Throttle & Rust

From the journal

A man and a woman on the dropped tailgate of an old pickup in a gravel lot at golden hour, faces out of frame, her hand holding a Carolina cheeseburger with cheddar and chili and slaw and a toothpick through the top bun, his hand on a plain unlabeled can, her boots up on the tailgate, a dented tin tray of hand-cut fries on parchment between them, a covered dirt-track modified on a rusted flatbed trailer behind, one low tree-covered ridge beyond.

October 27, 2026 · Sarah

Every few weeks we run east to see my cousin Dana, and the hungry always wins somewhere around Kernersville. There is a little orange building off Old Winston Road that settles it, and the Carolina Burger is the one you sign up for.

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A dropped tailgate on a weathered tow truck at golden hour on a gravel highway shoulder, an open cooler and two plain unlabeled cans on the gate, a covered race car strapped to a rusted flatbed trailer behind, a blown tire against the bumper, cars streaked past in motion blur

October 26, 2026 · Caleb

Ten Miles Out

The trailer tire let go ten miles from the track, and the spare was flat. No hot laps this Saturday. What we got instead was a couple hours on a dropped tailgate watching traffic go by, which turned out to be the better end of the deal.

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October 23, 2026 · Caleb

Tie Breakers

The new place by the college is not all the way finished. The wings do not care. Half the room is still going up, but the kitchen is open, the town is already up on the walls, and Sarah has decided which stool is ours.

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Several men's hands in the glow of phone flashlights over the open engine bay of an old faded navy and cream pickup at night in a lakeside parking lot, one pair of hands twisting new wire at the ignition coil, a plain yellow tin of bolts and a small roll of copper wire on the rusted fender, tall lot lights and dark trees behind, the red fender of a polished show car at the edge

October 10, 2026 · Caleb

The Version That Starts

The '54 started Thursday morning on the first try, which it has never once done with anybody watching. So it went to the cruise-in, parked at the end of a row of cars that were finished, and found out nobody had come to see finished.

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A man's two hands resting flat on the rusted navy fender of an old two-tone pickup with its hood raised in a garage at night, his head out of frame above, a caged trouble light hooked on the hood throwing warm light into the engine bay, a faded yellow and red coffee tin of bolts and a white enamel mug on the fender, a pegboard of hand tools behind him, an old yellow lab's tail and hind leg under the bench, deep blue night through the open garage door

October 6, 2026 · Sarah

Under Its Own Power

Megan called Sunday with a race-week cruise-in at the Signature Bar on Thursday and one condition: Caleb brings the '54. Five years in, it drives, but barely. The question of whether it's ready has been standing in the garage with him ever since.

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A man's forearm and hand resting on the rusted fender of an old pickup inside a garage at golden hour, his head out of frame, a white duck sitting square in the middle of a round dog bed in the corner and an old yellow lab asleep on the bare concrete beside it, a pegboard of tools and a tungsten bulb behind

October 5, 2026 · Caleb

Seniority

The heat came on in the house Friday night, and by Saturday morning the duck had moved into the garage and into Crank's bed. Crank has not contested it. He has been on the concrete beside it ever since, and he seems to understand something about a fight that I am still working out.

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A man's two grease-stained hands holding a used cast-iron water pump at chest height inside an old block-walled two-bay garage, his head out of frame above, a bare tungsten bulb hanging from the rafters, an older man with his back turned working at a bench by a pegboard, an old yellow lab asleep in the open bay door, a wet gravel lot gone gold in low light outside, and in the foreground a plain tin can of bolts and fan belts and brackets wearing strips of blank masking tape, one low tree-covered ridge close behind

September 28, 2026 · Caleb

Priced Separately

Rain took Friday's install off the board, so Crank and I drove down to Sherrills Ford, where a man was closing out his shop one strip of masking tape at a time. Came home with a water pump for the '54 and a thought about the one thing in there nobody put a number on.

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September 25, 2026 · Caleb

Ten Days

There is a bare spot by the gravel turnaround that has been bare four years running, and the window to fix it is about ten days wide. Customers think they are paying for the labor. They are paying for somebody who knows which ten days.

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A man's two bare hands setting a split piece of oak bark-side-out onto a waist-high stack of firewood against the weathered board siding of a garage early on a cold morning with his face out of frame, a scarred chopping round with a splitting maul laid head-down and a steaming ceramic mug and bark curls in the foreground, an old yellow lab asleep and soft just inside the open roll-up door, one low tree-covered ridge catching the first light beyond

September 21, 2026 · Caleb

Which Way the Bark Faces

The rack went up against the garage six years ago and it has never once been full on the first day of fall. Bark faces out, the way a man on my first crew showed me without ever saying a word about it. Took four years to work out why.

