The Legend (35 page)

“Lily’s
pregnant.” I don’t know why I said it right then, it just came out. Maybe
because I was scared and I thought if I told someone maybe I wouldn’t feel so
scared.

“No shit?”
Grandpa said nodding his head in approval.

“Uh-huh.” I
gave him this half smile, half scared shitless look that made him chuckle.

“You
excited?”

“I guess
so.” There wasn’t much I could say about it. She didn’t even know how far along
she was just that she had a positive test and we would be parents in nine months
or so. That literally scared the shit out of me.

“Didn’t
take you long,” He laughed leaning against the hauler behind him crossing his
feet over one another when Tommy walked up.

“Didn’t
take long for what?”

“Axel
knocked his wife up.” Grandpa blurted out to my complete horror.

“Grandpa
,” I looked at him with wide eyes, “I
told you that
in
privacy!”

“Well shit
kid
...
” he nudged my shoulder nearly knocking me
over. “You should have said that to begin with.”

Right

Tommy
jetted off, to tell the entire pits I assume leaving us along again. “Sorry
kid.”

“Ah
...
don’t worry about it.” I shrugged it off and
looked over at my dad who was laughing at something Justin had just said.

“Have you
ever second guessed yourself?” Grandpa asked leaning against the hauler again,
his eyes focused on my dad now signing autographs off in the distance.

I thought
for a moment, watching dad, and then looked up at him. “At times,” I couldn’t
lie, anytime I pulled myself inside the car, I questioned whether or not I
could do it.

“Your dad
doesn’t,
ever
. Even when he was young; I think around eleven when he
first ran a full size sprint, he was as confident as he’s always been.”

He was
right. My dad had more confidence in his ability than anyone I’d ever seen. His
combination of speed, grace and poised aggression mixed in with all-out ease on
the track, put him in a class by himself, no one could touch him. Not even Jimi
Riley—the King of the Outlaws—had nothing on him.

Not many
racers, okay none, could shift focus from each different series and still be
competitive like he can. He could race a truck race, move to a
Nationwide
car the next day, a cup car the following and
then hop inside a sprint car and pull away with a victory in all four in the
same weekend. I’ve seen him do it countless times like it was nothing. His
trick was to feel the car and feel the track. He claimed it had nothing to do
with him, he was just steering. It was bullshit but he was being humble.

I had
never seen another driver be able to feel grip the way he does. It took me
years to really understand his talent and even longer to realize I had the
same.

“I’ve
never seen another driver like him before
...
” Grandpa paused and smiled, “Until you.”

“What
about you?”

“Like I
said
...
I’ve never seen a driver like him before. I
can’t do what he does.” He waved his arm around. “Sure, I can push a sprint car
to its limits but look at him. He’s got it all. Stock cars are an entirely
different mentality and he can do without hesitation. He’s legendary.”

We watched
as dad joked around with Justin and Tyler while more fans crowded around them.

“Don’t
live too fast kid.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Before you know it,
you’re heading toward seventy and wondering where the hell all the time went.”

I knew the
feeling. It felt like just yesterday I was racing USAC and now here I am racing
with my dad and grandpa and apparently going to be a dad soon.

Thinking
of that again made me think of Lily so I sent her a text.

Thinking of you.
Just
wanted to say I love you.

She replied
instantly.
I love you too. Good luck tonight.

I sat
there in the back of the hauler watching the fans linger through the pits
looking for autographs and examining the sprint cars. Most would stick their
heads in, take pictures and occasionally ask for an autograph, while others
just wandered around taking in everything.

Lane
strolled past at one point. “Do you think this fog will clear up?”

“I don’t
know.” I said looking out at the track. “I’m not sure we can get the race in if
it doesn’t.”

The night
felt strange to me. A low cloud cover had come in, a thick layer of fog had
settled in turn two. We’d never raced in the winter here; usually the ground
was too frozen to do so.

Tonight
was different though, could have been the temperature of the whopping 39º.
Maybe that’s why everything felt strange to me.

The moon
was full and shined through the fog with silver streaks of light that hovered.
A thick ring formed reflecting the light.

“What are
you looking at?” Tommy asked as the gravel crunched beneath his feet.

“Nothing,”
I looked over at him sighing to myself. I didn’t get up though. Instead I
stayed there sitting on the loading ramp.

“Crazy
kid,” Tommy smiled. “Let’s go. You got a race to win and I got a hundred bucks
ridin
’ on it.”

Heat laps
were done and now it was time, for the first time in years, to roll onto a
track with the legends of our time.

14.
          
Attrition – Axel

Attrition –
The rate at which cars drop out of a race. This is due to mechanical failures
or crashes.

Hopping on
the back of the 4-wheeler, Tommy drove us over to the driver introductions were
they introduced each of us one by one and then had us do a quick interview.
Dads’ was the most comical and even got a standing ovation from the crowd as
did grandpa.

“It’s
anyone’s race.” Dad said to the announcer with a smirk directed at the other
drivers.

Dad smoked
us in hot laps. He clearly had the cold temperatures pegged and Justin wasn’t
far behind him.

The trick
with the cooler temperatures was the tire pressure. The colder the air, the
more horsepower you create but the car reacts entirely different in the cold
resulting in lower tire pressures.

