Page 103 of Trading Paint
Have you lost your mind?I asked myself.
He doesn’t feel that way about you and you’re already envisioning your babies with him.
Crazy person.
“He’s cute, isn’t he?” Jameson said watching Lane sleep on his chest.
“Yeah,” I smiled adjusting his blanket so it covered his chubby little arms. “Hard to believe your brother of all people could make something that cute.”
“Do you want kids?” Jameson asked yawning.
I thought about it for a moment. I was just imagining our babies.
“Yeah, I think someday I would.”
Jameson didn’t say anything just smiled.
“What about you?” I asked trying to remain sneaky. Jameson had leaned back on the couch so I sat down beside him and Lane.
“I don’t know...I guess maybe someday but not any time soon.” He chuckled softly and adjusted Lane on his chest. “I barely have time to sleep these days let alone take care of a kid.”
He was right. Usually when I heard from him, it was in the middle of the night. He didn’t have time for even himself these days and if he wanted this as a profession, it wouldn’t end.
After New Year’s we all headed back to Elma and then it was off to Tulsa. I had to be back in school the week after so it was nice get such a long break away from everything.
Tommy, Spencer, Jameson, Jimi and me headed to Tulsa on Tuesday with the racing starting on Wednesday. The main event was being held on Saturday night.
The Chili Bowl Midget Nationals is the biggest midget car racing event and some even refer to it as the Super Bowl of midge racing. It’s held in an indoor facility in Tulsa Oklahoma that can hold 15,000 fans and one of the only races where you’ll see around two-hundred and fifty drivers from the USAC divisions, NASCAR, World of Outlaws, and all the best open-wheel drivers in one facility all competing for only twenty-four positions. It’s some of the best midget racing you’ll ever see. Being an indoor facility they never had to fight weather conditions and the track is never subjected to too much rain and wind that would ordinarily dry it out. They keep the quarter-mile clay track tacky and perfect, just the way the boys like it.
The format is different from any other race. The first day is practice and then from thereit’sfive hours a night of racing with a fifty lap feature event on the last night. Each night they have heat races, dashes and twenty-five lap features to make it to the last night to be one of the twenty-four cars that fielded the A-feature.
The way it worked this year was we arrived on Tuesday, practice sessions were held Wednesday, and then on Thursday racing started. Each night there would be twelve heat races with starting positions determined by a pill draw, then two B-features and the A-feature. Points were accumulated for finishing positions plus passing points. The optimum objective would be to start last and finish first. This would allow you to gain the most points but with the competition at the Chili Bowl, no one ever accomplished this, unless you were Jameson and Justin.
The goal was to advance each night until you made it to the A-feature on Saturday night.
Thursday’s practice session went good and Jameson’s car was fast. Bucky had provided him a crew and the midget to race. Tommy and Spencer helped but they weren’t obligated too. It had to be nice for everyone to just show up and race, not have to worry about fixing the car when it broke.
Justin was there this year as well driving Bucky’s other car so Jameson and Justin were teammates.
Justin and Jameson raced well together; they both had their strong points. Justin had a rap for getting fast starts and staying strong whereas Jameson would lag back and come on strong in the end. Both techniques worked well but this provided Jameson with more points and moved him up faster. Justin won more heats but Jameson gained more points.
On Friday, the night before the A-feature, Jameson and I walked through the pits with Justin. They were stopped every few feet but eventually we made our destination, Bobby Cole’s pit.
Jameson admired Bobby for what he’d done in the USAC divisions as he was the only driver who had won the Triple Crown.
Bobby was a rookie this year in the NASCAR Winston Cup series and hadn’t been to the Chili Bowl in years.
I wasn’t surprised to see a crowd around him, but Jameson was surprised when Bobby knew who he was as did another Cup driver Tate Harris.
“Hey Jameson,” Bobby said conversationally when we walked up. Jameson threw his arm around my shoulder and shook Bobby’s hand with the other. “Glad to see you made it this year.”
Jameson smiled.
“Yeah, finally lined up this year,”
“Whoyadrivin’ for?”
“Bucky.”
