by Burt Levy
Route 224 turned out to be painfully slow going after the highspeed freedom of the turnpike. The official limit was only 50, and while Tommy was never particularly concerned about posted speed limits, it did slow the cars we were trying to pass, and you have to be a little more careful on a two-lane so's you don't pull out to pass a meandering local egg truck and catch twenty tons of interstate Peterbilt right in your face. Still, our C-types made a pretty easy job of it. You could pop down to third and be around your average John Doe road obstacle in no time at all. On the other hand, you had to be patient, on account of sometimes the road was blind up ahead or maybe you were stuck behind a gravel hauler or a tanker truck and couldn't see. Remember our Jags were right-hand drive, and that made pulling out from behind any decent-sized truck a true religious experience. We had a few close calls, but I guess that goes without saying. Every once in a while we'd hit an empty stretch and Tommy'd run us up to 120 or so, but not very often on account of you had all these little roadside vegetable stands and cider stops, not to mention that Route 224 ran right smack through the center of towns like Western Star, Leroy, Homerville, Ruggles, and Delphi, and the last thing the local populations needed or expected were a pair of Jaguar racing cars streaking through the landscape at damn near the speed of light. So Tommy and me would slow down to 40 or so and grumble along on the idle jets in third. But they were pretty little towns, and it was neat how everybody looked at us with their jaws dropped open and eyes bugged out. Especially the high school girls hanging out on Main Street, enjoying a little five-and-dime window shopping or maybe a chocolate ice-cream soda during those precious last few summer days before school started up after Labor Day. We passed some boys in muddy sweatshirts and cleated shoes coming home from football practice, carrying their helmets loosely at their sides while they bragged and wisecracked about what they'd done (or were planning to do!) with those girls we saw up on Main. But all those small-town football heroes stopped dead in their tracks when they got a load of Tommy and me in our C-types. And it occurred to me, as I smiled serenely back at them, how much older, wiser, and infinitely more mature I'd become compared to those poor hicks.
It took us over five hours to cross Ohio, and to tell the truth, it got pretty blessed dull, what with towns popping up one after the other and the truck traffic and all. So just past Tiffin, Tommy decided to reroute us sort of free-form northwest, heading off 224 and trying all the nameless, unnumbered little county roads for variety. They turned out to be wonderful, high-crowned country lanes that ran through rolling fields and shady valleys, past lopsided barns with matching farmhouses, bored-looking herds of dairy cows, and the inevitable car-chasing farm dogs you find all over rural America. Of course, none of those mutts had much of a chance against our C-types, but I've got to give credit to one particular golden retriever, who took a shortcut across an alfalfa field and made a real race of it for damn near a mile. I suppose taking those back roads cost us a little time, since you had to back off at regular intervals on account of every rise or bend in the road might be hiding a stray cow or a slow-moving hay wagon. But they were great places to drive, and you could feel as how the Jags were enjoying it every bit as much as Tommy and me. Of course, we had a hard time keeping ourselves pointed in the right direction, what with all the unexpected swoops and turns and unusual intersections, but every time we came barreling up to one, Tommy'd glance left and right, make a snap decision, and in less than a heartbeat have the revs up, clutch out, and smoke squealing off the tires. And sometimes he'd hesitate for an instant before deciding which way to turn, and I'd have to lock the damn brakes to keep from sliding right into him! No doubt Colin would've gotten pretty upset if he'd been there to see it. But Tommy always seemed to know where I was, and he'd roar out of the way just as I skittered up behind him with the car all up on tiptoe. Then I'd snatch second, fishtail through the intersection, and charge up through the gears after him—right on his ass!—like we were racing each other at some place like Bridgehampton! Sure, I got scared once or twice that I was going to slide into a ditch or a fence post, but I was starting to get a little confidence, too. Like maybe I really could get the hang of this after all.
We ran into light rain as we crossed into Indiana, and at first it was kind of refreshing. But then it got hard to see (those short racing windscreens weren't much good in the wet), not to mention we had water streaming over the dash cowling and around through the door seams and even up through the footwells. On top of that, my Dodgers hat turned out to have the exact proper aerodynamic shape to leak a stream of cold, dirty rainwater right down the back of my shirt. Pretty soon the sky got so dark we had to put the lights on—not that it helped much—and I must admit I felt relieved when we finally found ourselves face-to-face with a numbered highway again. It was Route 8, just outside of Auburn, which is where they built those stylish, superexpensive Auburn automobiles before the depression set in and more or less dried up the market. Those were some pretty magnificent machines—especially the supercharged Speedster models—and not even Ferrari or Rolls Royce ever built cars with more class and elegance. They were about the last American cars you could really be proud of, those Auburns, Cords, Duesenbergs, and V-12 Packards from the twenties and thirties. But then times got tough and the war came and I guess there simply wasn't much need for cars like that anymore. Or maybe there just weren't many drivers left who were up to the scale and style of those cars.
