Never the Same #63 Not all that Dangerous nor Irresistible Anymore

Reality never panned out the way Kirk imagined beforehand. He just couldn’t predict the future, darn it!

 

Cue: "Hands on the Wheel” https://youtu.be/0DnTAttXwEI?si=znOSbY9JvJYCJBOw

 

            On the way home after the Saturday night races, the three of them motored on in the front of the van. Sarah Elizabeth, sitting on the engine cover like usual next to Kirk, said, “I won’t be able to go to the races tomorrow. I have a horse show that I’m expected to attend.” She shrugged. “I have to go to these events if I’m to keep my situation at the barn.”

            “Really? I’ll miss your support and the good luck you bring me at the races,” Kirk said, with a grin though looking straight ahead.

            “Luck, huh? You don’t need any luck the way you looked out there on the track tonight,” she placed a soft hand on his arm. “You’ll be just fine without me.”   

            Sarah’s “situation” was that she worked at a high-falootin’ equine barn where she earned a pittance, but part of her deal was that she got to ride the high-strung, high-dollar Thoroughbred Horses at the barn and occasionally at equine show and jumping events. Yeah, Kirk knew not to get in between Sarah and her horse situation.  

            After dropping her off and giving her an affectionate goodnight, seeing it was getting late, Kirk and Jon headed home.

            Jon broke the near silence of just the van lugging the stock car on the trailer behind.

            “Do we need to adjust anything on the car before tomorrow’s racing?”

            Kirk thought a moment or two. “No, I think the car is set up pretty good right now,” he shrugged. “Though we may have to tweak the car for the different track. You know Perry is flatter and shorter so who knows how the car might handle differently. We’ll see with practice.”

            Pulling in the homestead’s long driveway in the pitch dark, it appeared to Kirk that his mother had waited up for his return. He knew she’d offer to cook or warmup something to eat. Kirk, with the thought, suddenly felt the hunger pangs set in. After parking the van and trailer combo, Jon said goodnight which Kirk returned as he headed for the house.

                  His mother indeed, waited at the table and let out a sigh of relief when he walked in unscathed.

            “Can I make you something to eat, dear?” she asked.

            Kirk sat down at the table. “What do you have that’s easy and fast?”

            “I can warm up pork chops from dinner, if you like.”

            “Ah, I don’t know,” Kirk said pondering. “A little heavy this late.” Kirk could smell fried eggs which she had just made for herself. He knew that she knew better not to offer eggs because Kirk hated them for their smell, taste and appearance. “I think I’ll just have toast.” Even though his mother jumped up ready to prepare his toast, Kirk beat her to the clothes dryer to grab out the bread that lived there. Kirk hated having late night toast because his father had it almost every night, but it just sounded good to Kirk at that juncture.

            “Want me to put some coffee on for you?” She offered.

            “No, I’ll just have a glass of milk.”

            With that his eager-to-please mother rushed to the fridge to get the milk, butter and jam. So, Kirk had his tall glass of milk, his toast, butter and jam. With that he headed off to bed saying “g’night” to his mother after she said good night, dear, sleep tight.” It goes without saying even though it’s said right here that even though his mother doted on him, Kirk didn’t appreciate his mother at all. Kirk slept well dreaming of racing grandeur with a short dream of Dee and him at Niagara Falls.

                   The next morning, Kirk sprung out of bed ready for another battle on his favorite track. After a taste of the checkered flag, even though it was just winning the Consolation Heat the day before, Kirk knew he had to be in for more competition triumph today. 

                Kirk and Jon set off just after lunchtime for the long journey to the track. Of course, he stopped for super high-test gas for the stock car and regular for the van. He didn’t enjoy the high prices of gas which had tripled during the OPOEC oil Embargo and even though the embargo ended the past March, oil suppliers and producers weren’t going to lower prices. The higher gas prices affected prices on just about everything thus inflationary trends continued to rise.

              Back on the road, Kirk prudently decided to avoid the notorious steep hills of Warsaw after his ride-along incident last year when Dan at the wheel of the two-car hauler missed a shift right there on “Dead Man’s Curve”.  Anyway, they, with a little grinding of gears, sweat, and finger and toe crossing made it up the steep hill unscathed. I covered this incident in detail earlier in this Bio, but briefly, two incidents occurred in 1955 and 1969 when a load of bananas crashed on the “curve” giving it the nickname of “Fruit Salad” in ’55, and in ’69 a fuel tanker lost its brakes, went out of control and burst into flames igniting a long stretch of the streets in the city. To say the least, after that, tractor trailers over nine tons are prohibited from the hills. Kirk simply avoided the hills because he didn’t think his old, under powered pink van dragging the trailer with a stock car could make it up said hill!

