Never The Same IC#16: A Surprise and a White Rat

Does Kirk still court the autogods’ good favor?

            Cue: “See the USA in Your Chevrolet"  https://youtu.be/4BcaNvksvHU

            For those of you readers following the true exploits of Kirk, you’ve figured out on your own, because it hadn’t been actually stated, that this story is not exactly in chronological order. Overall, it’s following a rough timeline, but it is written following topics rather than a straight-forward sequential account including all topics in Kirk’s life as they occurred. So, it goes without saying, even though I am saying here, that the other important events that transpired during Kirk’s love life episodes will be revealed in all due time. This episode begins well before the love triangle of Kirk, Farrah, and Sarah commences.         

We’re stepping back in time again to pick up where we left off with Kirk’s love of cars. Last we read, Kirk had been having a very good, fast time in his Firebird and couldn’t help himself from pushing the limits of the car and the speed limits whenever he could. Would the autogods continue to support Kirk and look kindly upon him?

On the other hand, at this earlier point in Kirk’s life, he didn’t have much of a social life. All his buddies were gone out of the area, married, in college, just plain busy working, or simply drifted away. Kirk probably, for the most part, fit in the last category living life unfocused, depressed, aimless, and uninspired. He didn’t aspire to any dream and remained that way for those couple of years right after college. During his early teens, Kirk was all about cars: custom cars, race cars, and exotic cars, but now as he worked on them every day, he wasn’t so enamored.  ‘Course he loved his Firebird: the sound, the power, the image, the feeling of controlling something that was nearly uncontrollable. 

His life’s situation left him working at the dealership, a job he didn’t enjoy at all, and he didn’t seem to see any indicators of advancing out of his assigned, uninteresting tasks and onto more technical, interesting automotive tasks. On the other hand, his after-hours activities, at least during the summer, amounted to helping his father on the farm or working with Mike in his garage. Kirk still didn’t feel like he wanted to work on cars for fun during evenings after working on them all day. However, it appeared Mike spent all his off hours in the garage which probably didn’t do much for Mike and Kirk’s sister’s marriage. It wasn’t any of Kirk’s business, after all.  

Even though Kirk was only somewhat involved early in its preparation, Mike revealed the new eye-catching, innovative paint job on his Dodge Charger. At first sight, Kirk was not quite sure what he was looking at on the rather large car. From a little distance, the Charger appeared to be completely chrome, polished shiny like a mirror. On closer examination, Kirk saw that Mike had painted the car entirely with silver metalflake and finished it with many coats of a clear epoxy sealer, no paint color nor tint to it at all, so the thick, clear paint appeared like glass with shiny metalflake imbedded in it. Kirk thought that all that metalflake had to be very expensive as regular-colored metalflake paintjobs usually were.

Kirk inspected the inside of the garage after the metalflake paintjob and the concrete floor had a liberal sprinkling of metalflake all over like a scattering of sparkling sequins after a Disco blow-out party. A cable running from inside the garage to an outdoor water faucet caught Kirk’s attention. Mike explained that a static charge sets up while spraying metalflake that had to be controlled by grounding the car’s body. This ensured the metalflake lay flat when sprayed which otherwise could be very bumpy if the flake remained statically poised on edge. Mike said with the correct charge the car’s metal body would actually attract the millions of shimmering flakes.

Overall, at that particular time anyway, Kirk thought the silvery/mirror appearance looked completely gaudy and pretentious, possibly illegal because of bright sun reflections, but he didn’t say anything while seemingly admiring the eye-watering glass-like gloss. Unknown to Kirk at the time, the Charger’s paint job was a harbinger of a new, exciting circumstance for Kirk, to be revealed later on.

Later in the year, well after racing season and a while after the Charger’s silver paint job, Kirk made it back to Mike’s garage for a visit. Lo and behold, Mike had the body and frame of a 1934 Ford 5-window couple in the garage. Quite rare, Kirk had to check it out. The metal body looked in pretty good shape with the original wood-framing still in the body. Mike had been busy cutting the hinges off with the torch which Kirk thought, at first rightly so, was antique-car sacrilege until he found out what the plan was.

