In the Blink of an Eye Page 3

  I wasn’t around back then. But I saw pictures, and Dad was all in. Buying parts, tires, oil, gas—whatever it took to go racing. After Darrell learned how to drive his new kart around that parking lot, they were off to the races. And they won. A lot. They were racing all over the Midwest. It was all-consuming for everyone in the family. Mom, Dad, and the four kids. But especially for Dad.

  By the time I got to the age where I wanted to try racing, Mom and Dad were getting a little older. Dad was in his fifties then. And I think the thought of working at Pepsi all day, then coming home and working on a go-kart half the night wasn’t overly appealing to him. His and Mom’s idea of fun on the weekends consisted of Friday and Saturday nights at the Moose Lodge and Sundays listening to or watching the races.

  The rejection hurt me some then, for sure. But I loved my parents, and I always was thankful for both of them. Their not wanting to help me with my dream turned out to be a perfect motivation for me to go find other ways to get it done.

  I think that’s part of the fierce independence that makes me who I am today. That independence became a key ingredient of success in my career and my life. No matter what obstacles I faced, I always knew I could overcome them and succeed. You have to be creative when considering options or alternative plans. Most important, you can’t ever give up. Luckily, I learned these lessons at a very young age. If you aren’t already aware, you will find out as you read along that I got on a bit of a losing streak for a few years, one that I might not have been able to overcome had Mom and Dad just bought me a go-kart, or had Darrell just said, “Sure, whatever you need, Brother.” To even get started in racing I had to be persistent. And later in life, one word that probably came to describe my career better than any other would be “persistent.”

  Now back to the problem of how I was going to get my shot at racing.

  Mom and Dad, strike one.

  Darrell, strike two.

  So where should I swing next? Asking Mom and Dad and Darrell over and over would have been persistent, I guess, but not very creative. Besides, I tried that with Dad. And his nos just kept getting louder and louder.

  How about my other brother, Bobby?

  Bobby had recently moved from Owensboro down to Tennessee to go to work for Darrell. Darrell had started a race-car parts business and asked Bobby to manage it for him. Bobby also raced and even got a shot at stock cars at Kentucky Motor Speedway in Owensboro. But that didn’t go so well, so he mostly just raced go-karts. I had mowed Bobby’s grass and done odd jobs for him over the summer. I guess we sort of had a relationship, more than me and Darrell for sure. I went to bat one more time. I called up Bobby and told him I wanted to be a race-car driver. “Can I drive your go-kart, Bobby, and see how I do?”

  “Yeah, sure, Bro,” Bobby said.

  He must not have understood the question, I thought.

  “I was hoping you’d let me drive it,” I said this time.

  “Yeah, I get it,” Bobby said. “You drive. Yes. Sure.”

  Well, darn! Finally, someone who understood me.

  Woo-hoo! Let’s go racing!

  Then Bobby said, “There’s a race down here Sunday. If you can get yourself here, you can race.”

  “Awesome! That is so cool. I will be there.”

  “You come down Saturday,” he said. “We’ll get you all fitted up in the kart.”

  Then he asked, “How you gonna get here?”

  Hmmm . . . good question. I’m eleven—how’m I supposed to get there? I asked myself.

  Then Bobby said, “If you can get to Bowling Green, I’ll pick you up there.”

  “Deal,” I said immediately. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

  You know the old adage “It’s better to laugh than to cry”? My daddy used to say that a lot. Well, that’s what I was doing on Saturday morning. There I sat on a Greyhound bus, looking around, laughing at myself. Couldn’t get anyone to take me to Bowling Green, which is about halfway to Nashville. But at least Mom was nice enough to give me a ride to the bus station.

  In a car, it’s an hour’s drive from Owensboro to Bowling Green. By bus, it was almost three. We made stops in little towns that weren’t even towns, I don’t think. It took forever. But I didn’t care. It was going to be worth it.

