by Shey Stahl
Bleeder Valves – The valves that regulate air pressure in the tires as it heats up. As the tire heats, the pressure increases. To accommodate this occurring in a race, bleeder valves are put on the tires. When that pressure increases to the psi you set them to, anything above it is released to maintain the set pressure.
There’s no pattern and no reasoning to my schedule during the racing season. Every week it’s different and scheduled as far out as six to nine months at times. Aside from Sunday afternoons, who the hell knew what the next week would bring for me.
Though Alley keeps me incredibly organized, there is rarely any downtime once February rolls around and that goes until late November. If I win the championship, my time is then booked through December.
During the season, and to keep with the traditions, Monday was my day. From the time I left the track on Sundays to Tuesday morning, it was a time for me, and something I needed.
I do standard shit on Mondays. I helped out around the house and spent time with Sway and the kids. I might go to the grocery store with Sway and usually that never ends well so we don’t do that too often anymore. Sometimes I sneak to the shop and hang out just for alone time. It’s supposed to be my time and usually is.
Tuesday I devoted to media and sponsor obligations. Alley fielded most of the requests for appearances and scheduled them if I had time. Naturally, she and Melissa worked closely to make sure no conflicts came out though they often did.
Wednesdays I spent at the shop with Kyle Wade, my crew chief, and our team manager, Trace Elliot. I met with my business manager, Melissa Childers, who used to work for Simplex. She was a great asset to our team this last year and helped keep me out of hot water. Most of my time spent at the shop is meeting with them and then checking on our crew guys, mechanics, fabricators, and engineers. For the most part, I keep a good relationship with all of them. There is always the occasional conflict or heated conversation but nothing that isn’t worked out by the end of the day.
By Thursday afternoon, I’m heading to the track and getting settled into my personal motor coach before our race weekend begins. Friday is when practice happens. Saturday is qualifying and last minute adjustments and then Sunday is the race. Monday is starts all over again.
It wouldn’t be right if I told you that we, as race car drivers, gave our families the attention they deserved because we didn’t. Even when we weren’t at the track we were living our lives mentally at the track but it’s the way it had to be to do what we did. At home, it was difficult to be present when so much was required of you at the track.
I missed anniversaries, birthdays and the birth of my daughter. I couldn’t tell sponsors no but I could tell my family no. And I did, often.
Racing was number one in my life and took everything I had. If you weren’t willing to give up everything, you already lost the race. That’s just the way it had become in our sport.
What did it give in return?
If you lucky, winning.
It wasn’t hard to shift my focus back to racing heading into Speedweek. Even after my buddy Ryder Christensen’s death, I was focused and ready as the defending champion. My confidence was sky-high and I was carving out a nice place in history with the most wins in the series, along with the most championships.
I will admit it was slightly difficult staying focused when I had Jimi nagging me constantly. It seemed with all his free time now he thought of nothing but new inventive ways to annoy me.
At the end of January, they did surgery on his hip to repair a fracture he didn’t know was there. Apparently, all those hard hits had taken a toll on his old body. This now put him in a wheel chair for a few months while he healed. This was both a good thing, we could escape him easier, and a bad thing, he used it as a weapon.
The morning before I left for Speedweeks I was forced to spend some time with him going over schedules for the cup team.
This wasn’t what I had planned for the day and couldn’t understand why Alley or Melissa weren’t helping with this.
This team owner, though he was my dad, I was about to kill.
He was always around, telling me what to do, asking me questions, yelling...you name it, he was doing it and it annoyed me.
“We need to make some changes around here,” he said in his rough tone. The tone that meant “Boy, you better be listening to me or else.”
“I don’t think so;” standing from my position at the table in our conference room, I started to walk away, “the team is fine. Stop messing with things.”
He rammed his wheel chair into my shin for the third time. “No, I think we need to restructure. Maybe start with a driver change.”
He was always hinting at replacing me but never did.
“Listen you old bastard,” I kicked his wheelchair away from me and he laughed as if it was his goal this morning to piss me off and he had succeeded, “Stop that.”
All the same, this was our argument most of the time. If I was being honest with you, I was convinced he enjoyed it. Not racing was making him cranky. He claimed he had too much time on his hands and I couldn’t agree more. I didn’t like him bothering me all the time. These days I had enough people bothering me and I didn’t need any more.
After my time in Florida, I had a feeling Axel felt the same way, but the kid would never say anything.
Grady met me at the door as I was leaving, his eyes focused on his feet rather than me. “Hey Jameson,” he seemed to consider his words for a moment, “I was wondering if you needed help in Daytona this week?”
“We got a pretty full crew right now Grady. The JAR guys might need you though.” I handed him a card with Tommy’s name and cell phone number on it. “Call Tommy and let him know I said you needed some work.”
His eyes shifted from the floor to mine with a smile. Looking at him now I noticed his eyes had a familiarity that I couldn’t place.
“Thanks.” He said moving his eyes to the floor again when he caught me looking at him.
Spencer approached behind him eyeing Grady just as the rest of my family did. Like I said before, we didn’t hire outside of family after Kerry.
