KEEPING UP... Busy, busy, busy (Part 166e)

KEEPING UP… Busy, busy busy (Part 166e)

Standing there I caught a glimpse of ‘Seeg’, C J’s father standing over by a stack of tires. He’d taken a liking to me back when I was racing my own car and the friendship had continued. He’d been influential in the decision to loan Cliffy and the team their Ford cylinder heads when they made the decision to switch to Chevy motors. He asked why our car was up on the hauler asking if we’d had a problem. I laughed and told him the problem was money… that we didn’t have enough to buy two sets of tires and had limited our practice time to conserve the wear on the ones we had. By then he was leaning on one of two stacks of tires and pointed to one saying that if we wanted we could use their tires to get more time on the track. I couldn’t believe my ears and told him I’d find Cliffy.

It didn’t take long to find him and some of the other crew members. After telling him of the offer we headed back to C J’s area and rolled the tires back to our car. With everybody involved it didn’t take long to unload the race car, change the tires and to get Cliffy back on the track. By then it was getting late and there were far fewer cars actually practicing which was good for us. Buster was the designated ‘timer’, assigned to take down the lap times as Cliffy circled the track. He’d taken lap times of some of the known ‘stars’ so had a bench mark of what lap times they were turning. I certainly don’t remember what it was but I do remember that our goal was to be able to go at least 106 miles per hour to even have a chance to qualify for the championship race. With our limited time on the track in the morning we weren’t even close. So, there was a lot of apprehension as the car pulled out onto the track. We knew that C J had put a lot of laps on these tires so when Buster called out the lap times we were rationalizing that with our newer tires we’d be faster than what he was turning. I don’t remember how many laps he made but I do remember we were close to 106 mph and pretty excited.

Davo was to arrive somewhere around 5pm as he had to work half a day. He was the one who’d made the motel reservations so even though we were all done as far as the track was concerned  Alan, Joe, Buster and I had to wait for him to arrive. Cliffy and Dick were staying in the camp trailer with their wives so they were already ‘at home’ when we finished picking up all our gear. Not unexpectedly, it was closer to 6pm when Davo and his girlfriend, Leigh, arrived. The four of us were exhausted having only gotten cat naps over the past 24 hours. We wanted to get to the motel, cleaned up and then be off to get something to eat. Davo didn’t want to hear any of our descriptions of what had taken place during the day but wanted it straight from Cliffy. That put our leaving off and after that it was a half hour to the motel.

I knew we were in trouble as soon as I saw the place. It was typical of the type of motels that that were built right after WWII… shaped in a U format with obviously small rooms what with the doors fairly close together. Davo went in the office to register and when, after a period of time, he didn’t return Alan went to find out why. It turned out that the situation wasn’t as ‘unreal’ as our experience had been at the track with the “today/tomorrow” fiasco but it still was disturbing. Davo had made a reservation for three rooms and sent half the money that would be due for two nights. The owner/clerk, or whatever he was, told Davo that he’d only made two reservations. Davo had gone a bit berserk when told that and the only thing that kept the owner/clerk from bodily harm was that Alan had walked in when he did. The two of them demanded to see the book with the reservations and with two of them against the one, the guy reluctantly pulled it out. One or the other of them flipped through it and when they found the one for Davo it was obvious that the number had been changed from a 3 to a 2 and that the money amount had been altered as well. I could go on, but I won’t. The end result was that we only had two rooms. But, Davo made it abundantly clear that the guy wouldn’t get one penny more from him. Now, to the rooms…

I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say they weren’t even the size of a walk in closet in a house built today. Davo had requested, and been given, a double bed. That about filled the body of the first room. There was a love seat under the window facing the parking lot but the space between it and the bed wasn’t even enough to walk past it. The bathroom was a joke. A rusty shower stall, toilet and a sink with the bowl not much bigger than a soup bowl. The other room had twin beds but nothing else. The bathroom pretty much mirrored the other one. So, it was pretty obvious there was going to be a problem when it came to sleeping. There was a lively ‘discussion’ that followed. Both Joe and Alan were big guys so there was no way they could (or would) share a twin bed and Davo, for sure, wasn’t giving up the double bed with Leslie. That left Buster and me. Normally, I try to avoid conflict and will back down from it to keep harmony. But, Buster just plain annoyed me. He’d not put his share of money into the partnership and often didn’t show up at the garage when there was work to be done. So, when the choices were the love seat or the car there was no way I was going to freeze my ass sleeping in the car and I let it be known. I was hoping for support from Joe and Alan but they’d been friends with Buster for a long time. Risking some alienation  from them I made my point clear and sat down on the love seat.

The next ‘conflict’ came when it came to getting showered and ready to go out to eat. Davo was the ‘wheels’ for the group so we pretty much had to follow his lead. I don’t remember who it was that discovered there were only two towels in each room. No one was willing to go back to the office to face the guy there and to ask for more towels. That caused another discussion to take place… who absolutely needed to shower versus those who wanted to shower. Leslie volunteered to pass on it as she hadn’t done anything all day but to ride in the car. That left five of us to figure it out. Davo, a bit of a gambler, told the four of us to pull out a dollar bill from our wallets and we’d play poker with the serial numbers… low man out. It turned out to be Buster which just added to his displeasure. I was smiling (inwardly) at his discomfort.

When we were finally ready to leave, Buster, now pouting, said he wasn’t going to come with us. Davo had already left for the car when Buster pulled his stunt. When we told him he just shrugged his shoulders and we were off. There was a diner just down the highway from there so it didn’t take long. Davo had stocked the trunk of his car with a couple of cases of beer so we smuggled in two bottles each. Alan, Joe and I were so tired that just one bottle and the warm food had us falling asleep in the booth. It wasn’t until we got back that we realized what Buster had done by not coming with us as we found him curled up on the love seat… but not for long! 

To be continued...