Drag Strip Racer Read online

  Books by Matt Christopher

  Sports Stories

  The Lucky Baseball Bat

  Baseball Pals

  Basketball Sparkplug

  Little Lefty

  Touchdown for Tommy

  Break for the Basket

  Baseball Flyhawk

  Catcher with a Glass Arm

  The Counterfeit Tackle

  Miracle at the Plate

  The Year Mom Won the Pennant

  The Basket Counts

  Catch That Pass!

  Shortstop from Tokyo

  Jackrabbit Goalie

  The Fox Steals Home

  Johnny Long Legs

  Look Who’s Playing First Base

  Tough to Tackle The Kid Who Only Hit Homers

  Face-Off

  Mystery Coach

  Ice Magic

  No Arm in Left Field

  Jinx Glove

  Front Court Hex

  The Team That Stopped Moving

  Glue Fingers

  The Pigeon with the Tennis Elbow

  The Submarine Pitch

  Power Play

  Football Fugitive

  Johnny No Hit

  Soccer Halfback

  Diamond Champs

  Dirt Bike Racer

  The Twenty-One-Mile Swim

  The Dog That Stole Football Plays

  Run, Billy, Run

  Wild Pitch

  Tight End

  Drag-Strip Racer

  Animal Stories

  Desperate Search

  Stranded

  Earthquake

  Devil Pony

  Copyright

  COPYRIGHT © 1982 BY MATTHEW F. CHRISTOPHER

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL MEANS INCLUDING INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEMS WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: December 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-316-09553-2

  Contents

  Books by Matt Christopher

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  To Carl, Bruce, and Bradley

  ONE

  THE EARLY MORNING silence was heavy II in the Ford pickup as it traveled at a steady forty-five-mile-per-hour clip on Route 60 to Candlewyck Speedway. The stillness was broken only by the rhythmic sound of the motor and the thump-thump of the tires crossing the tarpatched stripes on the highway.

  Behind the wheel, sixteen-year-old Ken Oberlin glanced at his sister, Janet, sitting beside him. “Excited?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad,” he said. “You and Lori are the only ones on my side. Neither Mom or Dad is keen about my drag racing. But Uncle Louis left Li’l Red to me, so what am I supposed to do? Toss her on a junk pile?”

  Janet looked at him, her coffee-brown eyes shining. “Well, they did let you drive it in auto-crosses,” she said. At fourteen she had taken an interest in cars herself, although she still had two years to go before she could get a driver’s license.

  “Yes, and I’m glad I did,” he told her. “But autocrosses are mainly for precision and skill. I think I learned a lot, but what I’m interested in now is speed. Boy, I wish Uncle Louis hadn’t died. I mean, if he was just around to give me a little advice now and then.”

  Uncle Louis was his father’s brother, a drag-strip freak from his teenage years to the day he passed away of a heart attack at age fifty-nine.

  Ken thought back to the times his uncle had taken him for rides in Li’l Red, times he’d seen her blazing down the 1320-foot asphalt strip to more victories than he could remember. They were glorious memories.

  “What does Dana think about it?” Janet asked.

  “I don’t care what he thinks,” Ken said stiffly. “He’s got his motorcycle, I’ve got my car.”

  He’d never forget the cold stare his brother had given him when the words of Uncle Louis’s will were read by his attorney: I bequeath my racer, Li’l Red, to my nephew Kenneth, who I hope will enjoy racing it with all the pleasure that it has given me.

  Sometimes he wondered if Dana was really a member of their family. The guy had left school a month before he was supposed to graduate, telling the family he was positive he wouldn’t pass the final exams anyway. Now he worked part time at Nick Evans’s pool parlor, and from the money he earned had managed to buy himself a Kawasaki motorcycle.

  “How much farther do we have to go?” Janet asked, as she looked down the gleaming white road. It was flanked on either side by brush and pasture fields. A couple of dozen cattle grazed monotonously.

  “About two, maybe three miles,” Ken said.

  Minutes later they could see the towering sign in the distance: Candlewyck Speedway. Soon Ken changed to the right-turn-only lane, reached the intersection, and turned through an open gate. He paused at the ticket office, showed his pre-entry card to a red-haired woman working there, drove through another gate, and turned left toward the technical inspection station.

  He showed the card again to one of three guys in white coveralls with “Inspector” labels sewn on the left sides of their chests. Then he got out of the pickup, unlocked the chain securing the racer, lowered the ramp, and drove the red Chevy off the trailer and onto a weighing scale. He emerged from it to permit the men to continue their inspection of the car’s height, engine size, tires, and carburetor. The men made check marks on their tablets, then—about fifteen minutes later—stepped back and told Ken he was set to run. Over a walkie-talkie one of the men informed the timing tower that “a red 1975 Chevy owned and driven by Ken Oberlin has passed inspection and is coming in for its trial runs.”

  “Is it necessary to go through this full inspection every day?” Ken asked the man.

  “No. There’ll be just a quick check once a week after this, unless you don’t show up for two or three weeks,” the tech man told him, smiling.

  “Thanks.”

