“Can’t help you,” he said, and turned away.
Desperation made her bold. “But I thought you people invented the left-handed smoke shifter!” said Taran, clutching at his arm.
The crewman sighed and looked down into the face of an earnest little idiot who was on the verge of tears. Sure she was a new fish, but he figured that race week would be enough of a hassle for her as it was. And Badger was a good guy. They went way back. Old Badger had enough to contend with, what with that embarrassing sponsor of his. He didn’t need any hysterical teammates to boot. “Look, kid,” the crewman said, “there’s no such thing.”
“What?” Taran strained to hear him over the waves of sound from crowds, engines, and loudspeakers.
“I said there’s no such thing as a left-handed smoke shifter. It’s an old joke. Crews pick the most gullible new team member and send them out to borrow nonexistent tools. They’re back there laughing at you. Go back and get ready for the practice.”
It took a moment for the sense of this speech to sink in to Taran’s already panic-stricken and distracted brain, but finally the phrase they’re laughing at you hit home, and without a word, she turned away and began to trudge back to the Team Vagenya garage stall. Practical jokes were not her idea of the best way to build camaraderie within the team, but she realized that NASCAR was still a man’s world, which meant that the rules were different-and not necessarily harsher, either. The society of women had its own form of hazing, but usually they did it behind your back, and they never let you in on the joke.
Maybe the team thought she was the joke, Taran thought. Everybody knew how she felt about Badger. Oh, not the real Badger, but that ethereal creature in the firesuit that he sometimes became. Maybe that was why they had singled her out for torment.
She went back to the space allotted to the 86 car. Fortunately, everybody was busy, so they missed her arrival. She had been dreading the pointing and snickering. Then she saw why no one was paying any attention to her. A rookie’s car had got loose in Turn Four and hit the back of another car. It wasn’t Badger-always her first thought-but everyone’s attention was now focused on the track where the two cars had stopped.
Suddenly, Tuggle was at her side. “Damn rookies,” she said, nodding toward the track. “Look, go ask the guys if they brought the shrinker-stretcher from the shop. We may need it.”
Taran blinked. “Wh-what?”
“The shrinker-stretcher. It’s a tool,” said Tuggle.
“Oh, I’ll just bet it is!” said Taran. “Well, for your information, I have already fallen for that stupid trick once today. I’m not going to go on any more wild goose chases for nonexistent parts just to amuse this team. It’s mean!” She put her hand over her mouth to stifle the sobs and ran off in the direction of the restroom.
Tuggle stared after her open-mouthed. “What the hell?-Hey, Erwin, got a minute? Go ask Tony if we brought the shrinker-stretcher.”
It’s a small part used to get the dents out of sheet metal, in case the car gets banged up out on the track. Kathy Erwin, who knew that, ran to the garage to check.
The team spent most of Speed Week in a frenzy of activity, getting the car ready; making sure they knew what they were supposed to do; and tripping over reporters, who wanted fluffy feature stories about the “girls’ team.” They had all been warned to be as bland and noncommittal as possible-and to make no personal comments about Badger.
One afternoon when they were in the garage area of the Daytona infield, during a rare moment of inactivity, Tony Lafon appeared, carrying a digital camera, and said, “Can somebody do me a favor?”
“I take pretty good pictures,” said Taran. “What do you need?”
He handed her the camera. “Great. Hold this. I’ll be right back!”
“Nice guy,” said Cindy. “He’s spotting for Badger Sunday, isn’t he?”
Taran nodded. “He drives on some of the local tracks around Charlotte, so he knows what to say during races.”
“He drives? Is he any good?”
“I think so,” said Taran. “But I don’t think he can afford good enough equipment to prove it.”
Tony reappeared just then wearing a white firesuit with blue sleeves, emblazoned with a Sunoco logo and lettering advertising a local furniture store. On the belt at his waist was the name “Tony Lafon” embroidered in blue. The outfit was not on par with the elegant custom-made firesuit that Badger wore, but it still had the magical effect of making Tony look taller, handsomer, and extremely important.
