Christian – here’s the story… I was all set to go to Myrtle Beach for the Goody’s Dash race a couple of weekends back when photographer Tony Hammett called and said he had room and need for someone to go to Brownstown for the Hav-A-Tampa race. Knowing I would get to see a lot of my buddies up there I jumped at the chance to go to the forecasted 30 degree north, instead of spending the weekend on the beach.

You know going to Brownstown there will be plenty to talk about when you get back home, it’s one of those places like Eldora, Pennsboro, etc. that just naturally brings in all the drivers, all the gossip, some hard racing to make the field and just the normal racing bull. Little did I know when I went that I would come back with this story.

"Who you gonna write about next?" said the voice. I was standing on the back of Shawn Toczek’s rig watching them get his reconstructed #55 ready for the consolation race later on Saturday evening. Turning and looking down, here was this big-eyed kid staring up at me.

"I don’t know. Who should I write about next?" I asked the inquisitive tyke.

"Have ya done one on Billy Moyer?" was the response.

"Yea, we’ve done one on Billy Moyer. Why, you like him?" I asked.

"He’s okay." Came the reply.

"Yea, that’s kinda the way I feel."

We stood there together on the back of the truck. I could tell we both were thinking as hard as we could. If you wanted the story from Brownstown – it was probably going to be Billy Moyer. In his heat Friday night he just flat out made a statement, when he started sixth and blew by C.J. Rayburn for the lead and went on to dominate, just like he would do later on that evening.

We stood there watching Shawn work on his car. I didn’t really know who this boy standing with me was or how he knew who I was – if he did. Maybe it was the camera I had out waiting to catch that just right picture – or the RACING NEWS sticker on the camera bag.

I was hoping for a picture like the one I took of Rick Aukland on top of his rig looking like he was just about to jump over the edge. He told me on Friday that he resigned from the Bullitt House Car this week and had worked real hard to put together one of his own Bullitts for the Hav-A-Tampa show. He wasn’t running all that great, and even though he was at no point about to go over the edge – it was one of those pictures that might come in handy later on.

Knowing that Aukland gets around a track like Brownstown good I asked, "What do you think about Rick Aukland? Think I should do a story on him?"

"Yea, he’s good." Said my new bud.

He to had been thinking, "What about Wendell Wallace?"

I looked two cars over from where we were standing and saw the Blue Monday Motorsports #6m. "Hey, that would be a good one. We haven’t done one on him."

I got a smile back to that response. We just found something in common, finally, after five minutes.

Feeling like we were on a roll, "You like Dale McDowell?" I asked.

"Who’s that?"

Uh, oh. Maybe we just lost our common ground. "That’s Wendell’s teammate, I just did a little story on him."

"Oh." Came the nonchalant response. "He drives a car like my dad’s. They all do."

I turned my head down and looked at him. I was about to find out who this was. I already had an idea, but I sort of tested the waters and shook my head and said, "Hum."

"You know who MY dad is?" came the question.

"No, who is your dad?"

"C.J. RAYBURN." Came the definitive answer.

Since we were parked next to C.J.’s, I kind of had figured out that this must be the kid I had been hearing about since last summer. Talk has slowly been spreading about C.J.’s youngster working on the cars in the shop – banging and pounding away.

"Well nice to meet you. My name is Richard. What is yours?"

"Christian," he said politely, but not with the intensity in which he had told me who is dad was.

With formalities now behind us, we went right back to challenging one another.

"Bill Frye." he said.

"Frye, yea I like him. You know he is driving with a broken hand don’t you?" I shared. Frye could be the story I took from the weekend in Indiana. He put on a show finishing second in the fourth heat as he raced door-to-door with Jimmy Mars on a very rough and demanding track. They followed Clint Smith across the stripe as the GRT’s showed strength.

"I know." He said.

Let me tell you, this kid was on top of it.

"How old are you?"

"Nine."

"What do you think of Dion Deason? I plan on doing a story on him."