Grady walked back to the engine he was cleaning and then busied himself loading pit carts for Rockingham. Spencer watched Grady and then looked at me for an explanation. “Who’s the kid?”
“Grady. He’s a sprint car racer outta Kannapolis that needed some work.”
“Grady huh, let’s hope he’s nothing like the last Grady we knew.”
He was referring to a guy we knew in high school, Dylan Grady, who took Sway’s virginity and then never talked to her again.
Spencer gave me a nod and then looked back at Grady again, “What’s he doing here?”
“I hired him to help around the shop. He’s got some fabrication experience and we need it with four sprint cars running this year. Tommy and Willie are overloaded as it is.”
“So you hired someone you don’t know?”
“Yeah, so?”
I knew it wasn’t something I ever did but still, couldn’t these guys give me a break?
Spencer shrugged and then followed me outside. “I just want you to be careful man. We don’t know him and to have him here at the shop when none of us are here isn’t ideal.”
“What does it matter? If he breaks something I gotta pay for it, not you.”
I’ll admit I was a little irritated when I said that and it had nothing to do with Spencer. As my brother, he was looking out for me. I understood that but I was also irritated that no one would listen to me.
Spencer let out a disgusted snort and walked past me purposely bumping my shoulder with his, “See you on Tuesday.”
I knew I would hear about that later. I knew I had pissed him off but then again that also wasn’t unheard of for me.
Sway took off to Elma that morning with Andrea, our General Manager at Grays Harbor Raceway. Grays Harbor Raceway was the track Sway’s father, Charlie Reins, had purchased soon after the passing of her mothe
r, Rachel. The first year I raced in the cup series, and the year Sway and I eventually got our shit together and started dating, was when Charlie informed me he was dying of brain cancer. To keep the track in the family, I bought it from him. After his passing the following year, track ownership got to be a little much once we had Axel so we ended up hiring Andrea Lancer. Andrea was in need of Sway’s help before the season began so she took Casten and Arie with her and said they would meet me in Daytona.
This left me flying alone to Daytona.
At the end of last season, my team plane crashed outside of Lancaster Ohio when it was in route to Eldora Speedway. Members of my team and a few other teams in the Cup, Nationwide and the Truck series were killed; along with my pilot I had known my entire life. Fourteen people, all gone at one time.
It wasn’t easy for us to get over that and we still felt the pain now as we tried to replace the members of our teams.
Was I afraid of flying now?
Yes and no. It was a horrible feeling to have and even worse to imagine how many of my friends were lost that day.
Recently I had purchased a Falcon 200. Actually, I didn’t purchase it. I was making some hefty payments each month to the bank, but with my lifestyle, I couldn’t fly commercially.
Still, life went on and given my career choice, I was forced to continue flying around the world despite my fears.
This meant I had to find a new pilot as well. That was not my favorite experience so I enlisted Van, my bodyguard and he found a navy pilot he used to work with when he was a SEAL.
Roger Agar, our new pilot enjoyed scaring the shit out of me and once decided he was going to do a barrel roll with me. I kindly told him if he did that, again I would jump from the plane, no lie.
Most of my time spent in Daytona Florida was with the media, sponsor obligations and then there was a few meet and greets I had to get done. Alley had my schedule packed and allowed for little breathing room outside of the evenings. Me, Paul Leighty and Bobby Cole, my teammates this year, all went to dinner the night before the Budweiser shootout. It was always nice to get back with the boys and talk about what we all did over the winter. Tate Harris, another driver in the series who was set to retire this year showed up halfway through our meal so we got to chat with him. He brought with him a kid that was racing in his driver development program, Easton Levi.
Easton, a seventeen-year old kid, from Wheeling Ohio, that was an open wheel racer who decided to get into stock cars. Tate, having given me my start into NASCAR, was always willing to help a hungry kid. If I was being honest with you, I think that was part of the reason for hiring Grady around the shop.
After a good conversation with Easton about Ryder, who he knew pretty well, we seemed to get along good. I liked him as he seemed level headed and getting into stock cars for the right reasons. He wanted to be the best. I always looked at it this way. If you were racing for the money, you’re in it for the wrong reasons. Easton didn’t seem to be in it for that.
Tate caught me outside the restaurant before we headed back to track. “Is Sway coming out tonight? Eva was asking about her.”
Eva was Tate’s wife for the last fifteen years and a good friend of Sways’.
Checking my phone to see if she had sent me a message, I looked over my shoulder at the group of women gathering. “She will be here in the morning, I think. She had to fly to Elma yesterday.” I gave him an eye roll. “Never again will I build a new house, a new shop and redesign a track in the same year.”
Tate chuckled and gave the women behind us a nod as to say, “Come over.”
They did and we spent the next fifteen minutes handing out autographs.
These days our sport had become as popular as any other professional sport in the United States. What was once considered your average good ole boy sport with roughed up drivers was now a multimillion-dollar corporation with professional athletes all working for the same goal, growing our sport.
“I love you guys so much!” One woman with wide eyes and a forget-my-own-name-smile gushed pushing a poster in my face, “I’ve watched your son race since he was a little boy and you too.”
