Never the Same #59 An Undesirable Outcome

            A sunny Sunday. A mild early June day. A perfect day to road test a refurbished stock car. Focused, Kirk rode high on emotions of excitement and expectations. He had worked hard to get back on the track and his personal status quo had never been so good in his young man’s life. He’d show everyone he had what it took to be a winner, a designation he had missed up to this point.

            There at the track’s entrance the unassuming crew had arrived: Kirk, Jon, Kirk’s brother-in-law, and Sarah Elizabeth Kirk’s girlfriend.  On the dusty two-track, a mixed array of newly painted and/or built cars from all the classes along with a few cars that looked the same from last season: bent, battered, and dilapidated.  Kirk energized, knew his new appearing, updated stock car would be an impressive contender compared to last year. With that optimistic reflection, he added a recollection from last season that he was probably the youngest driver on the circuit.  He wasn’t very fast or competitive but he wasn’t anywhere close to being last in the overall standings primarily because he showed up for every race at both tracks displaying Kirk’s determination and perseverance.

               As they waited and inched up in line with other racing rigs, Kirk reached into his wallet with a sudden realization, did he have his racing license? With relief, he found it while inching up some more. He reached into the wallet and pulled out some bills.

            “Ah, Sarah, sorry to make you walk, but here’s some bucks. Buy yourself some vinegar fries and a drink. I’ll catch up with you later.”

            “Oh, you didn’t have to, I have money. Is there admission today?”

            “Nah, they don’t charge for practice days. Hope you’re not bored up there.”

            “I’ll be okay,” Sarah said. “Maybe someone will crash!” She laughed.

            “I doubt it today, guys are pretty low key on practice days, not wanting to mess up their cars.”

            They pulled up to third place to enter, so Kirk stopped and let Sarah out of the van. They shared a lip smack.

            “See ya’ in a while,” Kirk said climbing back in the van.

            He immediately had to pull up to the gate. As he had seen as they sat there, there was a squad of officials checking cars and drivers. The one guy at the gate just directed traffic, indicating Kirk had to pull off to the left. An official with a clip board stepped to Kirk’s window, greeting him by name which impressed Kirk and basically telling Kirk what he already knew or at least expected which was a safety inspection. Surprising Kirk, he first asked to see Kirk’s helmet and fire suit. Kirk had them within reach, stepped out and showed them to the official who turned the helmet this way and that to check and see if there had been any impacts. Kirk took care of it; there was nary a scratch. The official stepped back to the car with Kirk in tow. The first thing he did was to grab hold of the car’ radiator overflow catch can which literally was an empty antifreeze jug. The official slid the jug up and down.

            “Kirk, you need to secure this catch can.”

            “Okay, no problem, easy fix.”

            Eyeing the car, peering under the hood, and strolling along a he went, he paused and pointed. “You know the exhaust exiting this high up is not approved. The rules state that the exhaust must exit from the bottom of the car.”

            Kirk’s stomach lurched. To build the complete headers, combine them and exit through the side door was major undertaking and a proud accomplishment for Kirk. He immediately thought of the nightmare, basically a complete rework it would take to rectify the problem with moving the exhaust. He must have looked sick, mortified to the official who wrote something down.

            “Well, you can’t take care of that today, just be aware.”

            Kirk could only nod as Jon just raised his eyes while considering the situation. The official continued his tour around the car, noting the safety harness inside and debris net in the window. He moved around the back and down the side of the car.

            “Looks good overall, except those couple things. You’ll be good for practice today.” He took in the car. “Interesting color choice, we don’t see any green cars.”

            Kirk expected the official to bring up the “Green is bad luck for a race car” myth, but it didn’t come up.

            “Okay, you can be on your way. You know your way around, right?”

            “Yep, I’ve got it.”

