Bleeder Valves – The valves that regulate air pressure in the tires as it heats up. As the tire heats, the pressure increases. To accommodate this occurring in a race, bleeder valves are put on the tires. When that pressure increases to the psi you set them to, anything above it is released to maintain the set pressure.
There seemed to be no pattern and no reasoning to my schedule during the racing season. Every week it was different and scheduled as far out as six to nine months at times. Aside from Sunday afternoons, who the hell knew what the next week would bring for me.
Though Alley kept me incredibly organized, there was rarely any downtime once February rolled around and that went until late November. If I won the championship, my time was then booked through December, sometimes January.
During the season, and to keep with the traditions, Monday was my day. From the time I left the track on Sundays to Tuesday morning, it was a time for me, and something I needed.
I did standard shit on Mondays. I helped out around the house and spent time with Sway and the kids. I might go to the grocery store with Sway, and usually that never ended well so we didn’t do that too often anymore. Sometimes I snuck to the shop and hung out just for alone time.
Tuesday I did all my media and sponsor obligations. Alley fielded most of the requests for appearances and scheduled them if I had time. Naturally, she and Melissa worked closely to make sure no conflicts came out though they often did.
Wednesdays I was with Kyle Wade, my crew chief, and our team manager, Trace Elliot. I met with my business manager, Melissa Childers, who used to work for Simplex. She was a great asset to our team this last year and helped keep me out of hot water. Most of my time spent at the shop was meeting with them and then checking on our crew guys, mechanics, fabricators, and engineers. For the most part, I kept a good relationship with all of them. There was always the occasional conflict or heated conversation but nothing that wasn’t worked out by the end of the day.
By Thursday afternoon, I was at the track and getting settled into my personal motor coach before our race weekend started. Friday was practice. Saturday was qualifying and last minute adjustments and then Sunday was the race. Monday it started all over again.
It wouldn’t be right if I told you that we, as race car drivers, gave our families the attention they deserved because we didn’t. Even when we weren’t at the track we were living our lives mentally at the track but it’s the way it had to be in order to do what we did. At home, it was difficult to be present when so much was required of you at the track.
I missed anniversaries, birthdays and the birth of my daughter. I couldn’t tell sponsors no but I could tell my family no. And I did, often.
Racing was number one in my life and took everything I had. If you weren’t willing to give up everything, you already lost the race. That was just the way it had become in our sport.
What does it give in return?
If you were lucky, winning.
IT WASN’T HARD to shift my focus back to racing heading into Speedweek. Even after my buddy Ryder Christensen’s death. I was focused and ready as the defending champion. My confidence was sky high and I was carving out a nice place in history with the most wins in the series, along with the most championships.
It was slightly difficult staying focused when I had Jimi nagging me constantly. It seemed with all his free time now he thought of nothing but new and inventive ways to annoy me.
At the end of January, they did surgery on his hip to repair a fracture he didn’t know was there. Apparently, all those hard hits had taken a toll on his old body. This now put him in a wheel chair for a few months while he healed. This was both a good thing, we could escape him easier, and a bad thing, he used it as a weapon.
The morning before I left for Speedweeks I was forced to spend some time with him going over schedules for the Cup team.
It wasn’t what I had planned for the day and couldn’t understand why Alley or Melissa weren’t helping with this.
This team owner, though he was my dad, I was about to kill.
He was always around, telling me what to do, asking me questions, yelling... you name it, he was doing it and it annoyed me.
“We need to make some changes around here,” he said in his rough tone.
It was the tone that meant “Boy, you better be listening to me or else.”
“I don’t think so.” Standing from my position at the table in our conference room, I started to walk away, “The team is fine. Stop messing with things.”
He rammed his wheel chair into my shin for the third time. “No, I think we need to restructure. Maybe start with a driver change.”
He was always hinting at replacing me but never did.
“Listen you old bastard,” I kicked his wheelchair away from me and he laughed as if it was his goal this morning to piss me off and he had succeeded, “Stop that.”
All the same, this was our argument most of the time. If I was being honest with you, I was convinced he enjoyed it. Not racing was making him cranky. He claimed he had too much time on his hands and I couldn’t agree more. I didn’t like him bothering me all the time. These days I had enough people bothering me and I didn’t need any more.
After my time in Florida, I had a feeling Axel felt the same way, but the kid would never say anything.
Grady met me at the door as I was leaving, his eyes focused on his feet rather than me. “Hey, Jameson,” he seemed to consider his words for a moment, “I was wondering if you needed help in Daytona this week?”
