Once Around the Track Read online

  Suzie stared. “How?”

  “Fiberglass. You know how to apply fiberglass for repair work? No? Well, it comes in a close-woven mat, and you just mix it with resin and paint it onto the split part of the shell, smooth it down with a roller, maybe sand it down after it dries, and it’ll just knit that shell right back up into one piece. Only take a couple hours, I reckon.”

  She was gazing into those drowned eyes again in bewildered fascination. “So you are going to spend the evening saving the life of an injured turtle?”

  “Uh-huh.” He glanced away. “Laraine, do you have any lettuce you were going to throw away? Figure he might get hungry while we’re waiting for the stuff to harden.”

  Like one who is hypnotized yet still awake, Suzie saw her hand place itself on the young man’s arm, and she heard herself say, “Do you need any help? I could come with you. Maybe bring you some dinner while you’re working?”

  “Well, thank you,” said Badger. “But I expect you ought to be getting back to Atlanta before it starts getting dark. The roads aren’t too well marked up here. But thank you for coming. And you can tell those folks I’d be glad to talk to them about driving.”

  He stopped just long enough to accept a plateful of chopped lettuce from Laraine; then he was gone. Suzie stared for a few moments at the door to the café, and then, still dazed, she shook a packet of Sweet & Low into her empty coffee cup and tried to drink it.

  From behind the counter Laraine was watching her with a pitying smile.

  Finally, Suzie murmured, “But he’s so sweet. From what you said, I thought he’d be some kind of leering, sex-crazed playboy.”

  Laraine shook her head sadly. “Oh, no, hon. You got the wrong end of the stick. Badger ain’t the motorboat. He’s the turtle.”

  CHAPTER II

  Drive My Car

  ENGINE NOISE

  Your Online Source for NASCAR News & Views

  Wonder Women? Engine Noise is hearing that a new team is being formed in NASCAR-with a twist. The crew chief and pit crew will all be female. An all-woman group of investors, spearheaded by chemical heiress Christine Berenson, is supposed to be putting together this Ladies’ Team for NASCAR Cup racing with the intention of running a full season beginning next year. The wheel man will be a guy, though, because they need a veteran Cup driver to add some experience to this novice team. Who will they choose as their token man? Berenson isn’t ready to announce yet, and since EN ’s prognostication skills are rusty, we might miss the mark, so to ward off all your questions, we say: “Don’t badger us for an answer!”

  #30

  Christine Berenson tapped her computer screen with one perfectly manicured nail. “That last bit is in code somehow, isn’t it?” she asked her visitor.

  The big man leaned across the desk to read the Engine Noise article with its vastly premature, yet accurate, assessment of the new NASCAR team. Then he settled back in the leather visitor’s chair with an enigmatic smile. “Of course, it is. In that last sentence the writer managed to work in the names of Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, and Ward Burton-all veteran drivers who might conceivably be lured back into Cup racing if the right deal came along. Oh, and Badger Jenkins, of course. So they hedged their bets a little on who the driver would be, but they did come up with the right answer. They usually do.”

  She frowned. “How do they find out these things?”

  Her visitor shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by this security leak. In the world of motorsports, the man was a cross between a rock star and the secretary of state. He knew everything and everyone, and in another sphere of influence, he had been an acquaintance of Christine Berenson for twenty years. They had served on several advisory boards together and had exchanged pleasantries at the usual charity events that pass for a social life among the moneyed classes. The man’s current role was that of a friendly expert, giving her advice out of the goodness of his heart, because of their longstanding association. She thought of him as the Big Wheel.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, Christine,” he said. “Engine Noise just reports rumors, which means that word about your team has already leaked out from somewhere. At least this way you know that the news is in the wind. And it isn’t such a worrying disclosure, after all, is it? You were planning to announce it soon anyhow.”

  “But how did they know?”

