The Outside Groove (15 page)

“Oh, you love it.”

“Whatever you say, Casey,” he muttered, pointing to the letters on his chest. “You're the boss.”

***

As I pulled off the track after my practice run, Jim was sitting on the wrecker tailgate, thumbing through his GED booklet while Tammy, T.T., and Bernie huddled around Uncle Harvey. Uncle Harvey held a tire upright on the flatbed while Bernie fiddled with the valve and a tire gauge. I cut the engine, climbed out the window, and walked over to the wrecker, where I set my helmet and gloves down next to a white metal tank about the size of a scuba tank.

“Well?” Uncle Harvey said. “How's the car handling?”

“Pretty good,” I said, “but it's cornering weirdly. More like, it's
not
cornering.” I leaned against the flatbed.

Uncle Harvey looked at Bernie, T.T., and Tammy as if he'd been expecting me to say this.

“Tight,” Bernie said with a definitive nod. She turned to Uncle Harvey. “Her car's tight. Pushes instead of turns.”

He nodded and scratched at his stubble. “Sounds that way.” He looked at the track. “So, ladies, let's see if we can put this all together.” He stuck out his thumb. “Car's tight, and we've got a track that's still a little wet. Now, the weather report says the clouds will burn off in about an hour, just about the time the track's dry. What does that mean to you gals?”

“It's going to get warmer,” T.T. said. “Air temperature and the asphalt both.”

“That's going to bring the tire pressure up,” Tammy added. “The air inside will expand.”

Uncle Harvey extended his index and middle fingers. “Tight. Warmer. Increased tire pressure.” He looked at Bernie and let his hand drop to his side. “Who's making the call?”

“Where's the tire pressure at now?” she said.

Uncle Harvey smiled. “That's the right question. We're at maximum pressure or close to it.”

“Well...” Bernie bounced the tire gauge on the tire. “We could probably lose a few pounds all the way around, let the tires spread out and grip a little better.”

“Now remember what I said before,” Uncle Harvey interjected. “It's your right front tire that's bearing the greatest load in the corners. You feel that, Case?”

I nodded. “Feels like the whole rig wants to dig into the track on the right.”

“So,” Uncle Harvey continued. “We can let out some air. I like that idea. But let's make sure we keep the pressures higher on the right than on the left, to account for the load shifting from the rear of the car to the front, on the right side in particular, as Casey slows in the corner and pulls the steering wheel left.”

“Stagger,” T.T. said.

We looked at her as if she'd just sworn at us for no reason.

“Stagger,” she repeated. “The difference between the pressures on the right and left sides. Pressure makes the tires bigger, and you can measure it, the size of a tire, and compare it to the tire on the other side. The difference is called the stagger. I read up on it. We can figure out stagger to get the car settling in the corners better.”

Uncle Harvey scratched his stubble, a gesture I'd come to know meant that he was either worried or impressed. This time he was clearly impressed. “Stagger,” he said. “Yes. I know something about this. Nice work, Tee.” He reached onto the flatbed and picked up a U-shaped metal bar about a foot wide at the tips. “And what we've got here is a gauge to measure that very thing. This device is, in fact, known as a stagger gauge.” He handed the gauge to T.T. and smiled at me. “Casey, unless I've never set foot in a short-track pit before, I'd say you've got yourself quite a crew here.”

As the Sharks went around with the air tank adjusting the tire pressures to the stagger ratios Uncle Harvey gave them, he and I sat on the wrecker tailgate together, watching the Flying Tigers run their practice laps. “You seem to be getting the hang of racing, Casey,” he said. “And you seem to be enjoying it. That surprise you at all?”

I nodded. It was a strange thing to admit, but since my ill-fated debut at Demon's Run, I'd come to crave the adrenaline rush of racing. As a cross-country runner, I'd experienced those rushes before, but more out of nervousness, and they only lasted until I settled into my running pace. Strapped in behind the wheel, there was no such thing as pace, not really—just a hunger for speed, an almost animal instinct to pounce on a choice piece of asphalt. We drivers literally roared at each other, racing side by side. We nipped at tails, shoved each other out of the way hard enough to send each other slamming into walls. Cross-country running was never like that.

