Over the Wall (10 page)

TIM STOOD BEHIND
the pit box and watched the crew pace and try to relax. T.J. was out by the car with Dale, talking and gesturing. When he returned, he gave Tim a set of headphones and a radio. “Dale said he wanted you to be able to hear our chatter. You want to come up top with us?”

Tim shook his head and thanked him for the headphones. The pit box was the place to be during a race, but truth be told, Tim didn’t like heights very much and the box was high. Sure, it had the umbrellas that shielded you from the sun and the computer screens that had all the race info, but just one look down was enough to keep Tim away.

The crew wore their fire suits and gloves and had their shoes laced tightly, checking everything two or three times.

Cal, the jackman, stretched by putting one leg on a stack of tires and leaning forward. He was in a zone, focusing on the task ahead. He might not even touch the car for the first 40 laps, but then the whole process would boil down to 12 to 15 seconds—if everybody got through their jobs clean.

Mac walked up, pulling a cart with two gas cans behind him, stopping and scowling at Tim as he tried to get to the wall. Tim wasn’t really in the way—at least he didn’t think he was—but Mac made him pay. He pointed to the ground and a yellow line that was painted on the concrete. Mac pulled one earphone away from Tim’s ear. “Stay behind that line. You block me when I’m coming toward the car, and I’ll have you kicked out of here.”

Tim nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Mac grabbed the cart and started toward the wall. He turned and scowled again as the two grand marshals—a former football player and a guy from a popular TV show—yelled, “Gentlemen, start your engines!”

“I’m not trying to be mean,” Mac shouted over the thunderous noise. “You don’t want to mess up our pit stops. That’s why I’m telling you to stay back. Understand?”

“Sure do,” Tim said. “I used to go to tracks with my dad.”

Mac stared at him. “I knew your daddy. He was a good man. Now stay back, you hear?”

Tim nodded and looked at his watch. It was 1:22 when the pace car took off and led the cars in the first trip around the track. When the green flag flew, the crowd of more than 200,000 rose and cheered, and Tim could almost hear them over the roar of the engines.

He focused on Dale through the window net and pumped a fist in the air and yelled. Rather than resenting Dale and holding him responsible for his dad’s death, Tim had been won over. He wondered what it would be like to join his family, but he figured if they were half as nice as Dale, things would be okay.

Tim looked back at the leader pole and saw Dale had slipped to the #13 position after only five laps. Then he heard Scotty’s voice on the radio.

“Got a spinout behind you in turn four, Dale,” Scotty said. “Yellow flag.”

The car that had trouble didn’t have enough damage to pit, so the race resumed in four laps. Dale had fought his way up to 10th when the second yellow came out at lap 25. This time the #55 car slammed the wall entering turn three and had to take his car behind the wall.

“Well, looks like we can’t do any worse than 42nd place.” Dale chuckled.

“Gonna be a lot higher than that today, Dale,” T.J. said. “You look good out there. Car looks smooth in the turns.”

“Yeah, if I can get out of some of this traffic here, I should be good.”

“Looks like you’re pitting in another lap,” T.J. said. “What do you need?”

Tim glanced at the crew and noticed that as soon as the caution came out, everyone was right in position at the wall.

Dale said, “Getting a little push on the right side. Maybe just change the two right and a splash.”

The crew made a flurry of hand signals as Dale and the other drivers rumbled into the pits. Dale’s spot was close to the front of pit road, and Tim craned his neck to see him. Before Dale had even stopped inside the box, Cal had the jack out. He looked like he was flying through the air as he slid it under the car and pumped twice to lift it. The air wrenches gave short bursts up and down the line.

Tim thought he heard something and looked at the crowd. People were standing, some pointing.

“One one thousand, two one thousand,” Tim counted.

“Got a jam behind you,” Scotty said. “Get out of there fast!”

Ten cars back, the lead racer had made contact
with another car coming down pit road. Their cars collided, creating a chain reaction behind them.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Dale yelled.

“. . . eight one thousand, nine one thousand . . .”

The crew finished, and Dale pulled out in front of the cars behind him. “Good job back there, guys.”

JAMIE HOPPED ONTO THE COUCH
with wet hair just as the race began.

They heard Scotty’s and her dad’s voices from the satellite feed as well as the special in-car camera feed in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. It cost more, but her dad had decided it was worth it for the family to be able to watch the races from his perspective anytime they wanted. The rest of the screen was the network feed of the race.

When the grand marshals said the famous words, “Gentlemen, start your engines!” her dad put his right hand up in an L and then pointed to the camera.

Her mom mimicked the move and whispered, “I love you too, sweetie.”

“This is almost enough to make me sick,” Jamie said, laughing.

Jamie and her mom watched the
race unfold, listening to the communication between driver and crew members. Jamie screamed at every opening, urging her dad to take them, sometimes jumping up to the TV and pointing at spots where she thought he could pass.

When a caution sent them to pit road, Jamie clapped. “Now! Come on, just take right side tires! Get back on the track!”

Her dad picked up four spots from a quick pit stop and was sixth when the green flag came out again.

“This is great!” Jamie squealed.

