down on the accelerator. There was a haze of blue smoke before his
windshield, and the whole pack of cars, with him in the middle, shot
forward. Two passed by him and cut in front into a space barely big
enough to hold them.
"Cripes," said Woody, "that makes me third from last." He changed into
second, into third, and into high, and before he knew it, there was a
knot of cars braking ahead of him to get around the first bend. How
he made it himself he could not recall. He got around in a screech of
tires with glimpses out of the tail of his eye of other cars, inches
from him, swaying and screeching around with their drivers crouched
over their steering wheels.
When he was around the turn, he glanced, by instinct, into his
rear-vision mirror. It showed the clear view of the track behind him.
There was not a car in sight. He'd dropped to last place in the first
three hundred yards.
The thought angered him. It angered him as much as the fact that his
legs were still trembling, his mouth as dry as blotting paper, and his
hands unsteady on the wheel.
He jammed his foot down on the accelerator and watched the needle of
the speedometer creep up to sixty-five, then to seventy, hover there a
fraction of a second, and then move on past. He grinned as he saw he
was steadily overhauling two cars ahead. The stop light on one of them
flashed red. Ahead were a series of S-bends. Woody remembered them
from his trial runs around the track. He glanced at his speedometer.
Seventy-two.
"O.K., brother," he said, "you're going too fast. But you just might
make it." He entered the first S-bend abreast of the Singer that had
been ahead of him. He left him behind as if the Singer were standing
still. But when he brought the steering wheel over to the right for
the next turn, the MG seemed to lie down on two wheels and started
skittering toward a pile of hay bales. There wasn't time to change to
a lower gear. Woody took his foot completely off the accelerator, and
it seemed for a second as if the car were going to turn over. He was
thrown hard against the side and stabbed his foot on the accelerator
again. For a second the car teetered. Then the MG recovered and flashed
off so close to the bales that he felt a slight thud as his nearside
fender tipped the edge of one of them.
Ahead now lay two more cars. And another bend. This time Woody changed
down. He revved the engine to a roar in neutral and let the clutch
out hard as he slipped the gear lever over into third. The MG jerked
forward, and Woody headed for a gap between the two cars in front of
him. If the gap remained he could get through. But if it closed he
would be flung against one car or the other. He jammed the accelerator
down and crept into the gap. His front wheels were level with the
driver's seat of the first car and six feet from the rear wheels of the
second car.
"Come on, baby," he said and urged the MG to more speed. Slowly he
crept abreast of the first MG and was now fully in the gap. The car
beside him started to slip behind. Woody felt a tinge of pleasure and
triumph. He was now ahead of the first MG but not enough to swing
over and pass the second. Suddenly he saw the brake light on the car
ahead flash red for a second. He was braking for a bend. Woody made a
split-second decision. If he braked now, he'd lose the ground he had
made. If he speeded up, it would be to go into a corner again faster
than he should. He hit the accelerator.
To the spectators it looked as if he were a bolt shot from a crossbow.
His car leaped forward swiftly to pass the one ahead right on the
curve. There was a cry of "Ooh," which Woody heard clearly above the
roar of the engines.
He had to take a chance now. He was going much too fast. He had to step
on the brakes and risk being hit by the car behind. It was either that
or spin out on the corner. He hit the brakes hard--so hard he could
hear his tires scream and feel the back of his car slew around. Then
he stepped on the accelerator again and pulled the steering wheel over
to the right. For a second it looked as if he was going to spin around
completely on the track. Woody did indeed spin around at a right angle.
But this served to help him around the corner and when he hit the gas
again, he was safely on the straightaway and had passed three of the
cars that had passed him in the early seconds of the race.
He hardly saw Rocky, Tom, and Steve as he flashed by the start-finish
line. If he stopped for a second to think of what he was doing and the
risks he was taking, the trembling and anxiety would return. Instead,
he concentrated on urging the MG to even greater efforts.
On the next three laps he passed three more cars. A fourth dropped out
for a pit stop, and that put Woody seventh from the end. Since he had
started out fourth from last he was doing well. He began to feel much
more confident of the MG's ability to stay on the track when other cars
would have skidded off into the hay bales, and began also to enjoy
himself.
