The Legend (7 page)

By
Thursday afternoon, I’m heading to the track and getting settled into my
personal motor coach before our race weekend begins. Friday is when practice
happens.  Saturday is qualifying and last minute adjustments and then
Sunday is the race. Monday is starts 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 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’s just the way it had become in
our sport.

What did
it give in return?

If you
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.

I will
admit 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
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.

This
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. 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 in
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 Florida 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 that was racing in his driver
development program, Easton Levi.

Easton, a
seventeen-year old kid, from Wheeling Ohio, that 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 as 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 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 ole boy sport with roughed
up drivers was now a multimillion-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 set-up 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, obsessed over it.

Each week
Kyle goes through all 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 took
risks 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.