The Kid
It didn't take much to send the old driver reeling back through the years. A particular sound, a distinctive smell, just the right flutter of a checkered flag at the entrance to some fast food place, and he was instantly swept away again. Caught up in the memories of a time when he was the one who crawled behind the wheel and steered one of those boom-throated machines around a racetrack, intent on leaving the rest of them choking on his exhaust.
He never had to look for the reminders. They came floating at him all the time.
The hard part was to drag himself back to the present.
Or to find the desire to even try.
* * *
Thunder rumbled in the distance like faraway artillery fire, punctuating the periodic sheet lightning that lit up the western night sky. So long as the rain held off, though, those folks who were gathered in the bleachers that ran along the front stretch of the small racetrack welcomed the wonderful cooling breeze that blew in off the storm front. They cheered lustily at every jagged streak of lightning, every answering grumble of thunder. It had been a brutally hot week already, the final few days of an unusually dry spring, and a threat that a stifling summer likely lurked ahead of them. Farmers had already been praying for a drink of water for their emerging corn or soybeans. But now, despite the need, those who had come to watch the Wednesday night feature at the little racetrack prayed it would hold off for just a few more hours.
"Let them get the race in, Lord," they prayed. "Then send the rain for the crops. If it be Thy will, of course."
It was an unusually large crowd that had gathered, despite the threat of bad weather and it being midweek. Tags on the cars in the gravel parking lot showed visitors from a variety of counties across Tennessee and Alabama. Sure, they were there for the special card of races mat would go a long way toward deciding the track champion for the year. But many were there, too, to meet in person a special guest who had stopped by for an autograph session before the actual racing began.
The lines had formed early at the rickety old gates that led into the track. Many still wore their dusty overalls, their factory uniforms with their names stitched over their pockets, their short-sleeve dress shirts and out-of-fashion ties they had worn that day to the bank or car dealership. They clearly came straight to the races from work.
And most of them dutifully queued up to see the special guest and get an autograph, take a picture with an arm around him or with him holding one of their kids, or simply share a few words with one of the legends of stock car racing.
They noticed that he still looked like an athlete, especially when he stood and moved around the table to stand next to one of them so someone could snap a picture. He was tall, lean, well-muscled; his handshake was was sure and solid, and he moved with the ease and grace of a football player (which he had once been) or a dancer (which he most certainly had not). Only a mix of gray in what had once been crow-feather-black hair, the lines on his face, and a slight paunch gave him away. It was not hard for any of the fans to imagine him crawling into a racecar again and effortlessly guiding it for five hundred miles on the hottest of summer days.
And more than one of them remarked to another about the man's eyes. Those deep blue eyes seemed to grab you, capture you, and pull you in with their clear intensity.
The old driver smiled sincerely at every single one of them as they came by, tirelessly posed with them, signed whatever they thrust in- front of him. It still amazed him that they would want such a small piece of him, that his scrawled signature on a trading card could bring such delight to anyone. This was his eighth such event in seven different states in the last three days, despite the fact that he had not driven a car in a half-dozen years, had not actually been behind the wheel of a car that had won a race in better than eight. Yet they still came, still seemed excited to meet him, still talked animatedly of races and wrecks and wins he had been a part of, including many he himself had long since forgotten.
Whirlwind promotional trips such as this brought back memories for him. Memories of those brutal early times when they would race three or four days in a row, usually at tracks that happened to be hundreds of miles apart. Days with practically no sleep and filled with debilitating work, each one of them a blur of racing, fixing, driving, and racing again.
Things were certainly different now, though. Flying in his own plane, sleeping in luxury hotel rooms provided by his sponsors, and eating in nicer restaurants with cloth napkins and real china plates were all a far cry from the days when the old driver had first been getting himself established in racing. Back then, most of his sleeping had been in the backseat of the car in some parking lot or on the side of the road some where. Vienna sausages and soda crackers had been the normal cuisine. The times and the demands of the sport had certainly changed for him. And he would be the first to admit that it had been mostly for the better.
It had been the needs of the sponsors that had made the biggest difference. Back then, a driver simply had to show up at the track where they were going to race, run hard, and win enough money to get to the next race. Nowadays, keeping the sponsor happy was almost as important as winning the races. Maybe more so. That meant endless days on the road, doing the required promotional work, attending the events, shaking the hands of thousands of customers or dealers or brokers or employees while smiling broadly for the money. For many drivers, the race on Sunday was actually their only chance to relax and get away from the pressures of the business side of racing.
Racing had become more and more about sponsorship money, and it took lots of it to mount a challenge to the other teams that showed up each week. To be competitive, a team had to have cash. It was as necessary as oil and gas and tires. And to keep the money, it was necessary to keep those sponsors happy. Winning certainly helped in that regard. Leading a race got the maximum television time. The winner's circle was the best place to flash the sponsors' logos. But for the driver, there were far more hours spent on stages and platforms, in parking lots and interviews in front of television cameras than he ever passed in the cockpit of the racecar.
Now, as the old racer signed cards and glad-handed the patrons, he occasionally glanced to the west, to where the storm boiled and blustered. He had his plane parked at a strip five miles away and would have to pilot it on to east Tennessee later that night. He didn't relish having to burrow through thunder heads to get home.
But he could also catch a random glimpse of the dusty garage area outside the first turn wall. He could see row upon row of trucks, trailers, and racecars. From the gleaming Late Model stackers to the beat-up old Limited Sportsman cars to a swarm of mini-stocks, there seemed to be racecars lined up everywhere. And people swarmed all around them.
The old driver knew precisely what types would be milling around down there among all the equipment, too. There were the local hotshots with their own sponsor money to play with, their crewmembers in matching uniforms, their cars shined and ready. Then there would be the dirt-poor part-time racers who scrambled for every dime they could get to try to field a competitive car, the money spent for parts instead of paint jobs or polish or uniforms. And then there would be just about every other kind of driver and team in between. Many of them had traveled a hundred or more miles just to race here on this sultry, stormy night.
Had the old driver been able to see more clearly, he might have noticed a particular red car. A young kid, eighteen or nineteen years old at the most, struggled with three or four of his friends to replace the radiator on the battered car in time to run it in one of the late-model heat races. The car was pockmarked with body damage from some previous wars and the makeshift crew had already tried to bang out anything that might get in the way during the race. The number 7, which had been painted on the side of the car, had been almost obliterated in some type of close encounter with the tire of another racecar; someone had hand-lettered it back, so it was almost legible again. Even though it was obviously a challenge to simply get the car into good enough shape to run, they seemed to be doing so with an abundance of enthusiasm.
The young crew attempting to resurrect the red car would have surely brought back more memories for the old driver if he could have seen them. But Jodell Bob Lee was busier than ever, accepting the praise of those who had lined up to meet him, signing his autograph in his sweeping hand. The crowd was excited about meeting one of their heroes, a man who was now the owner of a team on the Winston Cup circuit and a former star driver there. He was in his fortieth year in the game and he still relished every minute of it. But since he had finally parked his own racecar in the early nineties in favor of someone younger, someone with a young man's reflexes, it seemed the demands on his time had only increased. In addition to trying to watch the car he owned run in every race he could, he still did appearances for his sponsors whenever they requested. He suspected there would come a day when they would no longer ask.
Now, here he was, on the last lap of this three-day trip, going above and beyond the call of duty for one of his old friends. He didn't usually stop by small tracks in the middle of nowhere for a Wednesday night feature anymore. Even if he had been so inclined, the pressure of an out-of-control schedule would likely prevent it. But the call had come and he had agreed to do it when he checked his itinerary and saw it was only a quick jag from his p...