I could've said all this to Uncle Harvey, but I sensed he knew it already. He seemed to know me well. In the time we'd spent together up in his shop and driving over here to Byam, he seemed to have got to know me better than anyone ever had.

“You think hard about what you're doing, I can tell,” he said. He tapped his temple with a grease black fingertip. “You're tracksmart. I expected you would be. You've got racing in your blood.”

For the first time in my life, my family ties to racing cheered me the slightest bit. As I watched Uncle Harvey gaze down pit row, as if being transported back to his glory days, I couldn't hold the question back: “Was Big Daddy tracksmart?”

Uncle Harvey's lips drew into a taut line, his jaw muscles working, his eyes narrowing on a spot about ten feet ahead of him. I'd seen this reaction before: from Big Daddy on those rare occasions over the years when Uncle Harvey's name had come up at the dinner table. Unlike Big Daddy, however, Uncle Harvey didn't just scowl off into space for a few moments. He walked away.

***

When I got back to the pit after the driver's meeting, the morning clouds had burned off. The crew and I—minus Jim, who was reading his GED booklet on the wrecker tailgate—sat on Theo's hood and went over the day's competitors, a rundown drawn from the Sharks' knowledge of the local drivers and information gathered cruising pit row. T.T. seemed particularly into this part of my race preparations. “Remember, you're racing drivers, not just cars,” she said in a serious tone that didn't really match her ski cap and goofy sunglasses.

“Good point,” I said as Bernie and Tammy both swallowed a laugh.

“I'm going to give you a few names and numbers,” T.T. said.

“Look at
you
, ” Tammy said. “All schoolteachery. ”

T.T. frowned, then, noticing the way she was holding the notebook in front of her, like a book from which she'd been reciting poetry, started laughing. “These are the cars you don't want to be stuck behind,” she said, once again serious. “Today, these guys won't be the movers. And if you
do
find yourself with the wrong crowd, start thinking about a lane change. If you see the caution flag come out for a wreck, try to move quickly so you don't get behind these guys on the restart.”

“Got it,” I said.

As T.T. was finishing our pre-race briefing, the track loudspeakers clicked on, and the announcer ran down the starting positions. I'd learned that, unlike in an enduro, in which starting positions were often determined by a lottery, most regular races used a statistical formula to assign track position. Handicapping, Uncle Harvey had called the formula, and he said that it was usually an average of a racer's previous finishes. For my twenty-five lapper at the Speedbowl, track officials had me lining up fifteenth out of twenty-two, starting inside of car 55.

Bernie punched me in the shoulder. “These guys want a piece of you. You're in for some bump-and-run, guaranteed.”

“If they want to push you off the track,” Tammy added, “make them work for it.”

“But most of all,” T.T. said, “just try to run your race.”

I slid off the hood. Tammy ran around behind me and leaned inside the car before I got there, yanking out my gloves, helmet, and steering wheel. I was struck by the realization that, about a week earlier, I'd have crossed the street to avoid passing these girls, but suddenly they were treating me like a queen. No, better: like one of them.

 

I felt like a different person driving a completely different car. Theo's tires seemed custom-fitted to the track. As I ran a couple of laps behind the pace car, I tried to get a fix on who was positioned where. The Farnham brothers, Buck in C
HIMNEY
C
ORNERS
M
AXI
-M
ART
car 04 and Chuck in Maxi-Mart car 05, were in the front half of the pack—mine for the taking, according to T.T. Ty Baxter's B
AXTER
B
ROS
. H
EATING
& V
ENTILATION
car 21—” a moving roadblock,” T.T.'d called him—was directly ahead of me, in the thirteen slot. That made getting out of his lane my first priority. I squeezed the steering wheel: It was good to have a goal.

As I took turn three on my second pre-start lap, the pace car darted for the infield, and I spotted the flagman holding the green flag at his side. As I came out of turn four, an earthquake of engine power rolled back from the front of the pack. In the most remote corner of my peripheral vision, with my eyes focused on Ty Baxter's rear bumper, I saw a green flag flapping—a clean start. I jammed the accelerator to the floor.

