Chapter 16

Four adults, three kids, one house ... Yes it was busy in the morning. I had to return a phone call from Leslie who wanted to let us know when our show was going to be aired. It was going to be several weeks and from what she has seen so far, it was going to be the best yet.

“Very good Leslie. Thanks again for a great time. I get a chance to take one more thing off my list.”

“Good for you. See you later.”

We hung up and when it had calmed down a bit after the family got back from the airport, which was a tearful affair for Ashlee, the kids and Brenda, Ashlee told me where the race office was and I drove over there with Justin.

“Good afternoon Mr Johnson.”

“Uh, good afternoon.” I said completely lost. “I’m sure you heard about my head trauma, so if you could acquaint me with the the boss, I would be very grateful.”

“Oh yes, we certainly did hear about your being shot. Don’t worry about being forgetful. I’ll get Elliot for you.”

She left the desk and went to fetch Elliot for me. Justin and I sat on one of the guest seats near the door and Justin saw Brenda catalogue. “Dad, look. Sissy is on the cover.”

“Yes she is. This is her catalogue she had made for the modeling she did for the race team.” I picked it up and opened it so that Justin and I could look through it. Justin said many times how beautiful his big sister was. This I thought was rather insightful for a young man.

“Yes she is buddy. Your big sister is quite beautiful. Do you suppose that your sisters will grow up to be beautiful like her?”

“No. They’re both yucky and mean.”

“Come on buddy boy, your sisters are great girls. Why do you think they’re yucky?”

“They boss me around.”

“Both of them?”

He hemm’d and haaaw’d a second. Then he finally looked the floor and said, “Yes.”

I patted him on the leg, “don’t worry about it my boy. Just be nice and your mom and I will take care of the girls for you.”

That perked him up a bit, “Thanks dad.”

He moved onto my lap and gave me a hug.

“Paul. So glad to see you.” A man said coming out of the back with the receptionist and approached me with his hand out. Justin got a look at the man, “Uncle Elliot!” Justin scampered off my lap and ran to the man.

“Justin! So good of you to bring your dad down to see us.”

“Did you make any new cars?”

“No, not yet, but we do have a bunch of other stuff for you to see. Wanna come to the back with me?”

“YEAH!” Justin ran to the back and out through a door to what I could only assume was the garage area.

“Paul, you ok?” Elliott asked me.

“I know you, don’t I?” I asked him trying to remember this man.

“Yes, we do know each other. Even beyond you owning this race team, you saved me and reunited me with my wife and kids. You basically rescued me from the end of the world which would have killed me.”

“I did that, didn’t I?” Memories were coming back to me. “I even managed to help you get right with God didn’t I?”

“Yes you did. Which without that, I wouldn’t have gotten back with my wife and kids. Like I said, you save me and my family.”

I rubbed my head as the memories came back. So much coming back. So much that I don’t remember and can’t even believe I had done. God, I want all of my memories back, please.

Elliot shook my hand, patted my shoulder like an old friend and then walked me back to the garage. “What brings you back here so quickly?”

“I just got back from Great Britain where I met the guys from Top Gear.”

“Really? How cool was that?” He asked me with much enthusiasm.

“Very Cool!” Fanboy joy engaged. “I got a chance to race around their track in their car, Brenda got to drive around the track in the car they use for Formula 1 drivers and they even timed us.”

“Wow.” we looked around and Justin was talking to several of the mechanics as they were working on, something.

“Elliot.”

“Yes boss.”

“There is more to the story that I haven’t told you. While I was there, we got to talking and when they discovered that Brenda raced trucks, they wanted to do a segment on her.”

Elliott couldn’t contain himself, “Really? A segment on Brenda. Dude! That is huge!!”

“I know. Here is the tough part. They want to do a race between her and The Stig at the race in Minnesota.”

Elliott was stunned and frozen at the publicity this would bring us. A smile crept across his face and then he let out a SHOUT! “YES!!! THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOOOOOOMMMMMEEE!!!!!! Woooo Hooooo!!!!”

He ran over to the guys working on the, whatever it is, and pulled them back toward me. “Paul, tell the guys what you told me.”

“Have you heard of a little show called Top Gear?”

They said that they had.

“Well, they want to do a segment on Brenda and film a race between her and The Stig in Minnesota.” The reaction of the guys was the same as Elliot’s. Lots of hooping and hollering and jumping around.

“Now, here is the tough part. What do we have that we can get to Minnesota that will be competitive against a rally car?” I asked them trying to bring it all back around to my reason for being here.

The guys thought for a minute and then started talking about what they had and what was working and what could be transported quickly and easily. They finally decided upon Brenda’s Rally Fighter which could be loaded on a regular trailer and then hauled up to Minnesota really quickly.

“Guys, which one is Brenda’s?” I asked them since I saw two of them sitting in the garage.

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Elliot said and we walked over to the two cars. From a distance they looked very much alike. One of them was blue and the other was grey with designs. As we got closer, I saw that the blue one actually had the World of Warcraft Alliance shield on it along with screenshots of my toons that I play on WoW. “I know which one is mine.” I said before Elliot could say anything.

The grey one had a really modern design on it but no stickers letting everyone know that Brenda Davis was the driver.

I opened the door on mine, and discovered that they may have the same body style, but mine was set for city driving and her was set for off road racing since it didn’t have any luxuries in it. Mine had padding on the ceiling, carpet on the floor and leather seats with a stereo. When i looked at the back of hers, she had the spare tire in the back window while mine was on a rack behind the rear bumper. Same cars, but set for different things.

“Elliot, what do you think? Can we wrap the car in time to get it to Minnesota in team colors?”

