Checkered Flag (2 page)

TIM CARHARDT GRABBED
some spice cake and juice from the snack table at the front of the high school meeting room and sat in his usual place. Church kids straggled in, yawning. The guys all had bed hair, and their clothes hung on them like they were a few sizes too big. The girls were the exact opposite. Every hair in place. Perfumed up and smelling like they were in some kind of contest for who could attract the most bees. All of them in their Sunday best.

Tim’s approach to church was pretty much like school—he sat in the back and tried not to attract attention. For the most part, he’d been successful. Oh, the leader of the group had said hello to him every time, using Tim’s name. Pastor Gordon was his name. He looked like some guy who had stepped right out of a magazine advertisement for
hair conditioner, but he seemed okay. His new wife had made an effort to welcome Tim too, but he tried to avoid them.

Cassie Strower strolled in with Mrs. Gordon, talking, laughing, and cradling her Bible to her chest. She noticed Tim and waved, moving through the plastic folding chairs toward him. She didn’t eat donuts or drink juice and seemed to always carry a bottle of water.

“Isn’t it great about Jamie?” she said, sitting in front of him. “Did you see the coverage yesterday or the article in the newspaper?”

Tim had heard the guy who delivered their paper pass by the driveway early this morning in a truck that sounded like it needed a new exhaust and plugs for the engine. It was still dark, but Tim couldn’t get back to sleep, so he walked out to get the paper and have a look. The reporter’s name was Calvin Shoverton, and he had interviewed Jamie and Dale about her qualifying run. Tim had left the paper open on the kitchen table for Mrs. Maxwell and gone for a walk. He came back with wet shoes and cuffs and smelled Mrs. Maxwell’s eggs and biscuits cooking—a Sunday morning treat she’d started making him when she learned he liked them.

“Yeah, looks like old Devalon’s plan backfired on him,” Tim said.

Cassie nodded. “I talked with Jamie late last night, and she was as happy as I’d ever heard her. It’s almost like God is rewarding her in some way. You knew about what happened to her, right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cassie talked about a “spiritual awakening” or something like that. She believed Jamie had finally committed her life to God. Cassie said she’d been praying for Jamie a long time and couldn’t be more excited and blah, blah, blah. All this God junk was okay for some people, but not Tim. He just stared at her and listened until her mouth stopped moving.

“Yeah, that’s great,” he said, taking another bite of spice cake. Christians really got to him sometimes with their talk about changed lives and new hearts and “the Spirit” moving and stuff like that. They had a language all their own, but he had to admit they made mean spice cake.

Pastor Gordon got their attention, so Cassie turned around. They took prayer requests, and Cassie mentioned Jamie.

Pastor Gordon said, “We really need to remember her and her dad in Denver today and pray that Dale would get another opportunity to bring God glory.”

Tim wiped his hands on his pants and rolled his eyes. These were good people, but what they really wanted was for Dale to win, and they wanted God on
their side. Tim wanted Dale to win too, but not because of God. And if Cassie was right that Jamie had jumped off the deep end into the religious pool, then the whole family had gone over the edge. He appreciated everything Dale and Mrs. Maxwell wanted to do for him by taking him into their family, and Kellen was a fun kid to play with, but Tim was sure they wanted him to believe like them and live like them and get dressed up and go to church, which he didn’t like. But what alternative did he have?

“Any other requests?” Pastor Gordon said.

Somebody’s mother was having surgery, another person’s cat was sick, and on and on. Tim wanted to put duct tape over their mouths so they could pray silently.

Tim closed his eyes and put his head in his hands.

Somebody nudged him, and he woke up with Cassie staring at him and other people laughing. “You were kind of snoring,” Cassie whispered.

“Sorry,” he said, looking at the pastor.

Pastor Gordon smiled and picked up his Bible. “So what do we see about this woman who comes to the well?”

“She was thirsty?” a guy named Trace said.

Everybody laughed.

“That’s not a bad observation,” Pastor Gordon
said. “And isn’t it interesting that Jesus was right there when this thirsty woman came along?”

Cassie raised a hand. “Didn’t people usually go to draw water when it was cool—like in the morning and evening?”

“Good point,” he said. “You usually didn’t see anybody there in the middle of the day because it was hot. So why would this woman have come there then?”

“Maybe she was baking spice cake,” Trace said.

Everybody but Pastor Gordon laughed. He looked to the back of the room. “Tim, what do you think? Why would this woman come at the hottest part of the day to do something nobody else wanted to do at that time?”

