Running The Show: Drivers As Track Operators

Honoring Joey

Two years ago, Joey Jeffries was killed while serving with the Army's Special Forces in Afghanistan. Joey grew up as a track brat. His father, Mark, worked at River City Speedway as a flagger and later buckled into a car.

"I was always pretty awful," Mark says.

His son was with him almost every weekend, playing under the stands, watching the action, or taking photos of the cars as they circled the oval. When he was old enough to drive, Joey bought a race car before he bought one to drive on the street.

"Actually, he never drove until the night of his first race," says Mark. "He practiced in the parking lot."

What he lacked in finesse he made up for in youthful enthusiasm.

"His first lap ever on the track, he stuffed it in the wall," Mark says. "He learned that night about how racers help their own. We put one end of a chain around the bumper and the other end around a tree and did some shadetree bodywork on it. But he got back out onto the track and finished that night."

Joey drove mostly junk.

"It was all he could afford," says his dad. "He put every dime he could come up with into his car."

He put aside racing to get married and begin a family. He was on his second tour of overseas duty when he was killed by a roadside explosive.

"I kept getting e-mails from him about getting his car ready so he could race when he got back," says Mark. "He told me to work on it and get another one so he could kick my ass when he got home."

Mark and his friends spent the week after Joey's death getting his Mustang ready.

"It was something I could do to get my mind off what was ahead of me," Mark says. "I was surrounded by my friends-by Joey's friends-all week."

The track wanted to honor Joey with a memorial race.

"We should have never raced that night," says Mark. "It was raining, the track was junk, and there was hardly anyone in the stands. "The association president called a meeting and told folks they could go home if they wanted to, but that he was going to put on a race for Joey no matter what."

Most of them stayed. It's what families do.

"I didn't want to be there, but I knew I had to be there," says Mark. "It was what Joey would have wanted. And then the weirdest thing happened. It was about 7:15 when the rain stopped and the sun broke out through the clouds, and there was this enormous bright rainbow over the track." "It was just about the same time the plane carrying Joey's body touched down at the airport."

Joey Jeffries was home, back with his family.