IC#22 Never the Same: Quality time with a Stock Car

Kirk wasn’t mentally prepared for what he was about to enter into. It never occurred to him that racing could be a pivotal point to the rest of his life.

 

 

It was just nine days until stock car practice day and the opening of racing season. This would prove a special season for the local stock car tracks and the competitors who race their cars there; for this was the first year of local sanctioned NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing) races. Even though the rule book now had the NASCAR banner, the rules remained pretty much the same as previous years or so it seemed. Brother-in-law Mike assured Kirk that not much would change and so a technical inspection should be a breeze for Kirk’s “inherited” stock car. Even though he had no experience whatsoever, this avowal made Kirk feel a little bit better about the inspection, but irregardless he still had a load of work to do on the car just to get it track worthy. His work on it had only just begun with time running out after he dragged his feet the last couple of months. Was it denial? Was it fear? Or was it indolence?

Now, very basically, he had the engine and transmission mounted, but they weren’t hooked up; he had performance parts ordered, but they haven’t arrived: so all he had a slow, unmodified engine installed in a clunky heavy car. Undoubtedly, there were various other things to be done before the technical inspection and hopefully, test driving on the track. Probably some things he wouldn’t even think of before the special day. At least the car was freshly painted albeit the detested (in Kirk’s view) mirror ball-looking silver metalflake. Kirk couldn’t believe the plight he was in with so much work and such a short amount of time left with the deadline looming.

 

Thursday night with only nine days to go: Kirk was tired. He was restless. He was hyper. He felt guilty and then rage set in. Kirk alternated all over the place with his emotions. Guilty that he had ignored sweet, gentle Farrah for way too long. Embarrassed that he hadn’t worked on the car. Rage over his father not realizing that getting the race car ready was much more important to him than baling hay. Then, to top it off,  Kirk felt totally inadequate in his ability to prepare his car. He was excited though fearful about taking the car on the track, that is if he got it ready in time. Basically, Kirk stood overwhelmed like never before in his life.

That night, Kirk lay in his bed experiencing the whole emotional gambit that went through his mind and yet he wanted desperately to sleep. Morning and work always came too early, while he knew that he’d worry all day long over the work he needed to do on his own car not to mention his responsibilities with customers’ cars. On top of it all, he didn’t need to bale hay with his father on the weekend. Maybe he could just throw in the towel so to speak and forget about trying to get the car ready for practice day. What would the day mean for him? A grand unveiling of his mirror ball-like clunky car. Would he feel embarrassed? He couldn’t be proud of-that-thing the way it stood, but he had no control over its appearance now, but then again being out there in a real stock car in a coliseum of speed remained exhilarating in his mind.

Friday morning came way too fast. Kirk awoke with a start. A long night of ruminating over what he needed to do on his car and those things in his life that interfered with that goal. Not a typical morning, Kirk sprang out of bed and headed downstairs for his usual satisfying bowl of cereal. His mother sat up alone at the table toying with a slice of toast with butter and jam. She greeted him in her typical cheerful way and Kirk replied with a grumbled good morning. She mentioned that he seemed agitated, excited; he answered in his usual characterless way. He grabbed the pot from Mr. Coffee and dumped it into a mug. He held the steaming cup up to his nose and breathed in deeply. He sighed as he sat down. As he ate his cereal and sipped at his hot black coffee, Kirk made a decision to ditch work that Friday. With his weekend pretty much shot to hell by his father and his haymaking, he needed at least one full day in the garage. With Mike at work, Kirk would have the garage to himself to maybe get some quality time and establish a relationship with the race car. A note follows about Kirk working on jobs by himself without witnesses. 

Hammered into Kirk’s psyche stemmed the ancestorial Scottish slogan of the Duncan family, “Born to Suffer” or as some family members interpreted, “Learn to Suffer.” His theory arose that a curse enveloped Duncan descendants because ancient Scottish ancestor Macbeth killed off Duncan just when Duncan was about to be crowned king of Scotland. Bad luck old man. Then later, accordingly, Duncan’s son killed Macbeth. Well, what goes around…

So, in turn, Kirk’s theory stood that his bad luck resulted from the curse though not all family members seemed affected by said curse. Nevertheless, the result remained the same: Nagging problems and negative situations haunted him. Maybe just knowing the slogan… Maybe it was how he grew up?  Well, then, the pixie problem...