Anyhow, Tommy found us a gas station (a Sinclair, in fact) and the owner was only too happy to let us park the Jags inside and give them a couple oil changes while we waited for the storm to pass. He even made me a deal on a pair of dry coveralls and a used rain slicker since my mom's laundry bag was more or less floating in the Jag's footwell, so my clothes were thoroughly drenched. Then he lent us an umbrella and directed Tommy and me across the street to a little corner place called, naturally enough, The Auburn Grill, where we each had a bowl of homemade beef stew and a slice apiece of some very decent Dutch apple pie—a la mode, natch. It wasn't quite as good as my mom's, but amazingly close for some two-bit Indiana coffee shop smack-dab in the middle of nowhere.
It took the better part of an hour for the rain to slack off, and during that time Tommy and I had quite a conversation about how he got started in racing and what it took to do something like that properly. "Oh, I don't think a bloke's got to be particularly brave to be a racing driver," he allowed, thoughtfully stirring his tea. "Not really. Foolhardy will often do just as well."
"Aw, you're just saying that."
"Oh, I suppose. But it's really nothing like you'd imagine from reading all the tabloid stories or watching those dreadful Hollywood movies. Not at all."
"It isn't?"
"Oh, good heavens no! Why, they paint it up all blood and guts and devil-take-the-hindmost. 'A fair fight and may the best man win,' and all that sort of rubbish. Utter nonsense."
"Really?"
"Why, of course. It's the bloody cars that win races," he said matter-of-factly. "The drivers can only lose them. . . ."
"I don't get it."
"Well, the bloody truth of the matter is that a driver is always limited by what his machine can do over any given stretch of road. His job is simply to bring it up to that level and keep it there for the whole bloody race." Tommy took a long, thoughtful sip of tea. "But of course you never can."
"You can't?"
"Oh, of course not. Why, you're constantly making mistakes and screwing things up here and there. It can't be helped."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing, you know? After all, I'd seen Tommy Edwards drive, and far as I was concerned, he was about the most perfect damn race car driver in the galaxy.
"Trust me, Buddy," he said evenly, looking me in the eye, "there's no such thing as a perfect race. Or even a perfect lap. Why, there's hardly even such a thing as a dead-nuts-perfect corner. You're always seeing little things you could've done just that wee bit better. . . ."
"Wow," I said, letting ou
t a low whistle.
"In fact, I reckon the better you are at it, the more you see each and every race as a bloody grim collection of errors, mistakes, and missed opportunities."
"Even when you win?"
Tommy nodded. "Of course. Sometimes even more so."
I shook my head, trying to make sense out of it.
"The saving grace is that you're up against other blokes who put their pants on one leg at a time and generally tend to be just as bloody stupid, pig-headed, and ham-fisted as yourself. So at least you've got a sporting chance. It's a little like fighter piloting that way."
"You did that in the war, didn't you?"
"Oh, a little here and there."
"What was it like?"
"A bit scary, actually," Tommy laughed. "But also quite exciting. More than anything I've ever done, when you get right down to it. Here's you in your aircraft and there's the other fellow in his, and it all comes down to who has the better machine and the skill, instinct, nerve, and patience to exploit it. You need to concentrate and stay cool when the other bloke is getting hot under the collar."
"And you gotta be fast, too," I added.
"Oh, I suppose," Tommy reluctantly agreed. "But the graveyards are full of young chaps who tried to get by on brass balls and lightning reactions. It's a deadly combination."
"It is?"
"Absolutely. Experience is probably the most important thing—seat time, don't you know—because you can't think about what you're going to do in the heat of battle. You've got to know. By the time you've thought your way through a situation, it's generally over. . . ."
"Wow."
"In fact, I reckon that's what I love about racing. It's exactly the same—you and your machine against the other bloke in his—except you're on the ground instead of in the sky and none of the participants necessarily have to get killed in a motor race. But the feeling of speed, concentration, and outright competition is quite similar."
"So that's how you got started?"
"I suppose it is. . . ."
"Right after the war?"
Tommy nodded. "I reckon I needed something to, well, replace the war, you know? It sounds rather silly, but there just isn't much out there in civilian life to compare. Not just the air battles, but simply being a part of it. Being, you know, a 'member of the club,' so to speak. That's what I found again in motor racing."
"Well, you're sure plenty good at it."
"Oh, please," Tommy laughed, turning a little pink around the ears, "I'm just a bloody journeyman, really. Lots of brute muscle and experience but not too awfully much talent or finesse."
"Why, you're absolutely great!" I told him.
"It's nice of you to say so, but I think 'good' might be a bit more accurate."
"What's the difference?" I asked.
"Well, let's just say that a 'good' driver is one who can win with the best car. After all, that's what he's supposed to do."
"And a great driver?"
"That's easy. He's the fellow who can win even when some other bloke has the best car."
