The Champion (Racing on the Edge) (38 page)

“No, we wouldn’t.” I giggled.

We tested out some align boring, piston stroking,
reciprocating motions, deburring, porting of the heads and micro polishing. The
dirty heathen and the mama wizard were back and setting fast time for the
night.

It didn’t matter that we now had three little adorable
spaz children. We still knew how to revert back to those pornographic days we
had when the pit lizard and dirty heathen began. Now we were just polished and
knew all the dyno testing results. We had it down.

The problem with being apart for the last few weeks was
that our testing was over fairly quickly. As soon as I arched me back into him,
he threw his head back and groaned this loud, growling, needy groan. And though
I didn’t reach my rev limit, seeing him like that was enough for me.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled panting above me. “Jesus, I’m
really sorry.”

I giggled. “Don’t worry, it was fun to watch.”

“You always amaze me.” He chuckled rolling to the side. “I
can’t last more than a few minutes and you say it was fun.”

“It was.”

Later that night before we went to bed, we checked on the
kids. Arie and Lexi were in her carriage bed. Axel, Lane and Cole were curled
up on the floor underneath the bed with Casten in the baby carriage. Arie was
sound asleep with a big cheeky grin.

“It’s hard to believe how much they’ve grown.” Jameson
spoke into my hair. His arms wrapped around my waist pulling me against his
chest. “They’re little people now.”

My eyes caught the papers scattered across the bedroom
floor from where the kids had been coloring earlier in the night.

“Someone is their hero.” I whispered in his ear and
pointed to the dozens of pictures of Jameson and his race car.

Jameson chuckled softly.

“They’re young. They don’t know any better.”

Turning in his arms, I pulled back to look at him,
running my hand down his jaw and saw the same worry I always saw when it came
to our children. He was constantly afraid he wouldn’t live up to the image they
had of him. The problem was the he already had. They didn’t care if he didn’t
win the championship every year. All they cared about was that he was there for
them. And he was.

“You mean everything to them. All they want in return is
your love.”

As your children grow, you do too
...
in a sense. We want to see what they will become but in the
same sense, they’re looking to us to see how we grow. You can’t tell them to be
the best they can be, all you can do is try to be that yourself.

“Is that all
you
want from me?”

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Pulling his lips to mine,
I whispered, “What you are to the world means nothing to me. What you are to
me; means everything.”

He leaned against the wall motioning with a nod of his
head toward are sleeping children. “I just don’t want them to know. I want them
to stay innocent in all this.”

I knew exactly what he was implying. He didn’t want the
weight of our world on them. They needed protection from it. Eventually we
wouldn’t be able to do that but for now, while they were young, we
wanted
that.

17.
           
   Yellow Line – Jameson

Yellow Line – A
painted yellow line that is used to mark the separation of the racetrack from
the apron. In restrictor plate races NASCAR has decided if a car goes below the
yellow line to make a pass the position will not be granted and you will be
penalized.

As with any year, the off-season flew by and before I
knew it, Speedweek was starting.

The 2008 season, I finished thirteenth in points. It was
the lowest I had ever finished in any division I ever raced.

You can imagine what this did to my mettle.

When we left Homestead, I was depressed. Yeah, I won the
most races that season but still, I hadn’t won the championship. I understood I
couldn’t win them all but I still tried. If I ever got to the point where I
didn’t try, I was retiring.

The off-season was hardly an off-season. From the hauler
drivers to the mechanics and engineers testing our cars, racing was a way of life.
Just because it’s the off-season didn’t mean we were on vacation.

I usually took the week of Thanksgiving with my family
and two weeks around Christmas with them. Outside of those times, I was either
testing, racing sprint cars, or working with our sprint car team. With three
cars running in the Outlaw series, I had my work cut out for me.

Thank god for Tommy and Spencer or else I would have
pulled my hair out by now.

Back at the shop in Mooresville, my cup team was working
on the cars for the next season. Whether it’s a new paint scheme or manufacture
changes, it’s busy. In the offices, new merchandise was designed and schedules
were being finalized. I was paraded in front of sponsors and appearances all
around the county. So despite the NASCAR season only running from February to
November, it never truly ends for us.

Then we had all the dealings with Grays Harbor. Luckily
for me, Jen, Andrea and Mallory were wonderful and were able to get the
schedule done, sponsors lined up for promoting the events and the memorial race
for Charlie we had each year scheduled. Without them, Sway and I wouldn’t know
what to do. With three kids and our busy schedules we hardly had time to run a
track but we would never get rid of it. That track brought everything about our
lives together. It would always stay in our family.

By the time I left for Daytona the first week in
February, I wasn’t even sure what day it was. The arrival of Sway and the kids
the day of the Budweiser Shootout—improved my mood considerably. It didn’t
improve my aggression though.

With the new season, new drivers came into the series.

The talk that season was Nadia Henley, a woman driver. I
wasn’t sure you could even call an eighteen year-old a woman.

She’d apparently gone through a driver development
program from the same team Darrin came from. As you can tell, I was weary of
her from the start.

This year she had a full sponsorship with Leddy
Motorsports and Lazer Energy.

I didn’t have anything against women drivers and raced
them just the same, for the most part. Now where I might rough up a seasoned
vet, I wouldn’t do that to a rookie let alone a kid/woman rookie.

Nadia, with her spitfire attitude and red hair to match
had one hell of a chip on her shoulder when Daytona rolled around. I wasn’t
sure what to make of her so I kept my distance.

“Is that her?” Spencer asked when we stood on the grid
prior to the duals.

I glanced over my shoulder uninterested in the commotion
surrounding her. “I guess so.”

Spencer watched her for a moment, curious as to how
someone so tiny could handle these cars and then voiced his assumptions she was
sleeping her way to the top.