“Sure we can.” then he thought for a minute, “Well, we may have a problem though. I don’t think that our sponsors know about this race since it isn’t a sanctioned race. This would be an exhibition right?”

“Yes. Do you need to make some phone calls?”

He checked his watch, and then said, “Yes I do. Excuse me guys.” He turned to go back to the office, but stopped and addressed the mechanics, “Get to work on wrapping Brenda’s Rally Fighter while I make some calls.”

Elliot went through the doors and I thanked the guys for their time as they moved quickly to a desk and got to work. I took Justin’s hand and walked around the rest of the shop looking at the gear that we had put together. So much gear that I didn’t even recognize. I hope they use it all.

In the back corner was the other Koenigsegg, at least that is what I could assume based upon the cover on it. Justin lead me to it and we uncovered a corner of it. “Cool dad. Sissy’s other race car.”

“Yes it is.” We looked in the window and he tried to open the door but it was locked. “Why don’t we get going and get a treat on the way home?”

“Yeah, can we get ice cream?” Justin said happy with my idea and he grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the door.

“Honey, we’re home.” I called out as we came through the door.

“Good thing. The girls heard that you were going to go to a race of Brenda’s and now they want to go too.”

“Minny-soda!!” they both yelled and came bouncing to me.

I picked them up and got hugs from my girls. “Can we go dad?” “We don’t get to see sissy enough.” “We really want to see sissy beat all of those boys in their ugly cars daddy.” “PLEEEAAAAASSSE!!!”

Oh my gosh. I was getting the full court press here with these two. My only salvation was my wife who was watching the whole thing with her arms crossed. “Honey?” I said pleading with her.

“No, no, this is your decision to make. Do you want to take all of us on a trip again making everyone happy? Or do you want to go alone and make everyone here sad and angry?”

“Since you put it that way, it looks like we all are going to ... MINDY-SODA!!” I said.

The two little bundles of energy and joy in my arms screamed and hugged and wriggled enough for me to put down and they ran to their momma to join her in bouncing for joy with her then they ran to nanny Kaitlyn and she joined in the celebration.

My phone in my office rang so I left these people to do whatever they were going to do so I could talk to whomever was calling.

The phone number was not local. “Hello. This is Paul.”

“Paul, its Leslie from the BBC. How are you?”

“Hey Leslie. I’m great. I just got done telling my family about the race in Minnesota and they are all thrilled for sure. How are things going on your side?”

“We are doing really well. We have our car lined up, The Stig is ready and the film crew is packing up for the trip.”

“What about the officials? Have the organizers agreed to let us run the race?”

“Oh yes they did. when we called them and asked if the BBC and Top Gear could film at their last race and run an exhibition race, they practically begged us to be there and gave us all the access we could ever want or need. This is going to happen and everyone here is super excited.”

“That is wonderful news. We will see you there.”

“One last thing. We want to get you and Brenda on camera back here in studio after the race and show off your lap times. When can we get that done?”

“I’m not sure, why don’t we talk more about that with Brenda. She is the deciding factor in this. My schedule is wide open, it’s hers that we have to work around.”

“Sounds good. See you in Minnesota then.”

“Bye.”

The rest of the week was busy for us. Ashlee reminded me that our truck was at the race office so I went and got it and brought it back to the condo so that we could pack it with clothing and food for all of us and extra for the crew. I had no idea what they had been eating but I wanted to make sure that if I was there, they would be taken care of. Which meant buying many pounds of steak. Oh, and beer. You can’t have steak without beer.

I did have a couple of people who expressed their displeasure with me having, as they put it, a giant eyesore in front of their building. A diesel powered truck of ugliness.

I assured them that the truck was only temporary while my family got packed for our trip to see our daughter race in her last race of the season and as I her father, no one was going to keep me from not cheering her on.

That managed to shut the few people who had the balls to talk to my face to shut up and even get a few others a little proud of me for taking a stand like that. One older man wished that he had done something this extreme when his kids were younger. “Maybe we would have a better relationship now if I had taken a stand and cheered my son on back then.”

“It’s not too late. You are still alive and as long as he is too, go to him and cheer him on now.”

He left me a little better and with a new sense of purpose trying to repair a relationship he thought long lost.

Thursday, a day before Brenda’s last big race. The truck was packed. We had water on board, the gas tanks filled to the brim and the waste tanks were empty. The cupboards were full and the extra freezer was full of steak and bacon. Like I said, I was going to take care of my team.

5 a.m. is really early and the kids were not happy about getting up. Ashlee and I had figured that 8 hours of driving would get us to St Cloud early enough to spend time with the team and Brenda before the kids had to go to bed. So that is what we did.

8 hours of driving, four bathroom breaks and two meal stops, makes for a long day.

By the time we got there, the kids were bouncing in anticipation of seeing their sister again as well as just getting out of the truck and running around.

“Good afternoon folks, the park isn’t open until tomorrow at 9 am for the race this weekend.”

“No problem.” I said to the man at the gate. “I’m the team owner for PAB Racing. I was hoping to meet my team in person today instead of waiting until tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry. Your name please?” He asked me holding up a clip board.

“Paul Johnson, PAB Racing. Brenda Davis is our driver. I would have figured that Elliott would have put me on the list by now.”

He scanned the clipboard and found PAB Racing and right there under it was Paul Johnson - Owner. “Yes sir. I have your name right here. Let me get your pit passes for you.” He excused himself and went into the shed there at the entrance and returned with a mirror hanger for the truck as well as pit passes for all six of us. I took them, handed them to Ashlee and she held on to them for us.