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

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

Since there were no assigned spots in each team could park wherever they wanted. Because Cliffy and Dick were staying in the camp trailer located right there in the infield they got up early and moved the hauler to a spot where Beth could see each car as it pulled out onto the track to take time. They were able to pull the hauler right up next to the fence at the end of pit road. As it turned out none of the other teams from our regular Saturday night track ended up parking near us so I had to go looking for them. I was primarily looking to find C J’s group. Beth had told us that he’d turned his best lap 2 tenth’s of a second faster than we did and thought his speed was 109 miles per hour. When I’d talked with C J’s father the day before I’d heard him say they expected to compete for the pole position and to turn a lap around 110 1/2 mph with their big NASCAR motor. I was curious to hear what he had to say about not even being close.

He, like us, had been one of the earlier cars to take time and, like us, had to sit around and wait. “Seeg”, C J’s father, was sitting in the cab of their hauler when I walked up and I didn’t have to say a word. Seeing me, he just threw both of his hands up in the air and shrugged his shoulders. His first words were to congratulate us on how fast we’d gone. I decided not to pursue my original thoughts to ask what had happened. It was obvious he was disappointed. I have no idea what arrangement they had made to get to use the NASCAR motor but I did know that it hadn’t come cheap. That was one thing about that period in time… there were no restrictions on  the motors other than you could only run one carburetor (unless you were running a six cylinder engine). In fact there was a rumor that one car had a Lincoln engine that was over 500 cubic inch displacement. (Our motor was only 428 cubic inches) To change the subject I asked if he knew where some of the other “locals” (meaning cars that raced at our two area tracks) were located. The one I was interested in was the car sponsored by the Chevrolet dealer owned by the father in law of Lynda, from the stock brokerage office. Back during the Summer she’d made an ‘off-hand’ comment about possibly sponsoring us. Because we were running a Ford motor that conversation died a quick death. But I still wanted to see the car and what they were running for equipment. “Seeg” had pointed me in the general direction of where he’d last seen the car and I headed over there.

It was only a short distance but it was more towards the middle of the track. In walking in that direction I got a look at the line(s) for the rest rooms and it had doubled since I’d been there a couple of hours earlier. My first thought was to wonder what the lines would be like on Sunday when there would be even more people there to watch the race itself. At first I didn’t see the car but saw a pick-up truck with the name of the dealership on the door with an open trailer behind it. I knew that the car owner had changed drivers around the time Lynda had spoken to me but was new to the area and I had no idea what he looked like. They raced at the track where I had driven at and since I hadn’t been there in a couple of years didn’t know anything about the car. I asked one of the guys where the car was and he pointed to a car moving towards us. I was a bit surprised as it was a newer model body than the majority of the cars there. I asked how they did as far as their time and the guy gave me a thumbs down. I could see he wasn’t interested in small talk so I started back to our car. But… the long lines had intrigued me so I took a roundabout way back. There were still only a few males. I stopped and studied the actions of the women and saw a few doing the ‘potty dance’ but none seemed to be in dire straits. I won’t lie… I was disappointed. Finally moving on, I saw two women sort of running/skipping towards me and the line. All of a sudden one of them stopped and bent over at the waist. She was sort of yelling at the other woman as she had her thighs together and was bouncing a bit. After a few seconds she stood up and made a few steps but, again, stopped and stooped over. But this time she was struggling to get at her waist with her hands. After a few seconds she stood up straight and I could see she was unbuttoning her pants… or trying to. But almost as quickly as she’d stood up was again bent over at the waist. The other woman was talking to her but I couldn’t hear what was being said. Recognizing the situation, I stopped and watched what was unfolding in front of me. When the other woman saw me she started cursing at me and waving her arms like she was shooing me away. But my focus was on the bent over woman. It wasn’t clear to me if she’d fully unbuttoned her pants but she stood there, still somewhat bent over, trying to get her pants to slide down over her hips… but was unsuccessful. Giving up her quest she just squatted down holding her head with one hand and steadying herself by touching the ground with the other. The other woman continued to curse at me calling me all kinds of insulting names. I wanted to stay to see how much ‘damage’ the squatting woman had done to her pants but two guys were jogging towards them and I figured it was a good idea to move on.

It was approaching 5pm when I got back to our hauler and I could see the guys on the team were pretty happy. Alan told me that it was all but official that we’d made the starting line up. Beth had figured that we had turned the 15th fastest time of the non guaranteed starters and with just a few cars yet to go should be "safe". All we had to do was wait for them to take time. Since we were qualified there was no reason not to put the car back on the hauler so that’s what we did. All the qualified cars were to be impounded and security guards would be patrolling the area.

Writing this I’m trying to come up with a description of just how I felt knowing that we were ‘in the show’. Excited? Relieved? Anxious? All of those word were part of it. But, surprisingly, I remember being calm as we strapped the car down to the bed of the hauler. After the last car to take time finished there was to be the official announcement of the fastest qualifier and a trophy presentation. Then there would be the two 20 mile “Last Chance” races for the 50 fastest non-qualifiers. I’d heard that they were always ‘entertaining’ and had been told that the first time C J had raced there he had to compete in one of them. Supposedly, he got in a wreck and had crashed through the guard rail and ended up in a grove of trees. So, I was anxious to see the first race on the track as a preview for the big race.

It didn’t take long for the ‘action’ to take place. Very early in the race one car hit the wall and couple of others were involved. But the big wreck came near the end of the race. A couple of cars tangled and one ended up flipping and catching fire. At the end only nine of the 25 cars were able to finish. To me, that didn’t give me  a lot of confidence for our chances in the championship race what with 45 cars to be on the track at the same time. Only time would tell.

To be continued...