My Ride

Suiting up

This past Sunday I did something I have dreamed of for a long time.  Since the days when I watched stock cars race around a quarter mile dirt track at the local fairground I have dreamed of driving a race car.  Through the years I've watched NASCAR become one of America's greatest spectator sports.  Recently I bought a coupon via the internet for driving lessons from the NASCAR Driving Experience. I would take my lessons in Darlington Raceway, Darlington, SC.  I had heard many a stock car race broadcast from this track in my teenage years while working at a local filling station on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Darlington was the oldest of the "super speedways" and I was looking forward to driving on this one and one quarter mile asphalt oval.

Darlington Raceway is located near I-95 and easily accessible. We found the race track easily and followed the signs through the tunnel under the track to the infield. There was a car hauler and another van with a sign , "Check in Here".  I checked in with my signed disclaimer.  Honestly, if you get a cold while driving one of their race cars they aren't liable. It's all spelled out in the disclaimer. They issued me a bright red driving suit, told me to put it on and wait for my name to be called for the driver's meeting.  We walked over to the pit area where there was a tent set up and some folding chairs for spectators.  Claudette's interest waned and she parked herself and broke out her Nook.  I, on the other hand, was busy putting on my driving suit, looking at the race cars, and cultivating a "dirty old man" interest in a buxom young blond woman in extremely short shorts and cowboy boots. During this time race cars were coming and going. They sounded good.

The drivers meeting was held in a building about a hundred yards from the pits. We watched a video about what to expect; the do's and don't's while driving one of the race cars. Safety was emphasized a lot, and you were reminded that if you didn't follow the rules your race car would be stopped by way of a remote kill switch.  You would then be removed and banished from the premises. I knew safety was important, but I thought I was just going to drive a car at a high speed.  In my younger days I had driven my street cars to near 130 mph, so what was the big deal.  I guess I realized what kind of company I was in when the instructor asked, "How many people can't drive a four-speed manual transmission?"  A number of hands went up.  And none of them were girls! This meeting took about an hour with the instructor repeating that, "These are real race cars," several times.

Climbing aboard Tony Stewart's old ride.

Back in the pit area they stuck some earbuds into my ears, plugged them in to test them, and then taped them to my ears. The crewman stuffed a racing helmet down on my head, fastened it on, and put this foam collar around my neck. (I didn't know what that was for.) I was helped across the pit wall, it's about waist high, and to a waiting race car. Then, my minor difficulties began. Race cars have no doors. You must climb in through the window. I watch Johnson, Gordon, Junior and others do this every Sunday on TV.  But, they are much younger, thinner, and shorter. Size does make a difference! I could get everything in the Kyle Busch M & M's  Toyota Camry but my head, so I was extricated, pulled out.  They were real race cars with custom made seats positioned for a particular driver.   We waited for another car to be free.   I was happy to see that it was the number 14 Chevrolet of Tony Stewart. I knew that "Smoke" was a big boy, and this car might fit me better. I got in it with a struggle and knocking some skin off my hand. They strapped me in with a five point harness.  My torso was immovable but with some discomfort. My butt is considerably wider than Tony Stewart's.  I was wedged into the seat. Tony is 5'9" tall and I'm three inches taller and over forty pounds heavier.  Get the picture? Nevertheless, they plugged in my earbuds and put on the steering wheel. I gave it a tug to see that it was secure. I was asked to hold the clutch pedal to the floor as the pit crewman started the engine. He fastened up the window net, and I waited for my "expert driver's" voice in my ears. My "expert driver" is my spotter who will tell me what to do. And I thought they would tell me to get in the car and drive away. Dumb me. When you're in the race car you can't see anywhere but directly in front of you and a little out of the corner of your eyes.

My ride, or maybe I should say drive, began.
"Bring the engine up to two thousand and release the clutch."
"Ten-four"
"Come up to three thousand in each gear."
The shift pattern is tight and the gear changes are smooth. By the time I was at 3000 rpm in fourth gear I was beside the back stretch of the track.
"Pull out on the track and follow the white line."
"Roger"
"Let off the throttle."
I was going into the third turn.
"Stay away from the wall!"
Fourth turn.
"Gimme thirty eight hundred."
Front stretch.  Flagman's stand.
"Let off the throttle."
Turn one.
"Keep your left wheels on that white line."
Looks like a black line to me.
"Bring it up to forty-two hundred,"
Forty-one,forty-two...
Turn two
"Forty-five hundred."
The back stretch. That is where you can really fly. All the great drivers have driven here, this very track.