            Kirk and Jon jumped in and pulled over into his class’s pit area. Only a couple of his class “Hot Dog” cars were parked already. Kirk slid out of the van trying hard to curb his excitement. Jon asked if he wanted the come-along to let the car off the trailer the way they loaded it. Kirk thought that would take too long, so he put the ramps in place and unhooked the rear tie downs. He crawled in the car and let Jon unhook the front tie downs. With a wave from Jon, Kirk with his foot firmly on the brake, let the car slowly roll down off the trailer and then the ramps. Kirk’s car had officially touched down and arrived!

            Within minutes, a young woman approached Kirk and Jon.

            “Hey guys, I’m with Brown Photography who’ll take your official photos for the racing season.”

            “Oh, hi,” said Kirk, now obviously distracted with thoughts of hitting the track.

            “We recommend getting your new, painted car’s picture taken before getting on the track. You know, dust, scrapes and so on.”

            Kirk suddenly took notice. “Oh. Right.” He glanced around. “Here in the pits?”

            “No, no,” she said. “Down there,” she pointed. “On the grass around the north end. It’s a good setting. Get down there early to avoid the line. It doesn’t cost anything. See ya.’” And she ventured off to the next parked car.

            Kirk thought about it a moment and thought it would be a good idea. He wanted his picture to be better than last year’s when he wore faded jeans, a tie-dye tee-shirt and a striped engineer’s hat. From the van, he pulled out his helmet placed it in the car and pulled on his white with a red stripe firesuit. He couldn’t recall why he didn’t wear his firesuit last season’s picture. Maybe, he thought, I’ll look the part of racer in this year’s picture.

            Kirk crawled into his car and fired it off. Damn, he thought, the car sounds SO GOOD! Slowly, he cruised through the dusty pits to the north end of the track. One Late Model racer was getting his picture taken with the driver squatting down next to his ride, so Kirk sat there engine running. After a minute of so, the other guy got in his car and cruised away. Kirk motored into position, killed the engine and got out.

            The photographer said, “Pose however you want. This picture will be available to buy all season for you and your fans, so be thoughtful how you appear.”

            “Okay,” Kirk said.

            Last season, he sat on the side nerf bar in his non-racing get up, sort of hunched over looking grim hiding half his number. So he sat on the nerf bar slightly askew, making sure he didn’t block his hand painted number and stretched his arm straight out along the window sill. He decided to put on his “tough” face versus his “grim” face.

            “Ready?” Asked the photographer.

            “Yep, this oughta’ do it.”   Kirk heard two clicks.

            “Okay, good!” Said the photographer. “All done, a picture taken for posterity!”

            “Thanks,” Kirk briskly said, before crawling in and returning to his pit position.             Parking and getting out, Kirk wondered when they were going to open the track for practice. Stock car hauling rigs continued to straggle in the gate. Kirk in his excited nervousness, began rechecking the fluid levels in his engine. The overflow (antifreeze jug) caught his attention. As piece of the few parts he had along, he grabbed out a short length of wire. He recalled last year that he used wire to secure his make-do exhaust when the official pointed it out. He wrapped the wire around his jug to a roll cage brace. He twisted it tight with pliers. He turned to the abrupt rumbling sound of a few Late Model cars moving toward the track as the steward opened the gate.  

            Of course, the big-headed, high dollar Late Models get to go on the track first. He and Jon each picked a tire and sat down to listen to the cars on the track. They could see flashes of the cars going around through the gaps in the guardrails, but Kirk thought that the engine sounds seemed rather subdued. No one would push their cars on practice day as the drivers sorted out the handling and power of their cars. Probably most of them have new engines to break in just like Kirk. Impatient, Kirk sat outwardly patiently. In a few moments, it occurred to him that he needed a way to judge his suspension travel. Standing rather abruptly caught Jon unaware asking him what had happened. Kirk only demonstrated his mission: He bent over and slid the rubber grommet down on each shock absorber. He sat again.

