No Right Turn Page 12

  I didn’t know if that was what they said on the telly. I didn’t have a television. It was starting to feel like a character flaw.

  “So you do think they might have done it?” I asked.

  “Nup. I don’t think they did any such thing.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “But there’s no such thing as reading people. Some folks are great liars.”

  “Helpful.”

  “So I recall something about a tour of a workshop?”

  I nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Lucas got in, and put his belt on and smiled. “Are we actually expected this time?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  If WinLobe Racing was Disney World to Lucas, then Dale Beadman Racing, aka DBR, was like rolling all the amusement parks in the country into one. We took the short drive down to Mooresville and found the workshop without problem. Workshop was an understatement. We saw it from a mile away. Surrounded by lush trees and plenty of open space, the two-hundred-thousand-foot facility looked like an aircraft factory. It was crisp lines and lots of reflecting windows and chrome. There was a loading dock where two big rigs sat patiently. Each wore the livery for the cars that they transported—29 and 09—and were covered in sponsors’ logos. The rear of the trailers were open to the inside of the facility and were as busy as the business end of a beehive. People were coming and going, not ambling but striding, no time to waste.

  We headed for the lobby. It turned out to be more than a lobby. It was a museum. A fully-fledged curated space honoring the achievements of Dale Beadman. I wondered if that accounted for the additional size of the facility or whether that was some kind of mine is bigger than yours thing with the folks at WinLobe.

  I left Lucas to wander around the museum and went to the reception desk to let Dale Beadman know we were there. The young guy behind the desk made a call and told me that Dale was in a race review meeting and would be available shortly, so he invited me to visit the museum while I waited.

  I found Lucas reading an old newspaper article that was posted beside a full body suit that itself was plastered with sponsors’ logos.

  “His first championship,” said Lucas.

  I ambled through the dimly lit space. I supposed the dark room put emphasis on the spotlit artifacts, but I always felt one step from tripping over. There were a number of drivers’ suits, and there were trophies of all sizes. Probably every trophy that Dale had ever won. At either end, there was a car in its own roped off area. They were both Chevrolet-badged but didn’t look like any Chevy I’d seen on the street. The one near the entrance looked like a prototype for the Corvette. I walked over to the one at the far end. It was Dale Beadman green and numbered 29. The shape clearly marked it as an old iteration, but it was so shiny it might have just rolled out of the workshop. I wondered how they got it so shiny. Perhaps they had a full-time waxer and buffer. Maybe two guys.

  There were three men standing before the 29 car. They were each adorned in Beadman green. Various versions of caps and t-shirts and jackets celebrating the team. They each wore blue jeans and stood with a kind of muted awe at the car. It was a semireligious experience, if the looks on their faces were anything to go by. One of them glanced at me and I offered him a nod, which he returned with a grin, as if we were sharing in something that we would remember for the rest of our lives.

  I turned away and left them to it. I’m not much one for glory days. I had a fair few trinkets myself, baseball and football trophies, pennants and posters of me pitching, old playing uniforms and t-shirts and such. I didn’t have a room or a man cave where they were displayed. Right now they were in a box in the spare room of Lucas’s condo. It’s not that I don’t admire achievement or understand why people celebrate it. I get the team mentality as much as anyone. I bought right into it for the longest time. I still do. We’re social beasts, us humans. We need our tribe. Be it family or friends or church or sports teams, we need somewhere to belong. I just found that a lot of people wasted a lot of time lingering over days gone and ended up missing out on the present. Sure, I had thrown a mean fastball in my day. I was a decent quarterback, good enough for a scholarship to college but not good enough to play regularly once there. We won a college baseball world series. I remembered those times as some of the best of my life. But I never dwelled on them. Because right now I was the happiest I had ever been. I had the affection of a woman my superior in almost every way, I had good friends and people to depend on. I had a watering hole with a wooden barstool that had the shape of my butt worn into the seat. I had my tribe.

  Dale Beadman found me standing in the lobby looking out at the Florida morning sun. He shook my hand, and I went and found Lucas and introduced him. Dale welcomed him like an old friend. Lucas played it pretty cool. I knew he was a fan, but Lucas had a way of seeing a man as a man and not as a hero. Maybe that was how you saw the world when you had been a real hero yourself. Lenny had hinted more than once that Lucas had performed more than his fair share of heroics in their younger days. He had never elaborated, but I had never doubted the subtext.

  “I’m not sure what you expect to find up here, Miami,” said Beadman.

  “Me either, Dale. But that’s how this works. I talk to people. I learn things. Something that wasn’t important becomes important. I never know where that will come from.”

  “You’re the doctor,” he said. “How can I help.”

  “Perhaps you can give us the ten-cent tour?”

  So he did. Dale Beadman wandered around his domain, the king of all he surveyed. We walked through a large open workshop that wasn’t that different from his garage at home. The floor was polished and clean, the walls were white and tools were laid out in an orderly manner, ready for use at a moment’s notice. Dale pointed out various teams and what they did, how they related to the performance of the cars. Everyone wore polo shirts with sponsor logos on the breast or coveralls with the same. There was no AM talkback or whistling, just the hum of diagnostic computers and the soft chatter of people looking for that winning edge.