            So they arrived at the Perry Raceway which was Kirk’s first return after his humiliating crash. He expected more attention over his return and repair of his car, but it seemed no one noticed or just attended to their own business as usual. Of course, his battle mates Bob and Kevin were there, and Kirk spotted Chuck with his immaculate blue car. He wondered why Chuck wasn’t at the races Saturday night. He thought that he may talk to Chuck later, but always wondered about speaking with the enemy. Kirk’s heart fluttered with excitement which seemed par for the course for every race so far this season. Last season after Kirk determined he was seriously under powered and ill-handling, he settled into the second half of the season with nary a bit of excitement or trepidation just there to put in his time and laps.

            Going through the usual motions, they unloaded the car and Kirk hung out until his turn to practice. Other than the bit of the potential winning rush and excitement, Kirk settled in not even thinking about Sarah and what she may be doing with her joy of horses. Sometimes Sarah’s preoccupation and love of horses got in the way of their relationship, though Kirk put up with it pretty much all of the time, but sometimes… Kirk felt Sarah and her bohemian/hippie vibe was attractive and cool, but she definitely was not Dee in any way, and so, Kirk didn’t get anywhere close to the feeling with Sarah as he did with Dee. This girlfriend comparison could go on…

            Anyway, practice rolled around for Kirk’s class so he casually geared up and headed out to the track. The car felt good in handling round the flatter banks of the turns, but he thought the engine’s power was off. He pushed it hard a couple laps, but it was hard to gauge his power without a real head-to-head comparison with the other cars that Kirk could gauge against during head-to-head racing speed. The trouble remained in practice was that you never knew how hard the other drivers actually pushed, so there were no direct comparisons. In his mind, Kirk shrugged it off deciding to make the evaluation in the upcoming heat.

            Jon greeted him back after Kirk killed the engine. “How’d go out there?” He asked. “It looked okay.” Kirk thought that the tone in Jon’s voice sounded as if he suspected an impediment to speed as Kirk suspected as well. 

            “I don’t know,” Kirk said low. “Nothing bad, I just thought the car didn’t feel�"the same as last night.” He shrugged. “The handling felt neutral, so we don’t have adjust anything. It just felt different, maybe not as, aaahhh, peppy.” He shrugged again before he caught himself being ridiculous. 

            There weren’t as many cars registered for Sunday’s race compared to the day before. This meant smaller heats and more advancements to the feature which suited Kirk just fine. He bided his time until they posted the grid lineups. The two guys wandered over to peruse the board. Seeing this remained the first race of the season at this track, Kirk reckoned they’d base the lineups on last year’s standings. When he saw that he was in the second heat sitting ninth out of twelve competitors, his reckoning proved correct.  Eight went on to the feature. Piece of cake making up one place in the heat, Kirk thought uneasily.

            The guys walked back to the van, trailer, and car. Kirk walked around the car a couple times poking here and there, checking fluids, wiggling bolts, but not really doing anything in particular. He gazed around at his fellow competitors. It seemed there was a profusion of yellow cars whether coupes or compact cars, though the yellow cars had different second colors from blue to orange to red with some rather garish combinations. Kirk felt he had ended up conservatively with green and yellow trim after the shiny mirror finish with red and black trim of last year. He felt glad to get rid of that blinding reflective car even though it flashed nicely under the high intensity track lights.  Kirk really couldn’t accurately judge the colors of his competitors’ cars, because, remember, he was color blind. From his mistakes in identifying colors, the green of his car and of grass seemed to him to be an off-orange color. Anyway, he knew most of the guys by their first names and their cars from Bob, Kevin, and Ron, but guys like Dusty Rhodes and Max Powers Kirk thought that their names just could be, might be, fake.

             Case in point: Kirk went by “Uncle Kirk” moniker on his car’s roof. He might’ve known all his competitors’ names, but that didn’t mean he exchanged more than two words to any of them, except, as we know with Chuck who politely provided a lot of racing technology knowledge to rookie Kirk.

                    The Late Models did their thing and soon the first heat of his class were announced. Kirk took a deep breath and started to gear up, his concerns still percolating about what he sensed about the car niggled at him. He sat on a tire and listened to the first heat run for a few moments as his competitors started moving toward the entry gate. Kirk suddenly stood up, crawled into the car and donned his helmet. He buckled down and headed to the gate. Half of the cars sat there idling, the other half shut down. Kirk had to think that maybe some cars might overheat if sitting too long.  Soon, the first heat filed out and again red car number 39, the cash car won the heat. Apparently, no one could beat the car made out of money.

