Trading Paint (Racing on the Edge) (21 page)

More race officials and his crew surrounded us now and I knew my chance at doing any more damage to him was over if I didn’t want to be suspended.

It took Sway a while but she eventually got me to calm down enough to get inside the truck and head back to the hotel.

I was still irate when we walked inside. The others stayed in the parking lot while I stormed inside, Sway following close behind.

“Jameson, don’t sell
yourself
short. You won’t always be referred to as Jimi Riley’s son.” I tried to interrupt her but she spoke over me. “Stop acting like a fucking child about this!” she threw the magazine she’d been holding on the bed and stormed off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

I stood there, confused, severely pissed off, and strangely
guilty
.

Yelling at a closed door made me feel slightly better.

“I don’t need your goddamn guilt trip on top of this shit right now!”

I glanced down at the blinking message on my new phone from Bucky. USAC had suspended me for two races for shoving an official.

I left after that and slept in the back of the truck. Missing two races would put a huge hit in the points for the national title and I’d miss the start of Indianapolis Speed Week.

The entire thirteen hour drive to Dodge City, Kansas to race in the Boot Hill Showdown with the World of Outlaws, Sway and I didn’t say one word to each other.

She just gazed out the window in silence.

I decided it was time to apologize when we stopped to eat just outside Dodge City around eleven that morning.

I hated the excruciating silence between us but more so, I hated that I took my frustrations out on Sway. She didn’t deserve that.

“I’m sorry.” We both said at the same time as we stood outside my truck in front of a restaurant.

She laughed reaching up to nudge my shoulder. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I know you have a lot going on.”

I shook my head, my eyes focused on my feet. “I shouldn’t have acted like a dick and I need you to keep me in check sometimes. You’re my best friend and I know I take you for granted at times. I just
...
can’t do this without you.”

“Then don’t be an asshole.”

“I’ll try not to.”

By four that afternoon, the pits in Grand Rapids were filling in and it was time for the drivers meeting.  

Sitting there listening to the chief steward describe the rules at the track I began to wonder why they had these meetings. I mean sure, some needed it but really, it annoyed me to attend these. Did the other drivers not understand what happened when the caution came out of where to look for your car number on the pit board?

Perched on the back of his ATV reading notes, the stalking man looked toward my dad and me. “Some guys have been cheating lately and dropping weight throughout the race.”

I don’t know why he was looking at me. I never cheated. Well that was a lie. All racers have cheated at one time or another but I will say that I don’t blatantly do it. Everyone stretches the rules as far as they can, without breaking them.

“You need to number your weights prior to the main. If you drop them,
it’s
a thousand dollar fine.”

I shook my head. We already had our weights numbered but the fact that this jerk was implying that
I
was cheating angered me. I hated being accused of shit I didn’t do but when you win, it tends to follow you. Everyone was quick to say, “Well he wins because he cheats.”

That night I made fast time with the help of Tommy who had arrived earlier in the week to help us this weekend. Dodge City was a two-day event and I needed a good set-up with the way the track changed constantly so that’s where Tommy came in.

I caught a touch of his conversation with dad and Shey prior to the heats, “
If you don’t want to change your weight distribution, but only make a stagger change, you need to turn your adjusters to bring the car back to the original weight that you recorded with the other set of tires. You need to record the number of turns you made to the adjusters so you can recreate the adjustments at the track when you change tire sizes.”

These two always cracked me up when they talked set-ups. Tommy listened intently and dad, well, he was in heaven.

I understood set-ups and could manage on my own but I also knew to concentrate on racing. I needed to focus on that alone. I learned from Jimi with that outlook.

He was a one-man team until he got big sponsorship and now he just showed up to race. That’s what he was paid to do and it was easier on him in many ways. It still didn’t stop him from helping us but he had a good group of guys working on his cars and in turn, they helped us.

Dodge City is a 3/8 mile dirt track that was tacky and just the way I liked it. Then right in the middle of the damn feature, it would turn into a tire-shredding monster.

Dad was also racing tonight since it was a regular scheduled point race for the World of Outlaws, which meant mom tagged along to see us. Originally, I wasn’t supposed to be here but since that asshole USAC official, I wouldn’t be able to compete until the division was in Bloomington. This left me in one of dad’s 410 cars for the next two days. It was fine with me for the most part—I love sprints. Although I was a little irritated with what this would mean for my chances at the Triple Crown.

Half way through the heats, it was as though I was playing ringleader to these assholes, the assholes being my family and friends. I stood there next to my hauler leaning against a set of tires looking over my tire pressures Tommy had jotted down for me earlier and wondering if I could make any changes before the feature.

Kansas was not the place for us, entirely too boring which meant my crew turned to drinking. Once we got to the race that night, I seemed to be the only sober one as I never drank until after the race.

Thankfully, Spencer and Tommy could still function enough to help me with the car. Emma and Sway were another story. I also wasn’t happy about Emma drinking this much. For one, she was sixteen and two; I despised a
drunk
Emma even more than I did when she was sober. Hard to believe I know.

I insisted Spencer and Tommy stop drinking when I cut a tire down after the first heat and it took them a good fifteen minutes to change it.

Spencer dropped down in the chair beside me.

“I can’t believe I got sober for this shit.” He didn’t seem amused that Alley was now giving him shit about being drunk most of this week.

