I Lost it in the Second Turn

I came whipping into the pits at 97 miles an hour with all my brakes gone. This little move is absolutely, flat guaranteed to give everybody a little thrill right down the line--and I could see all the other crews hopping right up on top of the pit wall as I came past, with the car doing wide, sweeping fishtails. And when I figured I had it slowed down just enough, I double-clutched the balls out of it and popped that rascal right into reverse. And I came sliding right up against Lugs Harvey's belly button.

He shook his head and then ran around to the driver side and stuck his big, sweaty face right into the window at me.

I yanked down my mask.

"Brakes," I said. "No fucking brakes." He nodded (continued on page 108) I Lost it (continued from page 103) and pulled his head out just as the whole right side of the car went up into the air: The crew had jacked it up and was snatching off the wheels. Behind me, they began dumping in the gas and, in front, Limpy Clawson came hopping up with that crablike gait of his. He had a cloth rag in his left hand and a paper cup full of cold Dr Pepper in his right. He stuck the cup in through the window at me, hitting the doorsill with the butt of his hand and spilling most of it right down into my lap. I drank what little there was left of it and tugged my mask back up, contemplating the prospect of finishing the race with sticky balls. Then Limpy swabbed off the window with his rag and stepped back just as the car came banging back down on all four.

Poised over by the right fender, Lugs waved to get my attention. Then he drew a small circle in the air with his left hand; he was holding his thumb and forefinger together. And then he held both hands out in front of him and motioned downward with the palms. And then he jerked his right thumb back toward the track.

I hit the throttle and got the hell out of there.

Lugs had just told me a lot. This is what Lugs had told me with his hands:

"Mr. Ace, it sore grieves me to tell you that your brakes seem to be hopelessly shot. Ruined. There is no goddamn drum left, as you can see from the position of my thumb and forefinger. However, in my experienced mechanical judgement, you should be able to finish the race if you will only take it easy, as I am indicating by holding my palms down. And while you are mulling over these fearsome prospects, may I respectfully suggest that you get your ass back into the race, since we don't have that much time left. It sure was nice seeing you again here in the pits, but now you gotta go."

All this took 26.7 seconds. Dr Pepper and all.

Everybody does this, though maybe nobody in the world does it as well as Lugs Harvey, who can make a fast pit stop look like he is directing the goddamn Mormon Tabernacle Choir through a tricky section of Handel's Messiah or something like that.

We talk to each other this way for damn good reasons: (1) I have got cotton stuffed into both ears, (2) I have got my Bell helmet over that with its big, padded earpieces and (3) who the hell wants to listen to Lugs Harvey talk about brakes in the middle of a race, anyway?

I wound that sumbitch up as high as it would go in second gear and, while doing that, I looked all around through all the other cars for Turbo Ellison and Hack Downing.

When last I left the two of them buggers, they were slamming around the track in that order, front bumper against back bumper, as if they were welded together. Turbo was leading the race. Hack was second. I am third.

Take it easy, my ass.

I cranked into the number-four turn and came howling back down the main straightaway--and out of the quick corner of my eye I could see Lugs standing at the pit well with the two stop watches on his clipboard. In a couple of seconds, when he got my time calculated, he was going to have something of a mechanical fit.

And there was Hack Downing, that bastard. Turbo was smack in front of him and, going through the one-two turn, they looked all blurry and stretched out, like the longest race car in the whole goddamn world.

Understand, now, everybody knows that Hack Downing is a drafting sumbitch: He is known all over the South for it.

Here is the way it goes: At top speed, a car churns up a whole lot of air turbulence behind it, and if you are riding a bit off to one side, it can suck the fillings right out of your teeth. But at the same time, just behind the same car--right smack behind it--there is this little, narrow envelope of quiet air. People who know all about physics have a proper term for this, I think. But race drivers around the South all know it just naturally and most of them don't know what physics means. They can't spell physics; they can't pronounce it; hell-fire, most of them would have a tough fucking time making the letter P.

They all call it drafting.