I smiled at her and her cheeks flushed deeper.
“Thank you ma’am,” I gave the woman a wink, “it’s always nice to have a dedicated fan.”
Tate chuckled when I said ma’am and even mouthed it back to me.
Elbowing his side, I signed a few more autographs and then headed back to my truck with Bobby.
I relaxed back at my motor coach knowing my alone time wouldn’t last once my family and crew arrived.
Sometime after eight that night, Kyle showed up and shuffled through a stack of movies to talk race day strategy.
Carrying his notebook inside, he looked over notes. Kyle kept a notebook just as most crew chiefs did. Though most now had laptops and tablets they kept the information on, Kyle kept his in a black notebook, always had.
In that book he kept meticulous notes detailing each track we visited. He knew cautions, fuel mileage, tire set-up as well as tire wear. He worked closely with our engine specialist Harry, as well as, our tire specialist, Tony. As with most crew chiefs in the garage area, obsessed over it.
Each week Kyle goes through all scenarios. He asks himself, what should we do when the car does this? Or with twenty laps to go at Bristol, should we pit when the caution comes out?
Handling, adjustments, fuel mileage, he went over all aspects, obsessed over and took risks to get us the jump we needed. Did he have a hard job?
Yes. Out of anyone on a race team from the guys pushing the jack to the one behind the wheel, in my eyes, the guy on the box had the hardest job out of all of us.
As we sat there running ideas past each other, I watched him scrutinize the smallest details. He seemed different this year. Maybe it was that years of a highly stressful job had taken its toll on him.
Sometimes I thought Kyle fixated on that book a little too much but we all knew why. He got us to victory lane more times than not. In turn, he was highly sought after.
Then it hit me, what if he wasn’t happy working with me anymore?
Through this last year, and the years prior, Kyle’s job had gotten increasingly harder with the way NASCAR controlled so many aspects of the cars. It was hard to get the jump on other teams to win. He was also still dealing with the loss of his brother, Gentry, who had been on my team plane that crashed.
“Ready for another year” I ran my left hand through my hair. My eyes focused on the book and the worn corners.
“Same shit different year.” He said chewing on his lip and flipping the pages of the book as if he was hunting for something specific in it.
“Are you thinking of going to another team?” I asked eventually. We had worked together my entire stock car career since 2002. The thought of not having him around had never crossed my mind until tonight.
Finally finding the page he was looking for, he scratched a few notes in his books, shifted to rest his elbows on the table and then looked up at me. “Sure, I’ve thought about going to another team at times. Most crew chiefs don’t stay with the same team as long as I have. But,” he paused and focused on me, “you are my family.”
“How’s Kiera doing these days?”
“Oh, well, she left me.” Kyle wasn’t the first guy on the team to get a divorce nor would he be the last. In fact, most of the boys had either split up from girlfriends or divorced over the years. It’s just the way it was. “It was to be expected. I couldn’t expect her to live a life without me there.”
I couldn’t deny that he was right. I was his only family these days. Through a string of broken relationships, Kyle had yet to find a wife that was willing to give up having her husband home two days a week. It seemed that after Gentry was killed, Kyle put everything he had into our team. I could understand that too. It was a way of him coping with the loss. Everyone had different ways of dealing with the loss of those fourteen guys on my plane and they all came down to di
stractions.
Hearing the news of Kyle splitting from his wife, I missed my own wife by the time Saturday rolled around and final practice sessions were beginning. Come Sunday, the only thing that kept my mind off her was the shit going down around me the morning of the race.
Each year our team builds cars to the specifications provided by NASCAR. We had a specialized team of guys, known as fabrication specialists, back at the shop in Mooresville that did this and each year, we pushed into the gray areas for a little more room. Every team does it too. Sometimes you get caught, others you don’t.
Once a car is built, NASCAR puts their stamp of approval on it back at the NASCAR Research and Development Center in Concord North Carolina. They do this by putting a radio frequency chip in a discrete area and a sticker of approval that is similar to a VIN number on the chassis for future scanning purposes.
Once at the track, the cars we now use (COT, Car of Tomorrow) is inspected with one template that is actually about nineteen templates in one. The claw, as we called it, is placed over the car during the morning inspection. From there NASCAR officials check for clearance at various locations.
That morning, of the Daytona 500, we didn’t pass inspection. The thing was why it had passed earlier and not now. What changed? What changed was that before they never put the claw on it, just rolled through the inspection trying to get everyone through.
Dave Jenkins, the official closest to me, leaned into my shoulder, “Looks like this’ll be a pretty penny Riley.”
He was right. When NASCAR found a problem, we paid for it.
Turns out our fenders weren’t lining up correctly and neither were the c-posts. Bobby and Paul had the same problem.
We fixed it that morning with the understanding we’d all be starting from the back. This wasn’t bad for me because I had messed up and scrapped the wall during qualifying and only managed to snag a twenty-fifth starting position. Yeah forty-third wasn’t going in the right direction but neither was getting caught cheating.
So, we fixed it. Problem solved, right?