The crisis of the race came at the beginning of the hairpin in the
sixth lap. In the five times he had passed it previously he had noticed
that there was a tendency for the cars to bunch up there. Everyone
slowed down and concentrated more upon getting around the bend than in
passing each other on it. There was a straightaway of about a quarter
of a mile leading to the hairpin, and Woody tearing down this caught
up with a huddle of five cars that had changed down to get around the
hairpin. They were all hugging the inside to give themselves a chance
to skid wide over to the far side of the track when they got around the
hairpin.
Woody decided to reverse this process. He would start into the hairpin
from the uncrowded far side of the track and try to cut the MG hard
over to the inside when he was around. There would be great risk of a
collision in doing this. But there was also the chance of passing two
or three cars on the one bend if the maneuver came off.
He approached the hairpin then on the outside and picked a place on
the inside as his target, toward which a red Porsche was speeding. If
things went well the Porsche would be out of the way when he wanted to
get in there. He changed down from fourth to third and third to second,
and, with his engine roaring, cut hard over.
Then everything happened at once. There was a scream from behind, and
a Singer squeaked by right under his front wheels. It went by as a
black blur, and in so doing, trapped the driver of the Porsche so he
had to step on his brakes to avoid a collision. The gap that Woody had
expected to appear just wasn't there. The Porsche still half filled it.
Woody glanced in his rear-vision mirror. There were two cars on his
tail, the Porsche dead ahead, the Singer, and another car blocking him
on the left.
His only chance was to cut off the track onto the dirt shoulder and
make room for himself there. He headed the MG for the shoulder,
picked up a skid, slewed sideways, straightened, caught a glimpse of
a telephone pole, pulled his steering wheel hard over to the left,
hit the gas, and then, to his astonishment, found himself around the
hairpin with only the Porsche ahead.
Woody swallowed hard. He must have passed two or three cars on
the hairpin. But he had nearly broken his neck doing it. The old
nervousness, now forgotten, returned in a flood. His legs began to
tremble. The Porsche fled before him down the straightaway. Woody
changed up instinctively. But when he came to the next bend, he slowed
down well in advance of it, and took the corner cautiously. He was
scared, badly scared.
He retained his place but didn't pass anybody on the next three laps.
There were only two more to go. But he could not bring himself to take
any more risks. The memory of the skid, of being locked in a whirl of
cars doing sixty miles an hour around a hairpin, and of the telephone
pole hurtling toward him was too fresh in his mind. He made an attempt
at passing the Porsche on the S-bends. But whereas previously he would
have taken a risk and gone hurtling by, trusting that the MG would stay
under control, he now braked and changed down, and the Porsche kept
ahead of him without much trouble.
"You've got to snap out of this," he told himself. "You've got to take
a couple more chances. Otherwise you'll lose your nerve."
He steeled himself for another try at the hairpin. He forced himself
to delay changing down and shot the corner from a wide angle. But
just as he thought he was going to get through and felt a tingle of
self-confidence returning, a blue MG ahead spun out. One second it was
holding the track doggedly before him. The next it gave a sort of lurch
or jump and turned broadside on to him. Woody flung his steering wheel
over with a cry almost of anguish. His bumper just missed the front
wheel of the car, which had turned completely around on the track. In
pulling out, he nearly sideswiped another car on his right, and though
he stepped on the gas and pulled ahead out of the mess, he was in a
panic when he got clear of it.
"I've got to get hold of myself," he kept repeating. "I've got to get
over this." But when the race concluded, he had passed no more cars and
taken no more chances.
When he pulled up to the pit, Rocky was almost dancing with excitement.
"You drove like a wizard," he said. "I went up to the hairpin to watch
you. It was terrific. You knocked off three cars on that corner and
must have finished about eighth. If you'd had any kind of a position at
the start, you'd have won."
Tom and Steve were full of congratulations, too. But their words were
empty for Woody. If they knew how he felt, he told himself, they
wouldn't be saying what they were. They wouldn't want to have anything
to do with him.
For Woody knew that he could have passed at least one or two more cars
except for one thing: he was afraid. It wasn't just nerves or anxiety.
It was plain cold fear. He'd driven his first race and come out of it a
coward.
