by Shey Stahl
“I don’t think I can do this.” I wailed next to Arie. “Yep, I’m positive I can’t.”
“Control yourself.” Arie shook her head, not concerned about my emotional state. “You’re causing a scene.”
“Don’t judge me until you have kids.”
“That’s never happening.” She whispered appalled. “I’m not cut out for children.”
“No, Casten’s not cut out for children. You need to provide me with some grandbabies.” I told her in a whisper.
“I don’t think so.” She said dismissively as one of Ami’s aunts shushed us from across the aisle.
Glaring toward the woman, I turned to Arie. “Are you really not having any kids?”
She shrugged. “I don’t even have a boyfriend. It’s hardly relevant right now.”
I never thought my kids wouldn’t want kids of their own. Was this something I did wrong? Did I not provide them with a good childhood? I mean, that would cause this sort of feeling, right?
“Was I a bad parent?” I voiced concerned that maybe I’d failed them in some way.
I’m not sure why, but she burst out laughing. It wasn’t meant to be funny and the thought that she found my parenting skills laughable made me that much more emotional.
“That’s not exactly the response I was looking for.” Turning myself forward again, I started crying.
“Shhhh!” her Aunt said again.
Nancy who was sitting next to Arie on my left, whispered. “What’s her problem?”
“Me?” I pointed to myself still crying. “What’s my problem?”
Jameson, who was beside me on the right, threw his arm around me pulling me into him and kissed my forehead in deliberation. He was so sweet and understood my breakdown completely.
“No, her,” she pointed toward Ami’s aunt glaring at us. “Why is she so worked up?”
“It’s because of Arie, she’s causing a scene.”
“Mother!” Arie nearly shouted back at me causing Jameson to glare at his baby girl.
“Knock it off.” He said to no one in particular.
He was right. We shouldn’t ruin this for them but I really wasn’t in the emotional state to be the mother of the groom today.
Axel for me signified the meaning behind what Jameson and I were. Now he was getting married. That confirmed my fears that we were getting old and didn’t have much time left together.
Thankfully, the wedding was simple and before I knew it, we were inside the tent for the reception with heaters. Why they chose a beach wedding in January was stupid to me but that was Emma for you. Beauty before weather in her book—whatever that meant—no one actually knew but Emma.
The reception was beautiful and I got a chance to dance with my son while Justin stole Lily away. It was funny that we were now tied to the West family by marriage when it felt like we were family all along. I had always imagined them as another brother and sister to all of us as did I with Tommy.
“Yeah, well you’re an asshole!” Jimi said to Jameson loud enough for the entire place to hear as I danced with Axel. We both laughed.
Casten, who was beside us dancing with Lily’s maid of honor, giggled. “I love my family. That was awesome.”
I took Axel’s beer from him. “Give me that.” I said and chugged it. “This sucks.”
“Oh what’s a wedding without drama?” Casten replied throwing his arm around Axel and me. “Now, let’s party!”
Jameson and Jimi were arguing about god knows what when I finally walked over to them. Nancy did as well to give them a piece of her mind.
“I swear to god, if you two fuckwits don’t stop, I will...I’m not sure what I’ll do but it won’t be nice.” Nancy yelled at her son and husband.
They both laughed as though she said nothing and continued their argument about who was a better racer on sand. I hardly doubted either of them ever raced on sand but the night ended with them renting go-karts and racing on the beach.
I was a little nervous this may have ruined the wedding for the kids but they got a good kick out of it especially when Justin got involved.
When I thought back to all the weddings over the years, none were without drama.
Such is life though.
Feature – Jameson
“What was that all about?” I asked my dad as we walked back to the wedding. “You had that race won.”
“I’m old...not dumb.”
“Good point.” I unbuttoned my black slacks to get the sand. “You are old.”
“Shut up.” He said pushing my shoulder.
My dad, Justin and me rented go-karts and ended up solving our argument about sand. I won, naturally. But at the last minute when dad clearly had the race won, he lifted.
“That tide would have pulled me under in a heartbeat,” he said reaching inside the go-kart to grab his whiskey. “Like I said, I’m not dumb.”
Justin laughed slinging his jacket over his shoulders. “Let’s go party. I’ve had enough of this sand.”
I was right there with him. Sand on my skin that was about to drive me insane, not to mention I wanted a shower, badly.
Lily and Axel were just heading out for their limo waiting for them when we got back.
Dad leaned over and slung his arm over my shoulder. “You raised a good kid.”
“We did.” I leaned against the bar watching everyone say their goodbyes and congratulate them.
“He’ll do fine. Axel’s not you but with time, he’s got something that took you years to figure out.”
“What’s that?” I snorted reaching over the bar for another beer.
“Patience,”
“Uh-huh.” I laughed.
Patience.Pft. I had that.
“He gets so nervous.” Looking over at my dad, I shrugged. “That’s what worries me. There’s no room for that.”
“His wants to outshine that. He’ll do fine. He just needs experience.”
