Harley thought there was something a little depressing about entering Florida via the Interstate. Maybe it was all the tourist-trap exits, luring motorists to buy fresh oranges or come and see the real fifteen-foot alligator (deceased and leathery, displayed on a ledge surrounded by knickknacks and more oranges). It made him want to get away from there as fast as he could. He could forgive some drivers for hoping that the “95” signs posted along the way meant the speed limit.
Daytona International Speedway was within sight of I-95, at least from the overpass at the U.S. 92 exit. International Speedway Boulevard was as urban a setting as you could imagine for a noisy, traffic-spawning speedway. A Holiday Inn and a Hilton stood across the road, and the sprawling Volusia Mall took up much of the next block. Harley had a spiel written out on yellow index cards: the Daytona 500 is the Superbowl of NASCAR, the first Cup race of the season; the highest paying win and the event that makes you a celebrity. (In these days of David Letterman and Good Morning, America, anyhow, he reminded himself. Sorry, Bodine.) A 2.5 mile super speedway, restrictor-plate track…Daytona is where NASCAR began, back in the forties when drivers raced along the hard-packed sandy beaches, racing tide as well as time. Harley nearly had the hang of this lecture business now, and he thought he could do a good twenty minutes of Daytona stories without too many slipups, but nobody wanted to hear it. Not the folks on this bus.
Oh, maybe Bill Knight would have been all courteous attention, because he would be anyway, even if the lecture was on Sanskrit…in Sanskrit. But the folks who really cared about Daytona probably knew the note card trivia as well as he did and, judging from their expressions at the moment, they didn’t give a damn about any of it.
Maybe someday the excitement would return, and the thrill of Speed Week would matter again, but right now, row upon row of somber faces said it all. This was where he died. Just now, for Earnhardt’s supporters, a visit to Daytona evoked not the excitement of seeing, say, Yankee Stadium, but the somber reflection one might feel at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.
“Park anywhere in the front lot, Ratty,” said Harley. “You know where we’re going first.”
As he turned into the parking lot, Ratty looked over the facade of the Speedway with its adjoining museums, and then he saw what Harley was talking about. “Right,” he said. “I’ll get as close as I can.”
The solemn little group assembled on the sidewalk a few yards from the entrance to the building labeled “Daytona USA.” Beside the white building was a raised flower bed encircled by a knee-high white cement wall. In the center of the circular garden stood Dale Earnhardt on a bronze pedestal, trophy in one hand, and the other arm upraised in a gesture of triumph.
There he was. So many hundred miles they’d come, all the way from Bristol, where he’d won his first race back in ’79, to here, where it all ended twenty-two years later. But the moment frozen in time in that bronze statue was a happier one: February 15, 1998, the day he finally won the big one.
“That’s the Harley Earl Trophy,” said Harley. “My dad had high hopes, I guess, naming me that. Anyhow, that’s what you get when you win the Daytona 500.”
“It was the only race he won that year,” said Jim Powell, nodding to the man in bronze.
“I’ll bet he didn’t care,” said Sarah Nash with a fond smile. “It took him so long to finally win this race, I’ll bet he felt like getting dipped in bronze right on the spot, so that he’d never have to put that trophy down.”
“This is where we ought to put the wreath,” said Cayle.
“That’s what we decided,” said Harley. “But I thought we’d look around first. We’re taking the tour of the Speedway here. They put you on a little tram and drive you around the track. There’s so much history connected with this place we couldn’t cover it in a week. Who won the first Daytona 500?”
“Petty!” said Cayle.
“Lee Petty,” Jim Powell corrected her. “That was the year after young Richard started racing.”
“Okay, that was a hard one. Now for the younger crowd,” said Harley, putting a hand on Matthew’s shoulder. “Who won the last Daytona 500, back in February?”
“Ward Burton,” said Matthew.
Shane shook his head. “Sorry, Matthew,” he said. “It was Little E. Last year Mike Waltrip, and this year Dale Junior.” He looked around for confirmation, but no one met his eyes, except Karen whose stricken look puzzled him. “What?”
“Sorry, Shane,” said Harley, sounding puzzled. “Matthew’s right. Little E. won the July race here in 2001. I expect that’s the race you were thinking of, but Ward Burton did win the 2002 Daytona 500.”
“No! He couldn’t have!” Shane reddened at the looks of pity and confusion on the faces of the others. Were they teasing him? It wasn’t funny. “Junior won,” he said again. “It’s part of the miracle.”
Bill Knight patted Karen’s arm. As soon as he’d heard the name “Ward Burton,” he had remembered his conversation with Pvt. Alvarez back at DEI and he had known what was coming.
“What miracle?” said Jim Powell.
“Overcoming the curse. You know how the Intimidator tried twenty times to win this race and lost from ’79 to ’97, right?”
Nods from the Number Three Pilgrims.
“Ran out of gas. Cut a tire. Hit a seagull, for God’s sake. And then the little girl in the wheelchair gave him the lucky penny in ’98 and he won the race.”
“And he lived three years and three days after that,” said Bill. “We know, Shane.”
“Okay, but since he died he hasn’t lost the Daytona500. Because the drivers of his company DEI have won every year. And they’ll win next year, too. Three times. That’s the miracle.”
A bewildered Jesse Franklin stared at Shane for a moment, as if waiting for a punch line or for someone else to speak up. When no one did, he said, “But, hold on there, son. Ward Burton doesn’t drive for DEI.”
“Ward Burton didn’t win!” Shane said it so loudly that passersby turned to stare at them.
The others looked at him in awkward silence.
Then Justine said gently, “You didn’t see the race, did you?”
He blinked. “Of course, I…well…I…”
Karen was shaking her head. “You made it through the first couple of laps, I think, Shane. Until they showed Kevin Harvick’s car up close, anyhow. The Goodwrench logo. Remember? And then you walked out of the den, saying you couldn’t stand to watch it. You went off to the garage and you spent the rest of the afternoon tuning up my mom’s car, which it did not need. And later you made me tell you who won.”
“That’s right. And you said Junior won it.”
“I know, Shane,” she murmured. “I know I said it. It just wasn’t true, that’s all. But you were so sure that the miracle was going to happen…” Her voice quavered. “I couldn’t tell you any different. I’ll bet half a dozen times since then people have mentioned that Ward Burton won. We even saw a program on television where they said it, but it seemed like it just went right over your head. You didn’t want to be wrong, Shane.”
He stood there, fists clenched, taking heaving breaths, while the other passengers stood in embarrassed silence, contriving to look elsewhere. Karen looked as if she might burst into tears at any second.
The seconds ticked by while they glanced at each other, wondering whether to try to comfort the young man or to pretend it hadn’t happened.
“You got the wrong miracle, man,” Terence Palmer said at last. He stepped up beside Harley, concerned but not distressed by the public scene playing out before him. He managed a reassuring smile at Shane. “The first miracle was Kevin Harvick.”