The Driver (14 page)

TUESDAY, APRIL
22, 2003
I
-10
EASTBOUND—VICINITY OF MOBILE, ALABAMA
720
MILES TO FINISH LINE GUMBALL +
5

“Alex, man, I'm really glad you came out last night. I love New Orleans, and you needed to unwind. What happened with you and that girl?”

“Dave,” I said, using his first name for the first time since the start, in an effort to convey the gravity of the prior night's events, “her dad's a district attorney. It's best if we just don't talk about it. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure she's over twenty-two.”

“That's the part of Gumball no one warns you about. Just make sure my girlfriend doesn't hear about it, or she'll think I was involved.”

I
-10
EASTBOUND—VICINITY OF PENSACOLA, FLORIDA
ESCAMBIA BAY CAUSEWAY
665
MILES TO FINISH LINE

135

I was glad to have Maher drive. He was 5 percent faster than I was, even at my best. He'd done slightly less than half the driving—I should have given him more.

“Nice one back there”—Maher chuckled—“hitting One-Arm Wes with the Polizei Blue Light Special. You got that on video?”

“The whole thing. I can't believe how many Gumballers have fallen for
that
one, especially in the daytime.”

“Dude,” said Maher, “look.”

There it was—the tall black shape of a truck, antennas raked back.

“Look, Alex, it's your favorite Avalanche.” It
was
Rawlings, and we were about to pass him.

Rawlings lowered his window, his hair whipping in the wind, bared his teeth in a huge grin, and gave us the international hand signal for “Rock On.”

How did we catch up with him?
We'd left the New Orleans checkpoint midpack. Rawlings had been up front.

I thought back to the Tucson–to–White Sands run.

If Rawlings wanted to be first to every checkpoint, and would do whatever it took—within reason—to do it fair and square, and if Collins was with him the whole time, maybe there
was
one other way they could've beaten us to White Sands.

Maybe Rawlings
wasn't
leaving early. Maybe Rawlings was employing
every
single strategy I'd thought of, but with greater discipline and focus. He was leaving at precisely 9
A.M
. in first place. He and Collins—
Lone Wolves
paired, cooperating over and discussing navigation, scanner, and CB traffic—weren't pushing past 150 mph as often as we had. They were cruising at 120, conserving fuel, because
that
was the sweet spot of fuel economy vs. time and distance elapsed.

I'd ignored my fuel tables, running with Kenworthy at 150 at nine miles per gallon.

Rawlings had been approximately 25 minutes ahead of us into White Sands—almost
precisely
the length of time we'd spent getting out of Tucson because of our GPS failure and additional fuel stop(s).

And now we'd caught up with him.

Rawlings had left New Orleans approximately 15 minutes ahead of us. We'd inadvertently caught up
only
because Maher had driven a consistent 130 mph, which—although more fuel efficient than 140, was worse than their 120—meant we were going to fall behind them again.

“Maher, Collins is right up ahead.”

“Don't say it. Let's run with these two until we need gas.”

“That's
exactly
what I was going to say.”

120

“Maher, just make sure we pass both of them before we refuel.”

“Why?”

“Just do it when we're beyond their visual range.”

Once we disappeared, if Rawlings thought there was even a
chance
we might beat him to the Ocala Hooters—the 2003 Gumball's penultimate checkpoint—he might push harder, make a mistake, waste gas, get pulled over…
anything
.

I
-10
EASTBOUND—VICINITY OF WESTVILLE, FLORIDA
UNKNOWN GAS STATION
570
MILES TO FINISH LINE

“The world's fastest refuel,” I said, “starts in…ten seconds. I just hope Rawlings and Collins didn't see us pull off for gas.”

We stopped, jumped out, and Maher ran to the bathroom. Rawlings and Collins pulled in right next to the M5. I waved and looked at the pump.

Maher waltzed back, took out his camcorder, and walked over to the Avalanche.

“How ya doin'?” he said to Rawlings.