Any race driver with any balls at all knows that if he can ease his car right up behind, he can ride along inside this little breather space. Right away a couple of great things happen. One: He can back off just a little bit on his own gas, because the car in front of him is pushing all the air and doing most of the work. Two: He is actually conserving fuel, a factor that can just win the race for him if it is close. Three: If you really pin down that physics, bullshit, there are times when he is actually going just a little teeny bit faster than the car in front. Thus, four: If his timing is really good, then he can pull off what is known as the slingshot. Now, I don't know what in Christ's name Einstein called the slingshot, but consider this: When the car directly in front of him slows down just a touch for a hard corner--well, then, just for that split second there, the back car is still going faster, see? So, if a driver is good enough, that is the precise second when he will whip his car around and pass the front car--slingshotting out in front.

Item five: Drafting also drives the front driver goofy. I mean, every time he glances into his rear-vision mirror, he sees nothing but windshield and radiator behind him and the only thing he can do is trust the other driver a whole awful lot and pray to beat hell that nothing goes wrong on the track out there in front of him. Any front-running driver who hits his brakes at a time like that knows goddamn well that he will absolutely, promptly end up with a 4000-pound stock car right up his ass.

And there was Turbo: screaming down the back straight, steady as could be. With Hack Downing right on his tail pipes.

I touched my brakes going into the turn and got just about what I expected. Nothing. So I just stayed on the gas. I mean, what the hell, right?

The force of the curve without any brakes was twisting the car on its frame and just about pulling me out of the seat toward the right-side door, and my damn heart and spleen and bowels and everything sloughed over to the right side of my damn stomach and hung there like tapioca pudding shaking. Tires howling to beat hell, I came up alongside J. R. Hoffman in his Olsen Garages Mercury and we rubbed door handles there for a fast second or two. Old J. R. always races with an unlit, dead contraband Cuban cigar clamped right in the middle of his mouth, and when I nicked him, I also glanced over at him: He bit the fucking cigar smack through and it fell away from his face somewhere into the inside of his car.

Well, screw you, Hoffman. If you can't race that sumbitch, you'd best park it.

And now you, Hack, my boy. And I snuck right up behind him. At, oh, say, about 198 miles an hour.

We all came off the number four like a damn three-car close-order parade and I could look up ahead and see old Hack hunch up his shoulders and hunker down his head when he suddenly saw me in his mirror. That's not all I could see: Just out of the edge of my left eyeball, I could see Lugs Harvey holding up a pit sign that had E-z smeared on it in giant chalk letters. And then he was gone. And then came the end of the straightaway, just like that.

Easy, my ass. As we say in racing.

Just ahead, Hack dropped his left shoulder just a teeny bit and hunched his head down even further. I knew what it meant.

It meant that he was about to slingshot Turbo, that's what it meant.

And, sure enough, he hauled right out to the left and rifled up alongside Turbo. The space between them was thinner than a goddamn infield-concession-stand hamburger.

Good for Hack.

Bad for Turbo. That's because I was tail-piping Hack and what neither one of them bastards knew was that I was the (continued on page 186) I Lost it (continued from page 108) only one who didn't have any brakes. And that's the way we got into the middle of the turn, right up there on the banking. Crissakes, I think maybe I hunkered down my own shoulders there for just a little bit.

Turbo wasn't having any of that old bullshit, not a second of it. He had more power left than either one of us in his monster goddamn Plymouth and he was a dead, immortal cinch to out drag both of us down the straights. So he put his foot right into it. And, as we came off the turn, he inched up ahead of Hack again and he drew a goddamn bead on the curve.

Hot damn. Drew a bead. That means that Turbo came diving down to his left, going to beat hell, and he chopped Hack off right there. Good for Turbo.

Bad for me.

Naturally, Hack hit his brakes right now. Well, hell, fans, it was either hit his brakes or let Turbo rip off the whole right side of the car. Which certainly makes a lot of sense. Except that I was right there on Hack's tail. Drafting, remember?

Oh. shit, Ace.

This sort of thing makes for what they call Great Moments in Stock Car Racing.

I cranked that sumbitch left as quick as I could and got out of Hack's air pocket and out into the turbulent world on my own. And there we were: three abreast on the back straightaway, all three cars fish tailing an awful lot, puffing up smoke from the tires. With Turbo on the outside, poor old Hack in the middle. And Stroker Ace--no goddamn brakes--roughly on the rail.

They tell me the crowd went wild.

