Checkered Flag Cheater (12 page)

After a short walk he came across the ditch and through the trees—just as Harlan headed toward the men's john.

“Boo!”

“Jesus!” Harlan shouted, and jumped sideways. “Don't scare me like that.”

“Sorry,” Trace said.

“Where you been?” Harlan said. His eyes went to the wet cuffs of Trace's jeans.

“Took a little walk,” Trace said, nodding over his shoulder toward the prairie.

“Don't do that, either,” Harlan said. “You might get lost.”

They pulled into West Fargo on Thursday evening, and ate at the Speedway Restaurant on Main Avenue West.

“Anybody from Minnesota coming over to the races tomorrow night?” Harlan asked.

“My dad, I think,” Trace said, glancing at his phone text messages, which kept coming. “Some of my friends, maybe.”

“You better make sure,” Harlan said. “Don't want to get your fence bunnies mixed up.”

“I don't have any fence bunnies,” Trace shot back.

“At least not like Smoky, back in the day,” Harlan said.

Smoky shrugged. “I had my fun. Glad I did, as it turned out.”

They fell silent. Harlan shrugged. “Hey, you never know,” he said.

During dinner Jimmy and Smoky went around and around about the rear-end setup. The Red River track was a half-mile oval—most speedways were a quarter or a third mile—which required a different gear ratio. The lower the ratio, the better the power out of the corners. But lower gearing was a drag on the top-end speed down the straightaways—plus it forced the engine to run at higher rpm.

“What do
you
like?” Harlan asked Trace.

“Thought you'd never ask,” Trace replied.

“Sorry,” Jimmy said. It was like he and Smoky suddenly remembered they had a driver—and not just a car.

“I like torque, and I like speed,” Trace said. “But if I have to choose, I'll take torque any day.”

“Exactly,” Jimmy said, with a grin for Smoky.

“Okay,” Smoky said. “But by the time you hit the corners, you're going to be red-lining.”

“Your motors can handle it,” Harlan said.

“We're running a 360 Chevy,” Smoky muttered, “not an Indy car.”

“That's why Laura pays you the big money,” Harlan said.

“Right,” Smoky said.

Their waitress came to inquire about dessert; she didn't look twice at Smoky, which got her a big tip.

As they walked out of the restaurant, Trace said to Harlan, “You mind if I disappear for a while?”

“With who, and what's ‘a while'?”

“A local driver I know.”

Harlan shrugged. “Sure. Why not? It's good to have buddies. It's not like you need to hang out with us 24-7.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Trace said.

“Mind if Jimmy goes along?” Harlan asked.

Trace hesitated.

“I can't—I've got stuff to do,” Jimmy said quickly.

At that moment, Sara Bishop drove up fast in a 1970 Chevelle, silver with black rally stripes.

“What the—?” Harlan began, ready to leap to safety.

“Don't worry, I'll have him back before ten!” Sara called to Team Blu.

Trace jumped inside, and Sara smoked the tires in first gear as they left.

“Just had to do that,” she said.

“Great ride!” Trace said, looking around the Chevy. It had a bench seat, original four-speed shifter, round gauges—all of it stock.

“My dad's,” she said. “I get to drive it once a month. I saved it up for tonight.” At the first stoplight, she leaned over for a hug. She smelled girly and fresh—not like rubber and race fuel—and her hair was longer. “Hey, Mr. Television Star,” she said.

He had forgotten what a cute mouth she had. “At least I'm not selling dog food,” Trace said.

“Or used cars,” she said.

“Or laxatives.”

“Or panty liners,” she said.

She was easy to be with, and Trace relaxed as they cruised toward Fargo.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“Anywhere,” Trace said.

As she braked for a stoplight, a late-model Mustang, all paint and no engine, pulled close alongside. The driver was a comb-over artist who had watched too many Elvis movies. He kept staring at Sara and her Chevelle.

“Okay, okay,” she said, glancing his way; she brought up the rpm. Adding a half clutch and lot of brake, she hunched up the Chevelle's rear end. The Mustang guy did the same. At green, Sara hole-shot him big-time—several car lengths with a lot of blue smoke—then let him go. She laughed as he raced on by himself.