  We left the workshop and walked through a corridor that had photos of the cars on various racetracks along its length. Then we came out into another workshop, a duplicate of the last. Except for the color. The Beadman green was replaced with red. The sponsors’ logos were different but everything else was the same.

  “This is the 09 team,” Dale said.

  “And the other workshop was 29?” I asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “They feel pretty separate.”

  “For a reason. They’re both my teams, but they are separate teams. Separate cars, drivers, crew chiefs, mechanics, pit crews. A bit of internal competition goes a long way.”

  “So they don’t cooperate at all?”

  “Sure they do, at the top level. The crew chiefs sit in on the cross-team meetings with me and Simon—he’s the head engineer. So we share at that top level, but we give the crew chiefs a fair bit of latitude to run their teams.”

  “Where are the drivers?” I asked.

  “At home. Spending time with the family. They’ll be in later. We’ve got a good week this week. Sunday is at Darlington, so we’re only a couple hours away. It means everyone gets a little more home time.”

  “How many days a week do you all work?”

  “All of them,” said Dale, without a hint of irony.

  We walked into another workshop that held no vehicles. Guys were working machines that looked like lathes.

  “This is our fabrication workshop. We can make almost any part we can’t source. Anything else can be fabricated at the shop in Daytona.”

  “Impressive,” said Lucas.

  As we walked through the space, I was struck by one thing more than any other. It was the seamless way Dale moved through the facility. No one was in awe of him, no one stopped or stared or got busy because the boss was walking through. They just went about their business. If they had a question for him, they asked it. If he had a question
for them, they quietly explained what they were doing and why. It was very collaborative, like the best football teams.

  Again I was reminded of what Lucas had told me. He didn’t just support the driver, he supported the car. It wasn’t Dale’s team. It was the 29 car. And like a great football team, the quarterback was crucial. Without a great quarterback, a team rarely found success at the top level. But without a great offensive line, a great quarterback got smashed regularly. And without a great defense, teams gave up too many points to win. And so it was here. Dale was the coach and the drivers were the QBs. They had the posters and the adulation. They signed the hero cards and the caps and the body parts flashed at them. But without the crew, each and every one at the top of their game, the team just wouldn’t cut it.

  “Tell me about Travis Zanchuk,” I said as we watched the team work.

  “Travis?” Dale asked, surprised. “He was a great engineer. Had a great feel for what made cars go fast.”

  “He’s not that big a fan of you.”

  “You spoke to Travis?”

  “In Daytona.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re investigating your stolen cars. People who don’t like you are called suspects.”

  Dale shook his head slowly. “Travis wasn’t a team player. He wanted it to be all about him.”

  “And that didn’t work for you?”

  “No, it didn’t. It’s never about any one of us. It’s about all of us, or it’s about none of us. That’s the way it works.”

  “So you cut him loose.”

  “Had to. Only takes one guy like that to bring everyone else down.”

  “What about Lobe and Gifford?”

  “You’ve been digging through my past?”

  “I have. That’s what you’re paying me for, even if you don’t know it.”

  “We were partners, that’s all it was.”

  “But they sued you.”

  “Just business.”

  “That’s what they said.”

  “You spoke to Rory and Win, too?”

  I nodded. “Did you rip them off?”

  “I don’t see it that way. They wanted to go another way with the business, and I wanted to focus on cars. So I bought them out.”

  “Without mentioning the fuel management system that was going to make you millions.”

  “But it hadn’t when I bought them out. I didn’t see why I should pay them for something that hadn’t happened.”

  “They disagreed?”

  “They did. We came to an agreement.”

  “You think they hold any grudges about it?”

  “Those old boys? That’s ancient history.”

  Dale finished our tour in a small anteroom off one of the workshops. It had tall windows that looked out onto the workshop. He said he needed to get back to it but his head engineer would be in to chat with us. We waited in silence. Lucas stood at the window and watched. I sat back in a chair like I was waiting at the Jiffy Lube.

  The guy who came in to us was as old as Dale and every bit as energetic but lacked Beadman’s charisma. He shook our hands and told us his name was Simon Lees. He offered us a seat and a beverage. We took the seat but not the beverage.

  “I can’t believe what happened with Dale’s collection,” he said. He had thick black hair and wore a blue polo with the sponsors’ logos on it.

  “You know about that?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I didn’t think Dale was making it common knowledge.”

  “He’s not. But Dale and I have known each other a long time.”

  “Is that right?”

  Lucas said, “You were crew chief of 09 when he was crew chief of 29.”

  “That’s right. And his lead mechanic before that, when he was driving all those years.”

  “So you’re a crew chief?” I asked.

  “Not anymore.” He smiled. “It’s a younger man’s game. I’m now chief engineer.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means I oversee this workshop. I oversee our research and development. See, NASCAR likes to tinker with the rules. Constantly. As soon as one team finds an edge, a quarter second per lap, they’ll change it up to even the playing field. It’s my job to be on top of those changes and to make modifications.”

