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

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

With the cramped space it was proving to be impossible to get under either the bed or the love seat so I, reluctantly, settled down on the love seat for the night. I’d been tired when we'd returned from eating but with the effort to find the panties I’d woken myself up. I remember lying on my back staring at the ceiling and trying to come up with an idea as to where they’d disappeared to. The next thing I remember was the door slamming right behind my head. I looked over and it was Davo headed for the bathroom. The next thing I remember was hearing the sounds of two people having sex. I looked over onto the bed and could see Davo on top of Leigh and ‘pumping’ with accompanying grunts. Almost simultaneously, Leigh would let out a bits of a moan. This was a first for me.

The ‘action’ didn’t last all that long. The next thing I knew there was sunlight streaming through the battered slats of the Venetian blinds. Both Davo and Leigh were covered as I sat up. I made the decision to get out of the room before they woke up and even though I was stiff  (the cramped position I was in had aggravated my bad back) I managed to get to a standing position and to the door without waking either of them. Buster was sitting up in the back seat of the car so I went over to ask his about his ‘joy ride’ with Davo from the night before. I remember him laughing saying he hadn’t realized he’d even left the motel until he heard the door slam when Davo got back to the motel. (You would have to know Buster to understand that) He went on that finding beer at 9pm at night, even a Saturday night, in New Jersey was almost impossible. It was about then that we saw Alan and Joe appear in the door to their room. They had their bags and headed for the car. That was the first time I thought about looking at my watch… almost 8:30am… and we were supposed to be at the track by 9am. I knew I wasn’t going to be the one to tell Davo we had to get going. Alan, very reluctantly, volunteered. He was back in short order with the keys. The caveat was that someone had to come back to get the two of them by 11am. I remember Alan just shaking his head as he told us that.

The procedure for the day was for all the cars to be in their raceday pit stall, in their starting position, by 11am. We didn’t understand why it had to be so early. What made that a chore was we couldn’t start the engines until 1pm. That meant having to drive the haulers into the pit area, unload the cars and equipment needed for the race and then move the haulers back to the infield. With 45 cars…talk about chaos! We found out that we’d start 23rd, right in the middle of the pack. It also meant that we were located on the start finish line as well. But, being in the middle meant we had to maneuver the hauler in and around a whole bunch of others. While we were doing that Beth and Ra were busy making us breakfast. As it had been since we arrived it was 'hurry up and wait' with the problem being the track officials were not all that coordinated with their directions. It was obvious to me that Cliffy was getting nervous. Never one with a lot of patience, the confusion had him ‘frazzled’. To be truthful, we were all pretty nervous. We finally found our correct place, unloaded the car and equipment and I, of all people was delegated to move the hauler back to the infield grass. What made that interesting was that I’d never driven the hauler… but didn’t hesitate to jump up into the cab. Much to the other guys enjoyment, I stalled the truck right away. I quickly found out why I was given the job… it took ‘forever’ to make my way through the pit road traffic and back to the infield grass. I’d lost track of the time and had fully expected to see a lot of people wandering around but the whole area was basically empty. The grandstands and infield weren’t opened to the public until 11am. After a quick walk over to the camp trailer I was rewarded with a nice helping of scrambled eggs and hash browns. Being the last one there paid off for me.

I went over to our pit stall and took a close look at who some of the faster cars were. C J was starting 14th and another car from our Saturday night track was in 21st place. It was somewhat funny in that the driver, owner and crew of that car all lived within a few miles of the garage where we worked out of but were basically strangers. When I walked past the car I nodded my head to acknowledge them but was ignored. I continued on down the line taking a close look at some of the cars that I’d constantly read about in the racing papers. As expected when I arrived at C J’s car, ’Seeg’, his father was ‘standing guard’ with his ever present cigar in the corner of his mouth. He was in a lot better mood than he’d been the previous day. We talked for a few minutes and then I saw Karen, C J’s girlfriend, appear. She was in the usual ‘uniform’ that I’d become accustomed to… white jeans, white T-shirt with a big red number 1 on the front along with a red satin jacket with C J’s name embroidered across the back. She was loading some things into a cooler back by the tools. I was not in a prime position to check her out for a VPL but hoped that before the festivities started that I’d get a look.

Speaking of the ‘festivities’, there was to be a small parade with Robin Roberts, a famous pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, as the Grand Marshall. Because of the close proximity to Philadelphia they had invited a group of Mummers to be a part of it with a couple of local high school bands providing the music. To be truthful, I didn’t care one bit about all the pomp and circumstance. When a kid came by selling programs I decided to buy one. With over an hour to go before the race started I decided to walk the length of the pits and to fill out the starting line up as a memento. One thing I made note of was that there were some cars who were in the race that really shouldn’t have been in it and were only there because of the guaranteed starting position for having won their hometown track race.  I felt bad that some good cars weren't racing.

The real activity started with a blare of trumpets followed by the parade. When the driver introductions started I really got nervous. That was followed by the National Anthem and the call “Drivers, start your engines!” That sound took my breath away. From our position in the pits we could see the grandstands were packed. I immediately wondered what the crowd in the infield was like. I’d made the determination that other than being closer to the cars and drivers there was no advantage in being there. It was impossible to see more than a small bit of the track. It was somewhat the same from the pits although we could see about three hundred feet of action as the cars would go past.

In writing this I’m amazed at just how naive we all were. We had no plan for any kind of contingency. There were no air guns in those days for changing tires if it were needed. Just an old fashioned lug wrench. We hadn’t discussed who was to do what if Cliffy did come in. Of course, with no radios there was no way to communicate with him. We did have a blackboard and I’d made a big 21 on it so if he were to come down pit road he’d know where we were. And, as far as gas was concerned almost everyone in the race was hoping they could make it all the way (200 miles). We did have some spare gas but to get it in the tank was going to be difficult, at best. I remember standing there as the cars raced past for the start and I couldn’t breath.
 

The program

The starting line up...