Chapter V: Part 5

For the next two minutes it seemed to Woody everything around became very quiet. The row of cars on the opposite side of the track looked as grim as gladiators about to enter an arena. Woody eyed the Black Tiger, and in that moment he hated her. She seemed both impersonal and cruel to him. A cricket started a shrill chirruping in the grass behind him, and he experienced a sudden flush of irritation at the sound. The sun beat down bright and merciless on the asphalt before him. The starter stood talking to two other men. He seemed cheerful and untroubled, and Woody conceived an enormous dislike of him. Why didn't he just drop his flag and get it over with? Why stand around there chewing the fat when everybody was sitting with his nerves on edge?

The loud-speaker blared suddenly. "One minute to go," the announcer said. "I'll count out the seconds. Fifty-five. Fifty. Forty-five...."

It's coming now, Woody said to himself. Just a few seconds more. He felt suddenly panicky, as if he were paralyzed and wouldn't be able to run to his car. Kurt Kreuger was still shredding a cigarette.

"Twenty-five. Twenty. Fifteen," said the announcer. Suddenly it was time. The big green flag in the starter's hand came down, and Woody found himself sprinting on wobbly knees over to the Black Tiger. He was hardly in the seat before a Jag beside him started with a roar and shot off down the track. He saw Tom Wisdom and Kurt Kreuger take off while he was still fumbling with his safety belt. Two more cars roared by, and at last he got the belt fastened. He switched on the ignition, pressed the starter button, let out the clutch, and roared away himself. His hands and arms were trembling violently. He wanted to be sick, and he could hardly see. He denounced himself as a fool for having ever got into the race. But there was no getting out of it now. He couldn't call into the pits. He couldn't get out of the car. He had to go on.

The first lap Woody did in a kind of nightmare. Turns appeared unexpectedly before him, and he took them, fighting down a rising panic. Cars roared by, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other, and he let them go. His only concern was to get around as many times as was necessary and then get out of the Black Tiger and leave it and never see it again.

Actually, in the first lap, he lost only two places. In the starting line-up he had been sixth. At the end of the first lap, he was eighth. He caught a glimpse of Worm as he passed by the start-finish line after the first lap. Worm was holding up a blackboard with the figure 8 upon it. Woody was surprised. He had been sure more cars than that were ahead of him. The news served to steady him a little. He pushed down on the accelerator and concentrated on a Mercedes ahead. It was green and had a big twelve on the back. He could scarcely see the top of the driver's helmet, and he did not know who he was. But he decided he would try to pass.

The distance between the two cars diminished slightly. Woody pressed the accelerator down farther. The Black Tiger's note changed to a piercing scream. Woody could feel the car pick up speed, and the Mercedes seemed to be drawn toward him. Then he saw the tail light flash red and knew the driver was braking for a corner. Woody touched his brakes also and in the same moment changed down.

Something inside of him said, "Now," and the voice sounded like Randy's. Woody stomped on the accelerator and pulled over to the right. He went by the Mercedes in a flash and found a sharp corner ahead. He braked again, changed down to second, and hit the accelerator once more. The rear end of the Black Tiger slewed around as he turned the steering wheel. But she straightened out like a champion and was off down the straightaway in a second. In his rear-vision mirror Woody caught a glimpse of the Mercedes he had just passed. It was gaining on him. Ahead was a sharp hill, and he could not remember what was beyond. He left the car in second and accelerated. The Black Tiger roared, breasted the top of the hill, and there ahead were three cars in a huddle, braking for what must be a sharp bend.

On either side of the track, perhaps ten feet from the shoulder, were pine trees, with barricades of hay bales among them. There was no room to get through the cars ahead, and the Mercedes was now pressing on his tail. Woody braked and skittered around the corner on the heels of the three cars. Then he saw, just for a second, a gap in them. It was about a foot wider than the Black Tiger. No more.

"Here goes," Woody said to himself and opened the throttle. The effect was as if a jet engine had been added to the Black Tiger's power plant. She literally leaped through the gap. There was a slight bump, and he knew that he had touched the rear fender of one of the cars. But other than that he got away clear. The Mercedes that had been challenging him was left in the melee of cars he had just passed.

