Take a Soldier, Take a King
I used to watch races quoting Henry V, not caring who won, and then one day, I did...
I thought I could learn just enough about stock car racing to credibly write St. Dale, a modern Canterbury Tales set in NASCAR -- and I ended up falling in love with the sport. My NASCAR mentor, Possum, a published poet with two Master's degrees, taught me to watch Cup races quoting Henry V, and analyzing the sport as a culture, much as an anthropologist would study the Comanche. The only difference was: Possum cared who won, and I didn't.
In January 2004, I realized that I would have to re-write half my novel because I had missed the fact that Ward Burton had won the '02 Daytona 500. The original premise would not work because the wrong driver had won that race, and I was walking around wailing, "Why is Ward Burton making my job so difficult?" (Like it was his fault.)
I began to re-write. Obviously, the new version of the book had to include the driver who won. (Who the heck is Ward Burton?) I ferreted out all the driver stats about him, but since, at his level of competition, excellence is a given, I was not blown away by his poles, his qualifying records, etc. He's a great driver; he's handsome; he's from my home state. So what?
Then I started reading about him not in sports publications, but in environmental magazines. A race car driver who is a conservationist. When Ward Burton was 12, he persuaded his parents to drop him off in the woods every Friday afternoon, so that he could stay alone in a rustic cabin, fending for himself, hunting and cooking his own food until Sunday evening. He grew up with a fierce love of the land, and a determination to save it. While other drivers were investing in car dealerships, Ward Burton started a Wildlife Foundation, which bought two thousand acres along Virginia's Staunton River, returning it to the wild. Change the world-- keep them from paving some of it, anyhow.
I was impressed.
  He was beginning to remind me of a character I had created in my novel The Rosewood Casket. (In a speech recently, I read a passage from Rosewood Casket of Clayt Stargill talking about his love of the land, and at the end I appended a quote from Ward Burton, and as I read it, no one could tell where one voice stopped and the other began.)
It occurred to me then that my real job is not plotting novels, but combating negative Southern stereotypes. Ward Burton had not made my job harder; because of who he was, he had made it much easier. On book tours I could talk about him.
Okay, I liked him in theory, but he was a handsome race car driver. I figured he'd be a jerk.
April 2004- The local ballet company stages the NASCAR Ballet: my chance to meet Ward Burton. He was their real live NASCAR hostage, and they had the poor guy signing photos of himself at a table in the lobby after the performance. The next day I would be doing a similar autographing at the NC Literary Festival. For a different perspective on the process-- and in order to meet him-- I stood in his line.
As I waited for my 30-second audience, it occurred to me that Ashley Judd has my autograph-- but here I was in a line to meet some race car driver. I thought: “The heck with being a civilian, I’m going to pull rank. ”
When he looked up to give me a signed photo, I handed him the postcard of my novel Ghost Riders, with the magic phrase: “New York Times Best-selling Author.”
“We donated a first edition to your Wildlife Foundation auction last spring,” I said.
 He froze. The “automatic pilot” went off, and he was there. He had that look of radiant intensity that great generals and under-medicated saints get when they tell you why you have to go out there and die for them right now. (I know now that when he talks about the land, he always has that look.)
I began to tell him I'd written a new book -- about NASCAR. He was in it.
He wasn't listening. He was reading the postcard. “The Civil War in the mountains.” Then he said in all sincerity, “I would like to read that book. Will you send me a copy? I'll be glad to pay you for it.”
When have you ever heard a celebrity say that?
I thought of all the books I have given away to “celebrities.” There are hundreds of movie stars, thousands of musicians, and 702 people in House of Lords. But only 43 Cup drivers in the world. In his sport, he is a prince. And he wants to pay for a book?
“Wow,” I thought. “He's not a jerk. The Wildlife Foundation should put a radio collar on him, because he is more of an endangered species than anything they've got.”
I was very impressed. I said, “I will send you a book. Sir.”
I sent it, along with a letter, asking him for a cover quote. Didn't hear back...
Although I had finished St. Dale, I was still hooked on racing. Calling people from my cell phone in airports to find out how the race is going. Still didn't care who won.
June 2004- A hotel suite in Chicago with the TV on for noise. I was in the bathroom with the curling iron, getting ready for a publisher's dinner with chain buyers. Suddenly from the television I heard Southside Virginia vowel sounds. The curling iron fell in the sink. I ran. It was him -- taking a camera crew on a tour of the Cove, the land which forms the basis of his wildlife conservancy. He talked about what the land meant to him, and why he wanted to save it from developers. God knows what I looked like at that dinner party, because I never made it back to the curling iron. For the rest of my getting-ready time, I was in the Cove.
July 2 (2004)- I'm at my NASCAR mentor's house in east Tennessee, watching Daytona Happy Hour practice, and trying to talk to Possum about my recent trip to England while we're watching the race practice. As I watch the cars sliding by, I marvel at how much I've learned in two years. Now I know who the 16 car is, and the 42, and I know that if Jimmie Johnson has engine trouble, Joe Nemechek might as well send out for a pizza, because his team uses the same engine builders, and he'll be next.
As usual, Possum says, “Well, who do you want to win?”
I shrug, “I don't care. Whose turn is it?”
And right then on the screen, the NetZero car went airborne, and I went to pieces.
Because I knew exactly whose car that was. It didn't stay in the air very long, but apparently you can think a lot of things in a few tenths of a second.
I thought about Ernest Hemingway saying that there are only 3 real sports: mountain climbing, bull-fighting, and automobile racing. (Consider what those three have in common.)
I thought: This is Daytona I'm looking at. I had just spent two years writing a book centered on this deadly track where Dale Earnhardt... where Neil Bonnet...
And I thought about him. Because by now I know exactly who Ward Burton is ... I've heard people talk about him for months, in passing: one of the few true good guys left in our sport.... An outstanding human being... If he is the driver you work with to benefit charity, you could not be more fortunate...
I know he's not one of the kids in the sport who goes off and drives dirt track during the week just for fun. I figure he's staying in that car in part to keep his celebrity status, for the benefit of that wildlife foundation. Would you risk your life 36 times a year for a cause? I wouldn't. But I know how I feel about someone who does.
It all hit me at once, and with a writer's sense of irony, I was thinking, “Of course, he's going to die-- I have just realized how wonderful he is.” (At this point my author brain was apparently channeling Cyrano de Bergerac.)
Suddenly I was crying so hard I couldn't see the television. Possum dropped the Kleenex box in my lap, and said: “Going airborne is not a big deal. Unless it happens to your driver. And, in case you hadn't noticed, Ward Burton is your driver.”
 A few weeks after that, a cover quote arrived from Ward Burton... I finally had the approval of one of the princes of the sport.
But by that time I already cared who won.
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