“Ahriiiiiggggght! How 'bout you boys?”

“Just fine,” said Maher, walking over to Collins. “How you doing?”

“Real good,” said Collins, uninterested.

Amazingly, inexplicably, catastrophically, all three of our pumps finished almost simultaneously. Rawlings and Collins pulled out to the edge of the road, then stopped.

“Dude,” said Maher, “they want you to go first.”

“Duh, they want us as bait. Haven't you been listening to the scanner? Every cop in the panhandle is looking for us after that 180 mph shit we just pulled.”

“Maybe we should take side roads.”

“I'll pull out and take it slow, it'll drive them nuts.”

75

Then the CB squawked and everything changed.

“Hey, Polizei,”
said Collins,
“got your ears on?”

Maher took the handset.
“Ten-four, Dennis.”

“Hey, Richard?”

“That's aaa Teeeeeeeeen-four!”

“Hey, Polizei, you got your fancy scanner up?”

“Sure do!”
said Maher.

“And we got ours!”
said Rawlings.

“Hey, Polizei, we've got the same as yours…let's see if we're picking up the same stuff.”

“Pol-eez-eye,”
said Rawlings,
“what say we all take it easy until we're clear of these coppers, then we'll hammer down!”

“Ten-four!”
said Maher, smiling as he peered ahead for radar traps.

I smiled my happiest smile of the week, and for the next 200 miles we ran with Rawlings and Collins.

We'd joined the world's fastest Wolf Pack, that is, until we got to the Ocala Hooters checkpoint, stepped inside for my favorite cheesesteak, and snapped pictures of the waitresses in their tight orange short shorts. I went to look for our new convoy partners, stopped to watch Kenworthy paint rubber donuts in the parking lot, but Rawlings and Collins were gone.

MANDARIN ORIENTAL HOTEL, MIAMI BEACH
GUMBALL FINISH-LINE PARTY

I waded through a sea of grins, outstretched hands, Gumballers' wives, children
and
even several rally girlfriends who'd made it more than one checkpoint past where their relationships had begun.

Rings of wide black rubber stained the hotel driveway.

I walked out and stood at the center of the circular driveway, surrounded by cars, red, yellow, and orange paint dusted, dulled, and in the darkness nearly indistinguishable from those black and gray, some with Gumball stickers and car numbers partially torn away.

A second police car slid past, its headlights briefly illuminating my M5. Battered. Dented. Filthy. Beautiful.

On the other side of the circle, looming high over the Lamborghinis and Ferraris, sat Rawlings's black Avalanche, as proud and mysterious as its driver.

I
had
come to race, but I had a lot to learn. But I'd run with Kenworthy. I'd run with Rawlings. It was time to face them. We had a lot to talk about. I turned back inside. Girls' laughter cascaded down from the Mandarin Oriental's penthouse deck.

 

The
private
private private after-party in the Mandarin Oriental's Penthouse Presidential Suite was hosted by Arthur Chirkinian—owner of the Koenigsegg and its 164 mph X5 support car—who, with telepathic wisdom, had invited nearly every Gumballer I longed to talk to.

I had a long discussion with the Koenigsegg's backup crew that had so tormented us in their X5. “One more question,” I said quietly so as not to upset Arthur, standing nearby, “but what really happened to the Koenigsegg?”

“It's no secret, mate. Among other things, the clutch went bad into Las Vegas, but Sunday morning VW parts was closed, so he bought a VW Golf, put
that
clutch in the Koenigsegg, then threw the keys back at the dealer.”

“Wow,” I said. That was an amazing story, even for Gumball.

“There's more, you see, because
that
clutch failed as well, so he had these blokes from Jeff 's Auto Repair in Vegas follow him cross country with more parts, and it's a good thing they did because—”

“Hang on,” I said. “Did they have to pay them hourly…all the way…
here
?”

“I really couldn't say, but the car's not actually here yet because of another—”

“Excuse me, Alex?” came the voice of a large man behind me—hopefully not a driver I'd cut off.