“We got a pretty full crew right now Grady. The JAR guys might need you though.” I handed him a card with Tommy’s name and cell phone number on it. “Call Tommy and let him know I said you needed some work.”
His eyes shifted from the floor to mine with a smile. Looking at him now I noticed his eyes had a familiarity that I couldn’t place.
“Thanks,” he said moving his eyes to the floor again when he caught me looking at him.
Spencer approached behind him eyeing Grady just as the rest of my family did. Like I said before, we didn’t hire outside of family after Kerry.
Grady walked back to the engine he was cleaning and then busied himself loading pit carts for Rockingham. Spencer watched Grady and then looked at me for an explanation. “Who’s the kid?”
“Grady. He’s a sprint car racer outta Kannapolis that needed some work.”
“Grady, huh, let’s hope he’s nothing like the last Grady we knew.”
He was referring to a guy we knew in high school, Dylan Grady, who took Sway’s virginity and then never talked to her again.
Spencer gave me a nod and then looked back at Grady again, “What’s he doing here?”
“I hired him to help around the shop. He’s got some fabrication experience and we need it with four sprint cars running this year. Tommy and Willie are overloaded as it is.”
“So, you hired someone you don’t know?”
“Yeah, so?”
I knew it wasn’t something I ever did but still, couldn’t these guys give me a break?
Spencer shrugged and then followed me outside. “I just want you to be careful man. We don’t know him and to have him here at the shop when none of us are here isn’t ideal.”
“What does it matter? If he breaks something I gotta pay for it, not you.”
I’ll admit I was a little irritated when I said that and it had nothing to do with Spencer. As my brother, he was looking out for me. I understood that but I was also irritated that no one would listen to me.
Spencer let out a disgusted snort and walked past me purposely bumping my shoulder with his, “See you on Tuesday.”
I knew I would hear about that later. I knew I had pissed him off but, then again, that also wasn’t unheard of for me.
Sway took off to Elma that morning with Andrea, our General Manager at Grays Harbor Raceway.
Grays Harbor Raceway was the track Sway’s father, Charlie Reins, had purchased soon after the passing of her mother, Rachel. The first year I raced in the Cup series, and the year Sway and I eventually got our shit together and started dating, was when Charlie informed me he was dying of brain cancer.
To keep the track in the family, I bought it from him. After his passing the following year, track ownership got to be a little much once we had Axel so we ended up hiring Andrea Lancer. Andrea was in need of Sway’s help before the season began so she took Casten and Arie with her and said they would meet me in Daytona.
This left me flying alone to Daytona.
At the end of last season, my team plane crashed outside of Lancaster, Ohio, when it was en route to Eldora Speedway. Members of my team and a few other teams in the Cup, Nationwide, and the Truck series were killed, along with my pilot I had known my entire life. Fourteen people, all gone at one time.
It wasn’t easy for us to get over that and we still felt the pain now as we tried to replace the members of our teams.
Was I afraid of flying now?
Yes and no. It was a horrible feeling to have and even worse to imagine how many of my friends were lost that day.
Recently I had purchased a Falcon 200. Actually, I didn’t purchase it. I was making some hefty payments each month to the bank, but with my lifestyle, I couldn’t fly commercially.
Still, life went on and given my career choice, I was forced to continue flying around the world despite my fears.
This meant I had to find a new pilot as well. That was not my favorite experience so I enlisted Van, my bodyguard and he found a navy pilot he used to work with when he was a SEAL.
Roger Agar, our new pilot, enjoyed scaring the shit out of me and once decided he was going to do a barrel roll with me. I kindly told him if he did that, again I would jump from the plane, no lie.
MOST OF MY time spent in Daytona was with the media, sponsor obligations, and then there was a few meet-and-greets I had to get done. Alley had my schedule packed and allowed for little breathing room outside of the evenings. Me, Paul Leighty and Bobby Cole, my teammates this year, all went to dinner the night before the Budweiser Shootout. It was always nice to get back with the boys and talk about what we all did over the winter. Tate Harris, another driver in the series who was set to retire this year showed up halfway through our meal so we got to chat with him. He brought with him a kid who was racing in his driver development program, Easton Levi.
Easton, a seventeen-year-old kid, from Wheeling, Ohio, was an open wheel racer who decided to get into stock cars. Tate, having given me my start into NASCAR, was always willing to help a hungry kid. If I was being honest with you, I think that was part of the reason for hiring Grady around the shop.
