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| Bitten |
| I must have been about five years old when I was "bitten" by the racin' bug. For as long as I could remember, I could not wait to go to the race track on a Saturday night. You see, we had a ritual on Saturdays. In the morning Dad would disappear to the shop to work on the car. Then about lunch time we would meet him at one of our favorite eating places, have lunch, then go our separate ways again. Mom would take us girls home and get us ready for the "Big Night." |
| Dad would eventually get home, and sit in his recliner, and watch the weather channel. These minutes that he would sit there, watching TV, seemed to last for hours. He'd soon get up, go change clothes and we'd be on our way to the track. There was a few nights, that I can remember when my sister, Bethany, and I were really little, that Mom would get a baby sitter for Bethany and would make me stay home. Ohhhh, how those nights seemed to drag on. I was a track girl from the word go. |
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| The day finally came when I was able to begin going to the shop in the mornings with my dad. I would crawl into the race car and pretend to be driving. It would keep me occupied for hours! I remember several different occasions when one of Dad's friends would stop by the shop and say, "Johnnie, looks like she is after your ride." Yep, one could say that. I could not wait to get into the car and out onto the track, but that day was a long time coming. |
| The years passed by, and racing friends came and went. Dad tried to retire several times, but just could not keep himself off of the track. And, if he was not on the track, he was sure to be somewhere around it helping somebody out. He started racing again in 2000. It was the summer of that year that I finally got to drive his car. Actually drive it! Not just sit behind the wheel and pretend! One could say that it was that summer, the summer of 2000, the bug really dug its teeth in. More years passed by. Dad retired again, and this time he wouldn't go to the track unless someone specifically asked him to. I, on the otherhand, hardly missed a week. And then one night, my boyfriend and Bethany's boyfriend started talking about getting a race car. I piped in, "Only if I drive it," and Dad piped in, "If you want my help, it can not be a 4-cylinder." So, there it was! I finally had his permission, and I ran with it! Everyone started looking for a car the very next day. That first year, 2005, I only got to run 4 nights, but those 4 nights was enough for me to decide that racing was something I would love to invest my time in. |