There was no way we were going to make it through the turn in that sort of line-up. No fucking way.

Well, hell. Somebody simply had to give it up. I stayed on the throttle and I ran all the prospects through my mind like a very quick public-opinion poll:

Question: Mr. Racer Man, has Turbo Ellison ever been known to back off in a race?

Answer: Turbo Ellison? Are you crazy?

Question: Well, how about Hack Downing?

Answer: How about that?

So long, Hack.

We came boiling out of the turn and there was just one split flash there where I could glance to my right and see two sets of radiators and hoods glaring at me. And that's exactly when Hack Downing's bowels froze right up. He eased off and let us through.

And then it got worse. Worse.

For one thing, I was already into the turn too damned fast for a guy who couldn't tap his brakes, and that meant that there was probably only one thing to do. So I did it: I cranked the wheel hard left and let that sumbitch drift right around.

Well, you got to know how to do it and I hadn't spent all my wasted youth in cars for nothing: I once got a brand-new Nash Rambler into a four-wheel drift coming around that big turn near Wendover, Utah, and drifted the damn thing all the-way to Lily's whorehouse in Ely. And Ely is in Nevada.

So I stayed right on the gas and listened to the car do strange things and twist and pop and I was so full of torque that my damn eyes began to water and my tongue was squashed flat over against all my right-side teeth and I could feel the rough texture of all my fillings and that one gold cap that I have back there on the third upper-right molar.

Then there was a clean sort of snap! and the right side of the windshield suddenly turned into a spider web of little radiating cracked lines from the strain. And the gearshift began acting like it was going to jump clean out the right-side door, so I tore one hand loose from the wheel and held the shift lever down with the butt of my hand. And I looked along the nose and drew a bead on the main straight.

And I stayed on the gas.

Turbo must have been right out of his skull. There he was, hammering along nicely, right beside a car that was flat fucking sideways. Turbo was going frontward, right enough, giving it all he had--and here was this damn car going just as fast Sideways, for God's sake, with the front stretch coming up.

And you think that dumb bastard would choke up just a little bit?

No way.

Then we snapped right out of the turn and there was only one small comfort. Small comfort: I was in the groove and Turbo was on the outside. Probably madder than hell, I would venture to say.

We rocketed down the straight and, this time, Lugs was just a despairing blur. Smudge, and he was gone.

Down at the end of the straight, race starter Dollar Bill Handley had the white flag out: one more lap. Except that he wasn't waving the flag in that very flashy manner of his that is something of a tradition all over the South. He was just standing there with his poor goddamn mouth open, watching the two of us come right at him. About two full seconds after we had gone by, he jumped out of the way.

Question-and-answer time again:

Question: Let's see, now. About one more of them dumb fucking dipsy-doo turns and you'll have no more windshield. Is that right, Mr. Ace?

Answer: One more. Right.

Question: Or any chassis. Is that correct, Ace?

Answer: Correct, yes. No chassis. Not to mention nuts, bolts, doors and roll bars. And pretty soon that gearshift is going to boogaloo right over where I can't even reach it, for crissakes.

Question: But what the hell, Ace? You do want to win this race, don't you?

Answer: Well, yes. Matter of fact, I do.

OK, then. Let's try it one more time. Jesus Christ, there's only this one more lap to go. You do this and you've done it all.

Two hands, this time: I wheeled left and jammed my foot down on the pedal until my toes hurt inside my $75 handmade Italian-leather driving shoes. And I yanked it back hard to the right and clenched my teeth. I also clenched my armpits, kneecaps, elbows, thighbones and testicles (which were already pretty well clenched, anyway, from that spilled Dr Pepper). And around we went.

Crack! The goddamn windshield sort of imploded when the frame twisted and for a few seconds, the inside of the car was full of gently floating, drifting little pieces of glass, like the pictures you see of a spaceship at zero gravity. Then the gearshift just sort of jiggled right out of the damn socket and lay on its side, kicking and quivering. And then the glass shattered on the tachometer and sprinkled itself down on top of my right knee like bright, shining crystal rock candy.

There was still the goddamn back straight. And I eased the wheel left again and let the car snap back around.

And there I was: ahead of Turbo Ellison. I glanced at my rear-vision mirror and discovered that there wasn't any rear-vision mirror.