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A man's two hands resting on the bare edge of a scarred wooden workbench in a garage early in the morning with his face out of frame, a dented yellow and red coffee tin holding loose hardware and a coil of trimmer line and two yellow tape measures in front of him, an old yellow lab asleep on a bed against the far wall, the roll-up door open on a gravel drive and one low tree-covered ridge beyond

September 8, 2026 · Caleb

The Bottom of the Pile

The bench in the garage has not been a bench since sometime in June. Anything that needed setting down got set down there, and nothing ever came back off. Turns out you can read a whole summer off a pile of it, bottom to top.

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A woman in a faded gray t-shirt printed HAMMERS RACING in red block capitals across the chest, standing in a side yard at golden hour with her face out of frame, an older man's hands resting on the arm of a green canvas folding chair, a cast-iron pot steaming on a low propane burner, an old yellow lab asleep on a blanket in the middle distance, one low tree-covered ridge behind

September 3, 2026 · Sarah

Somebody Else's 1988

The paint for Sunday is already out, schemes from the year my dad drove four races for a team that folded inside it. He scrolled through pictures of his own decade for sale and said about four words. My shirt is from that year too, and nobody ever put it on a car.

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A woman seen from behind in a faded gray t-shirt in a side yard at golden hour, an older man's hands resting on the arm of a green canvas folding chair at the left edge of the frame with no face visible, a cast-iron pot steaming on a low propane burner in the grass, an old yellow lab asleep on a folded blanket, garden fence and porch to the left, a mown path running back to one low tree-covered ridge

September 3, 2026 · Sarah

Ol' Dogs and Mountains

Somebody gave me a shirt two Christmases ago with a saying on the back, and it took until Sunday evening to notice the saying was not a saying. It was a list. Everything on it was standing in the yard in front of me, and not one item on the list is worth bragging about.

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Wet hands cupping smooth river stones and a piece of worn green bottle glass above a pale gravel bar, canvas sneakers and an upturned ball cap holding a rusted horseshoe and a bolt in the foreground, an old yellow lab asleep and soft on the bank behind, low ridge and tree line across the water

September 3, 2026 · Sarah

Low Water

The river came up twice this summer, hard enough both times to move things that had not moved in fifty years. Now the heat is back and it has dropped far enough to hand over a gravel bar and everything the high water set down on it. None of it lost. Just relocated, by a river that never once asked.

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August 24, 2026 · Sarah

Bridge Takes Four

Mama drove down from Wilkesboro on a Monday afternoon with a deck of cards and no reason attached to it. Forty years she has shown up places with something to get through the waiting, a book under her arm. This was the first visit with nothing to wait on.

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A woman seen from behind in a plain cap, cutting zinnias and cosmos into a dented enamel bucket at the edge of a late-summer garden in the cool of the morning, an old yellow lab low in the frame and a duck at the flower bucket, tree-covered ridges behind

August 13, 2026 · Sarah

Just to Look At

Two weeks of canning turns a kitchen into a ledger, every jar earning its place against the coming frost. So one cool morning goes to the one thing the garden grows that can't be put up. Some of what you keep, you keep just to look at.

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An old pickup driving away down NC 268 between two walls of tall August corn at golden hour, dust off the tires, hazy foothill ridges ahead

August 3, 2026 · Caleb

Both Sides of 268

The corn on 268 came up into a wall this week, both sides of the road, taller than the truck. There's a race Sunday out in corn country, and driving through the same crop put it in my head before I knew it had. The heartland everybody talks about is growing on the road to the pizza place.

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A woman's hands halving ripe tomatoes into a dented enamel pot on a porch table at golden hour, a row of filled mason jars glowing on the rail, a duck in a spilled bucket of skins and an old yellow lab low in the frame, hazy ridges behind

August 1, 2026 · Sarah

Putting Up

The tomatoes came in all at once this week, the way they always do, faster than four people can eat them. So you stand at the table and put summer in jars. What you're really keeping isn't the tomatoes.

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A pontoon on Lake Hickory at golden hour, tree-lined shore and low ridges behind

July 27, 2026 · Sarah

A Boat We Didn't Have to Fix

Mara had been talking up a marina pub over on Lake Hickory since spring. Dan and Meagen Kelly left corporate life to buy the place and run the grill. Turns out the best kind of boat is the one that is somebody else's to worry about.

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An older man's hands on a vintage AM radio in the garage with the race on, a stopwatch and enamel mug beside it, a framed short-track stock car photo on the shelf, an old yellow lab asleep, the ridge through the door

July 26, 2026 · Sarah

One Yard Left

They paved over the Brickyard in 1961, all but a single yard of it at the start-finish line. Three million bricks buried under the asphalt, one strip left to kiss. Daddy never ran that place, but he can tell you every layer of it.

