HEADING FOR SUMMER ... and whatever it brings (Part 160m)

HEADING FOR SUMMER… and whatever it brings (Part 160m)

The reason for my laughter wasn’t for what you might think. It was because Elle had broken one of her own rules. When we first moved into the house we’d never had a button lock door and it had taken some time to become accustomed to it. We’d each locked ourselves out because we hadn’t released the button when going outside so Elle devised “Elle’s Rule”. It was fairly simple. The first person to go out the door in the morning was to unlock the button. Then, the last person to leave the property was to reset it, locking the door. On this day, Elle, preoccupied, reset it when she wasn’t really leaving the property and had been ‘bitten’ by her own rule. The spare key was out in the metal shed I’d put up in the far back part of the property. With Elle’s very limited window time to get to a toilet there had been no way for her to make it so she just let it go. I’d not seen the remnants of it because she’d washed the patio off and the sun had dried it all by the time I arrived. Having her in a bit of a defensive mood helped take the pressure off me for not having called and I was relishing it.

She did have one bit of disturbing news for me… Rex, the sailing club property manager had called to remind me that the next weekend was the first weekend to get the clubhouse opened up and ready for the upcoming season. I can’t say I’d forgotten about it but I’d been deferring thinking about it in detail. It was also the ‘kick in the pants’ to get both of our Sunfish sailboats out, cleaned up and ready to go as well. Even though the days were getting longer as far as light was concerned, they were certainly getting shorter when it came to fitting all the things I was involved were concerned.

Cliffy and the crew picked me up just after 3pm. We were in good spirits on the trip to the track with the only negative thought coming from Cliffy saying that the only thing left to break was the transmission. The rest of us ignored him recognizing that with the bad luck of the previous weeks we’d be entitled to a better starting position in our qualifying heat. It was but we found ourselves starting right behind C J. We all knew he was faster but Cliffy said his plan for qualifying was to stay right on C J’s bumper. Cliffy and C J talked about it before the race and they agreed that qualifying was the most important thing in this race and not who won.

C J was on the outside ‘pole’ (the first row of cars is considered to have the ‘pole’, or prime starting positions) with Cliffy right behind him on the outside of the second row. We were all really excited to be starting up front. When the green flag dropped all the cars went screaming into the first turn and then there was this big cloud of smoke and the sound of crunching metal. I could see our car stuffed into the outside retaining wall as the smoke lifted. Looking at the carnage there were at least six or seven cars all stuffed together. There was no doubt that we were done for the night.

Long story short… When C J lifted his foot off the accelerator the motor, literally, blew up spewing oil and broken engine parts all over the track. Cliffy was caught up in it and couldn’t steer the car and centrifugal force carried him into the wall. The primary damage was to the right front suspension. The wheel (and all the parts attached to it) were ripped right off the car. It took the track workers about a half hour to clean the mess (cars and oil off the track) up. Because we didn’t have a right front wheel the wrecker had to put the car on the hauler backwards. It was a major process! Once loaded, we inspected the car for other damage and found it to be mostly ‘cosmetic’.

C J and his crew came over to see how bad it had been for us and that’s when we found out just what had happened. When C J ‘lifted’ to go into the turn, the crankshaft broke and then “all hell broke loose” inside the motor, spewing not only oil all over the track but also prices of it as well. I remember C J saying that he “would now be a Chevy man” and glad of it. I kind of wondered why he’d say that because he’d been a multiple track champion at the local track running Ford power. On the trip home it was confirmed that we had all the necessary parts to fix the car so we weren’t faced with additional costs. It was just the disappointment of not being able to race that had us discouraged. It was now three weeks in a row.

I was home way earlier than if we’d qualified for the feature race. There was a note on the kitchen counter waiting for me. Bret had called to let me know the phones were all working at the bank. To be truthful, I hadn’t thought about it since I’d left around noon time. However, it was one less thing to worry about for Monday morning. The one thing that was on my mind as I tried to get to sleep was the upcoming meeting between Hobie, Jerry, Betsy (the woman I’d hired as a head teller for the branch) and me. It was at Hobie’s request and I wasn’t sure the purpose of it. In my mind it would be a bit awkward because it would be Hobie’s first time meeting Betsy and Jerry would be there as well. It was not an easy sleep.

Sunday was a day devoted to family and to getting the house and property ready for Summer. I'd been late in getting the storm windows off and the screens up on the first floor so that was a priority. With my involvement with the race car I’d managed to avoid being a part of this year's school Board election. Pat (the PTA lady) decided to make a personal visit to try and get me involved and that pretty much ruined my afternoon. Earlier, I’d been asked to run for the Board and turned it down. The guy who she finally ended up with was not a strong candidate and with only a little over a week to go until the annual meeting and the vote. The big issue for this meeting was school overcrowding. The main problem with the guy’s candidacy was that he didn’t have any children old enough to attend school. That was exacerbated by the fact he was new to the community so for him to promote the need for a new building was hard for the ‘locals’ to handle. The ’talk’ around town was it was a dead issue. Pat was there to try and get me to commit to running for the Board the following year. I couldn’t believe it. The only thing that kept me from telling her off was that I believed in what she was trying to accomplish… but I was really pissed.

To be continued…