Ratty Laine spoke up from the driver’s seat. “Anybody wants a demonstration of drafting, just look out the window into the other lane!”
Harley smiled. In the left hand lane an 18-wheeler was in the process of passing their bus, and scooting along behind the big rig was a white Ford Taurus, pulled along in the wake of the truck.
“Does anybody know who came up with the concept of drafting in stock car racing?”
Sarah Nash spoke up. “Junior Johnson.”
“Right. Well, Mr. Reeve, why don’t I go ahead and explain drafting.” Harley looked at the bewildered faces of Bill Knight and Bekasu. He would have to explain drafting, preferably in words of one syllable. He took back the microphone and waited while the old man threaded his way back to his seat.
“Okay, folks: drafting. Ratty was right about that Taurus in the other lane traveling in the wake of the truck. The Taurus is getting pulled along, but if it tried to pass that truck, it might swerve a little because the air displaced by the body of the truck would hit the passing car, catching the Taurus in its turbulence. With me so far?”
“I have passed a truck on an Interstate, yes,” said Bekasu without noticeable enthusiasm.
“Okay, well, on a race track this principle can be an important factor. You’re whizzing along on one of the big tracks, and you ease up behind another car and stay on his bumper so that he’s cutting through the air for both of you. You’ll both go faster that way. Okay, Matthew, I see your hand, so let me say right now: don’t anybody ask me why you’ll both go faster one-behind-the-other, you just do. Ryan Newman has the engineering degree. Take it up with him. But I can tell you from experience that if a car gets out of the line of cars in single file, he’s in trouble, because he can’t go as fast alone as the rest of them can by teaming up. The ideal strategy is to save your gas by drafting behind somebody right up until the end of the race, and then as you approach the finish line, you slingshot around the leader in the last few seconds to win. Of course, when the driver veers to the inside to make that move, he needs a drafting buddy to give him the power to pull it off.”
Jim Powell spoke up. “Darrell Waltrip said one time that trying to pass at Daytona without a drafting partner was like running into a brick wall.”
“He’s right,” said Harley. “Sometimes teammates will help you out, or your old buddies. I’ve seen drivers help an old running buddy make that move just because they didn’t like the kid who was otherwise going to win the race.”
“Earnhardt could see the air,” said Shane. “That’s why he was so good on super speedways. He could see the air flow.”
“Well, everybody says that,” said Harley, “but nobody’s ever been able to explain to me how he managed it.”
“One other thing you ought to make clear,” Ray Reeve called out from the back. “Restrictor plates aren’t used on the short tracks, like Bristol and Martinsville, and so on. Just on the super speedways where there’s enough of a straightaway to build up the higher speeds.”
“Never mind all that technical stuff,” said Justine. “I still say this place is haunted. I mean, look where Bobby Allison’s wreck happened. Talladega, which is Bobby Allison’s home turf-he’s from Hueytown, just on the other side of Birmingham. And who won the race that day? Bobby’s son. And nobody got hurt. It’s like the spirits were protecting him, but they were also giving a warning. Kind of a cosmic slap on the wrist. Just like the one Bobby Isaac got back in ’73. I’m telling you, this place is haunted.”
A few silent minutes later, Bill Knight glanced back at the newlyweds. Sure enough, Shane McKee met his look with an unsmiling gaze and a slight nod, as if to say See? I told you so. Miracles. First numbers and now voices on a racetrack telling Bobby Isaac to park it. Bill managed a reassuring smile in return, but he hoped that Shane wouldn’t want to continue their earlier discussion of miracles in motor sports. He didn’t want to destroy the young man’s faith-even if it wasn’t a faith he personally subscribed to-but he could not in good conscience encourage such unorthodox beliefs. He sighed. He used to worry what to tell High Church-inclined believers about Lourdes and Joan of Arc, and now-this! Angels in the driver’s seat. He hoped he wouldn’t be called upon to voice any opinions in the matter.
“Speedway exit coming up!” Ratty sang out from the driver’s seat.
