The Last Open Road

by Burt Levy

  And you should've seen all the different driving styles! Some guys steered around that corner on tiptoe, like they were afraid it was gonna bite them. Some fought their way around in a jagged, sawtooth assortment of feints and darts. A few others would just grit their teeth, yank the wheel, and hang on for dear life. But you could pick out the fast guys easy. Why, they skated through that turn in a single, graceful swoop, greasing their way around like oil on ice.

  It got even better when two cars charged toward us side by side, battling for position. See, the racing line turned pretty much single file through the corner (at least if you didn't want to ricochet off somebody's fender or go charging off through the hay bales, anyway) so a sort of funneling process had to take place. Very simply, it boiled down to who was gonna be last guy on the brakes. Like a big game of "chicken," you know? Only better.

  That first session was for cars under 1500cc (which works out to about 90 Cubes American if you do the math) and the great majority were MG TCs and TDs. But they were in against those tubby little Porsches from Germany, and far as I could tell, the Porsches had them covered. Sure, they looked like ripe tin fruit and sounded worse than a fart in a bathtub, but those things were fast. In fact, this one guy in a stripped-down, bare aluminum Porsche roadster had the legs on everybody. The owner/driver was a guy named Hoffman, and I overheard as how he was some kind of major bigwig European sports car importer in Manhattan. No question he'd imported himself one hell of a fast automobile with that tin-silver Porsche. The thing I didn't understand (at the time, anyway) was how one Porsche or MG or whatever could be so much quicker than another Porsche or MG or whatever. I mean, they were basically the same, right?)

  In a pig's eye.

  Why, a sharp mechanic could even hear the difference! Some of those Porsches and MGs sounded a whole lot healthier than the rest. All lean meat, you know? And that intrigued me, the idea that you could build yourself a better Porsche or MG or whatever than the next guy. Take that tin-silver Porsche, for example. You could see how it was stripped to the bare bones (they didn't even paint it, for gosh sakes, which I suppose makes sense if you've ever hefted a can of paint) and its engine note was a whole lot crisper than any of the other German piglets. That Hoffman guy looked to be a pretty decent driver, too, even though he'd lock the brakes now and then or maybe drop a wheel in the dirt every few laps. Then again, he was pushing pretty hard.

  After the small-bore practice, the armband people strolled out to perform their well-rehearsed Inspection of The Pavement ritual (like what they were doing was real scientific and important, you know?) and then the big cars came out to play. Jee-zus, what a spectacle! We heard them thundering out of the paddock from damn near a mile away, and it was the kind of sound you never, ever forget; the Jag sixes blaring like the brass section from hell and the gut-rumble of the Allard V-8s throbbing right up through the ground we were standing on. And then came a voice above all the others: a perfectly meshed howl that was more teeth and claws than iron and steel. Of course it was Creighton Pendleton's new Ferrari V-12, snarling up through the gears like something escaped from a cage.

  And that Creighton Pendleton character could drive. He started at the very back (on purpose, most likely) and carved his way up through the field like there was nothing to it, passing car after car until he'd gotten around damn near everybody. Looked smooth as silk doing it, too, leaned back all calm and relaxed behind the wheel with his head cocked ever so slightly to one side. Why, the sonofabitch made it look easy. Far as I could tell, the only car anywhere near as quick was that new Cad-Allard from Westbridge with Tommy Edwards at the wheel. But he didn't look smooth at all. Not hardly. In fact, you didn't have to be much of an expert to see that he was fighting that beast every inch of the way. He'd haul it down for the corners with the brakes snatching every which way, grab himself a handful of lock, and heel it hard into the turn. And the car would fight him back, bucking and snorting and pawing the air with its inside-front wheel. Wow! But once Tommy got it pointed straight again, he'd put the spurs to the hot-rodded Caddy under the hood and that monster would damn near take off, snaking side to side from the wheelspin and bellowing like a bull elephant. He'd be over the next rise before you could so much as blink! To tell the truth, driving the absolute limit in a Cad-Allard didn't exactly look like ha-ha fun. But it was sure as hell spectacular to watch, no two ways about it.

  After practice Big Ed bought us each a couple hot dogs and we wandered our way back through the paddock to nose around the race cars. Everywhere you looked, people were crammed under fenderwells or armpit-deep in engine compartments, hustling to get things ready (or just back together!) in time for the afternoon races. As I told you before, a lot of these so-called "pit crews" were nothing but wives and cousins and next-door neighbors and old school chums, so not too many of them were particularly keen when it came to actual hands-on, nuts-and-bolts mechanical stuff. Not hardly! In fact, it was difficult for a legitimate professional grease monkey to keep a straight face. Sure wish I'd had the Band-Aid, iodine, and burn ointment concession at Bridgehampton that day!

  I noticed Barry Spline and this guy in an Army jacket thrashing away like madmen on that black Cad-Allard from Westbridge, so naturally I waltzed over to see what was up. They were in dead trouble all right, what with the brakes torn apart and pieces scattered all over the ground. Looked like the linings had more or less disintegrated right off the shoes (lousy riveting job was my guess) and Barry and the Army jacket guy were humping like crazy to get new ones installed in time for the afternoon race. Boy, you could sure feel the urgency of A Big Job and No Time Left sizzling in the air.