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Tending a worn offset smoker at dawn with a coffee mug in hand, blue smoke rising, an old yellow lab in the grass, the Blue Ridge behind

July 25, 2026 · Sarah

Which One to Buy

People find out I run the smoker and the first thing they want is a recommendation. The machine matters less than showing up to feed it. But if you're set on spending the money, some friends of ours did the homework.

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A glass of amber ale and a split ham biscuit on a weathered porch rail at golden hour, an old yellow lab dozing on the boards, the ridge going gold behind

July 22, 2026 · Caleb

Ahead of the Weekend

The Meg turned up with a can that isn't supposed to be out until the weekend. Cinnamon roll in a glass, she said, like that settled it. Took a porch and a cold biscuit to work out what it actually wanted.

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Setting a piece of fieldstone into a low dry-stack wall along the Yadkin riverbank at golden hour, a level and rubber mallet in the foreground, an old yellow lab resting in the shade

July 20, 2026 · Caleb

Last on the List

Stone walls are the one thing people actually pay me to build. My own riverbank has sat half-done for five years, waiting on an evening I've got nothing left to give it. Turns out those are the only evenings it ever gets.

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A narrow dirt back road curving into dark tree-covered foothills at night, a single distant pair of headlights and a low moon behind the ridge

July 18, 2026 · Sarah

Never on the Road

Everybody in Wilkes County claims a piece of Junior Johnson. My daddy raced the tail end of what he started. They never caught that man on the road. Only ever standing still.

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A glowing LIVE JAZZ light fixture on the wall outside The Downbeat in downtown Hickory, NC

July 18, 2026 · Caleb

Between Sets

Hickory got its first jazz room, and the Meg called the day it opened. Twenty years I'd worn out the same records in the garage. A record you can play again. This you couldn't.

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A race-weekend afternoon in a foothills side yard — a cast-iron chili pot steaming on a burner, an older man's hands near a phone, an old yellow lab asleep on a blanket, green ridge behind at golden hour

July 13, 2026 · Sarah

Between Cautions

Race weekend, and Daddy has a podcast going on his phone. He does not trust anybody under fifty to talk about racing, so hearing him turn it up meant something. Some torches get passed quiet.

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A creekside patio at a mountain vineyard near Banner Elk, NC — umbrellas along the Watauga River with Grandfather Mountain going soft behind under a summer sky

July 8, 2026 · Sarah

Thirty-Three Hundred

There's a Chambourcin they pour up in Banner Elk with a number on the label instead of a name. The number is the elevation. A day up the Watauga to go find where it comes from.

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A rusted chain-link gate on the back straightaway at North Wilkesboro, a hand on the wire, empty grandstands and foothills behind at golden hour

July 5, 2026 · Sarah

Nobody Told Them

They chained the gate in 1996 and left it twenty-seven years. The All-Star show came back a few summers ago, but the points race is the real one, and it's two weeks out. Most things don't get a second half.

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Old trucks, slow meat, and the race on the radio. That's pretty much it.

Caleb & Sarah Whitaker

Late afternoon, the valley.

I kept telling Caleb we should write some of this down. The Saturdays, the people, the things that get fixed and the things that don't. So this is that. A small place to put the photos and a few sentences about what was happening when we took them. Megan, my friend from school, put this together for us one weekend. She has more taste than the two of us combined.

— Sarah

About us

I'm Caleb. My wife Sarah and I started this little corner of the internet because we kept taking pictures of stuff in the driveway and didn't really have anywhere to put them.

I run a landscaping company. Spent a lot of years on crews working high-end properties — a couple NASCAR guys' places out toward Mooresville, a few others — before I went out on my own. Sarah went to App State for teaching and now stays home with our kids. Her dad raced short-track for years up at Wilkesboro and Hickory, and the radio in the garage was his father's before that. So the race on Saturday isn't a new thing for us. It's just always been there.

Most weekends I'm under a hood and Sarah's got the smoker going. Friends drift in and out. Crank finds shade. The duck gets into something he shouldn't. That's about the size of it.

Caleb & Sarah

If you need us, write Sarah.

sarah@throttleandrust.com

On the calendar

Darlington. Labor Day.

The Southern 500 runs Sunday evening on a track shaped wrong on purpose, and the cars come out in paint from thirty and forty years back. Ricky watches his own decade go by in somebody else's colors. Sarah wears the shirt, which is not a throwback because it never left.

Ghost track of the week

Hamburg Speedway

Hamburg, New York · Two Cup races, 1949–1950

Hamburg Speedway was a half-mile dirt oval on the grounds of what is now the Erie County Fairgrounds in Hamburg, New York. NASCAR's top series ran there twice. Jack White won in a Lincoln on Sept. 18, 1949, and Dick Linder won in an Oldsmobile on Aug. 27, 1950. Racing at the track ran until 1997, and the fairgrounds now host the county fair and a gaming hall.