After a short push the big power plant caught, coughed, sputtered, and settled down to a rising drone of power. I took it slow twice around to feel out the track. The macadam was like black velvet, but I found an uneven patch in the backstretch a third of the way in from the north corner, and marked it for future reference.
I don’t like speed trials. In a race you’ve got a reference point, the deck of the iron ahead, but in a speed trial you’re out there alone. The first lap and a half was like driving the family car on a country road. I gave the signal, and dug in as I whined down toward the starter. The flag was a flash out of the corner of my eye and the Special started doing what it was built for. It took over. I was the guy in there steering it. It snugged down nice on the perfectly banked end of the oval, and as it started to straighten, I fed it all it would take. At that speed yon don’t just go by something. No, it grows and leaps at you and the air, plus the motor noise, makes it go paahhh! at you as you whistle by. The vibration turns you to leather and the drone makes you feel like your head would fall apart like a tangerine without the skin.
I took my fast lap, caught the flag, and floated around with decreasing speed, turning into the pit.
I had my disguise off when the time was anounced over the P.A. “Joe Gartner, driving the Jeyett Special qualifies at one eighteen point eight, just three tenths under the one-lap record established by Jig Devine in nineteen forty-six.”
There was a spatter of applause and I waved at the stands. Five minutes later Brick, Hoop and I leaned on the rail and watched Johnny Wall in the Franzetta-Gorf take two slow laps, and catch the flag.
Concrete, bricks and macadam are a hell of a lot different from the dirt. In the dirt you have to skid it into the turns and whip your deck. If you just don’t give a damn, you can do the same thing on a hard track, but it rips your rubber to bits and in a long race what you may gain is wiped out by the times you got to pit yourself to switch rubber, to say nothing of the possibilities of a bad blow and upsy-daisy over the wall.
When he hit the first turn I felt Brick stiffen, because there wasn’t any decreasing tempo of that big power plant. To skid on the hard tracks, you have to watch it, because if your deck swings a shade too far, you lose more than you gain; a shade further than that, and you spin like a ballerina on the snow.
Rubber screamed and he took the turn high, nothing but the beautiful banking keeping him on. He kept it high, then slammed down in toward the rail, going inside the rough spot, gunning it like a madman, hitting the south corner, screaming the rubber again, digging in and driving hard for the finish.
I had held the watch on him and I didn’t believe it. I thought the watch was wrong until the P.A. boy, with an edge in his voice said, “John Wall, driving the Franzetta-Gorf, qualifies in one twenty-two point four for a new one-lap record!”
He got more than a spattering of applause. Brick said, “I told you! The guy’s nuts! What the hell is he trying to do?”
“Could he need the dough?” Hoop said. “The new record-holder gets himself two hundred fifty bucks. It cost him maybe a hundred fifty in rubber to do it, so he’s a hundred ahead.”
“There’s an easier way to make money,” Brick said.
The other irons were around, so I took myself a little walk to say hello to old friends and look over the competish. The ones to worry about, I found, were Gidge Putner, driving one of the old Walker Supers; Sam Waybo in a Dillon-French that was five years old, but still a warm iron; Skid Wilkinson in one of his usual bailing-wire jobs out of which I was he could coax some miles; and Robby Harkness in an experimental Sternevaunt.
After shooting the breeze and kidding around, and looking over some unknown kids in make-shift irons, I came back and told Hoop that our biggest trouble would be Johnny Wall, and that Harkness might turn out to be bad if the Sternevaunt held together.
If the three of us happened to go sour in the power, or if one of the wild kids creamed us out, the big event would go to Waybo, Wilkinson, or Putner.
Hoop agreed.
2. Hell’s Curves
By the end of the long afternoon there were sixteen cars qualified for the big event, and for the minor races leading up to it. The way they work it at Darido, they race the big jobs on three afternoons. Twenty-five laps, fifty miles, the first day. Fifty laps, one hundred miles, the second day. One hundred laps, two hundred miles, the third day.
Because we wanted to make a showing, we were entered for all three. Some of them were saving their stuff for the big prize. I was checking the board when I saw that Johnny was entered for all three. I hadn’t figured it that way.
Since Brick, in a pinch, probably has the edge on me, and since his national rating is three points higher than mine, he was to drive in the big job. I drew the middle-sized one, and he wanted the short one to get the feel of the competition.
Nine cars were set for the first one. It was slated for two o’clock. I was to handle the board for Brick. Due to the qualifying speeds, when they lined up, three sets of three, Brick Arlen, Johnny Wall and Sam Waybo were the three last cars.
The pacemaker car led the parade, pushing it up over fifty as they finished a complete circuit. They hit the starting line perfectly, got the go-ahead flag, and all nine cars roared and jumped ahead as the pacemaker darted off the track like a scared rabbit.
They hit the turn in a pack, went around almost in formation, and then began to string out and jockey for position as they hit the backstretch. The roar of the motors was like a squadron of fighters going over.
It looked to me as though Johnny Wall was bottled and then I saw him jump through a hole. By then Brick had gone high around the outside and they came into the turn neck and neck. An orange crate in the lead kicked out some big puffs of blue smoke and lost speed fast. The kid driving it knew he had to get out of the way, and he cut down too sharply toward the inside rail. Another kid behind him swerved badly, went into a dry skid and, pretty as a picture, Brick went high and Johnny went low as they tooled around him.
They came down past the stands neck and neck, with Brick on the outside. He hung there and it kept Johnny from climbing a little to take the turn the way he wanted to. Brick held his advantage, went high, and then cut back to knife in ahead of Wall with more than the legal clearance.
They were fighting as though it was the last lap. Brick had talked as though Johnny was a crazy kid. I knew he was a little crazy, but after you hit a few score state fair dirt ovals, you’re no longer a kid.
I knew that Johnny was smart, and I suspected that as far as speed was concerned, the two irons were as close as they could be. I gave the Franzetta-Gorf a little edge on stability, and gave us a little edge in getaway.
Twenty-five tough, fighting laps. Johnny tucked his iron right in behind Brick and let Brick suck him along in the slipstream, riding close and careful.
At the end of eight laps, Brick began to edge up on the tail of the parade. There were only seven cars left in the race. It worried me to see the way the kid acted just on the verge of getting lapped. He was in a pale blue job, a home-grown outfit, and when Brick began to move up on his deck, the kid edged out away from the rail. Not much, just a little. It happened just before they hit the north end. Brick over-compensated for the little swerve the light blue job made, and as a consequence he went too high on the curve. He had to cut the speed to make sure he would cling.