  “So you test the race cars?”

  “Not so much the 29 and the 09. See, there’s rules on that, too. NASCAR only allows certain sanctioned testing days at certain tracks for the team cars. Again, it’s about evening up the field.” He waved in the direction of the workshop. “We’re obviously a big team. We have the sponsors and personnel to test. We can hire tracks when we need to. But some smaller teams could never afford that. So NASCAR says teams only get to test the actual race cars at certain fixed times. But outside those, we can develop products. They can’t stop that.”

  “Develop products?”

  “We build engines, fuel management systems, things like that. For smaller teams.”

  “You build their engines?”

  “Sure. About a quarter of the teams run a car with one of our engines in it.”

  “That seems a bit strange. What’s the incentive for you to give them an engine as good as yours?”

  Lees shrugged. He had broad shoulders and it was quite a mannerism. “What’s the incentive anytime? Money. It costs around a quarter million dollars for a high-performance engine. If they don’t run, teams don’t buy them. We’re not the only game in town.”

  “You ever get beat by one of your own engines?” asked Lucas.

  “Sure. It happens. But not often. See, the engine is built to race specs as set out by NASCAR. Ours is the same as theirs. A good car—that is, a fast car—is in the incremental things you do around that engine. How do you trim the engine, how durable are your parts, how much does everything weigh? Different tracks run differently. Every week we get back here from whatever race we were at last Sunday and we have to rejig the cars for the next track.”

  “Tracks all look the same to me,” I said. “Round and round. No right turn.”

  “That’s the old gag,” said Lees. “But it’s not accurate. See, some tracks have longer straights, some have tighter turns. The angle on the banks is different. Some speedways have a more abrasive asphalt that wears tires, others are cleaner and more about fuel management. We’re not talking about seconds per lap, we’re talking about tenths or hundredths of a second per lap. We’re talking about being able to stay lower on the turns and cover less mileage, or greater straight-line speed so our cars can make the most of the slipstreams.”

  “It’s a game of inches,” I said.

  “Fractions of inches. At a hundred eighty miles per hour.”

  I saw the smile on Lucas’s face. He was nodding vigorously. I figured he liked the idea of those kinds of margins at that kind of speed.

  Our attention was drawn by the roller door going up at the far end of the workshop.

  “Boys are heading out,” he said. “Come see.”

  We walked out into the workshop but stayed out of the way. The roller door was raised to the top. The ceiling was high enough to fit a space shuttle inside. One of the semitrailers had moved from the loading dock to the workshop door. Like at Dale Beadman’s garage the rear of the trailer was down, forming a ramp. Six guys got around the 29 car and pushed it up into the bowels of the trailer.

  “Where’s it going?” I asked.

  “Darlington,” said Lees.

  “This early?”

  “This is not early. This is late. Normally the trucks are out by Tuesday night, Wednesday morning latest. But Darlington’s close by.”

  “How many cars go in there?” I said, looking into the trailer.

  “Two. Race car and backup.”

  “Two? It’s a big trailer for two cars.”

  “Size-wise you could fit a dozen cars, top and bottom. But most of the space is equipment. It’s like a mobile workshop. Scratch that. It is a mobile workshop.
And there’s a meeting space and drivers’ quarters at the front. Somewhere for the guys to relax after their work is done.”

  The word guys made me think. “You don’t have any women drivers?”

  “Not on our team,” Lees said matter-of-factly. “There’s a couple with teams at the top level and a couple more on the series one step down.”

  “Why so few?”

  Lees shrugged. “You know any girls who like cars?”

  “That’s a bit sexist, isn’t it?”

  “Sure it is. But tell me I’m wrong.”

  I couldn’t. I didn’t know any.

  “Don’t get me wrong. There’s no reason at all women can’t succeed in racing. But it’s traditionally a male thing. The speed, the smell. Men stuff. I’ve seen girls at the kart level, even local races doing pretty well. But by the time they get into their late teens, they’ve usually dropped out. Could racing be more welcoming for women? Sure. Could there be more female-only races to get girls interested? You bet. But it’s chicken and egg. Do you put the effort in to encourage kids who aren’t showing interest, or do you focus your limited time and money and energy on the kids who want to be there? The kids who will turn up just to watch and learn. I’ve only got twenty-four hours in a day. I know where my energy’s going. And those kids tend to be boys. I hope it changes, I really do. And maybe with some of the women winning at the top level, it will.”

  “You could have a woman as your CEO,” I said.

  Lees nodded slowly. “Angie. Yep, you’re right there. Her time will come.”

  “Why isn’t her time now? From what I hear, she’s more than capable.”

  “You’re right about that. She already takes care of everything that’s worth taking care of.”

  “She not capable of the step up?”

  “No, that’s not it at all.” Lees looked at me like my father used to do when he thought he had something really important to say. “Dale Beadman’s one of the best there’s ever been. Up there with Petty, Earnhardt, Gordon, Waltrip. The greats. Racing has been his life. Everything good that happened to him happened because of racing.”

  “Some might say his family gets in there somewhere.”