After a good conversation with Easton about Ryder, who he knew pretty well, we seemed to get along good. I liked him … he seemed level headed and getting into stock cars for the right reasons. He wanted to be the best. I always looked at it this way, if you were racing for the money you’re in it for the wrong reasons. Easton didn’t seem to be in it for that.
Tate caught me outside the restaurant before we headed back to the track. “Is Sway coming out tonight? Eva was asking about her.”
Eva was Tate’s wife for the last fifteen years and a good friend of Sways’.
Checking my phone to see if she had sent me a message, I looked over my shoulder at the group of women gathering. “She will be here in the morning, I think. She had to fly to Elma yesterday.” I gave him an eye roll. “Never again will I build a new house, a new shop and redesign a track in the same year.”
Tate chuckled and gave the women behind us a nod as to say, “Come over.”
They did and we spent the next fifteen minutes handing out autographs.
These days our sport had become as popular as any other professional sport in the United States. What was once considered your average good ol’ boy sport with roughed up drivers was now a multi-million dollar corporation with professional athletes all working for the same goal, growing our sport.
“I love you guys so much!” One woman with wide eyes and a forget-my-own-name-smile gushed pushing a poster in my face, “I’ve watched your son race since he was a little boy and you, too.”
I smiled at her and her cheeks flushed deeper.
“Thank you, ma’am.” I gave the woman a wink. “It’s always nice to have a dedicated fan.”
Tate chuckled when I said ma’am and even mouthed it back to me.
Elbowing his side, I signed a few more autographs and then headed back to my truck with Bobby.
I relaxed back at my motor coach knowing my alone time wouldn’t last once my family and crew arrived.
Sometime after eight that night, Kyle showed up and shuffled through a stack of movies to talk race day strategy.
Carrying his notebook inside, he looked over notes. Kyle kept a notebook just as most crew chiefs did. Though most now had laptops and tablets they kept the information on, Kyle kept his in a black notebook, always had.
In that book he kept meticulous notes detailing each track we visited. He knew cautions, fuel mileage, tire setup as well as tire wear. He worked closely with our engine specialist Harry, as well as our tire specialist, Tony. As with most crew chiefs in the garage area, he obsessed over it.
Each week Kyle goes through all possible scenarios. He asks himself, what should we do when the car does this? Or with twenty laps to go at Bristol, should we pit when the caution comes out?
Handling, adjustments, fuel mileage, he went over all aspects, obsessed over and determined which risks to take to get us the jump we needed. Did he have a hard job? Yes. Out of anyone on a race team, from the guys pushing the jack to the one behind the wheel, in my eyes, the guy on the box had the hardest job out of all of us.
As we sat there running ideas past each other, I watched him scrutinize the smallest details. He seemed different this year. Maybe it was that years of a highly stressful job had taken its toll on him.
Sometimes I thought Kyle fixated on that book a little too much but we all knew why. He got us to victory lane more times than not. In turn, he was highly sought after.
Then it hit me, what if he wasn’t happy working with me anymore?
Through this last year, and the years’ prior, Kyle’s job had gotten increasingly harder with the way NASCAR controlled so many aspects of the cars. It was hard to get the jump on other teams to win. He was also still dealing with the loss of his brother Gentry, who had been on my team plane that crashed.
“Ready for another year?” I ran my left hand through my hair. My eyes focused on the book and the worn corners.
“Same shit different year,” he said, chewing on his lip and flipping the pages of the book as if he was hunting for something specific in it.
“Are you thinking of going to another team?” I asked eventually.
We had worked together my entire stock car career since 2002. The thought of not having him around had never crossed my mind until tonight.
Finally finding the page he was looking for, he scratched a few notes in his books, shifted to rest his elbows on the table and then looked up at me.
“Sure, I’ve thought about going to another team at times. Most crew chiefs don’t stay with the same team as long as I have. But,” he paused focusing on me, “you are my family.”
“How’s Kiera doing these days?”
“Oh, well, she left me.”
Kyle wasn’t the first guy on the team to get a divorce nor would he be the last. In fact, most of the boys had either split up from girlfriends or divorced over the years. It’s just the way it was. “It was to be expected. I couldn’t expect her to live a life without me there.”
I couldn’t deny that he was right. I was his only family these days. Through a string of broken relationships, Kyle had yet to find a wife who was willing to give up having her husband home two days a week. It seemed that after Gentry was killed, Kyle put everything he had into our team. I could understand that, too. It was a way of him coping with the loss. Everyone had different ways of dealing with the loss of those fourteen guys on my plane and they all came down to finding distractions.
