St. Dale

by Sharyn McCrumb

Harley rolled his eyes. “I wish we could get Bill Elliott out here to go after you,” he said. “Try telling him that Earnhardt’s a saint now.”

  “Well, he’s getting a wreath, anyhow,” said Justine. “I don’t think Bill would begrudge him that. Whose turn is it?”

  Jim Powell spoke up. “Do you folks mind if Arlene does it? She set a store by Ol’ Dale, and this was our home track, so to speak. Before we moved to Ohio.”

  Jim Powell and Jesse Franklin had trotted back to the bus to retrieve the wreath, leaving Arlene standing next to Harley, smiling her tremulous smile. He hoped it was one of her good days. Harley smiled back at her. “Well, Arlene,” he said, “do you know where you want to put this wreath?”

  She shook her head. “You choose.”

  “We’ll find a place for it,” he said.

  “And I’ll take your picture with it and send you a copy,” said Justine.

  When Jim Powell and Jesse Franklin came back with the wreath, they were escorted by the two Earnhardt mourners from Bristol-Cannon, the racing-scrap dealer and his friend the weasel.

  “Told you we might catch up with you again!” said the smaller man. “Old Cannon was mighty touched by this whole idea. Wanted to see it again.”

  Jesse Franklin edged up close enough to Harley to whisper. “They were waiting by the bus,” he said. “And when they asked us if they could come along, I just didn’t know how to turn them away.”

  “It’s all right,” said Harley. “They won’t hurt anything. That wouldn’t be respectful to Dale.”

  Cannon and his associate had come dressed for a solemn occasion, having traded their customary black leather and denim for shiny dark suits, royal blue shirts, and skinny ties. They stood next to the Number Three Pilgrims in respectful silence while Jim Powell stepped forward with the wreath.

  “In memory of Dale Earnhardt, the Intimidator,” he said. “Arlene?”

  Arlene nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I remember Dale. People thought he was mean, but he wasn’t. He was always nice to people off the track. I think he was doing what he wanted to do, and he’d have done it whether anybody else cared or not. Maybe he was surprised that people did care so much. But he was an ordinary feller from Carolina, like my Jim.” She smiled up at her husband. “But there wasn’t nothing he couldn’t do. And he never got above his raising about it, either.” She began to smile, as if she’d forgotten they were there.

  They waited a few moments, but Arlene’s tribute was finished.

  As they started to walk back, the weasel caught up with Terence. “Say, my buddy Cannon’s got some pieces of Dale’s wrecked car out there in the van. Made ’em into key chains. Y’all want to buy some?”

  Terence stopped walking and stared at the little man. “Nobody has pieces of that car,” he said.

  “Yeah, we do,” said the weasel, turning to speak to the others as they walked past. “Pieces of Dale’s car for sale!”

  Shane McKee stepped up beside Terence. “You carry a cell phone, don’t you, man? I’ve got a brochure here with DEI’s phone number on it. I think they should hear about this. You call them while I get the license number off their van.”

  He began to run after the hastily retreating hucksters. But by the time they reached the parking lot Cannon and the weasel were gone.

  “Good move,” said Terence to Shane. “Those guys were scum.”

  “Wish I’d a caught ’em,” said Shane.

  They exchanged satisfied smiles.

  Chapter XVI

  Talladega Ghosts

  Talladega Super Speedway

  “You know what they say about Talladega, don’t you?” asked Harley. He was swaying a little, trying to stand up as the bus roared down I-20 through the green sweep of eastern Alabama. He thought they must be about half an hour out of Talladega, and now, having taken a surreptitious peek at his notes, he quizzed the passengers with the expectant look of a teacher addressing a class. He pointed to Matthew. The boy had slept most of the way out of Atlanta, but a few miles west of the Alabama state line he’d perked up again, and now his hand was waving in the air. “Okay, sport,” said Harley. “Stop with the imaginary checkered flag. Lay it on us.”

  “This is where Dale Earnhardt won his last race,” said Matthew solemnly.

  Harley nodded, trying to look as if he’d remembered that. Might be in his notes somewhere. “Okay, Matthew. Good call. That was in-”

  “October, 2000,” said Cayle. “The fall race at Talladega.”