            Kirk’s heat headed out on the track and cruising around before the green his car felt perfectly good.  They picked up speed on the white and hammered down on green, but Kirk could tell something was wrong. Not majorly wrong, but something definitely minorly wrong. The cars around him, even though he was hard on the throttle, just eased ahead, just a bit. Handling seemed fine through the first and second turns as he stayed right with everyone around him but coming out of the turn Kirk bared down on the accelerator and those competitors, Bob and Keven that he outran on Saturday slowly walked away from him on the back straight. What’s up with this? Kirk wondered.

            Trying his best to maximize his power and handling, Kirk worked hard to stay in the groove and carry his speed through those flatter curves. Yet, the other cars stayed just out of reach as he watched those behind pushing hard as well on his bumper trying their best to get past him. With those few laps to run in the heat Kirk felt he was not going straight to the feature because it was obvious that he would not make up the one place he needed, in fact he sweated that he would get passed not that it would make all that much difference because he end up in the Consolation irregardless. Without a lap by lap, blow by blow account of this race, he got passed by Ron’s yellow Falcon leaving Kirk in tenth. After all that anticipation coming back from the crash and doing so well on Saturday Kirk putt-putted into the pits crushed by his outcome and circled back to line up.  

            Kirk found via the steward that he’d start sixth out of nine cars. He glanced around and of course Bob and Kevin weren’t there having qualified for the feature though Ron was right there, he having coming in one place short of qualifying. Kirk didn’t think there’d be any difference in the car’s performance and he wished that he had had a little time to check out the engine before this race, but there he sat on the cusp of a fray of another race. They pulled on the track and were off. Kirk didn’t really concentrate and push the car to the limit as in the heat, but he still tried. With his mind not directly focused on his race, he glanced down at his tachometer. He usually didn’t have time to look at the gauges and tach, but he did now. Going as hard as he could down the straight with no competitors to slow him down because they were all going faster than him, the tach read a maximum of five thousand, seven hundred RPMs. He finished the race in seventh leaving him out of the feature. What a bummer!

            Heading back to the trailer, Kirk slowed, aimed for the ramps and bounced right on up to the stops. He sat there a few minutes stewing in his juice of defeat and baffled by his new setback. Jon stood there looking grim as Kirk sat there on the brakes.

            “So, what’s the verdict? Your suspicion proved correct by the car’s performance out there.” Jon said as Kirk crawled out the window. “So. What do you think is wrong?”

            Kirk stood there a few minutes scratching his head. “Just a little low on power. I can’t place it.”

            Jon didn’t have much to inquire into, taking in Kirk’s demeanor and grim attitude. Without Sarah to pick up from the spectators stands and his disinterest in watching the races. He felt that he had no need to watch and didn’t feel like interacting with anyone if the opportunity arose. He asked Jon if he wanted to stay and watch the rest of the races and got a noncommittal answer so they decided to head home.  

            Huh, Kirk thought as they drove, pondering the possibilities: First being of course the throttle linkage that he redesigned after the crash; Maybe the linkage slipped and it wasn’t opening the carburetor all the way; Maybe the distributor loosened and the timing changed a little; Maybe it was just because this track was shorter and just couldn’t make horsepower. For some reason, this bothered him in some offhand way like his subconscious wanted to reveal something to his pondering thoughts, but didn’t quite bring it to light. Kirk felt something was there, like a splinter in his mind digging at him.

            So they got back home early with a food stop along the way. They pulled in the yard with the rattily rig and Kirk saw his mother peeking out the door probably not knowing who it was or then wondering why he and Jon got home early. After bidding Jon goodbye, Kirk just parked the rig without unloading the car; there’d be plenty of time to check it out during the week. Strolling into the house, his mother asked exactly what Kirk expected: Was he okay? Did he wreck the car? Kirk, who was irritated and on the edge of anger, snapped and just said everything was fine. His mother knew not to press him any further during his moods.

            The week began the next day with him assuming his solo, one-man up position as the Rock Handling Man. With the few contacts he had on the way to the time clock and punching in early of course, no one inquired into how his weekend of racing went. Kirk remained sure that no one at work actually knew he raced and his father, who never seemed interested or proud of what Kirk did, probably didn’t tell anyone at work about his racing. Kirk knew that his name would be in the newspaper that night showing that he had won the Consolation Heat on Saturday. Anyway, he assumed his position waiting for that first truckload of gypsum rocks that Kirk had to make sure made it to the hopper for the crushers. In his little hut with pornographic wallpaper, which he didn’t even notice anymore, Kirk pondered his car’s lack of power or was it just the short track? That fact again bothered him off and, on all day, though he didn’t let it divert his attention from doing the job and being safe. That fact of safety kept him on his toes because if he ever got caught up in the machinery no one would notice until the rocks stopped flowing. Got to keep those rocks a’ rollin’ up the long inclined conveyor, then nearly straight up the elevator. To say the least, there were no wonderous revelations springing to his mind on what may be wrong.

