When I was a young man, I did some racing. Nothing fancy, just some local circle track stuff.
Fact is, my brother Morty and I were peddling cars at the time. Making bucks hand over fist wiring pieces of crap back together and dumping them on the unsuspecting public.
Our racing career started out when we ended up with this old 1963 Ford, it was cream colored, we planned on getting $400 out of our $100 investment. I say "our" but of course it was my $100.
The piece of shit was clean, yet made so much noise running nobody would buy it. One day I came around the corner just as my butthead brother had put a sledgehammer through the rear window.
"What the fuck!" I yelled, as he beat away at MY fucking $100 investment.
"Race car." He grinned and whacked away some more. Just then a guy walked around the corner, asking, "Do you guys still have the old For....? Uh, never mind."
I groaned, when Morty got a wild hair up his ass to do something, it usually meant he wanted some more of my checkbook.
There was something about "needing a roll bar" and other crap like that, I gave up and wandered out to the lot to try and peddle a rusty Nash we had to some little old lady.
Sure enough, a day later the thing had a big #52 in black shoe polish and a "roll bar" which was a piece of goddamned pipe he had bent and hid the flange at the bottom under the carpet so the officials wouldn't know it wasn't attached.
While sitting in line waiting to get into the pits, I noticed a whole string of the dirtiest, greasiest looking guys anyone ever saw coming up and rubbing the shiny paint.
I didn't find out why until later.
I actually drove the thing, the first turn I stepped on the brakes, the right front locked up, and straight it went into the concrete wall. As I was trying to get pointed again, some guy drove into the back end of me, just then another one rammed into my side. The fucking roll bar tipped forward and hit the back of my crash helmet, I had to reach up and grab it.
This was starting to suck.
They towed me back to the pits where we pounded out the fender and bumper, replaced the bent wheel and flat tire. I noticed it pointed off in a funny direction but nothing we could really do about that. Once we had it rolling again, they called for the driver's meeting. Morty looked at me, I looked at him.
"Last one there has to drive!" he yelled, and we took off on foot.
I won.
The driver's meeting consisted of, "NO hitting the driver's door!" and that was about it. I looked around, every single car had the driver's door smashed in, I wasn't liking this one damn bit.
I had been noticing all the cars had their doors chained shut too, we didn't, so I went and got a piece of chain out of the truck. I was wrapping it around the door post when one of the other drivers came up to me.
"Too long." he said.
"Why?"
"Hits the ground, you might need it after the race." and he walked away.
Need it? After the race? I just shrugged.
Well, Morty made it to turn one, got rammed in the butt and shoved out into a big pile of berry bushes, they just left him there. Later a smashed up caddy ended up on his trunk, the rest was a blur of smoke and tearing metal. Our old Ford was a good foot shorter than it started out as.
Back in the pits, I heard some yelling and swearing, there was a big pile of guys going at it in the infield. I waited for security to come and break it up but they just turned out the lights and left.
'Nuff for me, we got out of there. Now I knew what the chains were for.
Still, we had the bug, so for a few years we ran different machines. I actually got pretty good at getting around the track fast, even won a couple of jalopy races.
It was about 15 years later, I had long since given up the racetrack. Gave up on Morty, too, seems he spelled "loan" as "G.I.V.E.". But I knew he had kept on with the racing, even winning a few, I read about it in the papers.
I was sitting in my chair watching TV and having a snort when the phone rang.
It was Morty.
"Need you at the track." No hello, how ya doing, nothing.
Typical Morty.
Checking my wallet to make sure it was still there, I suspiciously asked, "Why?"
"You are driving the #15 car."
"No I'm not."
"Yes you are, and bring your brain bucket."
He hung up.
Just fuck!
Stupidly, I went and dug out my old fire suit and crash helmet.
Yeah, sure. My 220# frame wasn't going into that suit that had fit my 170# body when I was 22. The crash helmet didn't fit either.
I called Morty.
"Can't, my fire suit won't fit."
"Go buy one!" He hung up.
Just fuck!
$600 lighter in the pocketbook, I arrived at the track, new helmet and firesuit in hand. Had to be out of my godammed mind.
But things had changed, the track was now a sanctioned event. The #15 car was a snazzy 1979 Camaro Z-28, big bubble on the hood to cover the huge engine. I looked at the roll cage, tight and fully welded in, good gussets, strong. Not a mark on the body, beautiful.