HEARING THE NEWS of Kyle splitting from his wife, I missed my own wife by the time Saturday rolled around and final practice sessions were beginning. Come Sunday, the only thing that kept my mind off her was the shit going down around me the morning of the race.
Each year our team builds cars to the specifications provided by NASCAR. And every team does the same. We had a specialized team of guys, known as fabrication specialists, back at the shop in Mooresville who did this and each year we pushed into the gray areas for a little more room.
Every team does this, too. Sometimes you got caught, sometimes you didn’t.
Once a car was built, NASCAR put their stamp of approval on it. They did that by putting a radio frequency chip on the car and a sticker of approval that was like a VIN number on the chassis that they scanned during inspections
When the cars were at the track, each was inspected by officials with a template that they checked for clearance.
That morning of the Daytona 500 we didn’t pass inspection. But we had before qualifying.
What changed?
Apparently what changed was that before they never put the claw (template) on it, just rolled through the inspection trying to get everyone through.
As we stood in the garage area, the official closest to me leaned into my shoulder, “Looks like this’ll be a pretty penny Riley.”
He was right. When NASCAR found a problem, we paid for it.
Turns out our fenders weren’t lining up correctly and neither were the c-posts. Bobby and Paul had the same problem.
We fixed it that morning knowing we’d all be starting from the back. This wasn’t all that bad for me because I had messed up and scraped the wall during qualifying and only managed to snag a twenty-fifth starting position. Yeah, forty-third wasn’t going in the right direction but neither was getting caught cheating.
So, we fixed it. Problem solved, right?
Not quite
NASCAR has, and always will hold, the right to punish at their discretion.
That morning after the drivers’ meeting, we were told for one, we’d start from the back, Jimi, as the owner, was being fined $50,000 and our team in particular was fined $25,000. Then they added that Kyle would be suspended for two races.
We filed an appeal right away.
Would we win the appeal?
More than likely the answer was no, but we had to file one to keep Kyle on the box for Daytona.
Kyle, Mason, and I huddled around the car as Jimi wheeled himself up the grid.
“These fines are getting as steep as Kyle’s hair line,” Dad spouted off with a carefully composed expression.
Mason and I chuckled. Kyle did not.
He was suppressing his irritation the best he could but not well enough. He sighed and looked over the car. “We fucked up,” he frowned, “I can’t offer much more than this.”
Kyle’s eyes drifted from mine to the team working diligently to fix the car as he focused on the difficult position this put all of us in. The muscles in his jaw pulsed as his free hand scrubbed at his face, his frustration flamed.
I couldn’t have Kyle taking the blame for it all so when the media questioned me, my answer was simple and I spoke the truth as I always did.
“This is on me just as much as it is on our team. I’m not going to give you any excuses and I take full responsibility for what happened.” I searched their faces to see if they believed me but all I got was blank stares.
“So you cheated?” the reporter asked with a cocky edge. “Maybe that explains the fifteen championships you’ve won. Cheating?”
Just like that, the lightness of the conversation vanished and I knew I was being backed into a corner with no way out. Even still, I hadn’t lost that spark of defiance that made me who I was. No way were they going to backdoor me on this one.
Kyle looked up at me surprised and maybe even a little skeptical at what my response would be. If I had said that Kyle was trying to gain us some speed by shaving down the fenders a fraction of an inch than, yes, we would have been in some hot water but you have to understand that every team cuts corners like that. It’s all about who crosses over the gray line too much.
Kyle crossed his arms over his chest and leaned into the pit box. You could see the tension of the day embedded in his shoulders. He glanced at me once more before I spoke and I caught on to the loophole. His eyes gave him away every time but maybe it was that we’d been working together for so long. We had the fact that they didn’t put the claw on the car before. Had they done that, they would have known the car wasn’t cleared prior to race day. Though this meant nothing today, it would for our appeal and Kyle knew that.
“Every team out there pushes the boundaries,” I said, looking from Kyle to the media. Each reporter in front of me listened closely all hanging their recorders in my face, “it doesn’t matter what sport you’re in, people push until they can’t push anymore. You can look at any sport out there right now whether it’s racing, football, baseball, even hockey. They all push to gain the edge. That’s all it is.”
I won’t sit here and say that cheating was okay because it wasn’t. But when you were allowed such a small window to make adjustments you found yourself searching for anything you could.
