The Bench Racers Journal

[Terry Bentley]

Chapter 79

It is now very late Sunday night. After trying everything without any luck there is no way I can fall asleep. Tomorrow is the first day of school. I am attending a new to me but old junior high school. This is not why my brain doesnt want to take a break. But it is going to suck if I end up staying awake all night. I will be nothing but a train wreck all day in school tomorrow.

All I keep thinking about is last nights race. How is it we spent all this much time working towards our very first race....Then is turned into almost a nightmare. As we pulled off the track in the first heat race, I was almost on cloud 9. Steve could not have been any more excited.

We did very well getting thru the traffic without even touching another kart. The only contact either of us having was just the occasional bumps while we drafted each other down the longer straightaway. But no sooner had we gotten off the karts, everything went south. Like in a hurry, and without any warning.

Our big to us debut turned sour even before the checkered flag had been waved. We got the raw end of the deal. Things only went farther downhill from there. I mean like a runaway train downhill. There were forces working against us that still make no sense to me. We get accused of dangerous driving and causing several wrecks. It does not add up at all.

The only thing we were guilty of is being in the immediate area of those incidents we were accused of causing. Any attempt to get clarification of exactly what we did wrong was only stonewalled. Steve had been talking to the grid steward after the races. I figured he must have said something not so polite to him and may be why there was little if any explanation.

Dad tried inquiring to the flagman about this right before the third heat started. But got nothing except the flagman waving him off and walking away. This started looking like a conspiracy against us. But that sounds ridiculous even thinking about it now. Why would two new first time drivers be singled out like this?

Is it possible the flagman was really making sure only his kids would end up winning? But at the end of the awards ceremony, there were plenty of people complaining about how things were being handled. Seeing those trophies getting chunked back up to the the podium area was very strange to witness. Has the flagman done this before?

Why would anyone even try something like that? Is this the way they usually run the races out there. What if we were not singled out at all? Maybe this has happened to other drivers competing too closely to the flagmans kids? Wow I cant believe laying here in bed tonight even thinking there are people that would do that kind of stuff.

Just a few years ago after attempting to ride that homemade cart in the back yard put me on a mission to build something gas powered with four wheels. I had no idea karts were a big deal yet or even seen anything about them. In more recent years when thumbing thru some back issues of HOTROD and Rod and Custom, I was seeing more articles covering them.

I remember a particular article dad had showed me. One of the older magazines he kept in a box full of others. The title on the cover. "A RACE CAR FOR KIDS" If that didnt get the attention of every wannabe racer around my age, then nothing would. This was in the March 1955 issue of CAR CRAFT.




March 1955 CARCRAFT  

There was a very mini kid sized version of a race car that looked something like would run at the Indy 500. Or just the dirt car version anyway. Still way too cool. These raced on small dirt ovals. The article was fairly detailed covering something they referred to as the 1/4 ROADSTER.

It covered the basic specifications for this type car itself. Including the size of track and rules for racing. Unfortunately this was happening somewhere around Anaheim California. Oh well, not much difference if it was happening in Timbuktu, because no chance of ever seeing one of these cars up close or even in person.

After the realization of that type racing for kids going on anywhere around here was very unlikely, sort of killed it for me. But thinking of building something like this to drive around the neighborhood would be super duper. After looking more closely at the pictures of the frame and suspension, well this may be a little bit too complicated with the basic tools I had at my disposal at the time. Must less the knowledge or ability to build one then. Customizing my bicycle was a more likely project for this ten year kid at the time.

But my mind kept thinking back at that article. Maybe if I tried to simplify the frame. Since it would not be for racing. Try to build it more like a soapbox racer but beefed up using stronger frame rails, so it would not fall to pieces powered with a gas powered engine.

All this wishful thinking is not helping me fall to sleep. Just making things more frustrating right now. This is what drove me to acquiring broken lawn mowers, and anything that ran on gas for that matter. Me and Steve had been on this long term mission since the fifth grade. Unfortunately there was a shortage of riding lawn mowers being tossed out to the curb for the trashman to pick up.

