Page 117 of The Champion
That’s right, you still have it.
“I’m Jameson Riley and my friend...” I motioned behind me to Justin—he flashed a charming smileof his own. “Well, wereallyneed on that plane.”
“Oh sir...I’m sorryI can’t. They are securing the cabin,” she said hesitantly.
Her eyes glanced fugitively around the airport, avoidingmine.
C’mon, just look at me.I knew if she looked atme, it was over. I know that sounds cocky, but I was well aware of the affect Ihad on women these days and knew the ways to get them going.
I smiled my most seductive smile and leaned against thecounter. My forearm gently brushed against her fingers that were clinging to aclipboard. At the contact, she inhaled sharply.
“The problem with that is,” my eyes that were focused onthe counter met hers. “I need to be in Alger later this afternoon for a race.”
She looked confused for a moment and then comprehensionflashed across her face when her eyesfinallymet mine. “Are you JamesonRiley the NASCAR driver?”
I winked for good measure. “That would be me.”
She then laughed and started rambling on about racing andgetting the doors to the plane open. Justin and I both gave her autographs andtook a couple pictures with her before they finally allowed us to board theplane.
Yet another reason I preferred to fly with Wes. I didn’thave to flirt with him.
“You’re lucky your charm worked.”
“It always does.”
Maintaining eye contact, Justin shook his head and staredat me as I took a drink of his coffee and maintained eye contact.
“Sway was right,” he said sourly. “your headcanget bigger.”
We made it to Skagit without any more problems. That wasuntil we got inside the cars.
It was hard to believe that three years ago my littlegirl was brought into the world at this very track. Those thoughts made methink of my family who were at home this weekend.
With the cup schedule, I could only make one night of theracing and then it was on to Richmond Saturday morning for the race and thenback to Mooresville to celebrate Arie’s third birthday on Tuesday with ourfamily.
It was one destructive night of racing and by the timethe main events rolled around, I was wondering why in the hell I even came uphere. All I could think about was how much money this was going to cost me thisweek to get these three cars ready for Cottage Grove Monday night.
I never went very long without racing on dirt. If I did,I went through withdrawals, which was exactly why I was out here for one day.
So there we were, sometime after the hot laps lookingover our cars lined up beside each other in the pits.
Justin leaned back on his rear tire, pushing his fingersagainst the rubber. With the lower psi, the rubber flexed under his touch,“It’s crazy out there tonight.”
And it was. The track was slick with only one groovemaking it hard to pass anyone. Tyler’s car was flying but Justin and me; farfrom flying.
We were hanging on to dear life hoping like hell wedidn’t wad it up in each turn. I loved racing Skagit, a relatively flat trackmade for the good slide jobs in the corners but with only one groove workingtonight, it was pretty much impossible unless you hung it out there and prayedto fucking god you didn’t end up in the wall. With a wife and three kids now,that wasn’t an option for me any longer.
As it turned out, none of us had a good night, includingTyler who broke the track record during qualifying.
“How’d ya do?” I asked Justin pulling down my suit to mywaist.
Justin frowned. “Broke a lower control arm,”
“Hell, my right front tire could be in Seattle by now.” Iflipped the car six times on the backstretch when I got tangled with a localguy halfway through the A-feature.
“I broke a torsion bar too,” he kicked it. “Actually makethat two...” Justin got on his hands andknees and scrapped a few large chunks of mud from the front right wheel. “Andan axle,”
I laughed.