Hell, I used to race with guys who would replace their roll cage with exhaust tubing to make the car lighter during the race.
Was it safe?
No, fuck no. If they would have wrecked it could have easily killed them.
Nevertheless, they got their cars lighter for the main events and sometimes pulled off a much-needed win. It’s that line again. What would you do to be the best in a sport that is highly competitive? Some sacrificed safety for the win.
Back at the hauler for the team meeting, I stretched my legs out trying to get the blood flowing again. The hauler came alive as the team made their way inside for the meeting.
“All right, boys,” Kyle’s voice rose above commanding attention within the group. “We’ve got a lot to discuss here so let’s get to it.”
Kyle went over the fines and the important points that were discussed at the drivers’ meeting earlier.
Usually we went over anything about the race that the over the wall guys needed to know, things Aiden might need to be aware of as the spotter, and sometimes things I lost interest in during the meeting. It happens.
The purpose of the meeting was not only to go over race day and talk about pit windows, pit stops and various strategies, but also to get us motivated for five hundred miles. It’s not easy to get ready for these races and it tends to leave most of us on edge at times.
Just like any sports team, this was like a pep rally for us and a time for us to come together.
WHEN I MADE it back to the motor coach to grab some lunch, I was relieved Sway had arrived with Arie and Casten. Though Casten only came for the girls, Arie could care less about being here; it was nice to have my family with me.
After Sway had made me some lunch, I grabbed my bag to get ready when I noticed my brother’s latest prank.
When he stepped inside looking for food, I gave him a piece of my mind.
“You are damn near forty-five. Why do you keep doing this shit?”
He shrugged taking a bite of his sandwich.
Sway smiled behind him knowing where this was going when she saw the glitter sparkling in the air.
“Because ...” Spencer took another bite contemplating his response, “... it pisses you off.”
Weekly that shithead dumped glitter in my helmet because I hated anything on my skin. Have you ever tried to get glitter off your skin after you’ve been sweating?
It’s useless and takes weeks.
For this reason, Spencer bombed my helmet at least once a year. Apparently, he was starting early this year. Tossing my usual helmet aside, I reached for my spare when I noticed he did the same thing to that one, too.
His pranks for Daytona didn’t end there. He also decided to have the locks in my motor coach replaced so that when I was trying to escape a few pit lizards I couldn’t get inside.
I would be having some words with him for sure. This wasn’t the first time he had replaced the locks either but the first with this motor coach. Last year, after Spencer set the microwave on fire, I decided to get a new one. Since I started racing in the Cup series, this was my fourth motor coach. All of them had to be replaced due to something Spencer had done to it.
Spencer left and I decided I was going to relieve my frustrations by some align boring with my wife. She caught on quickly when my hands crept up her shirt and unfastened her bra. Walking backward down the short hallway in the motor coach, she smiled but said nothing and one finger beckoned me.
I was sure she had no idea the pent up frustration I had. Pushing her against the door, my mouth found the skin I had been missing. Fisting her hair in my hands, her neck arched giving way to pleasure. She loved that shit.
“I missed you,” my hips pressed forward into hers searching for any type of friction I could find. My head fell forward at the sensation that surged through me.
“I was only gone a week,” she breathed against my neck and then closed her lips to press a kiss against my skin.
“I still missed you, a lot.”
“Then show me, champ.”
Trapping her against the door, I pulled back to look at her cradling her face between my hands. “I plan to.”
Sway reached inside my jeans, her breath blew past my ear, “Oh, God,” her hand curled around my camshaft, my hips bucked forward on their own. “You really did miss me.”
She withdrew her hand and pushed against my shoulders. “Fuck, honey,” I growled, eyes darkening and I reached for her again, “don’t tease me.”
“I’m not teasing.” She smiled that smile that let me know what she had planned wasn’t teasing at all. Dropping to her knees before me, her hands worked my jeans past my hips. “I’m just getting started.”
Fuck, yeah.
Nothing was better than some micro polishing from my wife.
Watching in the mirror to the side was enough to send me over the edge quickly. Sway had a way with micro polishing. This is what we, as in my wife and I, called a blowjob. If you think about it, micro polishing was a process that involved polishing the cam to improve mileage, durability and performance. Knowing the process, it was hard not to associate it with a blowjob but... oh, fuck, who cares?
Sway’s motions took on a new determination and I lost that train of thought. Who cared how it compared. It just did. My mind gave way and desires became my only thoughts.