  He shrugged. “People call in tips to the Web site, just for the hell of it, I guess. The people at Engine Noise talk to hauler drivers, waitresses, shop people. You’ve been looking for a place around Mooresville to locate your operation, aren’t you? Maybe your real-estate agent blabbed. Or someone could have overheard your dinner conversation in a restaurant. But it will be common knowledge soon enough, once your NASCAR application is formally approved, so why fret about it?”

  Christine sighed. “NASCAR application. You have to apply to join this sport, as if it were a country club.”

  “It is, in a way. NASCAR is the only privately owned sport in the world. You should be fine, though. They are chiefly interested in whether you intend to play by the rules and whether you can afford to compete. I don’t think there’s any question of that.”

  “No, I suppose not,” said Christine. “But it is a rather unsettling feeling to know that one is being watched.”

  The man laughed. “Get used to it then! NASCAR is such a small world that you can dial a wrong number and still talk. But by and large, they’re nice people, and if you need any advice, most of them will be glad to help you.”

  “Will they give me recommendations? Our biggest problem is that we don’t know anybody. How do we find mechanics and fabricators and all the rest of the people we need?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Mechanics and fabricators. All female?”

  “That won’t be possible,” she said, with the air of someone rehearsing a sound bite. “Behind the scenes we need good, qualified people regardless of who they are. I just need to know how to find them.”

  “Then hire a team manager who does know the sport, Christine, and then trust that team manager’s judgment. The less you meddle, the better, I’d say, until you get a better sense of what you’re doing. And don’t expect to do a lot of winning in your first year of competition. It will take a while for all the components to jell, you know.”

  “But surely if we hire top-notch people…?”

  “Experience counts,” he reminded her. “You specified an all-female pit crew. That will put you a few laps short on experience right there. They’ll learn soon enough, I expect, but you mustn’t expect too much too soon.”

  “What if the sponsors get impatient?”

  He considered the point. “Winning is pleasant,” he conceded. “But all in all, most sponsors would rather have a personable driver who is popular with the fans than an obnoxious winner who endears himself to no one. Ideally, what you want is a handsome nice guy who wins.”

  “Jeff Gordon.”

  He smiled. She was learning fast. “Exactly. If you could afford him. Which you cannot.”

  She sighed. “It would take the economy of a third-world country to afford him. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that.”

  “It’s not like hiring a pilot, you know, Christine. You’re not hiring a high-speed chauffeur. There’s a lot more involved in the job than just driving the car. Your driver is a brand, an image. He can attract sponsors or scare them off. But tell me: Why Badger Jenkins?”

  Christine stared. “Have you ever seen him?”

  He laughed. “Almost all of him,” he said dryly. “I once saw him change into his firesuit before a race. I can’t say that the sight of any of them in skivvies does much for my blood pressure, but you might be favorably impressed.”

  She thought it best to ignore that remark. “Badger is certainly personable. Photogenic. People seem to like him. To us he seemed an obvious choice.”

  Her NASCAR mentor was silent for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer, but at last he said, “You know, Badger
has had a hiatus in his career. Spent some time between rides, which isn’t a usual thing. Didn’t you ask yourself why that was?”

  “No. We thought we were lucky to have a chance to hire him. I suppose we chalked it up to Fate. But since you brought it up, tell me: Why was he available?”

  He hesitated. “Well, Badger is a nice young man…”

  “Oh God! What is it? Drugs? Alcohol? Girl Scouts? Boy Scouts?”

  “None of the above, Christine. The word around the garage is that he’s just a little laid-back, that’s all.”

  “A race car driver? Laid-back? You mean he loses? He won’t take chances?”

  “Not at all. On the track he’s a mad dog. He’ll try to put that car in places I wouldn’t try to fit a shoe horn. Oh, he’s brave enough, all right. Except that I’m not sure it really counts as brave if you’re so deep in denial that you think death is something that only happens to other people.”

  “Never mind that. You admit he’s a good driver. I know for a fact that he’s gorgeous. So what’s the matter with him?”

