St. Dale

car had an off day-I don’t remember what the problem was, if I ever knew. Anyhow, it was all Dale could do to keep up with Darrell Waltrip and Rusty Wallace. On the final laps, Wallace was in the lead and Dale was trying to get around him, which at a little track like this one means there’s going to be some bashing and banging in the bargain. ‘Rubbin’ is racin’,’ he always said.

“Well, Earnhardt and Wallace, concentrating on this high speed duel of theirs, started drifting high toward the wall on Turn Two. Darrell Waltrip, who was running right behind them, figured that was his chance. All he had to do was snake past the two of them on the inside while they were concentrating on each other, and then hope that his Chevy had enough power to slip by them before they slid back down in his path. Waltrip said later he figured when he made his move that he’d have either a heck of a pass or a heck of a mess.”

“And Waltrip won?” asked Cayle.

“He sure did,” said Harley. “The big surprise is that Rusty came in fourth and Dale ninth. Their duel hadn’t done either one of them any good. They were really contending for points toward winning the championship that year, so that last-ditch battle really cost them.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” said Cayle.

“What do you mean?” asked Bill from across the aisle.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe Rusty wished to keep Earnhardt from getting past him, thinking that would be synonymous with winning the race, but it wasn’t.”

“I did that once,” said Bill.

She looked at him as if to say Did what? But this wasn’t the time to talk about it.

“Where should we leave the wreath?”

“The Infield Gate,” said Harley. “It leads directly onto the track. But Ratty will need some time to get the wreath out of the luggage compartment, so let’s get the feel of the place first. I think it would be all right if we went in and walked around it. You get a different perspective on the race from the track level than you do from watching it on television, or even sitting in the stands. Come on-you’ll see what I mean.”

“Those front row seats are really close,” said Karen. “If you were going 60 miles an hour coming out of a turn, it would look like you were going to plow straight into the seats. Can the drivers actually see the spectators at that speed?”

“Oh, they can,” said Harley. “If somebody is cheering you on or giving you the finger every time you loop past his seat, it can really affect your mood. Tony Stewart swears he won a race here one time just to spite a guy on the front row who pissed him off.”

“This looks very different from Bristol,” said Bekasu.

“Drives different, too,” said Harley.

When they got back to the Infield Gate, Ratty was waiting for them, dwarfed by a giant horseshoe of yellow silk roses. The black satin ribbon stretched across it said “In Memory of The Intimidator” in white stick-on letters.

“Photo opportunity,” said Bekasu without noticeable enthusiasm.

“We ought to take pictures of the laying of the wreath as well,” said Cayle. “Who’s going to do the honors this time?”

Jesse Franklin stepped forward with his customary cherubic smile. “Well, this might be a good time,” he said. “I don’t want to have a lot of hard acts to follow in the eloquence department. Ray, what do you say we team up on this?”

The older man’s scowl did not waver, but he said, “Suits me,” as he took the wreath from Ratty. He knelt down and leaned the wreath against the metal gate. “Do I say something now?” he asked. “Okay. Well…I hereby lay this wreath to honor the memory of the greatest driver NASCAR ever had. Dale Earnhardt, the Intimidator. Gone but not forgotten.”

“Not all that gone,” muttered Justine, who was immediately shushed by her sister.

“Racing’s not the same without you, Dale. Back in Nebraska, I plowed my alfalfa field with a giant number 3 last season. That was my farewell to you. I still root for the Big Red in football, but I just don’t give a damn who wins in NASCAR anymore,” Ray Reeve went on. “I’m done. Your turn, Jesse.”

Jesse Franklin spent a few moments looking out at the bare track, the rows of empty bleachers, and then down at the horseshoe of yellow roses. He summoned a tremulous smile. “I’ve come a long way to see these places,” he said. “Saw him race one time at our speedway in Michigan. It was the 1999 IROC. The time he raced against Dale Junior, the two of them beating and banging their way toward the finish line, and then Dale edging past his boy at the end by a whisker. Oh, that was a heart-stopper, that race.

“But you know, I thought about him more during the week than I did on race days. I work for the county, you know. Auditor. That may sound pretty impressive if you don’t know any better, but I’ll tell you it can be frustrating as all get-out sometimes. Local politics: being nice to idiots who hold a higher job rank than you do. You don’t know how many times I’ve watched the qualifying races and wished we could do that in real life: reshuffle everybody’s ranking every single week. But, no! My supervisor is always my supervisor-he outranks me every darned week, and I have to smile when he yells, and laugh when he calls me Doofus, and just take everything he dishes out. You may think they can’t fire a government employee, but there’s ways to get it done. Layoffs. Reassignment. Job restructuring. Oh, they can do anything they want, and you could take them to court, but you’d never prove it. And I’m not too many years from retirement-too old to start over, too young to quit working. I need this job, and the pension that comes with it. So I’m determined to be agreeable if it kills me, and I put up with whatever those fool bureaucrats dish out.

“But, you know, Dale didn’t have to do that. When he raced he was in that car all by himself-no supervisor, no coordinator, no committees. And if somebody was going too slow, or got in his way-bam! He just tapped them aside and kept on going. Lord, it was better than tranquilizers, watching him race. I just wish you could be like that in real life. Do it your way, and tell people to like it or lump it. Thump them if they won’t step aside. And that was his real life. I don’t suppose I could be like that, even on the track and certainly not in the courthouse, but, oh, my! It did my heart good just to watch him work.”

“Amen,” said Ray Reeve.

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, which Harley feared would be broken by a disapproving Rev. Knight, Ratty Laine said, “Well, it’s hot enough out here to poach golf balls. Why don’t you hit the souvenir shop for your Martinsville pins, and then we’ll get back into the air-conditioned bus. We’re putting up in the Days Inn down the road tonight.”

The awkwardness was broken, and the group surged back toward the parking lot, all talking at once. Bill Knight caught up with Harley. “What an odd speech,” he murmured. “Were you surprised?”

Harley shook his head. “That old boy is practically a poster child of an Earnhardt fan. He was loved by the roughnecks, people who have trouble with authority, or else folks who were slumming.” He nodded toward Terence as he said that last word.

Chapter XIII

The Garage Mahal

The Richard Petty Museum and DEI

“North Carolina loved Dale Earnhardt so much they even named a county after him.” Harley Claymore had been saving up this joke for more than three hundred miles. “And here we are-in Our Dale County.”

The sign at the side of the highway welcomed travelers to Iredell County, but given Harley’s accent, there was a good chance he’d have pronounced it “our dale” even if it wasn’t a play on words. Bekasu looked up sharply, and Harley could see her gearing up to explain to her fellow passengers that, in fact, the county had been named after some prominent North Carolina family in colonial times, but Justine must have also anticipated that speech, because she elbowed her sister in the ribs, all the while smiling sweet encouragement for Harley to go on.