As one finger went up in the air I got a "Wait, Let me show you." As he begun tugging at this blue sweatshirt trying to pull it up to unveil a "Neon Deon" T-shirt underneath.

"See," he smiled, "I really like him."

"Me too." As I felt solid ground between us again, despite the muddy actual ground we stood on from the rain that had rained out the last heat on Friday night and forced it to be the first think on Saturday.

We were standing there looking around the cars that were nearby. I was trying to anticipate the next one he might say.

"What about Scott Bloomquist?" came the voice.

Where did he come up with that one? He caught me off guard; Scott was parked way in the back. Almost hiding like. It was Scott’s first race this season with Hav-A-Tampa, after he said he wouldn’t run any of their races except the Shootout in September. He had to start in the back of the second heat because he wasn’t in line when it was time to qualify. I heard different tales, that Scott did it on purpose to stir things up in his first race back, that he was thinking he could come from the back of heat and win easy, or the most reliable that he honestly didn’t know it was his time to qualify and his crew chief didn’t make sure that he knew, because in their newness together all the lines of communication haven’t been determined. At any rate, he would be in the consy later and would finish fourth, not making the race.

"No. Scott and me don’t see eye to eye. Me and Barry get along just fine." I threw that in to see if he knew whom Barry Wright, the chassis builder was.

"He copied my dad too."

Yep, he knew.

"They all copied my dad."

Yea, you’re right there I thought. I didn’t share that with him though.

Over the loud speaker, Ozzie Altman was calling the drivers to the souvenir row for the Hav-A-Tampa sponsored autograph session.

"I wish dad would let me go," said Christian.

This came as a surprise. As grown up, polite and smart as this kid was I felt sure he did what he wanted. Hey this is C.J.’s kid we are talking about here. You know how C.J. is.

"He won’t let me leave from around the trailer here." As he stared over at his dad’s car parked beside Toczek’s "I’d really like to go up there and get some little cars."

For a minute I realized that indeed he was nine years old, showing signs of being a little kid. Hey, wait a minute though, I – myself had already been up there looking at little cars earlier in the day. Young at heart I guess.

I thought about telling him the joke I was sharing all weekend. The one where Racing Champions was coming out with an Etch-a-Sketch type of car. You shake it and it changes colors and numbers. The first one they would be doing would be Bob Pierce. Since he changes rides every other month or so. Driving for Calvin Cheek’s Racing Team out of Tennessee for the past three weeks or so, but getting close to having a new MasterSbilt on his own. Pierce had looked quite impressive in his heat and would start on the front row with Moyer for the 100 lapper. He gave Moyer a run at first, but faded and would get involved in a wreck when Rayburn had a flat tire near halfway.

But, before I could share the joke. He asked who it was that drove that yellow car over there with the #75.

"Bart Hartman." I said.

"Yea, I’ve got his little car, but it’s an 11. What kind of car is that one?"

"It’s a MasterSbilt" I told him.

"Oh. They copied my dad."

I guess the thinking about the #75 gave him an idea. "You done one on John Gill?"

"No, I haven’t. But that would be a good one."

During this whole conversation we kept a close eye on the immediate goings on. Work continued on the #55 and his dad was running around helping them some, working on his own #CJ1, the #1CJ of Tony Stewart, the #1x of Rohn Moon and the #5 of James Huff, who were all parked in a semicircle together- making for a Rayburn camp fire meeting looking arrangement.

On the way home I would share Christian’s discussion and mine with Tony Hammett. He told me about Ray Cook’s car owner Brownie Brown’s meeting with Christian and how Christian had given them the nickel tour of C.J.’s shop. Baiting hook, line and sinker, Hammett said when Christian asked if Brownie wanted to see his race car, Brownie said yes, expecting to go out back and see a TQ Midget or go-kart.

Instead, there was a two-seater Late Model, Christian told Brownie that he raced it and started to get in and show Brownie, but the battery was dead. He told him he had a track on the other side of a hill and that Larry Moore had copied HIS car for Larry’s Driving School.

