by Chris Fabry
Mrs. Maxwell drove him, Jamie, and Kellen to Talladega on Saturday. They stayed at a hotel with a suites in its name that was a long way from the superspeedway. Dale joined them for dinner, and they ate at a nice steak place and got a special booth in the back, where they wouldn’t be bothered by people who recognized Dale. Tim ordered surf and turf, which was some shrimp and a hunk of steak, plus french-fried onion rings and mashed potatoes that looked like he could eat them for dessert. It was more food than he could possibly finish, so he took it back to the room and put it in the little refrigerator, along with a piece of strawberry cheesecake that probably had enough calories in it to keep him going for a month.
He was munching on the onion rings, watching an old James Bond movie with Kellen, when Dale came in and turned the volume down just as one of the bad guys was being pushed out of a plane.
“Got some good news,” Dale said, sitting on the edge of one of the beds. “You’re going to be down in the pits tomorrow.”
Tim did a double take. “You serious?”
“You bet,” Dale said. “Devalon is still making a stink about it and probably will through the whole race, but the people at the track overruled him. They remember what happened here last year, and they said they didn’t care if you burned down half of North Carolina—they weren’t going to be the ones to keep you out.”
Tim smiled. “There are some good people here.”
Dale nodded. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you to be on your best behavior and that everybody’s going to be watching.”
“No. I’ll be a little angel.”
“That’ll be the day.” Kellen laughed.
“We got an early day tomorrow,” Dale said. “You two get some rest. We have to be at the track before the rush.”
/////
It was a foreign thing for Tim to drive to a race—with his dad, he had always slept either at the track or in a nearby fleabag hotel. The family got up, ate breakfast in the restaurant downstairs, packed their stuff, and headed for the track. A few miles later they hit traffic, and it was stop-and-go until they got to the gate.
The guy at the front looked inside, saw everyone, and tipped his hat. “Nice to have you here, Mrs. Maxwell.” He pointed out where they could park, but Mrs. Maxwell acted like she’d been to the track a hundred times.
The RVs and campers were just starting to stir. Saturday night was the rowdiest night of Talladega. A lot of people came early in the week and stayed to party, and the race signaled the end. Tim’s dad had always kept him away from that scene, but he couldn’t help hearing the music and smelling the food cooking on grills. Even now there were people out cooking sausages for breakfast, wearing their favorite drivers’ hats and T-shirts.
They found the Maxwell hauler and put their stuff inside, then wandered over to the garage. Fans already milled around, trying to get an autograph or a picture with some famous driver. Tim figured a lot of people would probably think it boring to just stand around watching people working on cars, but he found it fascinating. There was always something to learn about the way someone approached an engine, what they looked for when they heard a noise, what the driver felt when he sensed a particular movement or heard something out of the ordinary.
A little later Dale came by, and they had lunch at the hauler under one of the tents set up to keep the sun from baking them like the bratwurst and onions and hot dogs on the grill. Dale ate some pasta and stuff that would stick with him through the race. There was the old air of excitement, food, fuel smell, heat rising from the concrete, and nerves of the crew. In one way, it was a lot easier not to be in the Chase. You didn’t have the pressure of worrying about a lug nut going on crooked or being the goat who messed up the pit stop. Most of the guys played it cool, pretending to relax and even sleeping, but Tim knew that they were eating Rolaids like they were candy.
After the drivers’ meeting, the chaplain stood and prepared for the chapel service. Most of the drivers scampered out like someone had dropped a skunk under their chairs. The guy was doing a series on people in the Bible God had chased or something like that, but Tim found it hard to concentrate with the excitement of the race just ahead. He couldn’t understand how Dale or any of the other drivers and crew members could focus on God stuff when they were about to do the most thrilling thing in their lives. Jamie and Mrs. Maxwell were glued to every word.
Tim closed his eyes at the end but just so he could rest them. Getting up early each day for school exhausted him, and on the weekend he liked to sleep in. Traveling and getting up early this morning had caught up with him.
They walked back to the hauler and met a family with a little girl Tim thought looked familiar. Her name was Jenna, and all three of them looked like it was Christmas morning they were so excited.
“I saw you at that camp, didn’t I?” Tim said to Jenna.
“Yeah, I’ve got diabetes,” Jenna said, “and Mr. Maxwell said if he made it in the Chase, he’d pay for us to come here.”
“Well, you are his good luck charm,” Tim said. “He should have done that a long time ago.”
“Excuse me,” she said, “but I don’t believe in luck. God works in our lives and nothing happens by chance.”
Her mom and dad smiled, and Tim nodded. He wanted to ask her, So, did he give you diabetes?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jenna said. “You’re thinking, ‘Did God give me diabetes?’”
Tim’s eyes widened. “Well, as a matter of fact . . .”
She kept talking as they walked through the hauler. “I don’t think God gave me diabetes to punish me or because he doesn’t like me. He allows different hard things to help his children grow. You know, like a farmer pruning his trees.”
“So he did make you have diabetes,” Tim said.
