“So you decided to work for a Cup team instead?”
Tony nodded. “I figured it would be a good way to make connections within the sport. Racing is in many ways just a small town. What about you?”
Taran sighed. “You’ll laugh,” she said.
“Try me.”
“I’m the team flake. Everybody else is doing it for the experience, or for a feminist cause, or because they’re just crazy about stock car racing. But not me. I’m the fool who is crazy about Badger Jenkins.” When she said it, she was watching him carefully to see if he was having trouble wiping a smirk off his face, but he had simply nodded and given her a look that might have been sympathetic.
“Guys in firesuits,” he said, unwrapping another Granola bar. “A lot of people mistake them for Superman, I guess. I’ve seen it dozens of times. But why Badger in particular?”
“It sounds ridiculous,” she sighed. “I was dating a guy who got me interested in NASCAR, and he was a Mark Martin fan. He kept telling me to pick a driver, so that it would be more interesting when we watched the races together.” She stopped for a moment, remembering Rob, one of the company’s electrical engineers. A nice enough guy, she supposed, if you liked Italian food and watching Stargate on the Sci-Fi Channel, which was okay. She just couldn’t see doing that for the rest of her life. Besides, Rob looked like a mild-mannered frog in steel-rimmed glasses, and Taran thought that a permanent relationship with him would put you in the fast lane for old age. She decided that Rob himself had probably been born forty. But she’d always be grateful to him for introducing her to motorsports. He liked to watch the races with a clipboard of statistics at hand: Which driver had previously won at this track? Whose team seemed to be consistently good lately? Who had done well in practice and qualifying? As an engineer herself, she found this sort of scientific approach interesting, but since racing was, after all, a form of entertainment, she felt that Rob’s joyless method of analyzing the race left much to be desired. She wanted to care who won: to hope for his success, rather than to coldly predict it with an assortment of dispassionate statistics.
“He wanted you to pick a driver so that watching racing with you would be a competiton,” said Tony. “I’ll bet he thought you’d go for Jeff Gordon. He’s really popular with women and kids.”
“No,” said Taran. “He knew better than that. I’m an electrical engineer. He figured I’d go for the intellectual type.”
“Ryan Newman, then. Engineering degree from Purdue.”
“Right. And I do like Newman, but I don’t think choosing a driver is necessarily a matter of logic. You don’t cry over somebody just because he is the mathematical favorite.”
“Well, some people might,” said Tony. “But mostly not, I guess. People usually choose a driver who reflects their interests or their background. Home state, sponsor identification, looks-something. And then there are the people who won’t root for a Ford driver, or who hate anybody in a Chevrolet. There are a lot of sides to take in this sport.”
“I know,” said Taran. “Every week is like a football game with forty-three teams on the field.”
“So how did you come to pick Badger instead of Newman or Kenseth? Was it when he won at Darlington?”
Taran sighed a little, remembering. “No. It wasn’t when he won at all. I remember they interviewed him before the race, and he looked kind of shy and self-deprecating, and-Well, I know this is going to sound strange, but his accent reminded me of my grandfather. He died when I was seven, and he wasn’t real old. It was a car wreck. But anyhow, I heard Badger’s voice, and it was like hearing my granddad, I just felt like I knew him.”
“How did he do in the race that day?”
“He wrecked. Well, somebody wrecked him. And I just lost it. I was so terrified that I had jinxed him by liking him. He had a concussion, and I remember I kept checking Engine Noise all week to see how he was doing. Anyhow, by the time he got well and was back in the car-he missed one race, I think-I had gone online and bought a tee shirt, a coffee mug, and two key chains. I was hooked. Badger was it.”
Tony nodded. He’d heard similar stories from fans before. “So what happened to Rob?”
Taran shrugged. “We stopped watching racing together. He said I was too emotional. I guess it’s hard to concentrate on your chart of statistics when the person beside you is alternately shrieking and crying. So that was it. I didn’t miss him, though. I had Badger.”
