Building confidence

The lights from Jeff’s garage are a beacon in the night to the errand bovine roaming the pitch-black pastures surrounding his rural home in Johnson County, Texas. Staccato sounds of an impact wrench spill out in the dark vast emptiness startling a curious coyote camouflaged by a patch of prickly pear cactus and tall dry grass. Curses echo into the night, as exhaustion battles an ever-ending desire to fulfill a dream he has had since youth, and his first time seeing a drag car fly by at the local track. He was hooked instantly, while other young men chased the danger and excitement of the Rodeo or football he chose the feel of horsepower created by one’s own hands. He walks to an old General Motors refrigerator and grabs a much-needed cold beer before sitting on a raggedy bench seat discarded from an old truck. Outside in the cool spring air, he allows himself to rest for a moment and soak up the silence of a perfectly dark night. As he watches odd lights streak across the Texas sky, he fondly and regrettably recalls his last trip to Texas Raceway, his local dragstrip. He is a true spectator of the sport but gets too involved within his mind and will lose hours coveting the other, richer, racers. Once he finds a willing ear to bend, he will lose himself in the theory and art of racing, engine building, or any topic about drag racing. By the end of the night, he will often feel sad and regretful he had not spent those hours where he belonged, where his heart told him he needed to be, in his garage furthering his dream of someday being that person who roared down the track with reckless abandon. Lights project across the pasture as a truck filled with young revelers hoop and holler as they drive by, returning from a night of debauchery in pursuit of the opposite sex. But for all the curves of a young lady, he has always preferred the lines or curves of American muscle. He found his true love when his grandfather bequeathed his sixty-nine Chevy Chevelle after wrecking it the last of many times. Jeff’s memory of the car and the reality of what was dropped off by a tow truck were lightyears apart, the old man had not been good to what he considered a work of art. “Too young to drive yet” didn’t matter to him, he had been gifted a goal to shoot for, a reason to work hard, but when he had torn apart that gift he realized quickly that only the drive train was salvageable. Depression set in with no car, so he spent his time and money working on an engine that had no home, that is until the day his father’s work truck broke down. At the same moment his mouth was uttering the words “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” his mind recalled an article and pictures of an S-10 Chevy pickup truck, one of the smaller four-cylinder trucks with an eight-cylinder engine. It would be a tight fit, but he could do it, and if he did then it would scream down the track and bring forth the rush of victory he so desperately needed. After endless hours working into the night and endless days spent roaming salvage yards and swap meets, he had collected the bits and pieces of the race truck he wanted to build. Over the next few years, he would manage to graduate high school despite being distracted, but he would also have created a monster of a race truck. Jeff had gotten a part-time job to help with the expenses of his dreams, but the work he expected, the endless teasing and taunting because his little truck despite being fast, was ugly. His friends weren’t shy to tell him as much either, so one day he took off work and took his truck to a paint shop. He quickly found out that adolescent teasing wasn’t strictly for adolescents. Sitting in the waiting room he could hear the jeers from the workers in the shop and even the snide remarks from the owner who handed him an estimate to beautify his creation. The estimate was for the bare minimum to fix the body and make it a single color, but the amount was six months' salary to Jeff. The drive home was difficult, suddenly he was battling his own doubts about the truck, he had let the naysayers and bullies change the way he felt in his heart, how he felt about his dream. He didn’t even bother to pull the truck off the trailer, he walked into his garage, grabbed a six-pack of beer from the fridge sat down on the bench seat, and wallowed in his self-pity. He knew his family always struggled to get by, and anyone who had seen his clothes knew he went without, but he always had his dreams. Now that he had let them take them he felt utterly defeated before he ever drove onto the track. Jeff awoke on the bench seat in the morning as the morning sun warmed his face and his stomach grumbled. Looking around he could see the remnants of his six-pack scattered about, and his mother staring unapprovingly at him as she walked up to him with a plate of food. Without a word spoken she handed him the plate and returned to the house, he knew at that moment he had met her disappointment head-on and lost. After breakfast, he cleaned up his mess but stayed in the garage to lick his wounds and "get a better attitude” as his father would say. Soon he had the truck back off the trailer and did what he always did when he was confronted with the realities of his economic despair, he grabbed a book from the shelf and began to understand how he could paint his truck himself. As he sat and read, he noticed a car drive by, stop, and back up to enter their driveway. The unassuming newer car pulled all the way to the garage and an older man stepped out and walked over to him.

“I love your truck, I heard you pull it off at the paint shop, sounds like a beast!” The man said.

“It is, but she’s ugly. “

“Who cares about ugly? Hell, I prefer it, that way when you beat those rich bastards who spent more money on their paint than their engine, it will feel awesome!” Exclaims the man walking over to peer at the engine.

“But what if I don’t beat them?”

“Then you will only meet their expectations, but if you win, you will surpass them! And that my friend they do not expect!

