Personally, I enjoy storytelling more than these articles, which are opinions and thoughts jumbled together. So I thought why not tell a story for this article. It's a story that is near and dear to my very own heart. I've told it so many times that it takes on a life of its own every time I'm prompted to tell it again. So I'm going to combine my writing skills with a story I tell quite often.
At the wide-eyed, innocent age of eight, the best thing that could have ever happened, happened. However, the story does not start there. In fact, it starts many years before I was even a twinkle of a thought in either of my parents' eyes. Many many many years before I was born, my grandfather on my father's side raced at a dirt track five minutes from the family's hometown. He raced modifieds or something; no one ever told me and I've never seen any pictures. But Macon Speedway is one of the smallest and most difficult tracks to race at, even today. And it was a common occurrence after every Saturday night, Grandpa would tow home a beat-up, broken car. As is a custom in the dirt track world.
But one day, he decided enough was enough. I can just imagine Grandpa (because I've seen pictures of him as a younger man) as a thinner, younger version of himself throwing his hands into the air of the garage which is now two bedrooms. With his hands in the air, he'd said something along the lines of: "I'm sick of other people beating up my car by stuffing me in the wall every weekend. If anyone is going to tear it up, it'll be me."
And that slightly-off quote was what started a three-generation-long passion. Grandpa went drag racing and I don't think he's ever looked back.
Fast forward past important facts for my Grandfather's story and my father's story, and you'll come to the year 2005 when I was smaller and eight years old receiving a birthday present in the form of a junior dragster. It was red, white, and blue. I loved that car as it sat in the trailer, the garage, and the shed until it was nice enough outside that I could actually drive it. Then I hated it.
Everyone has horror stories about vehicles. But I'm not certain everyone knows all of mine. Because there are a lot. My first one was before I even went to the track.
It was nice outside, I think. My memory is firmly tainted with gray clouds and fear. I think it was nice outside because I don't imagine my father allowing us to test the car in front of the house unless it was optimal weather. We live on a horseshoe street with only two houses on our side. So no one really drives down the rode in front of our house. Across the street was a freshly-harvested corn field. Our yard takes up the whole block, four lots, and the house.
We'd been practicing the safety aspects all winter. I knew what each piece of equipment was protecting and why it was absolutely necessary that I wear all of that equipment properly every time. I cannot recall now what exactly I had on that day, but I'm certain I was at the very least strapped into my five-point harness.
So there we are, in front of the house, testing the car and me. My mom is at the corner at the end of the block. My dad is in front of the house, adjusting the motor and coaching me. I'm launching and coasting, holding the gas pedal down a little longer each time as I get more comfortable. I turn around in our large yard, using the room to adequately get straightened out on the road.
At this point, I've made several passes up and down the street without any hitches. But you know there is one. As I turned around in our yard for the fifth or sixth time that day, I hit a bump. Ha! A bump, that thing seemed was like pulling the trigger on a gun. The sewer system had recently been rerun and the pipeline was a large mound running from the burn pile to just about end of the road. I hit this thing facing the road and became a bullet shooting from the barrel of a high-powered rifle.
Flying across the street, my long, narrow car jumped the ditch and plowed through the cornfield. But we'd been over safety. It'd been drilled into my head over and over again, that if I'm scared or uncomfortable I turn the car off. I was both uncomfortable and terrified. And I didn't forget what my father had taught me. Unfortunately, the cornfield was so freshly harvested that all of the stalks still littered the ground and every time I reached for the switch smaller than one which would turn on your bedroom light, the car would hit a stalk and my hand would fly up into the air only restrained by the safety restraints.
By the time I finally hit that tiny button, I was half-way through the cornfield. My wide brown eyes were ten times wider when my parents finally reached me. Me, still strapped into my vehicle, trembling and swearing off anything that ever had a motor powering it. I don't remember the car being brought to the house. I don't remember when we decided I wasn't ready, that none of us were ready. I don't remember when Dad told me what had gone wrong or when he hung the car in the shed to gather dust for two years.
The throttle had hung open, basically flooring the car without my permission. It's a kink that that car seemed to love to torment me with. However, it was a problem that could have been avoided had we, my father and I, had more knowledge regarding the maintenance of these tiny but powerful cars.
It would be two years, at the age of ten, that my father would demand that we either race the thing or sell it. Two years where we discovered the same problem by nearly flipping the car coming off the track and destroying an E-Z up, which remained at the track for the remainder of the year to remind me of the horrors I'd faced. Two years after plowing a cornfield that I would tell my father that I never wanted to race again as tears streamed down my face. Two years after having my parents chase me through a cornfield that Daddy would tell me I'd have to give it one more try, a successful try, before I could quit.
I'm 20 years old now. It's been 12 years since I drove a junior dragster through the field that now contains my neighbor's house. It's been 10 years since I made a 22 second pass in a car capable of a pass under 13 seconds and never asked to quit again.
Not that the opportunities haven't been there. This is just the first disaster I've faced in my beloved sport of drag racing. Some were minor, some major. If you know me, you could probably list some of the ones you've witnessed. But I'm not quitting; Dad knows he missed his chance to spend money on his own car.