Tony smiled. “It must have been a thrill for you to actually meet him.”
“Oh, no,” said Taran, shuddering at the memory. “It was ghastly.”
It had been a few days after Tuggle had selected the Team Vagenya pit crew, and Badger, having finally finished giving interviews and having his picture made with the sponsors and owners, had finally come along to practice. He went down the line, shaking hands and introducing himself to his new teammates. When he got to Taran, he stuck out his hand, smiled like a movie star, and said, “How you doin’?”
And she had backed away from that outstretched hand as if it had been holding a switchblade. She had just wanted him to go away.
It certainly wasn’t how she had pictured her first meeting with her driver. Once she had been chosen for the team, she had rehearsed the moment in her mind a hundred times, in every possible variation. From “How do you do, sir? Such a pleasure to meet you,” to “I’m sorry? I didn’t catch the name,” to wordlessly throwing herself in his arms, while imaginary violins swelled to a stunning crescendo and the team practice yard dissolved into a field of wildflowers. But nowhere in her wildest imaginings had she pictured herself backing away from her beloved Badger in abject terror.
But she had.
Now why was that?
She had given it a lot of thought since then. She wasn’t sure that Badger had even noticed her confusion. As she was backing away, Reve had put her hand into the small of Taran’s back and gently pushed her forward again. She managed to croak a feeble hello, and Badger shook her hand and moved on.
Since then she had relived that moment another hundred times or so, wishing that you could get instant replays in real life. At least she’d have a second chance. They were teammates. Sooner or later she might calm down enough to actually converse with him.
She had tried to figure out exactly why she had panicked. Well, she told herself, it isn’t every day that you meet your screensaver. Badger was shorter than she’d imagined, but otherwise he looked pretty much like his photographs, so that wasn’t the reason for her dismay. Perhaps it was simply the pressure of that first meeting, because to her, anyway, it mattered so much. With most people you meet you can simply be yourself, and either you hit it off or you don’t, and it’s no big deal either way, but Badger was the SAT and an EKG rolled into one: a human exam, and if she failed it, the chance might never come again.
They had probably chatted for a minute or two, but the voice in her head was chanting “Don’tletmesayanythingstupidDon’tlet mesayanythingstupid” so loudly that she could no longer remember what either of them said.
“He was wearing the firesuit, wasn’t he?” asked Tony.
“And the sunglasses,” said Taran. “It was terrible. I wanted to run.”
“You didn’t, did you? He’s a pretty laid-back guy, you know. One of the nicest drivers in the bunch.”
“I know,” said Taran. “I’m starting to get over it. Lately when he comes around the shop for practice or just to stop by, I can talk to him a little bit without feeling faint.” She smiled to show that she was kidding-almost.
“I wonder what that feels like,” said Tony. “To be so famous that people are afraid to talk to you.”
“I don’t think he knows,” said Taran. “He never seems to notice, anyhow.”
Tony tossed his Snapple bottle into the recycle bin. “I think they want us back out there,” he said. “Reve is waving at us.”
Taran finished the last of her water. “Well, good luck with your driving. I hope you get your
chance.”
“Sometimes I do some driving on a week night at the local track. Late Model Stocks. I have a friend who lets me sub for him sometimes, and I’m working on getting a couple of local sponsors so I can have my own ride. Maybe you’d like to come out sometime and watch?”
Taran nodded. “I’d like that,” she said. She was thinking, The more I learn about racing, the more small talk I’ll be able to make with Badger.
In Julie Carmichael’s office, otherwise known as Vagenya Tech, the team engineers were busy as usual, trying to stay one jump ahead of the NASCAR watchdogs.
“In the old days,” said Jay Bird, “there were a lot of tricks we could have used to modify the car.”
“Like what?” asked Rosalind.
“Lighten the roll cage. We used to replace the thick steel bars of the roll cage with lighter-weight exhaust pipe. Can’t do that these days, though. NASCAR checks the roll bar thickness with an ultrasonic tester right there in the pits.”
