Jimmy won his heat race going away, and watched as Harvey and Slim made their final touch-ups for the feature. Slim fueled the car while Harvey checked the tires and gave the car a couple of tweaks.
“Remember how this place is abrasive,” he coached as Jimmy buckled in. “Get a good rhythm, but keep them tires under you. Don‘t get excited if somebody wants to race with you at the start…stay fast, but keep your cool and keep the car straight.”
Jimmy nodded, and Slim waved for a push truck. Jimmy was soon fired and as he slowly circled the high-banked half-mile track he felt the car roll across the paved surface, moving the wheel back and forth to heat his tires. Starter Mike Rydman gave the signal for the field to form up, and the overflow crowd stood and waved as the field rumbled past for a parade lap.
Jimmy got a great start, leading the field into turn one. He ran as conservative as he dared, but didn‘t hear anybody close to him. Behind him several furious side-by-side battles were raging, with the crowd holding their collective breath as they watched the dangerous high-speed ballet.
The terrific racing behind him worked to his advantage. Jimmy was able to run smoothly through the corners, maintaining good momentum, while his rivals were using each other up. Sammy steadily picked his way forward from sixth, and after getting to second had his best shot at Jimmy when the caution flag waved with just four laps to go.
Jimmy sensed that Sammy would be there at the end, and he was ready. He was razor-sharp on the restart, getting a slight jump and denying Sammy a chance to get alongside. At the finish Sammy was a car length back, with Steve Graffan third and Bobby fourth.
Jimmy beamed with excitement as he climbed from the car, and the crowd gave him a roaring ovation. Evelyn Brown laughed as she and her son posed with Jimmy alongside the car.
“I was cheering for you all the way,” Evelyn confided. “What a wonderful race!”
The PA announcer stepped over to Jimmy for an interview, and after a couple of questions on today‘s race asked Jimmy about his future.
“There is a persistent rumor that you‘ll be racing Indy cars next season,” the man said with a big smile. “Can you share with us exactly what‘s in the works?”
Jimmy wasn‘t ready to say anything at this stage, so he tried to dodge the question.
“Next year is a long way off, and we‘re still in the hunt for the sprint car title,” he said, which was technically true. “We‘ve got four races to go, and we‘ve got to keep digging. That‘s our focus right now, for sure.”
As they rolled the car back to their pit Jimmy sensed that Harvey had something on his mind. He wasn‘t very talkative and he didn‘t seem to want to make eye contact with Jimmy.
Jimmy greeted fans for quite a while after the race, and Harvey and Slim got everything loaded. When the crowd dwindled Jimmy changed clothes in their truck and as he stepped from the cab Harvey looked at him.
“So what‘s the score?” Harvey asked. “Are you going Indy car racing next year?”
“It looks that way,” Jimmy said. “But it‘s not set in stone yet.”
“OK,” Harvey shrugged. “Just wanted to know.”
“I‘m still planning on running sprint cars,” Jimmy said quickly.
Harvey raised his eyebrows, as if questioning that statement.
“I could do both,” Jimmy insisted. “I figured up the schedule, and I‘d only miss six sprint car races.”
Harvey gave a sardonic laugh. “Only six races? Six races would take us out of the points deal.”