“I wanted to get some pictures of myself for my portfolio,” he said. “And maybe to do an autograph card for local events.”
“Sure,” said Taran. “Where do you want to go?”
“Well, since there aren’t too many people around this afternoon, I was thinking Victory Lane.” He said it warily, as if he expected the statement to be met with peals of laughter, but everybody just nodded, seeing the logic of the suggestion.
“Come on,” said Taran. “If we take twenty or thirty shots, there’s bound to be one you can use.”
Victory Lane at Daytona is a large barred enclosure with a small set of bleachers facing a stage, whose white backdrop features the words “Daytona International Speedway” under a smaller design of multicolored flags. They walked from the garage area to the building that adjoined the Victory Lane enclosure, and a cleaning man obligingly let them in and pointed them to a door that opened into Victory Lane.
“How do I look?” asked Tony, as Taran positioned him on the stage under the word “Daytona.”
“Important,” said Taran. “Why don’t you stand over there beside the reflective glass wall of the building? If I angle the shot correctly, I can get the reflection of the track itself in the glass behind you.”
“That would be great,” said Tony.
About five minutes later, Taran was on the fifteenth variation of Tony in the reflection shot, when the tourist trolley arrived.
The Daytona International Speedway is a tourist attraction every day of the year. People come from all over the world to see the mother church of American racing, and part of the experience is getting to circle the track in a coupled caravan of open trolleys while a guide recites a running narrative of speedway history and information. One highlight of the tour is when the carriages go up on the steep banking between Turns Three and Four for perhaps fifty yards, enabling the tourists to experience the thrill of actually riding on the same part of the track where the race is run. After that the tour takes a five-minute break in Victory Lane-major photo opportunity.
This time when the guide unlocked the gate to Victory Lane, the crowd of tourists surged into the enclosure, whereupon sixty people simultaneously spotted the miraculous vision within: a NASCAR driver in a firesuit. As one, the horde of squealing spectators, which included a group of local schoolchildren, sprinted toward the exalted being posing for publicity pictures. Taking this as a signal that photos were indeed permitted, they encircled the driver and began clicking away. Others hung back, digging into pockets and purses for pens and scraps of paper on which to capture the celebrity’s autograph.
Tony bore up under this wave of adulation with remarkable grace and poise. He posed for pictures with anyone who wanted, and he motioned for all the fourth graders to encircle him so that he towered about them like an amiable Godzilla, smiling for a phalanx of amateur photographers. He shook hands and accepted hugs from admiring strangers, while Taran stood by wonderingly, and so totally ignored by Tony’s newfound admirers that she might have been invisible. He signed hats and hands and pieces of notebook paper. And posed for still more pictures.
And no one ever asked who he was.
After five minutes, the guide herded his charges back to the trolley to continue the tour, and waving their last farewells, the happy tourists climbed back on board and sped away up the track.
“Wow,” said Taran. “That was amazing. They treated you like you were Jeff Gordon.”
“It’s
the firesuit,” said Tony. “It’s magic.”
“Yeah, I believe it. So…do you want to go over to Lake Lloyd? I could get some shots of you walking on water.”
When they got back to the 86 garage area, they were still laughing.
By Thursday, Tuggle had grudgingly pronounced them as ready as they were going to get. They hadn’t seen much of Badger. He had been whisked here and there, filming a NASCAR commercial with a couple of other drivers, giving interviews for the sports media, and renewing his acquaintance with all his old friends from his former days in Cup racing. He was due to turn up again late Thursday morning for the first autographing session promoting the Team Vagenya merchandise.
“I still don’t see why we agreed to this autographing,” said Sark with a worried frown. “Badger has the qualifying race this afternoon, doesn’t he?”
“He does,” said Tuggle. “That’s a couple of hours later.”
“But shouldn’t he be focusing on that? He can’t even get into the Daytona 500 unless he does well in this race. Why distract him?”
