Page 214 of The Champion
“Have you ever felt pressured to race?” I asked him aftera moment.
Sway and I always worried the boys felt as though theyhad to race given my profession and my dad’s. While we knew where Casten stoodin all it, I wasn’t sure about Axel. Maybe that’s why he constantly neededreassurance that he could do it.
“No, I’ve alwayswantedto race.” He smiledremembering why he did. “I don’t remember how old I was but I think mom waspregnant with Casten. I just remember watching the memorial race for grandpaCharlie...I remember standing in theflag stand holding the flag when you, grandpa, Justin and Ryder came by on thefront stretch four wide, engines rumbling...Fromthen on, that’s what I wanted to do.”
“That sound gets most people.” I nodded with a smileremembering the thunderous rumble from my childhood and watching guys like mydad and Bucky Miers.
“What made you want to race?” he asked glancing at theother picture on my desk on Sway and me on our honeymoon in Rio right after hewas born. I had to chuckle as it was one with my leg bleeding and her with thejellyfish sting.
“Same as you,” My gaze shifted to the photograph besidethat of Sway and I at Elma last spring. “I grew up watching grandpa race, justlike you.” My eyes shifted to a photograph of my dad. It was the one of ussingingBarton Hollowby The Civil Wars at a bar outside of WilliamsGrove after a race. That’s when I felt the pain in my chest that he was hangin’up his helmet, something I thought he’d never do.
“Racing has always been there for me and after a while,it was just the natural way to go.” I smiled at my son. “I could never imaginemy life any other way than inside a race car.”
Axel knew exactly what I was trying to say without meneeding to go into any more detail. Like I said, racing was his gut instinct,just like mine was.
He left after that and I sat there in my office lookingover the pictures Sway and framed in there over the years. It’s hard to believehow quickly that last twenty years had gone by but I never regretted thislifestyle. It was me.
A racer can’t be labeled or molded.
Most guys in the garage area would agree with thatstatement.
A racer doesn’t race for anyone but himself.
Another statement most would agree with.
Some have different theories but really, the victory waswhat you raced for. Now that victory can be, and was, owed to more thanyourself but to get there, to get inside the car and decide to race, comes fromwithin.
At some point, you’re nothing until one day, you’resuddenly something. Worshipped by millions for something you did for yourself.Why is it that they suddenly thought you were different?
What made them love you now when they didn’t before?
I’ll tell you why. You had the balls to do what theynever did. You got inside the car and pushed yourself to be the best. You didthat. No one else did.
What they don’t understand is that there will always beconfessions that bared no sound and lived inside my head, my heart, and were myown desire. They were my own aspirations and something they never took the timeto discover.
I race for me. It’s not selfish. It’s me being me.
I do it because that’s what I am and what is embeddedinto every fiber of my being.
I race for the adrenaline, the power, the rumbling in mychest when behind the wheel. The sense of belonging in a sport that’s quick toprove you’re nothing but still, I race for me. That is what defined me.
I can’t say every racer is the same but for the mostpart, they are.
So now, with time, as one career was ending, another wasjust beginning in a sport that was forever changing.
Throughout death and despair, our family had once againkept it together. We were, just as we always had been, a woven mesh window netholding it together.
In my mind, we were a championship team.