"What about dad? You ever done a story on him?"

I said yes. I thought about telling him all about the stories I did on his dad. All the ones when I was writing the race stories for Barren County Speedway and how he came down and won several races. I thought about telling him the time the following year in the Kentucky Klassic when I was just visiting and because of such confusion was trying to help them to realign the cars and HIS DAD kept arguing with me on where he was to line up and I finally went and stood directly in front of the car as he revved the motor, jumping the car up and trying to intimidate me into putting him further up in line by running me over.

I would up just saying that I did one last year when I was at the shop for the open house at Thanksgiving.

"Yea, I was there." He said. "There’s a lot to write about my dad. He holds all these records everywhere. He’s the fastest car here. He’s the fastest at a lot of places."

I and everyone at Brownstown were aware of how fast he was. He almost broke his own track record the night before and Stewart was second quick.

"I’m staying up tonight." He declared. "I didn’t for that other race up here. The one that he won. I was asleep in the truck when he won. Not tonight. I’m going to victory lane with dad."

"Oh you are?"

He quickly changed the subject back. "Tony Stewart?"

That’s the one I was waiting for since the very beginning. He had saved that one up. With Tony being a young hotshot, the newsmaker, already superstar, I figured that this young and impressionable boy would have Tony number one on his list.

"Yea, I’d like to do a story on him. I met him this winter in Evansville and told him if he ever got a chance and was in Charlotte to call me so we could do one. What do you think of him?"

"He’s nice."

"That’s good to hear." I said. "Maybe I’ll get to do a story on him soon."

We stood together – silent for a few moments – both in our own thoughts, both watching people crowd around Tony. He breaks the silence and says, "I’ve signed autographs too. They ask me for mine."

"You owe me a million dollars," came a voice from the other side of the cars. It was Joel Hedrick. He was talking to C.J., but yelled at Christian.

"Why do you owe him a million dollars?" I asked.

"He told me he was Billy Moyer’s car owner and I didn’t believe him. He is – isn’t he?"

With that we said our good-byes as he went over to listen to his dad talking to Joel- Billy Moyer’s car owner.

Christian would have got a kick out of being with me on the track during driver introductions. As Hav-A-Tampa announcer Ozzie Altman started at the rear of the field and worked his way forward introducing the drivers in his grand style, I was standing with Marshall Green.

Marshall was laughing about how they would announce Stewart’s name just before his and there would be this huge roar and then Ozzie would say ‘Marshall Green’ and there would be this loud silence. We laughed and I said since Ozzie was intimidating a ringside announcer, then he should start working Green’s chassis into driver intro by saying, ‘Marshall WARRIOR! Green’, like he was part of the World Wrestling Federation or something.

I walked on up the starting order, as Ozzie intro'd Stewart and then Green, thinking about Christian. Shoot if Christian was in charge of driver intros it would be ‘Marshall WARRIOR! – a copy of my dad’s car – Green.’"

I walked on up to the front row to Kevin Claycomb’s car. Kevin was standing there with his crew and Billy Moyer. I knew Christian would like to be listening in to their prerace talk. Joel comes walking up laughing. He shows Moyer a pack of gum that Rayburn had given him saying, "Here you’ll need this later on. I’m gonna be up there worrying you to death." They look back two rows and Rayburns grinning at them like a cat.

Joel pulls it back from Moyer and looks at it and starts laughing, "Should’ve known, it’s denture gum!"

Everyone laughs. Still I’m thinking of Christian. I think of the borderline cockiness that he his developing. It’s the same as C.J.’s, just like what he pulled on Joel.

I can already see another confrontation between Rayburn and I developing – like that Barren County thing.

I’m sure Rayburn wants Christian to become a race car driver. I want this nine-year-old that was thinking of good stories, to become a writer some day. Guess we will argue about that later.

Little did Christian know that on this particular weekend in Brownstown – he was THE story.

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