I had first thought to use the same components from a rider, especially since some of them have the larger inflatable tires. It would take a lot of creativity, but could be possible. Thinking back with what I have learned, it would be really easy to build now. Very time consuming, but considering what we managed to accomplish this summer, I have no doubt it could now be done by us.

Having a super cool race car like that would be too neat. But actually competing against other ones would not happen since they dont race anything like those around here. We could have made a track behind the 7-11 store. There is a huge field that is mostly flat.

I bet that nasty black gumbo dirt would be perfect when tacky. Sure gets stuck to my shoes when walking in the rain. If we drove around long enough those weeds would wear down fairly quickly and there would be the perfect dirt track. But only for the only 1/4 roadster in this neck of the woods. Not that is would be much like the real thing.

Originally we planned to use riding mower parts to make our race car to drive around, but lack of donor parts and ability put the brakes on this project. We did manage to learn enough and start to understand how these engines ran. After finally putting some of the push mowers back together, we actually got a few of them to run again.

This opened the door to more things related to small engines. Edgers, old washing machine motors and occasionally even a chainsaw would find their way into our greasy grubby and greedy hands. Unfortunately more of the really oddball engines only got torn apart. Some of them we did get running and then try to see how long they would last without oil. You know that old self destruction test? When we were really motivated, even try different flammable liquids besides gasoline.

Gasoline seemed to be in a league all by itself. Other flammables didnt fair so well. Sometimes after many attempts, we would give up and just light the engine on fire. We thought maybe if the fire was hot enough it would melt the engine. But even that didnt get anywhere. Most everything just burned black and sooty. Not hot enough except to burn your hands.

On some of our less than productive testing days when the engine was set ablaze, there was that occasional grass fire. We did panic a couple of times when the fire almost got out of hand. But it didnt take but once to realize that not having an emergency supply of water to douse the flames wasnt too bright. When this didnt work so well we would stomp the grass fires out with our feet. Well of course after that one other time, we didnt try again without wearing shoes.    

I am thinking back just a couple of years ago, and realizing how stupid many of the things we did really was. I would get a push mower running, and immediately go try it out on the yard somewhere. Naturally during the summer, shoes were always optional. Do you know how much dirt and grass gets in your shoes?

I remember chasing Steve around with a push mower while the engine was running with the governor bypassed. I could usually expect one of two things when doing this. It could be the connecting rod would break and end up with a big hole in the side of the crankcase. This was super cool too. It caused the oil to explode out and cover everything. Even us most of the time.

There was another time when the crankshaft would seize up and shear off. Then the blade would still be spinning around and make all kinds of racket. Not to mention the damage that was done to the mower base. We were always running around barefoot and only wearing cut off blue jeans. How we never got cuts and bruises on our feet all the time was a real mystery.

Getting that near perfect tan was something you just did too. Having a pale white butt was not so bad as having white feet when the rest of your body was layered in a nice golden tan. Having sandal or sock feet got a lot of laughs. Steve has darker skin and very black hair. He is all German, but speaks absolutely no German at all. He was born with that year round tan already.

I had to work most of the summer on my tan. Sometimes the sunburn would hit hard and early. Then I would have to go back to square one and try again. Walking around with tan, red and white splotches after a sunburn only got fingers pointing and being laughed at. You sure couldnt be seen at the local swimming pool when this happened.

One neighbor friend across the street has very light colored orange hair. His skin is extremely pale but mostly covered in freckles. The really light orange colored ones. He also burns to a crisp every time trying to get a tan. One time he got smart, so he was thinking, and bought a bottle of some kind of quick tanning lotion. That night he painted his whole body in the stuff. He was going to join the ranks of everyone else with a tan this summer.

I saw him only once the next day. He had turned just as bright orange as his freckles were. He had transformed himself in to one big freckle. It took nearly two weeks using Tide and a scrub brush to finally wash all of that color off of his skin.  Sometimes I think there are a lot more stupid people out there than smart ones. They just cant help themselves. They may even be too far gone for anyone to even be able to help.