by Chris Fabry
She put the magazine down. “Maybe that’s what this whole thing is about. Somebody wants to distract you from the Chase.”
“And they’re using Tim? And Devalon? I can’t see it. Everybody’s watching the teams out there like a hawk. This seems like somebody just wants to be mean.”
“What about Devalon himself?” Jamie said.
Her dad shook his head. “Why would he want to destroy his own garage? Doesn’t make sense.”
When they arrived at the Kansas Speedway, Jamie and her dad went straight to the haulers and located the Devalon crew. They pointed out Devalon’s RV in the infield.
“Maybe I should do this alone,” her dad said.
“I think I’ll tag along just for fun,” Jamie said. “I love seeing the veins in your neck stick out. And your face get red. And your eyes bugging out so far—”
“That’s enough,” he said.
Her dad knocked on the RV door, and Mrs. Devalon walked to the front. When she saw the two of them through the window, her mouth dropped open, and she turned and hurried back inside the RV.
“I don’t think that was exactly a warm welcome,” Jamie said.
She laughed, but she got quiet when a guy who looked twice the size of her dad came to the door. Arms like tree trunks. A barrel chest. A neck that looked more like a slice out of a telephone pole.
“Can I help you?” the man said in an unusually high-pitched voice.
Her dad reached out a hand, but the guy just looked at it like it was a dead opossum and kept his hands tucked into his armpits.
“I’m Dale Maxwell. Just wanted to have a word with Butch.”
The guy stared through his Bollé sunglasses.
“It’s a personal matter,” her dad said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell him I’d like to speak with him.”
“I can do that, but I’d like you to step away from the door, please.”
Jamie looked at her dad and stepped back. When the guy left, she said, “I didn’t know Butch needed a bodyguard. And his voice didn’t match his body at all.”
“Maybe his first name’s Mickey.” Her dad paced, kicking at clods of dirt and shoving his hands in his pockets.
When “Mickey” returned (Jamie smiled at the thought of calling him that), he was alone. “Mr. Devalon is not available right now. I’m sorry.”
“Could you have him stop by my hauler later? Or just have him call me on my cell?” Her dad handed the man a card, and this time he took it but quickly stuffed it in his pocket—sort of like the dead opossum you put in your pocket without looking at it.
“I’ll tell him, Mr. Maxwell, but you need to know that because of the cloud of suspicion around the boy staying with you and for legal reasons, Mr. Devalon won’t be communicating with you.”
Her dad looked like he wanted to say something else, like he wanted to chew the guy out, but he held back. He simply tipped his hat to Mickey and walked away.
A few hours later, when Devalon was returning from a practice run, Jamie saw her dad step out from one of the garage stalls right in front of him. Devalon tried to avoid him, but her dad blocked him. Devalon pointed a finger in her dad’s face, and now it was his turn for his neck veins to stand out and his face to get red. Jamie hurried over in time to hear part of the conversation.
“. . . and I don’t care what it takes. I’m going to make sure he gets what’s coming to him!” Devalon yelled.
“Butch, be reasonable,” her dad said. “Tim had nothing to do with what happened. He was lured there by someone who called him—”
“That’s his story, and I’m surprised a guy like you would buy it.”
“Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, and get out of my way.”
A crowd had begun to gather around the two, and a camera crew shooting something at another garage stall came over and caught the argument. Jamie could see exactly what would happen on the broadcast and what people would be talking about on the radio tonight. They’d throw fuel on the fire of the Butch and Dale “feud.”
“Look,” her dad said in a low tone. “I want you to know I’m sorry about the fire. I’m glad none of your cars were damaged. I know you’ll see in the end that Tim had nothing to do with it. And with the anniversary of his dad’s death, I hope you’ll agree that he should be at Talladega next week.”
Devalon stared daggers at her dad. “He’ll be in the pits over my dead body.” He stalked away and the camera followed. He angrily picked up his phone and clicked the intercom. Before he got out of camera range, Mickey showed up, craning his neck to see behind Devalon and looking like a human apology.
Jamie’s dad walked past her and grunted, “That went well.”
Chapter 19
Scrawled Writing
TIM STAYED IN HIS ROOM or went to the Maxwell garage most of the weekend. Mrs. Maxwell had let him take a day off from school the week of the fire, and he spent it looking at maps of places where he could run away. Maybe his mom had a good idea after all. She had run from Florida, and it hadn’t caught up with her. Maybe he would do the same.
Still, the advantages the Maxwells offered him—not just the nice room, three squares a day, and a family atmosphere he’d never had but also the chance to work with an actual race team and the prospects for his future—were all hard to leave. It just seemed that no matter where he lived, no matter how hard he tried, the world was against him. And the people who were his friends paid for it.
On Saturday Tim heard the mailman pass and drive off. Mrs. Maxwell and Kellen had gone to some car wash the Sunday school was having at the church. The money was supposed to go to save orphans on Mars or something like that, and Tim said he’d pass when they invited him to tag along.
