Page 63 of Happy Hour

Once Jameson got riled up, it was pretty much impossible to calm him down. You just had to wait for the storm to pass.

“Don’t tell me to calm down, Kyle!” Jameson snapped back. “It’s bad enough I’m fishtailing all over the fucking place and now I got him all over me. I can’t keep the car straight. We’re lucky I haven’t wadded it up already.”

“Mason went to talk to Frank.” Kyle replied and then threw the clipboard across the pit box. It smashed against a pile of tires on the ground beside us.

“That bad?” I asked Kyle as he busied himself looking over the lap times and the last adjustments they made to the car, tugging at his hair in frustration.

Everything was kept electronically in the teams laptop so they could immediately decipher lap times, fuel mileage, and adjustments they made to the car. That way, if they made an adjustment that didn’t work; they could document it and know the result the adjustment had to the lap times or even fuel mileage.

Kyle sighed shaking his head. His eyes rose to meet mine as he pointed towards the screen in front of him. “Jameson’s right.” I watched the screen closely with him. “The car is all over the place. We made a spring adjustment but it’s still off.” Kyle motioned with his hand gesturing how the car would move up the track on Jameson. “When he drives into the corner, it wants to come around on him. That’sexactlywhen Darrin gets on him.” He flicked his hand in disgust towards the screen. “He’s trying to make him crash.”

“Cole, you copy?” Jameson asked.

“10-4, what’s up?” Bobby replied. “I see you got your hands full up there.”

“Where the fuck are you? Help me out up here.”

“I’m about two seconds behind you.” I could see Bobby coming out of turn four. “I’m pulling off though. I got a flat right front.”

“Well fuck,” Jameson scoffed. “that’s justgreat.”

Kyle got back on the radio again after entering some data in the computer and talking to Mason again. “Bring it in. We need to make some adjustments to the springs.” He told him. “I want to try putting a wedge in the rear springs and make a track bar adjustment. Tony wants to change the air pressure in the rear tires as well.”

Jameson slowed coming out of turn three to make his way onto pit lane when Darrin clipped his right rear corner and spun him.

Jameson tried to correct it, and did at first, but the car came back around on him and sent him into the inside wall.

Both Kyle and I jumped up in the pit box to get a better look.

His car was smashed against the inside wall entering pit lane.

It was junk. There was no waythatcar, was racing in Sunday’s race.

“You okay, Bud?” Kyle asked.

Jameson didn’t respond, he was already ripping his gear away. We could now see him pull himself from the car, tearing hoses off and throwing his gloves and helmet inside the car.

The paramedics were over there trying to get him to get in the aide car but he was refusing.

Kyle yanked me forward. “Come on, I know what he’s about to do.”

Yeah well, I knew too.

In instances like this, Jameson reacted first and then thought later, always had.

After today, it wasn’t lost on anyone that Darrin Torres had never heard of the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” in NASCAR.

There are written rules that you abide by as a driver and enforced strictly by NASCAR and its officials.

Then you have the unspoken rules, usually enforced by the veteran drivers, though all drivers areexpectedto follow them. And honestly, most veteran drivers have no problem letting the rookie drivers know about the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” whentheyfeelthey’veforgot.

The rules were simple really: If you’re a lapped car, give room to the leaders. If you’re a lapped car, don’t block and don’t challenge the leader. When bump drafting, use caution and never bump in draft through a corner. And finally, race with respect during practice, it was practice after all, not the race.

Like I said, Darrin had obviously never heard of this.

Kyle and I had just made it back to the garage area when we saw Jameson leaned inside Darrin’s car trying to pull him out with Spencer and Aiden in Frank, his crew chief’s, face.

Kyle ran up to Jameson while I trailed close behind him. Kyle grabbed him by his racing suit, but with how angry Jameson was right then, it was going to take more than Kyle to pull him away. His expression was lived, his chest heaving with deep breaths, similar to a bull.

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