The Wood

It's four in the morning...I slip out of bed...I know if I wake her....I'll wake up dead!
To paraphrase a Mr. D. Mustain, fortunately I was getting up instead of getting home, either way waking the lady of the house was not an option.

It was the beginning of what would prove to be a long day, but a day we in the neighborhood wait for patiently. The annual decendance of chrome, gasoline and color.

Thirty two feet wide and spanning nearly a mile and a half the Greenwood car show is a event that everyone comes out for. Parks that are normally jammed with sungazers are empty, walking trails and dog parks are devoid of there normal chatter and bussle.

The shops that line the streets open early with breakfast specials, discount cups of coffee for entrants all while the roar of horsepower echoes threw the little neighborhood in the north end of Seattle.

I was up before the sun to help my neighbor enter his sixty one and sixty two Thunderbirds, both restored to near original. The sixty one however having the motivational luxury of a four twenty eight big block with a tri-power.

Polishing off my second cup of coffee just as the windows began to rattle as he brought the big monster to life. We set out just shortly after five a.m.

To fill twenty three blocks of city streets it takes a lot of cars, last I heard mentioned was in excess of seven hundred. So the line was already well under way by the time we arrived.

Always having been a lone wolf, we had no club or group affiliation, so as they taxied us in, the ever nervous jockeying of where to park.That group seems cool, but will there cars detract from mine, what's the sun gonna be like mid afternoon, am I to close to the restrooms.

Finally getting the nod and settling down as you back into a stall, thirty five degrees to the curb so your audience can get the full effect. Time for the quick detailer and another cup of coffee. Followed shortly by taking advantage of all those daily specials.

Carb load and caffeine up, cause not the fun begins. As entrants we are fortunate enough to get to get out and walk it, while chatting up the other owners before the masses arrive. And arrive they do.

It starts small, a couple people swing by the car and ask you a few questions. Then within the hour they have had there breakfast, napped there children and enjoyed there morning, it's time for some street meat lunch and to see all the cars.

Soon your fielding questions like a coach after winning the big game, "Yes! You in the back, what was your question?"

It's the love and Inspiration of all that effort that brings us out, some great pride in the neighborhood and a few family traditions.

So come late June next year, we'll all be back, a little shinier then last year.

Tails from the crypt

Again another tear has materialized in the black Pearl's sails.

The radiator than has been ever so slowly releasing it's contents onto my garage floor has held it's last drop of water.

I removed it and ran it down to the local one man show radiator repair shop. With hopes of cost efficient repairs in my eyes, my heart sank in realization that I wouldn't be making the neighborhood car show at the end of the month. The cancerous infection of sixty years of use have finally taken hold. The radiator can't be saved.

So, as I sit and wonder what direction to go, I find myself reminiscing on some of the ones that have came and gone before. The fifteen or more failed and floundering attempts at chrome and glory.

Sunday, nine a.m., June the twelfth, nineteen hundred and ninty three, with my head pounding from the excesses of graduation celebrations, I received a phone call.

Voice, "Hey! , you still want that truck?"
Self, ......"huh?.....oh yeah! What do you want for it?
Voice, "$600.00"
Self, "er....any room on that? Can you cut me a deal?"
Voice, "sure! $550.00 and those black Ayaya rims you've been sitting on"
Self, thinking.....I've had those rims since I was nine, ran them on ever BMX bike I had...thinking...."Done!"

An hour later I was standing in a buddies backyard glowing with pride as I stared down a nineteen seventy three Ford courier.

And not just any courier, the "Grinch" as it would be known as hence forth.

Slammed down super low with big wide fifteen by eight Outlaw wheels with narrow two zero five tires, just an inch narrower than the wheels, so it had the perfect look for the era. And lime sherbet green.

After all the official activities were taken care of and I received a crash course in hot wiring an ignition. We bounced down the gravel drive and out into the street, feeling like this was transaction was going to change my world!

Throwing the shifter into first and pinning the little twenty four hundred C.C. motor I sawed at the wheel to keep it in the lane I was In.

I had only gone just over a mile, finally coming to my first corner,  the one I've been thinking of, waiting for my first lowered vehicle to try my luck at.

As it came close, I spotted my turn in, picked my braking point, just past the irrigation canal. I let it drift out, pulling right and leaning in, touch the brakes before the tires give then all into that skinny little pedal.

Then silence......coasting over to edge, dead....twenty minutes of ownership, was it a record?

Nope, turns out I had a lot to learn about hot wiring a car. For instance....the connections must remain intact.

That was a long lesson to learn in that heat while that little drummer continually pounder away on my eye drums.

24

Twenty four hours....how hard can you push yourself and car in one thousand four hundred and forty minutes. Over thirty three hundred miles,  in a single day.

It's waking up in Seattle and going to sleep in Daytona, give or take a few miles. It's an astonishing feet to punish body and machine for glory and speed, speeds in excess of two hundred and fifteen miles per hour.

It's the ultimate paved test of soul, giving, engineering.

Pushing hard on Sunday for the one minute fifty run through the cones, or the Wednesday track day that was the final nail in the coffin of your last set of tires is a test.

When you get out of the car in the paddock, catch your breath and sip a water reminiscing on the last run. Lungs pounding, heart still well over a hundred, hands are sweaty and your right leg won't stop shaking.

The brakes where beginning to fade, the tires had gotten greasy and the steering fluid was starting to boil, thankfully you came in when you did.

Now imagine that's been happening for the last forty minutes, twenty more until your scheduled to come in and you've had an RSR as a shadow for over an hour.

The 24h, Le Mans, the greatest single road race in the world, the Porsche curves, Mulsaine, the ferris wheel and the night.

The darkness, that  just hangs there, looming out in front of you like a curtain.

it's the mind that is the one going through the greatest test in that darkness, over all those hours. The speed doesn't slow,  the eyes have to keep up, fighting to process the information now with half the time to adjust.

What's over the next rise, around the next corner, what's the weather gonna be like at the other end. 

Deer, ever have to wonder if that was a deer. Will it still be there in three and half minutes.

The darkness quiets the outside world, but the minds screaming at information doesn't give way.

Then dawn and the "Magic hour" the air cools, the light comes, tires stick and the fire is rekindled again, only nine more hours to go.

It's the 24

Photo courtesy of unknown internet