Never the Same #40 Big Disappointment, a Small Explosion

You’d think Kirk would have a better attitude about certain things, but once he gets an idea...

Cue: “What else is There?” https://youtu.be/ADBKdSCbmiM?si=wwFXI3ND-9fEGHtj

So there Kirk cruised in his silver stock car out in front of a pack of like-minded stock car drivers. Like minded because they all want to move up in their positions, of course. For the moment, Kirk felt like king of the stock car track, numero uno, master of those drivers who followed along behind. Only eight cars followed him on this, the restart lap of the consolation race. Kirk had never been in front, first place ever before. In anticipation of the restart, he gripped the wheel and gritted his teeth. He tried to reason out his strategy on the restart; he’d come to a plan and then rethought the plan. This went through his head while they slowly went around the track after a wreck that Kirk had miraculously missed. Three of his regular competitor slow pokes followed right behind but trailing them came the hot dogs in faster cars who had gotten sent to back because of being involved in the wreck. Could he stay ahead to win his first race with an ill handling car rolling on sub-standard tires and an under-powered engine?

 Kirk had seen it before after a wreck clean up so he followed suit�"he stuck his hand out the window with his index finger raised high. One more lap. He felt big, proud of himself. Okay, get a hold of yourself, Kirk. Remember your line of maximum velocity around the track.  

Going around, he noticed the faster guys behind the slower guys swerving back and forth to warm their tires up. With his sub-standard tires, Kirk thought he’d skip that exercise in futility. His usual competitors lined up tight behind him causing his heart rate to rise some more. Stop looking in the mirror, Kirk! But he couldn’t help himself noticing all that movement in the mirror. They passed under the start/finish line, the flagman waved the white flag. Kirk took a deep breath, sat a little stiffer in his seat, his body tight against the seat back. In his racing gear, he picked up the pace a shade on the backstretch. As they rounded the third and fourth turns, Kirk kept one eye on the lights and one eye on the flagman. He never compared the two, not knowing which appeared first. He gripped the wheel tighter his foot and ankle poised to slam that big aluminum foot-shaped pedal to the floor.

Kirk saw them both at the same time: The green flag dropped and the green light flashed. He mashed the accelerator to the floor. The car responded as always�"not overly impressive but suddenly accelerating just the same. He headed into the middle groove of the first turn, but at the same time he heard engine noise coming up close beside him. S**t! It was Charlie diving in ready to take the lead from him already. Kirk held the car on a velocity course he thought was the ragged limit of his tires. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charlie’s bumper appear and then disappear. He let his breath out. In past races, Charlie and Kirk outrun each other at different times and situations. Was it on different tracks? Which track did Kirk have an advantage? Kirk wasn’t sure, didn’t keep track�"of tracks. Doesn’t matter. Again, full throttle on the back straight. 

Kirk maintained his hard line that he thought was his fastest. He concentrated in pushing the car as hard as he dared, but he still saw the shuffling of cars behind him. Well, he made one lap in the lead which remained an accomplishment for nervous rookie Kirk. He tried to feel every minor nuance in the way the car behaved, how it felt through the steering wheel, the seat of his pants, and the sound of the engine feeling if he could push harder he would or let off. On the back stretch, his eye caught one of the fast guys had already made it through Kirk’s usual competitors. The car rode high on the guardrail ready to dive in and take Kirk. Would the guy go high around Kirk or dive in low under Kirk. He stayed high as Kirk rounded the turn and but the guy then dropped back. Kirk knew it was a dangerous game sparring with a better handling, slightly faster car. Yeah, coming out of the turn the other guy dove deep under Kirk and slid in right beside Kirk. By the time they hit the next turn, the other guy had taken command of first place.

Kirk didn’t give up with the defeat, he still could end up in the feature, so he maintained his concentration on his line. Again, Charlie tried to get past but Kirk fought him off. Ron tried to go high, but being like-powered, Kirk stayed ahead of him. As they rounded off the fourth turn, he saw the white flag. Already? He held second place, hold on to it Kirk! The first turn rushed up to meet him, that brightly lit high bank. He heard engine noise high on the turn, and another below further back. Ron and Charlie again. NO! It was the other two fast guys almost beside him. Kirk tried to go in a bit harder into the third turn, but it was futile effort, the low guy blasted past while the high guy shot down to follow the other driver through on the fourth turn. Charlie tried one more time to get past but couldn’t pull it off before the checkered. Yeah, Kirk missed qualifying by a car length or two coming in fourth place. Taking a deep breath, Kirk relaxed and realized that he knew the outcome from the start, but like all stock car drivers there’s always a lingering hope…

Positively Kirk felt good about leading a race for at least a couple laps, but then again disappointed he couldn’t hang on to that lead. With a different car or at least more power, he could’ve pulled it off. Though if he had a better car in a couple different ways, he wouldn’t be fighting it out for a place in a consolation race he’d be winning heats and qualifying for features. Clearly, Kirk had to settle for what he drove.  He loaded up and decided to sit with his usual refreshments to watch the feature events with a veiled hope that someone might offer an impromptu mention of his short-lived race lead. Certainly, one of his usual also-ran competitors?

