I feel sad.
His bruises from the accident had nearly faded away before he figured out what it was he really did feel, which was that “I feel sad” had been the truth, but the rest of the sentence would be, “…sad that Dad wasn’t alone in the truck when he wrecked it, but not sad that he’s dead, because he was never around much anyhow.”
He had breezed in from one of his long hauls with speedway tickets, and announced that they were going to have a family outing. He had a short run in the truck that weekend in the vicinity of Concord, so they’d ride along with him, and go on to the track after he made the delivery. Matthew’s mother had been doubtful about the idea. Would he get into trouble taking them along as passengers on his run? Matthew knew that she’d have been just as happy to watch the race on television. She didn’t like the noise and the crowds of the speedway itself, and she was always worried that things cost too much. But she had allowed herself to be persuaded to go along. After all, Matthew didn’t get to spend a lot of time with his dad, and both of them were so excited at the prospect of going. They never made it to the race, though. The wreck happened on the Interstate just a few miles from Loudon. The last lap, Matthew thought to himself. Just like Earnhardt-almost home free, but not quite. He had never cried for his father, but sometimes even now he would bury his face in the fur of the teddy bear that the highway patrolman had brought him in the hospital, and he would cry for Dale.
The Martinsville Speedway was almost within sight of Highway 220, less than a minute’s diversion on a sunny weekday afternoon with no Winston Cup race scheduled until October, but try it on a race day, and you’d better have a full tank of gas to compensate for the time you’d spend idling in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
They had stopped for lunch a few miles up the road at the McDonald’s in the village of Rocky Mount. To the pilgrims’ great delight, the place was decorated with a NASCAR theme. Between bites of French fries they studied the stock car wallpaper and took turns identifying the cars featured in the design. Earnhardt was there, of course, in the black number 3. Harley was summoned to identify the red and yellow number 17 car with the Tide detergent logo. Darrell Waltrip, of course, from days gone by.
“That bronze-looking job-the number 6-that’s Mark Martin. The Viagra car,” said Ray Reeve.
Jesse Franklin chuckled. “That Viagra car runs great all right, but they have trouble keeping the hood down.”
“That last car, the bright yellow number 4 car. I believe that’s Ernie Irvan,” said Jim Powell. “His dad builds big old monster toolboxes for race teams. Nice folks.”
The identification complete, they took turns posing for group snapshots with the wallpaper as a backdrop, and finally Ratty had to announce that they were welcome to stay as long as they liked, but he and the bus would be departing in five minutes.
“This is both the oldest and the smallest of the tracks in the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit,” said Harley, a few miles down the road. “In fact, Martinsville is even older than NASCAR. It was founded by Mr. Clay Earles back in 1947. The track is a point-five-two-six oval-but the banking isn’t steep like Bristol. The odd thing about this track is the paving.”
“Two drag strips connected by U-turns!” said Jim Powell. “We love this track. Short track racing is the best!”
“I guess I ought to translate Mr. Powell’s comment,” said Harley. “What he means is that the track here at Martinsville is paved with asphalt on the straightaways and concrete in the turns. It makes for a tricky racing surface-takes some getting used to. Power steering was first used in Winston Cup racing here in Martinsville in 1981. Anybody know who the driver was?”
Obviously they didn’t, because they guessed Petty, Waltrip, Yarborough, Allison, and Earnhardt.
“Geoff Bodine,” said Harley.
“That some pretty deep trivia, Harley,” said Justine. “Can’t you ask us something easier?”
“Okay. Who holds the record for the most wins at Martinsville?”
“Earnhardt!” cried a chorus of voices.
“Richard Petty,” said Sarah Nash.
Harley nodded. “How’d you know?” he asked her.
“Stands to reason,” she said. “Petty has more wins overall.”
“Well, you’re right. It was indeed King Richard. We’ll be dropping in on him tomorrow morning, in a manner of speaking.”
The Martinsville Speedway was not perched on the summit of a hill, posing, like the Bristol Motor Speedway. In Martinsville, unless you knew to slow down on the four-lane and look to the south, you might only catch sight of the structure as you were driving past, too late to make the turn. Ratty, who had been well-briefed on the routes for his driving assignment, was going slow enough to make the turn, so that the passengers first saw the track as a backdrop for a neighborhood of small, neat brick homes.
“It must be a nightmare to live there on race weekends,” said Bekasu with a little shudder.
“Don’t you believe it,” Jesse Franklin called out. “Those folks can make good money renting out parking spots!”
“There’s a railroad track that runs right behind the Speedway,” said Harley. “Sometimes during a race you can watch the train go by.”
“It must seem strange to you to see all these parking lots so empty,” said Cayle.
“Well, we’d come for practice runs a few days before the race,” said Harley. “The place wasn’t always crowded then, but, yeah, it does look unnaturally peaceful right now.”
“That’s why it’s going to take us two minutes to get there instead of two hours,” said Ratty without turning around.
Justine waved a heavily braceleted arm. “Hey, Harley! I got another trivia question for y’all!”
“Fire away, Justine,” he said, deciding that with two minutes until arrival he could afford to be generous.
“Okay, everybody. What piece of furniture do Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, and Bobby Allison all definitely own?”
Jim Powell laughed. “Well, I’m sure they all own a sofa, a bed, a table-but I believe the answer you’re looking for, Justine, is a grandfather clock. Right?”
“Trick question,” said Harley to a collection of bewildered expressions. “When you win the race at Martinsville, they don’t give you a trophy. They give you a grandfather clock, which seems fitting since it’s the oldest NASCAR track, but it’s a tough one.”
Ratty parked the bus next to the little house that served as the offices for the Speedway, and Harley led the Number Three Pilgrims out into the parking lot. He motioned for them to crowd around, so that he could speak his piece before they wandered off to use up more rolls of film.
“I have a favorite story about this track,” said Harley. “It dates from the time when I was racing. I’ll bet the North Carolinians in the group remember Hurricane Hugo.” He saw a few solemn nods-Sarah Nash, Jim Powell, Bekasu and Cayle. “It was the fall of 1989. Every twenty years or so, it seems like North Carolina gets broadsided by a monster hurricane. My folks used to talk about Hurricane Hazel in the early fifties, and then there was Camille. The one I remember best is Hurricane Hugo. It cut inland through the piedmont North Carolina, and even made it up into the Virginia Blue Ridge, ripping out oak trees as if they were staples. It finally blew itself out and ended up a soggy tropical storm, but it left millions of dollars’ worth of damage in its wake. And the bad weather played havoc with everybody’s travel schedules.
“Well, the next race after the hurricane was here in Martinsville. In fact, the day of the qualifying in Martinsville, the Charlotte area, where a lot of the teams and drivers are based, was digging out from under all the damage left by Hugo. A lot of people assumed that Martinsville would postpone the qualifying trials on account of the hurricane, but they didn’t. By the time Sunday rolled around for the race itself, the weather would be sunny and warm as if nothing had ever happened, but the drivers had to be here well before then, for the qualifying.