We ran two settle-in laps more or less in position. In the third lap, rounding turn four, I gunned to the outside, forcing car 55 to lift, nearly scraping his sponsor's name—T
ESSIER
'
S
G
ARDEN
C
ENTER
—from his door. I pulled up even with Ty's car 21.1 ran him down the front in the outside groove and into the first turn. When he didn't drift to bump me farther out, I looked for the first mark I'd chosen while finding my line during practice, a skid mark with treads still visible. I rolled over it with my right tire and looked for my turn-two mark, a cauliflowershaped grease splotch. I hit it. Accelerated in the turn.

Already, going into the backstretch, I could tell that I had a better line than Ty. I'd picked up at least a wheel's worth of track on him. He drifted out closer to me and gave me a tap. I pulled down close to him—and did it sharply. I felt him lift. Reflex action.

In turns three and four, I drove over my marks: a circular tar blotch about the size of a cow patty and an X-shaped crack in the asphalt. I accelerated going into the straightaway.

I opened Theo up and dogged Buck Farnham's car 04 on the outside going into the next turn. He stayed far enough away for me to drive my line. It was a good line. I could feel it. I was making a nice little circle out of this oval. Exit speed.

I took Buck's car 04 on the outside and ran right up to brother Chuck's car 05 bumper. Chuck swayed to the inside, clearly aware of my presence. I followed him to the inside and lifted in the turns, feathering the throttle. Going into the straightaway, I ran up to car 05's bumper again. Chuck swayed to the outside. I followed him, noticing, as I headed into the next turn, that if I trimmed my line closer to the inside, I could almost drive the line perfectly and still have the inside track on him. That was my next move. I dropped down the bank and gunned the gas, sticking my front end as far into the gap between the inside of car 05 and the inside of the track apron as it'd fit. I kept it there, holding the wheel steady and running this line, inching as close to my marks as I could in the turns. Two laps of this, and I'd coaxed car 05 a bit farther to the outside. Good. I could drive my line and push Chuck out, where he'd have more distance to cover. Bad geometry—for him.

Two laps later, the Farnham brothers' car 04 and car 05 were in my rearview mirror. I was in the tenth position. I drove my line but increased the acceleration in the corners right up to the point at which Theo's rear tires started to slide. I tried to record in my bones and muscles how the speed felt when I hit that threshold, so I'd know I was at that breaking point just before I felt it next time. I drove on. Hit my marks. Drove my line. Drove.

Another two laps later, heading into the main straightaway, I spotted car 01, a severely dented Tempo with red numbers on a gray body and sponsorship lettering for G
LUCK
'
S
P
UB
, dancing in my rearview. The car reminded me of a water rat, and Bernie had called the driver, a kid named Perry something, “totally off his chain.” Water Rat wanted the inside lane. It was a gamble that, this late in the race, I was willing to take. He'd pinch his car cornering tight to the apron while I stuck to my line. I ran a lap and looked back. Water Rat had gained a little on me, but his right front tire must've still been short of my left rear. Maybe Water Rat wanted his rat nose slapped. I considered the option.

Rolling into turn one again, I glanced across the infield to see car 88 and the car right on his tail, car 25, starting to skid sideways toward the inside lane just around turn two. Car 25 almost regained control, but he must've overcompensated. He and car 88 spun down the bank. I lifted and let Water Rat come up on the inside, then I accelerated to keep him from passing. Around the corner, I guided him right into car 25 and car 88, both of which had just stopped dead, car 88's dented hood spewing smoke. Water Rat had to brake. I rolled up to turn three and spotted the flagman waving the yellow caution. We all eased off for the restart.

As I moved slowly around the track while the caution flag was still out, I surveyed the field. Water Rat had fallen back two track positions for getting hung up in the wreck, and two other cars originally ahead of me had met the same fate. I was in seventh place. Scooter Walsh in his red box P
LUMBING
& S
EPTIC
car 03 was right behind me.

I rolled with the column of cars behind the pace car, and when the pace car darted to the infield, I scrunched up with the pack. Coming around turn four for the start, Scooter roared to my outside, cheating me a little, but the flagman was focused on the leaders, so the green flag dropped. I matted the gas but lifted a second later as the car in front of me, a yellow Mustang with a blue number 11, hesitated long enough for me to read the words M
R
. M
USIC
D.J., a Web address, and phone number stretched across his rear end.