Page 77 of Trading Paint
“Where are you going?” I asked when Sway stood.
“To get beer.I’ll be fine.” She sighed when I stood beside her. “I don’t need a chaperone.”
“Oh yes you do,” I challenged. “There are some...questionable people around here.”
“All right fine,” she motioned for me to turn around. “You’re carrying me then.”
After getting a beer for Sway, I was tempted to take one for myself but I never drank prior to a race so tonight wouldn’t be any different regardless of my sanity to get out there on the track.
Ryder and I decided to take some hot laps prior to qualifying. Once on the track, I was convinced this was a horrible idea and ready to pack up and leave.
Not only was there a ditch on the backstretch but some dumb fucker decided to put a knoll out there in front of it like it was some Supercross race.
That jump launched you a good two feet off the ground before you hit turn three. Being air-born in a sprint car was not something I enjoyed because it usually means I’m wrecking.
I was okay with the pebbles smacking my visor but when Ryder kicked up a few bowling ball sized rocks that his right rear unearthed, I began to wonder if I would die here tonight.
After ten laps, I had enough of the whoops and decided to park my car.
Since we arrived, Justin, Ryder, and I had attracted most everyone in the pits to come check out our cars. Judging by the appearance of their cars, I was sure they’d never seen any as nice as ours.
Two older men, Holden and Kenny, had migrated over to us and asked if they could pit for us.
Sway thought this would be entertaining so we agreed.
“Aren’t you supposed to swarm over here and change my tire?” I teased Holden when I pulled up to my hauler after the hot laps.
“Boy,yousbeenwatchin’ too much NASCAR,” Holden laughed. “We old boysain’tmove that fast. Christ, Kenny could break a hip!”
Holden walked away laughing. Kenny stood beside me smiling as he had the entire afternoon. Kenny was just that happy. Why wouldn’t he be? He had all his teeth in a town most didn’t. It’s like he was royalty or something.
Sway walked past toward the concession, my eyes followed her until Kenny chuckled beside me.
“Oh, I get it.” He said spitting into his beer. “That your girl?”
“No, it’s not like that.” I said and then looked down to see spit on my shoe where he’d missed his cup. I almost gagged. I hated anything on my skin and spit on my shoe seemed to be something else that made me want to burn them.
“Yeah, but you wish.”
I just smiled despite my urge to remove my shoes.
Out of nowhere, he slapped the side of my head.
“Watch your speed out there, when there’s a cloud of smoke, stick to your line.” It was as though he was giving me theDays of Thunderspeech.
I laughed gesturing to my car. “You wanna drive?”
“Fuck no,” he said. “thoseguys look crazy.”
They were crazy, that was noticeable when the heat races came around and they combined classes. Putting a group of sprint cars on a track with hobby stocks was something similar to running a bicycle next to a formula one car.
During the feature, I passed a road grader on the backstretch—an actual road grader. The worst part, they never threw the caution. Even after a flock of chicken came onto turn two and just sat there, still no caution flag.
It soon became a game between Justin and me to see how many chickens we could hit when we slid into the corners.
I have to say it was by far the worst track I’d ever been to but it was also some of the most entertaining racing I’d ever done.
Ryder came up to me after the feature, if you could call it the feature that he won. Something about the chickens in turn two made me think it wasn’t a real race.
