward I pulled my wallet from my back pocket. “Brisket and ribs.”
“I have one stipulation.” His face took on a somber edge. “Don’t you dare tell mom that I did this for you. I’m her favorite child and I intend to keep it that way.”
“I’ll never understand why she likes you so much.”
Another somber look before he jetted out the door. “Because I’m awesome.”
It must have taken that little shit two hours to come back with the food and don’t think I didn’t text him every five minutes. Being alone in the house, well not really with Rosa roaming around, but I didn’t like being alone these days. Sway was with Arie and Alley doing a meet-and-greet for Easton Levi. That left me alone.
“I brought friends!” He yelled coming through the door with Spencer, Aiden, Tommy, Willie, Axel and Justin.
It was just what I needed right then. My sprint car buddies. It felt good to hang out with the boys. It was something we hadn’t done since, well, the night before Knoxville.
My stomach dropped at the thought but I pushed away the memories. I wasn’t over it nor would I ever be. Only seat time would provide the distraction and way to deal with the pain.
Later, my stomach hurt but not from pain this time. From laughing. It was the kind of pain that you couldn’t catch your breath, and if someone looked at you, you started laughing all over again.
It felt good.
And strange.
I missed Sway in moments like this and felt bad that I was laughing now and not with her.
Axel broke out into giggles when beer shot out Tommy’s nose. Casten was telling a story about last weekend when they were in Haubstadt for the race at Tri-State Speedway.
“No lie,” Casten laughed throwing his head back. “He comes out of the hauler holding a box of wine that he made a pillow out of and nothing on but a feather boa wrapped around his neck.”
Axel lost it again but tried to add to the conversation through his snorts. He reminded me of Sway when he laughed like that. It felt good to see him happy again. “So then... ” another burst of giggles, Aiden looked at me and laughed shaking his head. “... he tells us waving the boa around saying half was flair and half was for protection.”
Tommy held his hands up in defense. “Whoa, stop judging me. I warned you not to give me that bottle of gin. I hate gin.”
“Now we know,” Casten said seriously and then broke into laughter again. “He sent this text at three in the morning asking if I had a chainsaw.”
“I did not,” Tommy said waving his hands around. “Now you’re lying.”
“Oh really,” Casten dug his phone from the pocket of his khaki shorts and showed Tommy the text.
Tommy looked at me. “I think your kid set me up.”
Licking barbeque from my thumb, I smiled. “I wouldn’t doubt he did set you up.”
Aiden nudged Spencer next to him reaching for another helping of potato salad. “Did you tell Jameson about Brody and Easton last week?”
Spencer let out a bellowing laugh that actually hurt my ears but a lot of sounds hurt my ears these days. “You should have seen Easton last week in Martinsville man. He took some hard licks from Brody all race, and then on the last lap, he just fucking just nailed him. No brakes, nothin’ just slammed right into him.”
“I saw the aftermath on Sports Center today.” Looking down, I hated that they all had racing stories that I wasn’t part of right now. Everybody was back to working full time aside from me and just like being in the house alone this afternoon, it felt strange. That was how I knew I was ready to go back.
“Oh, Jameson?” Rosa called out as she came into the room with headphones in and dancing around to whatever that shit was she listened to. “You might be interested to know your wife is home.” She took my half eaten rib that was in my hand and started eating the rest of it without missing a beat.
“Who is that?” Aiden asked as if he never seen Rosa before and then looked at me like I was crazy for letting her eat off my plate. She then took my beer and chugged it.
“My best friend,” Spencer goaded when Rosa burped louder than him.
“Or Tommy’s gymnastics partner,” Casten added.
Tommy dropped his head to the table shaking it back and forth when Rosa made a humping motion against the side of his chair, headphones still in.
“I love this family,” Casten announced. “But, seriously…” his eyes widened. “We gotta hide this shit.” He was in full panic mode because he knew damn well if Sway found out he got me barbeque, she would kick his ass.
I didn’t want my ass kicked by her so we hurried and got rid of the evidence while Spencer guarded the door. Sway was pounding on the door as he sat there in front of it laughing his ass off.
“Open the fucking door, Spencer!” Alley shouted losing control just about the time we had it all put away and then opened the door. All five girls fell on their asses in the foyer.
Sway looked at me, less than amused, pushing a bag at me. “I brought you barbeque to be nice.”
“Oh, wow,” I turned to Spencer who could barely control his breathing. It wasn’t that funny but it seemed since we hadn’t laughed in so long, everything was funny to us, “they brought us barbeque.”
“You ate barbeque today, didn’t you?” Sway asked looking from me to Spencer and then Aiden, who couldn’t lie to save his ass.
“Why would you say that?” Casten stepped in. “I was with him today.”
“I told you no barbeque for him.” Sway was looking at him like she wanted to kill him.
“I... uh ...” he pointed at me as if I asked him to commit a fucking murder with me. “He made me do it. He bribed me with money!”
“You are such a little jerk,” I told him taking my new bag of barbeque with me to the table.
Sway came up behind me as I sat there eating. I refused to let it go to waste. Her hands squeezed my shoulders and then she moved to sit on my lap, her face beside my ear when she spoke. “Care to work up an appetite there, champ?”
Nodding, I swatted her on the ass once and gave a tip of my head for her to get up.
Though we had a good time in our room, we still hadn’t had sex yet since the accident. Every time we tried I was in too much pain from either my shoulder or my pelvis. I couldn’t be on top of her, nor could she be on top, because the weight of supporting myself on my arms hurt but then when we tried to move, it hurt too much to be able to relax.
Either way, we were doing all the assembly prep but we had yet to perform the engine overhaul if you know what I mean. If I was being honest, something felt different between us. Maybe it was those track changes I talked about. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was in pain, or if Sway was afraid of hurting me that she didn’t relax either but something was there and left us both silently questioning the change.
