Once Around the Track

CHAPTER XVIII

“Badger has to do well in qualifying. At this track there’s almost no way to make your way to the front if you start too far back.”

“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” said Taran.

“You’ll do more than that,” said Julie Carmichael. “You’re going to help me make sure he does well.”

“Why me?”

Julie smiled. “Because you never go home. Everybody else went back to the hotel an hour ago, and here you are still in the garage area tapping away on your laptop. Jay Bird is back in Charlotte with strep throat, and Rosalind is off doing an interview from some German journalist about being an MIT grad working in NASCAR. I need help right now, and you are the only person available.”

“Okay,” said Taran. “Help you how?”

Julie dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “We’re going to soak the tires.”

Taran blinked. “Are they dirty?”

Julie groaned. “You’re almost as dumb as a wheel man, Taran. Don’t you know what tire-soaking is?”

Taran shook her head. “No, but back at Atlanta that nice Mr. Baldwin in the next pit stall said that if I ever had any questions-”

“No! Don’t mention this to a soul. Especially not to anybody outside this team.” Julie dropped her voice to a whisper again. “It’s not strictly legal.”

The technical side of Team Vagenya had decided that the time had come for desperate measures. The race after Daytona had been at the California Speedway, a two-mile track, located in Fontana, California, about forty miles east of Los Angeles. They had not expected to do well at Fontana, and they hadn’t.

As Tuggle explained to Team Vagenya’s owners, “The California Speedway is an easy drive. The banking is never more than fourteen degrees; the track is a simple oval with no trick turns, and the track surface is excellent.”

“Well, that sounds good,” said Christine.

“Good?” said Tuggle. “It’s a nightmare. For us, anyhow. It means all the drivers can perform well there, so Badger’s ability gains us nothing. Remember that races get won by fractions of a second, and this race will be won by one of the big teams with fancy engineering and super equipment.”

“Not us?”

“One of the Roush drivers,” said Tuggle. “Bet on it. And it’ll be a dull race, too,” she added.

After the race, as they watched Jack Roush, aka the Man in the Hat, congratulating his winning driver in Victory Lane, one of the Team Vagenya owners was heard to remark that one might make more money betting Grace Tuggle’s predictions than they’d make actually owning a Cup car.

The most memorable thing about Fontana as far as Taran was concerned was its proximity to Hollywood. Taran was stricken when she spotted the slinky blonde leaning against the 86, with her arms around Badger. “Who is that walking Badger to the car this time?” she asked indignantly.

“Malibu Barbie,” said Reve.

The next race-Las Vegas-wasn’t much better. One of the rookie drivers got loose on a turn and caused a wreck that triggered a chain of collisions, and the 86 car was damaged beyond repair. Badger sat out the last few dozen laps and finished thirty-eighth. Everybody was philosophical about that one. Wrecks happen. You just move on.

With the two winter west-of-the-Mississippi races out of the way, the Cup teams returned to the Southeast, heartland of stock car racing, for the Golden Corral 500, a mid-March battle at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. A fast, banked track located only a hundred miles from Badger’s north Georgia hometown-everyone hoped that this would be the race that changed their luck.

“After all,” said Taran, “Badger is a native Georgian. This will give the hometown crowd someone to root for.”

“You mean, other than Bill Elliott?” said Kathy.

Even Taran had to admit that Awesome Bill, the 1985 Cup champion, who had twice won the Daytona 500, would outrank Badger as the favorite son at Atlanta, but to the folks back home in Marengo and to Taran, he would always be in first place. At least in Cup racing, she amended. Whenever she managed to get away from her duties with the team, Taran had been going to the local speedways to watch Tony Lafon race in Late Model Stocks. He hadn’t won yet, but he seemed glad to have someone he knew to cheer him on, and someone to have dinner with after the race. She’d heard people at the track say that he was quite a talented wheel man, and Taran supposed that it was his driving experience that made him such an effective spotter for Badger in the Cup races.

Badger had arranged to get team pit passes for a couple of people from Marengo, and he had asked Laraine to walk him to the car before the race. Even Taran approved of that. Laraine had stopped by to visit with the pit crew that morning, bringing a basket of muffins from the diner and wishing them all luck. Badger had come with her, looking more relaxed and happy than they had ever seen him on a speedway.

“Well, she doesn’t look like a Barbie doll,” said Sigur. “Or like a driver’s wife.”

“Once upon a time,” said Kathy. “Back before this sport was a glamourfest. My mom was a pretty lady, but she wasn’t a centerfold. Laraine puts me in mind of her.”