“Yes?” I turned.

Rob and Mike—Eyhab's high-speed logistics and support crew—towered over me.

“Alex,” Mike said without any emotion, “we just wanted to thank you, in person, before it was too late.”

“You're welcome, but…what are you thanking me for?”

“For treating us the same, after you met Rob in San Francisco, after you found out the Lambo and the Spyder weren't ours.”

Rob nodded in agreement. “Very cool, mate.”

“That's it,” said Mike, “have a good night.” They each shook my hand, then walked away.

Maher approached. “What was that all about?”

“Good guys, just really good guys.”

“If you say so. How's your new New Orleans girlfriend?”

“Well”—I sighed—“she wants to fly here and drive back to New York with me.”

“And her dad's really a D.A.?”

“That's what she said.”

“That's either a really bad idea, or the best guy's daughter to have in the car if you're stopped for speeding. I hear South Carolina's really bad.”

“Maher, I swear…I
won't
be speeding back.”

“I hope you're leaving the Polizei stickers on the car.”

“I may never take them off. Any sign of our friend from Texas? Or Lonman?”

“Relax. Rawlings said he was coming, and Kenworthy's off doing his own thing.”

“His own thing?”

“I dunno, maybe he's not a party kinda guy.”

“All riiiiight!” the voice of Texas announced from the front door. “Anyone got a cold beer?” The white cowboy hat and I converged on the wet bar. Rawlings placed his Gumball Trophy—a metal bust of Burt Reynolds
also
in a cowboy hat—on the counter.

“Hey, Polizei! That was real nice running with you today.”

“Yeah, man, where's Collins? I wanted to thank him.”

“Awwww, Dennis is probably in bed already!”

“Rawlings, seriously, that was really cool of you and Dennis at RadioShack today.”

Somewhere in central Florida I'd accidentally kicked out and broken the M5's CB-radio power cable—making it impossible to remain useful to our wolf pack—but, amazingly, Rawlings and Collins had volunteered to pull over with us at a nearby RadioShack. Maher hid the M5 alongside the 550 and Avalanche while I ran inside.

“You check your tires, Mr. Pol-eez-eye?”

My heart froze. “What…” I paused, barely capable of speech.

“You should keep a better eye on your boy Dave! Doing donuts behind the Shack with them coppers out looking for us?”

I learned against the bar to maintain my balance.

“Polizei, didja know the three of us were doin' a buck-thirty past some sheriff 's wife mowing the lawn? She called him straight up, and that's what brought all that heat down on us!”

I laughed weakly. “I
thought
I heard that on the scanner.”

“You know, Alex, you're the only guy besides me and Dennis who came prepared. I mean, when I saw your car in SF I thought you might have more fancy gear than we did!”

“Rawlings, you should have seen my face when I got my first look inside your truck at the start line.”

Rawlings handed me a beer. “Here's to running hard! Gumball!”

“Gumball,” I said, clinking bottles. “You guys really kicked ass.”

“Me and my wife and Dennis just came here to have a good time, but it's really too bad more guys didn't wanna run with us, I mean really run.”

“What about Kenworthy and those guys? You don't think they came to run?”

“Sure they did,” said Rawlings. “Those boys are mighty quick. But if you wanna get anywhere fast, you gotta get out front before the slower boys start kicking up the beehive! It woulda been nice to see more of y'all run with me and Dennis. It's no fun running alone.”

“Well,” I said, looking at his bust on the counter, “that's why you got
that
.”

“
First
to nearly
every
checkpoint!” he yelled. “Me and Dennis mighta had a little competition if you'd spent a little more time driving than trying not to get arrested!”

He was right. Despite all my strategizing, once I was in the car I'd focused almost completely on what would happen if we were stopped.

It was time for
the
question.

“Richard,” I said, leaning closer and using his first name for the first time, “have you ever raced cross-country? I mean flat out, no parties, no checkpoints, no stickers?”