But I knew he was back there, all right. That's because he came powering right along and gave me a sharp whap! on the rear bumper.

Uh-huh. Well, at least it was nice to know that the rear bumper was still there.

So I took my right hand off the wheel for just a second and I flashed old Turbo half a peace sign and then I got set to crank into the last turn.

I'm not sure where Turbo was just then. Except that he sure as hell didn't have enough room to come around me and I was just too busy to check and see.

Down the main straight--and by this time I had my foot locked into the gas. And two things happened:

Thing one: Just as I rolled past Lugs Harvey, the whole fucking transmission blew apart.

Thing two: And just after that, I got the checkered flag. The winner and new NASCAR champion.

I took my feet off everything and let the car roll and roll. And then I shook my head around a little bit to try and unlock my neck muscles.

And I sort of drummed my finger tips on the steering wheel and I hummed a few bars of Stick It in Your Ear, Mrs. Murphy.

The car coasted and coasted and coasted. Right through the number-one and number-two turns, and I let the rest of the drivers come on around me, including Turbo Ellison. You recall Turbo Ellison. He's number two, that fucking meatball.

Finally, just as I was reaching over to turn it off, the engine just gave an apologetic kind of little cough and died. Little wisps of blue smoke started curling up from around the hood edges.

And then the steering wheel came right off in my hands.

I sat there, parked alongside the infield, until the fire truck came up. Lugs was perched on the front fender, still carrying the clipboard with the two stop watches attached. He hopped off before the truck even stopped and came running up.

Lugs gave me his usual cheery postrace greeting:

"You dumb bast--"

"Hey, Lugs. How you doing? Here"--I handed him the steering wheel out of the window--"here is a special award from all the gang at Rain Tree Farms. I want you to take this here award and give it to old Turbo. Tell him he knows where he can hang it."

Lugs snatched the wheel away and threw it down and kicked it halfway across the infield, just missing a few spectators who were running up. "Come on," he said. "Goddamn it, now, Stroker, come on. Crissakes, you crazy goddamn--"

"And one more thing." I said. "I'd like this front windshield replaced and maybe check the oil and check on the transmission. It squeaks just a bit there on the turns. You know. Probably nothing serious. Oh, yeah. The brakes need just a little work. Think maybe you can have it ready for me by, say, five o'clock?"

Lugs threw down his clipboard and stamped it right in half under his heel. When he gets real worried, he always stutters just a little bit.

"F-f-f-f-for crissakes," he said. "Y-y-y-y-you scared me half to d-d-d-death, you crazy sumb-b-b, uhhh, you sumb-b-b-b, ummmm--"

"Bitch," I said. Then I unhooked the master release on all my safety harnesses and shrugged them off. "Look out, there, just for a second." Then I sort of squinched around in the front seat and put the bottoms of both my feet against the door. Sure enough, it fell right off. "I thought that might happen."

Lugs kicked the door, too. Then he danced around a little bit, holding onto his toe with one hand.

"You could have been k-k-k-k-killed," he said, full of reproach. "I tole you to take it easy. God's sakes, I even wrote it on the fucking chalk board. E-z. No brakes, for God's sakes. And you had to go out there and take off after Turbo Ellison. You coulda been killed out there."

"Uh-huh. Listen: How'd I look on those turns?"

Lugs thought about it for a long minute. Then he grinned. "Never seen nothing like it, ever," he said. "I mean, ever. Shit, this whole place was nothing but eyeballs and elbows and teeth for them last two laps. I mean: You was absolutely flat fucking sideways, you crazy bastard. And that Turbo was squinched right up against the wall. Why, shit, he--"

"Come on, you guys," the fire chief said. "Your goddamn adoring public is waiting."

"Shall we?" I said to Lugs.

He bowed. It was not really all that bad a bow for a guy with his size stomach. "Let us," he said.

And we took our victory-parade lap standing up in the back of the fire truck.

Lugs waved at everybody just as much as I did. Hell, a couple of times there, I caught him blowing kisses to the crowd.

• • •

"This here," said Clyde Torkle, the Chicken King and my sponsor, "is imported champagne. I mean, the real stuff. See here, right on this label? It says, right here: 'Napa Valley.' "

Lugs leaned over and looked at it. Lugs moves his lips when he reads things. "Well, Napa Valley is in California, for crissakes." he said.