I looked back to his first USAC season when he was a kid and realized it happen then. The following year when he was comfortable in his ability, he won the championship. Axel wasn’t the type of driver to go out and make history when he wasn’t comfortable. If he wasn’t comfortable, he was a nervous wreck when it came to the feature event. It was something I was unfamiliar with and had been around such a diverse group of drivers over the years that I understood it.
Axel had it. He just wasn’t as headstrong as me at times. Where I bordered on insanity in a race car, he was more methodical and thoughtful about his decision.
There again, no two drivers were the same. Where one had strong points others showed their weakness.
The party didn’t stop once Axel and Lily left. We celebrated until the early hours of the morning but what I cherished most that night was the talk with my dad and watching my son get married. There were a lot of moments that I thought of watching Axel tonight, but one in particular stayed with me. The image of me holding him for the first time, knowing that someday, someplace, he would be feeling what I was feeling right now. I felt as if I had won the feature event.
12. Drivers Meeting – Jameson
Drivers Meeting – In NASCAR the drivers meeting is held two hours before the race and provides the officials an opportunity to review important rule changes and other issues that teams must remember throughout the day.
“Why is it that we are always here, at this very table, trying to decide on punishment for our youngest?”
I groaned running my hand through my hair. “Because he’s paying us back for all the shit we did when we were kids.”
Casten had once again been involved in recreational drug use and we had specifically told him we didn’t want him involved in that. Logan, Noah and Charlie had been there too but I personally felt Casten was old enough to know the difference so my beef wasn’t with them. I had a feeling Logan was providing the drugs and I would be talking to him about that but still, Casten was old enough to know the difference between right and wrong.
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��So...let’s uh...ground him from going to Frost Nationals with you guys?”
“Great idea, he wanted to go to that.” I high-fived Sway. “Well done mama.”
Sway winked. “I’m good. Now, go get me coffee.”
“Yes. On my way,” I grabbed my keys from the counter and was out the door.
“And donuts!” she yelled after me.
I did what any good husband would do.
When I was at home during the off-season, it was a normal life. I still felt like I was coming or maybe I was going, a revolving door to nowhere? Who knows but I took comfort in days like today when I was a part of the field. I felt normal.
I saw this all the time with rookies and Brody was a prime example of it. They flew all around the world during the week, taking trips to New York and The Hamptons but that was never me. Even in the beginning. I was never in it for the celebrity all-star lifestyle or the money so that side of the lifestyle never appealed to me. Racing did.
I later spoke with Casten about his drug use and he listened but decided to spin it to his advantage and told me that I should reconsider letting him go to Frost Nationals for moral support.
Just when I think that Casten might be maturing he goes and does shit like that. I was referring to the drugs rather than the negotiating.
“Stop it. You’re sixteen. Act like it.”
“Well,” he looked at me, a small grin tugged at his lips. “...last week I was seventeen. Now I’m sixteen. Which is it? At the way you add I’ll be back in diapers by next Tuesday.”
“Shut up and go clean the kitchen.” I told him heading upstairs to find Sway.
“I thought that was Rosa’s job.” Casten laughed and then snapped his finger pointing at Rosa sleeping on the couch. “Oh right, she doesn’t clean because it’s against her religion.”
He had a very good point.
Sway wasn’t upstairs; instead she was with Alley going over the last minute details for Frost Nationals in Knoxville.
Making my way to the shop, Noah and Charlie were there preparing the cars for the race. They looked nervous but my beef wasn’t with them. Like I said, Casten was old enough to be making better decisions about the shit he participated in. He liked to blame it on peer pressure but at some point his fifteen-year old ass needed to claim responsibility.
Grady was there too preparing the frame to my car I was taking. Quiet as usual he kept his head down and worked. Since our conversations at the Monster Million he understood, or so I thought, he was on shaky ground with me. I didn’t take well to people stealing from me but then again I had no actual proof of him stealing. So far there was roughly about $156,000 in parts and an engine missing.
Deep down, I knew it was Grady but I needed proof before I could believe that someone I gave a chance to steal from me.
Tommy and Willie caught me after we did a break in run on the track behind the shop. Both engines had problems and we needed to replace them.
“What’s going on with these?” I asked Willie who kept a close eye on the engines and how they were being built for the sprint cars.
I didn’t have to worry about the Cup side, though I did after the mishap in Homestead, Harry usually had that handled. Now with Kerry on board over there, we had a better handle with those engines.
Because the 410 engines are essentially very different than an engine put inside a Cup car, I had Noah and Charlie there for the sprint cars as well as Greg Lynch, Justin’s brother in-law, doing machine work. We also had Slater and Bob Davis, Tommy’s cousins, doing dyno testing and break-in’s. Everything we did, whether it was building the engine to performance, was done in house and by people we trusted. Grady was the only one we didn’t know.
About a mile up the street from my sprint car shop was Riley-Simplex Racing and CST Engines, all housed under a forty thousand square foot building complete with a dyno room where the engines were tested.