“It’s impossible to understand it all because we’re just puny little humans. But the way I look at it, God let us choose whether to follow him or not, and sin came into the world. After that came diseases and all kinds of bad stuff. God didn’t cause that to happen, but since he was in control, he allowed it to happen.”
“So you don’t blame him?”
“How could I be mad at somebody who died for me? He loves me. And he’s given me not one but two pancreases to take care of me.” Jenna explained that her parents acted as her pancreas, giving her insulin every day.
Dale took them to the pits and showed them the car. After that it was time to get ready. Jenna and her family stood back and put on their headphones.
Dale turned to Tim. “You ready for this?”
Tim looked around. “Is Devalon gonna sneak up and attack me?”
Dale laughed. “No. Just wait a minute.”
After the introduction of the drivers, the announcer asked people to stand and remove their hats. Then a picture of Tim’s dad flashed on live television. “One year ago, Martin Carhardt tragically lost his life here at Talladega. Joining us today with the Dale Maxwell team is his son, Tim Carhardt.”
Tim was stunned by the announcement and was even more surprised when his face flashed on the screen.
Before the announcer could continue, the crowd applauded and cheered.
Tim couldn’t help smiling, and he dipped his head and looked at the ground.
Finally the announcer went on. “In tribute to this fallen friend, we ask for a moment of silence in his memory, after which we’ll hear the prayer from NASCAR’s chaplain.”
The stands fell silent—an eerie sound for a place that made so much noise. A few seconds later, someone yelled, “We love you, Tim!”
Then the chaplain prayed, a singer performed the national anthem, and jets flew overhead.
Dale pounded Tim on the back. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”
Tim shook his head. “It was nice. Thanks for setting that up.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Dale said. “They did that on their own.”
Tim nodded. “Well, I thank you anyway.”
Dale
’s pit box was close to the end of pit road this year, which made Tim glad. He stood back as Mrs. Maxwell handed Dale a slip of paper. Tim guessed it was the verse she gave him before each race (or read to him over the phone when she wasn’t there in person). He didn’t have the nerve to ask what it said. Dale kissed her, then got in the car and strapped in, and the chaplain came along and prayed with him.
Then the call came—“Gentlemen, start your engines!”
Tim loved the sound of the engines together, and when the cars pulled in behind the pace car, he couldn’t believe the noise and the power of those engines. And that was before they actually started racing!
“You okay?” Jamie said to him.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“Did it bring back some bad memories?” she said.
“A little,” Tim said. “But there’s so much good I remember about my dad that I don’t think about this track as being the problem. I’m kind of glad to be back here.”
Jamie walked a little farther down pit road with her headset on, and Tim turned to the race. Dale started in the 12th position, and when the green flag waved, he and the others shot forward, drafting in two long trains.
Chapter 24
Air Box
IT TOOK ALL Jamie had to talk with Tim. He looked so alone up on the screen, and he looked even more forlorn standing near the wall. After she spoke to him, she had to walk away because her eyes filled.
The Talladega track was huge—a 2.66-mile tri-oval—with seats for nearly 150,000 and enough camping for thousands more. The grounds were a living, moving organism that came alive during race week, and as the Chase unfolded, Jamie couldn’t help but picture herself racing here, taking the lead on the straightaway and leading one of the trains.
Her dad had explained drafting to her when she was little and even showed her what it felt like by driving close to an 18-wheeler on the interstate, but there was no way she could understand it until she saw it up close. A car going at such a high speed would be sucked into the air of another car in front of it and propelled around the track. It was discovered in the late 1950s at Daytona when a driver followed other cars around the track, using their speed to make him go faster. He won the race and the secret was out.
“I got a problem,” Jamie’s dad said on the radio. “Air box is gone.”
T.J. went back and forth with him about the box, but it was clear it wasn’t working.
Kellen came up behind her. “What happens if he doesn’t have an air box?”
“That’s the way he stays cool,” Jamie yelled. “He loses that and he’ll cook inside there for 500 miles.”
“I’m real sorry about that, Dale,” T.J. radioed back. “From what we can tell, the wires are fried in the box. You’re just going to have to tough it out.”
“Can’t he get some air through the window?” Kellen said.
“Going that fast, you don’t get any air at all,” Jamie said.
“Looks like I’m going to lose a little weight in here,” Dale said.
Jamie shook her head. It was a blistering day in Alabama. Her dad was tough, but enough laps driving in 130-degree heat and it would begin working on his brain. Fatigue would set in. There has to be something we can do, she thought.
She turned to look for Tim, but he wasn’t near the pits. “Where did Tim go?” she said to Kellen.
He shrugged. “Wasn’t my day to watch him.”
The #14 car was in the middle of a pack of cars going three wide when her dad spoke again. “I feel like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day. T.J., you gotta check this thing next time before the race. How did it get past you?”
She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times her dad had spoken harshly on the radio. It was clear he was in a difficult situation that was only going to get worse as the day wore on.
“I’m real sorry about that,” T.J. said. “I feel your pain.”
“First pit stop, I want a bucket of ice dumped in here. You got me?”
T.J. laughed. “Maybe I can just get you a Coca-Cola truck to drive. That’d be a lot cooler.”