  Then we pulled into the bus station in Bowling Green, and I wondered if Bobby would actually be there.

  Robert Lynn (Bobby) Waltrip was in his mid-twenties, and he was a little crazy. So, as I peered out the window of the bus looking for Bob, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I’d actually find him. But as the bus rolled to a stop I saw my brother sliding around the corner, right on time. And, man, he had one of the coolest cars ever! It was a new Oldsmobile 442, maroon and gold.

  I watched Bobby skid to a stop at the station. And I thought, Man, I got a cool brother. Look at that ’fro he’s sporting. Look at those smooth wheels. But what made him the coolest to me was just that he was there. He had come through for me.

  I’m positive there were at least a thousand other things my twenty-five-year-old brother could have been doing on a Saturday afternoon. Instead of doing any of those things, he came to get me. First, it was Dad with the McMuffins. Then it was Bob sharing the love in his 442. The mentoring was beginning just when I needed it.

  CHAPTER 4

  GAS RIGHT

  Mikey got an upgrade. I went from an old Greyhound bus to a sporty new 442. Cool Bro and I were off to the races, rolling toward Nashville, Tennessee. I was excited. And as any young boy would have, I suppose, I wanted to impress Bobby right away with my extensive racing knowledge.

  “I got this, Bob,” I told him. “I know I can do it. I know what lines to take in the corners. I know how to swing out next to the wall on the straights. And then, when I win, I have to thank my sponsors in Victory Lane, just like Darrell does.”

  “Thank you, God, Goody’s, and Goodyear,” Darrell liked to say.

  Then Bobby asked me something I hadn’t thought of. “Do you know which side the gas pedal is on and which side’s the brake?”

  “Ah, yes, sir,” I answered. “Well, no. Not exactly.”

  Thinking, thinking, thinking . . .

  “I think right. But I get confused.” I guess I was more like a virtual race-car driver. I’d never actually done it before. But I sure had seen it done plenty of times.

  “Little brother, that ain’t nothing like the real thing,” Bobby said. He knew I needed real experience.

  Bobby’s shop was located just out of Nashville in Franklin, Tennessee. When we got there and checked out his kart, Bobby began to talk me through everything I had to know the next day when I got to the track. Even the basics were intimidating to me though. I was like a sponge, trying to soak up everything.

  “Gas on right, brake on left,” Bobby said. And I kept repeating that quietly to myself. “What if I forget that little detail?” I thought.

  And things got even more complicated from there. I needed to know how to tune the engine on the track. What to listen for. What to do in order to make sure the engine was running right.

  When I went to bed that night, I was so scared I couldn’t sleep.

  The next day was my big day, what I’d been dreaming of. I was totally excited to be there. But mostly scared. What if I wasn’t good at this? There was no way to know if I would be. You can’t tell by looking at a kid if he can drive or not. What if I messed something up? What if I wrecked? That would surely make Bobby mad. I knew it would. And that engine-tuning thing. I had to get that right. Bobby said if I didn’t do it correctly, I would melt his engine down. That, I was sure, would be career-ending. Really? My career was ending? It hadn’t even begun!

  I was so worried about what I was getting ready to do, I was already thrown by even the simplest details, like what side the gas pedal was on. But I had a plan. I found a big, fat pen and I put a large G on my right tennis shoe and a B on my left.

  Just in case.

  When I woke up Sunday morning I laced up m
y marked sneakers, and off to the track we went. It was located in Smyrna, about twenty miles from Bobby’s house. When I got there and checked out the track, it looked like it had about six turns. Bobby said I was going to race in the rookie junior class. When it was time to practice, I put on a leather jacket and a helmet that Bobby gave me and I hopped on his kart. Even with my brother coaching me, telling me everything to do, I was still really nervous about the thought of pulling onto the track for the first time. But as soon as I did, the nervousness went away, and my focus was directed on the Smyrna Speedway. Right off, I felt comfortable. It felt natural to me. I was doing what I’d seen DW do a zillion times. It was like I got it. And my first laps? They weren’t great laps, but they were pretty good, I guess.