  I asked the guy in the Army jacket if I could maybe help out (you could see right off he wasn't much with a set of tools) but he just snarled at me like a chained German shepherd and waved me away. Nasty, too, on account of he was having one devil of a time with the return springs. So I stuck my hands in anyway and showed him how an experienced foreign car mechanic could hook them up in a jiffy (without putting holes in both thumbs!) and in two shakes he was up and out of the way so I could get the job done properly. "How yer doin', mate?" Barry Spline called over from the other side of the car.

  "Real good," I grunted as I wrestled one of the Allard's huge aluminum brake drums back into place.

  "Bloody glad yer could make it, Buddy. Right on time, too. Think yer can get that side screwed down by yerself?"

  "Piece of cake, Barry. Piece of cake."

  "There's a good lad."

  So Barry and I got the front brakes buttoned up, reset the click adjusters on the rears, and finished up with plenty of time for the Army jacket guy to sit behind the wheel so's we could bleed a couple quick squirts through the hydraulics. We had him pump the pedal a couple times to build up pressure and then lean on it hard while we opened the bleed screws in perfect unison with our thumbs pressed over the holes so no air could leak back into the system. It's messy that way (and no good at all if you've gotta live with the floor where you're working) but it's sure as hell quick. Then we topped up the brake fluid, ditto the oil and water, checked the tire pressures, gave the knockoffs one final, make-sure slap with the hammer, and finished up in what must have amounted to an all-time world's record for an Allard J2X brake job, if only somebody'd had a watch on it.

  Hey, what do you expect from a couple professionals?

  While we were bleeding the brakes, I had a chance to check out Mr. Army Jacket in the driver's seat. It was an R.A.F. jacket, actually, and the guy inside it was a broad-shouldered Englishman with ruddy cheeks, a pencil-thin mustache, and eyes like a fighter pilot. Which, it turned out, is precisely what Tommy Edwards was during the war years, personally downing eight German fighters (and going down twice himself "the bloody 'ard way," according to Barry Spline). Sure, he didn't look much like Errol Flynn or David Niven, what with thinning salt-and-pepper hair slicked back across the top of his head and the beginnings of a middle-aged paunch rolling over the top of his trousers, but y
ou could tell from the moment you looked in his eyes that Tommy Edwards had whatever kind of moxie it took to drive a racing car. Even a musclebound brute like that Allard.

  After we were done with the final flight check, Tommy clambered out and walked right up to me. "Hey, thanks an awful bunch, sport," he said with a smart British clip to his voice. "I'm afraid I might have been a bit rude to you when you first popped over. . . ."

  "Aw, that's okay," I told him.

  "No, really. No bloody excuse for that type of behavior. Not at all."

  "'E's useter worse, Tommy," Barry grinned. "Yer can bank on it."

  "Well, we couldn't have bloody well done it without you," the Royal Air Force jacket continued, extending a freshly manicured hand with little halos of grease under all the fingernails. "Can't tell you how much we appreciate it." Boy, he had a grip like a damn bench vise!

  "Aw, it wuz nothin'."

  "For you, perhaps," Tommy Edwards laughed, "but I'm all bloody thumbs when it comes to mechanical things. Ask Barry."

  "It's God's truth," Barry agreed, wiping his brow with the back of his hand and leaving a spectacular grease smear all the way across his forehead.

  Tommy looked at the black smudge over Barry's eyebrows and shot me a wink so quick I hardly saw it. "Well," he sighed, tossing a weather-beaten green racing helmet into the passenger side, "I'd best be getting off. Want to be on grid when Mr. Pendleton arrives so I can put the needle in a bit."

  "Think yer can put him off his game?"

  "Oh, I doubt it, actually. He's a pretty cool customer behind the wheel. Then again, it's always fun trying. . . ."

  "Well, 'ave yerself a good run. And try ter bring the bloody car back in one piece, eh?"

  "That is always my intention, Mr. Spline," Tommy nodded with a little two-finger salute. Then he turned to me. "Thanks again for lending a hand, sport. Ever so much. Never could have done it without you. No bloody way a'tall."

  "Hey, no problem," I told him again, the color coming up in my cheeks.

  "You be sure and pop by for a cold one after the shooting stops, uh . . . bloody hell, I don't even know your name."

  "'Is name's Buddy Palumbo."

  "Well, Mr. Buddy Palumbo, thanks again for saving the day. As I said, I'm not very much good at mechanics. . . ."

  "Yer can bloody well say that again!" Barry snickered.

  "Very well, Mr. Spline, I believe I shall." And with that, Tommy Edwards took a deep breath, raised his jaw skyward, and bellowed, "I'M NOT MUCH BLOODY GOOD AT AUTO MECHANICS. NOT MUCH BLOODY GOOD AT ALL!" Jeez, it made people all around us drop what they were doing and stare. "There," Tommy said with a sharp military heel-click, "that ought to put a proper cap on it, I should think. I trust you're satisfied, Mr. Spline?"

