Read Online Checkered Flag Cheater by Will Weaver - Free Book Online

because he couldn’t eat until after the races. Driving a stock car was no different from being a basketball player, a football player, or any kind of athlete. The closer it came to race time, the more the butterflies came alive inside his stomachand fluttered their tickly little wings. He headed back to his crew.
    Jimmy came across the pits pushing a hand truck that carried a white, square-sided fuel jug; blue racing gas sloshed inside. Most race teams bought their fuel on-site from a centrally located parts depot—which also carried tires, tubes, fuel filters, and air filters, as well as basic suspension parts that racers tended to break, such as shocks, front and rear springs, and tie-rods. Smoky waited in the small doorway of his trailer. Jimmy hoisted up the fuel jug; Smoky lifted it inside, then closed the door.
    â€œWe should carry our own drum of fuel,” Jimmy said, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Wouldn’t have to buy it and lug it around.”
    â€œIt’s dangerous to have a barrel of gas in the hauler,” Harlan said. “Let’s say we’re at a red light and some crazy ass in a Kenworth is asleep at the wheel. He rear-ends us, we go up like a bomb. Trace’s cabin would be ground zero.”
    â€œGreat,” Trace said.
    â€œPlus if you carry your own fuel, the other drivers think you’re cheating,” Harlan said.
    â€œHey, we got ourselves a bang-up driver—we don’t need to cheat,” Jimmy said cheerfully.
    Harlan was silent. From behind the closed door of the hauler, where Smoky worked, came the faint clinks and thuds of tools.
    Trace glanced at his watch. “Are we going to see the car pretty soon?” he asked. All the other race cars sat beside or behind their haulers, poised to go.
    â€œWhen Smoky’s ready,” Harlan said.
    That was not for another half hour, when the Midwest Mods—the class just before Super Stocks—were already under way. Smoky finally appeared in the little doorway and signaled to Jimmy Joe, who hustled inside and powered open the tall rear door of the stacker trailer. Then, with a handheld controller, he winched the lower Team Blu Super Stock backward down its ramp and into daylight. The car was immaculate, as always—the prettiest Super Stock in the pits. Having a second car on the stacker rack above was the ultimate luxury for any dirt-track racer: if Trace wrecked one night, they were ready to go the next night with the second car. They could not, of course, switch cars between a heat and a feature—a standard rule in racing.
    Trace slid into the narrow cockpit feetfirst—right foot, then left—and got settled. Harlan handed Trace his helmet and gloves, then went to work cinching Trace’s sixway seat-belt harness, neck brace, and sternum protector. The aim was to be one with the full-containment racing seat. Driving a stock car was not for people who were claustrophobic.
    â€œI need to breathe,” Trace muttered as Harlan tugged the shoulder belts still tighter.
    â€œYou can breathe after the race,” Harlan said.
    Once his gloves and helmet were on and secure, Trace gave a thumbs-up sign to his crew. “Fire in the hole,” he called. He flipped the toggle On switch, then touched the rubber starter button.
    RRRRRuupppp!
The big Chevy engine coughed and caught—then settled into a rumble. As Smoky leaned over the long front nose, Trace blipped the throttle a couple of times. Smoky listened, then nodded and pointed toward the track as if to show Trace where to go; it was an odd little ritual, but it was theirs. Every team had them.
    Trace’s heat included Jason Nelson in the second row outside. Glints of orange, like late sunlight through leaves, were all Trace could see of Nelson in the pack. As the drivers scrubbed their tires in a rumbling, weaving parade, Trace breathed deeply in order to stay loose.
    â€œOne lap to green,” a woman’s