Ahead now the road was straight but ran over a series of hills. Woody recalled that stretch and knew that there was perhaps three-quarters of a mile of it with a series of S-bends, followed by a hairpin at the end.

"Give her the gun," the voice inside him said again. It was still Randy's voice. Woody opened the throttle, his foot pressed to the floor board, and the Black Tiger flung down the track. Woody looked at his speedometer. One hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty, one hundred and thirty. He saw a Jag ahead and flashed past so close he could, for a second, feel the warmth of the other's exhaust. He was doing a hundred and forty plus when he entered the S-bends and braked down.

On the first bend, the Black Tiger nearly turned over. She seemed to crouch over on her side, and Woody's foot slipped off the accelerator. But then she recovered, veered a little under his unsteady hands at the wheel, and shot off for the next bend. Woody decided to straighten that one out. He would cut the corners on it and take the risk that there might be a car ahead hidden from him. There wasn't a car ahead, but on the third of the S-bends, which lay just over the top of a hill, there was one right in the spot he was aiming at.

Without knowing quite why he did it, Woody changed down to third and, reacting instinctively, pulled the Black Tiger over and hit the gas. She went by the car--a Jag--in a cloud of dust.

Then came the hairpin. If Woody had not changed down on the last S-bend he would certainly never have made the corner. As it was he had to hit his brakes until all four wheels screamed their protest. But he managed to claw around the hairpin.

The next time he passed the start-finish line he saw Worm again for a brief flash holding up the blackboard. On it was a big figure 4.

For the next four laps Woody held his position, neither passing anybody nor being passed. But he became more familiar with the track. Bends no longer appeared unexpectedly before him. He found the reason why he had nearly turned over on the one S-bend before the hairpin. It was banked in the wrong direction so that the weight of a car cornering on it was thrown downhill.

This piece of knowledge tucked into his mind he determined to put to good use if he could get within passing distance of the Ferrari ahead. If he could get on the near side of the Ferrari on that S-bend, the driver would either have to let him by or run the risk of turning over in making the corner.

It took him two laps to get into position for the try. All the while he studied the driver's tactics. He belonged to the close-cornering school. He went into all his bends as near to the inside as he could, and only skidded away from that position when he was most of the way around. If he did that on the first S-bend, he wouldn't be able to do it on the second, for he would have skidded wide, Woody told himself. That would give him an opportunity to take over the inside position and pass.

The plan worked to perfection. The driver of the Ferrari took the first S tight in against the corner and went wide for the second. Woody saw his braking lights flash and a gap just big enough for him to get through on the inside of the track. It would be there for only a second. But Woody jammed his foot down hard on the accelerator and shot through. When he passed Worm again, the figure on the blackboard was 3.

Now a curious reaction set in. Woody had started the race in panic and had somehow fought that down, becoming too absorbed in the driving to think of anything else. But now he thought of Randy. In his two races, Randy had always done well until he got to second place. Then the Black Tiger had gone out of control.

His fears and distrust of the car, which had for a while left him, began to return, though he fought against them. He knew who was ahead--Kurt Kreuger in his Jag and Tom Wisdom in his Ferrari. They were the same two that Randy had been killed trying to pass. Woody's heart started to pound, and unconsciously he took his foot off the accelerator. The Black Tiger seemed to slump as if it had hit a patch of thick glue, there was a loud roar, and the Ferrari, which he had been at such pains to pass, buzzed by him. He was back to fourth place again.

A Mercedes and a Cad-Allard were coming up behind him. Only the fact that they had to slow down for the corner ahead prevented their passing him. Woody felt his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. The muscles of his legs seemed to go rigid, and he felt he had no control over his feet.

Somehow he got around the corner, and somehow he kept his foot down on the accelerator when he hit the straightaway, but his heart was not in it. He was afraid again, and this time he knew the fear was going to remain. He recalled how he had nearly turned over on the S-bend and how he had skidded broadside around one corner, and the spirit went out of him. The Jag passed him easily and so did the Mercedes, the driver flashing him a puzzled look as he went by.