            After several minutes, the resonance of the cars quieted. The announcement on the public address shocked Kirk out of his introspective thoughts. His class was next up on the track practice. He glanced over at the other drivers of his class and they didn’t seem to be in a rush to gear up; Kirk acted otherwise. He already had his firesuit on, so he climbed in his car and buckled down. The safety harness didn’t have to be adjusted because he had cinched it down every time he raced last season. He donned his helmet and with a shaky hand, pulled on the run/kill button and stabbed the starter button. The engine instantly caught and idled. He blipped the throttle a couple times. Jon gave him a thumbs up which Kirk returned with his grim smile. He cruised through the pits on the dusty lanes.

                Kirk pulled up to the track entrance gate, the first car of his class as the Late Model cars filed out. Only five cars were out there and the steward closed the exit gate, and then opened the entrance gate. Kirk took a breath and letting out the clutch went up the short incline to the track. At the lip, a KRRRRRICK! Reverberated the entire car. Kirk anticipated scraping bottom hoping that only the frame would hit. With an eye on the oil pressure gauge and then one in the mirror to check the track behind him, he assumed that he hadn’t ripped a hole in the oil pan. He coasted down into the bowl of the track to round the third and fourth turns. He had the entire track, at least in front of him, to himself. Easing around the perfectly smooth newly surfaced track relishing the powerful exhaust note of his engine, he shifted into second. Yep! He had returned to the coliseum of speed, his calling of his young life.

            As he motored down the vacant straightaway, Kirk remembered those two laps where he actually led a heat race. Even though short lived, his exhilaration remained front and center in his mind. Movement in his rear-view mirror caught his eye because he wasn’t paying attention. Within seconds, one, two, three cars passed him. They didn’t actually roar past because they were sorting out their cars as well though moving faster than Kirk. He didn’t mind being passed because he had it firmly engrained that these initial few laps are the first load he placed on his new engine, so he moseyed along coating on the turns and feathering on a bit of throttle for the straights. He imagined the engine felt and sounded powerful with potential. He also probably imagined that with his new wide tires and the car sitting lower the car stuck to the track like glue. Time would tell but for now he’d just put some time on his engine to break it in.

            They ran ten laps, given the white flag and then were herded out to let the Charger Class in for practice laps. Jon sat on the van’s bumper as Kirk motored back in through the pits. Kirk shut the car down and sat there a few moments.

            “So how did the car feel out there?” Jon asked peering into his window.

              “Good. Really good. The engine feels like it makes good power even though I didn’t push it at all. So we’ll see.” He shrugged. His voice had an echo inside the tin can cockpit. He unbuckled and crawled out. “The car feels so smooth. It feels like it really sticks to the track.”

            Kirk stepped away from the car, then got closer to check his suspension monitoring grommets. Checking every corner, he found the right front worked the hardest, which is normal. Opposite that corner, the left rear left worked the least. He cranked down on the right front spring a couple turns and let off a turn in the rear. It struck him at that moment. He laid down along the engine and peered underneath. The oil pan remained untouched though saw the frame had been scraped hard on the bottom. That’s how it should be, he thought. He got a drink and sat back to ponder things with Jon. Jon didn’t have a whole lot input to the car set up because he had no racing background, but he readily absorbed what he could as they went.

            Kirk thought he should pay a visit to Sarah in the spectator stands. He invited Jon along. They walked around the north end of the track and entered the spectator area, which for practice, remained not monitored. Kirk stopped by the concession stand and picked up a cone of vinegar fries and a Coke. Being thoughtful of his “pit crew” he asked Jon if he wanted a fry a well. Jon wondered aloud how anyone could eat those nasty things, but he did accept a Coke from Kirk. Checking out the stands, which looked nearly empty, probably only occupied by friends and family made it way to spot Sarah who sat down toward the first turn. This was where the action, if there was any, would most likely occur. She waved when she spotted the two guys. Of course, Sarah spotted Kirk easily with him wearing his fire suit, his longish reddish hair and Fu Manchu mustache that would prove plenty enough to make all the young women present swoon with desire. Or so Kirk imagined.

