Page 54 of The Legend

“What ifthey vote you off the island?” Tate asked him when voting began Friday night.We were all glued to the television along with millions of others like this wassome kind of presidential election. In our eyes it might as well be.

“Thisisn’t Lost,” Jameson replied and then looked over at me in confusion. “Wait,”he looked around in confusion, “who votes you off the island?”

“I don’tthink that’s the right show,” Aiden replied.

“It’s allright baby, we understood.” I assured Jameson rubbing his back.

Tatesmiled. “By the way, the show was Survivor.”

“Whocares?”

Anybodycould vote aside from drivers, team members, and NASCAR officials. Theinteresting twist was that family could vote.

Since theystarted the race last year, it had been the most talked about race of the yearbecause it was completely unpredictable. No one knew until the morning of therace if they would be racing or what the format would be.

Because ofthis, it forced the drivers to become more interactive with the fans. Theyneeded their votes to race.

Jamesonhad issues with that. He would always give a fan the attention they deserved ifhe had the time and it was the right atmosphere. It wasn’t that he didn’tappreciate them because he did. He just wasn’t as friendly as Tate and Paulwere. He also never believed the hype surrounding him. He was simply Jameson.

Tate hasalways been a fan favorite, winning the most popular driver every year since2012. Jameson, he was too controversial for that. You either loved him or hatedhim. If you hated him, you didn’t understand him. His relationship with hisfans over the years was sketchy but most loved him because if any driver in theseries would put on a good show, it was Jameson. He was the type of driver thatwould put everything he had into every lap. Even if it was the middle of therace, he fought hard for every spot.

Driverslike Paul Leighty and Nathan Wise or even Brody Williams, the rookie this year,was where it got interesting. They were all good drivers but they lacked theheart Jameson had.

Jameson,Paul, Bobby and Tate were trashtralkin’ all nightwhile the weather had its own competition. Winds, rain, lightening, you nameit, and Delaware was experiencing it. It was crazy. It was as if mother-naturewanted to cast her own vote. Up until the start of the race, we had no idea ifthey would even be able to get the race in. Over the years NASCAR had discussedgoing to rain tires and letting them race in the rain but it was decided thatthey would keep with the tradition of the sport and that meant no rain tires.

Thatafternoon, the boys sat around the haulers watching the weather and viewingrain scanners all trying to predict the next twelve hours.

Gatheredat a table right outside the hauler, everyone tried to keep under the awning toavoid the rain, or better yet the edge of the awning that would get you rightdown your shirt at the most inappropriate times.

Sitting onthe edge of the table, Jameson twisted around and tapped the screen with aSharpie marker, the cap in his mouth as he signed autographs for a groupsurrounding us. “That’s notlookin’ good man,” hesaid mostly to Bobby who was seated next to him.

“Ah hell man,have some faith.” Bobby said with a smiled looking at the screen with a wholelot of green flashing. “There’s one little patch right there with no rain. Withany luck, we’ll have that over the track come race time.”

Jamesonlaughed turning back to the crowd nodding his head. Regarding the fans with alaugh, he joked with them. “He’s always so optimistic.”

The crowdlaughed continuing to push posters and photographs at him. It never got easierwatching pit lizard horde around my husband. Though I was a confident MamaWizard and knew that he only had eyes for me, it wasn’t easy watching womentouch him ways I only did. Every so often one got brave and would reach out totouch his arm, or shoulder, or even his leg. Every time, he politely removedtheir hand. He didn’t like being touched by strangers. I think it had to dowith his weird skin phobia.

Aside fromtouchy feely pit lizards, the other obstacle on weekends like this was thepress. They were everywhere you looked.

All thelocal sports channels covered the voting and driver reactions, even interviewedthe fans. Viewers for the race skyrocketed and it turned out that more peoplewatched this particular race than those who watched the Super Bowl.

The votingwas open for twelve hours, started at 8pm Friday night and ended at 8amSaturday morning. The results were announced at 10am. After that it was a maddash for drivers and crews who were selected to practice and test out the cars.They had up until 2pm to make changes. The driver introductions began and therace format was revealed to the drivers for the first time by the fans. Onceselected, that’s all the drivers knew. Race format wouldn’t be revealed untillater for the purpose of them not having the jump on anyone else. Some teamswould set their cars up for the main but wouldn’t know how many laps it was soyou couldn’t set it up for a long run when you never knew if you would berunning fifty lap’s verses two hundred.

The fansvoted on everything; how many drivers were chosen, if there would be aninversion and when and how many cars would be inverted. One thing was set instone; it was run like your average Saturday night race at the local tracks.

You hadhot laps, qualifying, heat races, trophy dashes, and then the main event.

This yearit had been decided that there would be twenty-four drivers chosen. This meantnineteen drivers went home.

Among theselected were Tate, Bobby Cole, Paul Leighty, Travis Sheets, Brody Williams,Steve Frey, Nathan Wise, and of course Nadia, the only woman driver in the Cupseries. Jameson and her still didn’t mix well and I couldn’t stand to be withinfive feet of her.

They setthe schedule for four heat races with six drivers for ten laps each. Six, fourlap trophy dashes with four drivers and then two fifty lap main events. Betweenthe two fifty lap mains, they would invert the field. The catch her was thatyou didn’t know where the inversion would take place until the caution came outat the end of the first main event.

Prior tothe race while the guys made adjustments to the cars, me and the girls headedto the merchandise trailers to promote. Usually we had people that helped withthis but for the sake of the event, and the moral, the family ran themerchandise trailer. I think it added to the entire event letting the fans getto see the drivers families and understand that we were behind them 100% anddid everything we could to help them.

Nancy andEmma were the most cheery. They bounced around like this was their home withsweatshirts and hats on. Arie and I were less entertained by this and more byAlley and Lexi.

“He justsat there in the closet chugging a fifth of Vodka like nobody’s business.” Lexitold Arie as they organized the t-shirts and posters with Alley and me. Alleygawked at her but looked back at the merchandise trailer looking for Cole whowe still hadn’t found. We lost him sometime after qualifying. Casten claimed hewas with Jacob, Tate’s son but no one knew for sure.

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