            That late afternoon he went home and got the car unloaded before dinner. As usual, his mother had a hardy full course meal prepared. At this point, he no longer had to put up with his oldest sister harassment at dinnertime. Well, he was old enough to defend himself now rather than just sit there and take it in silent degradation as he did as a mere child. With the car snuggled in the barn garage, Kirk checked the one thing he had thought of first that being the throttle linkage. He set a large hammer on that oversized aluminum footprint accelerator pedal inside the cockpit effectively flooring the throttle. He removed the hood and the “air cleaner” which was literally a modified coffee can. With the trouble light, he peered down the carburetor’s throat. The throttle butterfly was perfectly vertical, in essence, wide open. Well, that ain’t it. He took the hammer off the pedal.

            Kirk hooked up the timing light by unplugging number one spark plug wire and inserting the light probe between the plug and wire. He found twelve-volt power at the nearby starter and grounded the other clamp on the motor mount. He fired up the engine, blipping the throttle a few times to keep it running until it idled on its own. He relished the loud exhaust note that assaulted his hearing. Pulling the trigger on the timing light while aiming the light at the spinning harmonic damper/pulley the strobing light “froze” the pully’s timing mark next to the degreed plate on the timing chain cover. “Huh” Kirk had to say to himself aloud because the timing remained exactly where he had set it in the first place with that being perfect. He shut the engine off and disconnected the light.  He had to ponder the problem further.

            The next morning, he awoke with the obvious answer front and center in his mind. He should have known this simple fact from the beginning, and he actually thought it but maybe he didn’t want to accept the obviously simple solution. The final gear ratio was too high for the shorter track. Maybe he didn’t want to realize the answer from his subconscious because he knew that it meant more work�"and money. Kirk wasn’t afraid of work because he could sit right down next to work! But his scant funds remained another matter. If you wanna’ play, you gotta’ pay.

            Yeah, Kirk finally recalled that his high-performance camshaft made peak power at six thousand RPM and higher. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure how many RPMs his engine could take so would a change to final lower gearing exceed that? Yes possibly, depending. The engine had been professionally balanced so much better than a stock engine, but still they all had their RPM limits that when exceeded they just come apart, like when he blew up last season’s engine on purpose. He should have watched the RPMs during that event, but he had stepped away from the over-revving engine knowing that sooner rather than later it would explode which it did sooner. This was covered few chapters back.

                 A few words about final gearing. We’re talking about rear axle differentials here. Ford 9-inch differentials are among the most favorite setups among stockcar racers. Remember that the rules don’t state that you have to run like model parts in your car such as if you have Ford body/frame they don’t state you have to run a Ford engine and drivetrain. That being said, Kirk ran the Chevrolet engine in a Ford car with a Ford differential. So, mix and match was the name of the game. Ford differentials were relatively easy to change out because they didn’t require special tools like pullers and presses and the like, and they stand up to the abuse on a stock car track.

            Anyway, Kirk already knew he ran a 3.25 gear ratio which was derived by dividing the number of ring gear teeth by the pinion teeth. Most available “undisturbed” differentials had tags identifying said equipment, but without tags, you had to remove them from the axle, count the teeth and do your math. Who said gear heads didn’t like math? There’s more math than you’d think involved. Up to that time, Kirk deemed satisfaction with his gear ratio especially last season running the lower powered engine(s). Kirk didn’t know what other ratios were available specifically from the junkyards. Different factory ratios were installed according to engine power, transmission type, use of vehicle, and weight of said vehicle. All Kirk knew for sure was that he needed a “higher” ratio (higher numbered) which confusingly meant lower gearing so he’d get higher RPMs. Got that? He didn’t look forward to another trip to Crazy Ed’s junkyard because it most likely meant he’d have to pull the differential out there on the junkyard lot. Yuk!

            Later that week, Kirk girded his loins and headed to Ed’s Emporium of Recycled Parts better known and correctly in this account as Crazy Ed’s Auto Salvage. This time period was way before the term “recycled” had ever been voiced.  On the way, he wondered if he had enough cash with him to pay for said differential. He didn’t hurry, savoring the drive across the county on a nice summer afternoon.

            Arriving at Ed’s, no one was around. Well, ain’t that nice? Kirk thought. He proceeded to wander back into the fascinating canyon of stacked up cars trying to avoid the mud puddles and oil stains on the ground. Heading in, Kirk thought it as a candy store for gearheads wondering what good parts might be lurking in the high and vast heaps of�"junk. Soon, he heard voices and then the crackle of the heat wench (oxygen/acetylene torch.) He rounded a corner in the canyon and saw Ed and the latest employee surgically removing an engine and transmission from a Chrysler Land Barge. The decrepit forklift sitting there running had a chain attached to said engine. Kirk saw the employee was not the same as last time with the NO GO Nova Kirk recalled with a smile. He stood there off to the side until Ed noticed him.

