St. Dale. Sharyn McCrumb
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sponsor $80,000 per race. The days of the independent owner-driver—as the Bodine and the Elliott teams had been—were past praying for. Now you needed a principal sponsor with deep pockets. A beer company. A detergent manufacturer. A cereal maker. And in return for millions of dollars to fund your racing team, the sponsor would feature you in their TV commercials, and put life-size cardboard cutouts of you in the aisles of grocery stores all over the country. So you’d better be good-looking and you’d better be good at glad-handing with the corporate types, and you’d better be a pussycat with the press and the fans. Because winning races was nice, but public relations was everything.
Harley figured that the ten-day tour would be good practice for his affability.
On the appointed day for the tour to begin, he had arranged to meet the bus driver in the airport parking lot so that the two of them could compare notes before the arrival of the tour group. Harley had flown into Tri-Cities on the last flight the night before, and planned to spend the night in the Sleep Inn a mile from the airport, but since Bailey Travel had neglected to make a reservation for him many months in advance, no accommodations were available for that night, so he had spent the night sleeping in a chair in the airport waiting room. He’d shaved and changed in the men’s room an hour before the passengers’ flight was due in from Charlotte.
To prepare himself to guide the tour, Harley had driven part of the route on his own that week, traveling from Martinsville to Darlington, covering all the tour stops north of Georgia, anyhow. Since the tour would end after the Southern 500 in Darlington the following Saturday, Harley had ended his practice journey there, leaving his car at the speedway, so that he could just drive away at the end of the tour—hopefully with a new job in racing to go to.
At least it was going to be a small tour. Only thirteen people instead of the fifty or so that Mr. Bailey said they usually tried to book. “How come it’s so few people?” Harley had asked. “I’d have thought people would be falling all over themselves to do an Earnhardt tour.”
“Well, they were,” Mr. Bailey admitted. “We were inundated with applications. But since we have never driven this route before and since you’re an inexperienced guide, we thought we’d make this a test run.”
Harley thought about it. “This tour includes race tickets,” he said. “And you didn’t plan far enough ahead to get enough tickets for Bristol, did you?”
Harry Bailey reddened. “We could only get fourteen,” he said. “We thought three months in advance was a gracious plenty.”
Harley smirked. “Try three years.”
The tour bus was easy to spot: a full-size silver cruiser with the Winged Three emblazoned on the side and the slogan “The Number Three Pilgrimage.” Harley shook his head at the sight of it, wondering if the driver would be expected to knock cars off the road while trying to pass them. He didn’t plan to suggest it.
He rapped on the glass of the passenger door, and waited while the driver cranked it open.
“Harley Claymore,” he said, shoving his leather duffel bag into an overhead bin. “I’m the NASCAR guide.”
The man behind the wheel was red-faced and barrel-shaped. Not a former racer judging by the look of him. Good thing this bus has a door, Harley thought, picturing the fellow trying to get in and out of a stock car through the window as drivers always did since race car doors are welded shut for safety.
“Ratty Laine,” said the driver, making no attempt to stir from his seat. “Bailey Travel. Here to drive this bus and help you out with the touring bits any way I can.”
“Are you connected to racing?”
Ratty Laine rubbed his chin while he considered this. “I can be,” he said at last. “Cousin of the Pettys, maybe, or a former member of somebody’s whatchacallit—pit crew, maybe?”
Harley blinked. “What do you mean ‘I can be’? Don’t you know?”
“Well, it’s up to you, really. If you think this tour group will have a more rewarding experience thinking that I’m an old racing guy, then that’s what we’ll tell them.”
“But are you really?”
“Oh, really. I never talk about really. That’s why they call it private life, you know. ’Cos it’s private. Like I said, I’ll drive the bus and get you where you want to go, but the way I see it back story is your job. Just tell me who you want me to be.” He stretched and yawned. “Sorry. Long drive in this morning.”
“Where from?” asked Harley.
“Home,” said the driver.
“Where’s that?”
“Where do you want it to be?”
“Can’t you just be yourself?” asked Harley.
The driver shrugged. “No percentage in that. Well, you think it over. You’ve got an hour or so before the plane lands. My schedule says they all met up in Charlotte and took the same connecting flight up here.”
“But what am I supposed to tell them about you?”
“Look,” said Ratty Laine, “I’ve been driving for Bailey Travel for umpteen years now. When we go to Opryland, I’m the ex-mandolin player for the Del McCoury Band; on Civil War tours, my great-great-grandaddy fought at Gettysburg—which side he was on depends on the home states of the people on the tour; at Disney World, I was the voice of Goofy or a talking teapot in the latest movie, or something; then at—”
“Okay. I get it.” Harley shook his head. “Look, I really was a race car driver, so why don’t we forget the fake identity for you this time, and tell the folks you’re the bus driver, all right?”
Ratty shrugged. “Whatever. But I could say that I was the guy who changed Richard Petty’s mufflers.”
Harley sank down in the front seat next to the driver. It was going to be a long trip. “Stock cars don’t have mufflers, Ratty,” he said. “Now, where can I put this?” Harley held up a bulky canvas bag. “Won’t fit in the overhead. I won’t be needing it very often.”
“What is it?”
“My firesuit. Driving boots. Helmet.”
The driver raised his eyebrows and looked from the canvas sack to Harley’s face, now tinged pink with embarrassment. “What and where will you be driving?” he asked.
“Well,” said Harley. “I just thought I’d come prepared. You know, in case somebody gets food poisoning or something and they need a replacement driver toot sweet. Drivers carry their own gear. It’s like jockeys with saddles, I guess.”
“You mean you brought gear to drive a stock car? On the off chance?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, just in case. You never know.”
Ratty gave him a look that mixed pity with scorn, but he made no comment except to haul himself out of the driver’s seat and amble down the steps to the pavement. “Help me open the hold,” he said, tugging at the door to the outside luggage compartment. “It ought to fit in there. Way toward the back.” ’Cause you won’t be needing it. The unspoken words hung in the air.
“Thanks,” said Harley, shoving the bag into the hold. He never went anywhere without it.
Ratty slammed the door to the luggage compartment, and wiped his hands on his khaki trousers. “You sure you don’t want me to have a racing connection?”
Harley shook his head. All they needed was to get caught in a lie and lose the trust of the tour group. Mr. Bailey would probably dock their pay back to lunch money. “Look, Ratty,” he said. “I’ll handle all the NASCAR patter. You just worry about getting these folks from one place to the next, and feeding them, and scheduling pit stops.”
“What?”
“You know—trips to the toilet.”