The Legend (10 page)

I knew for
sure Spencer wouldn’t appreciate that either.

Sure
enough, he walked up, his mouth a hard line. “What the fuck? You’d think they
would have better taste.”

“That kid
is a brat.” I glared their direction when Arie giggled at something he said.

“So are
you.”

“I wasn’t
that bad.” I objected only to have Sway give me an arching eyebrow of her own
objection. “Maybe I was,” I agreed despite my own theory, “but we need to ban
them from the track.”

“Agreed,”
Spencer took off and Lexi scrambled away as he chased after her.

Arie
followed us to the plane and eventually we found Casten with a group of women,
yes, women twice his age.

Sway
wasn’t pleased and gave them a piece of her mind.

When we
were all on the plane, I laid into Arie and her arrest. “Why were you
arrested?”

“Indecent
exposure,” she said completely relaxed.

“What?” My
voice echoed through the cabin.

“It was a
misunderstanding.”

“That’s a
lame excuse.” Sway added seeming more interested in her iPad than our
conversation.

“It’s not
a lame excuse. It’s a real one.”

“Why was
it a misunderstanding?”

Arie
sighed with another eye roll. “I was leaving a party and maybe I forgot that I
had gone swimming and didn’t put on clothes, or enough clothes.”

“They
arrested you for that?” Casten asked.

Arie did
this shifty paranoid glance at me, and then Casten. “Yes.”

“You
better be telling me the truth, Arie.” I warned waiting for her to look at me.
“Clint is a private investigator. I can easily find out what happened.”

“I’m not
lying to you!” She shouted back at me in her typical I-don’t-give-a-shit
attitude. “Don’t believe me. I don’t care.”

For my own
sanity, I left the conversation there and stared out the window as it started
to rain. Sometime during the flight home, Sway laid her head against my
shoulder. Instinctively my sore body eased away from her touch. “Sorry,” she
cringed. “I forgot.”

Reaching
for her head with my right hand, I placed her head back on my shoulder. “You’re
fine honey.”

The kids
had fallen asleep, their youth revealed only at times like this. When they
opened their eyes and began to talk is was as if my kids had with replaced by
ice road truckers.

Here the
season had just begun and I was already nursing another concussion. Worrying
about why my daughter racking up arrests, the penalties, trying to maintain a
family life, and raise good kids, not truckers. Pressure was building, I knew
that much. I took comfort in knowing the woman lying next to me was my bleeder
valve and had the ability to help me out in more than one way, if you know what
I mean.

4.
Bearing – Jameson

Bearing –
A bearing is a special, replaceable insert composed of several layers of such
metals as lead, tin and antimony. These materials are capable of withstanding
high loads and wearing for a long time, provided they remain coated with a thin
layer of oil under pressure. The main and connecting rod bearings of a gasoline
engine are each formed of two half-circle sections which are assembled together
to form a complete, circular bearing.

Axel was
doing well, with sixteen races in, he’d landed four top five’s and nine second
place finishes but had yet to pull off a feature win. The pressure to win from
sponsors was the same in any series you race but I hoped that he would stay
focused on the bigger picture, consistency. He had that.

He also
had support behind him. Between my four drivers with JAR racing and now Axel
racing for my dad, we shared information about set-ups, team members swapped
back and forth and drivers interacted. We had a good program going and a good
group of guys willing to do everything they could for us.

Tommy was
still heavily involved with Axel and was doing everything he could to get that
poor kid a feature win but he was also the crew chief for Justin. He did an
amazing job at dividing his time equally between everyone.

That first
win for Axel came at the biggest race on the Outlaw schedule, Knoxville Nationals.
With the cup series having a bi-week in between Bristol and Atlanta, I was able
to sneak away to Iowa and it was a good thing. Axel needed me that weekend.

Noah and
Charlie were working on Axel’s outlaw team doing odd jobs when they were at the
shop. Most of the time they were kept at the shop because it never failed, they
found trouble at the track. Being dangerously inclined when it came to engines,
we had to supervise them at all times. I will admit
...
the kids knew their shit when it came to an
engine though and made CST Engines what it was today. Currently they were the
only engines used by the World of Outlaw series and the most of the USAC sprint
car teams. We also provided the engines to our cup teams and leased a handful
of them to other teams.

During hot
laps the final day, Axel mentioned a vibration he couldn’t place. “I can go in
hard into three and four but come back around to one and two it’s vibrating so
bad I can barely hold on.” he looked over the car as the boys went to work and
then looked at me, wide grass green eyes looking for reassurance, “Am I doing
something wrong?”

“Nah, I
don’t think it’s you.” I assured him and went to work with Tommy trying to
decipher what could be wrong.

Having
Charlie and Noah around ended up a good thing but Aiden warned them if they
caused any trouble they were off the team. Aiden’s threats never weighed on
their decision making in the past. I don’t know what would have inclined him to
think this was any different. But he was confident this wouldn’t be a problem.

Me, and a
handful of others, were not so confident.

I knew
these little assholes well. After all, they had set more than one of my cars on
fire and managed to drain all the oil out of my truck four times.

Axel ended
up blowing the engine in the trophy dash so Noah and Charlie decided to steal
an engine. The problem there was they didn’t steal just an engine. They decided
while they were at it to steal an entire car. Only problem, they stole another
driver’s back-up car. I think they did it as a joke because there was no way in
hell we would have actually used that. But it did take the Travis Edward’s team
an hour to figure out where their back up car disappeared to.