Mike informed Kirk that he wasn’t going to restore the car, he was only taking the body off the frame to build a new stockcar. Kirk wondered momentarily what was going to become of Mike’s old stock car that sat outside. Nevertheless, Kirk thought the little compact coupe would indeed make a good racecar though wondered if the body’s use would have been better utilized as a restoration. Who was he to say? So, he jumped in to help with the body’s removal from the frame.

Most of the bolts holding the body to the frame had to be burned off with the torch having decades of rust holding them tight and eroding the bolt heads. There’d be no way to even get a wrench on them to try to unscrew them anyway. Kirk was more than happy to help with torching them off with firework sprays of sparks across the garage and drops of molten globs of slag. Kirk remembered to keep his feet well clear of the molten slag drops that made odd “plop” and “sizzle” noises on the concrete.  With the combination of molten steel and the burning of ancient wood framing that came from the Ford factory when Henry was still alive, the garage filled with a thick blue haze that burned the eyes, and an acrid smell that assaulted the olfactory sense.

Kirk actually liked it.

After cutting the mount bolts off and breaking out the remains of the fragile old wooden frame from the body, the two men could easily but carefully lift the body from the frame. They had to be careful because the sheet metal was quite flimsy without being mounted and having no inner wooden framing, so they rigged up a sling of sorts and hung the body from the engine hoist mounted on the ceiling. After wrestling the old frame out of the garage which was rusty junk, worthless, Kirk and Mike fit the flimsy doors back into place on the body and clamped them in place at six points each. Mike went to work welding the doors into place with spot welds about six inches apart.

Kirk became intrigued and stimulated by being involved in the process of building a stockcar built from scratch, that is, from the very beginning. Mike already had a frame suitable for a stockcar from an old 1957 Chevy laying outside that Kirk checked out while Mike was welding. Kirk examined Mike’s old dismal top-heavy stockcar that sat out in the yard.

 Kirk had an inkling about racing because of attending races for many years, but he wasn’t sure if he could actually handle racing. No doubt it had to be stressful and would take someone more daring than he. Being a hot rodder on the street versus handling a race car in a colosseum of speed, an oval track were two different things. Looking at the retired stock car, he knew he’d definitely had more pride than being seen in Mike’s old car on the track. Also, laying outside under a tarp was a pile of black pipe that Kirk assumed was for the roll cage, though he was taken aback by the sheer size of the pile of pipe. He didn’t think he was a good judge on how much pipe would be needed for a roll cage, but the pile looked way too large for a roll cage.

Racing regulations stipulated specific requirements for roll cage construction that would protect the driver in every possible crash scenario from rollovers, broadside collisions, front or rear collisions, and even crashes from underneath the chassis. Undoubtedly, the heavy black pipe webbing added the most weight to a stockcar and so, in good, efficient car building an effort is applied to incorporate the roll cage in stiffening the chassis at the same time as providing ample driver protection.    

So, Kirk grabbed a stock car racing rule book and first off began reading up about roll cage building. Mike made a couple templates of heavy wire and cardboard to replicate the inside dimensions of the coupe body. The loops that formed the outsides of the cage were the most important basis and had to fit the body as close as possible with the tightness of the bends the pipe could make the limiting factor. Mike borrowed a hydraulic pipe bender from another racer who lived in town. There were electric-powered hydraulic pipe benders available but this particular one was a hand-pumped model. It definitely did the job slower and was of course more tiresome, but a builder could take his time with the hand-operated bender and get those bends just right. The electric-powered models could get a person quickly into trouble by going too far with bends.

 After getting these large loops the right shape with final check with the body itself, they could be spot-welded to the frame. Everything at the early stages of car building was spot welded in case “adjustments” had to be made later on.  Of course, driver positioning and engine placement drove exactly where the cage loops went on the frame but from there, building became relatively straightforward with lengths connecting the two loops across the roof with slight bends so they fit inside the body better and be hidden by said body. A protective “X” went in the roof section and another behind the driver. The most labor-intensive areas proved to be in the door protection which had to have rails no more than eight inches apart, so there had to be a stack of five pipes running horizontally between the main loops. Obviously, keeping in mind along the way that this process wasn’t something you could build in a weekend. Overall, with the bending, fitting, gusset fabrication and welding for most corners, and then the extensive welding around every single joint took about two months of steady evening welding sessions. For the uninitiated, gussets are small, 2�"3-inch triangle pieces of flat metal that are welded in the corners where the roll cage pipes come together for increased strength.