Julie explained to Rosalind, “They have a little handheld unit and they put a little jelly on the end of the sensor and put it up against the roll bars, and it reads the thickness on the digital display.”
Rosalind was aghast. “But you can’t lighten the roll bars, anyway!” she said. “In a wreck, that roll cage is what protects the driver. You could get Badger killed if you circumvent the safety measures.”
“Badger wants to win as bad as we do,” said Jay Bird. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t catch him complaining.”
“He might be too macho to complain,” said Julie, “but Rosalind is right. We can’t risk him getting hurt.”
Jay Bird was philosophical about it. “They’d probably catch us, anyway. What about having a little panel in the floor board that you can slide open to diffuse some of the air from underneath the car?”
“Everybody does that,” said Julie. “Like lowering the motor mounts. Done that.”
“Okay,” said Rosalind, “here’s an idea. Suppose we attach sensors to the car to transmit information back to us about the fuel mileage, the wheel revolutions per minute, and maybe the transmission gear selection? That would help.”
“It’s called telemetry,” said Julie. “It’s illegal.”
“Oh,” said Rosalind. “I’d better reread the rule book again.”
Jay Bird said, “What about traction control?”
“Now I know that’s illegal,” said Rosalind. “It’s akin to telemetry, really-installing sensors to detect the amount of wheel spin, and then regulating the amount of power being transmitted to the tire. NASCAR outlawed that, didn’t they?”
“Big time,” said Jay Bird. “Get caught with that on your car and they say they’ll ban you from the sport for life.”
Julie closed her notebook. “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” she said. “Let’s just keep on doing all the dull but legal stuff we’ve been doing to make the car better. We’ll keep fine-tuning everything.”
CHAPTER XVI
Speed Week
ENGINE NOISE
Your Online Source for NASCAR News & Views
VAGENYA SLIM?-Well, what do you think the 86 team’s chances are to make the Daytona 500? Engine Noise is betting that by race time Sunday they’ll all be back in Mooresville watching the show on television. The legendary Jay Bird Thomas is acting as the team’s godfather, but we think they’d be better off with a fairy godmother. With a magic wand. Boogity! Boogity! Boo!-Still, the team is in Daytona this week, getting ready to qualify for the Great American Race. Since they are a start-up team without a previous top 35 standing or champion’s points, they’ll have to make it in by having one of the fastest times of all the wannabees. So they’d better hope that Badger doesn’t-dare we say it?-run like a girl!
Hey, Ed, Sark here. I finally made it to Daytona with Team Vagenya, and I’m taking notes like crazy. I’m beginning to think I need to write a book instead of just an article. If people don’t know racing it would be hard to cram all this information into a couple of thousand words.
Yo, Sark! You’re in Daytona already? I thought the race wasn’t until next Sunday?
It is next Sunday, but you wouldn’t believe how much we have to go through before the race. It’s not even guaranteed that we will race. First there’s qualifying, which I thought I understood. You know, cars go around the track a couple of times and whoever has the fastest lap gets the pole, and second fastest is next, and so on. Well, for the Daytona 500, they don’t qualify like that.
So, enlighten me. Basketball is my sport. What do your car boys do at Daytona? Poll the audience? Call a friend? Convene the College of Cardinals?
Nothing so simple. They do the normal two-lap time trial on the first day, but that only determines who gets the inside and outside pole positions. Everybody else is still in limbo.
Limbo, Huh? Then they call the College of Cardinals?
No, then they hold two 125-mile qualifying races on the Thursday before the race on Sunday.
Two races? How do they decide which contenders race in which race?
Do you really want to know, Ed? Try reading an IRS tax form, and if you find that riveting, then I’ll explain all the fine points of qualifying to you. Anyhow, suffice it to say that Badger is in the first qualifying race, and if he finishes in the top fourteen, he will take his place in the lineup behind the pole sitter.
That sounds dull, but coherent, anyhow.
