Never the Same IC#26 Race Practice Aftermath

Kirk might have a bright future, or will he succumb to fate becoming a victim or will he strive to derive a meaningful destiny?

 

Prior Kirk story lines revolved around his preparation and first time driving his stock car during a practice session, but there were other things driving his life’s direction. Several episodes ago detailed Kirk’s love life, but those details were not suitable for general reading audiences. We’ll touch upon, in a PG portrayal, what had been going on with his love life. As covered recently, his girlfriend Farrah had been steadfast and loyal to Kirk despite him sometimes ignoring her. Farrah, remember, was a pretty, calm, and mellow redhead always lending a willing ear to ready listen to Kirk’s stock car stories. In his defense, he in turn tried to listen to her describe her nurse work at the hospital. However, Kirk was a bit squeamish about blood and guts and that medical sort of stuff so he tried his best to be interested, but afterward he felt like he didn’t pull it off very well. Anyway, being young adults, they pretty much had an adult man/woman relationship.

Recently, they had gone to the movies together to watch “American Graffiti” a movie Kirk wanted to see considering he was a gearhead anyway. Farrah went along with the decision just fine. They lingered over coffee afterwards just chatting while enjoying each other’s company.

Earlier on, they had gone to Niagara Falls acting like newlyweds by holding hands and being attached at the hips. They went down to the Cave of The Winds wearing their borrowed yellow park raincoats. While the falls’ mist coated and ran down their faces, they passionately kissed in front of the backdrop of the huge, thundering waterfalls just outside the cave opening.

Another time they went to a state park, just to hike and enjoy being with each other in nature. They cruised the roads just taking it all in with Farrah sitting on the hard metal console right next to Kirk. They’d steal a kiss now and then along the way. It was after this outing that Kirk had stopped for gas, the station attendant congratulated him on being newly married because they as a couple looked and acted like newlyweds. Yeah, no doubt about it, Farrah was indeed the marrying type, a real keeper one could live with for the rest of Kirk’s life. All good, perfect situations don’t always work out…

During the previous winter, Kirk had gone out snowmobiling with his friends where he caught his first sight of her. She was a young high schooler, and despite being wrapped up in a snowmobile suit, Kirk thought she was extremely alluring for some vague reason. As winter passed, he saw her again when he was at a friend’s party where she showed up with some weird, controlling guy. Kirk thought she epitomized the Bohemian Chick in the way she dressed and acted. A short, compact girl, she wore long blonde hair and had a very fashionable overbite evident in her smile. Though he tried, the guy wouldn’t let Kirk talk to her, but Kirk caught a whiff of her erotic scent. Patchouli. And Weed.

Despite being firmly involved in the adult relationship with Farrah, Kirk didn’t know why he was thoroughly and completely beguiled with the younger, mysterious Bohemian girl, a real live Lolita; nevertheless, he was smitten.    

   

On Saturday, Kirk had made his foray into stock car racing on practice day. As we saw, he was not the unabashed speed racer on the track like he was on the streets. Unsure of himself, intimidated by the whole new racing situation with competitors side by side, closed in banked tracks were unnerving for the fledgling driver. Afterwards, Kirk didn’t know what he felt about the experience. You’d think that the young speed demon would have been overjoyed and highly motivated to get out there on the track with his own car, but that wasn’t the case with Kirk. After the practice sessions were over, they just loaded up the cars and headed home. To say the least, Don drove the car hauler home the alternate route to avoid the huge, treacherously steep hills that provided plenty of chills and thrills enroute to the track. The alternate route ended up a bit longer, but Don and Kirk agreed it was worth the grind down the highway. Kirk just relaxed on the way home and let the track experience soak in. He decided that he wasn’t enamored with the experience.

Back at the garage, Mike and Kirk decided not to go to the practice session at the so-called sister track Holland International Speedway on Sunday. They thought that they’d just chill and work on the cars remedying the discrepancies that the technical inspection officials identified.  Kirk knew that the track at Holland was longer and the banking higher hence it was faster, but Kirk thought he’d take up racing there cold without a practice. We’ll see on next Saturday night. Night racing to boot! Kirk wasn’t sure about that factor either.

Back home on the farm, Kirk’s mother asked how it went at the race track. Kirk, in his typical vague manner told her that it went okay. Kirk’s father in HIS typical manner didn’t ask or even acknowledge that he had gone to the track. The fact that his father didn’t ask hadn’t gone unnoticed by Kirk. Characteristic, Kirk surmised. He crashed for the night and slept very well without nightmares of speedway crashes, hill crashes, or anything along the scary side of automotive things. He didn’t even dream of Dee.

 

On Sunday with gray overcast skies and a promise of rain, Kirk went back to the garage. He was unsure about going to Holland in the first place, but Mike had decided that he wasn’t going and so there Kirk’s ride went away. Just as well, it was probably a wasted trip with rain in the forecast. Anyway, he hung out and fixed the problems which weren’t really big problems with his car. The plastic gallon bottle radiator catch can got a couple plastic zip ties to hold it in place, simply enough. Crawling inside the cockpit, he unbolted the five-point harness lap belts from the chain which was illegal according to NASCAR. He removed the chains and threw them out the car’s window.