Torkle shrugged. "Exactly. They're all a bunch of gahdamn foreigners back there anyways. Here, have some more."

Lugs made a face. "Shit, doesn't anybody have any beer around here?" he said.

We were sitting in the Goodyear van, the two big back doors open and the tail gate down. I had my shoes off and my driving uniform unzipped down to my belly. I also had lipstick all over my neck and a check for $26,890.64 in my pocket.

The crowd had gone home and, outside, the slanting sun was turning the track into a sort of shimmery gold. There were just a few trucks and campers left, and one or two lonely drunks throwing up in the infield, and the air had cooled down real quickly like it does in the South. And, maybe, if a man breathed in deeply enough, he could smell honey-suckle. This is the best time around a race track.

We were sitting on stacks of tires wrapped in brown paper and there was a galvanized-iron washtub full of ice and bottles in front of us.

Clyde Torkle had his cowboy hat pushed back and his forehead was sweaty. He had started drinking, I suspect, just about the first time he saw me get his brand-new car sideways on the track. And now his face had a really sort of fine, shiny glow to it. Matched the tip of his cigar.

"I can't believe it," he said. "I got the champeenship. Honest to God, I can't believe it."

"You better believe it," Lugs said. He burped, gently. "This here"--he waved one of his greasy hands at me--"this here is the greatest fucking race driver ever to get ahint the wheel of a race car. I mean: Did you see that finish?"

"Shit fire, I seen it. I don't believe it, but I sure saw it."

"Sideways," Lugs said, nodding.

"And going faster than Turbo. Sideways."

"Never mind that," I said. "More champagne here."

Lugs leaned over and pulled a fresh bottle out of the washtub. He closed one big, massive hand around the cork--the fancy aluminum foil, those little tiny wires and all--and he simply snatched the whole thing right off in one smooth pull. The wine sprayed up and down across his stomach. Then he leaned back and yelled out loud.

"Charley!" he yelled.

And Charley Heffer stuck his head up at the back doors. "I'm countin' tires," he said.

"How many you got?"

"I got, uhhhh ... I got, mmmm ... shit, Lugs, you made me lose count." And his head disappeared.

"That there," Lugs said solemnly, "that there is the greatest fucking tire buster in the whole world. I mean: Charley is the greatest. You understand me? Ain't a thing that Charley don't know about tire compounds. Always saves the best tires for Ace here. Hell, Charley tells me what tires to put on and when to change 'em. Shee-it. Imagine that. He tells me. You understand?"

"Mr. Harvey?"

It was the track maintenance man, his head appearing at eye level at the back tail gate. "Mr. Harvey?"

"Have some champagne, my good man," Lugs said. "I'm awful sorry, fella, but we don't have any beer."

"Thank you. Just a drop. There, that's fine. Uhh, well, congratulations to the champeenship, Mr. Ace."

"You can call him Stroker," Torkle said. Then he thought about it for a minute. "Well, for today only."

"Mr. Harvey?"

"Mmmmmm?" Lugs said.

"Mr. Harvey, what do you want done with the car?"

Lugs looked blank. "What car?"

"The race car. The one you all won the race in. It's still asittin' out there by the backstretch."

Lugs swung his head around and looked at Clyde.

And Clyde thought about it, shaking his head. "Well, now," he said, "Uh-huh. The car. The car, right?" He looked at all of us. "You know, now, that there is the car that won the champeenship. I mean: That there is a historic car, you dumb peckerheads. You realize that we just won the gahdamn title in that very car? You can't just let it sit out there."

"Sure can't," the maintenance man said.

"I didn't ask you," Clyde said.

"Excuse me, sir."

"Can you drive it back to the garage in town?" Clyde asked Lugs.

Lugs leaned back and yelled again.

"Charley!" he yelled.

And Charley Heffer stuck his head up over the tail gate again. "Now what?"

"The man wants to know kin we drive that car back to the garage in town."

"Mr. Torkle," Charley said, "everybody knows that when Lugs builds a car, he builds it to run five hunnert miles. Five hunnert miles. And that's all."