  The Big Wheel sighed. “Nothing is the matter with him-at least not by the standards of the old days in racing. But times change. Badger is an old-style Cup driver. Southern, fearless, and likable. If he had been around in the era of Cale Yarborough and Junior Johnson, he’d have been a champion. But now-”

  “Now?”

  “He just wants to race. He thinks that’s what his job is. Drive the car. Then he’d like to go home. He doesn’t work in the textile mill like some of the old-timers did on weekdays, but he definitely thinks he can have another life besides Cup racing. And he can’t.”

  “He can’t?”

  “Not in this day and age, Christine. He has to live and breathe racing. The team is his family. The job is his life. When he isn’t involved in the mechanics of racing, he ought to be giving interviews, doing charity work, filming commercials, and generally keeping himself on the map of celebrity. Dating a movie star would be a nice touch.”

  She shuddered. “You make it sound as if we bought him, instead of just hiring him to race on Sundays.”

  The Big Wheel considered it. “We pay them a lot of money,” he said at last. “And it isn’t forever, you know. The career of an athlete isn’t terribly long in most cases. Twenty years if he’s lucky. Anyhow, if he doesn’t want the job on those terms, there’s ten thousand other guys who would crawl over broken glass to get it. You’d be wise not to let him forget that.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do my best. But he is a good driver, right?”

  “He’s a natural. Now it’s up to you to help him win.”

  “And how do I manage that?”

  “Hire the best people you can find; pay them enough to keep them; don’t meddle too much; let them know you appreciate them; and give them the wherewithal to win.”

  She smiled. “As simple as that, huh?”

  He shrugged. “Well, it’s like diet and exercise. Everybody knows how to do it. The question is: Can you make yourself do what it takes even when it isn’t easy?”

  “I guess I’ll find out,” she said.

  Ralph Earnhardt. Marvin Panch. Benny Parsons. Bobby Allison. She had it now.

  Julie Carmichael stuffed the scrap of newspaper back into the pocket of her jeans. She wondered how other people remembered phone numbers. Or license plates. Street addresses. It was the only advantage she could think of to her unconventional upbringing: every number to her was a NASCAR name and face, which meant that she seldom forgot a number or transposed the digits. The difference between 12 and 21 was Ryan Newman versus Ricky Rudd-you weren’t likely to mix up those two. Her skill at remembering numbers was certainly useful, but it didn’t make up for the rest of her bleak childhood.

  She remembered all the Spam and pinto bean dinners…the smell of motor oil and gasoline that pervaded the small frame house and never quite went away…the bill collectors she’d been sent to the door to deal with, in hopes that a wide-eyed little girl could convince them to leave. Those were hard times, but Daddy always said they would get better. Prosperity was just around the next turn in the track, he used to say. Only it wasn’t.

  She had been an only child back in Rowan County, but she hadn’t felt like one. The real child of the household had been Daddy’s pride and joy-a hulking steel monster with a room of its own: the garage. For as long as Julie could remember, that car, or one of its predecessors, had taken precedence over her. All the spare time that Daddy could steal from his day job went into his relationship with that car-tinkering with it, racing it, repairing it. The car always got fed, got new shoes, got “doctored”-whether she did or not. Like some revered male heir, to whom its parents sacrificed everything in hopes that it would someday support them, the car was catered to, and the family often went without so that the monster’s needs could be met. The car was their hope of prosperity. That had been the plan, certainly. That hunk of steel and plastic was supposed to win races, and ultimately carry them all away to some happily-ever-after beyond Victory Lane, and from there onto bigger tracks and grander rides, until finally they’d have a fancy house and enough money so that everybody could have new shoes and a second helping of meat.

  Well, it hadn’t worked like that.