Mostly he was joking because there was no way she could
get million dollar sponsorships without of some sort of wheel talent.

Another driver who wasn’t starting off good with me was
Shelby Clausen, another smartass eighteen-year old kid trying to prove his own
mettle in the demanding sport.

Ask any other driver out there
...
veterans
...
rookies
...
anyone, they will tell you that each year
it gets harder and harder to win these races. The level of competition was so
high that even some of the top drivers went years without a win. Hell even
Steve Vander, one of the sport’s most renowned race car drivers, hadn’t won a
race in one hundred and three starts. That’s a long time not to feel the pure
bliss of pulling into victory lane.

Having won the last race of the season, I felt confident
going into Daytona. All that being said, Shelby didn’t make this easy. Drafting
in Daytona is an art—I think I’ve stressed that before. Rookies, well they
didn’t have that great of a feel for it so it was harder to find another driver
that would draft with them. Often enough, they found themselves tailing in the
back just trying to make it to the finish. Understanding this, I gave Shelby a
push or two. We had tested in Dover together over the winter so I thought,
“Hey, let’s give this kid a break.”

I was fucking wrong.

So there we were coming out of turn two when Shelby shot
out of the draft behind me and tried to pull some kind of kamikaze move on the
outside.

It backfired on him almost immediately and he was left
out high and dry. He came back another lap 20 laps later and did the same exact
thing, ending up last once again. He had a strong car that’s for sure, maybe even
strong enough to win but he had all balls and no brains.

Clausen must have pulled this move another five times
before he tried drafting in behind me. I didn’t have a problem with this
because Bobby, who I preferred to draft with, had just pitted and I knew we’d
be pitting in just a few more laps. Clausen latched on to my bumper and pushed
me around the track but when we made it to turn four, I slowed, he didn’t pick
up on Aiden telling his spotter I was pulling off and he bumped. Bump drafting
in turns, not a good idea. Not for me at least. This bump sent me flying into
the inside barrier of the pit road entrance.

“Coming hard into the pit road,” Aiden warned the guys to
have them back away from the wall. Sure enough, I slammed hard into the pit
wall just as the guys scrambled away.

One good thing, I was already in my pit box now.

“Hey look, you’re in your pit already.” Kyle chuckled
despite his frustration.

“Heavy damage to the left side,” Mason said and then
began directing orders toward the crew.

I didn’t say anything more. I could have blown up,
showing my aggression toward this Clausen kid but I didn’t. I kept my head
together and managed to pull through with a top ten finish.

Even after the race when he noticed me walking toward the
hauler after the race, I kept my cool. I didn’t say any single word to him
other than a head nod.

When Phoenix rolled around in April, I couldn’t say the
same thing.

Night races always left everyone fired up, and goddamn was
I fired up after that race from both Shelby and Nadia.

I had qualified for the pole, my entire family was there
and I wanted to win the race. Having come off a win in Texas the week before, I
had a taste of victory.

Clausen was driving like a fucking jerk and making all
sorts of spastic moves on his hunt to the front—he had a strong car and was
running second with twenty laps to go. Since Daytona, he’d yet to even finish a
fucking race so when he came charging to the front, I figured he’d just wreck.
He didn’t though, he stayed with me and with ten laps to go, and he challenged
me for the lead with Nadia right behind me too.

“Clausen is at your rear
...
at
your door
...
still there.” Aiden told me.
“Henley looking to the inside. Keep your line.”

“Keep your cool bud.” Kyle warned.

He knew me to well.

“Still out there
...
”

“How many more laps and what are my lap times?” I asked
trying to hold my line as Clausen stayed with me through turns two and three
and Nadia was contemplating making her move. I just knew she was going to do
something stupid.

“Three laps to go. You’re running at a 27 flat—Clausen is
a 27.20.”

That made me feel slightly better—but not as confident as
I wanted to be.

Three more laps!
I chanted to myself.

We stayed side-by-side, bumping and banging, putting on a
good show for the fans when Clausen came down hard on me in the last turn. He
basically cut me off. I had no choice but to lift. He was leaning on me so hard
when I lifted he shot down in front of me and I ended up smashing into the back
of him destroying both our cars and Nadia when she smashed into me. Tate, who
was running fourth, won.

I was happy to see Tate, who hadn’t won since mid-season
last year win, but I was fucking pissed.

And that’s putting it lightly.

I was ready to kill the shady five-foot tall bastard when
I got out of the car. Once again, my temper flared in front of hundreds of
thousands of fans. I pushed him, he pushed me and before you know it we had an
all-out pushing match similar to the ones Darrin and I got into back in the
day. Only difference here was this Shelby kid was a lot smaller.

Shelby had a folly understanding of who I really was and
he was about to find out.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked not calmly.

“What? I had position on you.” He answered shrugging.

“Position, really?” I shoved him again. He fell back
against his car scurrying to find his footing as I stepped forward. “You call
one inch position?”

We didn’t get to finish the debate before NASCAR
officials were separating us.

I clearly didn’t think about NASCAR and all too soon Kyle
gave me the word as I trudged toward my hauler. “They want to see us in the
hauler.”

They were calling me to the hauler along with Shelby and
his crew chief that’d apparently been having some physical words with Aiden as
well.

This was when Nadia Henley got in my face. “What the fuck
was that?”

“What?” I spat in disbelief.

Alley, who was standing beside me, pulled on my arm.
“Jameson, let’s go.”

I think she knew there was temptation on my part to shove
this kid/woman.

That’s when Nadia reached out and grabbed my arm too.

“You think just because you win championships you can do
whatever you want on the track, don’t you?”

I laughed bitterly and flung my arms out of their grasps.

“Yeah, well,” I winked at Nadia. “Welcome to the big
leagues sweetheart.”