Once Around the Track

by Sharyn McCrumb

  “I hear you,” said Tuggle. “But either you start trusting me to plan the race strategy or you can take all the blame when we lose.”

  “Can we see the film now?” asked Sigur. “I’d like to know how we looked out there.”

  The others nodded in agreement.

  Tuggle scowled. “Well, you weren’t the Magnificent Seven, I’ll tell you that. Roll the tape.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Crying Up the Backstretch

  “Badger has to do well in qualifying. At this track there’s almost no way to make your way to the front if you start too far back.”

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” said Taran.

  “You’ll do more than that,” said Julie Carmichael. “You’re going to help me make sure he does well.”

  “Why me?”

  Julie smiled. “Because you never go home. Everybody else went back to the hotel an hour ago, and here you are still in the garage area tapping away on your laptop. Jay Bird is back in Charlotte with strep throat, and Rosalind is off doing an interview from some German journalist about being an MIT grad working in NASCAR. I need help right now, and you are the only person available.”

  “Okay,” said Taran. “Help you how?”

  Julie dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “We’re going to soak the tires.”

  Taran blinked. “Are they dirty?”

  Julie groaned. “You’re almost as dumb as a wheel man, Taran. Don’t you know what tire-soaking is?”

  Taran shook her head. “No, but back at Atlanta that nice Mr. Baldwin in the next pit stall said that if I ever had any questions-”

  “No! Don’t mention this to a soul. Especially not to anybody outside this team.” Julie dropped her voice to a whisper again. “It’s not strictly legal.”

  The technical side of Team Vagenya had decided that the time had come for desperate measures. The race after Daytona had been at the California Speedway, a two-mile track, located in Fontana, California, about forty miles east of Los Angeles. They had not expected to do well at Fontana, and they hadn’t.

  As Tuggle explained to Team Vagenya’s owners, “The California Speedway is an easy drive. The banking is never more than fourteen degrees; the track is a simple oval with no trick turns, and the track surface is excellent.”

  “Well, that sounds good,” said Christine.

  “Good?” said Tuggle. “It’s a nightmare. For us, anyhow. It means all the drivers can perform well there, so Badger’s ability gains us nothing. Remember that races get won by fractions of a second, and this race will be won by one of the big teams with fancy engineering and super equipment.”

  “Not us?”

  “One of the Roush drivers,” said Tuggle. “Bet on it. And it’ll be a dull race, too,” she added.

  After the race, as they watched Jack Roush, aka the Man in the Hat, congratulating his winning driver in Victory Lane, one of the Team Vagenya owners was heard to remark that one might make more money betting Grace Tuggle’s predictions than they’d make actually owning a Cup car.

  The most memorable thing about Fontana as far as Taran was concerned was its proximity to Hollywood. Taran was stricken when she spotted the slinky blonde leaning against the 86, with her arms around Badger. “Who is that walking Badger to the car this time?” she asked indignantly.

  “Malibu Barbie,” said Reve.

  The next race-Las Vegas-wasn’t much better. One of the rookie drivers got loose on a turn and caused a wreck that triggered a chain of collisions, and the 86 car was damaged beyond repair. Badger sat out the last few dozen laps and finished thirty-eighth. Everybody was philosophical about that one. Wrecks happen. You just move on.

  With the two winter west-of-the-Mississippi races out of the way, the Cup teams returned to the Southeast, heartland of stock car racing, for the Golden Corral 500, a mid-March battle at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. A fast, banked track located only a hundred miles from Badger’s north Georgia hometown-everyone hoped that this would be the race that changed their luck.

  “After all,” said Taran, “Badger is a native Georgian. This will give the hometown crowd someone to root for.”

  “You mean, other than Bill Elliott?” said Kathy.

  Even Taran had to admit that Awesome Bill, the 1985 Cup champion, who had twice won the Daytona 500, would outrank Badger as the favorite son at Atlanta, but to the folks back home in Marengo and to Taran, he would always be in first place. At least in Cup racing, she amended. Whenever she managed to get away from her duties with the team, Taran had been going to the local speedways to watch Tony Lafon race in Late Model Stocks. He hadn’t won yet, but he seemed glad to have someone he knew to cheer him on, and someone to have dinner with after the race. She’d heard people at the track say that he was quite a talented wheel man, and Taran supposed that it was his driving experience that made him such an effective spotter for Badger in the Cup races.