There was a box from the local bank—some checks Mrs. Maxwell had ordered—the latest issue of NASCAR Scene magazine, the water bill, and a few fan letters. At the bottom of the stack in a plain white envelope was a letter addressed to Tim Carhardt, written in pencil.
Finally somebody knows how to spell my last name, Tim thought.
He opened it on his way to the house and unfolded the piece of notebook paper. The letter was written in pencil too, on the front and the back, and the handwriting was scrawled, like somebody who had bad arthritis had written it. Either that or a really intelligent monkey at the zoo.
Timmy,
I suppose you knew this letter would come at some point. And if you’re wondering, I saw a write-up about you and the Maxwells in one of those NASCAR fan magazines. That’s how I got the idea to write. I can tell you how I got the address at a later time.
I haven’t been a very good mother. I haven’t been a mother at all. I wish I could make up for all those years behind us, but I don’t think I can. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for walking out on you when you were little. Sure wish I could take that decision back and have a do-over. I wish I could make my whole life a do-over.
I read about what happened last year at Talladega. I went looking for you in Florida, but you weren’t where I thought. Then I saw the article about the Maxwell family. They look like really nice people. To take you in, they’d have to be, right? Yuk, yuk.
I hope one day you’ll be able to find it in your heart to forgive me, but I know that’s too much to ask for in the first letter. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but the one thing I know is you’re not one of them. Even though I was really far away, there wasn’t a day that I didn’t think about you and wonder what you were doing or if you ever thought of me.
I have this dream every now and then that you’re playing by a swing set and then you get on and ask me to push you, but for some reason I can’t. My feet and my arms are stuck where I am, and I want to move toward you, but something is holding me back. Well, I don’t want to live in that dream anymore, and I hope that one day I can reach out to you and give you a push or a hug.
I hope you’re doing okay. I’ll be in touch with you again. If you don’t want to see me, I’ll understand.
Love,
Mom
Tim lingered on the top step and read the letter again. Then he sat down on the porch swing and reread it. No matter how scrawled the writing was, it was still from his mother. No matter how much she had done to hurt him, this was still the one he had looked for in crowds and at races all these years.
He flipped the envelope over and saw the postmark on the front that said, Aiken, SC.
Not a bad name for the way she feels, he thought. Or me. Why wouldn’t she have left a phone number? Unless she was afraid somebody would find this and track her down. . . .
A car passed and he glanced at it. The phone call on his cell, the woman who said she was his mom—that couldn’t have been his real mother, could it? She wasn’t trying to make it up to him by destroying the Devalon garage, was she?
He shook the thought away and took the rest of the mail inside. He went to Mrs. Maxwell’s desk and found her calendar open and a star beside the next Sunday. It said, Tim at Talladega.
He wondered what he would do if given the choice between running away with his real mother or staying with the Maxwells. They weren’t perfect, but they cared. They took him away from Tyson and Vera. But no matter how many good things they did, they weren’t his own flesh and blood.
He put the mail on the desk and went to his room.
Chapter 20
Onto the Track
JAMIE’S DAD QUALIFIED the #14 car in ninth position for the race. Devalon was behind him in the 15th spot and not too happy about it. Her dad had repeatedly tried to talk with Devalon before the race and had even tried to get a message to him through Devalon’s teammate, but it was no use.
At the chapel service before the race, the chaplain continued what he called his Chase Series about people in the Bible God had used to do great things. At New Hampshire he had talked about Jonah, at Dover he went over Noah’s life, and at Kansas he highlighted Abraham.
“All of these people had messed up their lives terribly, but God looked at their faith in him. For example, it says that ‘even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping.’ Now this wasn’t blind hope that some people have—like I hope I’m going to get skinny even though I’m eating four double cheeseburgers and a large french fry. God had told Abraham that he would become the father of many nations, and even though he and his wife were old, he believed what God had told him. He believed the words God had spoken to him, and he wouldn’t back down.”
Jamie thought more about that as the race was about to begin. How much did she believe God was guiding her? How much did she want to just control things by herself? If God was giving the green flag to racing, would he just plop her into a car, or would she have to work on it as hard, if not harder?
That was going through her mind when the call came: “Gentlemen, start your engines.” They’ll have to change that gentlemen thing in a couple of years when I’m racing, she thought. She looked at her watch—2:12 p.m.
The green flag dropped at the speedway, and the field shot through the first turn. She adjusted her headset to listen to her dad and tuned in the announcers by mistake.
“. . . and there is some increasing animosity between the #13 and #14 teams of Butch Devalon and Dale Maxwell,” the announcer said. “We’ll watch how the race heats up to see if the conflict spills onto the track, but there was a fire this week at the Devalon garage that was deliberately set, and Butch blames a young man who lives with Maxwell and his family.”
“Something tells me that’s not the only thing those two are fighting over,” a commentator said. “They’re battling it out for the play-offs of NASCAR and neither one of them wants to lose.”
“This, of course, would be Butch Devalon’s third cup championship. Dale Maxwell has never been—”
“Oh, did you see that?” another commentator, a former crew chief, said. “Devalon just moved up a couple of spots and got right behind Dale and stole some air from him—got him loose.”
