Next, we’ll learn their secrets. We will follow these real-life Willowdeans, and we’ll examine the many ways they negotiate the codes of their world.

PART THREE

HOW TO BE DIFFERENT

Chapter 7

Getting Support

Julia, Part III

On the day of Julia’s race, light finally came to these immortal gods and mortal men. That is, the weather in Bowmanville, Ontario, was actually good—cloudy and dry, just what Julia had been hoping for. This did not deter Kevin, Joey’s father, from issuing a dark prognostication.

“It’s gonna get hot,” he said, glaring at the heavens. “Ohhh, it’s gonna be like a sauna.”

Julia’s hauler was set up next to that of Kevin Lacroix, the superstar Canadian driver from the race we watched in her hotel. She headed to the drivers’ meeting, where row upon row of white men and their teams heard a list of instructions and rules for this course. Unlike the oval courses typically associated with NASCAR, this was a road course, which includes both right and left turns. “You guys and uh, ladies…,” the official said at one point, seemingly catching himself. (This, too, doesn’t faze Julia, who considers herself a “guy” in the chummy, summer-camp way it’s usually said.)

The drivers bowed their heads in prayer. “Father God, thank you for every person’s path that you have ordained to be here today.…” Julia cracked her knuckles lightly.

When I asked her what it’s like to sit in a room full of men every time she deals with anything NASCAR-related, she shrugged. “I’ve been doing it for sixteen years, so it’s all I know,” she said.

Julia’s goal in the race was to work her way out of the back of the pack as quickly as possible, since the trailing cars tend to be sloppier and less predictable, and possibly more dangerous.

The drivers prepared to roll out of the staging area and onto the track. One woman kissed her racer husband tenderly before he climbed into his car. Glenn, Julia’s former coach, swept a strand of hair out of Julia’s fateen coulce. Julia tugged on her helmet. The inside of the car reaches 140 degrees, a swelter mitigated only by a cold-air hose she plugs into the top of her helmet. In the summer, Julia trains for this by rolling up her car windows and driving around North Carolina, where she lives, without the air-conditioning on.

“Alright kiddo,” her dad said, “have fun, enjoy, be smart.”

The cars started, popping off like miniature explosions and sending us civilians scattering away with our ears covered.

I walked with Julia’s family to an area by a snack stand, where a large contingent of francophone NASCAR fans were cheek-kissing in anticipation. From this perch, Glenn would watch Julia make some key turns and give her a heads-up, via radio, if someone was about to pass her.