Right on Track Pt 1

-1-

-Sophia-

I remember when my dad first taught me how to drive. It was on an old 3 speed antique John Deere tractor the summer I was 12. The once green tractor had seen better days, by then it wore more rust than the signature Deere green. It had been worn with use, sitting out in all weather, but had been trusty enough in my father's eyes to teach me how to drive.

That summer had been tough. Hell, that entire year had been tough. With all that had happened in the winter, which eventually carried over into the spring and into the summer, he had fallen behind on the hay that needed to be cut. Under the summer sun, he taught me to drive. It was a learning process, one that was expected, and a rite of passage. I remember the first morning lesson so vividly.

He had pulled me away from the one page comics in the paper, telling me he needed my help. In worn out sneakers and tattered shorts, I sat on the worn out seat, and listened intently. Dad spoke with purpose, explaining the mechanics of the tractor, and how what I was doing, the motions I would be doing, impacted the tractor and how it moved. He explained in detail how to know what the feeling was, how I would know when to shift. This dedication he had to teaching me, something he didn't have the time for, meant more to me than anything. No matter how much patience he had with me, and how willing he was to help me, no one could have predicted how terrible that first lesson would have gone. By the end, I was in tears, utterly discouraged by the fact I couldn't catch on. I knew what I was supposed to be feeling, how the tractor was supposed to feel so I could shift into the next gear, but I couldn't make the tractor move.

Dad let me walk away that morning in anger. He let me cool off, that's what mom would have done. And unfortunately for him, he was having to fill a void that had to be filled with her death.

Mom, the beautiful person that she was, had passed just after Christmas. There had been a terrible accident on the interstate as she was driving home from work a few days after the holiday. She hadn't been planning on going into the office, she had taken time off, but needed to go in and take care of a few things. On her way home, she was blind sided by a car that hit a patch of black ice.

We laid her to rest days before I turned 12, only a day into the new year.

The spring as everything was coming to life, and showing signs of new beginnings, I felt like I was dying inside. We were all struggling, my Dad, grandfather and I. Financially, we were set, my grandfather had seen to that. Mentally, none of us were well. That summer though, my father and I bonded over learning to drive that old tractor. It would build something that was so precious that both of us nearly took it for granted.

In a macabre twist of fate, the thing that took my mother away, brought my father and I closer.

Until her passing, the relationship my father and I shared would never have been described as close. He was a busy man, working in the military, moving from one assignment to the next. Even to this day I don't pretend to know what his position was or where he went, he just wasn't home. He got out not long after she passed. I was terrified of losing him too, so I stuck to him like glue.

"But most importantly," Herschel McIntyre, director of the KY Racing League, spoke nearing the end of his driver safety speech. I heard it on more than one occasion, so I normally tuned it out. As he paused for dramatic effect, I hadn't realized I had spaced out for all of the speech. "Have fun." He finished. "Race starts in 30 minutes. May the best man," he paused, suddenly meeting my eyes. "Best person," he corrected, "Win. Have fun out there!"

Herschel was an older man, one that never knew how to handle me. In the beginning, it hadn't been an issue with my gender, there were already a couple of female drivers in the league, it had been my age. Dad and I had stumbled upon the KYRL by chance, and I had become obsessed with it. We went to so many of them that I finally had to try it for myself. The first race was miserable, but we worked together, as a team, and now, I drive one of the most hated cars on the track.