Chapter 30

In the first couple laps we passed most of the rest of the field, running up there high all the way. Scotty had gotten around Pepper for the lead, and we were a while closing on him, but after a while we managed it. Frankly, I was driving hard as hell to try and stay up with Arlene, because she was driving like she had her tail on fire. It took us another lap or so to get past him, and by then we were coming up on lapping Willy in the 69. I was mostly concentrating on my driving, but I figured he must be mad as hell and her father had to about be blowing a gasket.

Sure enough, before we made another lap we caught him. Just to make it fun, we split him, Arlene taking the high side out of turn four while I went low; one second he was there and the next he was history. Now that I was down low, I figured that if I was going to pass Arlene it would have to be on the low side, not that I was all that sure that I wanted to pass her, at least for this race. We ran pretty much side by side for the rest of the race, and as it turned out she had about a third of a car length on me when the checkers flew.

We pulled into the pits while Arlene took her victory lap – I learned later it was her first. The hot rods were pulling out of the pits for their next heat, and sure enough, Willy came up out of that cockpit like he'd been sitting on a bee, and headed over to Spud, just mad as hell. "Jesus," he said. "You had that thing fixed. There's no way I could run with the rest of you guys! This thing is a fucking dog."

"It's been running right with the pack until tonight," Spud lied. "It takes a little talent and a little skill to drive these things. You don't just bully them, it takes some finesse."

About that time, Tom made it over to Spud and started in on him in the same vein. "All right, you two," he said. "I'm going to drive the car in the next heat just to prove to you that it's all right. Then we'll switch for the feature, just to prove to you that thing is about equal with everything else. Is that all right with you?"

"I still think you're full of shit," Willy said. "There's no way in hell I'm that much slower than the rest of you."

"Like I said, driving these things is an art," Spud told them. "I mean, hell, Arlene was running with our season champion two years in a row, and she beat him. Like I said, she's got the talent."

"Well, by God, we'll just see about this," Tom said as he and Willy stomped off.

Spud gave a big old grin and motioned over at Arlene and me. "Got him going a bit, I guess," he laughed.

"Sure did," I smiled. "He ought to have some fun with the 27."

"Damn right he's gonna," Spud beamed. "Go over to the trailer, get under the seat on the right side, and there's a wood box about six inches square with the restrictor plates in it. Get out two marked with a '7, ' and when his back is turned, change the plates. Don't worry about the lead seal. Hang onto the ones you take off it, I'll put them on the 27 if we get the chance."

"Not taking any chances, are you?"

"Not if I can help it," he said. "Arlene, you drove one hell of a race. Now, I'll go argue with them some more so hurry up and get the change made."

I left Arlene standing there with a confused look on her face while I took off running. It only took a minute or so for me to get back with the right restrictor plates; there were a couple wrenches in the box and I brought them. I glanced up to see that Spud had a pretty good argument going with Tom and Willy, and their backs were to me. "What are you doing?" Arlene asked as I opened the hood and went to work on the carburetors.

"Tell you in a minute," I told her. "Keep your eye out and tell me if they look this way."

I had never actually changed a restrictor plate before but I'd pulled a carb a time or two. It was no great trick; just two bolts had to be loosened from each carb, the old plate slid out and the new one slid in place, then the bolts tightened back down. It probably took me two or three minutes before I had the hood closed again. "Did we get away with it?" I asked.

"I don't think they even looked up," she smiled. "Now, what did you just do?"

"Come on, let's go get a couple sodas and get away from this car," I smiled.

We headed over to the box truck. The cooler was sitting out on the ground where it usually was; I pulled out a couple Cokes, opened one on the bumper of the truck and handed it to her, then opened one for me. "All right," she said after taking a big old sip, "What did you just do?"

"Well, you know how these cars are all supposed to be pretty equal, right?" I grinned. "The air restrictor plates under the carbs is how Spud keeps them equal. The guy who's been driving the 69 has been a real cowboy, so Spud dropped the plate size down a little to keep him out of the way of the rest of us. That's part of what happened with those two last night. Spud usually keeps the restrictor plates pretty close to his chest, but what I just did probably hopped the 69 up by maybe twenty horsepower."

