Page 194 of The Legend
Aside fromscrapes, a few cuts, and bruises, everyone was fine but that’s the night my sonblew up a house boat. You can guess which one.
Casten.
“What thefuck was that?” Jameson yelled at Casten. “Why didn’t you move the fireworksfrom the top and put them on the dock?”
Casten,clearly shaken by his near death experience looked to me like he was going tocry. “I’m really sorry. I forgot and then you said get ready to blow it and Ithought maybe we changed plans.”
“Not theboat, the fireworks.”
“Well...now that I think about it that makes a lotmore sense.”
“Suchamateurs,” Jameson mumbled walking away. “And you’re buying me a new house boatkid.”
“Damn it.”Casten hung his head. “I just finished paying for his GTO I sunk.”
Offering somemotherly comfort, I rubbed his back. “Well the next time you decide to jump theGTO over the pool, be sure to actually put gas in the car. And when you decideto blow up a house boat, don’t.”
Castenscratched the back of his head. “Great advice mama,”
Watchingthe fire on the lake, we had a spark all right. Too much spark at times.
33.Exhaust Stroke - Jameson
Exhauststroke – The exhaust stroke is the final stage in a four-stroke internalcombustion engine cycle. The gas that remains in the cylinder from the ignitedfuel during the compression stroke is removed from the cylinder through theexhaust valve. The gases are forced up to the top of the cylinder as the pistonrises and pushed through the opening which then closes to allow fresh air/fuelmixture into the cylinder for the four-stroke process to repeat itself.
After mywin at Sunset, we spent some time at Grays Harbor and did the memorial forCharlie. Being back around all the responsibilities of owning a track wasstressful. Van and Andrea were doing a great job but there were still decisionsthat Sway and I needed to make as owners and things to take care of. It wasaround that time we were thankful for the shared ownership in the Cup team.
Eventhough we had only two cars running in the Cup series, it was still a lot ofmoney being torn up each week. When a car was destroyed, guess who gets to payfor that?
It wascertainly not the driver.
He doesn’tcare. The owner, he cares because he’s the one paying the bill. I understoodthat when I was racing but paying those bills now, I had more respect for Jimiand how he operated Riley-Simplex Racing all those years.
That’swhen the stress got to me and I asked myself why I was doing it.
I didn’tlike owning a Cup team. It wasn’t me.
I know mydad would have wanted us to be happy.
So, Idecided owning a NASCAR team wasn’t our thing anymore, so we sold partialownership and merged with Tate’s team. We were still involved to a point butnot nearly as heavily as before.
Easton wasone of the best guys to have racing for you but I still didn’t want theresponsibility of it all.
I had toomuch responsibility for so long. Now I was enjoying myself. Aside from my sonblowing up a house boat and being questioned by the police weekly for all thestupid shit we did on that 230 acre plot, we didn’t have stress.
Thatlifestyle I was living when I was racing the Cup series wasn’t me. This was me.Being an owner of a dirt track, that was me. Racing sprint cars when I feltlike it, that was me.
You see,living that lifestyle racing in NASCAR had brought battles I never wanted tofight but I didn’t know that until I wasn’t fighting them anymore.
Here’s thething, unlike some athletes, I didn’t retire from the injury. I retired for me.I was done with that lifestyle.
I stillraced, that would never change for me. Even the death of my father doing thatvery same thing couldn’t keep me away from sprint car racing.
Why?
If I wouldhave walked away completely, all that I worked for wouldn’t have mattered andmore importantly, I would have felt as though I had let myself and him down.
Onceagain, I found myself walking a dirt track surrounded by memories, I thought ofhow I got here, standing at a track, that some forty years ago I raced for thefirst time.
