The security guard blocked my van’s path at the competitor’s entrance of Stowe Park race circuit. He asked to see my team and vehicle passes as if my Formula Ford racecar on the trailer I was hauling wasn’t all the identification I needed. It was a bitter October night, so the poor guy probably needed something to justify spending his Friday night in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside. He handed my paperwork back to me and pulled back the gate.
Dylan took the paperwork from me. He’s my best friend and represents one half of my pit crew. My grandfather, Steve, completes the team and constitutes the brains. He worked the pits for Lotus all through its glory days from the mid-sixties until founder Colin Chapman’s death in the early eighties. Steve wasn’t with us for this one, though. He’d whisked his girlfriend off for a romantic weekend getaway. I swear the man got more action than I did.
Arriving the night before a race meant landing a good spot in the paddock. There are no set places in the paddock so it’s a free-for-all. First choice for me is some place flat and close to the assembly area and the scrutineering bay. Formula Fords are single seater racecars. They look like Formula One or Indy cars, but they are scaled down in size and power. In the evolutionary motor racing scale, they’re five divisions down from Formula One. You don’t start single seater racecars unless you have to. That means a lot of pushing the car around. We found a nice spot between two other early arrivals and filled the gap. We quickly wheeled the car off the trailer. I covered it with a tarp in case it rained during the night.“I need warmth and good company,” Dylan said, so we jogged over to the circuit’s clubhouse, The Chequered Flag. It served as a bar during the night and a restaurant on race days.
We stepped inside. The place heaved with half the starting lineups for tomorrow’s races, along with their pit crews, track officials and the circuit’s owner, husband and wife team, Myles and Eva Beecham. Bodies four deep crowded the bar and virtually every table was taken. A couple of wall-mounted flat screen TVs close to the bar played the highlights from last year’s Formula One championship, but everyone was too engrossed in conversation to care. Tomorrow’s race was all that counted.
I turned to see Graham Linden waving to me from a table. Graham was a fellow Formula Ford driver and local to the track.
“I’ll get the drinks in,” Dylan said. “Orange juice?”
I nodded, weaved my way through the throng to Graham’s table and dropped into a seat next to him. “I just parked up next to you.”
“Nice.” He slid a set of house keys over to me. “Those are from Jamie Barrett.”
The keys were to Jamie’s house, which he no longer owned. He’d lost the house financing a disastrous year in Formula Renault instead of keeping up with the mortgage. Jamie now lived out of the office of his accident repair business in Bristol. He was cool about the foreclosure, but while the house sat on the market, he let people crash there. It saved me from springing for a bed and breakfast for Dylan and me. It was one of those little benefits that kept my racing habit affordable.
I shook my head.
Graham leaned in close. “Alex is a dead man.”
Alex Fanning and Derek Deacon were vying for the Clark Paints Formula Ford Championship. It’s a twelve race West Country regional championship featuring half the races at Stowe Park circuit with the remainder split between the Anglesey and Pembrey circuits in Wales. Alex held a two point lead over Derek going into tomorrow’s final race. As long as he finished ahead of Derek, the title was his. To beat Alex, Derek had to finish two places ahead of him. Barring a catastrophe on Alex’s part, it wasn’t likely. It looked as if Derek wanted to create the catastrophe.
Graham leaned back in his seat, awaiting my reaction. He looked pleased that he’d cut me in on this latest slice of trackside gossip.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“From Derek. He’s telling everyone. Do you think he’ll do it?”
I didn’t much care. I put my less than enthusiastic response to the paddock gossip down to my racing lot. I currently sat sixth in the championship, which was pretty good going for my first full season, but even if I won tomorrow’s race, it wouldn’t propel me any further up the standings. Winning wasn’t a likely proposition in any case. My engine was done. It had too many miles on it and needed a total rebuild. Unfortunately, I was out of cash, having already burned through my sponsor’s money. I would have skipped tomorrow’s race if it weren’t for my sponsor bringing a client to entertain.
A roar of laughter drew my attention. Derek held sway at the bar surrounded by the usual mix of adoring drivers and officials. He was a local legend. He was a twenty season veteran and had won the southwest title nine times.
He didn’t fit the typical race driver mold. In his forties, he was twice the age of most competitors, including me at twenty-one. Physically, he was intimidating. He was a long distance lorry driver and he carried a trucker’s build. Whereas the ideal single seater driver was small and slight, Derek was barrel-chested with arms like legs of beef. He raced like a lorry driver too. Brutality replaced finesse. He tossed his car around, used every inch of the track and wrung every drop of power out of the engine. Catching sight of Derek in your mirrors was like seeing a tidal wave looming.
Was Derek capable of carrying out his threat against Alex? An air of viciousness did radiate from him, and not just on the track. Even though he’d smile and slap you on the back, his pension for unprovoked violence shone in his eyes.
