LOXLEY — While making last-minute adjustments to his car before a July 3 dirt track race at the Deep South Speedway, Nickie White thinks about the advice his great aunt would give him all the time.

"Beat them before they beat you."

The woman from Magnolia Springs, Nale Thomas, would know.

"She raced on the beach at Daytona with NASCAR," White said. "Her number was Red 7, and she raced … with Red Farmer and all these other guys, all the Alabama Gang people."

Thomas' Red No. 7 car was infamous on the circuit, according to White. Now his son Jimmy, who also races, has taken it on.

"That number right there has been in the family about 85 years," he said.

So to say that racing is in White's blood would be a bit of an understatement.

"It's deep, deep in my blood," he said. "It's in my colon."

And he's passed it on. Both of White's sons, Jimmy and Jesse, race alongside him, and he said he has every intention of passing it on to his grandchildren, most of whom are at the track every weekend. The youngest ones are held and fed while the ones who can walk balance on the trailers that the race cars were towed in on and sit on the backs of four wheelers, watching Dad work.

It's part of the reason White's No. 48 car is decked out in Paw Patrol characters; he's looking to engage the kids any way he can.

"Every kid here loves the Paw Patrol car," he said.

Over at the No. 56 car, Chris Bayhi slides in through the window and begins tightening his helmet. He's been racing since he was 10 and, like his dad who worked on the legendary Davey Allison's pit crew, has found a way to make life at the track a career.

"I put at least 40 hours a week in it," he said. "But I don't just work on just strictly my car. I also hang bodies for other people and set up their cars and stuff like that... This is 24/7. It's all I do."

Bayhi, who started racing with Deep South Speedway owner Billy Roberson after a 2015 incident with his newly built car forced him to sell, said the sport itself is addicting, but it's the relationships that really elevate the experience of being at the track.

"It's just always a lot of fun, and it's a family event," he said. "Like everybody that works on my car, they're my real friend, and we do this together every week."

Even so, he wasn't able to pull out a victory last week, and coming out on top is still the priority.

"Well, I came in second last week," Bayhi said. "I'm hoping for a, a big fat win."