The Faith of Elvis by Billy Stanley

Author:Billy Stanley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2022-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

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Racing wasn’t just about having a good time or narrowly escaping death. Elvis used all kinds of crazy circumstances to build my confidence and teach me a thing or two.

Before Elvis bought the Lisa Marie, his private jet, he would fly commercial flights to LA. One time he needed to get to the airport in about twenty minutes. As we were leaving, Vernon said, “Who’s going to drive the second car?” This was for the crew who didn’t ride with Elvis.

Elvis looked at me and gave me a wink. “Let Billy do it.” He asked me to take the Cadillac limo, and Ricky and Charlie joined me.

For some reason, Charlie was late getting to the car. When Charlie jumped into the limo, he and Ricky told me, “You have to catch them, Billy, or we’ll miss the flight.”

That’s all I needed to hear, so I floored it.

We roared out of the gates at Graceland like a bullet from a gun. We turned right onto Elvis Presley Boulevard but couldn’t see Elvis’s car. I floored the gas pedal, and Ricky and Charlie encouraged me to go faster. I was happy to oblige.

When we came to the corner at Elvis Presley Boulevard and Winchester Road, the light was red, so I cut through a gas station that used to be there. As I turned onto Winchester, the limo was almost on two wheels. I continued down Winchester until we got to the airport.

As we pulled onto the tarmac, we could see Elvis’s car ahead of us. Everyone in the car was looking back at the limo. As they came to a stop, I pulled up beside them and parked. Everyone was laughing when they got out of the car. Elvis walked over to me and said, “Doggone it, Gearhead! Everyone said you wouldn’t make it here on time, but I told them you would. I knew you could do it, Billy.” He smiled and gave me a hug. Then he laughed and said, “I guess those racing lessons I gave you paid off.”

I laughed and said, “Yeah, they sure did, Elvis. They sure did.” I’ll never forget the look on his face that day and the pride he showed in what I had done.

We liked to go fast, and most of the time we were able to avoid getting caught by the police. But occasionally we weren’t so lucky.

One time I was at Graceland, working on one of my cars, a Chevy Chevelle. I had just finished changing out the plugs when Elvis walked over. He said, “How fast does it go?”

“Faster than you want it to go.”

“Well, let’s just see about that.”

I smiled and said, “All right” and closed the hood. Elvis jumped in the driver’s seat, I got into the passenger seat, and we backed out. I don’t know if the skid marks he left are still there at Graceland, but I know they were there for years. Once we backed up and started heading toward the gate, Elvis floored it and those back tires lit up.

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