Tim shrugged. “Probably wanted everybody to leave her alone.”

The pastor smiled. “That’s exactly it. Very good. As we see later in the passage, this woman had done a bunch of bad things. She had a bad reputation. So it makes sense that she would come when no one else was there.”

Pastor Gordon said Jesus was there at the well, and because there was a problem between his people and her people they shouldn’t have talked, but they did. She’d had a bunch of husbands, and Pastor Gordon compared her to some women who hung around NASCAR garages looking for a new boyfriend.

“Jesus knew she was sinful, but he offered her living water,” Pastor Gordon said.

Tim was just as confused as the woman about the living water stuff, but he listened and tried to understand. He had never thought much of Jesus. He’d heard his name at the tracks, of course, but not in a good way. He always thought of Jesus as a guy with a halo around his head, with a blank stare and ready to jump on anybody who did anything wrong. But if this story was true and he offered something to this woman who had done a lot of bad things, maybe Tim was wrong about the guy. Maybe there was something more.

He tuned out the rest of the message, and when it was over he walked into the hall.

Cassie caught up with him. “Good observation in there. You were paying attention.”

“Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then,” Tim said, repeating a saying of his father’s. He moved toward the door.

“We’ll be watching the race this afternoon,” Cassie said.

JAMIE TOOK
the cell phone from her dad and said good-bye to her mom. Her parents prayed with each other before every race, and her dad needed all the help he could get during this one. He was on the bubble to get into the Chase, which gave the top 12 racers a chance to win the cup. Jamie had qualified the #14 car for the pole position and done something no one had ever done in NASCAR—qualify when she wasn’t yet 18 years old. Though the other drivers congratulated her and gave her kudos, she knew some had complained.

“She holds a valid license,” one official had said. “We could have kept her off the track, but we agreed the license trumped her age.”

That was the end of it, though she could have bottled Butch Devalon’s stare at her during the drivers’ meeting
before the race. The guy had a toothpick in his mouth, and he cracked it in two while looking at her. She wanted to make a face and hold up a sign that said, “Get Over It—You’ve Been Clawed by the Tigress,” but she didn’t. She did smirk a bit, however.

Standing in the pits behind the war wagon was an experience in Denver. Because the stands were built in much the same way as Bristol’s, you got the feeling of being enclosed, like at a coliseum. A canopy stretched over the stands to block the beating sun—the same kind of look as the Denver airport.

On her first trip here, Jamie had sat with her mom and Kellen in the expensive seats. Video screens were installed on the back of each seat, and you could watch a virtual dashboard of your favorite driver, listen to radio communication, and see in-car video. Whether a fan sat there or in the cheaper seats, it was one of the best places in the country to watch a race. The stands felt right on top of the track, and the infield was sunken so all the RVs and TV trucks didn’t block the view.

The lighter air in Denver affected the cars in lots of ways. There was a special setup for the carburetor so it wouldn’t bog down at the 5,280-foot elevation. Jamie’s dad said those high-altitude directions for baking were just as important for racing.

There was a moment of silence for some victims of
a flash flood in a Colorado canyon and then a flyover from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. The wind picked up, and all the drivers seemed concerned about the crosswinds that were gusting up to 20 mph.

Her dad took the green flag and shot ahead with a vengeance. The announcers, writers, and fans were talking about the change in her dad’s racing, and Jamie could sense his confidence rising. It seemed like old times when she was little and he was in his heyday with one of the big teams. He was consistently in the top 10 in every race back then, dueling with the big guns and making the Chase. She was in elementary school and always took autographed pictures of her dad for friends. When he went out on his own, a lot of her classmates didn’t want his autograph anymore.

On lap 19, two cars tapped and spun, leading to a several-car crash in the middle of the pack, many of them the top contenders. Jamie wasn’t as concerned with them. The real race was between her dad and the #17 and #33 cars. The #17 car was 12th in points, with a slim margin over #33 in 13th place. Her dad was 14th and needed to move up two spots to make the Chase.

“Looking good out there, Dale,” Scotty said over the radio. “Stay low and get ready for a pit stop on the next pass.”

“Where’s the competition?” her dad said.

“Just stay in front. We’ve got a long way to go,” Scotty said.

Her dad got four tires and fuel, but it wasn’t the crew’s best pit stop. He made it back to the track in fourth place. The #17 car was right behind him in fifth, and #33 was running in 11th place.

“Looks like #17’s going to push you a little bit,” Scotty said.