Tuggle shrugged. “Because these days, being popular is just about as important as winning. It impresses the sponsor, and it’s easier to achieve than a first-place finish.”
“But shouldn’t he concentrate on his actual job? He has to go around that track at two hundred miles per hour.”
“He’ll be fine,” said Tuggle. No point in telling the publicist that to the bosses it didn’t much matter whether he was fine or not. They could always get another wheel man.
Sark shrugged. Hers not to reason why. Because it was Badger’s first autographing as the Team Vagenya driver, they wanted her to photograph the event and to do a write-up for the team Web site, and so she would. Logistics were someone else’s problem. Sometimes Badger reminded her of Boxer the horse in Animal Farm: a hardworking simpleton exploited by the pigs of management. That observation might make an interesting sidebar for her exposé.
The lot where the souvenir trailers were parked-row on row of brightly painted vans, emblazoned with drivers pictures and team colors-reminded Sark of a state fairground. Here were the same kitschy souvenirs-the tee shirts, hats, and teddy bears-that you saw at the fairgrounds, and the same milling crowds of sartorially challenged sightseers. Only here, instead of the tattooed lady and the sword-swallower, people waited in line to meet a Cup driver. The difference, thought Sark, was that tattooed ladies and sword-swallowers made a living by letting people gawk at them, while presumably Cup drivers had better things to do. She resolved to make a note of that analogy for her future Vanity Fair article on the racing world. Ed Blair had called her on her cell phone that morning to ask how it was going.
“It’s not as outrageous as I expected,” she’d told him. “I’ve told you most of it in my e-mails. I know they haven’t been very detailed, but I’ve been too busy to write much. Everybody is pretty nice, though.”
“Keep digging,” he’d said. “You can make anybody look stupid if you put your mind to it.”
She eased her way through the crowd to the little wooden table where Badger sat ready to meet his public. He was wearing a purple Team Vagenya cap and tee shirt and a pair of faded Levis. She had expected to see him in his firesuit, but considering what a hot day it was, she supposed that his present outfit was a sensible choice, and the advertising logos meant that he was still promoting the brand.
A legion of race fans, predominantly female, stood in a disorderly line, cameras at the ready, waiting for the signal to surge forward. The signing had been an open invitation. Some drivers-possibly even Badger himself, for all she knew-were so popular that you had to get a ticket hours in advance just to be able to stand in their autograph line, but the team representative who had set up the event had not realized that Badger’s star shone quite so brightly, so all comers were welcome. It promised to be a free-for-all, because he could only stay for half an hour, and there seemed to be no way to accommodate the crowd in that length of time.
“Hello,” said Sark, bending down close to his ear. “I’m here to cover the event for the team Web site, and to provide moral support for you.”
“Thank ya so much,” drawled Badger, wiping his forehead with the back of a sweaty hand. He sounded both heartfelt and shy-and he had the sunglasses on, which at first glance transformed him into that fierce and sexy creature she had seen through the camera lens. Even Sark, who knew better, felt her pulse quicken for an instant, before she remembered that it was only Badger.
No wonder his line is mostly female, thought Sark. Aloud, she said, “I see you’ve got your water bottle and a bunch of Sharpies. Anything else you need?”
He shook his head, but his smile seemed to waver, and he glanced warily at the throng of giggling women. Sark remembered a Discovery Channel program about ancient Greece that featured the maenads: crazed packs of women who ran through the Hellenic forests tearing to pieces anyone they encountered. She wondered if this event might be a modern version of that ritual.
“Maybe you ought to stay close,” Badger said softly. “It can get a little rocky sometimes. You never know.”
She stared at him, wondering what sort of moral support he might require of her. Bodyguard? Bouncer? Significant Other Impersonator? “What do you expect me to do?” she whispered.
“I dunno,” said Badger. “People get carried away sometimes. Whatever needs doing, I guess. You’ll know.” He waved a Sharpie at her and winked. “I reckon I’m ready.”