The man turned and waved goodbye before he could ask any more questions of him, but he was the spark Jeff needed to ignite the fire in his belly to get to the track. The next Wednesday night was what the track called ‘Test and tune”, a day before the weekend full of racing to work the bugs out of your race car or truck in this case. Jeff found himself a spot far away from prying eyes, eyes that might stir up the feelings from the other day after visiting the paint shop. Despite being a spectator hundreds of times, he had no clue what to do on this side of the track.

“Glad to see you made it!” screams the man from the other day from the driver’s window of a pickup hauling a car carrier with the name John ‘the flash’ Johnson on it and a painted mural of his pro-modified car.

Jeff turned and sat on the edge of his trailer watching the man park his rig and trailer next to his. They shook hands and got to work unloading his car and setting up chairs, and tables, Jeff was in awe but felt like part of his team. All the years of coming to the racetrack he had never been able to afford a pit pass, but today he experienced acceptance, of himself and his car in all her oddly wondrous beauty. No one even mentioned how his truck looked as they wandered by, but everyone was impressed he found a way to fit a big block Chevy in the front of an S-10 pickup. The more technical of the crowd noticed the craftsmanship of his work, that he had not only bought quality equipment when he could but that he could make quality equipment when he needed it. John had bragged with a couple of other racers how much work had gone into Jeff’s truck, but there is always one or two assholes in the bunch. A rival of John's had decided to walk over into the middle of a crowd of people and begin to tear apart his truck, and the way it looked. John defended Jeff, but he could see that the abuse had brought him down from the pedestal of his first time. As the first few cars went down the track Jeff got cold-feet, he watched as the assholes went out of their way to drive by and sneer as he sat in his spot afraid to make a fool of himself. After all, he wasn’t a race car driver! He knew nothing of the sport, He was only a mechanic and average at best.

“You need to get out there and shut him up!” John suggests as he gets a crowd of people to agree with him.

“I don’t know what to do?” Jeff admitted being somewhat embarrassed.

“Drive your truck up there to the staging lines, a man will ask you to sign a waiver, write a number on your car in shoe polish, and then you're ready to go! They will pair you with someone they feel is equal to you, and then you go race but make sure you do a good burnout,” John explains.

“That’s it?”

“When the light turns green, give it hell!” John yelled.

John got the crowd shouting for Jeff to go, and he did. The truck fired up and impressed all those watching as he drove away to the staging lines, but as assholes will do, he saw the moment he could try and humiliate Jeff some more, so he pulled his car next to Jeff’s in the staging line. As soon as he saw the asshole, he knew what was about to happen, he would be paired up, and if he didn’t perform, he would never live it down. He tried to ignore the asshole’s jeers and teasing, but it lasted until they were called to the tree. The drag tree has two yellow lights to let you know when you are staged, each car is allowed to do a burnout to get their tires hot but must eventually stage. To put the other car out of his mind, Jeff concentrated on the other lights on the tree.  With a "standard" tree, three yellow lights illuminate sequentially with a delay in between; after the final light is lit, the green light is lit and you go. Unless you leave early, and the red light illuminates and disqualifies you.

The lights flashed and turned green before he knew it, but he was quick off the line, he held on tight and floored the accelerator. The front of the truck rose from the ground until his transmission shifted and his nose lowered. He stayed on the accelerator even though his heart was pounding, and his mind was racing, his transmission shifted for the last time and then he finally let himself feel the speed, the stands flying by, and the crowd cheering, Through the end of the track by the finish line he finally let off, and slowed as the cornfield at the far end came ever closer. He was glad to have survived his first trip down, and as he turned to return to his hideaway in the pits, he felt that rush of excitement break through the fear of what he had accomplished. As he pulled back to his spot next to John’s trailer and car, a crowd of people gathered around and cheered him on. As he got out, he could see John running from the trackside to congratulate him.

“Holy shit, that was badass!” John exclaimed patting Jeff on the back.

“Yeah, she performed great.”

“What? You don’t know?” John asks.

“What?” Jeff asked confused.

A young man comes running up to the two of them holding a piece of paper, he hands it to John who takes it and studies the numbers printed on it.

“What is going on?” Jeff pleads, "What's that?"

“You beat that son of a bitch by a whole second, you beat him off the line, and was ahead of him the whole way. You just ran a seven-second flat eighth-mile time, that is better than he has ever done with his fancy paint job,” John explains ecstatically happy.

Over John's shoulder near the side of the track, he can see the man he calls an asshole making his way toward his place in the pits. Jeff takes the time receipt and leaves John and the others to meet the man halfway. Jeff has every intention when he sets out of taking out on him the abuse that he has piled on him, making him nervous, and apprehensive. But the closer he got he could see the face of defeat on the man, and as he got close, he slipped the time receipt into his pocket, reached out, and shook the man's hand. As he turned away to return the smile on his face was the best trophy he could ever win. He had defeated the enemies of doubt and proven to the naysayers that his truck and abilities were worthy to be on the track with the rest of them. This proved he could build a quality race truck, but it was up to him to be a quality person. The others didn’t understand why he didn’t rub his victory in his face, but Jeff understood that the important victories were battles won within.