The Legend

by Shey Stahl

  “Hang on to it bud, there you go.” Kyle urged. I tried to correct it only to be hit from behind and then slammed into the wall.

  “We’re in it.” Aiden announced when Paul nailed us from behind and sent me sailing into the side of Bobby and then Paul. Pretty soon I was handing out taps to a handful of cars. It was as though I was playing ping pong and I never liked ping pong when inside a race car.

  Before I knew it, I was being treated in the infield care center along with about ten other guys.

  “Talk about carnage out there.” Bobby joked holding his neck as a nurse looked over him.

  “I still don’t know what happened.” Paul joked slightly disoriented. “I think I hit you twice before I ended up on the other side of the fence.”

  “I’ve come to the rescue.” Tate said with a shaded eye and beer in hand. He tossed one my direction.

  Sway approached me from behind, her hands rose from my arms up to my shoulder holding the ice pack to my neck. “I hate watching wrecks like that.”

  There was no sense in smiling nor did I have the energy to smile. Hell I didn’t even have the energy to open the beer in my hand. “I know.”

  Once they cleared me to go, I handed the unopened beer to Paul, “Drink up.”

  “Looks like you took some licks out there.” Spencer said checking on me as I got inside the golf cart. A few reporters stopped me outside the care center to ask my thoughts and see if I was okay.

  I gave Spencer a nod that I was all right and then turned in the seat to offer the reporter a quick interview.

  “Jameson, how are you feeling? You took a nasty hit out there when Paul got into you.”

  “I’m fine, sore, but fine. That’s the craziest finish I’ve ever seen here.”

  The reporter laughed. “Can you feel those big wrecks coming like that?”

  “Oh yeah, you can feel it, see it, even sense that it’s coming. It’s just a matter of who’s gonna make it and who’s not.”

  “Rough fines and rough race huh?” he asked bringing up the fines again. To reporters it doesn’t matter whether you had a good race or a bad race. It doesn’t matter if you won or wrecked. They still wanted their story and focused on where that was. To them interviewing me, was about the fines issued this morning. They wouldn’t forget.

  “You know, there’s NASCAR’s theory on this and there’s mine and our teams. Somewhere in the middle is the truth and that‘ll be decided by someone else.”

  I left my remarks at that; I couldn’t offer them more.

  Back at the hauler, everything was loaded and ready to go within an hour as the crew slowly disappeared to board the team plane and my private jet waited for my family and me.

  Looking around, I watched Kyle and Mason trudge off to SUV waiting to take them to the airport as well, already looking over notes and contemplating the next race. Just like me, even if they weren’t at the track, their lives were here.

  Sway found me again, bags in hand ready to head out when I noticed Brody Williams standing beside his hauler, a large crowd had gathered. Again, I wasn’t sure why I didn’t like Brody but I didn’t. Mostly right then because I saw Lexi and Arie standing beside him laughing.

  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.”

  Axel nodded but didn’t look up at Casten.

  Casten grinned and spun the ATV around to roost up clay at us.

  “You guys should have stopped with me.” Axel noted brushing a few chucks of clay off his driver’s suit.

  “You know,” I let out a laugh throwing my arm over his weighted s
houlders, “I felt the same way about my siblings.”

  When we got back to the pits Casten was busy flirting with some girl standing in Rager’s pit. Before Axel got inside his car, he unscrewed the cap to a quart of oil sitting on the counter in the hauler and dumped it down the inside of Casten’s shirt, then climbed inside his car.

  Casten, never wanting to compromise his chances with the girl by freaking out, just grinned at his brother and continued to nod to whatever the girl was saying to him.

  Logan, Sway’s half-brother and part of JAR Racing these days, was standing with Willie on the other side of Axel’s car adjusting the timing for the track conditions. They both broke into a fit of laughter when Axel pulled one over on his brother.

  Times never changed. It may be a different set of kids now, but they were still pulling the same shit we used to in the pits. I can’t tell you how many times I dumped oil down my brothers back. It made me smile thinking back to the times when we did this at the local dirt tracks growing up. Thinking of that made me think of Sway. She was supposedly somewhere but had yet to show.

  Part of me was worried but I also knew if there were a problem, Clint or Van, our bodyguards, would have called me. The paranoid part of me checked my phone to make sure nothing was wrong.

  Turns out she was stuck at the merchandise hauler but made it just as the cars were performing the 4-wide salute to the fans.

  Kissing my shoulder, her tiny arms wrapped around my waist as the announcer said that famous World of Outlaws saying. The cars lined up four-wide coming out of three. “Knoxville Speedway, you wanted the best you got ‘em four of the best. Often imitated, never duplicated, the greatest show on dirt...the World of Outlaws!”

  She screamed and clapped her hands just like every other proud mother of their son when he waved to the crowd.

  Throwing my arm around her, I pulled her close to my side and whispered in her ear. “I love you.”

  The rumbling of twenty-four sprint cars shook the stands we were standing in as she smiled up at me.