It gets worse. There are also champion’s points, provisional entries, and God only knows what else, but anyhow, we’re not eligible for any papal dispensations or whatever you have to have to get into the race free. We have to get Badger in with a fast car, which, please God, he does not wreck during the qualifying race.
So now you’re praying for Badger? I’m touched.
Listen, a lot of talented and dedicated women have worked pretty damned hard to get him out there, and if he gets this team in the race I’d be willing to put a statue of him on my dashboard.
Sounds like he’s made a convert. And is Badger being a saint down there in NASCAR land?
He’s working his ass off. We all are. What he does on his own time, I don’t know.
Shouldn’t you be finding out? For the article, of course.
I’ll try. He has an autographing Thursday morning. Maybe I can ask him then. I’m supposed to be his minder for the afternoon, because the Dominatrix is busy (I told you about her). Maybe she has to have dialysis to change the antifreeze in her veins. Gotta go. Wish us luck.
If anyone had told Taran Stiles that she would someday spend a whole week inside the Daytona International Speedway, and that not once would she even bother to log on to the Badger’s Din, much less boast about her adventures, well, she wouldn’t have believed it. Here she was, living the dream, and she wasn’t going to tell the people who would envy her most. In fact, the week had been so hectic that she couldn’t even be bothered to read what they were saying about the forthcoming race.
Anyone who thought that stock car racing was not a team sport had better not say it to her face this week. People on Badger’s Din used to talk about racing as if it was all up to Badger, but now Taran knew for a fact that it wasn’t. Before he could go out there and qualify in one of Daytona’s preliminary races, an army of support people had to do their jobs, and he couldn’t succeed unless they were very good at their jobs, too. It was an intricate web of trust and dependency. The pit crew had to hope that the engineers and mechanics had set up the car so that it would perform well, and the engineers and mechanics had to hope that all their hard work would not go down the drain if the pit crew screwed up their part of the operation. And assuming that all of them did everything right both in the shop and in the pit, it all depended on Badger driving well and being lucky enough not to get wrecked by somebody else’s mistake on the track.
The first practice at Daytona was a nerve-wracking experience for Taran. There were a fair number of people in the stands, and enough people were milling around the infield to populate
a county fair. Taran thought it was hard enough to do her newly learned job without all these strangers watching her. It unnerved her that the garages provided for the Cup teams had one glass wall, so that anyone walking by could stand there and watch what was going on. She knew that the observers were probably just interested well-meaning fans, but the idea of being observed by strangers still made her uneasy. She felt that she was too much of a klutz in general to want an audience.
She was still standing there in a daze when Kathy Erwin, the team’s front tire changer, shook her by the shoulder, and said, “Stiles, quick-before it’s Badger’s turn to practice. We forgot to bring one of the parts we might need this afternoon. We need you to go over to one of the Childress teams and see if you can borrow one. You need to hurry.”
“What part is it?” asked Taran.
The tire changer told her.
Moments later, Taran was standing at the tool wagon of the 31 car, trying to explain her errand to a harassed-looking man in orange coveralls. “We just want to borrow it, if you have an extra one.”
The wiry man leaned in closer and cupped his ear so she wouldn’t have to shout. “What was it you wanted again?”
Taran had it down pat. “A left-handed smoke shifter,” she said triumphantly. “If you can spare it.”
The guy in the orange coveralls sighed and shook his head. “We only brought the one,” he said. “But I tell you what, why don’t you go see if the 21 car has one to spare? I believe the Wood Brothers actually invented that tool. They’re bound to have an extra one, don’t you think, boys?”
Those of his fellow crew members within earshot nodded solemnly. The Wood Brothers. The 21 car. They all agreed that it was Taran’s best bet, and off she went.
She threaded her way through the crowd of crew members getting ready for their car’s turn at practice, trying to ignore the roar of engines and the people watching from the stands, all of whom were, she felt, looking directly at her. At the Wood Brothers’ garage she restated her mission to another busy man in coveralls.
Once Around the Track Page 18