: It would be nice not to have the drama as a motivation, though.

AS: It's just the way it happened, because it happened so fast. I just didn't have a plan. It was such a sudden thing that there was nothing planned, nothing in the works. I just had to throw some things together.

: You have two businesses. Which one is closing down?

AS: The baby boutique – Ava Jane’s Baby Boutique. It’s not the store we depend on. Coral Fever is our main business. We've been open for almost six years now. I do the business side of it, but Seth does everything else. He'll stay home and do that while I'm at the races. I just couldn’t do both. As much as I really wanted to keep the boutique, I can't figure out how to do it – unless I hire somebody to run it, and I've been there before. And that didn’t work out too well for me in the past. If I can't be there to see over things the way I want to be there, then I'm just not going to keep it.

My store's not even open regular hours. I have a piece of paper taped on the door: Open tomorrow from 12 to 3, closed on Friday, open on Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday, open Tuesday . . . It's like various days. Whatever day I can get there is the only days it’s open until it's closed for good. Fortunately I live in a small town, and everybody understands. I did put a post on my store's Facebook page, explaining why this is happening and why it’s such a sudden going-out-of-business thing. And everybody seems to understand.

: Maybe you can figure out a schedule that will work for you and you can reopen it. It’s all a bit confusing to us, because it sounded as though this was a 2015 deal and here you are, jumping in right now.

AS: That's what it was supposed to be, when we first started talking about the idea of me going back to racing. It was never a for-sure thing until Michael Ray left Star Racing. When Michael Ray left, George [Bryce] called and said, “Will you do this?” The pressure was on: Oh my goodness – I have to make a decision right now. And I really didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. If I don’t take this now, it may never happen. So we both kind of just jumped on it. And it’s been pretty amazing at what we’ve accomplished in two weeks.

: George talked about the thrash at the shop at Americus, Georgia. He said he had to fashion a bike from a dusty chassis and a mish-mash of parts, because Michael Ray owned his chassis and he took it with him. And George said he also wanted to make sure your husband and parents were on board with such a venture.

AS: That's right.

: He also said you two made a pact that you won’t do this next year without proper funding.

AS: That’s right.

: That’s smart, because comebacks can go either way. It can be successful with a sensible plan and all the pieces in place, but it might have less of a chance if it comes from an emotional need or emotional response.

AS: Yes, definitely.