"So it's going to be equal with the rest of the cars?" she smiled.

"If I know Spud, the 69 is now the hottest car in the field," I laughed. "I don't think any of us are going to hold Spud in the feature. The 27 really is kind of a dog. It's fast, but it handles goofy. We don't usually let someone drive it unless we know that they know what they're doing, and no one likes driving it. But Spud is probably the best one to give it a little show."

"You guys... " she beamed. "You guys are really on my side, aren't you?"

"Dern tootin'," I grinned. "Like I told you, most of us are vets, we have to watch out for each other. You get extra points for what you went through. It's kind of our way of thanking you for doing a job most of us would have had trouble doing even if we'd been trained for it. On top of that, we have kind of a history of helping out women with family troubles. You'll probably hear the stories sooner or later."

"I think I fell in with a good bunch of people," she smiled. "You guys are all right."

Pretty soon it was time for the next midget heat. Arlene and I were kind of sitting back and watching things, sipping on our Cokes and smoking cigarettes when the heat took the field. It looked a little strange with only five cars in it, and Spud in the 27 at the back of the field. He didn't stay there long; it wasn't a real, real wild race but he steadily worked his way up through the pack, and was battling it out with Dewey for the lead at the finish line. Dewey won it, but only by inches.

I'll have to admit that I didn't think either Spud or the 27 was that good. I found out later that I was right – Spud had gone to the other four drivers in the heat and asked them to help him make the 27 look good. Dewey told me that he was actually trying to make it so Spud won in a close one, but he mistimed it a little bit. As it turned out it didn't matter – the 27 looked like one of the more competitive cars.

The hot rods had several races to run before we got to run our own feature, which was the final event of the evening. Early on, I slipped the restrictor plates and the wrenches to Spud, and he slipped them to someone else, Rocky I think, who actually made the change on the 27 car while Spud spent a little more time with Tom and Willy. The fact that Spud had parked the 27 between the box truck and the trailer even made it easier.

Technically, Willy should have been on the pole, but because he was new to the midgets Spud had him start on the outside in the feature, with Red on the pole. Dewey and Arlene were clear in the back, with me and Spud a row in front of them.

As I recall, the feature was thirty laps. Willy seemed to think that since he now had a decent car and was starting in front he was going to show everybody up. Naturally, it didn't work out that way. Red got a jump on him at the start, and Perk was right behind him, so Willy was running like third on the back stretch and a couple more cars passed him in the third and fourth turns. Dewey, Spud, Arlene and I had quite a battle, switching back and forth. I think Spud could probably have run away from us in the hopped-up 69 but he must have hung back a little to make it look good. We couldn't have gotten more than three laps into the race when the four of us split Willy in the 27, two to each side, and giving him plenty of room since we knew he was probably having his hands full with the 27.

From there on down we had a race that was an all-out classic side by side MMSA battle. I think all four of us led at one point or another and there was never more than a car length or two between first and fourth place. From what Frank said later we had the crowd on their feet and roaring every inch of the way. This was the kind of show we liked to put on, and we were seriously racing all through it – well, maybe except for Spud, who I still think could have run away from the rest of us.

And the finish? Oh, that too was an MMSA classic. We lapped Willy for about the fifth time on the back stretch, but that broke our tight little pack up a little when we split him two to a side again. Arlene had the outside line, while Spud ducked under her to try and make the pass. Dewey was ahead of me, but I had a little speed on him and went above him to try for a high side pass, so we were running four wide across the finish line. It was clear to everyone that Arlene won it by a nose, and I finished second just ahead of Dewey, who had maybe a wheel on Spud. Other than the fact that Arlene won it, we never did actually sort it out.

I've often wished that we could go back in time and run that race over again, but with everything being equal instead of having the deck stacked against Willy so bad. We didn't realize at the time that Arlene was actually that talented a driver, and I think she could easily have beaten Willy nose to nose. But we were playing it safe for Arlene's sake, mostly because her brother and her dad had pissed us all off a little bit.