  Ken drove the Chevy back on the trailer, then drove the trailer to the pit stop, a long vacant lot facing the track, and saw an ambulance along with three other trucks and trailers there. The owners of the trucks and trailers were on the lanes, trial-running their cars.

  Ken felt a rush of excitement as he parked, shut off the engine, and watched the trial runs. The three cars present were an orange Omni, a yellow Vega, and a blue Camaro, each emblazoned on the side with the driver’s name and the commercial outfit sponsoring him. Having a commercial company behind you wasn’t necessary, but it helped when it came to paying for supplies and repairs. Ken, aware of the tightness of money in his household, hoped to find a sponsor soon.

  “You going to sit here all day?” Janet said suddenly, glancing casually at him.

  Ken looked at her and smiled. He got out, walked back to the trailer, and lowered the ramp againto drive Li’l Red off.

  Soon he was back inside the two-door Chevy that was powered by a 1970, 396-horsepower big block engine Uncle Louis had installed himself. He started the car, backed it up, and let it idle while he climbed out to take his firesuit, helmet, and gloves from a duffel bag and put them on.

  He glanced up at the top windows of the dome-shaped tower building and thought he saw o
ne of the track co-owners—either Buck Morrison or Jay Wells—looking out at him.

  A moment later a voice boomed over a loudspeaker: “Ken Oberlin, drive around the timing tower and get ready to run against the Camaro. Take number one lane, please. You have three trial runs. Your best time will be used to determine your run for this afternoon’s Eliminator contest.”

  Ken acknowledged the order by raising a hand; then he drove around the tower toward lane one and stopped as a crewman standing on the lanes behind the two cars that were ready to run raised his hand. A moment later the blue Camaro drove up and stopped beside him, ready to get on lane two.

  Ken glanced at the driver—Bill Robbins, according to the name blazing in white across the door. Robbins turned to him and raised a thumb, and Ken acknowledged the sign by raising his.

  He knew very few drivers personally. He had trial-run his car only twice before to get the feel of its power and performance. This morning was the first time he was going to trial-run it to qualify for drag racing. It was going to be the Big Event for him, the start of something great. Maybe.

  Yeah, maybe, he told himself. Even Uncle Louis had never won the Winternationals, the Gatornationals, or any other national event. But he’d been close to it a dozen times. And he’d made a name for himself in the world of Pro Stock racing.

  They got the signal to move ahead. Ken moved the gear lever, jammed his foot on the gas pedal, and felt the slicks take a solid grip of the rosin-topped asphalt as the car shot forward. Then he slammed on the brakes, paused a moment, and repeated the procedure. Satisfied that the tires were doing their job, he drove up to the staging lane and braked when the top yellow light of the “Christmas tree,” about twenty feet down the course, flashed on.

  It was hot inside the car. Sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes, blurring his vision. He lifted the plastic shield of his helmet and wiped his eyes with the tip of his gloved finger, then waited for the staged lights of the Christmas tree to be activated.

  Suddenly they were, and he glued his attention on them; every muscle in his body responded with tension as, one by one, the amber lights turned on. Only two and a half seconds elapsed from the time the lights turned on till the green starting light activated. Take off too soon and a red light flashed, indicating a foul start and an automatic loss. Take off too late and you might as well forget it. Most races were won or lost at the starting line, so it paid to concentrate one hundred percent on the lights.

  There! The last amber light went on, then the green—and Ken jammed on the gas pedal. He felt his body thrust back against the seat as the car sprang forward, the front end tilting up on its frame for a second or two, then settling back down. All of her 396 horsepower responded as a unit. Ken’s hand on the five-speed stick shift was white-knuckled and trembled under the severe strain of the screaming transmission. He braced his teeth as he felt his skin draw back against his jaw. He shifted into the next gear, the 4¾-inch travel from one gear to the next feeling liquid smooth.

  The car blazed down the track, engine roaring. The best Ken had done so far in Li’l Red was 12.08 at 112.67 miles per hour. He was sure the car could do better. She had the power harnessed inside that metal body. Uncle Louis had learned to use it to her upper limits. I should, too, Ken told himself.

  He reached the end of the quarter-mile run and stepped on the brakes. The car slowed briefly, then something seemed to spring loose and the car continued its swift speed down the lane.

  Stunned and gripped with fear, Ken kept pumping the brake pedal. But the brakes still didn’t respond. Oh, no, he thought, what happened to the brakes?

  Then he felt the car pull to the right. It was traveling so fast he was off the lane before he knew it. He had a blurred glimpse of the Camaro beside him, and, in an effort to avoid a collision with it, he swung the wheel to the left. The momentum of the car’s speed carried him across the lane toward the guardrail. He turned the wheel to the right to avoid hitting it, but struck it with the side of his left front fender. At the same time he felt a jarring pain in his left foot, which he had braced against the floorboard.

  He veered back onto the asphalt and headed toward the metal fence in the distance, shoving the shift lever into lower speeds now to slow the car down. Some fifty feet from the fence he made a U-turn and brought the vehicle to a stop, nose pointing toward the pit stops.

  He yanked off his helmet, gripped the wheel, and shut his eyes in angry despair.

  “What happened?” he cried aloud. “What could have happened?”