Kirk wasn’t there for the whole process, but observed enough at a regular basis to really understand what needed to be done on these cages in all the stages. When the cage ended up fabricated with some marathon welding still needed to be done, Kirk discovered that indeed, like he had thought earlier, that there was quite a bit of black pipe remaining. He couldn’t quite figure it out, wondering if perhaps a lot of pipes were needed to reinforce the frame, suspension, nerf bars. or something else that he didn’t perceive. He felt a bit stumped, but he didn’t ask with the possibility of appearing stupid or ignorant, so he just waited to see. 

Soon, as Kirk and Mike began mocking up the suspension on Mike’s new stock car with axles and springs, Mike announced one day that the newest NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Racing) regulation book had arrived. Without a doubt, Kirk was interested in taking a look at the rules to see if what he had studied in the old book was in vain that is, were any important rules changed. Mike reassured Kirk that the rules for roll cage protection didn’t ever change from year to year. However, what was more exciting for Kirk was when Mike announced that Kirk needed to check out the page that was earmarked. Kirk quickly located the short section about racing number reservations, but he wondered why he should check it out. Mike told Kirk that they both had to reserve numbers for the upcoming season and reserve them soon!

‘WHAAAT?” Kirk exclaimed.

Mike told Kirk that he wrangled a partial sponsorship from Chuck Westchild the leading salesman at the dealership, and that he was willing to sponsor two cars. Kirk couldn’t quite understand what Mike was referring to, or maybe as his heart raced, it sounded too good to be true, and so it wasn’t true. Mike went on to tell him that at the moment that racing numbers 2 and 3 were available, but they needed to get their paperwork submitted.  Ecstatic Kirk was more than happy to do such paperwork, but what was he driving? The new car that they were working on? That couldn’t be possible because he remained an untried, inexperienced wannabe stock car racer and there had been a sponsor attained besides? It was way, way too good to be true.

 It appeared that autogods indeed smiled upon him or at least his brother-in-law Mike helped decide his fate because Kirk wasn’t doing that on his own. Kirk dwelled on the thought of racing out on the track with a bunch of drivers hell bent to get ahead and finish first. Kirk suddenly felt a bit light-headed with a flipping stomach.  He realized that he had never been a brave soul at all, never having to take any real risks especially risks that could be life threatening. For several minutes Kirk lived in a daze, unsure if racing would really be a good idea for him.  

Snapping out of his daze, Kirk abruptly asked, “So are we going to build another car,” he gulped hard, “for me?”

Mike looked up from his welding. “Nope, not completely. We’re going to redo the old number 13 car.” He thumbed outside to the old car.

Kirk’s stomach went from flipping to a drop of disappointment. “Just paint it or something different…” Kirk wanted something better than the car that sat outside.

 “There’re a few things on the car I’ve known that needed attention and other things that’ll just make it better car.” He paused probably reading Kirk’s expression. “It’ll be new and improved�"you can make it your own car, Kirk.”

 And so, Kirk was relieved, but realized the scope of the work ahead to build two complete stockcars or nearly complete cars was daunting. Even though Kirk didn’t say anything about his concern about building two cars Mike didn’t say anything either about working long, hard hours. Kirk figured that it’d get done one step at a time with probably a mad rush to finish in late spring before the racing season starts. Kirk had another rush of adrenaline or was it dread?

First off and time sensitive, the two guys got their racing numbers easy enough. Mike got his number 2, which he stated really wished was the number 1, but that highly desirable number 1 was used ironically by the racer that Mike sold most of his problematic flathead V-8 parts to.  Kirk got his number 3 which he thought of as his personal lucky number (his birth month, March) anyway. No one wanted to stick with unlucky number13 that’s for sure which was currently on the old car. Kirk had to wonder aloud what they’d do for powerplants seeing Mike had gotten rid of those other engine parts. Mike said they had to go with Dodge engines seeing they worked at the Dodge dealership and a stipulation by their moneybag sponsor Chuck Westchild.