  Despite all the sacrifices, Big Brother the Car had never lived up to its promise, and Daddy had died too young to make it work or to wise up and try to do something else with his life. Julie decided that it was up to her to even the score between humans and machines, and she figured that cars owed her something to make up for the lousy childhood she’d had. Early on she had worked out a strategy to succeed. She treated herself like a car. She stayed as pretty as she could, because paint schemes matter, and she made excellent grades in high school to streamline her path to greater things. She stayed away from roughneck boys who would have constituted a detour in her life plan, and finally, she won a scholarship to Virginia Tech, where she’d studied automotive engineering with a fierce determination that allowed her no time for socializing or extracurricular activities. She graduated from Tech with highest honors, because she had pursued car knowledge like a bounty hunter going after a fugitive, which in a way she was. After graduation she had her pick of job offers, but instead of heading for a research and development job with one of the big car manufacturers, she had chosen to devote her talents to NASCAR.

  Her advisor’s jaw had dropped when she told him. “NASCAR, Julie?” he’d said. “How could you possibly choose that over an industry job?”

  She’d smiled and said that she thought it might be an adventure, which was true. Industry jobs would always be there, but she thought she’d like to try stock car racing first. “Daddy would have been proud,” she’d said primly, speaking of her family’s racing tradition with a nostalgic pride she did not feel.

  She still had nightmares about standing on the roof of an old sedan with a stopwatch in her hand, ready to time a car that hurtled past her at breakneck speed. She could still feel the dust in her throat and the chill of the night air on her bare legs. Carmichael.

  Her father’s folks had been of Irish descent. Maybe in an earlier time they would have been horse crazy, instead of obsessed with cars. Maybe this obsession with speed was bred in the bone. Sometimes she could feel it, too, but mostly she felt the rage of the slighted child toward the hated favorite. Now, though, she would be in charge.

  We got him.

  Christine Berenson held up the photo in front of her as if it were a mirror.

  So this is Badger Jenkins.

  As always with Christine Berenson, the professional reaction came before the personal one. She acknowledged that whatever his shortcomings educationally and socially, the camera obviously loved Badger Jenkins, definitely an asset in a world where money buys speed, because sponsors provide the money. Win or lose, a pretty boy in the driver’s seat could bring in corporate sponsors, not to mention selling a million tee shirts, coffee mugs, and other assorted ritual items to his besotted admirers. Her adviso
rs said that Badger Jenkins was a good driver-a seat-of-the-pants driver, all nerves and instinct-but she was more pleased that the other end of him was marketable. For business reasons.

  Well, mostly for business reasons.

  The face that looked back at her from the photo looked nothing like hers. It was a strong, masculine face that seemed composed of sharp edges-prominent cheekbones, a blade of a nose, a jutting jaw-even the brown eyes were piercing. It wasn’t an angry face, though. Focused, perhaps. Determined.

  Struggling to have a thought, Christine told herself with a wry smile, fighting the attraction of that face. He was, after all, just a race car driver. Imagine trying to make him sit through an opera.

  She sighed. If their genders were reversed, she could keep him as a pet and no one would think twice about it, but women were denied that luxury. They were expected to marry someone even more powerful than themselves, and that usually meant someone older and more sharklike. This little one-trick pony would probably end his career in half a dozen years with two million dollars in the bank and four concussions, and think himself both rich and lucky. No, you couldn’t ally yourself with him on any formal basis. Idly, she ran her forefinger along the perfect jawline in the photo.

  But he was undeniably handsome, in the same way that a thoroughbred or a Harrier jet is beautiful: perfection of design with no conscious desire to please. The man was looking away from the camera, absorbed in some private reverie of his own, indifferent to the effect those perfect features might have on the observer. He was too busy being himself to care what anybody thought about him-exactly like a stallion.

  That’s what he reminded her of: her first horse. That little bundle of nerves that was so beautiful and so much stronger than she was. She had to learn, by sheer force of will, to get the better of him by out-thinking him. It was a lesson that had served her well, and one worth remembering now.