St. Dale

the forest of pine trees, he notices a big old palace. It looks like the Disneyland castle, only it’s made of shining black rock with a black sidewalk, and a big old black-and-white Number 3 banner flying from the tallest tower. Sure enough, there’s a big old ‘D-E-I’ logo painted on the drawbridge.

“Well, all of a sudden Richard’s little white frame house didn’t look so good to him anymore. He walked back down the sidewalk to the gate where God was standing, and he said, ‘Lord, I don’t want to seem ungrateful for your gift house here, but something is troubling me. You know, I was a legend in NASCAR. I won seven championships, too, Lord. And I won the Daytona 500 seven times. He only won it once!’

“‘What do you mean, Richard?’ asked God.

“‘Earnhardt!’ he said, pointing to the shining black castle. ‘I want to know why Dale Earnhardt got a better house up here than I did.’

“So God chuckled and then he said, ‘Shoot, Richard, that’s not Earnhardt’s house. It’s mine.’”

The other passengers laughed the polite chuckles of people already familiar with the punch line, but Reverend Knight called out, “Mr. Petty should have known that.”

“Known what?” said Justine, handing the microphone back to Harley.

“That the big black castle was God’s house. You said it had ‘Dei’ painted on the drawbridge. Domus Dei-House of God. So I knew.”

Justine just looked at him and shook her head sadly.

Cayle leaned across the aisle. “D-E-I stands for Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated,” she whispered.

“Oh.” He pulled out a small leather notebook and made an entry. “Dale Earnhardt Incorporated…DEI. Hmmm…”

“Do people in heaven have houses?” Matthew wanted to know.

“Well…” Bill Knight hesitated, trying to scale his answer to his audience. “I think this particular story was metaphorical, although in the Bible, Jesus does say, ‘In my father’s house there are many mansions…’ So I guess you can take it either way, Matthew.”

The boy had gone back to his Game Boy, so perhaps he was satisfied with the ambiguous answer.

“How’s the game going?” Bill asked him, hoping to change the subject.

Matthew shrugged. “It’s okay. Kinda lame, though. I’d rather have a racing game, but this was all they had. This one is about this knight who has a mechanical horse, and a magic mirror that can tell if people are lying to him, and a ring, of course. There’s always a ring.”

“What does it do?”

“Lets you talk to animals.”

“Well, that could be handy.” Bill smiled. “If I’d owned that ring I wouldn’t have had to buy a new living room rug. So what does the knight do with all this gear?”

Matthew sighed. “Fights monsters. Same as every other game. I’d rather have the racing one.”

“Well, maybe we can find you one.” Bill thought that a game championing fast driving might be marginally more healthy than one encouraging players to violence. He tried to remember what games he had played at that age, in his pre-electronic childhood, the era when a house had only one television, a black-and-white set in the middle of the living room. He could remember sandlot baseball and bike riding with the other guys, every dog in the neighborhood trailing after them like a canine convoy. He remembered his childhood in mirror fragments: sunshine streaming through pine needles; a litter of newborn hamsters, like tiny pink thumbs, nestled in an old chiffon scarf; long night drives to his grandparents’ house, his parents in the front seat singing Hit Parade tunes because the radio wouldn’t pick up any stations; his grandfather’s chair with its comforting smell of old leather, tobacco, and cough drops. What would Matthew remember, he wondered.

They were approaching the Speedway by the time Harley remembered that he had not given all the Number Three Pilgrims a chance to say much about themselves. Now there were too many distractions and not enough time to get to everybody. Better save it for the dinner hour. He glanced at his clipboard, and skipped to the next spiel.

“The Bristol Motor Speedway, folks,” he said into the microphone. “At point-five-three-three miles, it’s one of the smallest tracks in NASCAR, but don’t think it’s easy on account of that. One lap on that track takes fifteen seconds. It’s an oval with 36-degree banked turns. With those steep sides, driving there at 100 miles per hour is like trying to fly an F-14 around a clothes dryer. Anybody ever been to a race here?”

No hands went up.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” said Harley. “Bristol races sell out years in advance. It’s almost easier to get a sponsor than it is to get a seat. And the hotels are probably booked into the next millennium. That’s why we’ll be staying at a bed-and-breakfast tonight. Possum Holler-it’s a real nice place they tell me. Got lots of rooms. And they specialize in racing weekends. I hear there’s a sign in the front hall that says Terry Labonte Fans Welcome. Other Racing Fans Tolerated. We’re heading for the Speedway first, though. Bristol Motor Speedway-one of the hardest tickets to come by in all of sports. Oh, Cayle, your buddy Mr. Yarborough made history here at this track in 1973 by leading in every single lap of a 500-lap race.”

“Did you ever drive here?” asked Matthew.

“Sure did, sport. Last time was in ’95. Terry Labonte was leading the pack and Earnhardt was trying to get past him, so on turn 4 of the final lap-headed right for the finish line-Earnhardt gave Labonte a little tap on his bumper that should have spun him out across the infield, leaving the way clear for Dale to finish first. But it didn’t work like that. Somehow Terry Labonte managed to keep enough control over that car to stay on the track, and he went over the finish line in first place-but backwards. Tail end first.”

“Did it count?” asked Matthew.

“Sure did. First is first.”

“And where did you finish?”

“Well, you could say that I finished before Terry did. My engine went out on lap 34, and put me out of competition in a cloud of black smoke. I got to see the finish from pit road, though. It was almost worth it.”

They were silent for a couple of minutes, in deference to Harley and the loss of his engine. Then Justine brightened and called out, “So tell us about this speedway wedding. I might want one someday.”

Harley was ready for this one. “The folks at Bailey Travel figured you’d want to know about that. How are we fixed for time, Mr. Laine?”

At the steering wheel, Ratty Laine gave a grunt of disgust and said out of the corner of his mouth, “Take all the time you want. This road is a parking lot. Volunteer Parkway traffic’s flowing like molasses in January.”

Harley nodded. “I’ll bet the locals know a shortcut or two. Wish I’d thought to ask about one at the airport.”

“But you’ve driven here,” said Matthew.

“Inside the Speedway, not out here,” said Harley, repressing a shudder. “Took a helicopter right to the Speedway parking lot. Wish we could do that today. Anyhow, as I told you before, our first event of the tour is a wedding to be held smack-dab in the middle of the Bristol Motor Speedway. Now you might not think BMS is a romantic kind of place, but as a matter of fact Mike Waltrip proposed to his wife Buffy in Victory Lane after he won the Busch Grand National event here in 1993, so I guess that sets a precedent.”

“I saw that race,” said Jim Powell. “It was two days after Alan Kulwicki died here-the reigning champion he was-and people were still in shock after the plane crash. So when Mike took the checkered flag in the Busch race, he turned that car around and did a Polish victory lap in honor of Alan. And then in Victory Lane, there was Benny Parsons trying to interview him, and Mike went and popped the question to his young lady right on the air. It was quite a moment. Happy and sad all at once. I swear Arlene must have cried for two days after that. Didn’t you, hon?”

His wife gave him a vacant smile and he patted her hand.

Harley noticed that Justine’s face had clouded over at hearing the name Waltrip again, so he hurried to change the subject. “While we’re crawling through this traffic, we have a little something to pass the time here on the bus.” He held up a cassette tape. “One of the couples getting married today is taking their honeymoon with us on this tour, and, as part of their deal with the company, the bride-to-be agreed to send us a homemade tape, talking about how they came to do this. I’m going to play it for you now, so that when the newlyweds come on board, you’ll