Sharyn McCrumb - Once Around the Track

She tried again. “But you see, it’s his day off. He was planning to go home to Georgia. Something about his dad needing him on the farm…”

“Well, we need him here. Anyhow, it won’t take long. There are only ten of us, and at the speeds those cars go, he should be through in an hour at most, surely.”

“So that’s settled,” said Christine. “See about getting a passenger seat fitted in a spare car, and tell Badger that we are so looking forward to this.”

Tuggle sighed . Hell to pay , she thought.

She had been right. Badger Jenkins wasn’t happy about it. “I’m not supposed to hafta be at the track on Thursday,” he said when she told him. “I got things to do.”

“There’s ten of ’em,” Tuggle said. “Every one of them was born with more money than sense, and they’re all spoiled rotten. Do you want to try to tell them why you won’t do it? ’Cause I tried already, and I got nowhere.”

Badger sighed and ran this hand through the bristles of his cropped hair. “You tried to tell them no?”

Tuggle’s voice softened. Sometimes when Badger got that mulish look on his face, he reminded her so much of her long-ago first husband that it made her heart turn over. Maybe if they’d had a son, her and Johnsie. And wouldn’t that have been fresh hell, she told herself, but her voice stayed gentle from the thought of it.

“ Did I tell them no ? ’Course I did, boy. They paid me no never mind. But, like they said, it wouldn’t take but an hour or so of your day. I guaran-damn-tee you’d spend longer than that trying to talk them out of it.”

Badger turned to look at her, innocence radiating from guileless brown eyes. “They want to ride around the track in the race car wi’me-one at a time.”

“That’s right.” Tuggle smiled. “They said they thought it would be exciting .”

Badger nodded solemnly. “I expect it will be,” he said.

The shop dogs had grumbled about the extra work they had to put in to modify the race car, but after all, it was being done for the big wigs, so there wasn’t much point in complaining about it. Everybody knew that it would have to be done, nuisance or not. You keep the owners and the sponsors happy, or you don’t have a job at all. The racing community is the size of a village, and if you prove difficult to work with, pretty soon you won’t get hired by anybody.

The bosses wanted to take a ride-along with Badger, and that was that. Since race cars are strictly one-man vehicles, they had to make some modifications to accommodate a second rider. Even the bosses wouldn’t want them to waste time and money monkeying around with one of the actual Cup cars, so what they needed for this dog-and-pony show was a car that looked like an actual contender but wasn’t, so they built one. By taking the chassis of an old race car and putting a new body on it, they produced a cargo cult version of a race car that looked good, despite the fact that it didn’t run as fast as a primary car. It would go fast enough for civilians, though. When you are hurtling around in tight circles, the difference between 150 and 180 is negligible, especially if you are screaming at the time.

The passenger seat would be as good as the one on the driver’s side, with one major difference: The passenger seat would not be custom-molded to the rider’s body measurements, while the driver’s seat, conforming perfectly to Badger’s size and shape, would fit him like a glove. Tuggle said that even with ten different riders, the passenger seat wouldn’t be a problem, because all the would-be riders were pretty much the same size and shape, anyhow. “Put a dress on the damn jack and use that for your measurements,” she told them. “That ought to work.”

“Gotta alter the setup, too,” one of the mechanics said. “Have to allow for the extra weight of the passenger.”

“Not all that much weight,” said Tuggle, thinking of the stick-figure women. “But figure an extra hundred pounds or so. And make it very drivable-not real loose, not too tight. Don’t worry about maximizing speed. They’ll think they’re going fast enough by the time he hits one fifty, I’ll bet. But I want that car to handle like a dream. We don’t want the boy losing control of the car with serious money on board, all right? They want a thrill, but they sure as hell don’t want a wreck.”

“What about a head rest on the passenger side?” the mechanic asked.

Tuggle thought for a moment. “No,” she said carefully, “might cause a vision problem for the driver. Better leave it off.”

The mechanic started to argue. “But without that head rest-” Then he caught the crew chief’s carefully neutral expression, and a slow grin spread across his face. “Okeydokey, ma’am. You’re the boss. No passenger-side head rest, boys.”

“One more thing,” another shop dog called out.

“What’s that?” said Tuggle.

He grinned. “Can we come watch?”

Early Thursday morning at Lowe’s Motor Speedway was turning into a hot, sunny day, and the place was already a bustle of activity in preparation for the weekend races. At the edge of the track, the newly modified race car sat gleaming in the morning sun, awaiting its masters and commander.

The prospective passengers had all arrived together in a mini-van, which they drove right through the tunnel and up into the infield of the speedway. They had tumbled out of the van, still holding Styrofoam coffee cups and chattering nineteen to the dozen about their forthcoming adventure. They had more cameras than a Mitsubishi press conference. A few moments after their arrival, they had surrounded the car, like a gaggle of meerkats. Tuggle had insisted that each woman be outfitted in a firesuit and helmet for their own protection-as well as to make them hot, uncomfortable, and as awkward as possible going in and out the window of the vehicle. She didn’t want them to enjoy this command performance too much, and if they came away from it with a greater respect for Badger’s skill while working in difficult conditions, so much the better.

After a close but clueless inspection of their newly painted ride, the bosses amused themselves by taking turns photographing each other with the race car in the background, while they assured each other that the firesuits did not make them look fat.

“Before we take any more shots, maybe we should wait for Badger,” one of the older ladies said as another camera clicked.

Sark, who was also on hand to make sure that at least some photos turned out well, smiled reassuringly. “Most of us are shooting digital, Mrs. Wagner,” she said. “So we’ll never run out of film. Now, stand closer together and smile!”

After half an hour or so of posing and chatter, Badger Jenkins stumped out of the hauler, where he had been holed up, ostensibly talking about technical matters with members of the team, but really drinking bottled water and grousing about this additional chore. What was the world coming to when women actually wanted to ride around in race cars instead of pleading with you to stay out of the thing yourself?

If he was still annoyed about it, though, it didn’t show when he emerged from the hauler. His angelic face wore its usual expression of smoldering seriousness, and the opaque sunglasses ensured that his expression would give nothing away. The firesuit did wonders for his image: He actually looked taller when he was wearing that thing. He looked, in fact, wise and powerful and devastatingly competent. Even Tuggle, who knew better, was impressed by the sight of him.

He shook hands solemnly with each of the waiting passengers, and when most of them insisted on hugging him, he bore that with grave politeness as well, although Tuggle noticed that he kept his hands at his sides and endured the embraces like a child ambushed by maiden aunts. She supposed that celebrities had to become accustomed to being hugged by people who didn’t realize that they were total strangers, because they felt that they knew you. Any Cup driver too squeamish to put up with such familiarity would be branded by fans as temperamental and stuck-up, so most of them did endure it with good grace. She didn’t envy them that part of the job. Tuggle wasn’t close to many people, and she reserved the right to choose who she’d hug and who she wouldn’t. Come to think of it, she couldn’t name a single person that she would hug voluntarily.