Then Randy said something to him--or so it seemed. He said, "Relax. Lean back. You can't drive all crouched over the wheel." Woody leaned back against the seat. The feel of it on the back of his shoulders gave him comfort.

"You passed those boys before," said Randy's voice. "You can do it again. Try it on the S-bends. Go full bore and trust to luck. You're driving a better car than you think."

The S-bends were ahead, and the three cars were just entering them. Woody looked at his speedometer. A hundred and twenty-five. He wanted to brake, then change down, and take the bends more slowly. Instead, he pressed the accelerator and flung into the first bend as if it wasn't there.

He hardly saw the Mercedes as he went by, taking it on the outside. He was on the inside position on the second bend--the one that was banked the wrong way. The Jag ahead had flung wide and was trying hard to get into position. There was a sharp jolt as Woody streaked past it. But he didn't bother even to look in his rear-vision mirror. He was fourth again. There were three cars ahead, and he knew now that he could pass them. Or rather he knew that he wouldn't hold back from trying. He couldn't explain why it was that his panic had left. It was there in full force a few minutes ago, and now there was not a vestige of it. Instead he was leaning back against the seat. His hands and legs were steady. His brain was clear, and his emotions were under control. His only desire was to go faster and drive better.

"I think I'm going to make it, Randy," he said.

"Never doubted it for a moment," was the reply.

By the fifteenth lap Woody had won back to third position again. Kurt had pulled ahead of Tom Wisdom. Woody had a warm feeling for the two of them. He experienced a warm feeling, too, for the Black Tiger. The roar of her engine, which before had frightened him, now made his heart sing. He loved the way she handled and her enormous gallantry on corners.

He knew that she had it in her to win the race, and he was ashamed that he had penalized her with his own fears.

The last two laps were, for everybody, the most exciting of the race. On the straightaway approaching the hairpin, Woody drew wheel to wheel with Tom Wisdom who looked briefly at him and winked. But Tom wasn't giving anything. He hugged the corner tight--so tight that Woody had to follow him around, for it was too sharp to take wide. Woody drew ahead briefly approaching the right-angle bend after the start-finish line. But he was not sufficiently ahead to pull over and crowd Tom behind him. They took the corner wheel to wheel, but since Woody was on the outside, Tom was slightly ahead when they got around it. Woody had only one more chance to pass--on the S-bends where he had made most of his conquests. But Tom knew those S-bends even better than Woody did. He never gave the Black Tiger a chance. And when the checkered finish flag fluttered down before them, it was Kurt Kreuger first, Tom Wisdom second, and Woody Hartford third.

Rocky was first to greet him when he returned to the pit. "You were wonderful," she said. "Wonderful. Daddy always said you'd make a great driver." And she flung her arms around him and gave him a kiss.

Worm somehow got hold of Woody's hand and kept pumping it up and down.

"I knew what was happening, laddie," he said. "For my money, ye won the race."

When he got free of Rocky and Worm it was to find Mary Jane standing by the car. She didn't say anything. She just smiled and looked very proud.

18

That night a victory dinner was held at a hotel in Monterey where the dining room had been taken over for the occasion. Woody, Mary Jane, Worm, Rocky, Steve, and Woody's parents attended. It was something of a battle to get into the hotel, for all the drivers who had participated in the race were there. There were perhaps three hundred cars crowded into the parking lot and lining the adjoining streets. The city, in fact, became a racing center for the night, and radio and television men were covering the event in full force.

Tom Wisdom and Kurt Kreuger both grabbed hold of Woody as he entered the hotel lobby.

"You're coming with us," they said, and they dragged him off to a seat at the head table. The Mayor presided at the banquet, and there were officials of the state government and a number of sports-car organizations. Woody couldn't remember how many people he was introduced to by Tom Wisdom, who had taken him under his wing.

"You drove the finest race I've seen in a long time," Tom said. "Kurt and I are both agreed on that. Right before the start, to be honest, I didn't know whether you were going to make it. But you came through like a veteran. You had me plenty worried those last few laps."

"I had the willies all right," Woody confessed.