Eventually the tension of the day subsided and the sensations rose to the surface. Sway knew my reactions when I was close and wrapped her hands around my thighs to take me into her mouth farther. I lost it completely.
She looked up at me with flushed cheeks and cherry red lips. “Now, win for me.”
Reaching for her arms, I pulled her up my body and slumped against the counter. “How am I going to win ...” my arms circled around her bringing her flush against me, pants still around my ankles, “when you just did that? I’m exhausted.”
“You’ve won more races than any other driver in the history of this sport and you’re forty-one, I’m sure you’ll get it together.”
Sway drew herself away as I reached for my jeans. We parted ways not long after that but I did promise to repay the favor tonight to which she assured me she would be holding me to it.
“I’m glad you made it,” I said kissing her forehead before exiting the motor coach dressed in my racing suit.
She smiled taking a long gaze down my body.
“Arie was arrested last night. Just sprung the little shit before we came here.”
I stopped mid-step looking back at her over my shoulder, “Seriously?”
Sway nodded.
Nowadays with Axel racing on his own and gone most of the time, Arie usually wanted nothing to do with us on the weekends. Casten was always with Sway but sometimes he took off to the track with Axel. That didn’t happen often, as Sway didn’t like him hanging out with Tommy and Willie.
Daytona was never a race Casten missed, too many girls.
As throngs of those said girls passed by, I noticed Casten sitting outside the motor coach as Sway and I talked about Arie.
He looked up at us. “Thank God, you’re done. I’m starving.”
Casten pushed his way inside to retrieve a sandwich and then came back out to sit in the chairs outside watching the girls. Casten had a way with girls that most fourteen-year-old boys didn’t have. They loved him to the point of obsession.
“Remember that boy who said he didn’t want a girlfriend?” Sway asked wrapping her arms around my waist and tucking herself under my shoulder.
Casten kicked his legs out slouching in the chair. “I don’t recall saying anything of that nature.”
“You did.” I sat next to him. He rolled his eyes uninterested. “Why was Arie arrested?”
“Ask her,” he shrugged keeping a close eye on a group of young blonde’s wearing bikinis.
After finishing his sandwich, he stood. “Good luck today.”
“Stay out of the pits, Casten!” Sway yelled after him.
“Too late,” he called back sprinting the other direction so she couldn’t catch him.
“I don’t know why I bring those little shits with me,” she said, taking a seat on my lap.
Arie and Lexi approached us, as I was getting ready to head to the grid. Spencer had pulled up in the golf cart and looked at his daughter about the same as I was looking at mine. We were both in denial that they were old enough to be wearing what they were wearing.
I wasn’t impressed and threw a Simplex Shock and Springs sweatshirt at her. “Put that on.”
Arie rolled her eyes and hung the shirt over her bare shoulders but didn’t put it on.
Tate and Bobby walked up jumping on the back of the golf cart wanting to hitch a ride when I noticed Easton trailing close behind. He offered my daughter a shy smile. I knew they knew each other from Axel and Easton racing USAC together.
“Let’s go.” Spencer ignored the girls and nodded to the track.
I stopped beside Arie and leaned against her shoulder. “We will be discussing your arrest tonight.”
Again, more eye rolling.
“Jameson,” a reporter to my left shoved a microphone in my face. “This year you’ve already been fined $50,000 for the alterations made to your car and forced to start from the rear of the field today. What are your thoughts on making it to the front and do you think you’ll get caught in the big one?”
Trying to keep my composure for the media and their invasion into our privacy, I answered politely. “It sucks that we’re startin’ from the back but that’s the way it is. I think if we keep out of trouble, pay attention and make good stops, we have a shot just like anyone else. With Daytona you can be leading and then next thing you know you’re last. Same goes for last place. You just never know.”
I must have answered with that same speech twenty times standing on the grid before I finally heard the call for us to report to our cars.
Brody Williams, a rookie this year, walked past me, and my forty-third starting position, to his pole position. I didn’t appreciate his brash walk past me.
Spencer noticed and looked over his shoulder before nudging mine. “He looks like he’s ten years old.”
I grunted but said nothing. I gave Sway a kiss, she wished me luck, my team and I shook hands and patted backs. We all prayed for a day of good luck and a safe five hundred miles when the outcome at a track like Daytona was far from within our control.