  He felt the pain in his left ankle again, and wondered if it were sprained or broken. He probably would have to have it x-rayed to make sure. What lousy luck.

  He heard a siren screaming in the distance, drawing nearer by the second.

  He unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, and stumbled out of the car. He saw the blue Camaro pull up on the other side of him. Then Bill Robbins piled out of it and came running forward.

  “You okay?” Robbins asked worriedly.

  “I’m not sure,” Ken said, and looked at his left foot. “My foot jammed against the floorboard when I hit the guardrail. I might have sprained or broken it. I don’t know.”

  “Did you lose control?” Robbins wanted to know.

  “The brakes gave.”

  The ambulance arrived and pulled up beside them. Two paramedics jumped out of it and hurried toward him.

  “You okay?” asked the shorter of the two, a stout, reddish-haired guy about twenty-five.

  “Okay except for my left foot,” Ken answered.

  “Lie down,” the medic advised. Both he and his partner got on either side of Ken and helped ease him to the ground.

  Ken saw a figure racing across the field toward them, hair flying. Janet’s eyes were wide with panic as she came running up to him. She stopped and stared down at him as he lay there. A medic had removed Ken’s shoe and was examining his injured foot.

  Ken felt the gentle, probing fingers. Then they found a tender spot that flared with hot-iron pain as the medic pressed his thumb against it.

  “I’m afraid you’ve got a fracture, my friend,” the medic said. “Hold still. I’ll get a stretcher and take you to the hospital.”

  Janet gazed at the medic as he rose to his feet and started toward the ambulance. “Can I go with him?” she asked. “He’s my brother.”

  “You sure can,” he said.

  TWO

  THE GARAGE DOOR was open and the car II was gone. So was Li’l Red. It had been parked under the towering oak next to the garage.

  Dana rubbed the dark fuzz on his chin as he remembered that today, Saturday, was a big day for his kid brother. He was going to trial-run the Chevy for this afternoon’s Eliminator contest. Well, good luck, old buddy, he thought, as he climbed off his motorcycle.

  He yanked off his black helmet, hung it over a handlebar, and rubbed his dark hair vigorously with his hands. Then he combed it back with his fingers and headed for the house, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his mouth. Just before he reached the front porch he took a deep drag from it, inhaled the smoke into his lungs, then dropped it and squashed it with the heel of his right boot.

  His taut, tall frame moved with easy grace as he stepped up to the door and turned the knob. The door was locked.

  He knocked, but there was no answer.

  “They must’ve all gone to watch their favorite son do his thing,” Dana muttered out loud.

  Dana reached for the ring of keys he kept on his wide belt, selected one, and unlocked the door.

  He went in, closed the door behind him, plunked his long, angular frame down on an armchair, and yanked off his boots. Then he stretched out his feet, wiggled his toes, and laughed.

  “So Ken thinks he’s going to make out like good old Uncle Louis, does he?” he said, again voicing his thoughts out loud. “Bull. He’ll never be able to carry a candle to that old-timer.”

  Anyway, he thought with some bitterness, that racer should have been
left to him. Ken was no hot-rodder. He was at home with books, not a racing car. He had sat on a motorcycle only once in his life and Dana remembered he had to coax him to get on it then. Why leave a racer to a sixteen-year-old kid when he was afraid to ride pillion on a bike?

  Why? Because Ken’s the good boy of the family, that’s why, Dana answered his own question. Tell him to do something and he’ll jump to it like a puppet on a string.

  “Well,” he said aloud, “not me. I’m eighteen and I’m going to live my own life. I am what I am, and I’m not going to change it—for Mom, or Dad, or Ken, or anybody else.”

  He glanced at his wristwatch. Ten after twelve. Well, he’d better make himself a sandwich and get back to work before twelve-thirty, he thought. He was doing a job for Nick Evans—painting the walls of his pool parlor—and Nick didn’t like to have his help late. Even part-time help.

  He slid off the armchair, went into the kitchen, and headed toward the refrigerator. He saw a note taped to the door and leaned over to read it.

  Dana,

  We’re at the hospital. Kerfs foot was fractured in an accident.

  I’ve made a couple of sandwiches for you.

  If you can come to see your brother, please do.

  Mother

  He picked up the note, read it again, then wadded it up into a ball. How do you like that? he thought. The first day of his race and Ken had to go and fracture his foot. That proved that he was no racer. He should stick to his books, or that wood sculpturing hobby he had recently started.

  Dana tossed the wadded paper into the garbage container, opened the refrigerator door, and hauled out the two bagged sandwiches along with a can of beer. He thought of going to the hospital to see Ken, but wasn’t particularly interested. A fractured foot was no big deal. Ken was lucky he hadn’t broken his neck.

  He ate the sandwiches and reconsidered. His parents would want him to see Ken, so he decided he would. The hospital was out of his way, but he didn’t have to stay there for more than a few minutes. No reason why he couldn’t get back to Nick’s in time.

  He finished the beer, tossed the empty can and bags into the garbage container, locked the house, and biked to the hospital. He found out from the receptionist that Ken was in the emergency ward, and went to it. He didn’t hurry. His heels clicked on the tiled floor like a slow-running clock.