Authors: Shey Stahl
We went
about our morning, arguing, laughing and trying to decide on what we were doing
for mom’s birthday. None of us agreed on anything and in turn, we left it up to
Emma since she’d get her way anyway.
Before
heading to the shop for the morning, Sway asked that I find a few boxes she
thought she forgot at the other house. We recently sold it to another driver in
the Nationwide Series, Travis
Gurd
. He seemed like a
nice kid and recently started a family so I knew the house would be perfect for
him.
Sway didn’t like moving and actually was against it but we needed more room.
The house on Lake Norman was only around ten acres and with three kids and
their cousins, we needed more land and less nosy neighbors.
I gathered the boxes that were left, loaded them into my truck and then took a
walk out to the dock where we used to spend a lot of time. Sometimes, like now,
when Sway had some mixed emotions about moving, I wondered if it was the right
thing to do. Our kids grew up here. We spent nearly every Monday night on this
very dock watching them grow, swimming, barbeques, throwing them by their legs
into the water. Sway told me she was pregnant with Casten on this dock. I shot
my brother in the ass with a potato gun from this dock. Arie broke her arm when
she was ten on this dock.
Taking a
deep breath, I turned and walked up the dock looking over the markings that
made this place a home for us for so long. Burn marks from where the boys tried
to water ski threw a fire strip. Chipped wood from where I tried to carve our
names and ended up slicing my hand. It’s like changes made to your car during
the race, what once worked earlier in the race doesn’t always work half way
through. We’d outgrown this place and there was nothing wrong with that.
I took off
to the shop and found my sister’s twin boys, Noah and Charlie, cleaning. After
they drove our parts van into Lake Norman, they owed me some free labor so I
had them cleaning engine parts, toilets and anything else I thought was a shit
job. Emma and Aiden’s twins were assholes and had been since the day they were
born. Every set of twins I’d ever known were jerks. Even Sway’s half-brothers
were assholes. Even though they were grown up now, they were still a pain in my
ass at times.
“Hey
Jameson, are you in here?” Grady called out pushing open the door to the shop
and carrying two coffees in his hand. I knew I liked him right then.
“Yeah, I’m
in here.”
His dark
eyes met mine and he smiled as he drew closer. Grady Andrews was a hungry
twenty-one year old racer out of Kannapolis looking for a start. He’d grown up
around the short tracks of North Carolina and came to me a couple months back
looking for a job during the week. With the way the sprint tour was heating up,
we needed all the help we could get with JAR
Racing
so
I offered him a job in fabrication. Usually I never hired anyone without
personally knowing them for years or from a family recommendation, but I took a
chance on Grady.
“I need
you to get those two cars ready go this morning.” With a nod over my shoulder,
I gestured to the two bodies next to the bay doors. Both cars were stripped
down to bars.
“All
right,” Grady nodded and looked over the cars for a moment, “Anything else?”
Usually my
interactions with the guys around the shop were kept professional. That was
unless it was with Tommy and Willie, two people who were not by any means
professional. I didn’t know Grady all that well so I kept it professional.
“I think
that’ll do it for today. I need them ready before you leave.”
“Will do,”
he replied quickly and that was the last I saw of him. He went to work and
never asked questions. Something I appreciated these days.
I didn’t spend
much time at the shop that morning. I mainly went there to make sure the boys
had everything loaded and ready for the start of the season along with the
engines for sprint car team and cup teams.
When my
dad arrived, I left. Since he had retired, we couldn’t be around each other for
too long before an argument broke out.
He did ask
about Grady which I thought was strange. “Who’s the kid?”
“He’s a
racer who needed a job. That’s all.”
Jimi
watched him through the large windows that overlooked the twenty four thousand
square foot shop, “How well do you know him?”
Everyone
was leery of me hiring Grady for the simple reason that our business, whether
it was JAR Racing or Riley-Simplex Racing, was family only with the exception
of close friends and people we knew. Dad and the rest of our family weren’t
sold on Grady after the mess we had when we caught Kerry stealing money from us
last fall.
“I don’t
know him but I’m giving him a shot. That’s all he’s looking for.”
Dad
grumbled something else and I had to leave. We didn’t need an argument today.
When I
arrived home, I found Sway in the kitchen making dinner with Rosa, our
housekeeper, if you could even call her that. She was forty something woman who
loved to piss me off.
Sound
familiar?
Yeah,
pretty much like everyone else in my family so she was perfect. Rosa wasn’t
Mexican and didn’t speak Spanish but she liked to make people think she could.
She was always rambling off something she said was Spanish but I knew a little
Spanish and she wasn’t speaking that language. She was speaking bullshit. And
it’s not like her Caucasian appearance didn’t give her away but she still acted
like she was Mexican. The thing with Rosa was that she did absolutely nothing
around our house but I still found myself writing her checks each week. Who in
the hell knew why. It mostly had to do with the fact that everyone in our
family loved her, aside from me of course.
Sway
barely noticed me as the television in the family room off the kitchen held
most of her attention. I found my attention diverted as well when I saw the
segment on the race in Barberville.
She turned
up the volume when they interviewed our wide-eyed son.
“Axel
Riley, you’re the kid that has taken a legend’s place this year. Are you
ready?”
“To race
here, in his car, is unbelievable to me.” Axel smiled my same smile and the one
I knew very well. He was excited, “I just hope I don’t let him down.”
“Does Jimi
help you?” the reporter pushed the microphone back in his face.
“He helps
a ton. I couldn’t do it without him, my dad and Tommy, all of them.”
“As a
rookie, what are your goals for this year as a rookie?”
