The Legend (76 page)

I wasn’t
exactly sure what they were trying to accomplish, and my attempts at asking
went unanswered, but from what I gathered they were trying to light fireworks
from the roof of the boat house.

Jameson,
Spencer, Aiden and Tommy were on the side of the boat, on the dock, when we
heard Cole yell at the top of his lungs. “It’s gonna blow!”

Everyone
scrambled from the boat house, including me, when it blew into pieces.

Aside from
scrapes, a few cuts, and bruises, everyone was fine but that’s the night my son
blew up a house boat. You can guess which one.

Casten.

“What the
fuck was that?” Jameson yelled at Casten. “Why didn’t you move the fireworks
from the top and put them on the dock?”

Casten,
clearly shaken by his near death experience looked to me like he was going to
cry. “I’m really sorry. I forgot and then you said get ready to blow it and I
thought maybe we changed plans.”

“Not the
boat, the fireworks.”

“Well
...
now that I think about it that makes a lot
more sense.”

“Such
amateurs,” Jameson mumbled walking away. “And you’re buying me a new house boat
kid.”

“Damn it.”
Casten hung his head. “I just finished paying for his GTO I sunk.”

Offering some
motherly comfort, I rubbed his back. “Well the next time you decide to jump the
GTO over the pool, be sure to actually put gas in the car. And when you decide
to blow up a house boat, don’t.”

Casten
scratched the back of his head. “Great advice mama,”

Watching
the fire on the lake, we had a spark all right. Too much spark at times.

33.
          
Exhaust Stroke - Jameson

Exhaust
stroke – The exhaust stroke is the final stage in a four-stroke internal
combustion engine cycle. The gas that remains in the cylinder from the ignited
fuel during the compression stroke is removed from the cylinder through the
exhaust valve. The gases are forced up to the top of the cylinder as the piston
rises and pushed through the opening which then closes to allow fresh air/fuel
mixture into the cylinder for the four-stroke process to repeat itself.

After my
win at Sunset, we spent some time at Grays Harbor and did the memorial for
Charlie. Being back around all the responsibilities of owning a track was
stressful. Van and Andrea were doing a great job but there were still decisions
that Sway and I needed to make as owners and things to take care of. It was
around that time we were thankful for the shared ownership in the Cup team.

Even
though we had only two cars running in the Cup series, it was still a lot of
money being torn up each week. When a car was destroyed, guess who gets to pay
for that?

It was
certainly not the driver.

He doesn’t
care. The owner, he cares because he’s the one paying the bill. I understood
that when I was racing but paying those bills now, I had more respect for Jimi
and how he operated Riley-Simplex Racing all those years.

That’s
when the stress got to me and I asked myself why I was doing it.

I didn’t
like owning a Cup team. It wasn’t me.

I know my
dad would have wanted us to be happy.

So, I
decided owning a NASCAR team wasn’t our thing anymore, so we sold partial
ownership and merged with Tate’s team. We were still involved to a point but
not nearly as heavily as before.

Easton was
one of the best guys to have racing for you but I still didn’t want the
responsibility of it all.

I had too
much responsibility for so long. Now I was enjoying myself. Aside from my son
blowing up a house boat and being questioned by the police weekly for all the
stupid shit we did on that 230 acre plot, we didn’t have stress.

That
lifestyle I was living when I was racing the Cup series wasn’t me. This was me.
Being an owner of a dirt track, that was me. Racing sprint cars when I felt
like it, that was me.

You see,
living that lifestyle racing in NASCAR had brought battles I never wanted to
fight but I didn’t know that until I wasn’t fighting them anymore.

Here’s the
thing, unlike some athletes, I didn’t retire from the injury. I retired for me.
I was done with that lifestyle.

I still
raced, that would never change for me. Even the death of my father doing that
very same thing couldn’t keep me away from sprint car racing.

Why?

If I would
have walked away completely, all that I worked for wouldn’t have mattered and
more importantly, I would have felt as though I had let myself and him down.

Once
again, I found myself walking a dirt track surrounded by memories, I thought of
how I got here, standing at a track, that some forty years ago I raced for the
first time.

Until now,
my life has been one long continuum, and racing has been its link. From age
four to forty-three, I have shared one passion, one preoccupation, having the
same pattern over those years.

For a while,
you’re always older than you seem and then suddenly one day, you’re younger
than you feel. You feel old or maybe it’s the illusion about yourself fueled by
the public life sent soaring then crashing. But you never lose what that
passion was for.

The track
was quiet but you could hear the rumbling in the pits as cars heated their
engines and prepared for a night of racing in honor of a man that made this
track what it is now. Dirt track racing, the smells, the tracks, throwing the
car sideways, that’s what I loved. It may have nearly taken my life, some
friends and my dad, but it was still home to me.

I loved
this place. I fell in love here. I found my family here. It was my home for
years, a place my heart knew.

My heart
beats a little different these days. It beats for the rhythm of the speed, the
rumbling of an engine and the grooves that move the line to the victory I
taste. It beats for the methanol, the adrenaline and the speed. It beats for
the passion that defined my greatness. It beats for the place I called home,
where two hearts were secured within a cushion and a rail. It beats for a dirt
track.

It beats
for a home cooked meal, a cold beer after a win, and a place I called home.