“It’s
nothing their mom hasn’t done,” Jimi said to Aiden when we found out what they
did. “Where were you on that one?”

Aiden
looked to me for support. I had nothing.

“Don’t
look at me,” I told him stepping back, “I can’t even control my own kids.”

Willie
appeared for the first time that night looking slightly worn out. Willie was a
fucking goofball but fit in well. He could also grow a beard in days. He stood
there next to the hauler with a cigar hanging from his lips, shaking hands and
slapping backs like he owned the place, weirdo.

“He’s
comfortable.” Dad laughed watching Willie.

“You
ain’t
kidding.” My stare caught his and he winked at me.
“There are times when I think Willie should sleep on his decisions before he
makes ‘
em
.” I wasn’t referring to his poker night
attitude tonight but more so his decisions on the road that had led to a
handful of arrests within the last few months.

“You
ain’t
kidding.”

About that
time, when everyone was in a panic about the engine, my favorite smart ass
showed up. Brody Williams. He brought with him Easton Levi. I will say Easton
lost a little respect from me hanging out with Williams.

Most of
the crew had gathered around the hauler setting up the cars for the main when
Brody approached with his friends.

“Hey
beautiful,” he said to Lexi. His buddy, Brian Tyler, approached Arie standing
near Rager’s car.

I didn’t
like Brian either. He was a smart mouthed little shit and had no respect for
anyone.

I knew
there was something going on between Arie and Brian but my secretive little girl
kept her distance when I was around. Arie, who had shown up around time trials
this afternoon, was a complete fucking brat all night. And now, she was hanging
out with Brian, even better.

Willie
stood next to me looking over Axel’s car and then nodded to the hauler. “We
need to talk later.” His eyes focused in the distance on Noah and Charlie
arguing. “It seems that a few thousand dollars’ worth of shocks is missing from
inventory.”

I nodded.
Last week I noticed a drop in inventory but didn’t want to deal with it
tonight. “We’ll talk about that Tuesday.”

I’ll admit
my first instinct was to think Noah had stolen them, it wouldn’t be the first
time but then again I would like to believe that family wouldn’t do that to me.
I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt before I kicked his ass.

One of the
outlaw officials approached us, patted Jimi on the back and then looked at
Tommy and Axel. “Travis wants his engine and car back.” His expression was
amused.

Noah
laughed and Axel lunged at him.

I could
tell by my son’s expression that Axel was in no mood for Noah’s bullshit
tonight.

I had to
separate them for the third time tonight when Casten and Willie drove up in my
truck with the spare engine. “Special CST delivery,” He announced yanking the
tailgate down.

No one sat
around and waited for an invitation, we all scrambled to get the engine inside
his sprint car before the B-Feature was set to start.

I did
however pull Casten aside to thank him. “Thanks for getting that buddy.”

“No
problem.” Casten shrugged shuffling his feet. “I want to see him win just as
much as you do. He needs it.”

“Have you
seen your mom around here?” I still hadn’t seen Sway tonight and frankly, I was
getting nervous as to where she was.

Casten
looked over his shoulder noticing commotion. “She’s here somewhere.”

Raised
voices around us drew my attention back to Brian’s hauler parked on the other
side of Rager’s pit. Axel was in Brian’s face with Rager standing beside him.

“Shut the
fuck up!” Axel hollered and then spun around to walk away.

I wasn’t
sure what it was about but I had a feeling it was just the tempers of Knoxville
Nationals.

It’d been
a rough adjustment for Axel this year coming from the midget series he
dominated, and now he couldn’t pull off a feature win. Through my own struggles
when racing in a new series, I understood his frustration completely.

His
shoulders were slowing weighing on him and in turn he was questioning his
ability.

Right
before the A-Feature, I pulled Axel aside.

“Let’s
take a walk.” I told him motioning with my head toward the track. Most drivers
walked the track prior to a feature just to see how the track had progressed
throughout the night. Tonight it had that glazed over shiny look meaning it was
dry and slick, just the way Axel preferred it. Whereas I preferred the tacky
loose tracks, Axel dominated on the dry/slick when it resembled asphalt. Funny
enough, Axel never liked racing asphalt.

“How
ya
feelin
’
tonight?”
I asked kicking
up clay with the tip of my shoe and then packing it back down with my heel to
test the moisture.

Axel
didn’t say anything for a moment, his brow furrowed as he too checked the
moisture content. He shrugged and looked at the direction of the pit bleachers
where team members and the family usually watched the race.

Lily was
standing over there with Axel’s buddy, Shane, watching us.

“It’s hard
to believe I can come from winning nearly every feature of the season in USAC
to this.” He kicked at the dirt before meeting my gaze. “You probably never had
that problem, did you?”

Laughing,
I remembered my second fulltime season in USAC when I couldn’t pull off a
feature win to save my ass. “I’ve had dry spells just like any other driver. We
can’t win them all.”

“But you
do now.”

One would
think with my fifteen championships that I won all the time. Well, yeah I did.
But there were dry spells as well and when that happened, we looked for an
answer in the engines and all the way back to ourselves wondering what in the
hell went wrong. I couldn’t tell you what it was but every racer knew the
feeling well.

“My only
advice is, don’t think about it. It gets to a point where you start to
over-analyze every move you make on the track thinking it’s something you’re
doing, when it’s not. It’ll all come together eventually and you’ll get that
first win buddy. You
gotta
have patience.”

Casten
pulled up on the 4-wheeler behind us. “They’re calling the drivers to their
cars Axel. We got the engine in.”