“I think she looks fine,” said Jeanne. “To me she and Badger look like family. Same dark, sad eyes.”

“I expect they are kin,” said Kathy. “Badger says that in Marengo every home football game is a family reunion. She is closer to his age than the beauty queen was, but she looks classy in that watery blue silk dress, and she really does seem to care about him. Not about the publicity and meeting movie stars, but just about him. She’s okay.”

“Almost okay,” said a scowling Reve. “When she was passing around the muffins, I went up to Badger and told him how much we all liked her, and he said, ‘Yeah, she’s a good girl. Too bad she doesn’t look like a model’.”

“And did you slug him?” asked Sigur.

Reve shook her head. “Wouldn’t be a fair fight. I outweigh him. Besides, we need him to drive the car.”

Badger had not qualified well at Atlanta. The team had drawn one of the last slots for qualifying, which meant that he went out on a hot track-generally not the way to nail a fast time. On the cool track not yet warmed up by the afternoon sun, earlier qualifiers were able to rack up higher speeds. So, lagging behind the leaders by only a few tenths of a second, Badger had started the Sunday race two-thirds of the way back in the pack-hardly an auspicious beginning, but winning was still possible, even from that far back. When the race began, Badger held his own, steadily working his way through the stream of cars until he was running tenth.

It was still early in the race, but those in the pit crew who were new to the sport began to cheer loudly, and it was obvious that they were beginning to envision themselves in the televised jubilation of Victory Lane.

“There’s many a slip between the lip and the Cup,” muttered Kathy Erwin, but no one paid her any mind.

She was right, though. Nothing drastic happened, really. Badger was tapped in one minor incident, but thanks to the resulting caution, he did not even lose a lap. He never blew a tire or developed engine trouble. He simply struggled to hold his place in the slipstream, losing a fraction of a second with every succeeding lap. Every so often his unmistakable drawl would come on, telling Tuggle that the car was tight on the turns. Then they would wait for a caution so that they could use the pit stop to make adjustments. It didn’t help, though. He just kept losing ground, a fraction of a second at a time.

It was one of those races that proceed without any particular drama, and unless you happen to end up in Victory Lane, it is not a memorable experience. They worked every pit stop they got to adjust the car so that it would handle better, but at best they were playing a game of catch-up, and in the end, everybody was relieved to see the race end, so that they could stop trying to fight the inevitable.

“It wasn’t our fault this time,” said Sigur, as they watched the red and white car take the checkered flag.

Kathy Erwin sighed. “Nobody cares whose fault it was. We all lost the race.”

Badger’s Din

The Lights Went out in Georgia

FastDrawl: Well, folks, I had high hopes for our man Badger at AMS when he was running up front, but this was a battle with long odds. I make it 52 to 1. Forty-two other Cup drivers, plus the 86 team’s crew chief and pit crew all working to thwart Badger while he is trying his damnedest to win that race. That car handled like a cement mixer in a mudslide, and they never did get the setup right. It pained me to watch.

Lady Badger: They’re getting better, though. At least he got up to tenth place, and he didn’t wreck. I wish they’d interview him on camera, though.

Bonneville Bill: Hold the syrup, Lady Badger. Nobody wants to hear about Badger’s beautiful eyes. I heard him on the radio after the race. He said: “The car was just way too tight all night long. I got into someone during one of the incidents on the track and it knocked out the toe, and we had to make multiple stops to try and correct it, which cost us valuable time and track position. The Vagenya racing team worked hard all night to try and get the car dialed in, but it just never came. We were lucky that we were able to finish the race and finish as high as we did, especially at Atlanta.”

Georgia Peach: Could somebody translate that, please? I’m a new fan.

Mellivora: Dialed in means “correctly adjusted.” A dialed-in car is the ideal for racing. Toe refers to the direction in which the wheels are pointing. Toe out means it pulls to the right. Toe in means it pulls to the left. It’s an adjustment made on regular cars, too. Sometimes, one side is in or out, making the car just plain hard to drive. The team did their best, like Badger said, but when he got caught up in that little wreck, it knocked everything out of whack.

FastDrawl: This isn’t NASCAR Tech, Mellivora! The new fish can look up that information and stop wasting our time. Hey-I’m car shopping, folks. Does anybody know what kind of car Badger drives-off the track, I mean?

“Mellivora” typed in “A silver Chrysler Crossfire with a Georgia license plate that reads ‘Badger 1’.” But then she stared at the line for a moment, and pushed DELETE instead of SEND before logging off.