“There’s no love lost there, but I’m surprised it happened this early in the race.”
Jamie quickly tuned to her dad’s channel.
“Just keep your cool. Nobody got hurt,” T.J. said.
“Yeah, but we lost our position,” her dad said. “You know he did that on purpose.”
“The officials will be watching to see if you give him payback,” T.J. said. “Keep it clean out there. We’ve got more than 250 laps left. Plenty of time to show what you’re made of.”
“I’ll keep it clean. I’m just going to hunt him down and pass him.”
Jamie smiled as she watched her dad zoom back into the field. He was now in 25th place while Devalon had already made his move into the top 10.
After a caution from a car into the wall on lap 20, the restart showed seven of the chasers in the top 10. Jamie’s dad was in the 19th spot and moving up. Then, on the 85th lap, a slower car being lapped veered left toward the pits and tagged the #01 car, one of the top contenders in the Chase, and sent him spinning. The #01 car tried to stay out of the pits but began smoking with a tire rub and had to come in.
The race announcers talked to him in his headset.
“This is what happens when you’ve got guys trying to make it to the top, and there are some others with less experience out here,” the #01 driver said. “It makes it exciting for the fans, but it can be frustrating here on the track.”
Jamie thought it was a tactful way of saying he was spitting mad at the younger driver.
“We’ve got to get you up front into the lead for a few laps,” T.J. said to her dad. “If you don’t, even if you win, we’ll be behind.”
“Hey, if I get to the front, I don’t want to lead for just a few laps,” her dad said.
“Ten-four,” T.J. said.
On lap 115, with everyone coming in during a caution, Jamie’s dad was in 15th place and decided to take just two tires. It was a risky move, but he got off pit road in the third spot. When the race resumed, he challenged the #51 car and took the lead on lap 124. At the restart, six of the top 10 drivers were chasers.
“Feels good up front in the clean Kansas air,” her dad said.
“Number 13 coming up fast,” Scotty radioed her dad.
“Kinda figured that would happen,” her dad said.
Her dad had led 10 laps, picking up extra points, when Butch Devalon challenged. Jamie saw the familiar black Chevy moving up in the monitors. She knew her dad was no match for Devalon and his four fresh tires, but he kept the inside line and made Devalon pass him on the outside. For two more laps her dad battled with him, struggling to keep the lead. Finally Devalon passed him (or her dad let him) and took over first. Jamie was just glad Devalon didn’t try to crash her dad.
“I’m wearing out my tires and brakes out here,” her dad said.
A few laps later there was another caution for debris on the track, and her dad came in for two more tires. He dropped out of the top 10 but was in a good position for the race.
A blown engine in the middle of the pack sent four cars to the garage on lap 180. At that point, Devalon was leading the field by nearly half a second and had led more than 60 laps of the race.
“We gotta get back up front, Dale. There’s no two ways about it,” T.J. said.
At the restart, her dad was in 11th place, with less than 70 laps to go. Jamie knew if he wanted to contend seriously for the championship, he’d need to at least finish in the top 10.
“We have a window here between lap 220 and 230, Dale,” T.J. said. “You’re good on fuel, but you’re going to need new tires.”
“All right, let me get back to you.”
While Jamie watched her dad on the in-car camera, the team’s public relations representative, Chloe Snowe, came up behind her. Chloe was dating Billy Reuters, driver of the #72 car, and there were rumors of an engagement. She had silky blonde hair and a beauty pageant figure (because she’d been Miss Mississippi), but all the guys on the team knew there was more to her than a pretty face.
She had made changes to the way they communicated with the media and had gotten several stories advanced about Jamie’s dad, putting him in the spotlight and helping calm the sponsors’ nerves.
“What’s he doing in there?” Chloe said, squinting at the screen. “Looks like he’s talking to somebody, but I don’t hear anything on the radio.”
“He is talking to somebody,” Jamie said. “God.”
Chloe raised her eyebrows. “I know he takes his faith seriously, but what’s he praying about?”
“He told me there are times when he doesn’t know what to do during a race, and he’ll just ask God for wisdom.”
Chloe looked like she’d tasted a lemon. “Does he ever hear anything?”
“I think he does most of the talking,” Jamie said, smiling. “He said he’s never heard a voice, but sometimes something will come to mind, you know, triggering another race, another similar situation, and he’ll go with it.”
Chloe stared at the screen. “Well, I hope he gets a strong feeling about this one.”
Chapter 21
Last Laps
TIM PACED in front of the TV in the living room while Kellen sat on the couch eating Crunch ’n Munch. Mrs. Maxwell had gone to the church to watch the race with friends. There simply wasn’t enough room in their house to hold all the people interested, but Tim could tell that she didn’t really want to go. She probably wanted to stay home with them but felt like she should at least show up.
“I’ll be back here to watch the finish,” she had said.
Tim couldn’t remember being this caught up in the racing season. He had rooted for the driver his dad worked for, but it always seemed like a business back then. Get to the track, get qualified, try not to get a DNF, and move on to the next race. Now it felt fresh and new and like there was a point to all the weekly madness. And he was surprised how much he wanted Dale to win.