Page 2 of Trading Paint
My racing teeth were eventually cut at our home track in Elma, Washington at Gray’s Harbor Raceway on June 18, 1985, a few days shy of my fifth birthday, as I made my first start in a quarter midgetrace.
Elma is a 3/10 mile semi-banked clay oval track located off Highway 8 and it was fast—incredibly fast.
I still remember shaking from the adrenaline I experienced racing with kids twice my age as well as the sick but energized feeling in the pit of my stomach when I took the green flag.
By the time I was eight, I was running competitively and had won two USAC Regional Quarter Midget Championships, three track championships at Grays Harbor Raceway, and had won the Deming Speedway Clay Cup Nationals.
At the time, racing quarter midgets contained me and I soon became extremely comfortable in them but that also meant, in my mind, that I was ready for more.
I moved to full size midgets at nine and now, at eleven, I was ready for something more and which meant full-sized winged sprint cars.
The problem was convincing the parental units.
Most tracks were beginning to enforce age restrictions on full-sized sprint cars so I knew that parental consent was necessary.
It was time for the art of persuasion that I adroitly mastered.
“Mom...” I cooed in my best compelling voice when I entered the kitchen. I had perfected it over the years for moments like this. “Dad said to ask you but I was wondering if it’d be okay if I raced tonight...dad will be there.” I offered.
She ran her hands through my mess of my rusty colored hair tilting my head to look up at her. Her fingers looped around the curls at the ends. “Honey...I don’t know about that.” She said continuing to do dishes while leaving me with soapy hair. “You know you have to be sixteen to race full-sized sprints.”
“Butmom...” I whined brushing the bubbles from my hair. “I’ve been racing since I was five. I’m eleven now, almost twelve, it’s time I broadened my horizons.” I grinned when she arched an eyebrow at me. “Besides, Charlie knows us and he said if dad signed a waiver he’d let me race.”
“Jameson, sweetie, I don’t want you to get hurt. Sprints are a lot different from the quarter midgets or even those mini sprints and full size midgets. Try tripling the weight, not to mention the speed.”
She was right.
Sprint cars pushed 120 mph at Elma some nights but I didn’t care about that.
“I know thatbutI’ve been racing them out back for months now. My lap times are faster than dad’s.”
“Don’t flatter yourself—you’re smaller than him. Basic laws of gravity, son.”
I had nothing left. I broke down into childish whining to prove my point which was somewhat revolting from a bystander’s perspective and I may or may not have resorted to the eye blinking that she loved so much.
Racing was my life and I knew that if I wanted to make a future in it—it was time to race with the big boys; at least that was my eleven-year old logic.
After a good ten minutes of sucking up, Spencer, my older brother walked in when I plopped down in a chair at the table.
“Just let the little shit race mom...he’s annoying when he doesn’t get his way.” He chuckled and shoved a cookie in his mouth. “Besides...I’d like to see him get his ass handed to him out there.”
Mom slapped the back of his head as he walked by. “Spencer, watch your language.”
Spencer, now fourteen, thought he was god’s gift to girls and football.
I had other ideas.
I threw a cookie from the plate in front of me at him, smacking him in the forehead. Although somewhat satisfying, it did result in a gladiator style wrestling match between the two of us that mom had to break up with the hose from the sink.
“Stop it—both of you get up!” she yelled slipping sideways in the water. “Spencer; clean up this mess. Jameson, go talk to your dad about racing tonight,” She held up her hand to stop me from running into the race shop. “If you wreck, you’re done.”
“Uh-huh,” I yelled over my shoulder as I ran to the race shop.
I told my dad that mom had said it was okay. He wasn’t convinced and had an hour-long talk with her about it.
In the end, I was allowed with a few stipulations.
I was only allowed to race two races a month and I worked in the shop when I wasn’t in school. I didn’t care. I probably would have agreed to just about anything to get them to say yes. I wouldn’t be allowed to race sprint cars at other tracks until I turned sixteen but only being allowed to race at Elma would be sufficient.