Now they were in Bristol, on the heels of a meeting with the team owner, who had not been happy with Team Vagenya’s performance so far. After Atlanta, Tuggle had been summoned to the office of Christine Berenson for a discussion on the team’s progress, or lack thereof. Tuggle had been expecting to be called on the carpet. Because the owners were new to racing, and because they were corporate types, they thought that throwing twenty million dollars at a problem would provide instant results.

“Surely after four races we ought to be doing better than this,” said Christine, in a plaintive voice belied by her stern expression.

When she had entered the office, Tuggle had noticed that the framed posters on the reception room walls now showed pictures of the 86 car itself, rather than portrait shots of Badger in his firesuit.

“New teams take a lot of adjusting,” said Tuggle. “There are a thousand things that can go wrong mechanically in every race. There’s team skills. Communication with the wheel man. Meshing styles.”

Christine heard what she wanted to hear. “Are you unhappy with Badger’s performance?”

“No,” said Tuggle, “he’s a natural. Maybe we have to push him a little bit on practices and appearances, but he’s a good man. He can’t win without good equipment and a precision pit crew, though. Nobody could have done better.”

“Because if you are dissatisfied with his work, we can certainly explore other options,” said Christine. “Vagenya is quite disappointed that he did not go along with their kissing booth idea for the pharmaceutical conference. He needs to swallow his pride and be more cooperative.”

“He’s a race car driver,” said Tuggle. “His pride is his roll cage-nothing makes a dent in it.”

“He may have more pride than he can afford,” said Christine.

“I wouldn’t trade his pride for all the diligence in the world,” said Tuggle. “He wants to win more than you do. He’ll try to put that car into openings you wouldn’t throw a tin can through, because he wants it so bad. Every time we don’t give him a good enough car, I feel like we let him down. But if you give him half a chance, he will win or die trying.”

“Well, if his performance does not improve, we may take advice elsewhere on measures that might help.”

The discussion had not been productive. Owner and crew chief had remained civil to each other, but there had been no meeting of the minds. Tuggle went back and told the team engineers that if they had any miracles lying around, now would be a good time to use one. Julie, Jay Bird, and Rosalind talked it over, and they decided that, with very little to lose, they might as well soak the tires and see if they could get the pole at Bristol, where winning from behind mostly didn’t happen. Meanwhile, they would try to come up with other gray-area technical refinements that might get past inspection.

Julie held up a metal canister of the sort that might contain turpentine or floor refinisher.

Taran frowned. “If it’s illegal, then how did you get it?”

“I bought it at an auto store. Cost me fifty bucks a gallon, too. We should be able to do enough tires for the whole weekend with two gallons of this stuff.”

“But if it’s not legal-”

“Okay, it’s not illegal per se,” said Julie. “In go-cart racing you’re allowed to soak the tires. That’s why you can buy this stuff over the counter-as long as nobody finds out what you’re doing with it.”

“But what does it do?”

“Improves the tires’ grip on the track. Makes for better control. If Badger can adjust to the feel of it. Not all drivers can. Like everything else, tire-soaking has a downside. Basically the stuff eats the tires. They don’t last as long. But they’re good for qualifying on. Should improve his time by a few tenths of a second, if we’re lucky.”

Taran blinked. “So…we’re going to paint this stuff on the tires-like nail polish?”

“No, tire soak goes in from the inside out. We’re going to put it in the tires for qualifying.”

“How long does the soaking process take?”

“Couple of hours, I guess.”

Taran shook her head. “Wait. That won’t work. NASCAR requires teams to buy a new set of tires from them to qualify on, right? And they don’t release that set until a few hours before qualifying. Usually there’s just enough time to bolt them on and get into the two-hour tech line. So let’s say that we get our qualifying tires about three to four hours before we get our turn to qualify. Then we’re not in the shop. We’re at the track with officials all over the place, so how are we going to soak tires without getting caught and ending up in big trouble?”

Julie grinned. “I thought of that, so I asked around. We’re going to do what the big teams do.”

Taran thought of asking which big teams she was referring to, but Julie probably wouldn’t tell her, anyhow. “Okay,” she said. “And what do the big teams do to keep from getting caught?”

“What do we do after we get the qualifying tires from NASCAR?”

“Well…we let the air out.”

“Right. Goodyear mounts the tires with regular air, and after we get them, we deflate the tires and refill them with nitrogen, because tires run better on nitrogen than on plain air.”