            “Hey Racer Boy, what can I find for you?” Ed said, rather loudly.

            “Looking for a nine-inch differential.”

            “Ford, I take it. What ratio?”

            “Ahhh, hmmm,” Kirk stumbled. “I’m not sure. I have a 3.25 and have to up to the next ratio. Ahh, not sure what that is.”

            “Next one up is a 3.50 ratio. Wait. Just to make sure, because some guys can’t keep it straight. Higher number, lower ratio.”

            “Yeah, right. Ah, 3.50 huh?” Kirk’s brain gears when into a higher ratio. He wasn’t aware it was going to be such a big jump, but he didn’t say anything being the unsure guy he was. The employee jumped on the forklift and gave the cut-out engine a jerk with a bang that made Kirk jump. Ed gestured to the guy to put the engine on the ground right there beside the donor car.

            “Follow me,” said Ed, gesturing for the guy to follow them. 

            Down one alley/canyon and then another before Kirk saw the mother load.  He realized that they had circled back closer to the back of the garage. There in a haphazard pile laid several rear axles. Kirk immediately could discern Ford axles in the pile. Ed waded in and looked closely at a couple axles before he reached down and scrubbed at a tag on one axle.

            “Here you go,” Ed said. and motioned the guy with the forklift over.

            With a little rearranging, they finally got the one Ed pointed out up on the forks of the forklift. They headed around, back to the garage. The two men, as Kirk watched, worked as an efficient pit crew. They both dragged out air hoses with impact wrenches attached and they went to work. With whirring and the distinctive rat-a-tat-tat of the wrenches the employee worked on pulling off the wheels as Ed started removing the many bolts around the differential. He just left the loose nuts laying on the ground. The employee had both wheels with flat worn tires off in a jiffy. With a hammer, he whammed on the brake drums until they loosened up and slid them off the wheel studs. Ed lined up the hole in the axle plate and removed the axle retaining bolts one at a time lickity-split. They pulled out each axle about six inches. Ed got a drain pan dropped it under the differential and whacked it one, two, three times before a gap opened and the thick nasty fish oil glugged, glugged out. Showing superhuman strength, Ed grabbed the spindle yoke and wiggled the differential. He dropped it down into the pan.

            “We’d better be sure about the ratio,” Ed said and slowly began counting. “Ten on the spindle. Should be right.” He then counted the ring gear. “Yep, 35 teeth. There you go.”

            “Wow, thanks!” Kirk said. “You guys are really efficient. So, what do you want for it?”

            “How does 50 bucks sound?” Ed suggested.

            “Perfect,” Kirk said reaching for his wallet. He paid Ed and bent down to pick up the differential that has a nickname of “pumpkin” primarily because it was round and heavy about a hundred pounds. Kirk had a problem with carrying the awkward differentials from when he was a fifteen-year-old and dropped one right square on his toe while walking across a street. His toe didn’t fare too well and was Never The Same afterwards. The whole story is covered in an earlier chapter. So, Kirk paused before picking it up wrapping his fingers around the “pumpkin’s” bottom so despite being rusty, dirty, and oily he carried it like a pumpkin against his abdomen. After his toe incident, he tried carrying one by gripping the yoke and the ring gear. Big mistake, because the gears rotated severely pinching his fingers between the gear teeth and the cast iron case. Ouch! Again. He set the nasty thing in his van wiped his hands off on a rag he kept in reserve remembering how he hated to have greasy hands. Home again, home again, flippty flop!

            Now that he had lower gearing (higher numbered), the differential could just sit there in his garage until Sunday. He knew that some of the “big boy“ Late Model drivers changed gears between the two tracks, but he didn’t know if anyone from his class did. On second thought, Kirk assumed the cash car driver probably did change them out because of the way he smokes his competitors at both tracks. He knew it’d be a challenge to change out the differential Sunday morning, but he thought he was up for it.

            The week progressed without regard until Friday when he tried calling Sarah Elizabeth but was told that she was outside with her horse. Kirk didn’t like that answer. On Saturday after he prepped for that night’s race, he called Sarah again only to find out she was at an all-weekend horse show. Kirk steamed a little.  