Eyeing up the situation, he decided the best and safest place to anchor the lap belts would be on the corners of the roll cage. Not the easiest place to work, he drilled the appropriately sized holes all the way through the heavy roll cage tubes. In the garage, one of the bottom drawers of the work bench is literally filled with grimy nuts and bolts. Kirk rummaged through until he found two hardened bolts the correct length and thickness and then the nuts to secure them. Not the easiest task with a gazillion different fasteners in all shapes and sizes. He found a couple lock washers so the bolts would never loosen up. An important consideration when thinking about personal safety.

Again, taking the convoluted position head down, upside down, and backwards in the cockpit he got the lap belts re-secured with a good tightening using a long-handled socket wrench. He had to admit it did look better and safer than before. Still in the same place, he perused the gas tank area behind the seat where the inspector said it needed to be closed up. Kirk agreed that if the gas tank caught fire it would migrate into the cockpit unimpeded, so he had some sheet metal work to do. The window net would be easy enough to install except that he had to go buy one which he would during the week.

 Not really inspecting the stock car all that closely, he took another look underneath at the scraped oil pan that hit the tarmac at the track. It didn’t appear to be damaged badly enough to cause any problems in his point of view. Kirk wasn’t about to do extensive work like changing an oil pan unless he absolutely had to. When he sat up from sliding under the car, he noticed a bit of oil seepage from a top the engine. Nothing to bother with, Kirk thought being uninspired, unexcited about racing and had enough working on the car already. Most young car guys would be completely enthused about the opportunity to race and work on a stock car, but for some reason Kirk had lost that youthful fired-up racing aspiration. Maybe he didn’t think it as exciting as he imagined, maybe he expected to have an innate skillful ability to drive a fast car around the oval track to match his imagined driving ability. After the practice day at the track, he no longer had any preconceived notions about having a fast, winning car. For now, Kirk just let the car be and went home.

After a typical dinner with his parents and little sister, Kirk announced that he was going to bed early. Depressed, he just lay in his bed and let his thoughts simmer. He seemed to ruminate on what bothered him: his on and off relationship with Farrah, the mysterious hippie bohemian chick, and his loss of Dee; he always pined after Dee. He tried to relive the experience of running the stock car on the track which should have overwhelmed his depression, but his lack of enthusiasm just made him feel worse. Anything and everything affected his mood when he was in this type of reflective down�"mood. Why, oh why, Kirk?

As they say, “another day, another dollar,” was the only thing that got Kirk out of bed on Monday morning. He rolled out and followed his usual routine, jumped in his Firebird and headed out to work. Not long after he got there and punched in, a line began to form at the service desk with customers voicing the problems with their new cars. Kirk would be on the receiving end of a lot of those problems. There wasn’t any time to shoot the bull or suck down more coffee as work orders got stuck in his slot on the service wall. From his work bay, he could see his slot and all the work orders hanging there crushed his sense of solace. The usual problems plagued his day, water leaks, malfunctioning gauges, radio, or lights. Some days he just felt like…

Not long after he got started on a customer’s car with a long list of minor B.S. complaints, Kirk saw Chuck Westchild mosey on through the shop. Chuck, an overweight, greasy car salesman dressed in a fine tailored suit strutted on past. Kirk seldom saw him; he never spoke to him, actually. He watched as Chuck headed back to Kirk’s brother-in-law Mike’s maintenance bay. Kirk took a moment to watch as the two talked it up. Kirk imagined Mike probably told Chuck how wonderful Chuck’s sponsored cars performed and were well received at the track over the weekend. Kirk had no idea how fast Mike’s car was compared to his, and he probably wouldn’t know until they were on the track at the same time. After the practice day, which wasn’t any real measure of a car’s performance, Kirk felt quite sure Mike told Chuck he had a winning car.

Kirk went back to work on the minor, irritating customer problems inside the car. After several minutes, Kirk’s eye caught Chuck heading back through the service department. Kirk thought he’d try his hand at making contact with Chuck, so he stood up beside the car. Kirk made eye contact with Chuck for a split-second before Chuck redirected his focus. Kirk gave a wave toward Chuck, but Chuck didn’t respond probably not wasting his time on a lowly, unknown grease monkey. Kirk surmised that Chuck most likely didn’t even know who he was or the fact that he was the co-recipient of Chuck’s sponsorship, at least for the shiny silver paint job on his car and who knows what else on Mike’s car. Typical, Kirk glumly thought and returned to his unfulfilling work.

With the blatant realization that his hopes were pretty much dashed of becoming an instant racing star even before competing in a race, Kirk’s spirits sank to another all-time low. He tells himself that he should be happy with a full life of work (though unfulfilling), love (though not the love he desired) and potential (though unsure in what) but himself doesn’t want to listen to such hokum.

So, what ought Kirk do? How can he snap out of his doldrums? What sort of destiny might be ordained for him?