MAYHEM IN MAY ...life goes on (Part 159i)

MAYHEM IN MAY… life goes on (Part 159i)

At the track entrance to the pit area we found a long line of race cars waiting to get in. Cliffy left the hauler and went to see what the problem was. He was back after a short time and reported the race promoter had decided to re-assign pit spaces and that was holding everything up. By the time we got in a half hour had passed and warm-ups were scheduled to start momentarily. The first thing we noticed was that the number one pit space was occupied by C J, the guy who was the reigning track champion from the track where I used to drive. That didn’t set too well with Cliffy even though he and C J were fairly good friends. He wasn’t the only one upset as some of the ‘old timers’ had been displaced from their traditional spots. At least we were close to where we’d been and Cliffy knew the driver assigned to pit next to us. He was an older, very quiet man but still very competitive. I remembered seeing him race when I was half the age I was right there. He went by the nick name of ‘Pee Wee’ because of his short stature. From what I understood the other drivers respected him but had a problem with his wife who, supposedly, had, over time, verbal confrontations with just about everybody. Mrs. ‘Pee Wee’ was a bleached blond and wore clothes not normally seen in a race track pit area. A bona fide ‘character’.

After unloading the race car Dick went over to the office to pick up our winnings from the previous Saturday night… $1000 cash. In a way it was bittersweet because now we had money for tires but none of the tires we wanted were available. However, we all agreed it was nice to have the money in hand. In preparing for opening night we’d not looked beyond it. Not very smart but here we were ready to go again. Loosing practice time didn’t upset Cliffy because he wanted to save the tires for the races. When he did get out on the track it was for only a few laps. When he came off the his comment was something like “It’s going to be a long night”.

On opening night we’d all been satisfied to stay around our car. After we’d won everybody had come over to see us. I’d not had a real chance to look over the competition and since we only went out for one practice session I decided to ‘make the rounds’. With CJ’s car now parked in the same row it made sense to go visit with his father, “Seeg”. It was a chance to get caught up a bit and allowed me to congratulate him on CJ’s championships at the other track. In the course of conversation I found out what had prompted the re-alignment of the pit stalls… it was about C J. The track promoter looked at C J like a prize catch, stealing the multi time track champion from his closest track competitor. And… to promote him he wanted him to have the most visible pit stall where the fans could look through the fence to see C J and to, hopefully, get an autograph.

While talking with Seeg I saw something I’d pretty much forgotten about… his fan club. It had been started right after he began racing. A group of girls had started it. They had T-shirts made up with C J’s car number and name emblazoned across the back. His car was all white with a big red number one on it. So, the fan club members made white their primary color. All the females wore white pants to go with the white T-shirts with red printing. As I stood there watching some of them flit around I saw a girl I remembered from back then. It took a minute or two for it to ‘click’ in my brain but I was sure I’d met her up at Seeg’s farm back when he’d given me a motor. She’d matured quite a bit and was definitely a ‘looker’. Without being obvious I asked Seeg who she was and was told she was C J’s girlfriend. I figured “Lucky him!” She, like the others, was wearing white pants but they weren’t jeans like most of the others. What I noticed about them was there were no back pockets. That meant an unobstructed VPL and, she had a beauty!

In seeing it my brain went into overtime. I was sure she had to be wearing a pair of VanRaalte panties because of the size of it of the crotch line. The only other I’d seen that had even come close were some early Kayser panties. But, on the newest ones I’d noticed the crotch had been materially reduced. As I’ve written many times before, one of the biggest thrills for me was to know just who made the panties of any woman/girl I was looking at. I would’ve bet money on her’s being VanRaalte.

Walking away I saw C J pulling off the track and into his stall. Right above the windshield I could see the name “Karen” painted. Then, more of it came back to me. Back at the farm I’d been told that the young girl hanging around was a distant cousin from Poland and her name was Karen. I began to wonder if C J was dating a relative. It wasn’t that far fetched because I’d been to a few local Polish weddings where second cousins had been married. I couldn’t help but wonder if C J and Karen hadn’t gotten ‘cozy’ way back when she moved in with the family. In any case, I knew I was going to like hanging around C J’s pit during the Summer.

The racing for us that night was terrible. Cliffy qualified for the main event but it was obvious that he’d used up whatever was left of the tires during the qualifying. It seemed like no matter what Cliffy did the car wanted to go for the outside wall. He bounced of a lot of different cars before the end. One of two good things was that he avoided the big crash. Later, upon inspection in the pits, there didn’t seem to be any major damage. The other was that he got a promise from the tire dealer to have three new tires available for the following week. Because of the demand for the new tires he'd raised the price $10 per tire. However, because we’d been the one to try them first he agreed to keep the original price, just for us. $30 today doesn’t sound like much but in 1968, it was a lot!

To be continued…