When the engines came in, CST built them from parts to ready to go engines. We cleaned the parts, inspected them, did the entire machine work including align boring and porting the heads. We assembled the parts making sure they all lined up correctly. We made sure there was deck height clearance, cylinder roundness and measuring pistons to be sure they fit to the cylinders correctly. We did all this in-house because that was originally how CST Engines was designed back when my grandpa Casten developed the procedures. Staying true to his legend in the industry of engine building, we kept it exactly the same.
Among the engine builders, we had two machine guys, Kevin and Brad, who were related to Kyle. We also had a few guys doing quality control along with Willie and Tommy. The quality control was now done mostly by Noah and Charlie since they were both currently going to school for it and were able to take an engine apart when they were four.
As you can see, it’s a family business as always will be.
Examining the engine, Willie looked up at me holding the oil line. “There’s our problem,” he said, “the oil coupler was loose and all the oil drained out. Grady was doing final assembly last night with Noah.”
My gaze shifted from the car to Willie and then over to Grady. He was there with headphones in, bobbing his head to music, doing a final walk around on the four cars heading to Knoxville. He stopped near the rear tires, his hand reached up to run over the bars under the wing of my car. Seeming satisfied, he moved on to check off his list as he went, never looking up from his meticulous effort.
Kneeling down, I took a look at the engine on the hoist. In sprint car engines we use a dry sump system where the oil is stored in a tank outside the engine rather than in the oil pan and then pumped to the rest of the engine. In this case, the oil line wasn’t sealed correctly and allowed for the oil to drain out.
“We can’t be having this kind of stuff happening.” Willie said to me when I sat against the wall going through emails on my phone. “The kid needs to go. No one trusts him and you know what that does around here.”
Willie sat next to me.
Setting my phone on the floor, I reached up to place my hands on the bill of my hat. “We will deal with it when we get back from Knoxville.”
“Jameson, you—”
“We can’t prove anything, Willie.” I snapped back at him. “Until then, he is still employed here.”
Tommy knew me well enough to drop it but Willie kept up. “Come on Jameson, he’s stealing from you and you know it.”
“No, I don’t know it for sure.” I said to him looking over the inventory Sway printed yesterday and noticed that everything seemed to add up this time.
Sway and Alley stopped by. Sway immediately sensed the apprehension in the air. “What’s going on?” she whispered handing me a hamburger they picked up on the way over. Alley handed the rest of the guys’ burgers as well. Spencer, having smelled food, came in from outside where he and Lane had been loading tools and equipment for the race.
“We gotta put a new engine in my car tonight before we can head out tomorrow.”
Sway nodded taking a drink from her milkshake. “What happened?”
“There was a coupler left loose and all the oil drained out. It blew it up after only two laps.”
In the distance, I saw Arie, who was there shipping merchandise for Rager’s’ fan club, walk from the office to the parts room and then back with a box of merchandise I assumed. Conversations continued around me but my attention remained on the interaction that occurred between Grady, who was still here, and my daughter.
She passed by him and he looked up at her. I couldn’t hear what he said but she stopped and stared at him. Looking over her shoulder at me, I knew something was going on, her eyes quickly drifting back to Grady. Stepping closer, she said something else to him and he reached out to her as she began to walk away.
The boys went to work getting the new engine prepped and Grady took off after that without saying anything. Something about his quick departure struck me as unusual. Normally he said something but I had the impression it had to do
with Arie’s conversation with him.
Sway kissed me goodbye and then planned on heading home to get my bag ready since we would be here most of the night getting the car ready. “I love you,” she said with a supportive smile before heading out.
“Hey,” I caught her hand before she left. “...have you noticed anything going on between Grady and Arie?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but, Arie doesn’t tell me anything.” Sway shrugged. “Apparently we don’t have that mother-daughter-bonding-thing down.”
“She loves you honey. She’s just...” I kissed her forehead drawing her into my chest to wrap my arms around her. “...she’s just Arie.”
Sway understood that statement because unlike our boys, Arie was secretive and like I’ve said before, if she didn’t want you know, she didn’t tell you.
Sway left after that and I made my way inside the office where Arie was filling boxes with merchandise and then placing mailing labels on them. She looked up when the door opened her eyes wide for a moment and then she relaxed. “Hey dad, you scared me.”
“Sorry sweetheart.” I leaned against the table, my arms resting against the table. “What was that between you and Grady?” There was no sense in tiptoeing around it, she knew by my appearance that I knew something was going on.
“It’s nothing dad,” she replied avoiding my stare.
“It sure didn’t look like nothing.”
Arie stopped packing the box she had set in front of her and sighed, the top of her hand dropped to the table. “Like I said dad, it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Can’t handle huh?” I repeated sarcastically. “Arie...” by my deep sigh; she sensed my mood shifting and stood up to grab her bag. I stopped her. “I’m not going to get involved in whatever it is that’s going on. But I do not want you seeing Grady.”