Kirk may have been many things but responsibility was not his shortcoming for one thing positive that Kirk lived by was that he was truly dedicated to his assigned or assumed responsibilities. He hadn’t missed a day of work since he started over a year ago. Like school, where he wasn’t a great student, he’d show every day, not even skipping classes on senior skip day, and attending his sport practices and competitions, where he wasn’t an athlete by any means, he’d show up every single instance he was required. But in this case, he made an exception; he had made a decision.

After eating, still sipping his second cup of tongue-burning coffee, he called the dealership. While he waited to be connected to the service desk, Kirk hoped that Marty the service manager would answer and not Frank, Marty’s assistant. When Frank answered, Kirk’s stomach dropped. His mind spun. His eyes twitched. His sip of coffee stuck in his throat.

“Hello, auto service desk, Frank speaking,” Frank said.

“Ah, ah, hey, Frank! Kirk here. How’s it going?”

“As usual, it’s early. Not much going on. What’s up?”

Kirk thought his tongue somehow swelled up and had stuck in his mouth. His head spun trying to come up with a good lie. He recalled back in college when he saw how easy it was for Jeff to lie to the police. Kirk shook that vision out his head. Am I sick? I’m never sick. Car won’t run? I’m a damn mechanic!

“Kirk. You there?”

“Yeah. I, ah, I gotta’ take my sister to the hospital�"for tests.”

Why’d I come up with that? Kirk rubbed his sleeve across his forehead. He turned back to face his mother. Did she hear that? She didn’t seem to react to what he said.

“Okay, all day?”

“Ah, yeah,” Kirk said.

“See you Monday,” Click!

Hanging up the hand piece on the old black rotary phone, Kirk wondered if he even had to provide an excuse to Frank. He took a long deep breath and downed the rest of his coffee.

“I’m not going to work today,” Kirk told his mother. “I got a lot of things to do on the race car, so I’ll be over in the garage.”

“All right, dear,” his mom said. “Be careful.”

Getting to the garage early, he thought he’d let his sister know he was out there. She’d wonder what the noise out there otherwise. His sister was fussing around the small house with Kirk’s two small nieces running around and making noise. She invited him to come in at lunch time, and she’d make something for him. He thought that sounded great.

Flipping on the garage fluorescents that initially buzzed and gave the silver cars an odd, glowing reflective property, Kirk was struck by the silence of him, all alone, by himself, solitary with the two stock cars. He took his car in up and down, back and forth. He didn’t know what he thought about it. Taking a deep breath, he eyed the radiator leaning up against the wall, and decided that being a good place to start. Taking the old, scraped up radiator, he positioned it in front of the engine between the frame rails, and the proper distance from the fan. He sat it on two jackstands. He rummaged through the metal pile and found a length of light-weight angle iron that should do the job.

A quick measure of the radiator down to the frame rails he determined 18 inches. Taking a hacksaw, he quickly cut the two pieces from the angle. Holding them one at a time on the frame and against the radiator, he chalked in where the bolts needed to go. He drilled the holes larger than he needed, found some short bolts and put the bolts through the angles and the radiator finger tight. Ensuring everything looked okay, he fired up the arc welder, donned the helmet and leather gloves and sizzled a couple spot welds on both sides though the second side he had trouble striking an arc with the rod sticking a couple times. It seemed always tough for Kirk.

He stepped back when he thought something didn’t seem right. Indeed, one side was straight enough, the other side looked crooked where the rod stock. Taking a hammer and chisel, he knocked off the welds and then using the grinder he smoothed them out of existence in shower of sparks. Careful this time, he struck an arc on the frame and then moseyed the arc over to the frame/angle joint. Kirk always got gun shy when he did things wrong which seemed waaay too often, so he made the spot welds small. He absent-mindedly dropped the welding handle down on the floor. The pixies attacked!

BZZZZZZZ! RRRRMMMM. He furiously kicked and toed the handle away from the jack stand because it had flipped over, made contact, and was trying to weld itself to the stand and nearly becoming part of it. CAREFUL DOLT! It could’ve burnt a hole through the radiator!

Taking a few steps back to survey the situation, Kirk deemed it “good enough.” He welded the angles up solid, well, as solid as his sometime shabby welding would provide. After chipping off the slag with the pointy hammer designed especially for the job, he thought about it. He grabbed the radiator and tried to wiggle it back and forth. The mounts seemed sturdy enough with a little warp and the welds didn’t break; but with second and third thoughts, he realized that there’d be nothing to keep it solid on top. To reassure himself, he quick cut those small triangles of flat stock called gussets (remember they’re used everywhere in the roll cage) and welded those in at the angle/frame juncture. Now the mounts didn’t warp at all.