  "Suits me," Barry agreed from beneath his magnificent grease smear, "'owbout you, Buddy?"

  "Well," I said, trying to get just the right hint of swagger in, "I guess so."

  "Very well," Tommy nodded, "that should do it. Oh, and Mr. Palumbo?"

  "Yes?"

  "Do see if you can find Mr. Spline here a bloody mirror and a handkerchief, won't you?"

  As you can tell, we were getting a pretty good charge off the feeling of a job well done and finished in the nick of time. Believe me, there's nothing like it. In fact, as I watched Tommy fire up that hot-rod Caddy—Jee-zus, it made the damn ground shake!—and roar away, I realized my hands were trembling and my mouth tasted like I'd been chewing on a roll of medical gauze. That's how pumped you can get when a race is on the line and you've only got thirty minutes to finish a job that books two hours-plus in the flat rate manual.

  With Tommy safely on his way to the grid, Barry and me decided to head over by trackside to watch what was left of the small-bore contest. Along the way, I asked why he didn't bring Sylvester Jones along to help out with the wrenching. "Oh, we couldn't do that," Barry said, raising his eyebrows like it should have been obvious. "Why, Sylvester'd be a bit of a bloody, er, problem 'ere at Bridgehampton. After all, we don't exactly wanter advertise that we've got a bleedin' Jungle Bunny workin' on people's Jagyewhars, do we?" Looking around, I could sort of understand what Barry was talking about. I mean, you didn't see anybody like Sylvester Jones in the paddock at Bridgehampton. Not hardly. Or many like Big Ed either, come to think of it.

  Anyhow, we muscled our way down to turn one, and sure enough that Hoffman guy in the tin-silver Porsche was way out front. Second place, damn near forty seconds back, was a nifty little Italian job called an OSCA. It was bright red (what else?) and quite a bit prettier than the Porsche. Made a nicer noise, too. But it wasn't near as quick (at least not with that particular driver behind the wheel) and so that hopped-up, stripped-down Porsche was simply running away. Not much of a contest, if you want to know the truth of it.

  But things were hardly dull, since we had a whole passel of TCs and TDs scrapping for the MG-class honors farther back, and those guys were really going at it. In fact, there was one certified lunatic in an old green '47 TC who single-handedly kept the crowd on its feet by braking so late and hauling into the corners so incredibly deep that everybody figured he was going to wind up in the hay bales. But he never did. And was he ever exciting to watch! Lap after lap, he'd wait until he was almost in the damn corner before laying on the brakes, then snatch her down a gear, toss the car sideways, and drift his way through in a wild, shuddering slide, barely kissing the dirt at the exit every time. Wow! Not that it did him much good, since the motor was loading up real bad through the middle of the corner (float level or needle-and-seat, most likely) so it stumbled and ran rat all the way down the straightaway.

  What can you do?

  Big Ed's program said the driver was a guy named Calvin Carrington from Palm Beach, Florida, and believe me, he was braver than Dick Tracy. But, like I said, his car wasn't much good, and no question he was driving a little past the ragged edge of control in a desperate effort to make it up. Which is probably why he went missing about halfway through the event. "Yer can't carry a bloody car on yer back, mate," Barry sighed. "No driver on earth's so bleedin' great 'e can make the bloody metal do more than it's willing."

  There was an important lesson in that.

  And speaking of lessons, the guy in the tin-silver Porsche had the race all sewed up, but didn't have the smarts to just back off and cruise to an easy win. No sir. Why, he was shifting at the redline, braking at the last possible instant, dropping a wheel off the pavement here and there . . . and then he simply didn't come around. There was just this big, empty silence where the Porsche should have been, followed about forty seconds back by that pretty little OSCA, tooling along all by its lonesome, leading the damn race! The Porsche was nowhere to be seen. Then came another long silence and the quickest of the MGs zipped past, still battling each other tooth and nail, and behind them (at long last) the tin-silver Porsche reappeared with its left-front fender all crumpled to shit. I couldn't believe it! Seemed like it was still running okay, since it managed to pick off most of the MGs before the checker fell, but that slick little OSCA was long gone. Boy, I bet that Porsche driver felt stupid. I mean, he had the race in the bag. And so I learned the next of my invaluable motorsports lessons: it's not who goes fastest at first, but who FINISHES first at the end!

  There was a lot of cleanup work to be done between races, including deceased-car removal for Calvin Carrington's ratty but spectacular '47 TC, which had lost a front wheel and clobbered the hay bales out on the backside of the course. Big Ed bought Barry and me a couple nickel sodas (at a quarter each!) from some pop vendor who was working on his early retirement plan at Bridgehampton that weekend, and then we strolled over to check the grid for the big-car feature. I was proud to see Tommy Edwards's Allard on the front row (I mean, he was my driver now, right?) but right next to him was that Creighton Pendleton character in his blood-red Ferrari. "That's sure one hell of an automobile," I observed with a low whistle.