Sharyn McCrumb - Once Around the Track

Tuggle contemplated the picture of Badger Jenkins, who was looking smolderingly at the camera, his legs spread far enough apart for a prostate exam. She snorted, unimpressed.

“Yeah, I know Badger,” she said. “He’s all right. Good seat-of-the-pants driver.”

Two of the investors glanced at each other, lips twitching. “We noticed that,” one of them said.

Tuggle scowled. She didn’t hold with people who treated drivers like cat toys. Or with drivers treating fans like that, for that matter. “ Seat of the pants means a driver who can react quickly and handle things by instinct, whatever happens out there. A natural.” She glanced again at the photo. “I can see how you might misinterpret that phrase, though, with this to go by. That boy keeps sitting like that, he’s gonna get himself arrested.”

“For indecent exposure?”

“For false advertising.”

The investors glanced at one another, and then wisely decided not to pursue this line of questioning. “So, would you be comfortable working with Badger Jenkins?”

She considered it, knowing that the bosses wanted only a yes/no answer from her. What they really wanted was a yes answer as quickly as possible, but it wasn’t that simple. Like any Cup driver, Badger had his good points and his bad points. The question was whether he was good enough to make putting up with the rest worthwhile, and more importantly, whether the team could get anybody better who was likely to be less trouble. On the whole, she thought that they couldn’t.

Would she be comfortable working with Badger? Well, he was a sweet boy, no meanness in him, as far as she could see. He could be stubborn and he could show temper, but he wouldn’t be a race car driver if that weren’t the case. She did know Badger, and she believed in the adage “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.” At least she knew where the trouble was. He might be a pussycat at sponsor events, but it practically took a cattle prod to get him to one. Sometimes he was so handsome it would take your breath away, but he might forget to shave for a day or two, and usually he schlepped around in old clothes that Goodwill wouldn’t have taken off your hands. But skinny boys in firesuits looked like warrior angels. Badger gift-wrapped would sell some tee shirts, all right.

He could be slipperier than a weasel in getting out of things he didn’t want to do, and he’d roll in to the track around midday on Thursday, unless you twisted his arm to show up earlier. You had to watch him every minute, or else he’d slope off to do his own thing-trout fishing, flying model airplanes, or Lord knows what. He thought that anything that wasn’t spelled out in his contract was a personal favor on his part, necessary or not. And nobody could make him understand that publicity and interviews were important. She understood exactly why his previous team had let him go. She knew she’d have to have a come-to-Jesus talk with him at least once a week to keep him in line.

On the other hand, he wasn’t a bad bargain as drivers went. He’d be sober when he needed to be. He didn’t treat women like party favors. And he was a loyal friend who kept his word once he gave it. You could trust him-if you shouted at him enough.

She saw no reason to share his faults with the team owners. Badger would be her problem.

“Yeah,” she said, “I reckon I can work with old Badger.”

She heard several sighs of relief, and then one of the older women said, “And do you think Badger Jenkins will be able to deal with an all-female pit crew?”

Tuggle had thought about that. “Sort of like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ? Only in this case, it’ll be seven Snow Whites and one dwarf.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Tuggle…did you say dwarf ?”

She waved away the question. “Figure of speech is all. He ain’t that little-for a driver, that is. Mark Martin could have about driven a die-cast. I reckon Badger and I would stand nose to nose. ’Course I outweigh him,” she finished cheerfully, ignoring the shudders of the scrawnier investors. She imagined them later pushing away untouched plates of salad. “But you were asking about temperament, weren’t you?”

Several of the women nodded, perhaps not trusting themselves to speak.

“Well, it will mostly depend on how well they do their jobs, doncha know. A driver would be happy with a tribe of chimpanzees if they could get him out of the pit on four new tires in twelve seconds. You take much over thirteen, though, and a band of angels wouldn’t satisfy him. So get me good people and don’t worry about whether their booties were pink or blue.”

There was another awkward silence while the investors exchanged more significant looks. Must be telepaths, thought Tuggle. Finally, Christine said, “Find you good people? But surely that is your task, not ours?”

“Well, you’re the bosses,” said Tuggle amiably. “Like you said before, most teams nowadays have a crew manager and a crew chief. It’s the manager who hires the personnel, and the crew chief who makes sure they function smoothly as a team.” Noting the dismay on the women’s faces, Tuggle added kindly, “Of course, there’s no law that says you have to have a team manager. They never bothered with such things back in the day. Why, Bill Elliott’s crew was mostly his family, and he certainly did all right for himself, so I guess if you want me to handle both jobs, I can do it about as well as anybody. Hire the crew. Hmmm.”

Handling both jobs would be more work, but it also meant more independence-one less person to answer to. Grace Tuggle prized independence above rubies, and she was even willing to work harder to maintain her autonomy.

“You’ll need to pay me some more money to do both jobs,” she said.

No point in being a damn fool about it, she reasoned. “I’ll do both jobs for $950,000.” That way she didn’t have frighten them with the word “million,” but crew chiefs didn’t come cheap. To sweeten the deal, she added, “I can save us some money on the pit crew by hiring people who can do double duty.”

“I thought we had to have seven over-the-wall crewmen.”

Tuggle nodded. “Yes, but that’s for race day. What’s the point of hiring people who only work a day or two a week? If we get enough applicants for the jobs, we can hire the ones who also have another skill we can use. Say, a mechanic or a computer person, or someone who can also drive the hauler. That way we’ll have fewer workers on the payroll and a more efficient team. We also need a tire specialist-well, we can probably train a likely candidate, within reason.”

“What’s a tire specialist?”

Tuggle swallowed a sign of exasperation. “That’s the person who inflates the tires. Well, first we let the air out of the tire and refill it with nitrogen.”

They stared at her in puzzled fascination. “With nitrogen ? Why on earth-?”

“I don’t know, but everybody does it. It’s not illegal. Trust me, okay? And when you hire an engineer, ask him- her -why NASCAR teams prefer to run on nitrogen-inflated tires. And as for tire-soaking-”

“What’s that?” asked Christine.

That was illegal. Most everybody did that, too, but she probably ought not to discuss it with people new to the sport. Tuggle took a long, fortifying breath; then she said, “Well, you want to wash the tires before the race to make sure they haven’t picked up any bits of debris that could cause a blowout.” It seemed plausible enough, as lies went, and no one questioned her explanation.

“So, you’re saying that we can streamline the team and save money on salaries by hiring people who can do two jobs. But wouldn’t such experts cost more?”