When we got back downstairs, I was confused and busied myself with the schedule that Alley and I had for when Jameson got back to racing in a few weeks.
If he passed his medical clearance with NASCAR on the tenth, his first race back was scheduled to be the All-Star race on the thirteenth. We would be cutting it close with practice and qualifying but with as much time as Jameson had been spending at Lowes Motor Speedway, I think he was ready. When I watched him race it was as if he never missed a beat. The first time I saw him get back inside the car at the house I nearly had an anxiety attack waiting for him to show some sort of nerves or hesitation but he didn’t. He just got inside the car, strapped in and acted like it was no big deal.
When the boys were done eating, we moved into the family room and started drinking beer which was nothing unusual for our group.
“Where’s Lily?” I asked Axel when he kept checking his phone like he was late for something but acted like he didn’t want to leave.
“She’s with her mom in Florida this week.” He gave me a funny look. “I thought you knew that. Grandma is with them. They went shopping for the baby.”
“Oh,” I tried to act amused. I was excited that they were having a baby. I was. I was not excited about being a grandma and avoided the topic all together because of that. I think Lily felt like I wasn’t happy about it when they first found out but I had to calmly tell her to stop thinking of herself and think of me as a gray-haired old grandma and then she could understand my reservations. She did and now we had a mutual understanding. I would be the baby’s aunt.
I must have lost where the conversation went from there because the next thing I knew they were talking about Jameson’s cane that he was able to get rid of the other day.
“Who wasn’t hit with the cane at one time or another?” Spencer asked and then looked at me. “Aside from Sway.”
My goddamn cheeks flushed so bright remembering the other night. I felt like the sun had blasted me. If only they knew what he’d done to me with that cane.
Problem was, without my verbal objections, they did know.
Jameson didn’t help matters by side-eyeing the cane and then raising his eyebrows. His head tilted as if he too was remembering the other night.
Then he winked at me. Though our sex life wasn’t what it used to be, I did get a few taps on the ass with the cane. All of which I enjoyed immensely.
Spencer’s laughter broke through. “Fuck yeah, brother!”
Jameson said nothing but the smile he had gave him away. He looked like a little boy again with his mischievous grin.
“He’s got a nice ass.” Rosa sat next to me on the couch. “I saw it this morning.”
“Rosa, don’t look. He’s my husband.”
“I tried to tell her that.” Jameson lifted his beer up in the air as if he was raising his hand.
“So?” Rosa glanced back and forth between the two of us. “I can’t help it.”
“You are so morally wrong it’s disturbing at times.”
“I never claimed to be morally correct. I’m just saying that given the chance to peek, I would check out his ...” she thought for a moment, her eyebrows scrunched together, “what do you call it? Track layout?”
Laughter broke out around everyone. Spencer looked at Alley. “Can we get a maid like Rosa?”
Jameson lifted his beer again. “She speaks Spanish too ...” and then he chuckled and looked over at Rosa, “or is it Portuguese now?”
“Gillpollas,” Rosa muttered taking Jameson’s beer.
“Oh’p, it’s apparently back to Spanish.” Jameson laughed taking his beer back.
It’d been so long since I heard him laugh and be in such good spirits I forgot what it felt like.
Times like this with all of us together were great. The worst part about a death in the family was after the family and relatives have left and their lives moved on but you’re not. You’re stuck. Rooted in the life you knew. The life you wanted and the life you made until it was changed for you.
The best thing about the Riley family was that no matter what, they were there for you along the way. The death was still very real to us but we took comfort in knowing everyone felt the same way.
The test session rolled around on Wednesday and we made the drive to Charlotte to meet with Patrick, the Vice President of NASCAR, and Russ Campbell, the new Director of Competition.
Randy, Jameson’s uncle, met us there. Him and Jameson exchanged a handshake and then went to discussing the test and all the exams they wanted to perform.
They took him behind closed doors for a while, said it was a private meeting and then had Randy and I wait in the hallway for him. We didn’t talk much. It was mostly because I wasn’t really in the talkative mood. I hadn’t had nearly enough coffee, I hadn’t had sex since before Jameson’s accident, and I was scared of Jameson getting back inside the car. I had never been scared and now I was. That kept my mind preoccupied to the point that conversing with Jameson’s overbearing sadistic uncle wasn’t in my plan.
After the medical exams, they went down to the track and watched Jameson take about twenty laps, had him do a pit stop and then he had to get out of the car within the time limits they provided.
They went back up to the office again, Jameson appeared relaxed and then he came out some ten minutes later. He said nothing but grabbed me by the hand and took me back down on the track to get his gear bag before we left.
Only we didn’t leave right away. Instead he stood there leaning forward against the counter, his head resting against the upper cabinets.
“What the fuck do they know anyway?” Jameson shouted, hurling his helmet across the hauler. “Come on, let’s go.”
I waited until we were back in his truck before I asked. “You didn’t pass?”
“No,” he said flatly. “I failed the balance portion.”
The entire way back to the house he never said a word. He knew the balance would be an issue. Jameson had an injury to the temporal lobe of his brain, that was where the fracture was and the swelling mostly occurred. But no one knew for sure what other areas took a hit. It could have very well been that the cerebellum portion of his brain had been injured as well. Either way, he was having problems with balance which is why he had the cane for so long. It had been fourteen weeks since the accident exactly.
And truthfully, I blamed him failing the test on the number fourteen.
They scheduled another test for the following week and said if he passed he could race in the Coca-Cola 600 race at the end of the month.
After he heard that news, he threw himself into his recovery. He knew that if he would ever get back inside a race car professionally he needed seat time. Just like our summer when he set out to win that Triple Crown title, he got as much seat time as he could and did everything the doctors said to do.