No one could say it was the drink talking. He was standing at the bar with a Coke in his hand. It wasn’t his drink of choice, but it wasn’t anyone’s the night before a race. A driver couldn’t race under the influence and no one wanted to take a chance that anything might trickle over from the night before. The clubhouse was a sea of fruit juices and soft drinks. Even pit crews and friends showed solidarity by staying off the beer. Tomorrow night would be a different story.
“You honestly believe Derek will kill Alex if he doesn’t let him win?” I said.
“Don’t you?” Graham said. “Look what he did to Ryan at the beginning of the season.”
Ryan Phillips had contributed to Alex’s championship lead in the season’s first race. He clipped Derek’s car, sending him into a spin. Derek got going again, but managed only a fifth place finish. He made it known that Ryan would pay and Ryan was spotted with a broken nose a week later. He hadn’t raced at Stowe since. There were other tales of violence surrounding Derek and car tampering, but all of them were a far cry from killing someone.
Dylan fought his way through the crowded clubhouse with three glasses pressed precariously together. He set the drinks down on our table before sitting down. “Have you heard this thing Derek’s been saying?”
“Graham just told me.”
“If Derek doesn’t want word getting around, he’s doing a shitty job.” Dylan jerked a thumb towards the bar. “He’s telling everyone about what he’s going to do if Alex has the audacity to lead the race. The Beechams are right there. Dumb. Very dumb.”
“Alex is better off skipping tomorrow,” Graham said.
“C’mon, you’re not taking this crap seriously, are you? Nothing is going to happen,” I said, annoyed at myself for getting dragged into this soap opera.
“He’s serious,” Graham said.
“It’s all an act,” I said. “Derek wants word to get around. This is the perfect place to for it. Half the paddock is talking about it now and the other half will be by morning practice. He’s playing mind games to screw with Alex’s head.”
“Well, we’re about to see how serious Derek is,” Dylan said and nodded towards the entrance.
I turned around to see Alex holding the door open for his fiancée, Alison. The usual contingent of Alex’s father and Jo-Jo, his mechanic, followed the couple in. A sour-faced, middle-aged man I didn’t recognize walked in with them.
Their arrival changed the mood in the clubhouse. An oppressive seriousness replaced the giddy joviality that had been present moments earlier. Suddenly, the rumor wasn’t that entertaining. For the first time, the Formula One commentators could be heard on the TVs. The sudden change reminded me of every old western movie where the doomed cattle rancher comes into town to pick up animal feed, unaware that the black hats are saddling up to wipe him and his family out.
Alex seemed oblivious to the mood of the room. I didn’t know if he was aware of the rumor flying around. Chances were he knew and was just playing it cool. Alex was aloof at the best of times and had failed to make many friends around the paddock because of it. The same couldn’t be said of his dad. He swapped hellos with familiar faces, seemingly unaware of the furtive glances being cast their way.
The tension looked set to continue until Alex broke it. He went up to Derek and put his hand out to him. “Best of luck tomorrow.”
It was a classy move on Alex’s part that made me smile.
“May the best man win,” Derek said shaking Alex’s hand.
The move worked. The tension eased and the conversation level rose as Alex and his family sat around a table.
“How’d you think he’ll do it?” Graham mused.
“He’ll take him out on the track,” Dylan said.
“He might have someone do it for him. He knows people.”
It was the one thing that lent weight to the seriousness of Derek’s threat. The rumor was that Derek had connections to organized crime in London despite coming from Bristol. It was a nice bit of spin that helped bolster the don’t-fuck-with-Derek myth.
With all talk of Derek and Alex quashed, conversation turned to tomorrow’s race and plans for next season. We finished our drinks and it was my turn to get the next round in. I leaned against the bar with a tenner in the air to catch the barman’s attention. He looked my way, but continued filling other drink orders.
A path opened and Derek filled a space alongside me. He raised a finger and received an instantaneous response from the barman.
“What can I get you, Derek?”
“Aidy was here first.”
“Two orange juices and a Coke, please,” I said to the barman.
“Tag on to that another two Cokes and a pint.” Derek winked at me. “Don’t panic. It’s on me. I’m feeling generous.”
“Coming right up, Derek,” the barman said.
“I hope you don’t mind, Aidy. I fancy my chances tomorrow and I want to celebrate with my friends.”
We were friends? We hadn’t spoken more than a handful of times all season, but I played along. “Of course not.”
I felt Derek goading me into saying something to prompt him to reveal his not-very-secret secret, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction. I wasn’t willing to play stooge, but I did involuntarily. Derek smiled at me and rested an arm across my shoulders. His message was simple: Look at me, Alex. I’ve got another one on my side.
The barman set the drinks in front of me and I grabbed them. “Thanks, Derek.”
“Don’t thank me. Tomorrow is going to be a great day. Nobody is going to stand in my way of winning my tenth title.”