            Kirk sat down next to Sarah and shared a kiss. He offered her his fries and she took one. She refused anymore watching her weight and figure and all that teen stuff. She was still milking a Coke which looked like colored ice water at this point.

            “What’d ya think?” Kirk said, loud enough to be heard over the junky noisy Charger Class cars out on the track.

            “Your car really good out there. The green really stands out against all the other cars.” She paused with a timid expression. “You looked like you were going kind of slow compared to the other cars.”

            Kirk felt kind of insulted. “You know I have to take it easy on the new engine�"for a while. You know to break it in.”

            “Oh, okay. I understand. The car really hugged the corners like it was glued to the track.”

            “Yeah, yeah!” Kirk said, sort of jazzed. “It felt good. What a difference with those tires!”

            Kirk offered his fries to her again, but she refused. They pointed out the new Charger cars on the track and the old beat-up cars that appeared the same untouched from last year. He reiterated that they were the cheap, junky class after all. They sat there chit chatting through the Chargers and then the Mini-stocks before Kirk said he needed to get back to the pits to get ready for more practice laps. With a smack for Sarah, he and Jon set off for the pits. En route, the Late Models lined up rumbling the ground.

            Kirk was nowhere as excited getting ready to get on the track the second time around. He thought that he just needed to stay attuned to the car with the handling, the power band and the feel. Getting out there on the track, Kirk thought he’d ease down on the throttle just a little more than before. He got an exhilarating rush with the push, the acceleration of the car feeling good. He had to smile to himself with how good, how fast the car felt and the fact that he made it that way. Not even reaching half throttle, Kirk tried different “grooves” on the track to figure out where best the car handled. After a few different circuits through the turns, he decided the high on the straights and low in the turns seemed the best. Of course, that’s pretty much the desired groove of every car set up correctly because, as we know, that’s the fastest way around the track. With a few of the other guys, they put in ten laps. Parking the car in the pits he told Jon that he couldn’t fault anything about the car as it sat there. So that’s what it did, just sat there.

                    Kirk didn’t feel like walking around the end of the track to sit with sweet Sarah. Maybe he has gotten tired with his excitement building up to this day not to mention the long hours he put in just to get there to the track. Introspective, he chilled out as the other classes did their practice laps. He pondered it he had broken in the engine enough to try a hard lap. He thought that he shouldn’t until the first race getting enough time on the engine to make sure all those new parts had had time to mate up, shine up, surface to surface. The announcement came out that the next series of practices would be all for the afternoon. The Late Model cars rumbled out to the gate. To Kirk, it looked like all of them had decided to go out.

            Jon had been perusing the car up and down back and forth, but Kirk in his current state of mind couldn’t think of anything else to check out. He felt content, pleased in the way the car performed on the track, of course without any wide-open, head-to-head competition. Yeah, there were a few of the hot shots and some of those racers who were Kirk’s back of the pack competition from last year, but this was practice and no one really wanted to get into any wheel-to-wheel racing on practice day.  Kirk zipped up his firesuit and crawled into his chariot of speed. He leisurely fastened his harness and donned his helmet. Jon gave him his thumbs up which Kirk returned. He motored over to the gate with four of his competitors of differing abilities, skills and potency. Within minutes the exit gate swung open and entrance opened. Kirk moseyed out onto the track.

            Coasting around the track with the few other guys, the white flag fluttered in the breeze the passing cars created. Next lap, the green light flashed on and the green flag replaced the white. Kirk eased down on the throttle relishing how smooth and powerful the car felt. One of the hot shot speedsters went by him though not at full throttle. Kirk decided to follow him around so eased down on that big aluminum footprint accelerator pedal. Going around the track just like an electric slot car game he played as a kid imagining being on a track just like now he experienced. The hot shot pushed a little harder and put some distance between him. Kirk who just let him go. No racing on practice day.