Lugs burped again. "And then the fucker self-destructs," he said.

"And that ain't all," Charley said. "When Ace here gets through with a car, the goddamn frame is bent all out of shape and the chassis is sprung and the doors is all off and the windows is often bust right out."

Torkle nodded, blinking. Then he sniffed deeply and a perfect tear came out of each eye and rolled halfway down each jowl. "Listen," he said. "Think of Goshen, New York. I mean: That's all I ask," And he sniffed again.

"Goshen?"

"Well, sure, Goshen, you dumb bastards. I mean: Old Messenger, the world's most famous trotting horse, right? I mean: One day Old Messenger just up and died right there in harness. Just fell right in his traces and by-God died. And, by God"--Torkle snuffled again, heavily--"and, by Jesus, they buried him right there on the spot. And today, to this very day, there is a little old, teensy white picket fence around his very grave there in the infield at old Averell Harriman's race track. And there's a little old printed sign that says: 'Here Lies Ol' Messenger, Greatest Fucking Harness Horse That Ever Drew a Breath!' "

Then he really started crying.

Lugs stood up and put one big hand over his chest.

"By damn," he said, "we'll dig a hole and"--Torkle looked up--"and we'll bury that car right there in the infield. And I'll have a monument made out of real, solid Georgia sea-wall marble and--"

The maintenance man blinked. "I don't think we're allowed to do that, sir," he said.

"Who asked you? Here, have some more champagne."

"Excuse me, sir. Uhhh, yes. Just a drop there. But, no. I don't think you can just up and bury--"

"Tell you what," said Lugs. "You got a truck, fella?"

"Yessir, I have. This here is sure good champagne."

"Imported," Torkle said.

Lugs poured some more all around. "Now, you take your truck," he said, "and ... you know where Hobbs Corners is at?"

"Yessir, I do."

"It's imported from Napa Valley," Torkle said. "Them fucking foreigners."

"Well," Lugs said. "You just load up that race car in your truck. Now, don't forget to pick up the steering wheel in the infield there. And then you drive the whole thing over to Hobbs Corners. You got that part?"

Charley stuck his head up. "Take the tires and all," he said. He turned to me. "You know, Ace, you flat rooned them tires on the turns. I mean: going sideways at the speeds you was going. Hot damn. Talk about flat spots."

"Sorry."

He nodded. " 'S nothing. Goodyear got plenty more."

"More wine, Charley?" Torkle got up again, a little bit unsteady.

"You made me lose count again," Charley said. "But, yup. Just pour her right in there."

"Well, anyway," Lugs said to the maintenance man. "You get to Hobbs Corners and you come to the stop light. And you turn left there and you go on past the hardware store. And you go on down the road a section and you come to a sort of fawn-colored house. Got that?"

"Uh-huh. Yessir."

"Well, then. On the mailbox, you'll see painted there: 'Turbo Ellison, R. F. D.' And you take that race car and you dump it right in the middle of the driveway. Best if you do it at night."

"Well, sir. All this will cost--"

Torkle jammed his hand down deep into his pocket. And he came up with a fistful of big bills. He bent over at the tail gate and peeled a few off.

"Here," he said. "This'll cover it, won't it?"

"Sure will. Yessir. Uh-huh."

"Remember, now," Lugs said. "Turbo Ellison. Dump it right there in the fucking driveway."

"So much for that," Torkle said. "Now, then."

Lugs snatched the top off another bottle. "Cups!" he yelled.

We all held ours out. Charley Heffer popped up at the tail gate. "Me, too," he said. "Sumbitch, but, I swear: A few more of these here and I may start to like this stuff."

"I propose a toast," Torkle said.

"And I accept," said Lugs.

"Not you, asshole. No. I propose a toast to the new NASCAR champeen. And to the greatest fucking feat of stock-car driving ever done on any race track at any time, any where."

We all stood up to drink the toast.

And Charley looked up over the tail gate at me.

"Stroker," he said. "Kin I ask you something?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Did you piss in your pants out there in the race?"

"No, why?"

"Well, look there."

I looked down at my crotch. It was all suspiciously yellow-stained.

"You are not going to believe this," I said. "But that is Dr Pepper."

Torkle burped. "That Dr Pepper. Another fucking foreigner," he said.