  Badger had arranged to get team pit passes for a couple of people from Marengo, and he had asked Laraine to walk him to the car before the race. Even Taran approved of that. Laraine had stopped by to visit with the pit crew that morning, bringing a basket of muffins from the diner and wishing them all luck. Badger had come with her, looking more relaxed and happy than they had ever seen him on a speedway.

  “Well, she doesn’t look like a Barbie doll,” said Sigur. “Or like a driver’s wife.”

  “Once upon a time,” said Kathy. “Back before this sport was a glamourfest. My mom was a pretty lady, but she wasn’t a centerfold. Laraine puts me in mind of her.”

  “I think she looks fine,” said Jeanne. “To me she and Badger look like family. Same dark, sad eyes.”

  “I expect they are kin,” said Kathy. “Badger says that in Marengo every home football game is a family reunion. She is closer to his age than the beauty queen was, but she looks classy in that watery blue silk dress, and she really does seem to care about him. Not about the publicity and meeting movie stars, but just about him. She’s okay.”

  “Almost okay,” said a scowling Reve. “When she was passing around the muffins, I went up to Badger and told him how much we all liked her, and he said, ‘Yeah, she’s a good girl. Too bad she doesn’t look like a model’.”

  “And did you slug him?” asked Sigur.

  Reve shook her head. “Wouldn’t be a fair fight. I outweigh him. Besides, we need him to drive the car.”

  Badger had not qualified well at Atlanta. The team had drawn one of the last slots for qualifying, which meant that he went out on a hot track-generally not the way to nail a fast time. On the cool track not yet warmed up by the afternoon sun, earlier qualifiers were able to rack up higher speeds. So, lagging behind the leaders by only a few tenths of a second, Badger had started the Sunday race two-thirds of the way back in the pack-hardly an auspicious beginning, but winning was still possible, even from that far back. When the race began, Badger held his own, steadily working his way through the stream of cars until he was running tenth.

  It was still early in the race, but those in the pit crew who were new to the sport began to cheer loudly, and it was obvious that they were beginning to envision themselves in the televised jubilation of Victory Lane.

  “There’s many a slip between the lip and the Cup,” muttered Kathy Erwin, but no one paid her any mind.

  She was right, though. Nothing drastic happened, really. Badger was tapped in one minor incident, but thanks to the resulting caution, he did not even lose a lap. He never blew a tire or developed engine trouble. He simply struggled to hold his place in the slipstream, losing a fraction of a second with every succeeding lap. Every so often his unmistakable drawl would come on, telling Tuggle that the car was tight on the turns. Then they would wait for a caution so that they could use the pit stop to make adjustments. It didn’t help, though. He just kept losing ground, a fraction of a second at a time.

  It was one of those races that proceed without any particular drama, and unless you happen to end up in Vi
ctory Lane, it is not a memorable experience. They worked every pit stop they got to adjust the car so that it would handle better, but at best they were playing a game of catch-up, and in the end, everybody was relieved to see the race end, so that they could stop trying to fight the inevitable.

  “It wasn’t our fault this time,” said Sigur, as they watched the red and white car take the checkered flag.

  Kathy Erwin sighed. “Nobody cares whose fault it was. We all lost the race.”

  Badger’s Din

  The Lights Went out in Georgia

  FastDrawl: Well, folks, I had high hopes for our man Badger at AMS when he was running up front, but this was a battle with long odds. I make it 52 to 1. Forty-two other Cup drivers, plus the 86 team’s crew chief and pit crew all working to thwart Badger while he is trying his damnedest to win that race. That car handled like a cement mixer in a mudslide, and they never did get the setup right. It pained me to watch.

  Lady Badger: They’re getting better, though. At least he got up to tenth place, and he didn’t wreck. I wish they’d interview him on camera, though.