Nothing was accomplished on Kirk’s newly acquired car seeing they focused their time in energies on Mike’s ’34 coupe. After the roll cage was completed other than some gussets and supporting struts, they set the flimsy body on the frame over the cage. Indeed, it would be a cool little compact stockcar. Conversely, Kirk just imagined his car, now sitting outside in the weeds would be big, clunky and top heavy like it always had appeared in comparison to the new car. It was in fact, a 1936 Ford coupe, larger, less boxy, and a whole different look compared to the ’34. Apparently, back in those days’ car designs drastically changed every couple of years.

 

****

As the weather began going south with a feeling of winter in the air, Kirk knew that he could not drive his pride and joy, namely his Firebird, in the winter. Just the thought of the Firebird being out in the slushy, salty roads and getting filthy, not to mention driving a high-performance car on slippery roads, sent a chill colder than winter down Kirk’s back. What he needed was, wait for it�"a WINTER RAT!

Back then, a winter rat was an oft-used term for a cheap, piece-of-junk car to drive over the winter instead of a nice, pretty performance car. Kirk started his search early, scanning the Classifieds, checking nasty car lots, and getting the word out to his buds. He ran across plenty of honest-to-goodness junkers. Some cars had rusted fenders that were on the verge of falling off or door panels that flapped like birds when you drove them down the road. Some had engines that only ran on half the cylinders “only needing a tune up” according to their owners. Lots of cars had shaky automatic transmissions that leaked, slipped, or skipped gears.

Well, it all came back down to the wheeler-dealer pal Mark who worked in the body shop at Kirk’s dealership. As you might recall, Mark hooked Kirk up with his precious Firebird under suspicious circumstances and just so happened to find the most powerful Pontiac engine made AND headers that would fit the Firebird.  Kirk didn’t ask questions when the autogods seemed to smile upon him or was it Mark’s less than on the level connections? As usual with pal Mark, the car he told Kirk about belonged to a friend of a friend of a friend, or maybe he could just attain it easily enough. Sounded like a good deal to Kirk. Of course, it was!

After work, Kirk followed the pal to a back, back, side road quite a ways out of town and there it was! An old full-sized, four-door Chevrolet that, at one time, was white but had plenty of surface rust around the edges. The rust wasn’t as bad as he had seen on potential rats that had huge gaping holes and those flapping door panels. Peeking in the interior, the car sported a bench seat up front that had plenty of wear on the driver’s side, but overall, the interior wasn’t all that bad that is, not as bad as some Kirk had seen where vermin roamed free. Kirk anticipated as much, but the column shifter told him it was an automatic. The column shifter indictor letters spelled out--being pronounced “PERNUNDUL.”

Popping the hood revealed a good old straight six-cylinder engine. At the time he had no innate, detailed knowledge of these sixes, but in the future, he would gain a whole lot of knowledge about Chevy sixes though not this particular engine in the newly dubbed “White Rat.”  Getting into said White Rat, he held his breath, turned the key. Vroom! Fired right up, idled smoothly. Kirk clicked it from Park into “D” gear for “Drag Race” and the transmission engaged instantly, and sliding the lever to “R” for “Race,” engaged readily as well. Kirk knew this beast with a six-cylinder, two-speed transmission was not a high-speed machine.

Kirk took notice of the long rear deck, a nice big trunk that would come in handy for hauling big toolboxes and lots of car parts. On the other hand, Kirk could get a side job with the mob because you could carry several bodies in that big trunk! HA! Kirk then checked the two things that would make or break the deal with said White Rat. He turned on the radio and pushed a few preselection buttons. They seemed to be set to only talk radio or county music stations, but the AM sound came through statically loud and not so clear. Sitting there idling still, Kirk slid the temperature lever to “HOT” and the fan to “HIGH.” The heat came blasting out like a new car!

 Kirk was SOLD! He recalled the old song from ads during his childhood, “See the USA in Your Chevrolet.”

Kirk paid the owner his asking price who stated that the car belonged to his elderly parents, hence a different name on the registration. Kirk wondered about that, but everything seemed in order, so he headed on out with his new/old winter rat called the White Rat. So, the next day he called his insurance agent and went to the DMV to transfer his plates.

Sadly, he put a couple ramp planks up the steps into the old cow stable of the big red barn, drove the Firebird in, and parked it. He bid it good night for the winter as a few snowflakes blew in the door as he closed his beloved car in. Better days will return, he promised her because a long, cold winter approached…

For now, Kirk was Just the Same.