Page 98 of Trading Paint

We never did figure out how we all got on the beach but that was the last of our worries when we realized that one, our friend was freaking out that he cheated on his girlfriend and didn’t remember and two, we had to be in Lake Odessa by four. It was seven in the morning and it’s a twelve hour drive to get to Lake Odessa from Concord.

We were fucked.

Our sprint cars were already there since I was driving for Bucky and Justin was driving for Ron Walker by that time but we still had to get there.

That left us with one option...calling my dad for a favor. He arranged for a private jet to come get us and we arrived in Lake Odessa with an hour to spare. Jimi didn’t let us get away free. He made us pay for the gas in the jet which wasn’t cheap.

We decided we wouldn’t be drinking alone any time soon after that. Keeping one of the girls around us at all times was pretty much a necessity.

I felt for Justin. He didn’t want to sleep with that girl but his judgment was lapsed and he made a bad decision. He did the right thing in telling Ami though.

Her reaction was to be expected and she did break up with him. I thought Justin felt relieved that he told her the truth but by that point they had broken up. Being away from each other was taking a toll on their relationship already and that seemed to be the final straw.

Ami had just graduated college and had gotten a job in Los Angeles, which meant they pretty much never saw each other unless she was able to fly out to see him at a race.

“I would take you out drinking to relieve the pain...but we both know how that ended last time.”

“I don’t want relief...I just want to forget altogether.” He grunted kicking his legs out in front of him as he sat in a folding chair next to his hauler. “How could I have been so stupid? I loved her Jameson. I loved her more than anything and I threw all that away in one night.”

After wrecking each other in the Lake Odessa race that night, Justin and I sat in his pit after. Spencer and Tommy strolled up and tossed us a couple of beers and then Ryder, Cody and Tyler found us. The best comfort we could provide for a fellow heartbroken racer was race talk and that we did.

I thought about Sway a lot that night. This was exactly why I kept Sway at a distance was because I was afraid of something like this happening to us.

We had women pushed upon us out here after races and at bars. They knew who we were and tested our self-control. If I was with Sway physically, which was appealing to me, what happens if I had a lapse in judgment like Justin did? I couldn’t hurt her like that, ever. Besides, I had no idea if she even felt that way. Sure our friendship worked and when I touched and kissed her she responded but so did I when other women touched me. That didn’t mean I had feelings for them that just meant I was attracted physically to them.

There was a fine line and I wasn’t ready to cross it yet.

By the time July had rolled around, we settled into a routine with the new addition to our traveling team, Lane. It was tough for Alley to still travel so she stayed in Mooresville with my mom for about a month and then started again.

Lane was a sport and loved the sound of the cars. My sprint car revving lulled him to sleep on more than one occasion. It was cool having him around and I took pride in knowing that his first smile was a product of me. I was laughing at something Ryder did while holding Lane for Alley and he smiled when I laughed. Like I said, Lane was pretty cool and not at all what I thought he was going to be like, until he puked on me.

I was not okay with that.

By August Sway was on summer break and traveled around with us again which meant I was back to normal and aggressive on the track. Not that I wasn’t when she’s was around but I fought harder for position at times and didn’t take shit from anyone. I wouldn’t say that was because of Sway by any means, but I seemed to find myself when she was around and remembered why I was racing in the first place.

I was still racing with the USAC divisions but I was making every Outlaw race I could and running roughshod through it.

I wasn’t known for being nice on thetrack,I knew that, as did the handful of other drivers I’d raced with all these years. I was ornery, surly and would call anyone out on their bullshit passes or unjustified hits. I also wasn’t afraid to back it up if needed. So far this year, I had brawled with track owners and officials over rules, shoved photographers, and sparred with a few hometown favorites. I had a temper. What can Isay.

But most of all, I wasn’t about to be pushed around. I didn’t risk everything to just be just an average driver. I risked it all to be the best and that’s what I was becoming, temper or not.

That temper got me in my fair share of wrecks that summer as well, most of which I walked away from but there were a few I either crawled or stumbled away from.

At Eldora in the middle of September while racing a Silver crown car, I took a few flips on the back stretch coming out of turn two and landed on the guardrail upside down. I felt that one.

When they flipped me back over I was able to get out. It was apparent after a few steps that I was going to need to get checked out. I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I waved to the crowd when they started cheering but that’s about all I was able to do. Once inside the infield care center they had set up I collapsed.

My knees were sore and bruised from the impact; all the blood vessels in my face had broken and my arms and legs had no many bruises on them you’d think someone beat me with a baseball bat. I was a mess. I ended up spending the night in the hospital with a broken rib and a concussion on top of all that bruising.

I called Sway from the hospital that night to tell her what happened. I hoped they hadn’t announced it on the news or anything. She freaked out and told me she was skipping classes for a week to come see me but I wouldn’t let her. She just needed to finish college so I could have my friend back.

I knew where the failure went wrong. It was a combination of everything and to rebuild I had to do it right. Right meant focusing on what was important, racing, and Sway focusing on what was important for her, school. Later we could figure out where we stood. I hoped.

That season it seemed I wasn’t the only one doing rough driving. Justin and Tyler were making themselves known as well for being hotheads. Justin punched a USAC official after a race in Lernerville and Tyler sent a kid to the hospital when the kid pushed him.

You don’t push the beasts from the east and just walk away. There was a reason they were called the fire breathing beasts from the east, even I knew that.

The veteran drivers weren’t pleased with us and they had every right not to be but Iunderstoodthem. Here these kids were coming into the divisions they had once been winning in and now all of a sudden they weren’t, the kids were.

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