“Us old guys need a push every now and then,” her dad said.

Jamie had gone over the standings with her dad the night before. If he won the race and the two drivers ahead of him finished sixth or lower, he was in the Chase. If he came in anywhere else, it would just depend on their point totals at the end of the race.

Jamie knew other drivers were racing conservatively, not going for the win but trying to finish high. That wasn’t her dad’s approach, especially in this race.

Her dad attempted to get back in the lead on the outside, but he couldn’t get around a faster car. That put him behind #17 with #33 only a few cars back in the pack. When #17 moved left and took a position on the inside, her dad was left alone and fell to 15th. But as her dad had said a billion times, sometimes bad things led to good things. The race leaders bunched
up, and when a tire blew on one, six cars were taken out in a plume of smoke and debris.

“Go low. Go low,” Scotty said. “Watch for #22 coming down the track toward you. Come on. Come on. . . . Okay, good. Clear.”

Her dad made it through the wreckage and pitted again, picking up 10 spots, but he was unable to shake the #17 and #33 cars.

“More trouble coming behind,” Scotty said when the green flag flew again. “You got #13 breathing down your neck.”

“I figured we’d meet up at some point,” her dad said.

Jamie shook her head and turned, spotting someone in a dark jacket behind her. It was Chad Devalon.

TIM’S BLOOD BOILED
as he watched Butch Devalon bump Dale going into a turn. The #14 car’s rear end slid to the right, and Dale tried to correct.

“Hang on to it. Hang on!” Kellen shouted.

“Whoa!” the announcers said.

“I can’t believe what I just saw,” one of them said.

“Well, that’s how a veteran driver will hang on to it,” another said. “And you won’t see a better piece of driving. To hang on at these speeds is amazing.”

“No yellow flag,” Tim said.

“I hope his tires hold up,” Kellen said.

“I hope he lets 13 by him and spins him out,” Tim said.

Kellen laughed.

Ever since Tim had seen the DVD someone had left at the garage for him—
the one showing that Butch Devalon had caused his dad’s death—he had been trying to come up with a way to get back at the man. He’d been banned from the tracks because of a stink Devalon had made about Tim at Brickyard, so he knew he’d have to do something off the track. But what?

While Tim mulled over his options, Dale made his way to the back of Devalon and was drafting him. The #13 and #14 cars were in tandem with several other cars lining up behind them, pushing them faster and faster around the track.

It was lap 148—only 50 left—when Dale got to the inside of #13 on turn three and the cars behind followed him. Devalon tried to move low and get in line, but he bumped the #33 car and spun him into the infield.

The yellow flag came out, and when the smoke cleared, Devalon and #33 (as well as three other cars) were out of the race.

Tim gave a whoop, and Kellen pumped his fist in the air. Mrs. Maxwell walked into the garage rubbing her hands. People from their church had joined them, watching the race in the living room, but Tim couldn’t concentrate with all those people, the food, and the small talk.

Kellen told her what had happened, and she stared at the TV. “Where’s the #17 car?”

Tim studied the ticker at the top of the screen. “He’s dropped back to 23rd.”

Mrs. Maxwell looked like she was computing some big math problem in her head. “He’s close to the Chase. If he can stay here and keep this position . . .”

With 10 laps to go, Dale was in third but the #17 car was moving up fast.

“Smoke!” Kellen said.

“There’s smoke coming out of the #17 car,” the announcer said. “It’s not clear whether that’s from a tire or—”

“It’s the engine,” another announcer said. “This close to the Chase and the engine goes. I guess that’s racing, but it’s a real shame.”

Tim and Kellen danced around the garage like monkeys who had found fresh bananas.

Dale pushed his car to the end and wound up in fourth place.

“And Dale Maxwell does the improbable here today—only a month ago no one would have given him a chance at the Chase, but now he’s in the 12th spot,” the announcer said.

“You can bet those leaders are starting to look over their shoulders,” a commentator said. “With the right car, this guy can outrace anybody on the track, and he’s finally driving like we all know he can.”

Tim smiled and watched the remainder of the
coverage. When Kellen left, he packed up the equipment he’d been cleaning (which he did on Sunday afternoons because there was nothing else to do while he watched) and picked up a can of fuel in a red container. He sloshed the liquid a bit and set it down, opening a phone book and running his finger past the different shops until he came to “Butch Devalon Racing.”

He stared at the address and tapped his finger, finally taking the can of fuel and putting it in his locker.