The Champion (Racing on the Edge)

by Stahl, Shey

  “Disney.”

  “That’s Disney Land, not water parks.”

  “So, I’m sure they had something to do with it.”

  Jameson shook his head and glanced down at his vibrating phone. “I’m not going to answer it.” He assured me.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  I laughed when a small wave from the wave pool knocked Arie over and Axel helped her up.

  “I know, but you were thinking it.”

  “I just want you to see how they look at you. Axel hangs on your every word.”

  All three of my spaz children were obsessed with their father. They looked at Jameson and became completely mesmerized by him. I couldn’t blame them really. He got me at eleven and kept me ever since.

  “I know he does.” He nodded watching them play. “He wants to race the Dirt Nationals at the end of the month.”

  So far, Axel had raced in all the USAC Quarter Midget races and was running third in their championship point battle. I knew my little boy was ready but it was still nerve-wracking. He was so tiny and to see him racing around with other kids scared me sometimes.

  “I know...do you think he’s ready?”

  Jameson seemed to contemplate this for a moment before replying with, “Yeah, I do.” He glanced over at me. “Are you nervous?”

  “Yes and no. I’ve watched him at home...he seems confident enough.” I shrugged sipping my water. “I worry about the other kids wrecking him.”

  “That’s part of racing honey. We can’t control it.”

  I knew we couldn’t. Hell, if we could, none of what happened with Darrin would have happened but it did. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened in Loudon. It was hard not to.

  I look at what I gained in return. Life. I pulled through. Axel pulled through. Jameson pulled through, not completely, but he did move on.

  Together, we all pulled through. You can’t control everything. All you could do is go with the flow and hope like hell you caught a break every now and then.

  Preparing for Arie’s party left me a little on edge. I felt the need to drink at any kid’s party because I couldn’t handle all the commotion and children in one place. I loved my kids. But when people were over at our house and sugar was involved. I no longer liked them. So I drank.

  Shortly before I had finished the cupcakes, Axel came in with blood pouring out of his nose.

  “Mama, I did somethin’ bad.”

  I looked at him and knew exactly what he’d done. “How far up there is it?”

  “A little,” he shrugged and looked at his feet.

  “Jameson?”

  Axel bolted the other direction afraid to let his dad see him in such a compromising situation. I mean he very nearly shoved the fucking thing into his brain. It wasn’t coming out without some help. Help I was in no condition to provide after my second long island ice tea that I’d been pretending was regular ice tea.

  “What do you mean he stuck a Lego in his nose?” Jameson asked when I explained.

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” I giggled feeling the alcohol in my system a little more. “He’s four and half, nothing they do makes sense. Now go, he needs help.”

  Jameson groaned and walked toward Axel huddled in the corner of our kitchen holding his hand to his bloody nose.

  “Why did you stick it up there?” I heard Jameson ask him.

  Axel didn’t answer, just shrugged as a tear slipped down his cheek. Poor kid.

  As I’ve said, he hung on every single word Jameson said. I’m not sure what it was but he could do absolutely nothing wrong in Axel’s eyes. The same went for Jameson—Axel was everything to him. I mean, he loved all three of our children equally but with Axel, they understood each other.

  Jameson went to work retrieving the Lego from his nose. I had to laugh when Lane, who did this when he was three, and remembers this well because it had to be surgically removed, patted him on the back and said, “It happens to the best of us.”

  Arie’s third birthday was already turning into a clusterfuck and we hadn’t even served the cake. I for one couldn’t wait to eat cake. Emma had whipped it up and frankly, it looked like heaven with frosting that could give even the healthiest of us a heart attack.

  Jameson had to leave tomorrow for Loudon New Hampshire so me getting drunk and bathing myself in frosting wasn’t exactly a good idea. Besides, it was my daughter’s birthday.

  I put down the long island ice tea and stuck to water after that.

  Arie, who was still going through her terrible twos and progressing nicely into the horrible threes, was running around telling everyone she was a princess and her daddy was her prince.

  Axel never went through this. The princess phase and the temper tantrums. Sure he had his moments but Arie, wow, I wasn’t prepared for her. That’s not to say she was as bad as the Lucifer twins or the Gomez boys but she was...wicked at times and Jameson refused to admit this. He thought she was perfect. So perfect that for her third birthday, he had her bedroom in our home in Mooresville transformed into a Disney fairytale, complete with a carriage for her bed.

  “So she’s not spoiled or anything.” Alley piped in when I showed them the room prior to cutting the cake.

  “You’re telling me.” I sighed. “It’s getting out of hand.”

  Jameson really was creating a problem. Anything she ever asked for, he got for her. So far, we’d kept Arie from seeing it. This wasn’t very hard because she still insisted to sleeping in Axel’s room with him at night. He didn’t enjoy this by the way.

  “What are you going to do when the boys start to realize how spoiled she is by him?”

  “Axel knows but he could care less, he’s too into racing to care about that. And Casten,” I looked down at him laughing at Cole who was punching himself in the face and then falling down laughing. “I don’t think anything could make him upset.”

  It was true. My little one was all smiles, all the time.