His mind wandered to what else he needed to do on the car and it wasn’t hard for him to recall the list of “to dos” that remained long and seemingly endless. Then it hit him. There sat the hood without brackets or any other way to mount it. He mentally kicked himself because he could’ve incorporated the radiator mounts with hood mounts if the angles he had installed had been longer which would have braced the radiator top which in turn would negated the need for those gussets. Give self another kick, Kirk!  So goes Kirk’s thought process: linear and narrow in scope.  Another job for later on. Press on with what you planned.

            So, going outside he found two driveshafts he knew were out there. The rear differential was a Ford model which was popular with racers: easy to change gearing and quite tough and durable. The transmission, of course, was a Chrysler model, Dodge specifically. Kirk needed to make one good driveshaft. He had watched Mike shorten drive shafts before, so he knew the “basics.” You’d think that it would be best to fabricate a driveshaft from the universal yoke to the drive shaft tube, but that’s not the way racers did it, at least one racer and a wannabe (Kirk). We still haven’t verified if Kirk had become a truly wannabe racer. Maybe later.

            Sliding under the stock car with a measuring tape, he tried a precise measuring which proved difficult by himself. After a couple frustrating tries, he grabbed a “C” clamp and clamped the tape’s end to the differential yoke saddle. Then he was able to get a good measurement and took several serious mental notes. Don’t mess this up! Just to be sure, he measured again, just to reinforce his mental notes. Good. 38 inches.

He took a deep breath because this was an extremely critical task and this was the first time he did it by himself, alone, without help or guidance. Laying the two shafts out, aside each other, and dragging the ends out until the measurement between the yokes was close, he pulled them out another inch or so to be safe. He took a chard of chalk and marked across both. Taking the Dodge shaft, he cinched it down in a vise. Then, taking a huge plumber’s pipe cutter, he twisted the tension knurl down and turned the whole pipe cutter around and around. Then, tightening it down again and turning the cutter some more, Kirk repeated the process until SNAP! The tube was cut and the end fell off.

He then repeated the process on the other shaft. Afterward, he put the two cut ends together on the floor. Remember that he marked the proposed cuts long to be safe, at the same time knowing it would cause him to make another cut. He measured the current length of the two halves of driveshafts. He measured 39 and a half. He needed to cut an inch and half off. Kirk stood up. He scratched his chin. He realized his hands were rusty and greasy. He wiped his chin with his always handy rag from his back pocket. He took the creeper and measuring tape under the car again�"just to doubly sure. Under there, sure enough, he measured 38 inches just as before, but then it hit him that the new driveshaft couldn’t be that exact length because the distance between the transmission and differential changes with suspension movements. Thinking a moment and eyeing up the driveshaft on the floor not far and at the same level as his face, he figured that the driveshaft allowed three inches of movement, but that would be a dangerous limit. He split that in half: One and half. So, one and half and one and half inches equaling three. Right?

Kirk laid there on the creeper in the car’s cool, dark shadow to ponder what he really should do.  His mind wandered to racing on the track. Even though he dreamed of racing as a youngster, is it something he wanted to do? What would it REALLY be like? Scary? Exciting? He thought about his father forcing him, more or less, into baling hay this weekend. He thought about Farrah who he hadn’t seen in over a week. Sweet, slim, prim Farrah didn’t deserve to be left behind especially by someone like him who definitely didn’t deserve her. A vision of her prettiness lingered in his memory’s eye.  

Click, bang! The garage door opened and outside light cast a beam across the floor. Kirk jumped, jolted out of his mindful meanderings. Under the two cars he saw feet step inside the garage. A woman’s feet in sneakers.

“Kirk? Kirk? Are you here?” Kirk’s oldest sister who married Mike called out.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m under the car�"measuring for the driveshaft,” Kirk felt he had to explain why he was laying under the car, not that his sister would know how long he had been laying there. He pushed out from underneath with the creeper’s steel wheels grinding loudly on the concrete. As he sat up, he saw her feet come around the back of Mike’s car, and she stopped. To Kirk, from his vantage point, she seemed exceedingly tall. He got to his feet.

“Would like to have lunch with the girls and me?”

