Drag-Strip Racer
Authors: Matt Christopher
Sports Stories
The Lucky Baseball Bat
Baseball Pals
Basketball Sparkplug
Little Lefty
Touchdown for Tommy
Break for the Basket
Baseball Flyhawk
Catcher with a Glass Arm
The Counterfeit Tackle
Miracle at the Plate
The Year Mom Won the Pennant
The Basket Counts
Catch That Pass!
Shortstop from Tokyo
Jackrabbit Goalie
The Fox Steals Home
Johnny Long Legs
Look Who’s Playing First Base
Tough to Tackle The Kid Who Only Hit Homers
Face-Off
Mystery Coach
Ice Magic
No Arm in Left Field
Jinx Glove
Front Court Hex
The Team That Stopped Moving
Glue Fingers
The Pigeon with the Tennis Elbow
The Submarine Pitch
Power Play
Football Fugitive
Johnny No Hit
Soccer Halfback
Diamond Champs
Dirt Bike Racer
The Twenty-One-Mile Swim
The Dog That Stole Football Plays
Run, Billy, Run
Wild Pitch
Tight End
Drag-Strip Racer
Animal Stories
Desperate Search
Stranded
Earthquake
Devil Pony
COPYRIGHT
© 1982
BY MATTHEW F. CHRISTOPHER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING
INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE
BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.
Hachette Book Group
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New York, NY 10017
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First eBook Edition: December 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-09553-2
Contents
To Carl, Bruce, and Bradley
T
HE EARLY MORNING
silence was heavy II in the Ford pickup as it traveled at a steady forty-five-mile-per-hour clip on Route 60 to Candlewyck
Speedway. The stillness was broken only by the rhythmic sound of the motor and the
thump-thump
of the tires crossing the tarpatched stripes on the highway.
Behind the wheel, sixteen-year-old Ken Oberlin glanced at his sister, Janet, sitting beside him. “Excited?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad,” he said. “You and Lori are the only ones on my side. Neither Mom or Dad is keen about my drag racing. But Uncle
Louis left Li’l Red to me, so what am I supposed to do? Toss her on a junk pile?”
Janet looked at him, her coffee-brown eyes
shining. “Well, they
did
let you drive it in auto-crosses,” she said. At fourteen she had taken an interest in cars herself, although she still had
two years to go before she could get a driver’s license.
“Yes, and I’m glad I did,” he told her. “But autocrosses are mainly for precision and skill. I think I learned a lot, but
what I’m interested in now is speed. Boy, I wish Uncle Louis hadn’t died. I mean, if he was just around to give me a little
advice now and then.”
Uncle Louis was his father’s brother, a drag-strip freak from his teenage years to the day he passed away of a heart attack
at age fifty-nine.
Ken thought back to the times his uncle had taken him for rides in Li’l Red, times he’d seen her blazing down the 1320-foot
asphalt strip to more victories than he could remember. They were glorious memories.
“What does Dana think about it?” Janet asked.
“I don’t care what he thinks,” Ken said stiffly. “He’s got his motorcycle, I’ve got my car.”
He’d never forget the cold stare his brother had given him when the words of Uncle Louis’s will were read by his attorney:
I bequeath my racer, Li’l Red, to my nephew Kenneth, who I hope will enjoy racing it with all the pleasure that it has given
me.
Sometimes he wondered if Dana was really a member of their family. The guy had left school a month before he was supposed
to graduate, telling the family he was positive he wouldn’t pass the final exams anyway. Now he worked part time at Nick Evans’s
pool parlor, and from the money he earned had managed to buy himself a Kawasaki motorcycle.
“How much farther do we have to go?” Janet asked, as she looked down the gleaming white road. It was flanked on either side
by brush and pasture fields. A couple of dozen cattle grazed monotonously.
“About two, maybe three miles,” Ken said.
Minutes later they could see the towering sign in the distance: Candlewyck Speedway. Soon Ken changed to the right-turn-only
lane, reached the intersection, and turned through an open gate. He paused at the ticket office, showed his pre-entry card
to a red-haired woman working there, drove through another gate, and turned left toward the technical inspection station.
He showed the card again to one of three guys in white coveralls with “Inspector” labels sewn on the left sides of their chests.
Then he got out of the pickup, unlocked the chain securing the racer, lowered the ramp, and drove the red Chevy off
the trailer and onto a weighing scale. He emerged from it to permit the men to continue their inspection of the car’s height,
engine size, tires, and carburetor. The men made check marks on their tablets, then—about fifteen minutes later—stepped back
and told Ken he was set to run. Over a walkie-talkie one of the men informed the timing tower that “a red 1975 Chevy owned
and driven by Ken Oberlin has passed inspection and is coming in for its trial runs.”
“Is it necessary to go through this full inspection every day?” Ken asked the man.
“No. There’ll be just a quick check once a week after this, unless you don’t show up for two or three weeks,” the tech man
told him, smiling.
“Thanks.”
Ken drove the Chevy back on the trailer, then drove the trailer to the pit stop, a long vacant lot facing the track, and saw
an ambulance along with three other trucks and trailers there. The owners of the trucks and trailers were on the lanes, trial-running
their cars.
