She nodded for Shane to place the wreath at the foot of the Earnhardt statue, and then she said:
“Be thou a bright flame before me,
Be thou a guiding star above me,
Be thou a smooth path below me,
And be ever a kindly shepherd beside me,
Today, tomorrow, and forever.”
“For Dale,” said Shane, touching the wreath.
“And for Neil,” whispered Harley.
Chapter XIX
Darlington Raceway
“Are we there yet?”
Nobody said “Shut up, Justine,” for a change, because they had all been thinking more or less the same thing for many a mile. Harley supposed that putting together a ten-day bus tour that would encompass two NASCAR races was quite a feat, and that you could not in good conscience skip Daytona on a tour devoted to Dale Earnhardt, or on any NASCAR tour for that matter, but the distances involved were still brutal. It was one thing to drive 500 miles around an oval track in an afternoon at 180 miles per hour, and quite another to dodder along I-95 at considerably lower speeds for the nearly 400 miles between Daytona Beach, Florida, and Darlington, South Carolina. Rest stops. Food stops. Stretch-your-legs breaks. Four hundred-plus miles from the Atlanta Speedway to Daytona, and then turn right around and go almost that far again to get to Darlington.
At least they’d had two days for the last leg of the journey. They visited Daytona on Friday, and they’d had until Sunday to reach Darlington. So they’d stayed Friday night in Daytona, and taken their time on Saturday heading north again to Darlington. Harley thought that he would have been less tired if he could have made the trip in a Monte Carlo alone, nonstop, but coddling a group of strangers over more than a thousand miles in a week made him feel like he’d walked the whole distance in wet boots.
He thought about all the fools who considered racing monotonous. Had they ever driven I-95?
The bus was quiet now, not only because four of the Number Three Pilgrims had gone their own way in Florida. Harley didn’t take it personally. It had been a long trip, and the itinerary could use a little work. The remaining passengers were feeling the effects of the long haul, which meant there was much less banter than usual. Everyone read or slept, just wishing for the traveling to be over. They were subdued by the visit to Daytona, too, of course. Someday maybe-a few races down the road-the Speedway would again be just another place to race, but right now it was still haunted by the image of the Intimidator’s last race, and it had saddened them all to be there. Despite the punishing distance of this last leg of the journey, Harley was glad that the tour had not ended in the sadness of Daytona, but with the pageantry and excitement of a race day in Darlington. Of course, they might someday look back on that race with regret and nostalgia if the fools in charge of NASCAR ever made good on the threat to take the Labor Day race away from Darlington, but for now it was an exciting time in a happier place, and for all their sakes he was glad.
“The Darlington Motor Speedway is called the Lady in Black. Everybody knows that.” Harley began his spiel by stating the obvious, but then he noticed Bill Knight’s smile of disbelief. “Okay, maybe not everybody knows it, but certainly anybody who follows motor sports. Would one of you like to tell the reverend how Darlington got its nickname?”
“It was the first track to be paved,” said Jim Powell.
“The Lady in Black,” said Arlene with her vacant smile. She rested her head on Jim’s shoulder, and he smiled back and patted her hand.
“Are you going to spout all those numbers at us now?” asked Justine wearily.
“Nope,” said Harley. “You’re going to be sitting through a race there, so I guess you can work it out for yourselves. The information will be in the program, I expect. But I have driven here, so I might have some useful points to make.”
“Fire away, Harley,” said Matthew, who was sporting a new Earnhardt windbreaker bought for him at the Daytona gift shop by Bekasu.
“They also call Darlington ‘the track too tough to tame,’ which means that a lot of drivers can’t handle it. Earnhardt himself said something to the effect that every so often the Lady in Black slaps you down if you get too fresh with her. Anybody know the top three drivers having the most wins of the Southern 500? Wanna guess, Cayle?”
“Is that a hint?” She smiled. “One of them must be my namesake.”
“That’s right. Cale Yarborough has five wins. David Pearson has the most, and then Earnhardt. By the way, the last Winston Cup race Pearson ever won was on this track-the 1980 Rebel 500. Darlington can be tricky, because it’s lopsided on account of the ponds.”
“Ponds? It has ponds?” said Bekasu.
“Well, no. Not like Lake Lloyd at Daytona. People don’t wear life jackets to race here.”
“Do they at Daytona?” asked Bill.
Harley smiled. “Well, Tom Pistone used to. He worried about going in the water. What I mean about ponds here is that when Harold Brasington was trying to build this track back in 1950, the farmer who owned the adjoining land wouldn’t sell him the portion that his pond was on, so Mr. Brasington had to work around that obstacle to build his speedway, and he ended up with a track shaped like an egg. Wider on one side than the other. Because of that, it has tighter, steeper turns on one end. Keeps you on your toes. If you’re not mindful of which turn you’re going into, you end up going into the wall. Ever heard of the Darlington Stripe?”
“Paint mark along the side of your car that you get from scraping against the wall as you race,” said Jim Powell. “Badge of honor.”
“Are we going to the Stock Car Hall of Fame?” asked Justine. “It’s right there in front of the Speedway.”
“No,” said Harley. “Not with the crowds we’d have to fight to get in there on race day.”
“Speaking of the race,” said Jesse Franklin, “are we going to bet on the winner again? Dibs on Mark Martin, and five bucks says he wins. Unless one of the rest of you folks want him.”
Cayle waved away Mark Martin. “Bill Elliott,” she said. “I promised Sarah Nash I’d cheer him on.”
“Well, I’ll take Dale Junior,” said Justine. “He’s better on the super speedways, and he’s never even made the top ten here, but it just wouldn’t feel right to root for anybody except an Earnhardt. Here’s my five bucks.”
“What about you, Harley?” asked Jim Powell, who had taken off his hat to collect the wager money. “I was thinking of taking Rusty Wallace, just because I want him to break that losing streak, but if you were going to pick him, I’ll plump for Dale Jarrett. This track calls for old-style racing, and he’s good at that.”
“Jeff Gordon,” said Harley. “I’ll stick with Jeff Gordon-masochist’s choice.”
“Didn’t he just win on Sunday at Bristol?” said Bekasu.
“Yeah,” said Harley. “Well, with my luck he’ll win every race I ever attend for the rest of my life just to depress me.”
“Harley’s being a gentleman,” Cayle told them. “He’s picking the least likely driver to win. Gordon’s been on a thirty-one-race losing streak before Bristol. Take Matt Kenseth, Bekasu. You have sweaters older than he is, but he’s got real promise. And he’s from Wisconsin, just like Alan Kulwicki.”
“Whatever,” said Bekasu, going back to her book.
In the back of the bus, Ray Reeve cleared his throat. “I’d like to get into the pool,” he said.
The others turned and stared at him.