Inside the car, I got comfortable, pulled on belts and did the best I could to calm my pre-race nerves. Most of which were usually calmed by one picture that reminded me why I was here, my family. The picture was one taken when the kids were younger and my absolute favorite as it reminded me of the way we were. It wasn’t your ordinary posed family picture. Instead, it was Sway and me standing together on the beach, both looking at each other. My right arm was hung out to the side holding a two-year-old Casten up in the air by his ankle as he laughed. Sway stood with one hand resting on my cheek with the other one grabbing a six-year-old Axel by his hooded sweatshirt. There, standing with her hands on her hips, was our little headstrong Arie wearing a ballet outfit, a JAR Racing sweatshirt and a pair of combat boots. It was my family and a family that got me through this. Those who knew me understood this lifestyle wasn’t something I enjoyed but I enjoyed racing. I enjoyed being the best and with that came this lifestyle.
Connecting my helmet to the radio, I checked reception. “You copy, Kyle?”
“Ten-four,”
All was quiet as the field rolled from the grid and onto the track for our four pace laps.
“Let’s have a good day, guys,” I said over the radio. “Awesome pit stops and clean driving.”
“Clean driving?” Kyle laughed. “Who’s drivin’ the car?”
“Whatever.” I mumbled tightening my belts.
“Two to go at the line,” Aiden announced, “I don’t have a good view in three so if you question it, don’t make a move there.”
“Ten-four.”
Once the green flag was waved, it was crazy. Every other lap we were being thrown the caution. Cars were overheating and blowing engines. Tires were shredding. I’d never seen it that bad before but when you’re trying to control our speeds as we do, we get bunched together. If you bunch cars together, they overheat and engines blow. What did they expect?
“Clear high, there you go. Nice move,” Aiden said when I got past Brody Williams for fifth twenty laps into the race.
“Fuck man,” I looked up to see him still there, “he gets such a good jump off the other cars.”
Brody didn’t let me off easy and came right back with Nathan Wise and Bobby behind him. Since they changed the rules and we couldn’t communicate with other drivers I couldn’t tell Bobby what I really thought of him paring up with Brody here. He was supposed to be drafting with me.
For three hundred miles it was an endless display of yellow flags and swapping positions.
“It’s like a circus out here,” I laughed when the caution came out again just after we restarted with ten laps to go.
Aiden laughed, “Lots of green, yellow, and now red.”
“I’m heading home if they add blue,” I joked. “Why is the red out now?”
“Tate and Steve are getting into it.”
“Tate?”
“Yeah, Tate Harris.”
“Why is the crowd going crazy?” I noticed the shift in the stands and the sudden draw to the start finish line.
“I told you,” Kyle sounded annoyed. “Tate and Steve got into it.”
“What do you mean they got into it?”
“They got out of their cars and were pushing each other.”
“Oh, well, are they still doing that?”
“Why are you so concerned with it?” he snapped. “Usually you don’t give a shit.”
I sighed. “I’m bored and missing everything. If they’re fighting and shit, I wanna see it.”
“Stay in your car. The last thing we need is another fine.”
I did stay in the car but eventually after ten minutes of being red flagged, I voiced my concern for my boredom again. “You would think with all this high-tech blinky shit in these cars they’d let us have a TV.”
“Oh, yeah,” Kyle laughed, his joking mood returning. “NASCAR would definitely allow that.”
We ended up restarting some five minutes later only to have the last lap end in disaster.
Running tenth, I thought for sure I would be ahead of the mess when Brody and Nathan got sideways coming out of three and it took us all out of being in the lead. You knew it was coming when the cars were literally floating around all jerking for position.
Cars were scattering everywhere and all I could do was let go of the wheel and hope for the best. Most drivers let go of the wheel. When we knew the chance of correcting it was slim, to avoid breaking our hands if the wheel jerked back the other direction with a hit to the front wheels. It’s happened before.
When we started wrecking like that on a superspeedway, there was nothing you could do. We were all bunched up so tightly that one loose car could take out a pack of twenty easily and it did.
“Hang on to it bud, there you go,” Kyle urged. I tried to correct it only to be hit from behind and then heading straight for the wall.
Fuck, this is gonna hurt.
“We’re in it,” Aiden announced when Paul nailed us from behind and sent me sailing into the side of Bobby and then Paul. Pretty soon I was handing out taps to a handful of cars. It was as though I was playing ping pong, and I never liked ping pong when inside a race car.
Before I knew it, I was being treated in the infield care center along with about ten other guys.
“Talk about carnage out there,” Bobby joked holding his neck as a nurse looked over him.
“I still don’t know what happened,” Paul joked slightly disoriented. “I think I hit you twice before I ended up on the other side of the fence.”
