A Dream Shattered part 2

                                          A DREAM SHATTERED part 2

            I wasn't making much progress. I had only moved up four positions in six laps. We went around turn two, then turn three, and flew down a short straightaway. I had started to move up in the field when we flew past the flag stand. When I saw a go-kart sitting in the middle of the track, I turned the wheel hard to the left to miss it; and I swerved into the grass, which slowed me down.

            I caught up to third, but I didn't have enough speed to pass the driver in second place. I wound up finishing in third place.

            Dad and I went home, and we put the go-karts back into the shed for the long off-season. We raced for three more years, before we had to quit because of financial problems when I was eighteen. That setback was not the end of my racing dream.

            I went to Florida University. During my junior year I got to see the Daytona 500 in person instead of on television. That was the best day of my life. I called Dad and told him that I had gone to the Daytona 500. He knew how much I had wanted to race Nascar.

            The next year he came down, and we went to see the Daytona 500 together. My dad had met this man, named David Price, who had an old race car that his dad had raced. The car was about six years old. I was solid white with black numbers. David Price taught me how to drive it. Throughout the rest of the summer, David Price taught me how to drive it.

            I practiced all that I could, but I still wouldn't be ready for all the other track at which I would have to race.

            During the winter I made a few changes to the car. I painted it solid black with two red pinstripes. Then I painted the number eighty-five in gold letters on the sides and the top.

            Spring came; but I still wasn't ready for my first race.

            "James, it's not any different than when you learned how to drive your go-kart for the first time and even raced it for the first time," Dad said.

            He was right; the only difference was that everything was much bigger. Then, I thought, it couldn't be any different than driving a car.

            The next-to-the-last Nascar race of the 2003 season was at Daytona, the track I had learned. We had raced there once before at the beginning of the season. I qualified really well for a rookie and got into the race under a provisional, which means I started in forty-third place. I was very excited. The opening ceremonies began. Drivers got into the cars and waited for the most famous words in Nascar.

            "Gentlemen, start your engines!" the man shouted.   
(to be continued)