  Harley waited a couple of seconds to see if anybody was going to dispute her, but several heads nodded, so she must be correct. He smiled. “Right again. Anything else?”

  “I’d almost call it a miracle, that race,” said Jim Powell. “Remember it? I saw it on television. Dale was running in eighteenth place that day. It didn’t look like he had a cat’s chance of winning. Then all of a sudden toward the end of the race, he moved from eighteenth place all the way up to first in only five laps. Then he went on to win it. Most incredible thing you ever saw.”

  Arlene spoke up. It was one of her good days. “You didn’t see it, Jim,” she said. “You went to the bathroom, thinking Earnhardt was out of the running, and when you came back, I was jumping up and down screaming for Dale just as he took the lead.”

  Jim looked pleased to be corrected. “Why, that’s right, hon,” he said, patting her hand. “I guess it’s never wise to give up on somebody, is it?”

  Bill Knight, who had been looking out his window, admiring the green hills in the distance, said wonderingly, “You never think of Alabama having mountains. It looks like New Hampshire out there.”

  Sarah Nash leaned forward and touched his arm. “They’re the same mountains,” she said. “The Appalachian chain begins here in north Alabama and ends up in New Brunswick, Canada. So the Bodines from upstate New York and the Allisons from north Alabama may have more in common than one might think.”

  Harley laughed. “Well,” he said, “that’s one thing I sure never heard anybody say in connection with Talladega. Anything else?”

  “That track cost $4 million to build back in ’69,” said Jesse Franklin. “Some of the speedways they built in the late nineties cost around 200 million to construct. Being an auditor, I keep up with monetary things like that.”

  “Okay, that’s more than I knew, folks,” said Harley, making a silent vow to dig his guidebooks back out of his suitcase tonight. “I was waiting for somebody to say that it’s a super speedway, and one of the restrictor plate tracks. The reason for restrictor plates, some folks say.”

  Justine heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Harley, everybody knows that,” she said. “But what everybody really says about Talladega is that it’s haunted.”

  “Justine!” Bekasu turned back from the window and tried to shush her sister.

  Justine shrugged. “Well, somebody had to say it,” she said. “I bet you were all thinking it. Well, maybe not Reverend Knight, ’cause he doesn’t know Neil Bonnett from Robin Hood, but the rest of y’all know what I’m talking about. And it’s not just the fact that Davey died here, either.”

  “I’ve never heard anything about this,” said Terence, glancing at Sarah Nash. “Haunted?”

  She gave a little shrug and then nodded. “So they say.”

  Harley knew exactly what Justine was referring to, but it wasn’t the kind of thing drivers talk about, not even when they’re paid to be tour guides. He glanced down at Ratty to see if he had any reaction to Justine’s announcement, but Ratty was keeping his eyes on his lane of I-20, seemingly oblivious to the chatter behind him.

  “You might as well tell them now, Justine,” said Cayle. “You’ll end up telling everybody one at a time at the next rest stop anyhow.”

  Harley nodded. “You opened this can of worms,” he said. “You might as well spill it.”

  “Okay,” said Justine. “Microphone?” She swayed up the aisle to stand next to Harley. “This used to be Cherokee land, you know. These hills. Now, Tal
ladega-which means ‘border town’ in Cherokee-some people say that the place was built on an old Indian burial ground, or something, and that there’s a curse on it because of that.” She was solemn now, and round-eyed with the enormity of the tale.

  Bill Knight frowned at this unexpected lurch in subject matter. He glanced down at Matthew, but the boy didn’t even seem surprised, much less disturbed, by this announcement. He supposed that between the zombie video games and the slasher movies, it would take more than a ghost story told in broad daylight to frighten a modern child.

  “What kind of curse?” Terence called out. He had glanced around to see if anybody was laughing, but they weren’t.

  “Okay, here’s the story,” said Justine, leaning into the microphone and assuming the hushed tone of the campfire storyteller. “Remember Bobby Isaac? He was the Winston Cup champion in-well, when I was a kid-”

  Jim Powell spoke up. “Nineteen and seventy,” he said. “Year Arlene and I moved into our house in Shelby.”