Axel
shifted his weight, his hands fumbling with the visor of his helmet. He looked
down from the view of the camera. “My goal this year would be to win races and
hopefully battle for the championship if we’re close at the end. I’d like to
win Kings Royal and Knoxville Nationals. My dad and grandpa always won those
two big races. I’d like that. I’d like a few at Lernerville too. I struggled
there and to win there would be huge for me.”
“What’s it
like driving for Jimi?”
Axel
smiled softly and it reminded me a little of Sway when she was nervous, “A lot
of people think I’m in this position because he’s my grandpa, which it might
have a part in it. But if I didn’t perform, then I wouldn’t be in this
position. It’s as simple as that. With Jimi being the owner, he’s easier on me
than my dad, but also, if he’s having a bad day, I’m going to hear about it.”
Man did I
understand that. Everyone heard about it when Jimi had a bad day but then
again, I wasn’t any different.
Though
Axel had given this reporter the time he requested, Axel was losing interest
quickly like any other driver. The biggest challenge, that most of the media
and fans don’t understand, is the intensity that drivers have when they suit up
for a race. When things don’t go right, mechanical failures, wrecks, or
anything that can go wrong out there, happens. What the average person doesn’t
realize is that these guys, me included, are doing something that we are all
focused on; very focused on. If not, we have no business being out there. It’s
not just a game. It’s a race and the moment your concentration slips is the
moment you find yourself tied to the back of the wrecker or in the hospital.
If someone
says to me, “Your son doesn’t smile a lot. He’s got everything he’s ever
wanted. Why not smile?”
They don’t
understand the focus that he has to have and it makes it hard when all that
intensity and focus is consuming your thoughts to smile or sign autographs.
The
broadcasting station went on to talk about the upcoming season and most of the
segment seemed to be a repeat of what was on this morning other than that
interview with Axel.
“Do you
think he’s ready?” Sway asked continuing to watch the television and throwing
pineapple on a pizza I assumed she was making judging by all the dough, sauce
and cheese.
Rosa
smiled as though Sway was speaking to her and not me, “he’s ready
novio
.”
There she
went with speaking Spanish again.
“How do you
know Rosa? You just met him last week?”
Rosa eyed
me while grating cheese and then gave me a dismissive shrug. She did that to me
all the time.
Sway
giggled at Rosa and then stopped abruptly when I glared. Sometimes I think she
forced me to keep Rosa around just to piss me off.
Looking
back at the screen, Axel was whipping around Volusia Speedway Park with Tommy
and Willie tracking his lap times. Willie Hamlin was our new engineer for JAR
Racing and Tyler Sprague’s crew chief. We stole him from another Outlaw driver,
Miles Leddy, also from Leddy Motorsports who was our competition in NASCAR as
well. There was always team shuffling going on so when you stole a team member
you better be sure you treat ‘
em
good. They had it
good with us.
Between
Willie’s drinking problem, immaturity and the ability to start a pit fight at
any given moment, he fit in well with all of us and was a great addition to JAR
Racing.
“Yes and
no,” I looked down at the pizza again and noticed there seemed to be four of
them. “Why are you cooking so much?”
Sway
smiled and I knew I was in trouble. Rosa laughed holding her side as though
this was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.
“I don’t
like my family,” I gave Rosa a bitter smile, “stop inviting them over for
dinner.”
“Oh don’t
be like that,” she tapped the tip of my nose with a slice of peperoni when I
leaned against the counter, “they’ll be here in about an hour.”
I tried, I
really did, but the thought of the oil from the peperoni on my nose freaked me
out and I had to take a shower.
Knowing my
phobia, Sway laughed as I headed up the stairs, “don’t be long.”
Backing it In – Axel
I had to
take time off that first week in Barberville from preparing for the season to
meet up in Knoxville with my grandpa to sign contracts for his team and then
the sponsors.
Reading
the contracts for the upcoming Outlaw season was probably the coolest thing I’d
done besides being the youngest driver to ever win Chili Bowl Midget Nationals.
That was pretty awesome if you asked me.
The
coolest part for me was taking over for the king. Forty-five seasons he’d raced
in the series and now, this eighteen-year-old kid was taking over.
Throughout
his forty-five seasons, he had raced in over three thousand races, brought home
well over thirteen hundred wins and twenty-seven championships. He had won more
races than any other driver in the series and the most championships. It was a
huge seat to fill but I knew I could, at least I thought I could.
“What’s
this one for?” I held up a yellow sheet of paper my grandpa pushed in front of
me. He sighed,
squinting
his eyes before he had to put
his glasses on.
“I don’t
understand. Do they just keep making the print on these goddamn things
smaller?” he read silently for a moment before pushing the paper back toward me
over the wooden table. “It’s the liability form. It basically says that if you
wad one up in the wall you
ain’t
gonna sue me for
damage to your brain.”
Even
though I was driving for him now, he was still the owner of the team and I
worked for him.
“Oh.”
“Hey,”
grandpa shrugged with a twist of his head, “it can happen, kid.”
He was
right. It happened. Safety had come a long way recently with most dirt tracks
having SAFER barriers just like the NASCAR tracks. Quick release helmets,
advanced fire suits and new chassis that were meant to take force the same as
the wall. These were all safety improvements but things still weren’t fool
proof.
Look at
what happened to Ryder Christensen this last fall. Sometimes, it happens. Your
head can only take so much force before it gives just like anything else. Life
went on as it always did after Ryder and the souls lost in that plane crash but
I could tell that it took a toll on everyone in our family, my dad especially.
He had known Ryder since they were kids. His passing wasn’t easy for him.
Personally, I think it had a lot to do with grandpa’s decision to hang it up.