“Well, that’s not illegal… Is it?”

“No, everybody does it. But some of them also do something else. They have a small, portable nitrogen tank at the track to refill the tires, only that tank is halfful of tire soak. So as we refill the tires, we will be spraying soak inside the tire through the valve stem.”

“What if you get caught?”

“Just don’t let anybody from outside the team try to pick up the nitrogen pump. It’ll weigh so much that they’re bound to figure out that something is wrong.”

“How did you know about this?”

Julie shrugged. “My dad was a race car driver, remember? He never made it to the big time, but he was serious about it, and I learned all the tricks tagging along after him. Back when I was a kid, the tire guy used to rub soak on the surface of the tire with a glove attached to a tube going to a bag of soak under his armpit.” She sighed and fluffed her hair. “I’m glad those days are over. The nitrogen tank method is more reliable and less easily detected.”

“And about a million times less gross,” muttered Taran. “Are we going to have to do this on race day, too?”

“We can’t,” said Julie. “The thing about tire soak is that it deteriorates the tires. That’s how it works. It degrades the rubber so that the tire sticks a little better to the surface of the track. That’s fine for the two laps it takes for qualifying, but if you tried it in a three-hour race, the tires would disintegrate on the track. You could end up in the wall, or in a wreck, or just having to make green flag pit stops to replace them. But for a couple of qualifying laps here, that extra traction might be good for a couple of tenths of a second.”

Taran nodded. She knew that sometimes three-tenths of a second was the difference between first place and fifteenth, so even the smallest advantage to gain the smallest unit of time mattered to a race team. She could see the advantage of that. “But what if they catch us?”

Julie shrugged. “Slap on the wrist, more or less,” she said. “A fine. Whoever was caught doing the soaking gets booted from the track, maybe suspended for a few races. The trick is not to get caught, Taran.”

“But it’s cheating.”

“I prefer to call it creative engineering. Everybody does it, Taran. And even if they didn’t, it isn’t as if we are on a level playing field here competitively, is it? The well-funded multicar teams get to test all their cars at a track and pool their results. We only get one shot. What’s fair about that? Or say some car has a ten-million-dollar sponsor and one of the independent owner-driver guys has to take up a collection to buy enough tires to race. How can that be equal opportunity? Money buys speed. At least tire-soaking is relatively cheap.”

Despite their efforts, Badger didn’t get the pole, but he did qualify sixth, much to the delight of the team. When the race began, the 86 team’s tires were all nitrogen-filled regulation tires. The only nonstandard modification was a bit of magic dirt that Taran rubbed on the hood of the car. Now it was all up to Badger’s driving skills.

When the number 86 appeared in lights on the pole that served as a vertical “scoreboard,” the pit crew alternately hugged each other and screamed for Badger.

“It’s the sacred dust from Chimayo!” screamed Taran. “I knew it would work eventually.”

Less than a minute later, Badger’s voice came over the headset. “This damn car is shaking like a sparrow in a snake pit.”

“I hear you, Badger.” Tuggle’s voice was calm, as always. “Could it be a valve spring?”

A few more seconds passed in a tense cacophony of noise that registered as silence with everyone on the 86 team, because all that mattered right then was Badger’s voice. Finally, he came back on, “Still shuddering, Tuggle. Hesitating.”

“Try the ignition box.”

After another interminable pause, Badger said, “That’s it. Damn thing’s gone bad. I’m flipping to the second one. Still shaking. The second box is bad, too, or else the switch is shorted out. It’s totally dead.”

There was a short silence while everyone thought things they couldn’t say out loud with spectators’ scanners tuned in. An ignition problem would trigger a misfire, causing the engine to begin losing cylinders. A car running on seven cylinders instead of eight would soon fall behind the rest of the pack. Even worse, the longer the motor was allowed to run on fewer than eight cylinders, the greater the chance that it would grenade the engine. If they couldn’t fix it, they could be looking at a last-place finish.

Badger again: “It’s skipping and popping. Sounds like hell. Missing.”

Tuggle swore under her breath, then in an icy calm, she said, “Turn off the brake blowers.”

“I’m dicing for the lead, dammit!”

“Well, you won’t get it,” muttered Tuggle. “You wanna bring it in now?”