  After practice, Bobby patted me on the back and said, “Good job, Little Bro.”

  “Really? You think I did good?” I asked him.

  “You did great. I’m proud of you.”

  I was off to a promising start.

  My brother was proud of me. Not the one I had put up on a pedestal my whole life. The other brother. The one who was there when I had two strikes against me and I was trying to figure out how I was going to go race. He gave me the chance, and I made him proud. I was feeling really good about this day.

  When it was time for my race, I was ready. There were just four of us rookie kids. I think my kart was probably better than theirs. And I won. By a lot.

  When I pulled in, they handed me the checkered flag and told me to take a victory lap. I thought to myself: “Yes! I love this. And I’m good at it. I knew I’d love it. I wasn’t so sure I’d be good at it. But I was. I won.” I couldn’t believe it. This had to be as good as it got.

  The first person I saw after the race was Bobby, and he had a huge smile on his face. He was a team owner, mechanic, and driver-coach, but mostly I could tell he was a proud big brother. The next person I saw was the trophy queen, holding my winning prize. Bobby told me I had to kiss her to get my trophy.

  What? That scared me more than the thought of racing had that day.

  Luckily for me, the queen and I decided we would just shake hands and call it even. That afternoon, on the way back to meet my bus, Bobby and I talked nonstop. Or maybe I talked nonstop and Bobby just listened. But I know one thing he said for sure. He said that by the end of my race, the lap times I was running were comparable to his. Really? I had watched Bobby win races before. Being as fast as him meant a lot to me. He may have just been saying that to be nice, I don’t know. But it sure was a good thing to hear.

  It was getting close to dark when we drove up to the bus station. Bobby hugged me and said ’bye. With my suitcase in one hand and my trophy in the other, I boarded my Greyhound back to Owensboro.

  The bus was crowded. I took a seat by a sweet-looking elderly lady. When I sat down, I noticed she was staring at my trophy.

  “My first one,” I said, sounding all full of myself, I’m sure.

  She smiled and then quickly turned more serious. What’s she thinking? I wondered.

  I didn’t have to wonder long.

  She said something I have never forgotten in all the years since then. “Son,” she told me, “rejoice in the moment. Enjoy your victory.” She then grabbed my hand and looked straight into my eyes and said, “Don’t take what you’ve accomplished for granted. Ever.”

  I guess she could tell by the way I said “my first one” that I thought there would be many, many more. She wanted me to appreciate any and all of my victories, however few or many that turned out to be.

  Because of the life lesson that sweet lady taught me that night, I did just that. I hugged each trophy and enjoyed each win like there wouldn’t be another. Fortunately, thanks to his Bobby and his fast go-kart, I was hugging about one a week that summer.

  When that summer began, I was definitely a momma’s boy because of all the time I spent with her. But some things were beginning to happen to me. I was doing manly stuff, growing closer to my brother and my father. I was already close to my sisters because they had just about raised me. Now, Bobby was making time for me too. That helped me grow up a lot.

  CHAPTER 5

  CAR READY

  Racing with Bobby made that summer the best ever. But success had me wanting to take on new challenges. What I really wanted was my own go-kart.

  There was a lot of racing around Kentucky and Indiana nearer to Owensboro. So why was I on a bus every weekend to Tennessee when there was all this racing around home? I loved racing with brother Bobby, but if I had my own kart, I’d be able to drive more tracks against better competition. I have to admit I was beginning to wonder how much good beating those same three kids in Tennessee was doing me.

  That fall, I met a family in town who traveled all over the area to race go-karts. The Greens lived down the road from us, and I began to go to their house to watch them work on their go-karts. The dad, the grandpa, and all three kids were in the garage working together. I really thought that was cool. I became good friends with Jeff, the youngest of the three boys. One day Jeff said if I got a go-kart, they would help me work on it and maybe even haul it around for me. Now if I just had a kart! To get a kart, what I needed was a sponsor, someone to pay for my go-kart, my parts, and my pieces. You know, all the stuff I’d asked Darrell to do.