Walking
around the track, I made my way to the flag stand.

I must
have stared at that flag stand for close to twenty minutes when Spencer found
me.

“Do you
remember when we crawled under here and watched the race from right here?”

“How could
I forget? You broke my nose that night.”

“Oh, yeah”

Spencer
laughed looking over his shoulder when he saw Sway coming toward us.

His hand
clasped my shoulder as he smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for this
lifestyle you’ve created for all of us but
...
”
emotion crept over him, his eyes shined. “Thank you.”

“No man,
thank you.” I said pulling him in for a hug. “I couldn’t have done it without
you guys.”

Sway found
me sitting on the back stretch wall, her hands wrapped around my shoulders.
Twisting around, I moved her onto my lap.

Looking at
her now, there was something about this woman that controlled me.

Sway had a
power that no one else could ever have. She healed the scars over time.

I stared
at the ring on her finger lighted by the burst of lights high above the clay.
Here she was our entire lives behind the wheel with me supporting me no matter
what. Even when she left me for lying to her, or the months following my injury
when the guilt and depression pushed a void between us, she had never truly
left me. No matter what I put her through, she stood by me. So many times she
had been put second in this life but not now, not anymore.

Wrapped in
thought, her hands mapped the lines of my face as I stared at her.

Sway was
my prayer. She was my untold answer in all of this. She held the key to
everything without even knowing.

My edges
may have been rough, she knew that, but her touch created a surface stronger
than any metal.

After
years of never thinking I was good enough for her, she never let me forget that
I was.
The expression I saw on her face took my
breath away. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I just stared, transfixed into
her eyes. Mesmerized by the depth of the passion and caring at the love I saw
there. The same I was sure that was reflected in mine.

The thing
is, you can be the greatest driver of your time, be a champion, a legend. You
can walk through the fire or you could be the difference between seeing it rise
and making it rise. You could be a kid that no one thought would make it and
then, twenty years later, you’re standing in the hall of fame looking at your
name etched in the wall of the greatest racers of all time. You could be that
because although you may not have believed it would happen, you made it happen.
Whether it was my relationship with my wife or the things I’ve accomplished, I
made it happen.

To me, the
greatest feeling I knew was that I didn’t do it for revenge. I didn’t do it for
someone else, although at times it may have seemed that way, I did it for me. I
did it because it was a dream I believed in and refused to let go of. It was an
unwritten legend that I scripted to fit me.

We were
still that same couple we were back when we threw ourselves into whatever it
was that drew us together. That connection, that unbelievably magical
connection between us was stronger than ever and always would be. My wife may
have never been the type of wife that had time to go to PTA meetings or host
Pampered Chef parties but she was a racers wife. She planned schedules, drove
our kids to various tracks and made sure the night before a race I had my
favorite meal, her fried spaghetti. She wasn’t comfortable in heels but she was
in flip flops. She hated Los Angeles but loved to the local dirt track. She was
my counterweight and balanced every imperfection my life had.

There was
a time, a place, or maybe just a passing memory of this life when I once
thought, would I ever say when? Eventually, maybe without warning, your life,
your body or maybe your mind has a way of saying it for you. I guess right now
I was simply…saying when.

I took
comfort in knowing that a reflection, a memory, if only just a glimpse, could
last forever.

Overlooking
the track, I cuddled up with her, relieved to know that what we had was worth
everything we had been through.

We hadn’t
said anything, nothing needed to be said, a comfortable silence just holding
each other.

For close
to an hour, nothing was said before she let out a chuckle leaning her head back
to look up at me.

“Do you
remember that night after the race in Charlotte when this all began?” Her arms
wrapped over mine that were around her as though she was cuddling into a warm
blanket, or a sweater that was soft to the touch.

“I do
honey,” I smiled remembering the anxiety that overpowered me about what I
wanted that night, a night I would remember forever. “I remember the exact look
in your eyes when I asked you to stay.”

“Me too,”
She whispered pulling my hand to her lips kissing the promise I made to her.

I said it
before and I’ll said it again because it’s the one thing I know to be true
besides the love of my wife and our family.

As I said
to my wife, and I believed this to be true, your life is measured in moments.
Moments that can test you, challenge you, and moments that can make you fall to
your fucking knees, begging and pleading for all you’re worth for just one more
moment. But those moments define you as a person, the life you live, and the
story of your life. You have to take them as they come because before you know
it, you’re out of moments.

All you
have left are the memories.

So when
you think you’ve forgotten and you realize nothing lasts forever, look back to
those memories because they do last forever.

My life
couldn’t be summed up for me as being just a legendary race car driver as those
times were simply just snapshots. Clips of what my life really was. My life
behind the blaring spotlight became the shadows I knew and who I really was. I
was the son of two of the greatest people I know. I was a brother to two of the
most giving and unselfish people a sibling could ask for. I was a husband to a
woman who I cherished more than anything, a father to three children that
showed me more about who I was than I ever thought possible and now a proud
grandfather.

Those were
the greatest memories I had.

Exhaust Stroke – Sway

Sitting
there with Jameson, being back around dirt racing was what our family needed.
It was where our love story began and healed us from the scars we thought would
never mend.

There’s
something about the human heart that most never consider. It can be broken and
ripped apart by this world, shattered beyond your belief. But what makes it
beat again?