Bill Knight looked out the window expecting to see a suburban sprawl of hotels and fast food joints but the intersection of state road and Interstate was much less cluttered than he expected. It was odd that so many racetracks were set out among green fields in unspoiled countryside. Oh, the place would be a zoo on race day, he was sure of that. Eighty thousand cars and twice that many people would turn this bucolic country road into a nightmare of ozone and noise, but since the next big race was weeks away-at the end of September, the great empty Speedway and its pastoral surroundings lay as empty and silent as Pompeii.
It was a beautiful setting. The Speedway, encircled by low wooded hills in the distance, was painted bright red and blue like a child’s toy, and its sheer size invoked awe in the beholder. The longest grandstand in the world, Harley had told them earlier, reading from a printed card. Bill had forgotten all the specifications-how many spectators the place would hold, how long the track was-somewhere around two miles long, he knew-and all the other bits of numerical trivia. Staring at it in the distance he was reminded of a twentieth-century Stonehenge or Machu Picchu, some monument to human ingenuity, obscure of purpose, but magnificent in scale and ambition. A great steel temple that had been built in the wilderness and then left to the elements. It was an automotive cathedral, and while he did not entirely endorse the purpose for its existence, he did acknowledge that it was an impressive architectural achievement.
The broad entryway that led into the Speedway was lined with lampposts, topped by lights in a swirling metalwork design that seemed quite artistic for so prosaic a place as a racetrack, he thought. The place was built in 1969-Jesse Franklin had mentioned that-but it seemed to be well maintained and state-of-the-art. Well, they could afford it, of course. A hundred thousand people or so, times at least a hundred dollars a ticket, that ought to pay for as many gallons of paint as you’d need to keep the structure looking new.
Were they going to get out and walk the track, Knight wondered. On an afternoon in late August, the Alabama sun would be too intense for old Mrs. Powell, and perhaps too much for Matthew as well, though the boy was game for anything. He would probably enjoy himself immensely.
Harley thought it was a shame that such a nice kid was so ill. After so many days of sitting still, cooped up in the bus, over hundreds of miles of Interstate, it would be good for all of them to spend an hour or so stretching their legs.
Harley reached for the microphone. “Those who want to walk around the track for a bit and take some pictures are welcome to do it. That building over there houses the gift shop and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.” He looked at his watch. “Couple of hours do you, and then lunch at one-thirty?”
“Shall I get out the wreath?” asked Ratty.
Harley looked at the great canyon of a Speedway, empty and silent in its cradle of hills. “No,” he said. “If it’s all right with everybody, I’d like to make a small change of plans here, and put the wreath in a somewhat more intimate place a few miles down the road. More fitting, I think.”
The Talladega Texaco Walk of Fame and the Davey Allison Memorial was a small park set one street back from the main street of the small town of Talladega, maybe ten miles south of the Speedway itself. It was a pretty little Southern town, with a red brick courthouse, and an old-fashioned main street lined with storefronts that could have been a movie set for a heartwarming film. Bill Knight, who had been admiring the scenery, hadn’t noticed any signs directing visitors to the park, but perhaps the people who would come here knew where to find it: turn left on the little street beside Braswell’s Furniture Store. The memorial park was on the street between Talladega’s main d
rag and the hill on which the police station sat. Facing the side street stood a fieldstone marker, inset with a granite tablet, inscribed with three lines of tombstone lettering:
Talladega Texaco Walk of Fame
Davey Allison Memorial
Talladega, Alabama
Harley noted that the Number Three Pilgrims had turned solemn at the prospect of visiting this shrine. Even Justine was more subdued that usual, and he was pleased that they were approaching the memorial in the proper spirit. Sure, he was skeptical about the veneration of the Intimidator, but the idea of a memorial park for fallen heroes of motor sports appealed to him. He had pretty much given up the idea of being there himself one day, but he was glad to see the great ones remembered: Fireball Roberts, Neil Bonnett, Tim Flock.