  Bonneville Bill: Hold the syrup, Lady Badger. Nobody wants to hear about Badger’s beautiful eyes. I heard him on the radio after the race. He said: “The car was just way too tight all night long. I got into someone during one of the incidents on the track and it knocked out the toe, and we had to make multiple stops to try and correct it, which cost us valuable time and track position. The Vagenya racing team worked hard all night to try and get the car dialed in, but it just never came. We were lucky that we were able to finish the race and finish as high as we did, especially at Atlanta.”

  Georgia Peach: Could somebody translate that, please? I’m a new fan.

  Mellivora: Dialed in means “correctly adjusted.” A dialed-in car is the ideal for racing. Toe refers to the direction in which the wheels are pointing. Toe out means it pulls to the right. Toe in means it pulls to the left. It’s an adjustment made on regular cars, too. Sometimes, one side is in or out, making the car just plain hard to drive. The team did their best, like Badger said, but when he got caught up in that little wreck, it knocked everything out of whack.

  FastDrawl: This isn’t NASCAR Tech, Mellivora! The new fish can look up that information and stop wasting our time. Hey-I’m car shopping, folks. Does anybody know what kind of car Badger drives-off the track, I mean?

  “Mellivora” typed in “A silver Chrysler Crossfire with a Georgia license plate that reads ‘Badger 1’.” But then she stared at the line for a moment, and pushed DELETE instead of SEND before logging off.

  Now they were in Bristol, on the heels of a meeting with the team owner, who had not been happy with Team Vagenya’s performance so far. After Atlanta, Tuggle had been summoned to the office of Christine Berenson for a discussion on the team’s progress, or lack thereof. Tuggle had been expecting to be called on the carpet. Because the owners were new to racing, and because they were corporate types, they thought that throwing twenty million dollars at a problem would provide instant results.

  “Surely after four races we ought to be doing better than this,” said Christine, in a plaintive voice belied by her stern expression.

  When she had entered the office, Tuggle had noticed that the framed posters on the reception room walls now showed pictures of the 86 car itself, rather than portrait shots of Badger in his firesuit.

  “New teams take a lot of adjusting,” said Tuggle. “There are a thousand things that can go wrong mechanically in every race. There’s team skills. Communication with the wheel man. Meshing styles.”

  Christine heard what she wanted to hear. “Are you unhappy with Badger’s performance?”

  “No,” said Tuggle, “he’s a natural. Maybe we have to push him a little bit on practices and appearances, but he’s a good man. He can’t win without good equipment and a precision pit crew, though. Nobody could have done better.”

  “Because if you are dissatisfied with his work, we can certainly explore other options,” said Christine. “Vagenya is quite disappointed that he did not go along with their kissing booth idea for the pharmaceutical conference. He needs to swallow his pride and be more cooperative.”

  “He’s a race car driver,” said Tuggle. “His pride is his roll cage-nothing makes a dent in it.”

  “He may have more pride than he can afford,” said Christine.

  “I wouldn’t trade his pride for all the diligence in the world,” said Tuggle. “He wants to win more than you do. He’ll try to put that car into openings you wouldn’t throw a tin can through, because he wants it so bad. Every time we don’t give him a good enough car, I feel like we let him down. But if you give him half a chance, he will win or die trying.”

  “Well, if his performance does not improve, we may take advice elsewhere on measures that might help.”

  The discussion had not been productive. Owner and crew chief had remained civil to each other, but there had been no meeting of the minds. Tuggle went back and told the team engineers that if they had any miracles lying around, now would be a good time to use one. Julie, Jay Bird, and Rosalind talked it over, and they decided that, with very little to lose, they might as well soak the tires and see if they could get the pole at Bristol, where winning from behind mostly didn’t happen. Meanwhile, they would try to come up with other gray-area technical refinements that might get past inspection.

  Julie held up a metal canister of the sort that might contain turpentine or floor refinisher.

  Taran frowned. “If it’s illegal, then how did you get it?”

  “I bought it at an auto store. Cost me fifty bucks a gallon, too. We should be able to do enough tires for the whole weekend with two gallons of this stuff.”