  A sponsor in those days was someone who had money and liked racing. I suppose it’s not too different today. Sponsors were just as hard to find then as they are now. But I got lucky. A businessman in Owensboro who had helped Darrell back when he was racing locally said he might just help me. Jeff knew a guy, Tommy Tichenor, who was wanting to sell his go-kart and extra parts for $600, and the businessman agreed to cover it. Just like that, I was rolling.

  Bobby got me started, and now people who had helped Darrell get going sixteen years earlier were helping me too. Bobby’s help was direct and personal. Darrell was helping indirectly, too, by winning races all over the place and making my last name significant in racing circles. I appreciated both their contributions. I remembered something I’d heard my dad, the networker, say over and over again: “It ain’t what you know, it’s who you know.” As I was discovering, that certainly applied to building a racing career.

  Once I got my kart and we got it all set up, it was time to go racing. The first place we headed was Olney, Illinois. And man, did things look different in Olney. First of all, the track was about five times bigger than the one I’d been racing on in Smyrna, and there were way more turns. Go-karts were all over the place. When I raced at Smyrna, it was pretty much just racers from that area.

  The Olney race was hosted by the Southern Indiana Racing Association. They put on races all over the Midwest, so some of the racers came from a long way away to compete. Instead of the three kids in Smyrna I’d been going against, it looked like at least twenty people would be in my race that day.

  Not just a bunch of kids either. Some of the dudes in my race had mustaches!

  I was probably the least experienced, and my kart was good but just comparable to the others’. Much to everyone’s surprise, including mine, I made a late-race pass on a guy named Greg Bennett and drove off for the win. How did that just happen? I wondered. This was all new to me. Big track and tough competition—and there I stood holding the trophy!

  This trophy was about three feet tall. In Victory Lane, I was smiling, proud of what I’d accomplished. But at the same time I was missing Bobby. He had been there for all my races. I loved seeing how proud my brother was of me after the races. He was down in Tennessee racing himself, so he couldn’t be there.

  The go-kart races were a family thing—moms and dads, brothers and sisters and cousins, all pitching in and working together. Not for me. No Bobby. No Darrell. No Mom and Dad.

  Riding home, it was just me and my buddy Kerry, who was kind of becoming my mechanic. Jeff rode home with his family. Despite holding the trophy and having an amazing win under my belt, I was still a little sad on my way back to Kentucky that nigh
t. None of my relatives had been there to share my win with me. At least Kerry didn’t smoke.

  After a couple of very successful years of karting, I was itching to move up. I wanted to race stock cars. Kerry had been building a race car in his garage for a couple of years. It was a Mercury Capri that he planned to race in the mini-modified division at our local track. Kerry was very smart and could make anything. He had pretty much built the whole car—engine and all—by himself. He wanted to be a race-car driver too. When Kerry got his car all together, he took it out to the Kentucky Motor Speedway, the track where all aspiring race-car drivers in Owensboro went to see if they had what it took. He did okay on the track but not great. It was very obvious to me who should be driving Kerry’s car. Me! Now I just needed to convince Kerry. My plan was simple: Kerry lets me test the car. If I go faster than Kerry does, I drive.

  That made sense, right?

  It took a lot of persuading, but Kerry agreed to give me a shot. Not only did I go faster than Kerry when it was my turn, I went faster than everyone else too. I was making laps that day, my first time ever in a race car, faster than the track record. In a noble move, Kerry conceded. “The ride is yours,” he said.

  His nobility came with one minor condition. I had to buy the tires and help Kerry pay the parts bill he had accumulated while building the car. We got all of our parts from NAPA, by the way.

  There I was, back to needing a sponsor again.