  “Right,” said Justine. “I knew it was B.D. Before Dale. Anyhow, Bobby Isaac was a successful, dedicated driver, okay? He was well paid and well known. So, in 1973 Bobby Isaac was racing in the Talladega 500-”

  “As a matter of fact he was in the lead at the time,” said Ray Reeve, who knew where this story was headed.

  “Wow. I’d forgotten that,” said Justine. “Okay, so he’s on the front stretch when all of a sudden he pulled into the pit without any caution flag, and without being told to by his crew chief. Just ups and parks the car. The crew all came running up to him. ‘What’s the matter?’ ‘What’s wrong with the car?’ ‘Are you sick?’ And you know what he said?” She looked to Harley for confirmation.

  He sighed. “Go on,” he said. “Tell them.”

  “Okay, when they asked Bobby Isaac why he pulled out of the race, he said that something told him to get out of the car and walk away.” And he did. Cross my heart, it’s the truth. He didn’t finish that race-we’re talking about thousands of dollars at stake here, y’all. And he may have raced a time or two after that, but basically he was done right then and there. Now can you imagine somebody in his salary range-a surgeon or a trial lawyer, maybe-just walking away from his chosen profession just because a supernatural voice ordered him to?” She looked back at Terence. “Would you?”

  Terence coughed and looked embarrassed. “I don’t know,” he stammered. “Maybe. If I’d really heard the voice.”

  “Wasn’t there more to the story?” asked Shane. “I thought I heard that they checked over Bobby Isaac’s car after he parked it, and they found some problem with it that would have put him into the wall if he hadn’t got out.”

  They all looked up at Harley for confirmation. “I don’t know,” he said. “It was before my time, and it’s not the kind of thing drivers want to talk about. How about if we gripe about restrictor plates instead?”

  “Well, that’s just another wreck story,” Ray Reeve pointed out. “I mean, if you’re talking about why they implemented them in the first place. Bobby Allison.”

  “Restrictor plates!” said Shane, in the tone people usually reserve for words like “maggots.”

  “I know,” said Justine. “But if you don’t want Bobby Allison in your lap, you’d better put up with them.”

  “Or Bill Elliott,” said Sarah Nash. “Bill Elliott is the one who did 212 miles per hour at Daytona. Not that I’d mind having him in my-” Her voice trailed off and she snatched up her magazine, holding it a bit too close to her face to actually be reading it.

  Bill waved his hand to attract Harley’s attention. “What’s this about having Bobby Allison in your lap?”

  Harley smiled with relief at the prospect of getting the tour discussion back on track. This he knew. “Now that’s the story you ought to tell, coming into Talladega,” he said. “The 1987 Winston 500. Dodging the bullet. Everybody knew it was going to be a fast race that year. Talladega is a super speedway-a long straightaway to build up speed on. Bill Elliott took the pole in qualifying with a speed of 212.8 miles an hour. That’s more than three miles a minute, folks. I can’t even tell you what that feels like. That was before restrictor plates-in other words, back when there was no limit on speed except the capabilities of the engine and the driver.”

  “What was Bobby Allison’s qualifying speed?” asked Matthew.

  “His Buick topped out at 211, putting him second to Elliott. And, before you ask, Earnhardt was fourth. So that race was shaping up to be a whirlwind, and they got 22 laps into it-what’s that, about seven minutes?-when Bobby Allison’s Buick ran over some debris that wasn’t supposed to be on the track, and cut his tire. The car went airborne.”

  He paused for effect, hoping his listeners were picturing a Buick lifting off like a Star Trek shuttlecraft and launching itself missile-like at a grandstand packed with people.

  “The good news is that Allison was going so fast when he took off that he managed to clear the five-foot concrete wall between the track and the spectators. Maybe it’s even better news that although the car was airborne, it did not manage to clear the wire fence on the top of that concrete wall. The car ripped up a 150-foot section of fence, sent stuff flying everywhere. Then the car wobbled for an instant and rolled back onto the track. It put me in mind of a basketball hovering on the rim of the basket and then falling away again.”

  There was a little silence while most of the bus waited to see if it would be Bill or Bekasu who asked, “How badly was he injured?”

