The Great Race

As a younger driver, I'd had an interesting relationship with cars over the first few of my driving years - and you could argue that I'd actually had quite good luck with cars - while at the same time arguing that I'd had rather bad luck with them.

A couple of years after graduation, my best friend from High School and I were out together one afternoon running around in my car; my second car. My first car had been a 1965 Comet that had - literally - been driven into the ground by a distantly related "little old lady". My dad found out about it and together (well, mostly him to be strictly honest) rescued it. It had been in rather deplorable condition. The story of that car was that the husband and wife bought the car brand new in 1965. Two months later, he passed away (from what circumstance, I can't recall, but it was rather tragic). The widow was left with a basically new car. However, she was both a stay-at-home wife & mom, and relatively abhorred driving. So for the next 14 ½ years, she would, each week, drive the car a few blocks over to church, drive from church to the grocery store (a few blocks over and a different direction), and drive it back home and park it for the week. She NEVER did any maintenance on it. It was literally falling apart from basic neglect when my dad dragged it (literally) home. When we got it, it was no longer running since, only 2 of the four cylinders could still fire (for cylinder 4, the spark plug failed - by rotting apart to the point that the debris form the core of it literally fell into the cylinder; cylinder 2 had a sufficiently bad oil seal leak that the plug was fouled beyond the ability to spark) the paint was shot, there was visible body rust-through in several spots of the undercarriage, and the interior was basically falling apart. Beyond those faults, the brakes were shot, the suspension/shocks were toast, and several other seals and electrical connections/bulbs were equally worn or failing.

Over the course of a few weeks Dad and I fixed it up (we avoided a complete engine overhaul because dad was able to pull the debris from the 4th cylinder with a cleverly improvised nozzle to his shopvac - Dad was quite clever that way) and we had it repainted...my choice was a bright signal yellow (I wanted everyone to see me coming, y'see, but I knew that Red was too much of a magnet to cops' eyes). We replaced the seat upholstery, and voila! My quickly-marginally-famous beautiful "Banana Car" was soon on the road again and cruising the streets around my High School. ...if only somewhat briefly. A few short months after getting her all sorted out and refurbed, she was killed in rather gruesome fashion due to another young woman driver's failure to handle her mom's 1968 chevy station wagon on wet roads. She pulled out onto Route 422, a 4-lane by-way/business route, and tried to turn (towards me) into traffic - but she floored it and spun the wheels on the wet pavement (it had recently stopped raining), getting no traction...but creeping slowly out into traffic in front of me - where I was coming down a hill at 40Mph in the passing lane with a car I'd just passed in my passenger side blind spot - too close for me to move right into the non-passing lane without hitting him. I had no choice but to slam on the brakes and watch in horror as my Banana Car slid headlong into her driver's side just behind her driver's door pillar (I was silently praying for her front driver-side door to clear my lane before I hit her, and she fortunately gathered just enough speed and momentum to barely do that). It was a violent accident that we both fortunately walked away from, shaken and stirred, but alive and largely unhurt (I broke my steering wheel with my FACE though - that hurt a bit for a while).

I did learn that day, a great deal about the laws of physics as they relate to the motion of objects and conservation of momentum as I was vigorously and variously bounced around inside the cabin of the Banana Car at impact despite having severely braced myself for it beforehand (that model year of car predated the requirement for seatbelts and was not equipped with any). After the accident, I overheard the guy driving the car I'd just passed to my right explaining the accident to a police officer taking his statement immediately afterwards saying "The poor kid had no chance - she pulled out in front of him and got no traction spinning her tires like that - he was close enough that he'd have hit me for sure if he came over to try and avoid her. Thank God he knew it and didn't or he'd have put me into the parked cars along the roadside. He reacted as fast as anyone could, braking hard, and just had to ride it out. He was in a no-win situation." So that was the end of my first car, my dear, beloved first car, the Banana Car.

So Dad and I went shopping for the Banana Car's replacement a few short days later. At that time, we found the best available deal to be a silver 1978 Fiat 128 4-door sedan with a 5-speed manual transmission (the Comet had been an automatic) and a comparatively teeny but somewhat spirited 1.3 liter Italian racing-inspired engine design. So, I now quickly had to learn to drive a stick. I managed to do this in fairly swift order, and was soon tooling around in my second used car. Graduation came and went, and a few years later, I still had the Fiat.

However, during that time, I learned all too well why Fiats had well earned their moniker as "Fix It Again, Tony"s. I swear, had I had that danged thing in the garage (and yes, my mechanic's name actually WAS Tony, too) every 2nd or 3rd week for one thing or another, and yup, it left me sitting on more than one occasion too. To be fair, some of that was due to healthy doses of "teenage stupid" on my part - like being unable to start it after taking my best girl to the drive-in movie theater - in order to run the radio I had to leave the car's key in the "on" position, as it had no "accessories" position. Result? One burned out ignition coil..."That'll be $73.28, young fella." (I grumble while I write out the check and hand it to him as he hands me back my keys) "Thanks again, Tony." (I think I bought that man a yacht in those years! ...well ok, a very small yacht.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, My friend Ross and I were out driving in my Fiat one sunny spring afternoon about 2 years after High School. As we were meandering around the area roads near our home turf and were on another section of that same Route 422, and as we were approaching a stop light, Ross said, "That looks like Jeff's van." While pointing to the van already stopped at the light in the passing lane ahead of us. Jeff was one of our friends and graduated in our same class in High School. He'd gotten married soon after graduating, and we'd been over to their apartment in nearby Reading, PA several times for...uh, gatherings...where I'll admit to nothing. Nothing at all! Y'hear!?