Sure enough as he sat there watching the Charger feature, Kirk reacted, shocked by someone slapping him on the back.

“Hey Uncle Kirk, I was sure you’d hang on to that lead!” Kirk turned around to see it was Charlie flanked by Ron and Gus.

Kirk gave them a lopsided grin. “Yeah, sure. We can always wish for a better finish.” He paused. “I did think there was a possibility as we sat waiting for the restart, but I knew�"” He glanced around wondering if they lurked just then, “that Glover, Bates and Yarnell lurked back there and would push hard to the front.”

“Yeah, I know, them hard chargers, but if you thought I was trying hard to get past you, I wasn’t, I blocked for you!” Ron said with a laugh.

“Me too!” Charlie added. “Well, maybe until I got in front of you!” He laughed.

Yeah, yeah,” Kirk said in condescending way.

“Just want to say�"good driving today. You got skills, you just need a car.”

“I think it’s just all that metalflake weighting down your car,” Gus retorted with a chuckle.

“Thanks for the tip, Gus.”

The four guys settled in to watch the action from the sidelines, just like always making lewd comments about drivers with incorrect driving strategies on the track, bad sportsmanship, or just bad mouthing the drivers they didn’t like.  After the races, Kirk joined the long line of car haulers out the gate and headed home in the pitch-dark feeling not so bad considering he lost another race.

*

By the time Kirk hauled the stock car home with his underpowered van (see a trend?) it was late. Tired and road weary, he hoped everyone had gone to bed, but his father was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and eating gas stove-roasted toast. Kirk wasn’t in the mood for his father’s rambling raves, but Kirk had no choice because he was hungry despite having his snacks at the track. Checking the fridge, some left-over roast beef and potatoes resided within the cool environment. More potatoes seemed like what Kirk wanted after his fries�"more carbs! He grabbed out a bowl, rolled a couple potatoes into I,t and sliced off a chunk of butter. He added a liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper and sat down. He loved cold, greasy potatoes. The go-to meal for racing champions!

Not really keeping track of his father’s schedule at the gypsum drywall plant, he found out his father had just gotten off shift. Kirk’s father launched into how many board feet the plant produced per night. He worked on the line where the wet gypsum dumped out and was sandwiched between the heavy paper telling Kirk all the details. Riveting, Kirk thought as he munched. Coincidentally, his father’s latest hobby was to take rubber molds of different birds and fill them with wet gypsum and let them harden. Not an artist by any means, different painted birds perched and sat everywhere on the farm. Kirk never wanted to know how many gypsum birds he had made.

Kirk couldn’t complain that his father had the good paying job. His father always let on how desperate poor they were since he quit his parents’ dairy farm, but Kirk couldn’t say they were too much in need of any critical items needed to survive. As his father talked and Kirk ate, Kirk thought that it would be a good time to bring up that he had quit his job, but he immediately envisioned his father’s reaction. What about paying your rent? his father would rave. Kirk didn’t need that. He washed his potatoes down with a cold glass of milk and went to bed. Tomorrow hung out there in the future tense as another day of racing he thought about before sleeping and he dreamt of professionally leading a long line of stock cars in a feature race. Not likely, his dream self rudely reminded him.

Tomorrow arrived pretty fast which was Sunday meaning an afternoon of racing at Perry. Kirk had lingering mixed emotions about racing after his mixed results on Saturday. He didn’t bother telling his parents how events unfolded the night before. Lately, rather than leaving his car at Mike’s garage, since Mike wasn’t racing most of the time, Kirk had been bringing the car to the farm after the races. He wandered out to the car for a once over.

 Immediately, he was struck with the amount of thick oil coating the engine, frame and body. The big scrape and dent stood out in his nerf bar on that side of the car as a reminder, so Kirk thought that perhaps, something had been knocked loose or loosened up. He removed the hood of the car, a thorn to Kirk, glaring him in the eye in the process. That bright red advertisement for the dealership and Chuck Westchild plastered across the hood big and bold. He gritted his teeth knowing he hadn’t gained anything from the sponsorship and now, after quitting his job, had no physical connection to neither his former job nor the so-called sponsor.