“I’ve come to the rescue,” Tate said with a shaded eye and beer in hand. He tossed one my direction.
Sway approached me from behind, her hands rose from my arms up to my shoulder holding the ice pack to my neck. “I hate watching wrecks like that.”
There was no sense in smiling nor did I have the energy to smile. Hell, I didn’t even have the energy to open the beer in my hand. “I know.”
Once they cleared me to go, I handed the unopened beer to Paul. “Drink up.”
“Looks like you took some licks out there,” Spencer said checking on me as I got inside the golf cart. A few reporters stopped me outside the care center to ask my thoughts and see if I was okay.
I gave Spencer a nod that I was all right and then turned in the seat to offer the reporter a quick interview.
“Jameson, how are you feeling? You took a nasty hit out there when Paul got into you.”
“I’m fine, sore, but fine. That’s the craziest finish I’ve ever seen here.”
The reporter laughed. “Can you feel those big wrecks coming like that?”
“Oh, yeah, you can feel it, see it, even sense that it’s coming. It’s just a matter of who’s gonna make it and who’s not.”
“Rough fines and rough race, huh?” he asked bringing up the fines again. To reporters it doesn’t matter whether you had a good race or a bad race. It doesn’t matter if you won or wrecked. They still wanted their story and focused on where that was. To them, interviewing me was about the fines issued this morning. They wouldn’t forget.
“You know, there’s NASCAR’s theory on this and there’s mine and our teams. Somewhere in the middle is the truth and that‘ll be decided by someone else.”
I left my remarks at that. I couldn’t offer them more.
Back at the hauler, everything was loaded and ready to go within an hour as the crew slowly disappeared to board the team plane and my private jet waited for my family and me.
Looking around, I watched Kyle and Mason trudge off to an SUV waiting to take them to the airport as well, already looking over notes and contemplating the next race. Just like me, even if they weren’t at the track, their lives were here.
Sway found me again, bags in hand, ready to head out when I noticed Brody Williams standing beside his hauler, a large crowd had gathered. Again, I wasn’t sure why I didn’t like Brody but I didn’t. Mostly, right then, because I saw Lexi and Arie standing beside him laughing.
I knew for sure Spencer wouldn’t appreciate that either.
Sure enough, he walked up, his mouth a hard line. “What the fuck? You’d think they would have better taste.”
“That kid is a brat.” I glared their direction when Arie giggled at something he said.
“So are you.”
“I wasn’t that bad,” I objected only to have Sway give me an arching eyebrow of her own objection. “Maybe I was,” I agreed despite my own theory, “but we need to ban them from the track.”
“Agreed,” Spencer took off and Lexi scrambled away as he chased after her.
Arie followed us to the plane and eventually we found Casten with a group of women, yes, women twice his age.
Sway wasn’t pleased and gave them a piece of her mind.
When we were all on the plane, I laid into Arie and her arrest. “Why were you arrested?”
“Indecent exposure,” she said completely relaxed.
“What?” My voice echoed through the cabin.
“It was a misunderstanding.”
“That’s a lame excuse,” Sway added seeming more interested in her iPad than our conversation.
“It’s not a lame excuse. It’s a real one.”
“Why was it a misunderstanding?”
Arie sighed with another eye roll. “I was leaving a party and maybe I forgot that I had gone swimming and didn’t put on clothes, or enough clothes.”
“They arrested you for that?” Casten asked.
Arie did this shifty paranoid glance at me, and then Casten. “Yes.”
“You better be telling me the truth, Arie.” I warned waiting for her to look at me. “Clint is a private investigator. I can easily find out what happened.”
“I’m not lying to you!” she shouted back at me in her typical I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude. “Don’t believe me. I don’t care.”
For my own sanity, I left the conversation there and stared out the window as it started to rain. Sometime during the flight home, Sway laid her head against my shoulder. Instinctively, my sore body eased away from her touch. “Sorry,” she cringed. “I forgot.”
Reaching for her head with my right hand, I placed her head back on my shoulder. “You’re fine, honey.”
The kids had fallen asleep, their youth revealed only at times like this. When they opened their eyes and began to talk it was as if my kids had been with replaced with ice road truckers.
Here the season had just begun and I was already nursing another concussion. Constantly worrying about why my daughter was racking up arrests, the penalties, trying to maintain a family life, and raise good kids, not truckers. Pressure was building, I knew that much. I took comfort in knowing the woman lying next to me was my bleeder valve and had the ability to help me out in more than one way, if you know what I mean.