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

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

It seemed like it took forever for Cliffy to complete his second lap and to make it back to where we were waiting. There was no radio communication back in those days so he had no idea what he’d done. I’m sure he had an inkling as he pulled up to us as we were all jumping up and down. He pulled the car in next to the hauler and we all crowded up to the door. Beth, his wife, was seated on the cab of the hauler and was intent on getting all the times recorded for the other car so she was the only one not to congratulate him when he exited the car. Now we had to play the ‘waiting game’ to see if our time would hold up against the roughly 125 cars left to go. Beth, who was an official scorer at our weekly track immediately started to keep a separate list of cars who turned a better time than Cliffy. That was now the important list.
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Right here I’m going to interject some things about the track and the conditions concerning the racing fans. Access to the infield on Friday was for race car teams only with spectators not allowed. That changed on Saturday. The promotors allowed the fans to get into the infield but charged admission. They were not supposed (that’s the ‘operative’ word) to be in the area where the race cars were being ’staged’ and getting ready to go on the track. I’m not sure when the policy was changed to allow that but it had become increasingly popular and I’m sure quite profitable. Now, as I’ve previously noted, there were no concessions (food and drink) in the infield AND… there was only one building that served as a rest room facility… for everyone in the infield. For reasons that no one knew (or could understand) it was located right in the very middle of the field. It was like the hub… and, although not a problem on Friday but, with the influx of people, it didn’t take long for that to change on Saturday. It was a rickety wooden building and had two entrances. One side was for the ladies and the other for the men. On one side, there were four toilets for the females with but only a 4’ by 8’ wood panel between each to create stalls without doors. On the other side there were two toilets and two urinals. Like with the ladies side, there were 4’ by 8’ wood panels between the toilets. To add to the primitive nature of this was that there were no sinks. However, there were two water spigots on the ends of the building. They were put there for the competitors to get water for the race car radiators. It didn’t take long for those using the ‘facilities’ to start using the spigots to wash their hands… and for an immense mud puddle to form. On Friday my guess is that there may have been a little over 1,000 people in the infield. On Saturday, they opened the gates for infield fans at 9am and they were still pouring in right up until the cars went out on the track for their warm up period. I have no idea how many came in but there were a LOT of them.
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Right from the time we arrived at the track early Friday morning ‘hurry up and wait’ was the accepted procedure. However, this wait was excruciating because each and every car that went out on the track could affect weather we qualified for the big race or not. So, we all tried to find something to do with our time. Because Beth was occupied it fell to Ra, Dick’s wife, to prepare the sandwiches for lunch. Even though we’d only made about six laps out on the track Cliffy had us go over every nut and bolt on the car. We’d strain to hear the times announced over the loudspeakers and then apply it against our 33.2 second time. It wasn’t long after Cliffy pulled in that Ra showed up with a box full of sandwiches and two jugs of lemonade. It was agreed that we should probably wash our hands so the water that Buster had put in our two watering cans got used. Before we finished eating Buster got up and disappeared. I distinctly remembering Alan making some sort of disparaging comment about his penchant for doing that. No one volunteered to go and refill the cans so, after a while, to have something to do I grabbed them and headed for the middle of the infield.

It didn’t take me long to do a double-take when I looked out towards the building. There was a line of people of at least 25 to 30 people in it. Getting closer I could see the majority were female. With about 300 or so yards to go I stopped to survey the situation. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw a couple of the women holding their crotches and sort of dancing in place. Then I realized that the women were using the men’s side as well as their own. I don’t remember the number for sure but there may have been 3 or 4 men in the line. On Friday, in seeing how far away the building was we had taken to just sidling up to the side of the hauler, whipping it out and just peeing right there rather than waste the time. Once I started towards the building and headed for one of the ends where the spigots were I saw something else… a woman had pulled down her pants and was squatting right out in the open. I heard at least a couple of the men give her a cheer as she stood up and pulled her pants back up. I also remember her turning towards them and giving them the ‘finger’. At first I wondered why she hadn’t tried to get close to the building but as I got closer saw the mud puddle that was trying to circle the whole building. Even though I hated to get my boots muddy I waded into it and filled both cans. In leaving I saw two women headed in the direction of the track and much to my delight could see the backside of one was wet halfway to her knees. I watched her for a few steps and then turned and looked back at the line wondering just how many would end up wetting themselves before the day was over.

Now, I haven’t mentioned anything about Davo and Leigh since we’d been dropped off at the the track. Davo was truly a race fan. When he went to the track he wanted to be in a position to see as much of what was taking place out on the track as possible feeling he couldn't see all that much from the infield. He always bought tickets and, true to tradition, was seated in the grandstands along with Leigh. There was no intermission with the only interruption of on track activity when a car spun out, crashed or had an engine blow up. Beth knew approximately where they were seated and by mid afternoon had located them. We had a blackboard with chalk to use in the pits if we qualified for the race so she had Dick write on it that we were still in a qualifying position. We knew he got the message when we saw his 6’5” body standing on the seats and waving his jacket. The only problem was there were still some 50 cars yet to go so we would have to continue to wait.

By then the additions to the list of cars that had turned a faster time than Cliffy had slowed and Alan asked Beth where we stood. She held up her hand and I counted to 13 but I wasn’t sure and neither was Joe or Alan. If the number 13 was right it meant only five cars had beaten our time over the past two plus hours. I thought back to what Alan had said  about being among the first out on the track and it sure seemed like he was right. I’d held my breath for the thirty something seconds it took Cliffy to navigate the one time around the track but that was my limit. I was really up tight about making the race but there was nothing I could do but to wait. I decided to just take a walk to look at some of the other cars hoping that would help. It didn’t.

To be continued…