So, we pulled up into the stop line at the light in the vacant lane to the right of the van, and sure enough, Jeff's wife was in the passenger seat of their van, and Jeff was driving. This was all slightly odd in several respects. First, it was mid-afternoon, and neither of them nor was either of us at work that day. There was, also atypically, very little traffic on this section of 422 for that time of day on a weekday. The Universe, it seems, had set the stage for what was to follow - the event I will forever remember fondly as The Great Race.

So, I sat there, recognized Jeff's wife, as did Ross, so I beeped my horn and rolled down my window. She turned and smiled at me in recognition, and seeing me roll down my window, she hit the button to lower hers and said "Hi!". I asked her "What are you two doing out here this time of day on a workday?" She laughed and said "Oh just grocery shopping." as Jeff leaned forward to see who she was talking to. Seeing me and then Ross, he smiled in recognition. That's the precise moment when evil inspiration stuck me. You have to picture the scene. I'm in a 1.3Liter little Italian sedan, and Jeff was driving a custom Chevy Van with like a 6.0liter V8 engine - and since Jeff was already a mechanic for a living, it was in the finest of mechanical condition. We were stopped at a red light on a 4-lane highway were we just coincidentally happened to arrive together on a road where there was unusually, virtually no other traffic with us nor ahead of us for a good distance. I think that what came next was just destined to be.

As soon as Jeff smiled at me, I smiled right back, and with my clutch pedal down, I revved my little 1.3 liter engine up dramatically.

NNNinnnninnin nnnninininininin! NNNinnnninnin nnnninininininin!

Jeff immediately took up the implicit challenge, revving his MUCH beefier engine.

VUHEROOOOMMMMMmmmmm... VUHEROOOOMMMMMmmmmm!

I was clearly outgunned and outclassed instantly, by sound alone, but I foolhardily answered him with another comparatively tinny

NNNinnnninninnnnninininininin! NNNinnnninninnnnninininininin!.

Ross exclaimed beside me: "No! NO way, you're not even..."

I said "Oh Yeah!"

Jeff answered with "It's On!" and before his wife quite grokked what was to happen.

The Race was ON.

The light was still red, Jeff's wife figured it out, and said "Oh, my".

I smiled as I watched the light. I planned to cheat, as I revved up my RPMs prior to the green start light for "The Race", so I could let the clutch fly and burn the inch or two of rubber I was at most capable of in that 1.3 liter Fiat (Jeff could nearly peel his tires bald under max power with that engine by comparison).

The light changed to green.

Jeff stomped it the same instant I left the clutch pedal fly up, his engine giving a mighty roar as my little engine's NNNiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnn! echoed in response.

My clutch grabbed, my wheels chirped free of the blacktop and I rocketed through the intersection. Jeff's engine's mighty throb of roaring power instantly faded to silence as his van budged only briefly from its resting stop, and a great gout of smoke bellowed from his tires, at first, and then from under the front of the van. He never even got his rear wheels over the stop line.

Ross erupted in hysterical laughter as we left Jeff and his wife in the rear view mirror. I made my first and second shift up in gear and was quickly to the speed limit - and a tad beyond, perhaps. Ross turned and looked back as I checked my mirrors, both of us seeing the large amount of smoke bellow and begin to drift away from Jeff's van.

"Wait, I think something went bad wrong with Jeff's van.", Said Ross.

I backed off the gas and said only "Yup."

I made a u-turn and went back and u-turned again (I did say that there was an atypical lack of traffic on 422 at that time already, right?) to pull back up next to their Van.

As I asked "Problem?" out my window, Ross and I both heard Jeff's wife now screaming at him for destroying their van and heard her ask "How much is this going to cost us!? How are we going to get the groceries home? We have frozen stuff in those bags!" Jeff had his head in his hands slowly shaking his head saying softly "shit...shit...shitshitshit!"

Before I could stop myself, everyone heard me exclaim "WooHoo!! I Won!" and Ross laughed. Jeff picked his head up and glared at me for a beat before he too laughed at my antics as I danced a victory jig in my seat beside his van, smiling back at him. We all knew just how ridiculous a claim it was, and what a complete farce "The Great Race" was to begin with, but the results were a clear win - by me!

Then I dropped into problem-solving mode and asked him, "OK, Jeff, is it engine or transmission?"

"Engine." He responded.

"So, you should be able to put it in neutral and back it up to the shoulder back there a bit, right?"

"Yeah." He responded. As his wife glared bullets at him.

"Ok, do that, and I'll slide back too. We'll transfer your groceries into my car and I'll take your wife and the groceries home while you figure something out about the van. Ross can either stay with you or come with, and we'll come back for you."

"You won't need to come back - I'll call my dad and he'll come with a tow bar and take me back to the garage at his house and we'll start figuring out what I blew out here, but I think I threw a rod at the very least."

I smiled back at him and chanted "I Wo-on! I Wo-on!" laughing.

Jeff smiled at me and conceded, saying "asshole."

His wife took up for my side saying, "No! YOU'RE the asshole!"

So, I had their groceries in my trunk, and in the back seat was Jeff's wife who was simultaneously furious, amused, and thankful that Jeff's friends were real enough friends not to leave them in the lurch when vehicular disaster unexpectedly struck. The groceries and friend's wife made it home safely, and eventually, so did Jeff. The Great Race faded into legend...except that I never did let Jeff live down losing to my little NNinnnninninnn nninininininin! Fiat.