Not much later when I was getting ready for the feature event, I caught a glimpse of Sway and was somewhat concerned.

“Uh, what are you doing?” I asked alarmed she was holding a hammer.

“That asshole shot me with a staple gun!” she wailed holding her thigh and pointing to Tommy. Her thigh was in fact bleeding.

I turned toward Tommy. “Where the fuck did you find a staple gun?”

He shrugged moving me in front of him as a shield.

“Does it matter?” he asked frantically tugging at my racing suit.

“Apparently it does,” I gestured to
Sway
. “She’s about to kill you.” I told him laughing and moved out of the way.

By the looks of Tommy sprinting through the pits with Sway hot on his ass, I was on my own for the set-up during the next race. There was never a dull moment when Tommy and Sway were at it.

Dad caught me when the horn sounded for the drivers to get to their cars.

“Hey,” he greeted with a smile. He’d been in non-stop hospitality events since he arrived. “How’d
ya
do in your heat?”

“Second,” I told him.

“Did Tommy set back the timing? It’s changing out there.” He looked over his shoulder at the track.

You could see the black shinny spots forming on the front-stretch which meant the track
was
drying out and resembled asphalt.

When the track turned black like that, the surface had become hard with very little loose material. The moisture evaporated off the first inch of dirt creating
less grip
. When that happened, you wanted a softer setup while the track was in that phase reversing the split in the front springs. You could move the weight up to the right of your car and that provided you with more bite where you needed it.

“You should soften the right rear sprint too. It will help.”

I nodded. “I think Tommy and Rick did
...
but Tommy was also being chased with a hammer so
...
” I shrugged. “He might have forgotten.”

“A hammer; like an actual hammer?”

“Yes—a hammer,”

“By who?”

“Sway,”

He smiled and reached inside my car to check the ignition timing. Sure enough, Tommy had.

“Well, good luck kid. Hope you get a good finish.” He patted my shoulder; his chin came up arrogantly as he smiled.

“You mean, I hope you finish
but
behind me?” I laughed sliding into my car.

“Something
like
that.”

Just when you think that you have a handle on the ways of racing and you begin to think to yourself, “Hey, I can do this.” You race with Jimi Riley, the King of the World of Outlaws and he quickly shows you that you know nothing.

He had been racing in this series for twenty years and some seventeen-year old kid wasn’t going to pull one over on him more than once. I was able to in Bloomington when I was fourteen but I knew I’d need to up my game if I thought I could tonight.

I know I’ve said this before but sprint cars are violent cars. It takes extreme technique and throttle control to get these beasts to maneuver the way you want and one slip and it is over. But in the same sense, you push the car to the edge of control where they hover on out of control and that’s where they will handle the best.

Ten laps into the A-Feature and the track turned into that tire-shredding monster I talked about.

There were more cautions thrown that night than in any other race I’d been in and you couldn’t see shit, just a dirt cloud.

Shey Evans flipped on the backstretch and took out five other cars. A rookie in the series, Dale Weeks, blew a tire and ended up in the guardrail after collecting Justin West, and me, in the same corner. The feature event was taken by the only driver who finished
...
Jimi Riley.

“What’s the matter
...
couldn’t stay out of the guardrail?” dad teased when I tossed my broken top wing inside the hauler.

He kissed his trophy just to rub it in some more.

I just smiled and hung my head.

So far, this was turning out to be the summer from hell.

I couldn’t catch a break for anything.

I sulked by myself in the trailer for a good thirty minutes before I heard Spencer stick his head inside, “Hey dipshit, let’s go. Mom and dad want to take us to dinner.”

Jumping up, I followed. There were two things that would improve my mood right now, food and well, sex. Since I wasn’t getting any sex, I decided food would do.

Sway sat beside me. I jammed my foot pretty good when I smashed into the guardrail so she felt the need to constantly ask me if it was okay. It was annoying but I tolerated it only because it was her.

We also usually shared food so it was easier to sit next to each other anyway.

I groaned when she wasn’t quick enough to take the foods I didn’t like.

“Take the carrots before they mix with the others.”

I hated carrots so Sway usually took the liberty of eating them for me. She detested tomatoes so I retrieved those while she took the last remaining carrots from my plate.

Dad watched in humor from across the table. “You two are something else.” He mused taking a drink of his whiskey.

Never failed, dad always had whiskey around. I wouldn’t say he was an alcoholic but he was surely
borderline
by some standards.

“What are you talking about?” I asked pushing the cucumbers toward Sway’s plate.

“You two
...
” he motioned with a head nod at Sway and I. “Do you ever eat a meal without eating from each other’s plates?”

Now that I thought about it, no, we didn’t. That was just us.

Sway giggled picking at my plate.

I ordered a steak with steamed vegetables and wild rice to start, then, I had a milkshake, most of Sway’s fries, four glasses of water and well, half of Sway’s hamburger and half of her milkshake. She had a huge eye for food but could never eat everything she wanted. I wasn’t even sure she was a hundred pounds; she was a tiny girl, not as tiny as Emma but small for her height. Emma was just a human version of an
umpa
lumpa
and still couldn’t ride on the rides at Disney World.

“Do you guys have enough money for hotels?” Mom asked shuffling money at us. Spencer grabbed the money while I pushed it back toward her.

“Yes mom, we have plenty.”