“I’m serious,” Dale said. “I’ve eaten cooked ham that’s cooler than I am right now.”
Jamie watched her dad. He was keeping pace with all the other drivers. He had to because if he slowed down, he’d cause a wreck. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tim running from the garage to the war wagon. He was carrying something and timidly looking up at T.J.
Chapter 25
Tim’s Idea
TIM FINALLY GOT T.J.’S ATTENTION.
T.J. took a headphone off one ear and leaned down. “What is it?”
“I’ve got this hose I rigged up from stuff in the hauler,” Tim said. “If we hook it to the window net and snake the tube in, you can at least get some air into Dale’s helmet.”
T.J. leaned down a little farther, and Tim handed him the contraption. It was made out of a piece of plastic tubing connected to a funnel. Tim had made sure it was a new one so it wouldn’t give Dale any fumes. He also fastened two metal clips through the plastic that would hold it securely to the netting and withstand the extreme wind velocity.
“Take this to the extra man,” T.J. said, pointing to him. He got on the radio. “Dale, Tim has come up with something we’ll try on the next pit stop. I need to make sure the officials will let us use our extra man. It’ll fasten onto the window net, and you’ll get some air if you fit it up inside your suit.”
“Ten-four,” Dale said.
T.J. contacted the NASCAR official and asked permission to have the extra man go over the wall. Occasionally an eighth man was allowed to clean the windshield or help the driver. The permission came, but unfortunately for Dale there was plenty of green-flag racing ahead. He didn’t come in for a tire change until lap 37, and it was under green.
The extra man went over the wall. He stuck the hose inside, and Dale helped secure the clips perfectly to the netting. It was on only a couple of seconds when the left side came down and Dale screamed away from the pits, trying to get back to the field without going down a lap.
“Watch your speed,” T.J. said.
Dale returned to the race and radioed a lap later. “I’m as cool as a cucumber in here. Tim ought to patent this thing for all the drivers who have air boxes go down.”
Tim couldn’t help smiling.
As the race continued, the anticipation from the fans rose about “the big one,” the normal crash everyone had become accustomed to at Talladega. At some point in the 500-mile race, with cars going at incredible speeds and incredibly close together, someone made a mistake, had a blowout, or got loose in a turn, and several cars were taken out.
About halfway through, Dale was in a line of cars drafting on the inside. Another line had formed beside them, and like two 10-car trains, they rumbled down the track. As they approached turn one, Tim noticed the second car in Dale’s line get loose and spin into the line beside them.
The crowd gasped and people rose to their feet. Tim strained to see through the smoke and debris. It was only a split second, but it felt like an hour.
“Stay low. Stay low. Stay low,” Scotty said on the radio.
The #14 car finally emerged on the other side of the wreck.
“Good job,” Scotty said.
In all, five cars had to leave the race, and four more had to go back to the garage and would return later.
“That was a close one,” Dale said.
“Good job staying clear,” T.J. said. “You’re in 12th position as it stands now, and when they clean these cars up, you may be even higher.”
T.J. was right. Though Dale’s engine showed signs of running hot, a blistering-fast pit stop helped (they pulled the grille tape to help cool it off), and he moved into the top 10. There had been a number of lead changes, but Butch Devalon was on top now and leading the pack at the bottom of the track.
At lap 166, T.J. came on the radio. “Unless you’re hearing voices about what to do, we’re going to be out o
f fuel soon.”
“Yeah, I’m thinking I need to come in for just fuel.”
“You sure you don’t want right-side tires?” T.J. said.
“No, they’re good. Let’s come in for enough to get us to the finish.”
“You got it,” T.J. said.
Chapter 26
Fire
JAMIE GAVE A SIGH of relief when her dad got back onto the track after a fuel stop. There were several cars out of the race now, and 24 were on the lead lap. After a yellow flag for debris, all 24 started single file with Butch Devalon in the lead. Her dad had pulled out of line to pass earlier, and the wind resistance sent him back to 15th place.
“Thought I was going to get a push back there from the #51,” her dad said on the radio.
“We’ll get it back,” T.J. said. “Don’t try to be a hero out there. Let’s get a good finish.”
Come on, Dad, Jamie thought. Sometimes he did things she didn’t understand. That move was a mistake a rookie would make. He’d seen an opening and moved out, not counting on the wind pushing him toward the back of the pack.
Butch Devalon led them to the restart at lap 180, with just nine laps to go. At lap 183, three cars finally got out of line, trying to pass Devalon. Her dad moved out of line again, creating a middle lane, but this time four cars followed him. They were three wide now, and her dad was being pushed to the front, right next to Devalon and the line of cars on the outside.
In turn four, the #16 car, the leader of the outside lane, zoomed ahead and took over the lead from Devalon, but neither Devalon nor her dad was giving up easy. Still three wide, #16 cut to the middle lane right in front of her dad.
Jamie switched to the network coverage and found the announcer going crazy. “This is going to be an incredible finish,” he said. “The 24 cars on the lead lap are less than 1.5 seconds apart.”