"Say, Kurt," said Tom. "What were you doing right before the race tearing up all those cigarettes?"

"Me?" said Kurt surprised. "I wasn't tearing up any cigarettes, was I?"

"You sure were."

"Well, if I was, I didn't know about it. But right before the start I'd made up my mind that this was the last race I was ever going to drive in. That's how I felt."

"How do you feel now?"

"Right now," said Kurt, "I think that was the silliest decision I ever made in my life."

The Mayor presented Kurt with the trophy for first place--a cup of such proportions that Worm said afterward it was big enough to boil a haggis in. When Kurt had accepted it and expressed his thanks, he paused for a minute, looked around the room, and said, "Most of you people here tonight are drivers or mechanics or fans who are interested in sports-car racing. It's a new sport in the United States, but it is rapidly developing to the point where it's becoming a national sport. Its long-range results will be better cars, with more safety features and better drivers.

"Some of you guys, like me, have been in the game a long time. We know that it isn't the winner who makes the race. It's all the other competitors who are in there trying to win and their mechanics who put in a lot of unpaid work fixing up their cars. It takes just as much guts to lose a race as it does to win one. What I'm trying to say is that it's the effort that matters and the courage that goes into it. Not the result.

"In this connection, I think there's one driver here tonight who is more entitled to this trophy than I. Before I mention his name, I'll tell you something about him. He's a pretty young guy, and he's been racing something less than a year.

"He didn't drive any well-known make of car. In fact, the car he drove had a hundred per cent accident record. It had been on the track only twice before. The first time its steering went out. The second time the brakes failed and the driver, Jimmy Randolph, was killed.

"Randy believed in that car, and a lot of us were asked to race it after his death. I was one of the people asked, and I refused. I refused because I didn't trust it, and I believed that it might crack up again. A lot of the rest of us turned the car down for the same reasons.

"But one guy didn't turn it down. He probably had the same doubts and fears to overcome that we had. But he had the guts to put them aside and drive the car anyway.

"He drove a magnificent race, despite his inexperience. And he brought a great new car to American tracks. It's hardly necessary for me now to identify either the car or the driver. But I will do so anyway. The car is the Black Tiger and the driver, Woody Hartford--"

If Kurt was going to say any more, he didn't get a chance for fully ten minutes. Cheer after cheer filled the banquet room, and Tom and another man on Woody's left picked him up and stood him upon a chair for everyone to see. Woody's legs were trembling again, but this time he didn't care.

When some order was finally restored, Kurt continued. "Just before this banquet," he said, "without Woody's knowing anything about it, some of the other drivers and I had a meeting with the track officials and those who donated this trophy. We all agreed that while I might have won it by being first, the guy who really deserves to get it is young Woody Hartford. So come right over here, Woody, and take this trophy, for it really belongs to you."

Woody got down shakily from the chair and took the trophy. He didn't know what to say, and for five minutes he didn't have to say anything for the cheering went on for that time. When finally there was enough silence for him to make himself heard, all he could get out was, "Gee. Thanks."

Kurt took the microphone back again. "I think Woody has a lot more to say than that," he said. "But right at the present time, his clutch is slipping. So we'll let him off. We know how he feels anyway.

"Just one more piece of news and then I'll sit down. Most of you older drivers remember a great racing driver who was a friend of Randy's in the old days. His name is William Orville Randolph McNess, commonly known as Worm.

"Those who knew Worm ten or fifteen years ago know that he's been fighting a private battle of his own. I won't go into the details. All I want to say is that between Randy, Woody, and the Black Tiger, Worm seems to have won that battle. At least I heard him cautiously inquiring the price of an XK140 Jag, and I'll be very surprised if at the next event, we don't have to contend with him as well as young Woody."

There was another outburst of cheering at this announcement and Worm's back was thoroughly pummeled to an impromptu chorus of "He's a Jolly Good Fellow."

When it was all over, Woody and Worm met outside beside the Black Tiger. Worm patted it affectionately.

"Tae think," he said, "that I called ye a man-killer."

"You should have called it a man-maker instead," said Mary Jane coming up out of the darkness.