There really was no Gusher Gas Economy Run fifty years ago, and Lloyd "Balloonfoot" Bodine was the figment of the imagination of the editors of Road and Track magazine. The rest of this silliness is all mine.
As always, my thanks to ErikThread and DaveT for their editing and helpful suggestions. Any errors or omissions are entirely mine.
Chapter 1: Getting Acquainted
Now, there's some folks who'll tell you this is a work of fiction. Then there's others, like me, who'll swear on a stack of Gideons that it's the dead honest truth. How do I know? Well, I was there ... from the beginnin' to the end. Yes sir! I entered an' ran the 1960 Gusher Gas Economy Run from Los Angeles to Chicago ... an' I won!
You can look it up. My name will be right there under the Special Entry Category: Winner, Purvis Miles, 1953 Studebaker Starliner Coupe. I should have won an award for prettiest car in the run, but they didn't have no prize for that. Too bad. I still have that car, sittin' in my garage, as beautiful as the day it left South Bend. I'll probably keep it forever, supposin' I never drive it again. It'd be a cryin' shame to get it dirty.
It was coral red with a white top, whitewall tires, an' full hubcaps. It even had a radio. Raymond Loewy really knew what he was doin' when he put pencil to paper an' designed this baby. O'course, it had the little flathead six with an automatic transmission. I think that's why I got it so cheap. A V8 would have been a lot more dear, an' we wouldn't have done so good in the "Gusher Gas." Then again, I didn't buy it to enter in the Gusher Gas, it just worked out that way. I'll tell you about it later.
I set about cleanin' it up an' then takin' out all the stuff that added unnecessary weight. There were rules about that, so I was careful not to make any big mistakes. On the other hand, if you weren't cheatin' a little bit, you weren't tryin' hard enough. Big Lloyd Bodine wrote the book on skinnin' the rules to a fine edge. They didn't call him "Ballonfoot" for nothin' either. He could suck more miles out of a thimble-full of gas than any man alive. Some of us were thinkin' that we ought to just award him the trophy before we started, then see who'd come second.
Anyway, this story ain't about Lloyd, it's about me, my girl, my Studie, an' the adventure we had that summer. Now I'm not a professional driver like Lloyd, or that low-life Curtis Dodge, or some of those other fellers. I just figured that if I had a plan, an' had done a good job gettin' my car ready, I had a chance in the special category for older cars. They had some kind of formula worked out that took into account age, weight, type of motor, an' a whole mess of other things that made it impossible to know how they would figure out who won.
Just the same, I wanted to try my luck, an' Daddy 'n' me worked all winter an' most of the spring gettin' that car ready. We decided to trailer it out to Los Angeles. We lived in Busted Branch, New Mexico, so it was a long haul, but we couldn't take the chance of any unnecessary wear an' tear on the car. In the meantime, we'd filled out the paperwork, sent in the entry form with our money, an' sat back waitin' for the big event.
The route was goin' to be a killer. From L.A. to Flagstaff, to Tucumcari, Wichita, Des Moines, then finally, Chicago. We'd be from twenty feet below sea level at one point, to over seven thousand above at another. It was goin' to severely test our machine, our tunin', an' my drivin' skills. The good news was that there weren't no professional drivers in my category, so I wasn't up against impossible odds.
There was a nice prize at the end for the winner of my category. $3,000 was nothin' to sneeze at. Even if we finished third, we'd win $1,000, more than enough to cover our costs. Mind you, it wasn't anythin' like the kind of money the big boys in the factory cars would win. Just the same, it would more than pay for our trip an' I'd have a fine car to show for it at the end. Daddy 'n' me figured it was worth the effort.
I got to tell you about my Daddy, Hardy Miles. He wasn't book-smart or anythin', but I swear there weren't nobody smarter than him when it came to cars or trucks, or almost anythin' else that would move for that matter. Why only a few weeks ago, Orville Wilbur hauled his John Deere in to see if Daddy could figure out what was wrong with the power take-off. The nearest JD dealer was fifty miles down the road, so it made sense to check with us afore makin' that trek.
Well, I don't have to tell you that Daddy fixed that unit as good as new in less time than it takes to tell the tale. Natur'ly, Orville was pleased as punch, an' said so to everyone he met for the next two weeks. Daddy always said word-o'-mouth was better than any damn newspaper advertisement. My ma, Leticia Miles, always agreed with Daddy. She'd been with him through thick 'n' thin since before I was born.
Daddy was a farmer in Oklahoma until the economy went to hell thanks to them Demon-crats. He scraped out a livin' an' didn't do too bad, all things considered. But when it got to the fact that he couldn't get paid for his crops 'cuz nobody had nothin' to pay with, well, he figured it was time to move on. He loaded Ma, my sister 'n' me up, along with whatever else that old flat deck Ford truck would carry, an' we took off west.
I was fifteen an' my sister, Eunice, was almost fourteen when we stopped in Busted Branch for gas 'n' some water for the truck. Daddy knew there was somethin' wrong with the old girl since it had been showin' signs of overheatin' for the last day or so. Bein' as careful as he was, he knew he couldn't trust it much further, so he decided we'd stop in this here town while he had a look at the engine to see what the matter was.
It didn't take him too long to figure out that the problem was with the water pump. In fact it was a seal that had given up sealin' an' needed replacin'. Naturally, there weren't no Ford dealer in this little town, so, bein' as smart as he was, he set about fixin' it hisself. He found a piece of gum rubber some place in the back of the garage we'd stopped at, got Ma's scissors out of her bag, an' commenced to cuttin' 'n' shapin' a new seal. It worked like a hot damn, as you would expect.
Now, while all this was goin' on, the feller that ran the garage was watchin' to see what Daddy was up to. I could see him noddin' now 'n' then, so I figured he was agreein' with what Daddy was doin'. Seemed like I was right, too.
"Mister, you did a fine job with that water pump. You a licensed mechanic?" he finally asked Daddy.
"Nope. More like a jackleg mechanic," he said, lookin' all serious.
"Aw hell, you ain't no jackleg. You know what the hell you're doin' by the look o' things," the feller said, all serious like too.
Daddy didn't say nothin', just nodded at the feller.
"We ain't had a decent mechanic in this town fer over two years. You interested in a job?"
"What's it pay," Daddy asked right quick.
"Thirty-five a week an' a place to sleep."
"I got a wife an' two kids. What's the place look like?"
The feller smiled. "It'll do you. It's upstairs over the garage. Two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, an' a settin' room. Lived there my own self 'till my folks passed on an' left me their place. Wanna have a look?"
"Sure do. Come on, Ma. Let's see what we got here."
Ma wasn't a real wordy person, so she just got out o' the truck an' followed Daddy around the side of the garage to a set of stairs leadin' up. Eunice 'n' me was right behind them.
"My name's Tucker Winslow," the feller said as we climbed the stairs.
Daddy stopped at the top of the stairs an' shook Mr. Winslow's hand.