13: ELKHART LAKE
THE VILLAGE of Elkhart Lake sits on the shoreline of a beautiful, spring-fed lake where the water's so blessed clear you can see bottom at twenty feet. The surrounding countryside is all rolling farmland and thick forests and sunshiny meadows full of honeybees and wildflowers and that sort of thing, which naturally makes for some mighty fine sports car roads. Elkhart Lake hosted its first-ever S.C.M.A. road race in July of 1950, using about three and a half miles of local country back roads west of town and God only knows how many kegs of local Wisconsin beer. The event wasn't big or well publicized, but everybody had a great time and so word spread and more people came the following year. This time they made the circuit over six miles long and ran it right smack-dab through the middle of town, and once again everybody enjoyed the hell out of themselves and made plans to come back and bring their friends along, too. All of them.
And I could see why when Tommy and me took a left off Highway 67 and followed the little overhanging sign that pointed the way into town. It was late Thursday afternoon, and already the place was chock-full of MGs, Jaguars, OSCAs, Allards, and Lord only knows what else. Seeing as how most of the heavy-duty sportycar activity was happening either on the East Coast or out in California, Elkhart made a perfect middle ground for everybody to hash out once and for all (or at least until next year) who had the fastest cars, the quickest hot-shoe drivers, and the best-looking girlfriends.
Anyhow, Tommy and me followed County A into town, crossing a set of railroad tracks across from Schuler's Bar and turning left on Lake Street, past the IGA grocery and Gessert's Soda Shop across the street from the train station where all the rich meat-packing families from Chicago and brewery families from Milwaukee used to get off for their summer vacations back around the turn of the century. Elkhart Lake was a peaceful, homey sort of place, and I liked the look of it right away.
A couple blocks from the train station, Lake Street curved hard left and ran along the shoreline of about the prettiest little fishing and swimming lake you ever saw, and that's where we made an abrupt U-turn and pulled our Jags up to the curb in front of the green-and-white awning that marked the office of Siebken's Resort Hotel. It was right next door to the Osthoff Resort Hotel and directly across from the entrance to Schwartz's Resort Hotel, and those were where all the racers stayed. In fact, it was hard to tell exactly where one Lake Street resort hotel ended and the next one began, since they were all made up of the same sort of clean-looking, white clapboard buildings with rolling green lawns all around and matching green shutters on the windows, and it was hard not to think of them as a set. Oh, Schwartz's had the bigger beach and an elevated front porch with shuffleboard courts and a beautiful view out over the lake, while Siebken's had an outdoor bandstand and rooms done up with genuine antiques. The Osthoff was the official S.C.M.A. headquarters for the weekend, but a lot of the racers liked the food at Siebken's better. Not to mention the bar.
Tommy steered us over there for a quick one before we even checked in, and it seemed like everybody we'd ever met was crowded in around the tables and packed three-deep at the bar, drinking local Milwaukee beers like Schlitz and Blatz and Pabst Blue Ribbon while swapping tall tales about their heroic drives up to Elkhart from places scattered all over the whole damn country. I saw Creighton Pendleton and two of the Muscatelli brothers shooting the breeze over by the far door, and directly behind them was the gorgeous Sally Enderle. She had herself draped over the top of the big Wurlitzer jukebox, checking her reflection in the chrome while she halfheartedly punched in "Come on a-My House" by Rosemary Clooney and "Your Cheatin' Heart," the brand-new Hank Williams song. That seemed like a good reason to mosey over myself and check out the music, just kind of casually leaning in over her shoulder like I didn't particularly recognize who she was (as if you could mistake Sally Enderle for any other female on the planet—especially when she was wearing a halter-type midriff top and one of her snug-fitting pairs of shorts). I've noticed only well-built, evenly tanned women can wear stuff like that properly, and I must admit Sally Enderle qualified with honors on all counts. Anyhow, there I was, leaning in over Sally's shoulder, pretending to check out the music selection (and incidentally getting a spectacular peek down the front of her halter top) when she suddenly rotated around and put the two of us nose to nose and eyeball to eyeball. She was so close I could smell the delicate scent of her perfume and feel a breeze of heat across my cheek every time she breathed. "Uh, hi there," I smiled, my voice cracking just a little, "remember me?"
"Hello?" she said, looking at me like I was a closet door.
"You're Sally Enderle, aren't you?"
She gave me an invisible nod, and it was about then I realized I was wearing the same damn clothes that had been lying in a pool of dirty water at the bottom of the C-type's footwell all Wednesday afternoon, not to mention that I hadn't had a shower or combed my hair or brushed my teeth since about 10 P.M. the
night before. Then again, here was the gorgeous, chestnut-haired Sally Enderle—right smack-dab in front of me!—and there was no turning back now. "Uh, w-well," I stammered, kind of stumbling over my tongue, "don'cha remember? I'm the guy who blew up that TC at Giant's Despair."
A little two-watt flicker of recognition came up in her eyes. "Oh?" she said, dropping it down to a watt and a half. "So you're the one who blew his TC up at the starting line."
"Uh, not quite."