Sark watched the signing ritual with all the fascination of an anthropologist observing an arcane tribal worship ceremony. Badger seemed to be both deity and sacrificial lamb. She found it interesting that the age and body type of the driver did not often correlate with that of his followers. She wondered if anybody had ever done a study on it.
One slab-faced older woman near the front of the line was wearing tight red shorts over ham-sized thighs and what must have been an extra-extra large Badger Jenkins tee shirt. She was so enormous that she could have carried Badger as a purse, thought Sark.
There ought to be a rule, Sark decided, that if you outweigh your driver by a factor of two, then you ought not to be allowed to wear his apparel. (This rule, she reflected, would cost the delicate and diminutive Kasey Kahne whole legions of his fans.)
She watched with interest to see what Badger’s reaction would be-the ex-husband of a former Miss Georgia, contemplating (ha!) his biggest fan.
The massive woman set an autograph card on the table in front of him. Her earnest expression was almost menacing. Without cracking a smile, she said, “You’re doing good work, Badger. In Pennsylvania we think the world of you.”
“I appreciate it,” said Badger solemnly, signing the card with his customary scrawl. “I reckon I need all the help I can get.”
He handed back the card with a reassuring smile of thanks, and the woman took it, visibly relaxing at the reassurance of his smile. She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Badger, I know you’re busy, but can I get my picture taken with you?”
He nodded. “Come around,” he said, motioning her forward, and almost before the words were out, the woman had handed the camera to her friend and stumped around behind the table. Badger did not get up, which was just as well, Sark thought, considering the size differential. He’d look like the Dalmatian standing beside one of the Budweiser Clydesdales. Oblivious to the effect of their posing in tandem, the woman leaned forward and grinned, while Badger smiled “professionally” at the camera. Then-just as the friend snapped the shutter-Badger’s biggest fan swooped down and enveloped him in a predatory hug that made Sark think of a praying mantis eating her partner after mating. Click!
The woman giggled. “Now I can go home and tell my friends that I hugged Badger Jenkins!” she said.
Before Sark could say or do anything, the woman and her friend hurried away, chattering happily about this escapade, hoping aloud that the picture would turn out. Better hope Badger will be visible at all, thought Sark, wondering if
there was anything she could or should have done. Obviously she needed to be more vigilant than she had realized. Badger didn’t seem perturbed, though, which rather surprised her. She didn’t for a moment suppose he enjoyed it.
After that incident, she watched Badger with interest, waiting to see some trace of a grimace cloud that handsome little face, some smirk of derision perhaps that such a rough beast would have the audacity to embrace him-but his expression did not change. He simply smiled at the next person in line as if nothing had happened, and Sark felt herself sigh with relief. She hadn’t wanted Badger to be the kind of man who would ridicule a woman for not being pretty. With a rueful sigh she remembered her own initial reaction to the bearlike woman, and she wondered if in his place she would have been as gracious as Badger was. She told herself that his poise came from years of practice, but she didn’t altogether believe it. She considered the unlikely possibility that the handsome jock really was a nice guy. Nah. There had to be some other explanation. Media training, maybe.
Still, sincerely or not, he had done a kind thing. That poor woman probably would go home and boast for years about her triumph: She had hugged Badger Jenkins. And, look, she had a picture to prove it, and he was just as nice as could be about it. Not stuck-up at all. Perhaps in the months to come she would come back to the track and stand again in his autograph line, this time with that treasured photo for him to sign: further proof that she had hugged him. She had really hugged him.
Sark marveled at the magic of a meaningless gesture. She had lost count of the times Badger had hugged her, or Tuggle, or Julie Carmichael, and no one paid any attention to it. Badger was a hugger; he did it with all the abandon of a child, if he knew you. He was much more reserved around strangers, of course, and around fans, who were simply strangers who didn’t know that they were, but he seemed to think of the team as his family, and if you were in his path when he was happy or sad or coming or going, or whatever, then he hugged you. No big deal.
Once Around the Track Page 19