Ken felt a rush of excitement as he parked, shut off the engine, and watched the trial runs. The three cars present were an
orange Omni, a yellow Vega, and a blue Camaro, each emblazoned on the side with the driver’s name and the commercial
outfit sponsoring him. Having a commercial company behind you wasn’t necessary, but it helped when it came to paying for
supplies and repairs. Ken, aware of the tightness of money in his household, hoped to find a sponsor soon.
“You going to sit here all day?” Janet said suddenly, glancing casually at him.
Ken looked at her and smiled. He got out, walked back to the trailer, and lowered the ramp againto drive Li’l Red off.
Soon he was back inside the two-door Chevy that was powered by a 1970, 396-horsepower big block engine Uncle Louis had installed
himself. He started the car, backed it up, and let it idle while he climbed out to take his firesuit, helmet, and gloves from
a duffel bag and put them on.
He glanced up at the top windows of the dome-shaped tower building and thought he saw one of the track co-owners—either Buck
Morrison or Jay Wells—looking out at him.
A moment later a voice boomed over a loudspeaker: “Ken Oberlin, drive around the timing tower and get ready to run against
the Camaro. Take number one lane, please. You have three trial runs. Your best time will be used to determine your run for
this afternoon’s Eliminator contest.”
Ken acknowledged the order by raising a hand; then he drove around the tower toward lane one and stopped as a crewman standing
on the lanes behind the two cars that were ready to run raised his hand. A moment later the blue Camaro drove up and stopped
beside him, ready to get on lane two.
Ken glanced at the driver—Bill Robbins, according to the name blazing in white across the door. Robbins turned to him and
raised a thumb, and Ken acknowledged the sign by raising his.
He knew very few drivers personally. He had trial-run his car only twice before to get the feel of its power and performance.
This morning was the first time he was going to trial-run it to qualify for drag racing. It was going to be the Big Event
for him, the start of something great. Maybe.
Yeah, maybe, he told himself. Even Uncle Louis had never won the Winternationals, the Gatornationals, or any other national
event. But he’d been close to it a dozen times. And he’d made a name for himself in the world of Pro Stock racing.
They got the signal to move ahead. Ken moved the gear lever, jammed his foot on the gas pedal, and felt the slicks take a
solid grip of the rosin-topped asphalt as the car shot forward. Then he
slammed on the brakes, paused a moment, and repeated the procedure. Satisfied that the tires were doing their job, he drove
up to the staging lane and braked when the top yellow light of the “Christmas tree,” about twenty feet down the course, flashed
on.
It was hot inside the car. Sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes, blurring his vision. He lifted the plastic shield
of his helmet and wiped his eyes with the tip of his gloved finger, then waited for the staged lights of the Christmas tree
to be activated.
Suddenly they were, and he glued his attention on them; every muscle in his body responded with tension as, one by one, the
amber lights turned on. Only two and a half seconds elapsed from the time the lights turned on till the green starting light
activated. Take off too soon and a red light flashed, indicating a foul start and an automatic loss. Take off too late and
you might as well forget it. Most races were won or lost at the starting line, so it paid to concentrate one hundred percent
on the lights.
There! The last amber light went on, then the green—and Ken jammed on the gas pedal. He felt his body thrust back against
the seat as the car sprang forward, the front end tilting up on its
frame for a second or two, then settling back down. All of her 396 horsepower responded as a unit. Ken’s hand on the five-speed
stick shift was white-knuckled and trembled under the severe strain of the screaming transmission. He braced his teeth as
he felt his skin draw back against his jaw. He shifted into the next gear, the 4¾-inch travel from one gear to the next feeling
liquid smooth.
The car blazed down the track, engine roaring. The best Ken had done so far in Li’l Red was 12.08 at 112.67 miles per hour.
He was sure the car could do better. She had the power harnessed inside that metal body. Uncle Louis had learned to use it
to her upper limits. I should, too, Ken told himself.
He reached the end of the quarter-mile run and stepped on the brakes. The car slowed briefly, then something seemed to spring
loose and the car continued its swift speed down the lane.
Stunned and gripped with fear, Ken kept pumping the brake pedal. But the brakes still didn’t respond. Oh, no, he thought,
what happened to the brakes?
Then he felt the car pull to the right. It was traveling so fast he was off the lane before he knew it. He had a blurred glimpse
of the Camaro
beside him, and, in an effort to avoid a collision with it, he swung the wheel to the left. The momentum of the car’s speed
carried him across the lane toward the guardrail. He turned the wheel to the right to avoid hitting it, but struck it with
the side of his left front fender. At the same time he felt a jarring pain in his left foot, which he had braced against the
floorboard.
He veered back onto the asphalt and headed toward the metal fence in the distance, shoving the shift lever into lower speeds
now to slow the car down. Some fifty feet from the fence he made a U-turn and brought the vehicle to a stop, nose pointing
toward the pit stops.
He yanked off his helmet, gripped the wheel, and shut his eyes in angry despair.
“What happened?” he cried aloud. “What could have happened?”
He felt the pain in his left ankle again, and wondered if it were sprained or broken. He probably would have to have it x-rayed
to make sure. What lousy luck.
He heard a siren screaming in the distance, drawing nearer by the second.