  “But if it’s not legal-”

  “Okay, it’s not illegal per se,” said Julie. “In go-cart racing you’re allowed to soak the tires. That’s why you can buy this stuff over the counter-as long as nobody finds out what you’re doing with it.”

  “But what does it do?”

  “Improves the tires’ grip on the track. Makes for better control. If Badger can adjust to the feel of it. Not all drivers can. Like everything else, tire-soaking has a downside. Basically the stuff eats the tires. They don’t last as long. But they’re good for qualifying on. Should improve his time by a few tenths of a second, if we’re lucky.”

  Taran blinked. “So…we’re going to paint this stuff on the tires-like nail polish?”

  “No, tire soak goes in from the inside out. We’re going to put it in the tires for qualifying.”

  “How long does the soaking process take?”

  “Couple of hours, I guess.”

  Taran shook her head. “Wait. That won’t work. NASCAR requires teams to buy a new set of tires from them to qualify on, right? And they don’t release that set until a few hours before qualifying. Usually there’s just enough time to bolt them on and get into the two-hour tech line. So let’s say that we get our qualifying tires about three to four hours before we get our turn to qualify. Then we’re not in the shop. We’re at the track with officials all over the place, so how are we going to soak tires without getting caught and ending up in big trouble?”

  Julie grinned. “I thought of that, so I asked around. We’re going to do what the big teams do.”

  Taran thought of asking which big teams she was referring to, but Julie probably wouldn’t tell her, anyhow. “Okay,” she said. “And what do the big teams do to keep from getting caught?”

  “What do we do after we get the qualifying tires from NASCAR?”

  “Well…we let the air out.”

  “Right. Goodyear mounts the tires with regular air, and after we get them, we deflate the tires and refill them with nitrogen, because tires run better on nitrogen than on plain air.”

  “Well, that’s not illegal… Is it?”

  “No, everybody does it. But some of them also do something else. They have a small, portable nitrogen tank at the track to refill the tires,
only that tank is halfful of tire soak. So as we refill the tires, we will be spraying soak inside the tire through the valve stem.”

  “What if you get caught?”

  “Just don’t let anybody from outside the team try to pick up the nitrogen pump. It’ll weigh so much that they’re bound to figure out that something is wrong.”

  “How did you know about this?”

  Julie shrugged. “My dad was a race car driver, remember? He never made it to the big time, but he was serious about it, and I learned all the tricks tagging along after him. Back when I was a kid, the tire guy used to rub soak on the surface of the tire with a glove attached to a tube going to a bag of soak under his armpit.” She sighed and fluffed her hair. “I’m glad those days are over. The nitrogen tank method is more reliable and less easily detected.”

  “And about a million times less gross,” muttered Taran. “Are we going to have to do this on race day, too?”

  “We can’t,” said Julie. “The thing about tire soak is that it deteriorates the tires. That’s how it works. It degrades the rubber so that the tire sticks a little better to the surface of the track. That’s fine for the two laps it takes for qualifying, but if you tried it in a three-hour race, the tires would disintegrate on the track. You could end up in the wall, or in a wreck, or just having to make green flag pit stops to replace them. But for a couple of qualifying laps here, that extra traction might be good for a couple of tenths of a second.”

  Taran nodded. She knew that sometimes three-tenths of a second was the difference between first place and fifteenth, so even the smallest advantage to gain the smallest unit of time mattered to a race team. She could see the advantage of that. “But what if they catch us?”

  Julie shrugged. “Slap on the wrist, more or less,” she said. “A fine. Whoever was caught doing the soaking gets booted from the track, maybe suspended for a few races. The trick is not to get caught, Taran.”

  “But it’s cheating.”

  “I prefer to call it creative engineering. Everybody does it, Taran. And even if they didn’t, it isn’t as if we are on a level playing field here competitively, is it? The well-funded multicar teams get to test all their cars at a track and pool their results. We only get one shot. What’s fair about that? Or say some car has a ten-million-dollar sponsor and one of the independent owner-driver guys has to take up a collection to buy enough tires to race. How can that be equal opportunity? Money buys speed. At least tire-soaking is relatively cheap.”