12
Woody made up his mind that the only way he could get over the fear
and dread that he now had of racing was to race some more. In fact, he
determined to do as much road racing as he could. In this decision he
had a willing helper in Rocky, and in the two months after the Hansen
Dam race he drove in five events. He was no longer considered a junior
driver and had got over some of the thrill of seeing his name in the
list of contestants at road-race events. He had even drawn mention in
one of the Los Angeles sports columns as an up-and-coming driver with a
lot of dash and courage.
When Woody read that paragraph, eagerly pointed out to him by Steve,
he wondered how much the man who wrote it knew of his real reason for
racing. Far from having a lot of dash and courage, he was always filled
with caution and plain fear on the track. He only placed at all in the
events in which he entered because he had a natural driving gift--an
instinctive combination of judgment and timing that took him through
tight spots. But he knew he could do better, a great deal better, if he
could get rid of the black fear that settled on him whenever he came to
a bend with half a dozen other cars roaring around him.
He wished there was someone with whom he could talk over this problem.
He wished he could discuss the way his palms sweated, his limbs
trembled, and his mouth went dry even as he sat down behind the
driving wheel at the start of a race. He wished he could explain how
those symptoms never left him all through the event; how he was filled
with dread from start to finish and heartily wished he had never taken
up racing.
Once he thought of mentioning it to Steve and went so far as to say he
always got the shakes just before the start of a race.
"Shucks, pal, everybody has the same thing," Steve said. "But you get
over it, don't you?"
Woody didn't have the courage to say no, he didn't get over it. Other
drivers did and took chances and won races. But he, although he seemed
to be taking chances, was actually avoiding them and getting through
on sheer driving talent. He didn't drive a race with any courage at
all. He drove it with nothing else but fear in his mind. If he could
find some courage, he might win a couple of times. But fear held him
back constantly--fear of being wrapped around a telephone pole or being
mangled under the wheels of cars behind or turning over and being
pounded to death in his own car.
About the nearest he got to talking to anybody about his problem was
one evening when Randy and Rocky had come up to Hermosa Beach and asked
him out to dinner. When dinner was over, Randy, who by now was getting
along without crutches though he had a slight limp, started talking
about racing. He discussed the subject as if it were a philosophy, a
mode of living calling out the very best in the character of those who
followed it.
Woody had never known him to be so serious before. He wasn't sure
whether the conversation was being held for his own benefit or for
Rocky's.
"Road racing condenses into a few minutes or hours all the problems,
the fears, and the triumphs of life," Randy said, smoothing his fair
hair with a thin sensitive hand. "It demands the one thing that no man
can get through life without successfully. Self-reliance. There are
millions of people quite talented and able who go through life being
unsure of themselves. They haven't enough self-confidence to take a
risk--to change their jobs, their localities, and so on. They live
rather miserably without ever having fulfilled themselves.
"But in racing, such people are soon ruled out. The driver who has no
basic confidence in himself will keep coming in last. Either that or
he will develop self-confidence. If he remains unsure of himself, he
will quit racing. Just as in life, if he remains unsure of himself, he
will quit trying and seek some job that offers security rather than
opportunity."
"You don't think it is possible to get by on just driving skill alone?"
asked Woody. "I mean, suppose there was a man who was just naturally a
good driver. But he really didn't trust himself. Wouldn't he still show
up pretty well on the track?"
"He would for a while," said Randy, "but after, say, half a dozen
races, he'd be fighting himself. He might think he was racing the car
ahead. But he'd really be racing the guy within him. One part would be
telling him to go ahead and take a few chances and rely on his skill in
getting through. The other part would be telling him to save his skin
and not take any risks.
"That's where the real testing comes in, of course. But I've seen some
good men crack up, fighting themselves like that. They'd have been a
lot better off if they never went in for racing in the first place.
Unless they win a victory over themselves and achieve self-confidence,
they remain miserable for the rest of their lives. They drop out of
racing. But they can never be happy."
"What about fear?" said Woody. "I mean you've been in a couple of
accidents. Didn't that make you real scared the next time you drove?"
"It certainly did and does," replied Randy. "But self-confidence
doesn't mean that a man is without fear. You've got to be afraid, to
get any self-confidence that comes from overcoming fear. But some
people never make it. They spend the rest of their lives doubting their
own abilities.