            As the laps ticked by, Kirk knew practice day drew to a close with only a couple laps remaining, but Kirk felt unsure of how many. As he rounded the fourth turn, he bore down on the accelerator farther down closer to the wide-open throttle. Kirk loved the feeling. The rush. At the flag stand, halfway down the straight, Kirk had to do it�"he floored the accelerator. The engine note roared and the speed impressively increased. Kirk could feel it in his body. The first turn was coming up fast, so Kirk relaxed his foot off the accelerator. The car kept accelerating! Kirk frantically kicked the pedal to release it from apparently being stuck down. He slammed on the brakes as the car couldn’t make the turn at high speed. He locked up the tires which squalled in protest with the engine still roaring running wide open. HE saw the guardrail coming at him quickly.

            BAM! CRUNCH! SCRAPE! The car came to sudden halt piled up against the guardrail. The engine silent, Kirk remembered to mash the kill switch. Too late except maybe to prevent a fire. He sat there confused, unsure what had just happened, sitting in his wrecked car not realizing that he was just fine despite a nearly head on collision with the guardrail at almost wide-open throttle. Kirk could see the crumpled front bumper and crunched up hood from his cockpit. Within seconds, the crash crew pulled up alongside the car and a worker rushed up to Kirk’s window.

            “Hey! Are you okay in there?” He shouted.

            “Yeah. Look at my car. S**T!.”

            Kirk unbuckled his harness and crawled out the window backwards as usual. He didn’t even look at the car as the tow truck pulled up to his broken car. He slowly walked down the three lanes of the asphalt banked turn. Head down, he saw rivulets of bright green antifreeze running down the bank and puddling up along the track in the infield. Then he saw the black tire skid marks that showed his exact trajectory to plowing into the rail. He heard the loud speaker announce something and then his name. A pattering of applause followed. He didn’t respond.

            Kirk only suffered embarrassment, anger, humiliation focusing on the fact that his racing season, his possible successful season, ended before it even started. What a fool. What a loser. He showed those who had doubts. It did surface into his brooding thoughts that it was a green car after all. Had he tempted fate by choosing green?  Across the sparsely grassed infield, he walked toward the pit gate, undid his helmet, and pulled it off. Grasping it by the strap, Kirk reeled back and threw it as hard as he could sending it above the track’s back straight and over the guardrail into the pit area. The gate was open and he walked through, the only time he walked through and didn’t drive through. He sauntered to his parking place in the pits. What would Jon say? What could Kirk answer? 

            As Kirk approached his van and trailer, Jon stood there looking quite glum a well. Jon asked if Kirk was okay and Kirk only could say, “fine.” Within a minute, the tow truck with his mangled car rattled over to their spot. One of the crew jumped up and asked if they could position the car in any way to assist in loading. Kirk shrugged not wanting to address it. Jon asked about loading it backwards. Kirk shook his head. The crewman acknowledged the decision and directed the tow truck driver to turn around and back the stock car up to the trailer seeing the back wheels were fine and rolling. Kirk couldn’t look at the car, so he just got the chain and come-along out and hooked up. He started hand winching. The front suspension was wrecked with one flat tire, but the other tire still rolled which helped the car pull up the trailer. Kirk got tired and Jon took over as Kirk minded the direction of the one front tire. It made him sick to see the damage up close. After a long, drawn-out effort they got the car up on the trailer.

            Sarah came to the pits because all practice racing had ceased, but she knew better not to say a word to Kirk. She just silently climbed into the van. Kirk still didn’t want to know what had gone wrong, so he wandered out into the deep grass and weeds down from the guardrail. He wandered back and forth a few times before he found his helmet. He walked back to the van, trailer, and car where Jon was busy cinching the car down. A few racers and mechanics wandered by to take a look at the damage without any words exchanged.  

            Art, an old head Late Model racer, stopped by to look with a shake of his head. All he said was, “I’ll see you at the funeral” and walked away.