  Bekasu got the question out first, and everybody was laughing before she finished it.

  “Not a scratch on him,” said Harley cheerfully. “Those drivers’ safety harnesses do work most of the time. It scared the hell out of Davey Allison, though, seeing his dad go into the wall like that. He must have said a prayer or two just then.”

  “He recovered well,” said Ray Reeve. “Davey won that race, as I recall.”

  “And none of the spectators were hurt?”

  “Maybe a cut or a bruise. Nothing major that I ever heard about,” said Harley.

  Shane McKee was scowling. “Yeah, the only casualty that day was the sport itself.”

  Harley nodded and tried to look sympathetic. He wasn’t sure he agreed, having been a driver himself, but he could see how fans would feel resentful about the hobbling of their sport. “NASCAR saw that wreck as a red light on their dashboard,” he said. “The officials knew that at those speeds on super speedways, sooner or later there would have been a tragedy. If Allison’s car had cleared the wire fence, there’s no telling how many people he could have killed. So they came up with a new piece of equipment designed to prevent that.”

  “Restrictor plates.” Shane spat out the word.

  Harley sighed. If you ever wanted to stop a bar fight, just say the words “restrictor plates,” and you’ll see instant unification take place. Everybody hated them. Maybe it would have been different if the tragedy had been allowed to happen, but it hadn’t. Earnhardt used to get wistful about how much he missed barreling around Talladega and Daytona at 200-plus miles an hour, but common sense told him and everybody else in the sport that the thrill wasn’t worth risking the lives of innocent bystanders. That was what people forgot: the restrictor plate wasn’t put on to protect the driver; it was there to protect the fans.

  “It’s a device attached to the carburetor to limit the speed of the car to less than 200 miles an hour,” said Harley, in case anyone was still confused. He figured that women could be race fans without necessarily knowing the mechanical aspects of the sport, but if he had to guess among this particular group of passengers, he’d bet that Terence Palmer and Bill Knight were the ones who didn’t know. Well, Arlene, maybe. Whatever she had known was falling away, but she didn’t seem to mind. Just looked out the window or at Jim with a vague smile, like a stranger at a birthday party.

  Ray Reeve laughed. “Does anybody remember what Earnhardt used to call the restrictor plate decision?”

&nbs
p; Jesse Franklin clapped his hands with a whoop of joy. “I had forgotten that! The Waltrip Rule! He claimed the high speeds made ol’ Darrell nervous.”

  “They were always saying stuff like that about one another,” said Harley, unable to resist the urge to defend his boyhood hero. “The real reason that Earnhardt objected to restrictor plates is because restrictor plates did more than slow down the cars. They also softened the throttle response. Knowing how to use that throttle had been a skill that separated the Earnhardts and the Elliotts from the run-of-the-mill drivers. Now, with restrictor plates, the cars mellowed out on the corners. That’s what Dale called it: mellowing out. He meant that there was no longer a surge of power in reserve when you took the corners. Earnhardt said that he and Elliott and Bodine had the skills to run their cars wide open on the corners while lesser drivers would get loose trying to make the turn, so they’d get left behind. When restrictor plates became mandatory on the super speedways, that no longer happened, and the big dogs lost their advantage. Now everybody could keep up with them, which meant more bunching up in the race. And sometimes more wrecks.”

  “I always thought there was another factor, too,” said Ray Reeve.

  Mr. Reeve hadn’t said much on the tour except for an occasional grumble, but Harley thought a chance to spout off might improve his mood, so he held out the microphone and motioned for the old man to come forward. Ray Reeve had to grasp the backs of the seats to keep from falling, but finally he made his way up to the front, looking a bit disconcerted to be facing rows of listeners.

  “Well,” he said, blinking at his fellow passengers, “all I was going to say was that there’s another reason Dale didn’t like restrictor plates. At least I think so. When nobody had the advantage of extra bursts of speed, the field was evened out so much that the only way to win a race like Daytona was to get a drafting buddy. And, you know, Dale would rather work alone, which I can certainly relate to. If I can’t do it alone, I won’t do it at all.” He looked doubtfully at Harley. “Do I have to explain drafting?”