“You know why it’s here, don’t you?” he said softly into the microphone. He didn’t need his notes for this part of the tour. This was his era in racing, and he knew it like a family story. Most of the passengers did know why the park was in Talladega, but for form’s sake he had to tell them anyway, because he was the guide, and guides never assumed that everybody knew anything. “Well, for one thing he was from around here. Davey was one of the Hueytown gang, like his father and uncle-The Allisons. Hueytown is a little place over there west of Birmingham. So Davey was a native son, and one of the best drivers ever.
“But the reason for this park. The reason it’s here. It’s because he died at Talladega. Oh, not on the track. It was a freak accident. I never heard anybody explain exactly how it happened so that it made sense. But what happened was, they were having practice runs that day on the track, and Davey decided to fly his new helicopter over to watch the action, and also to check up on Neil Bonnett, another one of the Alabama Gang. Neil had sustained a head injury at a race the week before, and Davey wanted to check on him, make sure he was feeling okay to race.”
“I thought he was going to see David Bonnett,” said Ray Reeve. “Neil’s son.”
“Well,” said Harley, “I wasn’t there, so I can’t dispute that with any certainty, sir. But we agree that he was flying over to watch a friend doing practice runs, all right? Anyhow, Davey Allison and another driver in the Alabama Gang, Red Farmer, flew over to the track in Davey’s new helicopter, and they were just about to touch down-a foot from the ground, people say. Close enough to step out, except, of course, you wouldn’t. You’d wait for the touchdown, for the engine to be turned off…” Harley’s voice trailed off then. He was replaying an image that had come to him many times over the years: a smiling, dark-haired young man, jumps out of the hovering helicopter and sprints away. But he hadn’t. Of course, he hadn’t. The thing must have cost most of a hundred thousand dollars, serious money even if you’re Davey Allison. He would have landed it properly. Apparently the voices at Talladega weren’t warning people that day.
Bekasu didn’t know this story, but she saw the somber faces of the others and Harley’s stricken look as he remembered. “What happened?” she asked.
“I can tell you what. But not why. The helicopter shot up into the air-thirty feet or so, I heard. And then it just slammed back down to earth on its side, with Davey and his passenger inside. Like someone spiking a football. And Neil Bonnett-the driver he had flown over to check on-Neil was the one who pulled him out.”
“He didn’t make it, did he?”
Justine touched her sister’s arm. “No,” she said. “They got him to the hospital, but he died a few days later.”
“The race the next week was at Pocono,” said Jim Powell softly. “And Dale Earnhardt won it. So when it was time to take his victory lap after the race, Earnhardt drove to the start-finish line on the track and it looked like he and his pit crew were saying a prayer. Then somebody handed him a Number 28 flag-that was Davey’s number-and Earnhardt drove a Polish victory lap-backwards, the way Alan Kulwicki used to do it-and a-waving that 28 flag out the window, to honor the both of them. Alan had died back in April and Davey only a week before.”
“It’s no wonder that Talladega is haunted,” said Bekasu. “The wonder is that all the tracks aren’t.”
The memorial to Davey Allison was a circular park of green lawn and young hardwood trees bisected by a brick path, and encircled by a walkway. Two white marble walls flanking the brick walkway on the circular path displayed information about Davey Allison and his racing career. In front of the wall, a slanted checkerboard platform symbolized a winner’s circle, and in its center was the Texaco star, acknowledging the oil company that had sponsored Davey Allison and now honored his memory with this park. It was so green and peaceful that to Bill Knight it seemed at first to be the very antithesis of a speedway, but then he considered the shape of the park, and realized that its configuration was indeed that of a racetrack. Perhaps it was an Elysian field of a track, someone’s idea of racing with the angels.
At intervals around the encircling paved walkway, set on poles at reading height for visitors, were rectangular bronze plaques, each bearing the bas-relief bronze likeness of a legend of motor sports, and a few sentences describing the man’s achievements. The first plaque to the left of the entrance to the circle bore the name of Donnie Allison, the uncle of the young driver to whom the park was dedicated. According to the plaque, Donnie Allison was the first NASCAR driver to complete a lap around the Talladega track. Bill Knight read that plaque, and the one after it-Dale Earnhardt. As he moved away to the next one, several of his fellow travelers were grouped around the Earnhardt plaque posing for a group photo.
