Sharyn McCrumb - Once Around the Track

Of course, he’s going to lose! Oh, wait, he did win last week, didn’t he? I actually found myself boasting of my tenuous connection to Team Badger to a sports writer from the Charlotte Observer. Get me a hat or something, will you?

Sure, if you buy me dinner. You don’t want it signed by Badger, do you? Everybody has been complaining lately that he never does the autographing of items people send to the team. We’re thinking of getting a cattle prod. Plus some of the Vagenya Pharmaceuticals people showed up at the race last week, and Badger was supposed to go do a meet and greet with them, but he never showed up. I got some of the blame for that one, because I was supposed to get him there, but I couldn’t find him. They ought to hire him a nanny!

I thought he had one. That Albigre woman. By the way, I have some information about her that I’ll bet you will find interesting.

You did? Is she an ax murderess?

No, but I believe she is dangerous nonetheless, and for dinner and a Vagenya hat signed by the elusive Badger, I shall reveal all.

The All-Star Race is held in May at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, just off I-85, about twelve miles north of Charlotte, within easy commuting distance of nearly every racing operation in the sport. This race pitted the best against the best, competing for money, rather than for points toward the Cup championship. The mile-and-a-half tri-oval track had recently been resurfaced, but it had been a fast track even before that. With only five degrees of banking in the straightaways, drivers found it easy to maintain high speeds, and easy to pass other cars. Lowe’s was a popular track: a fun place to race and an easy commute from home base.

Team Vagenya had no real hopes of winning a second race in a row, especially not at a fast, flattish track that was usually dominated by the big team superstars, but at least the win at Darlington had put them into the race, and that alone was something to be proud of.

Up in the spotters’ position on the top of the speedway, Tony Lafon watched the progress of the All-Star race with growing apprehension. Drivers who couldn’t spell “invincible” were driving as if they were. His current concern was with one of the more reckless contenders, a fairly new driver who had managed to win one race the previous season, despite the fact that he was considered both reckless and inexperienced. Generally, competitors are referred to in spotters’ conversations by car number, but this particular driver was universally known as the “Weapon.” You didn’t want him anywhere near your car, because he would take you out, sometimes on purpose, and sometimes simply because he seemed to lack the skill to bump and run without leaving catastrophe in his wake. “Driving over his head,” the veterans called it.

As the race went on, the Weapon seemed to become progressively more obnoxious, spinning out a former champion and narrowly missing a collision with a couple of other drivers. Surely one of the old-timers would swat this puppy into the wall before the end of the race, Tony thought, but lap after lap went by, and the Weapon plowed on without retribution.

For Tony, the events on lap 76 seemed to unfold in slow motion below him. He realized that the lapped and damaged car directly in the path of Badger and the Weapon was moving much more slowly than they were, and that as they approached that point on the track, the Weapon was trying to overtake the 86.

Badger and the Weapon were running side by side going into Turn Two, approaching the lapped car on the inside. Badger held his line on the high side, but-true to form-the other driver, positioned in the middle, didn’t back down, and he ran out of room.

Tony was shouting, “Watch the lap car…Weapon on the inside…still there…still there…Holy shit…Bad-geerrrr!”

With nowhere to go, the Weapon clipped the lapped car and got shot up the track into Badger and then the wall. Badger’s car climbed the wall before slamming again into the other driver’s car. Twisted together, two crumpled cars slid onto the apron.

Both cars were clearly out of the race. The concern now was whether the drivers were all right.

Badger dropped the window net, and as he climbed out, he looked over at the window of the other car, waiting for its window net to drop-but it didn’t.

Badger didn’t wait for the Weapon to show his face. He climbed out of the window and headed for the other car, which was sitting on the pavement a few yards away from the 86. Badger’s clenched fists and his body language suggested that if the Weapon wasn’t hurt, he soon would be.

Badger was one step away from his opponent’s car, peering through the window net, which was still in place, when he seemed to realize that the driver inside was slumped forward in his seat, not moving. His fists unclenched, and he looked around, making sure that the safety crew knew he needed help. The helmet turned slowly toward the infield where the safety crews were just starting to roll. He waved one gloved hand and nodded.

An instant later, when he turned his attention back to the wreck, flames were engulfing the car inside and out.

In the pit stall, Taran started to scream.

Badger, still wearing all his gear, reached into the flames and lowered the window net, thrusting his body waist-deep into the burning car, searching in the darkness for the fire system plunger. He hit the trigger.

While the fire was held at bay by the spraying fire bottle, Badger backed out of the car, throwing off his helmet once he was clear.

“Why is he taking his helmet off?” asked Taran, who had covered her face with her hands and now was watching the scene through splayed fingers.

Kathy mouthed the words at her and pointed. “He’s going back in.”

Then Taran understood. Those cumbersome helmets hardly fit through the window by themselves, and they were hard to see and maneuver in. It could also be filled with smoke from the first time he went in. Besides, the Weapon was still wearing his own helmet, and two helmets trying to come out that car window at the same time would not work at all.

The smoke was thicker now, making it hard to see what was actually happening at the Weapon’s car, but Tuggle didn’t have to see to know.

Badger was getting him out. The safety crews were heading toward the wreck, but Badger wouldn’t wait for them to get there. Firesuits protect against fire only for a matter of seconds. Taking a breath in the open air, Badger reached back into the burning car and removed the steering wheel. If he undid the driver’s belts, the radio harness and the air hose could be ripped away, and the Hans device would come out with the injured driver.

Badger would tuck his chin over the Weapon’s shoulder from behind and fall backward with his arms under the Weapon’s arm pits and around his chest, pulling him partway out of the window. With the belts undone, the Weapon fell forward into Badger, who leveraged against the car and snaked the unconscious driver out the window and away from the flames.

From her place in the 86 pit stall, Reve Galloway was peering across the track through curtains of smoke to watch the rescue, when an odd thing happened. She should have seen a scrawny country boy in a tacky purple firesuit yanking a reckless jerk out of a bashed-in car…but somehow…

For just those few foggy seconds that it took for Badger to rescue the unconscious driver, everybody on Team Vagenya saw what Taran saw all the time. Him. The Dark Angel.

Someone taller than Badger Jenkins, and infinitely more graceful, had swung effortlessly out of his own car, which had crashed at nearly 200 miles per hour. Then without a moment’s hesitation he had walked over to the other wreck and, it seemed to her, straight into a wall of flames. Now, instead of worrying about his own safety, he was risking his life to rescue someone he didn’t even like. His movements were as deliberate and assured as those of a dancer. It was as if the danger did not exist. As if the wreck were simply a staged exercise in precision and movement. How beautiful he was, Reve thought. Why did we never see this before? Without any sense of irony, she found herself framing the scene in Hamlet’s words: In form and moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god .