"The time I cracked up and had my foot amputated, I broke out in a cold
sweat whenever I thought of racing again. All my friends advised me to
give up the game. On the surface, it would have been the sensible thing
to do. But they did not realize that if I quit, it would have been a
victory for fear, and I would have to live with it for the rest of my
life."
Up to this point Woody had been on the verge of confessing his own
fears to Randy. But now he found he could not do so. This seemed to
be a battle he had to fight alone. It was one with which none of his
friends could help him. He realized dimly that men always fight their
battles alone--not just in racing cars but in their daily living. They
alone can make the critical decisions, and nobody can help with them.
"How do you feel about the Black Tiger now?" Woody asked instead of
mentioning his own fears.
"To be honest with you, I'm scared stiff," said Randy with a laugh. "If
I wasn't scared, I might put off racing her for a little while. But if
I postponed it now, though other people might say I had good reasons,
I'd know that the real reason was fear. And then I might never race
again." Woody did say that he was always scared himself when he got
behind the steering wheel of the MG. But he didn't say that he remained
scared all through the race and deliberately neglected chances to pass
other cars because he was afraid to take them. He felt that both Randy
and Rocky would be contemptuous of him if he did. And he wanted them
both to have a good opinion of him.
A month remained before the Santa Barbara race. It was a pretty
miserable month for Woody. He got nervous and a little irritable, which
was unusual for him. Both his father and mother noticed the change
in him, and one evening his father put down his paper, took off his
glasses with a swift decision, and nodded to Woody's mother, who left
the room. When she had gone, Mr. Hartford said, "Woody, your mother
and I are both worried about you. You're not eating much, and you seem
nervous all the time. Is there anything the matter?"
"No," said Woody shortly. Mr. Hartford groaned silently. He could
recall a similar occasion in his own youth when his father had tried to
talk to him man to man, and he had withheld his confidence. He was hurt
that his son should do the same to him now.
"Son," said Mr. Hartford, "I never pry into your affairs. I look upon
you as a sensible young man of whom I am proud. But I've lived a lot
longer than you. That's a mathematical fact. I don't say I'm smarter
than you. But I've just had more experience. Now if you've got some
sort of a problem that's bothering you that I, with my experience, can
help with, I wish you'd let me know about it."
"It's nothing, Dad," said Woody.
"Is it money?" Mr. Hartford persisted. Woody shook his head.
"Is it Mary Jane? I notice you haven't been seeing much of her lately."
Woody hesitated. He missed Mary Jane a great deal. At one time he might
have been able to talk his problem over with her. But she was so dead
set against racing that all she would tell him would be to give it up.
She wouldn't understand that there was more than racing involved in the
problem.
"No, Dad," Woody said, "It isn't Mary Jane. It's really nothing at all.
I just don't feel well. I think I'll go for a walk." He left the room
rather hurriedly, for he wanted to avoid further questioning. When he
had gone, Mrs. Hartford came in.
"Did you find out anything?" she asked.
"No," replied her husband. "There's something the matter, but only time
will bring it out. The boy has some problem, and feels he ought to keep
it to himself."
"But we're his parents," said Mrs. Hartford. "Surely he should be able
to tell us."
Mr. Hartford smiled. "Mother," he said, "when a boy decides not to
discuss his troubles with his parents, it doesn't mean that he doesn't
love them any more. It means that he's becoming a man. I'm pretty proud
of Woody. I'd have been just a little disappointed if he'd broken down
and told me what was the matter with him."
For two weeks before the Santa Barbara race, Woody spent most of his
time working on the Black Tiger. Randy made the deal with Worm,
agreeing to pay Woody's wages. Randy and Rocky rented an apartment in
Hermosa Beach so they could be near the car, and the Black Tiger was
given a thorough overhaul from rear axle to fan belt. In those two
weeks Woody became more and more fond of Randy. The man had a buoyancy
of spirit and a quick humor that was completely captivating. It was
hard to believe that he had any fears at all about the forthcoming
race. He spoke of it with enthusiasm and excitement, as if it were
something he was looking forward to eagerly.