“It’s a long race, but he seems to be doing better.” Her mom moved closer to the TV each time the pit area was shown, and Jamie guessed she was looking for Tim.

Another caution came out on lap 77 for debris on the track. The leaders made their second pit stop of the day, and it was a race back to the track. Watching the crews jump out on the cars was nerve-racking for Jamie. She knew how many races were won or lost simply because a lug nut wouldn’t go on or come off.

“Come on! Come on!” she said, pacing.

“He’s coming out,” her mom said.

The #37 car, in the lead before the pit stop, hit the exit just before her dad.

The announcer said, “. . . and what a great pit stop
for Dale Maxwell in the #14 car, moving into second place now.”

The camera showed the Maxwell crew clapping and slapping high fives.

“I owe you guys one,” her dad said on the radio.

“Great job, everyone,” Scotty said.

The announcer made a comment about some adjustments to the #37 car, and Jamie got excited again. “I know what Dad has to do,” she said. “Since #37 is real tight, he’s vulnerable low. Dad has to go into the turn high and drop down and he’ll have the lead.”

In the 99th lap, that’s exactly what happened. In turn one, #14 went high, dropped to the bottom, and shot underneath #37 into the straightaway for the lead.

Shots of the crowd waving and cheering flashed onscreen, but Jamie and her mom barely noticed because they were screaming and hugging each other.

Two laps later, another car spun out and flew across the grass on the infield.

The yellow flag came out, and Jamie’s dad said, “Just in time. I need four new tires, guys. I’m not giving up this lead, so let’s make this a good one.”

The onscreen clock counted up as Cal jumped on the right side of the car and the tires came off.

Jamie watched, her mouth agape, in awe of the way the team worked. She’d had a crush on Cal since
she was 14 but not because he was so attractive—which he was. He was also the nicest guy on the team, and he helped out with some of the midweek youth activities at the church.

Jamie’s hands perspired, and she rubbed them against her shorts and bit her lower lip.

Her mother kept a hand over her mouth, staring at the upper right-hand corner of the screen as Jamie’s dad got a quick drink of Gatorade and tossed the bottle out the window.

“Dale Maxwell comes out of the pits first,” the announcer said. “The pit crew got him out of there in 14.2—not too shabby.”

“Yeah, they’re really firing on all cylinders now,” the commentator said. “And Dale sure looks like he’s driving with new life. Maybe he got something extra in that chapel service today, huh? Maybe a little extra power?”

“We’ll see if he can hold this slim lead. . . .”

TIM WALKED DOWN PIT ROAD,
careful not to get in anybody’s way. Several cars had already been taken to the garage, and their pit boxes had been removed. One driver who was involved in a nasty crash had been taken to the infield care center, and Tim watched as the man’s wife, sparkling with lots of jewelry (even her sunglasses had diamonds), was escorted to the center.

The sun baked him, but he wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. The sounds and sights sent a surge of excitement through him, and he felt like this was what he wanted to do—to race like Dale Maxwell, just like his dad had wanted to do.

The race continued without another yellow flag until lap 304. Dale was in third place when he entered the pits.
With four new tires and a full tank, he roared back to the track in a jam of cars.

Tim switched to the race coverage on the radio. The guys in the booth were saying this might be the last pit stop. “And it looks like Dale Maxwell just took control of this race, boys. He’s driving like the old Dale.”

As Tim switched the radio back, he wondered what that meant. What was different with Dale now? Cars followed the pace car until it finally trailed off. Tim rubbed his hands together as the green flag flew and the engines roared past the starting line.

“This one is ours, guys,” Dale said.

They had gone 324 laps around the 1.5 mile track, only 14 miles from the finish of the 500-mile race, when a black car, #13, blew through the pack and into second position behind Dale.

“Oh no,” Tim muttered.

“Stay low. Stay low,” Scotty said. “You got Devalon coming up high. He’s swapping paint with just about everybody behind you.”

The radio clicked twice.

“Right behind him is #27.”

The radio clicked again.

Tim knew that #27 was Butch Devalon’s teammate. They would try to push Dale and overtake him if they could.

“Come on,” Tim mumbled.

“You got ’em, Dale,” T.J. said. “Just stay in the groove.”

Tim remembered the first year #27 raced for the cup. His father had said the guy didn’t deserve to race at the top level. “Last year he hit everything on the track but the lottery.” The memory made Tim smile.

Dale stayed low around the track with the two Devalon cars right behind him. When the white flag came out, signaling the last lap, #13 and #27 were side by side, following Dale by less than a car length.

“One more, Dale,” T.J. said. “You can do it.”

Dale came up on a slower car in the middle of the track just before the first turn.

“Stay low. Stay low,” Scotty said. “Coming up on the right is #13. At your bumper.”

They hit the turn, and Tim watched Dale sail around the corner and into the backstretch. He lost him in the line of haulers and RVs, so he instinctively looked at the stands and all the eyes riveted on the three cars. He looked at the computer screen, but crew members were bunched up in front of it. He moved to the wall as the lead cars screamed into turns three and four. Tim glanced at the starter, who grabbed the checkered flag and held it like it was a life vest in a hurricane.

“Go high,” Scotty said. “Stay high. Stay high. . . .”

A plume of smoke rose from the back turn.