When I was six years old, I lived next door to an old man. His name was Mr. Walker. I didn’t know it at the time, but from the time I met him his health was failing and he was slowly slipping away. He was my friend, and I would visit him daily. He would give me a coke, and tell me stories, about an old Winchester rifle that hung on his wall. He would tell me stories about how his father would protect their home from Indians with this old Winchester rifle. Oh course these stories weren’t true, but at six years old I believed every word he told me.

Mr. Walker passed away when I was in the first grade. In those days the wakes were held at home. Mr. Walker was the first dead man that I ever put my eyes on. I didn’t believe I could be any sadder then when I lost my best friend. Mr. Walker gave me that old Winchester rifle in his will, with the understanding it was to hang on my wall and I couldn’t take it down without my dads permission.

Within a year, I found out that an Uncle of mine had a Winchester rifle just like mine. I told him he was my favorite Uncle, and I did every favor I could possibly do for him, and I eventually talked him out of that old rifle. I was the envy of all the boys in my neighborhood because now I had two Winchester rifles hanging on my wall.

From my home to where my dad worked, which I walked often, there was a pawn shop about midway. I stopped in the pawn shop many times. I befriended the man who owned the shop, and through my teenage years, I ended up buying seven more Winchester rifles. Now there are nine rifles hanging on my bedroom wall.

Besides the fascination for these old Winchester rifles, my fascination was growing for anything with wheels and a motor on it. My collection of junky motorcycles and go-carts filled our backyard and garage. Behind our house, there was a large field, with hills, jumps, bushes and such, that made it an excellent place to ride these motor vehicles. We didn’t know who owned this property, but many of my friends and I used this as a huge playground.

I became known to most of the people in our town, as a bit of a daredevil on my motorcycles and go-carts, and a fanatic when it came to my love of Winchester rifles.

In less than a mile from our house, I found my new friend, who was several years older than I, Jake Jacobson, who was known as “High Speed.” He built and raced a sprint car, which I got to help with. Eventually he started taking me to the racetrack with him to help in the pits. I thought he had the best looking car on the track, and one of the fastest too, but it seemed he was always in the middle of the pack, and I was always trying to encourage him to “step it up we need to win a race.”

I had "hot lapped" the car before, but I had never driven it in a race. One night in Edinburgh Texas, at a small dirt track, High Speed said “See what you can do if you think its so easy, Hot Shot.”

Starting at the back of the pack, in my first race, the flagged dropped and I never felt more at home. I felt so in control and so confident, the car felt like a part of me. Running wheel to wheel, hearing the roar of the open exhaust, my adrenalin was flowing. By the second lap I had passed my first car. I started passing cars one by one, and when the checkered flag fell, I came in second place about a car length behind the first car.

When I got back in the pits, High Speed was more excited than I was. He was yelling at me, telling me he thinks he has a brand new driver. The next day, when High Speed and I were telling my dad what happened the night before, High Speed said that I was a natural and he wanted me to drive his car. My dad cautioned me about being careless and that if I didn’t watch out I was going to get hurt, which was the same thing he was telling me, every since I got my first go-cart.

I went on to race the car for a year, it kept getting easier, and we started winning and kept it up. My dad was going to the races with us, he was setting and adjusting the suspension for each and every track. High Speed kept the engine going , we won 17 out of 37 races that first year.

We got word that Coca Cola wanted to sponsor a sprint car. We felt like we had a good chance at getting this sponsorship. We knew that they would be looking at other cars and drivers as well as us. They were looking at drivers like, Pat Johnson, my biggest competitor. We knew they would be at the Houston race track watching the race and picking out a car and driver. We got there early to learn the track, set up the car so we could make a good impression on them. We really wanted this sponsorship.

About 5 hours before the race, one of the guys in the pit told me that a man named Richard Hamilton, who lived less than 3 miles from the race track, had an old Winchester rifle for sell. I had plenty of time to go and look at it, and possibly buy it and be back at the race track before the race started. My dad told me I didn’t need another rifle and that I needed to concentrate on the race, but I - - knowing more than everyone else of course, left the track in the tow truck to go look at Mr. Hamilton's rifle.

The rifle had a broken stock on it so I decided not to buy it. I went back to the race track and at around 6 o’clock - - just about the time I was about to get in the car to hot lap it - - here came the Houston Police Department. Four or five cop cars and cops all over the place approached me and accused me of killing Mr. Hamilton and stealing his Winchester rifle. They searched the tow truck and found the rifle under the seat. I was arrested and charged with the murder of Richard Hamilton.

I was taken to jail and did not get to race, no one raced the car that night. High Speed went on home, and my dad stayed with me. After all the lawyers, Judge, and legal mumbo jumbo took place, I was sentenced with murder and taken to Huntsville to serve 40 years. My dad told me he believed that I didn’t do it, but the day they took me out of the courtroom in handcuffs was the last time I saw my dad.

After 3 years in Huntsville, my Aunt (who also called me Hot Shot)  never accepted the fact that I could commit a murder, and she worked very hard to try to prove my innocence.

Pat Johnson ended up getting the Coca-Cola sponsorship and was badly injured on a race track in Dallas. My Aunt who had always believed that Pat had something to do with the death of Richard Hamilton, went to see him in the hospital in Dallas and on his death bed, he confessed to police and my Aunt that he had killed Richard Hamilton and planted the gun in our tow truck in order to get the Coca-Cola sponsorship.

Within the month, I was released from Huntsville, and received letters from the Governor of Texas, the Attorney General of Houston, and several other officials, all of them saying about the same thing although we did not have a perfect system we had a good system and they apologized for my wrongful incarceration. I was given eight thousand dollars from the state to start my life over again.

My Father died of cancer while I was in prison. My Aunt, for whom I will be forever grateful, died one year after my release. The last words I had with her were “ do the right thing Hot Shot, don’t make me come back and straighten up any more of your messes.” High Speed took his wife and two daughters to Wichita Kansas to put his engineering degree to better use than racing cars. He also said he believed in my innocence and that he believed in me since the first day he saw me driving his car.

As for myself, I went back home to find everything had changed, my mother had sold the house and moved to upstate New York to live with her sister. We get in touch about once a year just to say hello. The big field behind our house is now a housing development. No one calls me Hot Shot and no one thinks of me as a Daredevil anymore. All the rifles had been sold and the money was used to pay for attorney fees.

I don’t race anything anymore, no more laps around the race track holding the checkered flag. Its time to start my life all over.

Well that’s just another story.
 

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