I continued for four laps.  Each time I increased my speed. I'd only bought a few laps.  They were expensive  for me. It would probably take fifty or more laps to get comfortable in the race car.  It is extremely responsive in acceleration and handling.  And, of course, it would help to have a car that fit your body. The NASCAR Racing Experience cars will probably reach 150 mph but current NASCAR cars being raced here reach speeds in excess of 190.



My time was up and I was told to enter pit road from the back stretch and test my brakes. The brake pedal went almost to the floor, but it slowed the car. On pit road a sign told me to put the gearshift into neutral and a crewman directed me where to stop.  As I stopped he dropped the window net, killed the engine, and began unstrapping me. I knocked more skin off my hand getting out of the car. They removed my helmet, and I got a breath of fresher air. The fumes inside the car have given me a headache.

Blood was dripping off my hand, but there was a smile on my face.

Additional Stuff

Darlington Raceway
Tony Stewart
Jimmie Johnson
Kyle Busch
NASCAR Racing Experience

"It'll stop anything short of an elephant!"

I was at my first gun and knife show Saturday. Why? Curiosity, I reckon. You see I'm a southerner. We grew up with guns. We learned to use and respect them at a very early age.  Daddy gave me my first shotgun when I was eight years old, so for me, taking a deep breath of air in the autumn without the smell of gunsmoke is like breathing at the beach without smelling salt air.

I have long had an interest in firearms.  The shear mechanics of a well designed and manufactured pistol or long gun is like a work of art. Since the Chinese invented gunpowder the design of firearms has been paramount to our evolving civilization. Perhaps no other invention has had a greater impact on life as we know it.

The Ladson Gun and Knife show allowed me the chance to reacquaint myself with guns. I was not prepared to see such a huge display of firepower. There were literally hundreds of guns as well as several hundred customers for the show and sales event. Guns were of all kinds: small handguns, hunting rifles, and assault style rifles. There were shotguns, too,  many with beautifully engraved pheasant and quail with some inlaid with gold.

I overheard fragments of conversations.

"How many shots does it hold?" a young professional-looking man asked.

"Six, and it'll stop anything short of an elephant."

A vendor held an ominous looking black shotgun and operated the action. "Hear that sound?" he said. "When they hear that they will usually run before you have a chance to shoot 'em!"

"It'll drop an elk at a thousand yards."

There were quite a few law enforcement people around, all of whom were armed. Some folks in plain clothes were carrying pistols on their belts as well. But the only confrontational comments I heard were those expressing the virtues of particular guns.  "A 1911 Colt 45 is much better than a Barretta nine millimeter!" "I'll take a Remington over a Winchester any day!" My oldest son carried a Baretta in Iraq, but as a petty officer in the Navy I had to use a .45 Colt.

There were some interesting antique guns from WWII and earlier, but the most common rifle on display was the assault-style rifle. A true assault rifle, which an American military combatant carries, is a fully automatic weapon.  It fires as long as you pull the trigger back. The assault-style rifles available to the public are semi-automatic; the trigger must be pulled for each shot.  Actually, hunting rifles are probably just as lethal and have greater range but don't have the large cartridge capacity.

I was quite surprised at the number of people buying guns. Why? Are we expecting an armed invasion? Are some planning an armed insurrection or another revolution? Is the second amendment to the Constitution in danger of being repealed? Perhaps they're just good old boys who like to collect guns? I'm reminded of a recent television interview in which rapper/actor L. L. Cool J. said that we had to have our guns in case of a tyrannical regime.

It was a good show, but I don't think I'll be back...something about that many people with all those guns just make me feel uneasy.

