Page 108 of Trading Paint
Eventually she made her way back to my table as I was leaving, wearing her street clothes.
“So Jameson, you got plans for the rest of the evening?”
I drew in a deep breath—glancing down at my phone to check the time. “I was just leaving. I have to catch a flight in a few hours.”
“Well you could crash at my place for a little while, it’s late and I know you’d probably like to relax.”
I had a feeling she did this sort of thing a lot and I could tell by the twinkle in her eyes what type ofrelaxingshe had in mind and yet I didn’t stop her or myself.
I knew these women I’d been with recently wanted nothing from me and as I was letting myself out of her apartment a few hours later, she summed things up when I overheard her on her cell phone.
“You wouldn’t believe who was just in my bed!” she said to her friend I assumed.
“No...Jameson Riley as in the USAC Sprint Car driver...yeah the one that won the triple crown a couple years ago....I know...I can’t believe it either.”
The door slammed behind me.
I managed to catch my plane to Milwaukie on time. Spencer met me at the airport and told me about his time at home. Sway had been there for the weekend visiting Charlie so he and Alley had lunch with her. This put me in a bad mood the remainder of the flight.
The pain of not having Sway here was becoming unbearable. If I knew anything, it was that the pain wouldn’t go away unless you healed the wound causing the pain. Start from the source right, but what was the source? I knew the source but refused to look for it, just like the blow engine. I seemed to be mastering avoidance and the ability to patch the hole. Sooner or later, just like the engine, I would run out patches.
A few days after my twenty-first birthday that year, my dad asked me to meet him in Charlotte, so I did. I showed up at Lowe’s International Speedway not exactly sure what I should be expecting.
For a few years now, Jimi had been contemplating starting a race team. Having already owned an Outlaw team for about four years now, he looked into a USAC team like Bucky had but the big teams were in NASCAR these days.
Why?
NASCAR had the ultimate exposure. How many people outside of the mid-west know what USAC is or even the World of Outlaws?
Not many. But nearly every red blooded American citizen knew what NASCAR was and sponsors wanted exposure so where do you think they dumped most of their money?
NASCAR.
It was early when I got there, probably around seven in the morning and I wasn’t sure if I was just tired or hallucinating when I saw a stock car parked beside him on pit lane.
Harry Sampson, a mechanic/engine specialist I’d heard a lot about these days, was leaning against the side of the car. He wrenched for guys like Bobby Cole, Tate Harris and Adam Parson and now here he was looking at my dad and me as though I was just a waste of his time.
You have to keep in mind at thatpoint,I had no idea why I was asked to come to Charlotte. Other than the dirt late models I’d driven in the past, I’d never been in a stock car on asphalt and now I was staring at one with Harry Sampson beside it.
“What’s all this?” I motioned to the car and then toward Harry, who was still staring at me.
“Well,” Jimi took a drink of his coffee. I highly doubted it was straight coffee by the way. “I need to know if you can even drive this thing first.” He gestured with a tip of his head at the car.
Five minutes later, I was strapping myself into a stock car.
I would like to say I wasn’t nervous, but I was. What if I couldn’t drive it?
Sure, I coulddriveit but could I push these cars like I did with sprints. I felt at ease muscling around sprints but stock cars, I wasn’t so sure.
“You know how to operate this, right?” Harry asked tugging on my belts.
I didn’t answer and gave him a blank expression.
“Great,” Harry muttered to himself. “Listen up then. These beasts are much simpler than those sprint cars you’re used to. Aside from the direct drive transmission in sprints these are just like any other car with a manual transmission.”
I smiled, firing up the engine and easily shifting into first gear.
“Kidding,” I told him, laughing.
