LIGHTS OUT 7
PHOTOS: JT HUDSON, CHRIS SEARS
One Door Down
“We go to get the car ready
for first round eliminations – put
the front end on, put the passenger door on, and I go to grab the
driver’s side door and…it’s gone,”
says Steven Fereday, owner of
Late Model Racecraft and top-tier
Radial vs. World competitor
behind the wheel of his twin-turbocharged fourth-generation
Camaro. “I’m not going to lie,
we probably spent 20 minutes
scrounging around the pit trying
to find it, looking in the trailer,
all over the place. Finally, I figure
someone is playing a prank on me.
There’s no way this is real. It took
me another 20 or 30 minutes to
muster up the courage to go to the
tower and tell them that someone
has stolen the door of my race
May 2016
car.” Incredibly,
Fereday’s crew had
identified a suspect
in the days prior,
though they hadn’ t
previously realized
it. “At this point,
they’d called us to
the lanes several
times. I was sick.
I couldn’t believe
it. My crew guys,
though, they start
telling me about
this guy down at
the end of the track that would
go crazy screaming my name and
waving his arms every time we
towed back up the return road
after a run. I didn’t even know
it was going on; I wasn’t aware
of it at the time and they hadn’t
mentioned it. So one of the guys
says, ‘man, it had to be that crazy
guy down at the end of the track.
It just has to be.’ We hopped on
the golf cart, hauled us down there
and found the guy.
We asked him to
search his truck,
and he didn’t really
say anything. So,
I jump over the
fence, searched
his truck, nothing
in there, then I
ripped open his
tent and there’s
nothing in there.
Now, I’m starting
to feel like a dickhead, like, ‘oh shit,
maybe this kid didn’t take it.’ But
there was one more tent beside
his, so I rip it open and – no joke
– the door is sitting in the tent.
No lie. It literally blew my mind.
Like…it made me feel crazy.”
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