            So, in the late afternoon on Saturday Kirk and Jon headed off to the races as usual. With their usual stops and about the same exact space in the pits, Kirk felt like he was getting into an earlly habitual routine in his stock car racing season. He knew, deep down, that some aspects of racing off-track could be routine, but he reminded himself not to fall into a routine on the track. He went out on the track for the usual warmup practice laps, but only pushed the car hard a couple times just to make sure it felt the same, which it did. He envisioned those usual underlying visions of racing grandeur, but Kirk being Kirk knew not to get cocky or the worse…

             Still, still and all, he always hoped that maybe, perhaps his old high school buddies and/or adversaries would see him race or maybe one of his ex-girlfriends like Babe, Dee, Farah, or Bonnie might show up once and see him mixing it up with the other boys out there, but so far the whole last season or this new season, he hadn’t seen any of those old acquaintances.

            As usual, Kirk puttered around the car, checking suspension travel, tire pressure, and for loose bolts, but mostly just killing time until his heat announcement came up. Put briefly, Kirk started eighth and finished fourth good enough for the feature and no requirement to run the Consolation. As the pattern established, the top ten front runners seemed to be evenly split between the two heats so there was no way that Kirk could win a heat unless something catastrophic happened to those four or five front runners. Thus, it goes this way and Kirk accepts that it is what it is. Kirk sat eleventh in the feature which isn’t all that bad and, in a way, good because he can see those hot dogs/front runners a couple rows ahead. As a calmer, more accepting Kirk motored around before the feature, he thought, one day I’ll be up there in the fast crowd mix. The feature went off without a hitch for Kirk, with a couple rubs and a couple near misses, but he stayed out of trouble while intently pushing his car while finishing ninth. In the points and a little cash, he thought while loading his hot stock car. Tomorrow will be a different day, Kirk envisioned.

            Even though he got home late in the evening, Kirk thought he should start changing out his gears. He knew it wouldn’t be as easy as when he picked up the differential at Ed’s and the two-man pit crew scene that made short work of removing the unit from the axle. He’ll be removing AND reinstalling by himself with standard, that is, non-powered tools AND laying on his back under the car. His tiredness got the best of him and sp he went to bed, but then the outstanding mechanical job bothered him keeping him from sleeping. So it was often with Kirk, he knew that he had to be done by noon and with a deadline like that, it kept him awake.  

                    Kirk tossed and turned debating if he should just get up and get to work alternating with a bothersome rumination going over the sequence of steps in the removal and replacement of the differential. Finally, he fell asleep late in the morning. He snapped wake seemingly minutes after he fell asleep. A sliver of dawn’s early glow illuminated his bedroom window frame. He eyed the solar glare determining that it couldn’t be later than five-thirty. He quickly pulled on his already soiled jeans and tee shirt and tried as quietly, though not so quietly being Kirk, to get out of the house. On the way to the garage as he walked in a near stupor, he rubbed his eyes from the solar glare straight ahead of his path. You couldn’t call Kirk a morning person by any means.

            Opening up the garage doors, he flipped on the dismal overhead lights. Letting out a yawn, he noisily dragged the floor jack to the back end of the stock car and raised it eight inches. He set two jack stands under the axle because he would never think of being under a car held up solely by the jack. Those cautionary tales presented at his Vo/Tech class by movie and slide of Primitive Pete using tools incorrectly and doing dangerous things and plainly showing the resulting injury really made an impression on Kirk.

             Not moving all that fast, he unbolted the wheels, then wrestled the brake drums off. With a couple tries, he got the right socket wrench combo to take the axle bearing retainers off by lining up the nut with the hole in the axle flange. Yeah, it was easier watching Ed and employee disassemble the axle with power tools. He pressed on. Undoing the four bolts, he pried out the axle with bearing out of the tube. He had to examine the weld he had applied on the inner retainer to keep the axle from sliding off the bearing under excessive sideways pressure on the retainer like what had happened last season. Good enough. He repeated the process on the other side leaving the axle sticking out about eight inches which was enough to swap out the differentials. Not all that bad so far.

            He lit the trouble light and slid it under the car. Then, with a seven-sixteenths open end wrench, he rolled under the car on the creeper. He undid the driveshaft, skinning a knuckle when the wrench slipped, but nevertheless got the shaft off. Kirk hurt himself a lot while working mechanically.  Getting a half inch socket, extension and wrench, he turned off all ten nuts off the bolts holding differential to axle. He didn’t know if the nasty, fish oil would leak out and it didn’t, so he’ll have to pries the differential off, but he didn’t feel like wrestling with that heavy pumpkin beast from a prone position right then.  Besides, he thought that he smelled coffee. Mmmm, coffee! He thought.