“That was mean,” Trace said.

“That was fun,” she said, turning north into a neighborhood. “Want to see our shop?”

Fargo was short on trees, but Sara's parents' home had two big elms in the backyard and a metal-sided shop tucked between them. They parked in the alley; she unlocked a side door, and they went inside.

“Wow!” Trace said. The shop was bright, immaculate, and totally filled with old-school memorabilia: gas pumps with the glass jars on top, old filling station signs, skinny tires on the wall, even displays of original quarts of oil in paper cans with tin tops.

“My dad's a collector,” she said. “He and my mom
travel all over on weekends, looking for gas station stuff.”

In contrast to the automotive antiques, the Bishop Super Stock looked like a battered spaceship from another planet. Trace walked over to it. “Are you racing tomorrow night?”

Sara followed him, and touched the roof of the Super Stock. “ 'Fraid not. We don't have enough motor for the half mile,” she said. “I do best on short tracks, like Grand Forks and Buffalo River.”

“But you're coming?”

“Wouldn't miss it,” she said. They were standing close now.

Their eyes met for a long moment; he could not stop himself from reaching out and touching her hair.

She closed her eyes but didn't pull away. “How's Mel?” she asked.

He traced a finger around her ear, then touched her lips. “She's . . . busy. The racetrack, school.”

“Amber told me about prom,” Sara said, opening her eyes. They were alive and shiny. “You really screwed that up.”

“Yes. For sure!” Trace said. He pulled back his hand and leaned against her car. “I don't know what I was thinking.”

She stepped close in front of him. “If there's ever a line that a girl likes to hear, it's that one.”

“Which one?”

“ ‘I don't know what I was thinking.' ”

Trace looped his arms around her waist. They were
back to one of those in-between moments: friends or a whole lot more.

“I bet I know a boy's favorite line to hear,” she murmured.

“What would that be?” Trace asked.

“ ‘I'm not busy at all tonight.' ”

He pulled her sharply forward and kissed her. She felt nothing at all like Mel, but if he closed his eyes . . .

“Mmmmm,” she breathed, and pressed back even harder. She was hard-bodied, like a gymnast, a dancer.

“What about your parents?” Trace said.

“They're up in Rolla at some auction,” she said. “My brother—he's fourteen—ditched me to stay overnight with a friend. So it's just me.”

“Whoa,” Trace breathed.

“ ‘Whoa' like with horses, when they're supposed to stop?” she asked. “Or more like ‘Whoa, I can't believe my good luck?' ”

Trace kissed her again.

Sara dropped him off at two a.m. beside the silent hauler in the shadowy parking lot. He didn't get out immediately. They sat in silence.

“I know that you really love Mel,” she said. “So this was . . . nothing, all right?”

Trace didn't know what to say. He touched her hair again.

She looked through the windshield toward the dark back of the speedway bleachers.

“It's true. But tonight was not ‘nothing,' ” Trace said.

When she turned back to him, her eyes glistened with tears.

“What?” Trace asked.

“I finally meet a guy I can talk with, and who seems to think I'm pretty—but he's taken.”

“Please,” Trace began.

“Don't lie to me about Mel,” Sara said. “I'll only feel worse.”

At the pit entrance to the Red River Valley Speedway, a guy in a green safety vest came alongside. “Are you together?” he asked, glancing behind at Smoky's motor home.

“That's right,” Harlan said.

“Only one hauler per race car in the pits,” the man said.

“If there's an extra fee, we'll pay,” Harlan said.

“Sorry. Read our rule book,” the guy said. “We try to give our fans an unobstructed view.”

“Hang on a second,” Harlan said. He climbed out and went back to Smoky's motor home. In the mirror, Trace watched them; Smoky gestured once, then twice. Harlan shrugged, then nodded.

“We're gonna drop off the car,” he said, “then take the motor home into the pits.”

“That'll work. Park your tall hauler over in the Schatz
Lot,” the guy said, and pointed. Then he waved them forward.

“Why we doing it that way?” Jimmy asked. “I need my stuff.”

“Smoky wants it that way,” Harlan said.

“I thought you were the crew chief,” Jimmy muttered.