“Ah, yeah sure. Do you have enough for me to eat with you guys?”

She smiled in her quiet way. “I made extra. How about chicken noodle soup and fried bologna sandwiches? Come on in.” She gestured. “Can’t leave the girls alone for too long.”

“Okay, I’ll be right in.” Chicken noodle soup and fried bologna was Kirk’s all-time favorites. His sister departed and Kirk cleaned up as well as he could using some GOJO on his hands and then brushed himself off. He still thought he looked grubby, but he realized that his sister must be used to it the way Mike always seemed grubby.

Going inside the house, Kirk always thought the house was simple and tidy considering he had seen it in various states of construction. Mike had built it with help from the family including a few touches like hand-built archways and cabinets. Kirk nearly forgot that when the house was in the process of being built, he, a very young teenager, had to come to the then partially constructed house every morning to refuel the salamander in the then dirt basement. A salamander is a kerosene-fired construction heater that spews gaseous kerosene fumes along with copious heat and roaring flames! 

So, he sat down with his sister and two young nieces. Even though Kirk had gained a nickname of “Uncle Kirk” when his nephew by his other sister was born, Kirk was not much of an uncle. He was neither warm and fuzzy and cuddly nor was he a weird uncle because he remained standoffish with the kids. Plain old not much fun Kirk. He tried to interact a bit with his nieces as they ate lunch, but the rather well-behaved girls didn’t have much interest in the near adult stranger.

He enjoyed the soup and sandwiches and told his sister thanks, but excused himself rather quickly saying that he had to get back to work. He added that their father expected him to help bale hay so he needed to get as much done as he could on this one day off. His sister completely understood how overbearing and demanding their father can be. 

Back in the garage, Kirk remembered that the driveshaft needed to be 38 inches minus an inch and a half or�"was it three inches? Kirk made a habit of second guessing himself especially when the outcome was critical and the driveshaft cut definitely was a critical task because if he made the final cut short he’d be heading back to the junkyard for another shaft. So, he slid under the car, then looked for the measuring tape to re-measure. Where did it go? Damn Pixies! He slid out and looked around for the tape. Finally, he found it laying in front of the car on the floor. How’d it get there?

For the fourth time or was it the fifth time, he measured 38 inches. Okay. He lay there on the creeper in the shadow. Okay. He reassured himself. 38 inches but taking an inch and half off for movement. 36 and half? Right? What about the three inches I thought about before lunch? Doesn’t matter. Now!

He scooted out from under the car to sit up next to the driveshaft that lay there in two pieces, but they sat there with cut ends touching. He measured it. Ah! I remember now. The shaft was already an inch and half too long. Cut off three inches and move on!

With a lingering touch bit of trepidation, he went ahead and cut off three inches. After the three-inch ring fell off onto the floor with bell-like ringing, he set the end he just cut end to end with the other. With apprehension, Kirk pulled out the measuring tape from his pocket. He stretched it out and�"his stomach dropped to the feet.

How? What? Oh!

Thirty-six and a half inches, perfect! He knew that he couldn’t weld it up securely enough himself, but he could set it up. Taking a hand file, he cleaned off the steel chards from the cut ends. He set the two halves together on the floor and carefully shimmed them so the cut edges fit together perfectly and wouldn’t roll around. Then, taking a straightedge he carefully checked the trueness of one shaft to the other. Not quite perfect, so he wiggled and shimmed until they were perfect. He carefully, very, very carefully hooked the welding lead to the shaft. He checked the trueness again. Then, donning the welding helmet, he put four good spotwelds on the sides and top. Carefully, he rolled it over and put a couple more spots on. He rechecked the trueness. Kirk could breathe again. He’d leave a note for Mike to finish welding it all the way around. Kirk paused looking at his handywork. He pulled out the measuring tape for just one reassuring measurement. It was a perfect 36 and a half.

You wouldn’t think this method of driveshaft would be good enough, especially considering its’ balance when spinning, and it wouldn’t be acceptable for a car on the street, but for a stock car, Kirk and other racers called it “good enough!”

The number of tasks required to get the car ready for the track made Kirk’s head spin. He gazed up and down, back and forth over the car. It struck him that the seat needed to be lowered if he wanted to sit in the seat without getting a neckache because he wouldn’t be able to sit up straight. He inelegantly crawled in through the car’s window cognizant of not scraping the fancy paintjob when he put one foot through and then drew the other inside. He sat down and looked out the front. What would it look like out the windshield during a race? He imagined a racing scene with cars jostling back and forth and him passing them, but it wasn’t realistic: A checkered flag waving as he roared past the finish line. He scoffed at his own folly.  