Hell, it even had my name on it above the driver's door.
Feeling better, I climbed in the window, settled into the seat. The seat was steel backed, full wraparound. Neat rib padding, even the bars around the driver were completely foam wrapped.
Cool!
I started the engine, flipping the series of toggle switches on the dash and pushing the button. It roared to life instantly. I blipped the throttle a few times, feeling the entire machine roll with the power of the engine.
Morty stuck his head in the window and yelled over the sound of the exhaust.
"She has 750 horsepower, so take it easy the first lap or two!"
750...???
The last race car I drove had maybe 200.
Oh well.
The flagman was waving at me as I struggled to get the 4 point latch on the seat harness clamped down. Finally I was strapped in. Morty appeared at the window again, reached in and jerked on the harness straps until they were so tight I couldn't take a full breath. He clipped the window net up, I let out the clutch and rolled out onto the track.
"Hot laps", they call this part.
I rolled into the first turn, feeling the steering wheel turn by itself to match the corner, the chassis settled and seemed to drop as I did. I actually had to hold the wheel to the right to make the car go straight in the straightstretch. I shifted into top gear as the machine came up and out of the turn, pressed my foot down to the floor and leaned on the wheel to the right.
All hell broke loose!
The back end shifted sideways, I turned the wheel more to correct, next thing I knew I was sitting facing the wrong way as cars poured by me on the high side of the track.
I somehow had managed to kill the engine, too.
I restarted it, turned around. More gently this time, I rolled into the 3rd turn, again the machine seemed to want to just go around the corner. Full throttle again, the back end set sideways, I caught it this time, but cars were streaming by on both sides.
Three laps of that and I wanted out of there, I took the pit lane exit.
"What the fuck is wrong with this piece of shit!" I yelled at Morty as he walked over to the car.
"You are going too fucking slow!" he yelled at me.
"Slow? I am going as fast as I can!" I yelled back.
"You spin the tires when you go too slow." he walked away in disgust.
Pissed off now, I headed back out there. If I wrecked the fucking thing, I wrecked it, his car anyway.
I eased on the gas to build up speed this time, rolled into the first turn, backed off to half throttle and teased the brakes. It just turned and I was back on the gas. At full throttle I felt like my eyelids were going to slide back off my face as I set up the 3rd turn.
I was going like the hubs of hell!
Just then another car appeared alongside on my right, the driver turned into me. I felt a series of bumps and he shot away from me and vanished into the distance.
Maybe I wasn't going like the hubs of hell?
After the jokes and bullshit about "slow" and "Old man" I rubbed the 3 black circles off the paint, went to the driver's meeting.
I had to listen to the fat technical director introduce me and explain to everyone to be careful and not scare me or run over me because I was a "rookie."
Yeah, sure. Six wins and at least 40 top 5's on this same goddam track and I was a rookie?
Well, yea, guess I was.
I qualified 28th out of 30 cars, there was some tiny girl driving an old Chevelle, I whipped her ass by God. The other driver crashed timing in so he was last.
I did get to drive in a six lap heat race, starting in the rear helped some. By the last couple of laps I was actually gaining back some of the ground I lost in the first four.
In the 30 lap main, I was next to last on the outside, the lady driver was right beside me. I wasn't too worried about the driver who had crashed timing in, he was right behind me.
Morty was way up towards the front, inside on the second row. The whole thing was a mess, I fought for the first 20 laps trying to get ahead of the lady in the old Chevelle. Of course she had pulled ahead off the first turn, much to my chagrin. It didn't help at all the the guy who started behind me kept banging into my back bumper.
I noticed quickly that the faster I went into the turns the easier they seemed to be to negotiate. The Chevelle finally got into turn 3 a little hot and slid high, I got under her and by. I caught the 26th place car, got under him and ahead, then the 25th. A crash took out 4 cars, I restarted 21nd and was 19th when the checkered flag dropped. One place in front of Morty, who had been going for the lead when he got into (caused) the crash.
After the races it's beer time, everyone headed in to buy the plastic $5 cup of beer. I spotted the lady who had been driving the Chevelle, she looked different without the grubby shapeless firesuit on.
I had realized she was little, it hit me just how little. There wasn't 90 pounds there if I dipped her in Molasses. She was talking to this big guy who was one of the front runners. He looked like he was cousin to a Neanderthal or something. Huge jaw, big rugged face, constant scowl.
He caught my eye, came over, introduced himself as Carl.