Woody often wanted to ask him whether he still felt nervous about it,
but could not bring himself to do so.
The Thursday before the race, which was to be held over the weekend,
they took the Black Tiger out to the salt flats, and Randy let Woody
drive her. Woody had once wanted nothing more in life than to be seated
behind her wheel. But now that the opportunity was offered him, he
sought to get out of it.
"I'm not used to the car," he said. "I might chew up your gearbox."
"Nonsense," said Randy. "Hop in. She's getting maximum torque at six
thousand. Rev her up to that before you change. Then change fast and
with full throttle. You'll get a real thrill out of it."
When he got going, Woody did get a thrill out of it. For a while he
experienced the old exhilaration at his effortless arrowing forward
in the Black Tiger, with the landscape around reduced to a blur. The
car handled much more delicately than the MG. It was, he told himself,
a real racing machine. He glanced at the speedometer and saw he was
hitting a hundred and sixty in high. But when he got back and climbed
out he was trembling slightly and his mouth was dry.
"How'd she feel?" asked Randy.
"Beautiful," Woody replied.
"One day," Randy said, "you might be able to race her yourself." Woody
hoped heartily that that day would never come.
13
There were two other events before the Black Tiger was due to race at
Santa Barbara. In the first, for cars under fifteen hundred cc.'s,
Rocky raced the MG, and drove better than Woody had ever seen her drive
before. She came up from seventh at the starting line to second when
the race was over, and if the race had gone another lap she would have
been first.
"This is our day, Randy," she told her father when she got back to the
pit. "You're bound to win in the Black Tiger now. I just feel it."
"If I drove like you, I'd feel it myself," said Randy.
The second race was for old-style racing cars and more of a novelty
than a sporting event. Woody saw little of it, being busy with
last-minute details on the Black Tiger. The car was in tiptop shape. It
was still the magnet of attention among the other drivers and mechanics
in the pit area. They came over in twos and threes to look over the
engine and comment on the streamlining. Tom Wisdom and Kurt Kreuger,
old rivals of Randy's who were to race against him again, were there.
They were obviously delighted to know that Randy's leg was in good
enough shape for him to race again.
Woody overheard Tom say to Kreuger, "If it was a matter of guts alone,
Randy would be sure to win. Boy, he's got more guts than all of us put
together."
"You can say that again," said Kurt. He looked back at the Black Tiger
and shook his big head solemnly. "Hate to say it," he said, "but that
car just bothers me. Too new. Too many unknown bugs in it."
Tom nodded his head solemnly, and the two drifted off.
Randy made different pit-crew arrangements for the race than those at
Torrey Pines. "Rocky and Worm stay here at the racing pit in case I
develop some trouble," he said. "Woody, I'd like you to go out to bend
number five and pick a spot by the fence where I can see you as I come
out of the bend. Take along that blackboard and a piece of chalk. When
I come out of the bend, hold the blackboard well up so I can see it,
and chalk on it the number of the lap and my position. If I'm more than
sixth or seventh don't bother giving me the position. But if I'm among
the first five or so, let me know. Understand?"
"Yes," said Woody. "I'll put the lap number at the top of the board,
and your position down below it."
"Swell," said Randy. "The race is for thirty minutes. Toward the end,
you can forget about the lap number and just let me know the number of
minutes left. O.K.?" Woody nodded and went off to pick a good spot near
bend number five.
The Santa Barbara track is laid out roughly in the shape of a
horseshoe. The cars travel around the inside of the shoe and then
around the outside to complete one lap. But it is a horseshoe that has
been badly bent, so that instead of just two hairpins at the feet and
a long slow curve at the top, there are a number of near right-angle
bends as well.
Woody found a good place behind the snow fence and waited, nerves
tingling, for the race to start. Over the loud-speaker he could hear
the commentator briefing the crowd on what was going to take place.
"This race," he said, "will commence with a Le Mans start. The cars are
parked on one side of the track and their drivers opposite them on the
other. When the starter brings down his flag, the drivers will sprint
to their cars, jump in, fasten their safety belts, switch on their
engines, and get going. The start, then, is a critical moment. A driver
who can get under way quickly can get ahead of three or four cars he
might not have a chance of passing on the track.