Page 85 of The Legend

Tommy andWillie caught me after we did a break in run on the track behind the shop. Bothengines had problems and we needed to replace them.

“What’s goingon with these?” I asked Willie who kept a close eye on the engines and how theywere being built for the sprint cars.

I didn’thave to worry about the Cup side, though I did after the mishap in Homestead,Harry usually had that handled. Now with Kerry on board over there, we had abetter handle with those engines.

Becausethe 410 engines are essentially very different than an engine put inside a Cupcar, I had Noah and Charlie there for the sprint cars as well as Greg Lynch,Justin’s brother in-law, doing machine work. We also had Slater and Bob Davis,Tommy’s cousins, doing dyno testing and break-in’s. Everything we did, whetherit was building the engine to performance, was done in house and by people wetrusted. Grady was the only one we didn’t know.

About amile up the street from my sprint car shop was Riley-Simplex Racing and CSTEngines, all housed under a forty thousand square foot building complete with adyno room where the engines were tested.

When theengines came in, CST built them from parts to ready to go engines. We cleanedthe parts, inspected them, did the entire machine work including align boringand porting the heads. We assembled the parts making sure they all lined upcorrectly. We made sure there was deck height clearance, cylinder roundness andmeasuring pistons to be sure they fit to the cylinders correctly. We did allthis in-house because that was originally how CST Engines was designed backwhen my grandpa Casten developed the procedures. Staying true to his legend inthe industry of engine building, we kept it exactly the same.

Among theengine builders, we had two machine guys, Kevin and Brad, who were related toKyle. We also had a few guys doing quality control along with Willie and Tommy.The quality control was now done mostly by Noah and Charlie since they wereboth currently going to school for it and were able to take an engine apartwhen they were four.

As you cansee, it’s a family business as always will be.

Examiningthe engine, Willie looked up at me holding the oil line. “There’s our problem,”he said, “the oil coupler was loose and all the oil drained out. Grady wasdoing final assembly last night with Noah.”

My gazeshifted from the car to Willie and then over to Grady. He was there withheadphones in, bobbing his head to music, doing a final walk around on the fourcars heading to Knoxville. He stopped near the rear tires, his hand reached upto run over the bars under the wing of my car. Seeming satisfied, he moved onto check off his list as he went, never looking up from his meticulous effort.

Kneelingdown, I took a look at the engine on the hoist. In sprint car engines we use adry sump system where the oil is stored in a tank outside the engine ratherthan in the oil pan and then pumped to the rest of the engine. In this case,the oil line wasn’t sealed correctly and allowed for the oil to drain out.

“We can’tbe having this kind of stuff happening.” Willie said to me when I sat againstthe wall going through emails on my phone. “The kid needs to go. No one trustshim and you know what that does around here.”

Willie satnext to me.

Setting myphone on the floor, I reached up to place my hands on the bill of my hat. “Wewill deal with it when we get back from Knoxville.”

“Jameson,you—”

“We can’tprove anything, Willie.” I snapped back at him. “Until then, he is stillemployed here.”

Tommy knewme well enough to drop it but Willie kept up. “Come on Jameson, he’s stealingfrom you and you know it.”

“No, Idon’t know it for sure.” I said to him looking over the inventory Sway printedyesterday and noticed that everything seemed to add up this time.

Sway andAlley stopped by. Sway immediately sensed the apprehension in the air. “What’sgoing on?” she whispered handing me a hamburger they picked up on the way over.Alley handed the rest of the guys’ burgers as well. Spencer, having smelledfood, came in from outside where he and Lane had been loading tools andequipment for the race.

“Wegottaput a new engine in my car tonight before we can headout tomorrow.”

Swaynodded taking a drink from her milkshake. “What happened?”

“There wasa coupler left loose and all the oil drained out. It blew it up after only twolaps.”

In thedistance, I saw Arie, who was there shipping merchandise for Rager’s’ fan club,walk from the office to the parts room and then back with a box of merchandiseI assumed. Conversations continued around me but my attention remained on theinteraction that occurred between Grady, who was still here, and my daughter.

She passedby him and he looked up at her. I couldn’t hear what he said but she stoppedand stared at him. Looking over her shoulder at me, I knew something was goingon, her eyes quickly drifting back to Grady. Stepping closer, she saidsomething else to him and he reached out to her as she began to walk away.

The boyswent to work getting the new engine prepped and Grady took off after thatwithout saying anything. Something about his quick departure struck me asunusual. Normally he said something but I had the impression it had to do withArie’s conversation with him.

Swaykissed me goodbye and then planned on heading home to get my bag ready since wewould be here most of the night getting the car ready. “I love you,” she saidwith a supportive smile before heading out.

“Hey,” Icaught her hand before she left. “...have younoticed anything going on between Grady and Arie?”

“Not thatI’m aware of, but, Arie doesn’t tell me anything.” Sway shrugged. “Apparentlywe don’t have that mother-daughter-bonding-thing down.”

“She lovesyou honey. She’s just...” I kissed herforehead drawing her into my chest to wrap my arms around her. “...she’s just Arie.”

Swayunderstood that statement because unlike our boys, Arie was secretive and likeI’ve said before, if she didn’t want you know, she didn’t tell you.

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