The inside of the car was cramped with the roll cage and with the rear firewall right behind the seat. Then a big steel panel stretched across the front like a dashboard in a regular car. The cage sat well within arm’s length on both sides. Kirk squirmed out of the seat and maneuvered about until his butt stuck under the dashboard so he could look under the seat. It was welded directly to four pieces of angle iron which were welded to the sheet metal floor. The iron pieces were only about three inches long so the seat was already close to the floor.

As required in all race cars, a five-point safety harness had been installed. The harness employed straps that were twice as thick and twice as wide compared to what you have in a passenger car with all five pieces hooked together at the lower abdomen with a heavy positive closing latch. Kirk needed to separate the harness from the seat. Easy enough the short crotch strap just dropped to the floor through the slot in the seat. The two shoulder straps were attached directly to the “X” in the roll cage behind the seat. Kirk fed those through their slots, and they dropped to the metal floor with a clunk-clunk he heard and felt through his sore knees. The two lap belts came through the sides of the seat and Kirk pulled them out through the outsides of the seat. These were attached to the cage’s bottom bar with short lengths of chain.   

After all that, Kirk peeled the thinly padded seat cover from the wraparound fiberglass seat shell. Remember the racer who broke his back because of a loose cushion in his set? Kirk wouldn’t forget especially when spending long periods in the seat. Not all that comfortable. He then awkwardly climbed out the window again to fetch wrenches to remove the shell from the metal frame. Crawling back in, he quickly unbolted the seat shell. After setting the shell and seat cover out the window, Kirk himself crawled out again.

It didn’t occur to him until sometime later that the motion of crawling through the window would become second nature, but it sure wasn’t at this point. Groin cramps are a real pain. Putting the cutting torch inside the car along with goggles and gloves, he followed them in. Getting geared up, he readied to cut the seat mounts off. Damn! He forgot the flint striker that you use to light off the torch. Out he went again, butt first. Where is that striker? Should be with the torch dolly. Oh, on the bench. He got the striker and set it inside the car.

This time, he looked in the window at his job. Did he need anything else? No. So inside, he donned the goggles and gloves, turned on the acetylene. The stinky, black, oily smoky flame polluted the tight space, but lit the inside space at the same time like the torch that it was. He carefully turned on the oxygen and the smudgy, flashy yellow flames became a pencil point-shaped blue flame. He gratifyingly pressed the control lever twice to blast a stream of oxygen with roars that, when in use, blows the molten steel away from the cut.

On his knees and cramped in the space, he put the flame to the seat frame mount. Holding it there a few seconds until it became cherry-red molten, he hit the lever and the blast blew the molten steel away like a hot knife through butter with an accompanying shower of sparks. S**t! A few globs of molten shot under his denim-clad knees instantly burning through the cloth and onto his skin. Kirk gritted his teeth and redirected his torch so the sparks would be away from his knees.  Rearranging himself three more times, Kirk managed to cut the other mounts away from the floor. He cut the acetylene and the flame appeared to suck up into the tip to put itself out. With a little arm strong force, the seat frame broke loose. With a bit of finagling, Kirk got the frame out the window without scratching the high-dollar paintjob. He unwound from his cramped position and got out.

Kirk stretched. He considered “his” silvery stock car for a moment. He still didn’t know what he thought of inheriting the car. Was he less of a gearhead to accept the car then to build one himself? Undoubtedly, he surmised.

He took a deep breath and picked up the seat frame. Taking it to the workbench with mounting stubs sticking out, he retrieved the torch set dolly. He took the measuring tape that surprisingly remained in his pocket and measured an inch and half from the seat base, he marked all four with an errant piece of chalk.

With a shower of sparks, Kirk quickly burned off the ends of the four stubs shortening them to what he thought was right. He put the torch out with a nagging feeling that he perhaps completed this task perhaps too quickly, too haphazardly. He knew from experience that most instances when he hurried and/or didn’t double and triple check usually led to disaster or at least an undesirable result.

But was that just the knowledge of the curse kicking in? Or would the curse reveal itself once again in his haste?

It wouldn’t be long before Kirk found out if the curse really affected him during the process of getting ready and then driving out on the track for the very first time.

Kirk might Never Be the Same.