  Casten was a very active little boy. He would never sit still for anything but at nearly a year old it was to be expected. Unlike Axel, Casten was spontaneous and up for anything. You could literally wake him up from a nap and he was ready to go do whatever you wanted and smiling while doing so. He smiled in the morning and never stopped until he fell asleep.

  Jameson came up to me with wide excited eyes and Arie latched on to his back in her princess dress she insisted on wearing while Emma constantly fretted with her crown.

  “Is it time to show her?”

  He showed way more enthusiasm for this than Arie did. “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “Show me what?” Arie peeked her head up.

  “Your birthday present,” Jameson said climbing the stairs toward her room.

  “Maybe she sleep in her room now.” Axel grumbled as we all climbed the steps.

  He knew what we were doing and was more than willing to help, even at four, to get her out of his room.

  It took a lot to surprise Arie. I blamed Jameson and all his extravagant gestures toward her. So when we opened the door to her new, ornately magical fairytale room, I was surprised by the squeal of delight she let out. It made me a tad jealous I never had a room like that.

  “Oh wow daddy!” her eyes squinted as they always did when she was so excited she couldn’t control herself. I recognized the look as Emma did this a lot. “It so pretty.”

  She danced around the room from one thing to the next squealing louder than Emma, who was just as taken by the room. I’m sure she was already planning a sleepover for her and Lexi. Emma had boys, and when Aiden put his foot down about them playing with dolls, she turned to her two nieces.

  We never saw the girls the rest of the night and for the first time in months, Arie slept in her own room...with Axel on the floor. He refused to sleep in the carriage.

  Jameson and I watched our two little monsters with their cousins who slept over that night as they all slept.

  “It’s hard to believe she’s three alre
ady.” Jameson whispered placing a kiss on my forehead.

  “Mmm...” I smiled hugging him tighter. I laughed when Arie sat up in bed and made sure her princess crown was intact and then laid back down snuggling closer to Lexi.

  After a few moments, we made our way down the hall to our room. Jameson had me pressed against our king sized bed within seconds and was working on removing my clothes.

  “I’ve waited all fucking day to do this to you.”

  “Shame on you Mr. Riley, it was our child’s birthday.” I giggled pulling at his jeans.

  He got them past his hips before he smiled wickedly and looked down at me, naked spread across our bed. “That doesn’t stop me from wanting my wife.”

  I never grew tired of hearing him say the words, “my wife.” It sounded territorial in a sense but I didn’t care, I loved it. It made me feel like I belonged to him and that’s all I’ve ever wanted.

  “Now honey, I only have tonight with you before I head to Loudon. We need some align boring done. These bearing...” his strong hand slipped in between us, his fingers dancing over my ignition switch. “need to be properly aligned.”

  It didn’t matter that we only had one night. We made the best of any amount of time we had with each other, remembering. Before he positioned himself between my legs, he glanced around the room.

  “Where’s that goddamn cat of yours?”

  I giggled. “I had his tubes tied. Don’t worry.”

  Jameson’s brow furrowed. “Was he a she after all?”

  “No, he was a he,”

  He seemed to contemplate this for a moment. “So how did he have—”

  “Jameson,” my lips silenced his words. “I think my compression ratio is about to explode.”

  His eyes darkened spreading my legs apart with his knees.

  “Well then, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

  “No, we wouldn’t.” I giggled.

  We tested out some align boring, piston stroking, reciprocating motions, deburring, porting of the heads and micro polishing. The dirty heathen and the mama wizard were back and setting fast time for the night.

  It didn’t matter that we now had three little adorable spaz children. We still knew how to revert back to those pornographic days we had when the pit lizard and dirty heathen began. Now we were just polished and knew all the dyno testing results. We had it down.

  The problem with being apart for the last few weeks was that our testing was over fairly quickly. As soon as I arched me back into him, he threw his head back and groaned this loud, growling, needy groan. And though I didn’t reach my rev limit, seeing him like that was enough for me.

  “I’m sorry.” He mumbled panting above me. “Jesus, I’m really sorry.”

  I giggled. “Don’t worry, it was fun to watch.”

  “You always amaze me.” He chuckled rolling to the side. “I can’t last more than a few minutes and you say it was fun.”

  “It was.”

  Later that night before we went to bed, we checked on the kids. Arie and Lexi were in her carriage bed. Axel, Lane and Cole were curled up on the floor underneath the bed with Casten in the baby carriage. Arie was sound asleep with a big cheeky grin.

  “It’s hard to believe how much they’ve grown.” Jameson spoke into my hair. His arms wrapped around my waist pulling me against his chest. “They’re little people now.”

  My eyes caught the papers scattered across the bedroom floor from where the kids had been coloring earlier in the night.

  “Someone is their hero.” I whispered in his ear and pointed to the dozens of pictures of Jameson and his race car.

  Jameson chuckled softly.

  “They’re young. They don’t know any better.”

  Turning in his arms, I pulled back to look at him, running my hand down his jaw and saw the same worry I always saw when it came to our children. He was constantly afraid he wouldn’t live up to the image they had of him. The problem was the he already had. They didn’t care if he didn’t win the championship every year. All they cared about was that he was there for them. And he was.

