Racing with Faith by Danny Burton

Author:Danny Burton [Burton, Danny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781973633679
Publisher: WestBow Press
Published: 2018-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

Pete and Jesse

No one ever accused Peter Amos Simmons of being the shy and retiring type. Since he was known to fly off the handle every now and then, occasionally, Pete was told to vacate the premises of the Lonesome Mountain Speedway. The chore of telling Pete the bad news was usually handled by me, the director of competition and the owner/promoter’s brother-in-law. And if that wasn’t enough, Pete was the owner’s cousin. I always figured that Barney Morris, the owner, wanted to keep peace in the family. This included having to tell his grandmother, age ninety-one and going strong, why he had to kick her favorite grandson off the premises for two weeks.

But Pete, to his credit, always came back after his racing vacation, contrite and full of apologies to Barney and me. He would be fine for a while, winning an occasional feature and often running up front—that is, when he could overcome his occasional tendency to let his attention wander. All I knew was, when Pete Simmons paid attention to the task at hand, wheeling a 2,600-pound stock car around Barney’s three-eighths-mile oval, with the beautiful Virginia clay serving as the surface, he was very tough to beat.

Jesse Christopher, on the other hand, was the fair-haired boy, a fan favorite and a popular figure in the pits as well. He raced with grace, if that was possible to do on Barney’s bullring. He was what we call fan friendly: a good 99 percent of the weekly crowd loved Jesse, not only for his success and driving style, but also for his demeanor and personality. In interviews, he was always quick to thank everyone under the sun, especially the fans. When autograph sessions were held, usually on the front straightaway during an intermission, Jesse didn’t have to be told twice to leave his easy chair in the pits and come over to sign his name. Invariably, Jesse would be the first driver to appear, armed with a few dozen hero cards and a marking pen to sign whatever fans thrust at him.

One could not be faulted for assuming that these two guys were archrivals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Granted, they’d had their on-track encounters over the years. Usually, it was Pete who got angry with Jesse for a perceived unsportsmanlike maneuver. Jesse might have been a bit perturbed with Pete at times, but they almost always worked it out between the two of them.

When you got right down to it, these two loved each other like brothers. They frequently helped each other out. More than once, Jesse and some friends helped Pete load his car into the hauler after a racing accident. The constant comment was, “Pete, you’re going to have to sell a bunch of boats to pay for that.” Even Pete laughed.

When not racing, Pete owned and operated his own boat-building and -repair business. And he was an avid fisherman who loved telling fish stories to whomever was careless enough to ask him how the fishing was.

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