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

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

The racecar was all loaded up on the hauler on Wednesday night before the crew left the garage. The plan was to meet the next night at 8pm and to leave for the racetrack at 9pm. The reason for the late hour of departure was to avoid traffic. We had to drive through the city with both the truck with the race car on it and the pick-up that was towing the camp trailer. Having made the trip once before, Cliffy had learned his lesson when, in leaving in daylight, it had taken almost 8 hours because of traffic. By leaving at 9pm we would be in the city at midnight when traffic should be light. From the city it was about 2 hours to the track. Cliffy drove the pick-up with the trailer and riding with him was his wife, Beth, along with Joe and Buster. Dick drove the race car hauler with his wife, Ra, Alan, and I as passengers. Beth and Ra had bought food for breakfast and lunch and had it stored in the trailer. As we shut the garage door we were all ‘psyched’ to start our adventure.

As we’d hoped traffic in and around the city was manageable. We were actually a little ahead of schedule when we approached the race track. Cliffy had reserved a place for the trailer in the infield of the track. There were no amenities like electricity and water but just having a ‘home’ to use as a base was what we wanted. But, as we turned into the racetrack grounds we were about to have our well laid plans go astray. In my life I’ve been involved in some really bizarre situations but the one we were about to experience has served as the benchmark for all the others. I’m not sure my writing can do it justice but I’ll try.

It was about 1:30am when we pulled off the highway. Just inside the parking lot were probably 50 or more various types of vehicles with race cars on, in or behind them along with an equal number of cars and pick-ups. At the entry point to the infield there was a small building with three windows which we determined to be the ‘office’. There were a LOT of people gathered around and there was a lot of ‘chatter’ concerning the fact that there was no one in the office or at the gate to give us access to the infield of the track. No one seemed to know what was happening. When we started to get cold we climbed back in the trucks, turned on the motors to get heat and just sat and waited. I don’t know how long it was before someone saw lights coming from the ‘office’. Cliffy and Dick went to see what was going on. It didn’t take long before the vehicles with race cars started entering the track. When Dick came back to the hauler to take it inside to the infield it was obvious he was upset… and this is where it became bizarre.

Race cars could go on into the infield but the camp trailers couldn’t. The reason? “It isn’t tomorrow yet.” That’s what the women in the office told Cliffy. Even though our confirmation for the space read “Friday-Saturday-Sunday” she told Cliffy that Friday didn’t start until noon time. There were at least a dozen others there with camp trailers that were told the same thing. No amount of reasoning with the people in the little house was going to change it. A couple of pick-ups with camp trailers just bulled there way on inside the track and they were soon followed by two Police cars. At that point we made the decision not to try to do the same. So, for the next eight hours the pick-up and camp trailer sat in the parking lot along with a growing number of others who were also told the same thing. I still, to this day, do not know the reasoning behind the interpretation of just what constituted “today and tomorrow” or when today becomes tomorrow. What it meant for us (and others) was that after unloading the race car we had to walk at least a half mile to get to the parking lot where we’d left the trailer just to get our breakfast. Fortunately, the track wasn’t open for the race cars to practice on yet or we probably wouldn’t have eaten at all because there were no concession stands in the infield. We’d left Beth and Ra (the women) at the trailer and set a time that half of us would return to get a bite to eat.

When the speedway was built it was a one mile dirt track configured as a circle, the only one in the USA. It was changed about five years earlier by paving it with asphalt and making a short straightaway on the side opposite of the grandstands. The infield was nothing but grass and that’s where all the race cars were unloaded and where we prepared them for the race track. Without a hard, even surface it made it difficult to work. The first order of business was to get the car safety inspected. I’m smiling as I write this because this was back in the days before fire retardant driving suits, fuel cells and crash helmets that were safety ‘rated’. The people who raced back in those day were truly oblivious to the danger (myself included). In any case, as soon as we unloaded the car we pushed it into the inspection line. There was a local ordinance that prohibited the firing of any engine until 10am Monday through Saturday and not until noon on Sunday. We watched as a couple of cars that ignored it were escorted off the grounds. We were about 40th in line and we knew we had time to go to the trailer for coffee and breakfast. While there we checked with the ladies in the ‘office’ and were told it still wasn’t “tomorrow” yet. We also were told there were over 150 cars signed in. That was a bit of a shock because only 45 cars would start the race.

The track was open for practice at 10 am and with that many cars there was a limit on how many were allowed on the track at one time. I remember that there were a lot of ‘cautions’ because of cars spinning out and/or crashing. Because of our lack of tires Cliffy had decided on a limited number of practice laps. The problem was that while we were on the track we couldn’t get free of other cars so that Cliffy could see just what adjustments were needed. We put it up on the hauler in the early afternoon and spent the rest of it checking everything over. We got a chance to track down C J to see how he was doing with his NASCAR motor. If we were to believe his pit crew his lap times were right up there with the track record. While there with his crew I got an unexpected surprise. His girlfriend was perched up on the cab of his hauler timing some of the cars on the track. She was oblivious to those of us walking around which gave me a great opportunity to stand and look at her back. If there ever was a perfect DP this was it. Karen (her name) wasn’t wearing the white jeans that had been her standard (and had given me many a VPL) but was wearing what appeared to be standard blue jeans. That gave her white panties a nice contrast. But what was the most exciting to me was that because her back was less than a foot from my eyes I could readily see that the panties she was wearing were made by Shadowline. The waist elastic they used was unique to their panties and slips. As I’ve stated a number of time before, one of the ‘thrills’ for me was in knowing who made the panties the woman I was looking at or with was wearing. In this case I had at least a couple of minutes of uninterrupted viewing and without fear of being caught. Perfect!

To be continued...