Red River had a prerace inspection lane, which was always the sign of a top-notch speedway. Jimmy and Harlan rolled the Blu Super Stock forward, then waited while the tech guys measured the car: tip of the nose spoiler to the front wheel hub, overall wheelbase, roof height, height of the deck lid in relation to the rear quarter panel, and more—anything that had to do with airflow.

Trace and Harlan watched. “Back in the day, Smoky once built a car to 15/16 scale,” Harlan said. “It kept beating everybody. Cut through the air like a bird. The track officials tore it apart after every race, but they could never find anything wrong. He finally got caught when another car came up and parked alongside him. You could tell that Smoky's car was way smaller.”

“Okay, Blu, you're good to go,” the tech guy called. “See you after the races—especially if you win.”

Harlan gave him a look. “You say that to everybody?”

“Yup,” the man said.

The stands began to fill well before the time trials. Trace took a call from his father. “We were going to get pit passes,” he said, “but then Linda thought we could see better from the stands.” His voice was overly cheerful, and Linda giggled in the background.

You mean, they serve alcohol in the stands but not in the pits?
“Okay, no problem,” Trace said.

“So we'll see you after the races, right?”

“Later,” Trace said.

Harlan looked at him. “That sounded like bad news.”

“No, good news, actually,” he said, and left it at that. With some time on his hands, he wandered down pit row to look at the Late Models and the sprint cars. A Late Model looked much like a Super Stock but had a slightly shorter front end, plus a rear spoiler. The spoiler, tilted up to create downforce on the rear tires, was the giveaway—that, and the sweet smell of the methanol fuel they used. New Late Model engines out of the crate cost as much as brand-new, turn-key Super Stocks.

But in racing, there was always another level. A Late Model was a kiddie car compared with a sprint, where the top class had a 410-cubic-inch, 700-horsepower motor driving a much lighter car on a much shorter wheelbase. The main thing that kept a sprint car from lifting off the track like a fighter jet was the big downdraft wing on top—that and the two rear tires, which were as wide and fat as state fair hogs. It took guts to drive a sprint car.

Trace paused beside a local sprint car team sponsored by Moffett Farms, who were potato growers near Fargo. The pit crew ignored Trace, who was not yet in his racing suit. The No. 82 car was clean and new, but the team had a vibe of new money and not enough experience. Trace walked on. The big sponsors—Pennzoil, National Guard,
Snap-on tools, Quaker State, and others—were not here tonight. Instead it was all teams with regional sponsors: cement contractors, heavy-equipment rentals, beer distributors, and potato growers.

“How ya doing, kid?” said an older fellow by a battered sprint car.

“Good,” Trace said.

“Want to look at the car?”

“Sure,” Trace said.

“We can use all the fans we can get,” he said, and gave Trace a walkaround. The red sprint car's tires were worn, its wing had a serious wrinkle, and the dented but freshly painted sides were covered in smaller decals, all local sponsors; they ranged from an insurance agent to a whole foods store.

“My daughter's place,” the man said of the whole foods decal. “It's on Broadway, downtown Fargo. She can't afford to pay anything, but she packs us lunch for the races. You should stop there.”

“You must eat healthy,” Trace said.

“I sneak off and eat speedway chicken, myself,” the man said. His eyes returned to the car. “But we get by,” he said. “And that's the good thing about a mostly independent car like ours—it puts the focus back on the driver. Anybody can win if you've got an unlimited budget.”

Trace was silent. Then he said, “Who's your driver?”

“My son,” the man said proudly. “He's thirty now. Been racing since he was hardly big enough to fit into a go-kart.
Doing great. One of these years, somebody's going to take notice and give him a real ride.”

“Good luck tonight,” Trace said, and walked on. A couple of rows over was the orange Super Stock of Jason Nelson; Trace thought of walking past, but didn't.

Back in the central pit area, Team Blu—except for Smoky—sat in lawn chairs underneath the awning of Smoky's Gulf Stream. A stack of fresh tires, a floor jack, a generator, and Jimmy's giant toolbox on wheels sat beside the blue Super Stock.

“All we need is a barbecue kettle and some weenies, and we'd be back to Flintstone Speedway—where you came from,” Harlan said as Trace approached.