Zippo Flipside

I was looking through some of my old stuff the other day.  Old stuff is my term for collected memorabilia sometimes referred to by my significant other as "junk".  I found my cigarette lighter. I am no longer a smoker, but for more years than I would care to remember I did take a drag off a fag.(Does that language date me?)  Once I determined that there was an interval of about sevem minutes between each cigarette smoked. It seemed to fit my hand so well.  The shape of the aircraft carrier is worn but still visible on the lighter.   "U.S.S. Intrepid CVS-11" painted in color is readable.  The engraving job on the lid and back  isn't great; I did it myself in our shop. I was an electronics technician aboard the "Fighting I" and had access to a vibrating engraver we often used to mark tools with their owners' names.

I flipped it open with my thumb. It made that strong metallic click.  Then closed it. Zippos make a different clicking sound when opening and closing.  The Zippo cigarette lighter was first manufactured in 1936 and is considered by me as a modern engineering feat along with the P-51 can opener. But my Zippo was personalized by me when I  engraved my surname on the lighter as well as ports-of-call during the time the Intrepid was home for me. A few of them bring to mind interesting events.

Olongapo City, Philippine Islands, was the first foreign port I visited. It's usually referred to as a cesspool but is a sailors favorite.  You crossed a river from the naval base to an unpaved main street that consisted primarily of bars and brothels. Kind of explains it being a sailor's favorite doesn't it?  In many of these places I'm told that a Zippo provided a great light source   There was a place I remember where you could buy a baby duck and feed it to an aligator. This was recreated in the movie "The Intruder".

Hong Kong was an extraordinary port. I believe that you could buy anything in Hong Kong.  But if you wanted something like a Russian fighter plane it would probably take more than a few days to fill your request.  One of my favorite places on this island was Victoria Peak.  This is the highest point on the island, and after a tram ride you are treated of a panoramic view of the island. It is also where I found out how wind proof my Zippo was.  Zippo prides it self in its wind proof design, and indeed it is wind proof.  What they don't tell you is that the wind blows the flame into contact with your hand.  I'm sure the Chinese are still trying to translate the things I said when I burned my hands lighting a cigarette on Victoria Peak.

Rio de Janeiro in Brazil was a great place to visit, where I learned that a great steak can be had from a piece of moldy meat.  It gave me the opportunity to buy semi-precious gemstones and a dried piranha. A street vendor told me in broken English that he could get me a piranha fish and I followed him as he spoke in in  mixture of Portugese and English to a back street dilapidated building.

This warehouse that had all sorts of oddities for sale. There were skins of jungle cats and crocodiles but I remember specifically a snakeskin hanging from the ceiling over twenty feet long. "Anaconda,"my guide said. and I told him that a dried piranha would fit in my seabag better.  I bought it from a man missing a couple of fingers who held up his hand saying "Piranha! Piranha!". He wanted my lighter for payment but he settled for five cruzeiros.

Wellington, New Zealand, this was the first port where we had seen anti-war protesters. I met a retired sergeant major of the Royal New Zealand Army there who showed me around the city and kept me away from the anti-war demonstrators.  I lit my new friend's cigar with my Zippo as we enjoyed a pint under a sign proclaiming the pub as the place where Captain Cook had landed in the eighteenth century. As we left the pub he pointed out the large Maori man with traditional tattoos operating an earthmoving machine. "Those people have an uncanny skill with heavy machinery, God-given," he said.  Which god, I pondered, their's or ours?

The Raffles Hotel in Singapore was very cool, exuding British Colonial charm.  The television adventure series, "Bring 'em Back Alive", had scenes filmed at the Raffles. Probably one of the most fascinating things I saw there were the snake charmers.  Indians in turbans would carry their snakes in flat round covered baskets.  On a street corner or anywhere there was a crowd of people they would perform their act.  They had a variety of snakes that they would handle but the king cobra was the most fascinating--spellbinding even.  They rarely held the cobras but played their pipe over the swaying hooded reptile. The serpent would follow the motion of the charmers pipe swaying back and forth with blue eyes flashing and forked tongue sticking out.  Of course you were expected to put some money in the tip basket.  They would let you handle the snakes if you wanted.  I declined the offer.

There are many other names of places engraved on my lighter but those names will revive memories on another day. Perhaps you have an item om memorabilia that reminds you of a special time and place.