Tires may
seem tough when you think about it but they are extremely sensitive, especially
in colder temperatures. Not only that, but Knoxville is notorious for shredding
tires with its high speeds. The faster the car goes, the more pressure put upon
the tires. More grip of course but also more pressure. The more pressure the
more damage to the tire that is acting like a spring.

Since
tires are bias-constructed, air pressure determines the majority of the spring
rate within a tire. Tires, on a night like tonight, were just as important as
the setup.

Tommy and
Willie were all over it for me. That was one of the vast differences between me
and my dad. Where I relied on Tommy to change my setups based on my feedback,
dad changed it himself. He knew sprint car setups better than he understood Cup
cars.

Racing
with my dad, my Grandpa and some of the guys that helped me along the way was
enough to send me into some sort of hysteria but I held my own, no tears fell
that I like to say but I’d probably be lying.

I was up
front with my dad, Grandpa and Justin on the front row of the four abreast with
Cody and my buddies Shane and Easton behind us.

Dad revved
forward, taunting me as he paraded around 4-wide. I did the same when the
flagman motioned for us to do hot-laps.

The race
itself was a wash really. You had guys like Justin and Tyler who dominated the
early part of the 100-lap feature they split into two segments and then you had
my dad and grandpa who were dominating the final fifty. I wasn’t in the mix
during the second half, just hung back in the seventh for most of the race.

The track
was shredding tires like a road grater. I couldn’t keep my right rear from
sliding all over the place. Dad and grandpa seemed to have no problems with it
and flew around the half-mile track like it was no problem.

That was
until lap fourteen of the second-segment, a lap I would never forget. It was a
lap that changed everything.

They were
running one and two with dad leading and grandpa right behind him. I had a
clear view in front of me as I made it up to fifth and got around Easton.

Without
warning, grandpa shot to the high side in the sweeping corner of one and two
and then bounced off the wall coming out of two onto the straight stretch. He
cut down right in front of dad.

It wasn’t
something grandpa would have done ordinarily. He wouldn’t make that move, on
someone on the outside, at a place like Knoxville. But he did, and we watched
in horror as the wall bit back hard with dad on this inside of him, taking them
both out.

It all
happened in a split second. Before I could see what went wrong or what was
happening through the dust, sprint cars were flipping and metal was everywhere.
The flashing tree of red lights on the wall only confirmed my theories.

They
stopped us where we were. Tow trucks and ambulances blocked our view and I knew
it was on purpose. Any time an accident happened of this nature, the safety
crews, sensing the destruction, blocked the view of the drivers and spectators
by design.

There is
an eerie feeling that comes over a track when tragedy strikes. Even before any
news release happens, drivers feel it in their bones. If you’ve been around
racing long enough, you know when a wreck is fatal, you just do.

When the
pace car brought us down past the wreck in turn two, I knew something wasn’t
right just looking at it.

Grandpa’s
car was up against the wall, the top wing was laying some twenty feet away.
Another car, a driver out of Australia was smashed against him pinning the car
to the wall.

Dad’s car
was upside down on the outside barrier, the rear axle assembly was broken off
and lying on the other side of the wall in the grass field. Cars and parts were
scattered everywhere.

Justin
stopped his car alongside them, ignoring the safety crews trying to push him
back away.  He knocked one to the ground, ripping his gear away to get
loose. Tommy, Willie, Spencer and Aiden who were in the pit grandstands, were
already down on the track hovered around their cars; motioning toward the
safety crew for help.

I couldn’t
breathe, I couldn’t speak. They had us start the cars and move forward to give
the ambulances better access.

My hands
were trembling so violently when I passed by the carnage, the wheel was jerking
from side to side in my hands. I could feel the adrenaline radiating throughout
my body, surging in my joints, hot and blinding all at once. I felt like I was
going to vomit any second.

I blinked,
steadily trying to focus enough to catch a glimpse of the two of them, but they
were still inside the cars with safety official’s frantically working around
them. I had no idea if they were injured or not at this point, but the eerie
feelings wasn’t helping me and the way everyone was screaming around them, with
no movement from my dad or grandpa, wasn’t reassuring.

Grandpa
didn’t hit hard peruse, it was just the
way
he hit the wall that was
disturbing and the way dad’s car was pushed against the wall wasn’t comforting
to me. I knew something horrible had happened.

When I
finally reached them, no one was speaking; no one said a goddamn thing to me.
They just stared at me, their faces poignantly frozen in shock.

I looked
between Justin and Tyler who stared back at me, their faces white, immobile and
cold. Justin blinked slowly as if he was trying not to feel anything at that
point. I could see the steady quick rise and fall of his chest; his breathing
sped with each breath knowing the gravity of the situation.

The wind
ceased, the fog hovered just upon us. Thick and dense, the moisture remained
crisp cutting through the fog. Sound was non-existent, it was still. It was as
if the world suddenly stopped spinning on its axis knowing something was wrong.
When I looked back at grandpa’s car and the safety crews weren’t moving quickly
like they were around dad’s car, I had that sick rigid feeling instantly.

I didn’t
have to hear the words to know, I felt it.

Something
in me focused on my dad laying in the dirt about twenty feet away, paramedics
frantically teeming around him.

My heart
sunk, literally dropped with my knees as they gave way beside him.

Attrition – Jameson

Pain
.

It was excruciating and unlike anything I had ever felt
before.