Fireball Roberts…Dale Jarrett…Ned Jarrett…To Bill, the exercise of reading these commemorative plaques felt a bit like reading someone else’s hometown newspaper: the facts were still there, but devoid of any emotional content for the casual stranger.
Many of the other names were unfamiliar to him, so he contented himself with a glance at each bronze plaque and stopped trying to take in all the new information. This was, after all, a memorial, not a trivia contest. He admired the beauty and the restraint of the landscaping. Here there were no angel statues or topiary race cars, only a cozy little park of well-tended lawn, dotted with young oak trees, and bisected by a simple rose-colored brick path cutting across the middle. Slender trees with branches like upraised arms lined the path, an arboreal honor guard. A few feet back from the entrance a flagpole had been set in a wrought iron semicircle in the walkway; from it a new American flag rippled in the slight breeze.
Bill noted that Matthew was posing for a group photo with Harley and the McKees. Shane was holding Matthew up so that he could read the bronze plaque, and Ratty, camera in hand, was waving directions for them to pose. Pleased to have a few moments of solitude, Bill walked alone, keeping to the outer path, glad of the sunshine and the chance to stretch his legs. He decided that when he reached the midpoint of the outer walkway, he would enter the brick walk on the back side of the park and follow it to the beginning. A quarter of the way along the path, he sat down on the Valley Electric Co-op bench, nestled in the shade of a large tree. He settled in to study the scene, while the other passengers continued to make their way around the park, reading the plaques and taking turns photographing the scene and posing for more snapshots. As he watched, a bobtailed ginger tom cat emerged from the shrubbery and jumped on the bench beside him. The cat bumped his arm with its head, intent on having its ears scratched by anyone who would sit still long enough. Obligingly, Bill scratched its head, and was rewarded with a rasping purr.
Justine motioned for him to come and join in the photo session, but he smiled and waved her way, pointing to the cat, and mouthing “Later.” Perhaps, though, he ought to ask one of the others to take a photograph of the park for him. It would make an interesting slide to accompany his lectures about pilgrimages, for surely this was a modern-day shrine to the faithful. He was pleased to see that there were no souvenir stands, no hawkers of postcards or commemorative badges-quite unlike some of the European shrines he had visited, in fact. For some reason, he found himself thi
nking of a little shrine in Cornwall that he’d visited on a walking tour during his student days. The place was a holy well, consecrated to a saint, of course, but really a remnant of the old Celtic beliefs that had been in place before the Romans arrived. After all these years, he had forgotten when he’d visited it and exactly where it was, but the image of the path to the well was still clear in his mind. It was a narrow winding track that led from a roadside field through a dense thicket of trees and shrubs into the woods to the clearing where the well was. Impossible to miss the path, though, for at shoulder height, the branches bloomed with a rainbow of colored rags and ribbons, tied among the leaves by pilgrims on their way to the sacred water. Some of the bits of cloth were tattered and faded from the winter rains and the glare of long summer days, others were as bright and crisp as if they had just been left that morning. Did people bring these scraps of red and blue and yellow with them when they came, or did they, seeing the profusion of ribbons lining the path, tear a strip off a sleeve or a scarf to add to the offerings. Those bright bits of cloth-were they tangible prayers, left behind by hopeful believers or were they simply a custom like saying “bless you” when someone sneezes, a shadow of an old belief, shriveled now to a hollow ritual, its significance long forgotten.
Two ideas slotted together in his mind. There was another ritual associated with holy wells. The “pattern.” You had to say prayers the requisite number of times-usually a multiple of three, of course-and you had to walk in a circle around the site of the holy well, also for a designated number of times. Sun-wise. You had to walk your laps in the sun-wise direction, because if you went around the other way, it would negate your prayers, even bring down bad luck upon you.
What was it Jim Powell had been saying about Alan Kulwicki going the wrong way around the track? The Polish victory lap, he’d called it. And then Earnhardt had duplicated the maneuver in memory of Kulwicki at the race following Kulwicki’s fatal plane crash. Two drivers going the wrong way around in the ritual-both died violent deaths.
St. Dale Page 26