            He scooted out from under the car leaving the light shining under there. He wiped his hands off the best he could because he hated having greasy, dirty hands. He headed for the house and sure enough the Mister Coffee carafe stood there full and hot. His mother stood up ready to offer him something special for breakfast, but he said he was okay as he grabbed the dish washing detergent Dawn, the best thing to get nasty ground in grease off of hands. Every time he saw that bottle, he experienced a twinge. After washing, he accepted big mug of steaming coffee that his mother had dispensed for him. She inquired into what he had worked on so early, and did he get started so early because he couldn’t sleep. He never went into details of the car with his mother figuring she wouldn’t understand so, he said that he had to fix something and yes it had kept him awake. Poor dear, she said and hoped he could fix it. Kirk swallowed down some scalding hot coffee. After his usual bowl of cereal and another cup of joe, Kirk wandered out to the garage knowing full well to what he was up against.

            Kirk had a battered drain pan that he slid under the car alongside the light that still shone up under the car. He rolled underneath. Remember the differential “pumpkin” weighed close to a hundred pounds. Kirk was no weakling from being in sports and working on the farm, but on the other hand he wasn’t a muscle man by any means. He took a deep breath. And another. Grabbing hold of the pumpkin’s yoke while propping his other arm beneath it and the floor, he pushed up and down to break the seal. The dark, thick fish oil glugged out into the pan while the pumpkin hung on to those ten bolts.  Kirk waited until the oil drainage slowed.

             With a shove up and a mighty heave out, he slid it out off the bolts. Knowing how heavy it was, yet feeling the full weight of it with arms at odd skewed angles are two totally different perceptions. Not bad at first because his arm beneath it held it suspended with little muscling involved. The cool thick fishy oil ran from his hand, down his forearm before dripping off his elbow. Slowly pitching the pumpkin over Kirk experienced its full weight. Instantly, his arm muscles screamed in pain unused to the weight at the odd angle, so he let it down fast, too fast. Of course, he let the differential down on his fingers and then let it roll it off onto the floor. With a long line of top shelf expletives, he folded his greasy tingling fingers together and just laid there and groaned.  He rolled to one side to yank the already dirty rag from his pocket to wipe off his arm. He laid there thinking he should get out from there and then again, thought he should just do it.

            Kirk eyed the replacement differential sitting nearby. He rolled out, grabbed it and with his legs propelling him and the new differential underneath the car. He rocked and rolled the other one out of the way. Waiting for his muscle and pain recovery, he ran his fingers across the mating surfaces of differential and axle housing. He laid there awhile longer, until, suddenly he just grabbed it rolled it up to his chest which hurt like hell and aimed the ten holes with ten bolts. He got the bottom two started, but with the angle it wouldn’t go on any farther. His muscles screamed in protest as he pulled it out and tipped it more vertical, this time getting the top three holes over the bolts. With a mighty shove it slipped into place and hung there suspended. His arms flopped down relaxed, and he let out a held breath. He knew it wouldn’t be easy…

            Leaving it like that he rolled out. He headed for the house. He knew what he needed and where it was, but being a greasy mess, Kirk called his mother for help. She came on the run and retrieved a long length of cotton string out of the tangled junk drawer. No, he wasn’t going to fly a kite. Back under the car, he stretched the string out and slipped it up into the gap between differential and axle, then wrapped it up around those ten bolts crossing it over on top. A trick of mechanics to avoid dealing with a fragile, unwieldy paper gasket, so when tightened up the string flattens out forming a gasket of sorts. A slick trick.   

            Kirk felt like he had a handle on the job at hand so he calmed down to not injure himself again. He got the ten bolts tight. The axles went back in place which required a bit of leverage and blind aligning with bolts then tightened up and torqued. Brake drums put in place and wheels were put back on. He poured the stinking oil from the drain pan into a ugly bottle, then fabricated a makeshift funnel out of cardboard to pour the oil back into the axle. He finished by reattaching the driveshaft double checking everything and letting the car down. He took a deep breath with a remaining hope that all that work was worth it when he took the car out on the track that afternoon. It was lunchtime for sure, Kirk felt the pangs. 

                  Fast forward to the track. Kirk and Jon rode in the van towing the stock car arrive there, pay the fees, and park the rig. Kirk had explained how the swap went including the finger smashing details. Jon volunteered to help swap the differential out next time. Kirk agreed to take him up on the offer the following weekend. During all week and the drive, Kirk ran an ongoing internal debate trying to figure the outcome changing gears mathematically. Literally, not being a math whiz while not even knowing what kind of formulas and numbers he may have to utilize to figure out if his change of gearing would pan out on paper. If he had any idea to the math required, he surely would have done it before changing gears and experiment there at the track. In the end result, the empirical method on the track would show Kirk the product. 