 After setting the offensive hood aside, Kirk bent over and closely examined his engine. Nothing amiss appeared under his scrutiny. He slid the eight-pound sledgehammer off his tool bag that had an assortment of tools for quick mechanical tasks. He went about checking the tightness of nuts and bolts that he had checked and tightened on numerous occasions. In his professional opinion, the fasteners remained so tight they were on the verge of breaking off. Kirk couldn’t pinpoint where the oil originated and as he had determined before, the oil just seeped from any seal, gasket, or connection that resided on that side of the engine. Kirk just thoroughly wiped everything down as he did before every race. He shrugged off the leaks just as he had done so many times before and replaced the hood. He did a few checks of the car, though didn’t want to change anything because he thought the car behaved rather well when he led the race for those couple of laps. Well, being Sunday meant he’d head off to Perry Raceway for a hot afternoon of racing.  

Kirk decided to just pack up and depart early for the track. He stopped off for a leisurely meal at his favorite fast-food place, Papa Bear’s Burgers. He then made the trip to the Perry track avoiding the deadly steep up and down hills. Speaking of ups and downs in Kirk’s life, he tended to remain in the downside of emotions often depressed or demoralized. However, if he had a sudden, surprising upside event it would mean his temporary “high on life” spirits would usually be dashed aside to bits. He didn’t worry about Sunday’s races being a downer because he sure wouldn’t say Saturday night’s racing event had been a high by any means.

So, not to bore you with over-reiterated mundane descriptions of Kirk’s arrival and unloading of the car at the track, I’ll go right into the second half of Kirk’s weekend of racing. Lining up for his heat, Kirk sat on the inside of the third row. Not a bad starting position, actually fifth place. If it weren’t for all the faster cars forward of him and all his close competitors behind Kirk might think that he had a chance in the heat. He didn’t hold much credence on a qualifying finish, but just the same adrenalin and excitement coursed through him. He poised ready to do battle and maybe, perhaps, a bit more in control with focused concentration than before the previous night’s race.

As the race began on this track that Kirk liked better, he thought right off the green flag that he held his own staying tighter with the faster guys. His slower competitors either couldn’t stay with him or held back for some unknown reason. Anyhow, Kirk pressed on with his pursuit of the faster guys thinking that maybe they weren’t pushing as hard as usual. What? Why? Two of those guys won’t make the feature at that rate. This thought made Kirk try, concentrate even harder. He saw Ron and Charlie make half-hearted attempts at passing him up, but he kept his fifth place through the fourth lap. After one especially hard corner, Kirk thought that he smelled smoke, oil smoke specifically. A thrill went through his cerebral cortex, but he brushed it away as insignificant.

On the very next lap, a black flag waved as they went under the flagman’s stand. For me? Kirk wondered for a second. The smoke smell impacted him suddenly. On the next go round, the black flag still hung out and the flagman pointed directly at Kirk.

Kirk faced reality right then, hugged the infield, slowed and pulled onto the infield. He wasn’t about to argue the point with an official like his brother-in-law Mike had done, but he instantly wondered if he’d follow Mike’s lead and quit racing over the leak problem. A cloud of smoke surrounded the car. What a bummer. He shut the engine off and climbed out. Inspecting his engine, nothing appeared wrong except that copious amounts of oil dripped from the engine, frame, and streaked down the car’s once pristine silver body. He kicked a tire and sat on it not caring to watch the end of the race. The track crew tow truck moseyed over with the driver indicating that he could push Kirk back to the pits. With an affirmative gesture, Kirk climbed back inside the cockpit for his disheartening ride back to his trailer.  

As they approached his rig, the tow truck driver accelerated and gave Kirk a shove sufficient to get him along side his trailer. Kirk sat there in the car for several self-introspection moments. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He started the engine and crawled out. The engine seemed okay and oil wasn’t spewing out anywhere. He just didn’t know. Standing back, that red printed advertisement just plain pissed him off at that moment. He crawled back into the car backed up, drove up the trailer ramps until it stopped on the trailer stops. He let it run there on the trailer and climbed back out. He cooly, casually walked to his van opened the door and grabbed hold of the eight-pound sledge hammer. Carrying it back to the trailer, he stepped up, and slid the large hammer through the window. Laying it on the cockpit floor he lifted it slightly and set it on that big aluminum accelerator pedal shaped lie a foot.

“RRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOORRRRROOOROOOORRRRRRRRRRRR!” The engine roared at full throttle. Everyone in the pits looked his way wondering what the hell Kirk was doing. Kirk calmly went over and stood by the van’s open door as the engine howled away for  about thirty seconds until, suddenly, “KABLAM” the engine emitted a hard, solid metallic explosion and the screaming stopped dead�"silent except for a boiling stream of antifreeze spewing out. Kirk went closer to inspect the gaping hole in the side of the engine block with part of a bent and broken connecting rod hanging out of the hole. Other drivers and mechanics stood motionless looking his way. He stepped up on the trailer to hit the kill switch.

Yeah, he killed it all right! Did this other impetuous action now effectively end his racing career as well? Yeah, it seemed Kirk continued on a roll of sorts.

What ever happened following that day, Kirk would be never the same.