St. Dale. Sharyn McCrumb
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or later everybody asked that question. “It’s hot in a stock car,” he said. “If you sweat enough, you don’t have to pee.”
The airborne contingent of the tour, eleven people as diverse as any other group of airline passengers, wore expressions that ranged from barely contained excitement to a polite wariness that might have been shyness. The exception was one well-dressed woman who looked as if she had been brought there at gunpoint.
Justine elbowed her sister in the ribs. “Stop looking like a duchess at a cockfight!” she whispered. “There’s some perfectly nice people here. I told you there would be. Check out that hot young guy in the yellow Brooks Brothers sport shirt with the little dead sheep emblem—bet you ten bucks he’s Ivy League. And look at that distinguished fellow in the clerical collar. Oh, isn’t that sweet? He has a little boy with him. Oh, Lord, I hope they’re not on their honeymoon!”
“Shut up, Justine,” Bekasu hissed back, edging away.
Spotting their fellow tour members had been easy. Along with the tour itineraries the Bailey Tour Company had sent Winged Three caps to match the one worn by the guide and the driver. Several of the travelers had dutifully worn the headgear on the flight, in addition to various other items of Dale-bilia currently displayed about their persons: Intimidator tee shirts, sew-on patches featuring a replica of Earnhardt’s signature, and, in the case of one enterprising matron, a hip-length cotton vest featuring a montage of black Monte Carlos, made of the special Dale Earnhardt fabric sold at Wal-Mart.
There were more women than one might expect to find on a NASCAR-themed tour. At least on a tour that wasn’t dedicated to Jeff Gordon. Funny that so many women liked Earnhardt, Harley Claymore was thinking. You’d think he’d remind them of their ex-husbands. You’d think women would see Earnhardt as the weasely redneck version of the Type-A executive: the man who puts his career first, his hobbies and his buddies second, and his family a distant third. Except for all that money and fame, Earnhardt seemed to Harley an unlikely sex symbol. Wonder if he’d even managed to snag a date for the high school prom. Ah, no. Scratch that. Dale had dropped out in junior high, before the social pressures of adolescence became much of an issue. The glad-handing imperatives of his future success must have come as an unpleasant surprise for him, but he had made the transition as gracefully as he took the turns on the track. If he hadn’t, he’d have been left in the dust years ago.
Harley would like to have mused on the whole charisma aspect of the Earnhardt mystique in a group discussion on the bus, but he half suspected that the driver was under orders to report any heresies to Bailey Travel, so if he wanted his paycheck, he had better not get caught letting in daylight on the magic.
Most of the men looked like normal sports fans in a spectrum of ages, except for the preppy and the minister, who were both dutifully wearing their Winged Three caps, but with the air of generals in camouflage. And he hadn’t expected the little boy. The kid was the color of chalk, and he didn’t seem to have any eyelashes, but he seemed chipper enough. The man with him wore a priest’s collar—so probably not the boy’s father. He wondered what the story was. Harley held out his hand to the boy. “Hello, Sport,” he said. “I’m your guide. You a big Dale fan?”
The boy glanced up at his companion and received an encouraging nod. “Yep.”
Well, there was a precedent for that, thought Harley. He wondered if the sick kid was hoping for a miracle from Dale. As he recalled it had been the other way around. “How old are you, Sport?”
The kid gave him an owlish look. “Name’s Matthew. I was born the year Sterling Marlin won the Daytona 500,” he said.
Harley let out a sigh of mock exasperation. “Well, that’s no help. Sterling won in both ’94 and ’95, so I still don’t know your age.”
The kid grinned. “Okay. The first time. So, who won Daytona the year you were born?”
“Ben Hur,” said Harley. He wondered how long it would take him to match names and faces. He glanced again at his tour notes, raising a hand to indicate that a speech was forthcoming.
The tour members clustered around him and the chattering subsided.
“Tri-Cities,” he said, savoring the word. “Now you know we didn’t choose this airport just because it has a three in its name.” He’d had four months to work on his NASCAR patter for the tour and to bone up on Earnhardt connections to any place they might visit. Now he thought he could recite Earnhardt trivia without clenching his teeth. If he didn’t run out of nicotine patches, he might even survive the tour.
“Of course, this is the closest airport to the Bristol Speedway, our first stop. It was at the Bristol Motor Speedway that the young Dale Earnhardt won his first ever Winston Cup race. April 1, 1979, to be exact. Bobby Allison came in second in that race. This evening we’ll be attending the Sharpie 500 there.” To identify the race’s sponsor, Harley waved the Sharpie fine point permanent marker with which he had been taking roll. “Dale Earnhardt himself used to fly into this very airport for the race.”
For a moment everyone paused, picturing an Earnhardt wraith walking past the baggage carousel, but Harley, who had been warned not to let the tour turn into a death march, changed the subject. “Did everybody’s luggage make it? Okay, good. Then let’s get started. This is the very first Dale Earnhardt Memorial tour, and my first tour of any kind, so there ought to be a yellow stripe painted on the bumper of the bus. Just go easy on us, folks. Over there hauling your suitcases onto the baggage cart is our bus driver, Mr. Ratty Laine. I’m your guide—Harley Claymore, NASCAR driver…”
A hand waved in the air. “Do you do those hair growth commercials on television?”
“Hair growth?” Harley caught the reference. “Ah, no. That would be Derrike Cope. The way you can tell us apart is: Derrike sort of accidentally won the Daytona 500 in 1990, and I didn’t lose my hair. Hard to say which of us got the better deal.” He looked down at his notes. “Okay, speaking of Derrike, let me do a head count. We’ll get acquainted later. Right now the bus is waiting for us in the parking lot, and we have a wedding to get to.”
Justine waved her sunglasses. “I thought we were going to the Bristol Speedway.”
“Yes, ma’am, we are. The race is this evening. The Sharpie 500. After the weddings. Didn’t they put that in the brochure?”
“Heck, no. If they’d told us about a wedding, I would have brought somebody besides my sister.”
“I don’t think they’re taking volunteers, ma’am. We’re just going to watch. Oh, but two members of our party are getting married there by pre-arrangement. You’ll meet them shortly.”
“Well, if you need somebody to marry them, my sister’s a judge. Hey, Bekasu, can you marry people in Tennessee?”
While Justine scanned the crowd for her, Bekasu edged her way toward the silver-haired minister. She wanted to make allies before people figured out that she was with Justine. “Hello,” she said with an after-church smile. “I’m Rebekah Sue Holifield, and I am a hostage on this tour. How are you…Father…?”
“Just Bill,” he said quickly. “Bill Knight. I’m Episcopalian, but not that High Church.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “And this young fellow is Matthew Hinshaw, who is the real racing fan. He’s promised to help me along, because I’m new to all this.”
“Well, how do you do, Matthew,” said Bekasu, shaking his small hand. “You may have to help me along, too. I came with my sister, who is the real fan, and our cousin Cayle, who had a most extraordinary experience. She—well, never mind. Anyhow, I’m the novice in our party. To me, stock car racing looks like rush hour in Charlotte.”
“Except they’re going 180 miles an hour,” said Matthew solemnly. “And sometimes they hit each other on purpose.”
“Matthew, why did our guide say there ought to be a yellow stripe painted on the bumper of the bus?”
The boy grinned. “That’s easy! In