            For the first test, Kirk went out for practice. Taking it easy at first just to make sure everything he disassembled and reassembled worked okay, and it did. Finally, with everything checked out and warmed up, he pushed that oversized pedal down. Surprising him, the car surged out of the turn like a scalded gazelle as he liked to express unbridled speed. The engine seemed to have so much more power as it should with lower gearing. Down the straights, he glanced at the tachometer seeing high six thousand that was right in the ballpark he desired. Kirk felt overly pleased that he did something smart and right for a change!

            Kirk confidently and patiently waited for his heat to roll around. He knew that his change would bring significant changes to his competitive edge. It had been a week in making the change, but it wasn’t all that much money and the labor? Well, that swap wasn’t all that much fun (his fingers still stung from being crushed) though it seemed if it works out he would be changing out the differentials twice a week. Once was enough, but if he had to do it twice to be more competitive… 

            His heart jumped as it usually did when his heat was called up. Crawling in and buckling up, Kirk adrenaline edged up knowing that with the power he witnessed in practice, this would be the day for him to win a real honest-to-goodness heat and the feature? Who knows? The cars rolled onto the track with Kirk in his usual spot in the pack about two-thirds back. Quite a few cars ahead of him along with a couple moderate frontrunners. He recalled as Jon always encouraged Kirk with a “You can take ‘em!”

            One warmup lap, then the white flag. The next lap came the green. Kirk charged out of the fourth turn coming close to the orange car in front of him, he had power to spare, running hot and fast! The engine sounded loud, revving high and potent! Then, just before he was about let off the throttle the engine just lost power. Not completely but enough to slow him significantly. The car beside him shot past and the car behind him banged into his back bumper because Kirk’s car had significantly slowed too much and too early. Kirk’s head spun with the dilemma.

            Going through the turn, the engine sounded okay and coming out of the turn his car charged ahead right up close to the car in front of him, but at the end of the straight the engine did the same damn thing, it lost power. The cars behind him swerved up high away from the dangerous and unpredictable green car of Kirk’s. Kirk hung on through the turn like always and feeling the nice surge of power coming out of the turn, but again, lost more ground than he gained. Now, running last and trying to keep within striking distance to the car in front, Kirk finally got a chance to eye his tachometer.  Coming out of the turn the tach read just under six thousand right in the camshaft’s power range, but by the end of the straight, the tach edged over seven thousand. With an attuned ear, he discerned the engine note dropped off just as he lost power.

            Yeah, he determined that the engine was over revving with one of two things occurring.  With his high lift, long duration camshaft the stock valve springs couldn’t return the valves to closed position at the high revolutions per minute he put the engine through with the gear change. The mechanical term being valve float. Still racing, yet mad at himself, he banged the steering wheel with the heel of his hand in frustration. He had thought that the gear change had been a big change. Too much apparently. He finished up the race in last place unsure if he should finish the race. He pulled back to the trailer to ponder a moment. The next thing that could occur in an engine after valve float would be that the pistons could strike the non-closing valves. Bad news!

            Jon trotted over. “Consolation is lined up. Are you going back out?”

            Kirk didn’t know what he was doing. Pulling up to the trailer, he had thought, no way he was going out again. Now, he didn’t know.

              “Yeah, I’m heading out,” Kirk said, really unsure of his decision, but he didn’t want to concede another chance to compete.

            He quickly backed out of the space and in a cloud of dust, headed to the gate that was just opening. The gate steward stopped him, telling him he sat eighth in the grid. Kirk went high on the turn and dropped into the slot that his competitors opened up for him. He knew that the car would act the same and that he sure didn’t want to blow the engine or at least damage it by over revving and floating the valves. He had one other option.

            At the green flag, Kirk let the engine pick up speed and then shifted up a gear. The engine surely wasn’t in the power range in the higher gear and so wasn’t pulling hard. Into the turn he downshifted for the power surge and again shifted up on the straight. He decided that it was kind of an option to shift the transmission, but in the heat of a race, shifting took precious seconds to perform while the gear ratio problem put him too low in one gear too high in another gear. In the two seconds it took to shift, the car was not under power, coasting in fact for maybe twenty or thirty feet. In a race, that’s a lot of lost time and speed. After two laps, he gave up shifting up and left it there. It was very sluggish out of the turn and didn’t even get close to his engine’s power band so he finished last. He felt embarrassed, discontented, and defeated. 

            Well, Kirk’s short-lived good idea didn’t pan out, though he felt it still was early in the racing season to sort things out, but how long would it take? As they loaded the car he revisited the fact that he could purchase custom aftermarket differential gears, but they were expensive and Kirk didn’t have the expertise not the specialized equipment to change those gears.

            Kirk didn’t seem innately changed by this episode’s events, but ended up being just another racing experience and so he only remained the same old Kirk.