  “You mean everything to them. All they want in return is your love.”

  As your children grow, you do too...in a sense. We want to see what they will become but in the same sense, they’re looking to us to see how we grow. You can’t tell them to be the best they can be, all you can do is try to be that yourself.

  “Is that all you want from me?”

  “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Pulling his lips to mine, I whispered, “What you are to the world means nothing to me. What you are to me; means everything.”

  He leaned against the wall motioning with a nod of his head toward are sleeping children. “I just don’t want them to know. I want them to stay innocent in all this.”

  I knew exactly what he was implying. He didn’t want the weight of our world on them. They needed protection from it. Eventually we wouldn’t be able to do that but for now, while they were young, we wanted that.

  17. Yellow Line – Jameson

  Yellow Line – A painted yellow line that is used to mark the separation of the racetrack from the apron. In restrictor plate races NASCAR has decided if a car goes below the yellow line to make a pass the position will not be granted and you will be penalized.

  As with any year, the off-season flew by and before I knew it, Speedweek was starting.

  The 2008 season, I finished thirteenth in points. It was the lowest I had ever finished in any division I ever raced.

  You can imagine what this did to my mettle.

  When we left Homestead, I was depressed. Yeah, I won the most races that season but still, I hadn’t won the championship. I understood I couldn’t win them all but I still tried. If I ever got to the point where I didn’t try, I was retiring.

  The off-season was hardly an off-season. From the hauler drivers to the mechanics and engineers testing our cars, racing was a way of life. Just because it’s the off-season didn’t mean we were on vacation.

  I usually took the week of Thanksgiving with my family and two weeks around Christmas with them. Outside of those times, I was either testing, racing sprint cars, or working with our sprint car team. With three cars running in the Outlaw series, I had my work cut out for me.

  Thank god for Tommy and Spencer or else I would have pulled my hair out by now.

  Back at the shop in Mooresville, my cup team was working on the cars for the next season. Whether it’s a new paint scheme or manufacture changes, it’s busy. In the offices, new merchandise was designed and schedules were being finalized. I was paraded in front of sponsors and appearances all around the county. So despite the NASCAR season only running from February to November, it never truly ends for us.

  Then we had all the dealings with Grays Harbor. Luckily for me, Jen, Andrea and Mallory were wonderful and were able to get the schedule done, sponsors lined up for promoting the events and the memorial race for Charlie we had each year scheduled. Without them, Sway and I wouldn’t know what to do. With three kids and our busy schedules we hardly had time to run a track but we would never get rid of it. That track brought everything about our lives together. It would always stay in our family.

  By the time I left for Daytona the first week in February, I wasn’t even sure what day it was. The arrival of Sway and the kids the day of the Budweiser Shootout—improved my mood considerably. It didn’t improve my aggression though.

  With the new season, new drivers came into the series.

  The talk that season was Nadia Henley, a woman driver. I wasn’t sure you could even call an eighteen year-old a woman.

  She’d apparently gone through a driver development program from the same team Darrin came from. As you can tell, I was weary of her from the start.

  This year she had a full sponsorship with Leddy Motorsports and Lazer Energy.

  I didn’t have anything against women drivers and raced them just the same, for the most part. Now where I might rough up a seasoned vet
, I wouldn’t do that to a rookie let alone a kid/woman rookie.

  Nadia, with her spitfire attitude and red hair to match had one hell of a chip on her shoulder when Daytona rolled around. I wasn’t sure what to make of her so I kept my distance.

  “Is that her?” Spencer asked when we stood on the grid prior to the duals.

  I glanced over my shoulder uninterested in the commotion surrounding her. “I guess so.”

  Spencer watched her for a moment, curious as to how someone so tiny could handle these cars and then voiced his assumptions she was sleeping her way to the top.

  Mostly he was joking because there was no way she could get million dollar sponsorships without of some sort of wheel talent.

  Another driver who wasn’t starting off good with me was Shelby Clausen, another smartass eighteen-year old kid trying to prove his own mettle in the demanding sport.

  Ask any other driver out there...veterans...rookies...anyone, they will tell you that each year it gets harder and harder to win these races. The level of competition was so high that even some of the top drivers went years without a win. Hell even Steve Vander, one of the sport’s most renowned race car drivers, hadn’t won a race in one hundred and three starts. That’s a long time not to feel the pure bliss of pulling into victory lane.

  Having won the last race of the season, I felt confident going into Daytona. All that being said, Shelby didn’t make this easy. Drafting in Daytona is an art—I think I’ve stressed that before. Rookies, well they didn’t have that great of a feel for it so it was harder to find another driver that would draft with them. Often enough, they found themselves tailing in the back just trying to make it to the finish. Understanding this, I gave Shelby a push or two. We had tested in Dover together over the winter so I thought, “Hey, let’s give this kid a break.”

  I was fucking wrong.

  So there we were coming out of turn two when Shelby shot out of the draft behind me and tried to pull some kind of kamikaze move on the outside.

  It backfired on him almost immediately and he was left out high and dry. He came back another lap 20 laps later and did the same exact thing, ending up last once again. He had a strong car that’s for sure, maybe even strong enough to win but he had all balls and no brains.