He didn’t have time to answer. In a matter of seconds the 86 began to lose its momentum. The loss of power caused his speed to decrease, and now instead of leaping ahead of the cars following him, Badger was fast becoming an obstacle in their path. Somebody didn’t figure that out in time to swerve completely out of his way, and the resulting contact meant that they caught a caution. The collision was a minor one. Since Bristol was a short, high-banked track, where the average speed was ninety miles per hour, wrecks were not the terrifying prospect they had been at Daytona. This was the NASCAR equivalent of a fender bender, and given the 86’s mechanical problems, the resulting caution was a blessing.

“Bring it in, boy,” said Tuggle, but Badger hadn’t needed to be told. He was on his way.

Taran was mentally composing a demand-for-refund letter to a Navajo shaman when Tuggle’s voice crackled over her headset. “Stiles! You’re the one with the electronics background, aren’t you?’

Taran turned to face Tuggle and nodded slowly, wondering why that had come up.

“Good. When Badger comes in for the pit stop, I need you to get into the car and fix that ignition problem.”

“Can’t he switch to the other ignition box? Oh, he already tried that, didn’t he?”

“He did.”

“Could be a short under the dash,” said Taran, picturing circuitry in her head. “No. Unlikely. I’ll bet the switches are bad. I could try changing the boxes manually. Be faster.”

“Right. Good thing you know your stuff. And that you’re little. So get in there and fix the problem when he pits.”

Taran blinked. “In thirteen seconds?”

Tuggle grunted. “Unless you can do it quicker.”

Taran said nothing more, but her mind was still going faster than the cars. In milliseconds she thought: But how do I get into the car? Oh. Same way Badger gets in. Only through the passenger’s side window. Around her the cars still roared. The crowd still screamed. The voices in her headset chattered on. But to Taran the world had just switched over to slow motion and mute. For another couple of seconds she stared open-mouthed at the swirl of cars streaming past, lost in thought.

Tuggle’s voice roused her from reverie again. “Stiles, remember that a caution lap here at Bristol takes less than a minute, and a green lap is about fifteen seconds. Don’t cost us this race.”

Oh, good. No pressure.

The 86 engine sputtered as it came down pit road. Tuggle radioed Badger, “Turn the switches off when you come in, Badger. Taran can’t change those boxes with the current on or it’ll shock the crap out of her.”

“Right,” said Badger. “Hurry it up, though, y’all.”

“We can’t give you gas this time because Taran is the catch can.” Everybody knew that they couldn’t send a shop dog out to take her place, because that would mean more than seven people over the wall.

Badger cut the engine as soon as he halted in the pit stall. One of the team mechanics leaned over the wall and handed Taran a new red ignition box, which was about the size and shape of a brick. Dodging the jackman, fresh tires, and the tire changers themselves, she sprinted for the passenger-side window and dived in, landing with a thump straight on the floor-no passenger seat in a stock car, of course, just the driver’s custom-fitted seat within the roll cage, and an empty space to his right. Badger’s helmeted head turned to look at her as she fell, and she saw his eyes widen in surprise. Taran held up the new ignition box, and he nodded and looked away, as if he had forgotten she was there, so she set to work.

In her headset she heard the voice of the team spotter, “Pace car in one.” It was Tony Lafon. The sound of his voice calmed her down.

Since the engine wasn’t running during this pit stop, Taran was more conscious of the sounds of the rest of the team at work. Thirteen seconds to fix the ignition problem, and she had to do it accompanied by the high-pitched scream of the air guns zipping off the lug nuts, and the thump thump thump of the jack raising the car, pitching her at such a steep angle that she almost lost her balance. Badger reached out and put his hand on her shoulder to keep her from falling. She willed herself not to process that sensation. Wham! The jack was lowered, and the tire changers headed for the other side of the car to repeat the procedure.

“Pace car in two,” said Tony’s voice in her headset.

There wasn’t anything particularly hard about fixing the ignition box problem, except, that is, if you were expected to do it in an idling car whose interior temperature was upward of 100 degrees. In a thirteen-second pit stop. Taran tried to ignore the roar of the other cars’ engines and the shuddering as they sped past. She had to focus all her attention on the job. Because ignition boxes are bolted in with zeus fasteners, it would take too long to replace one by securing a new box to the dash, but fortunately, she didn’t have to. All she had to do was take the plug out of the old one, put it in the one she brought in with her, and see if the engine fired this time.

It did.

Problem fixed. The roaring and shaking of the idling engine flustered her for a moment, but she took a deep breath, steadied herself against the dash, and tried to shut out everything except the task at hand.

“Pace car in three.”

Running out of time.

Now all she had to do was secure the new box inside the car somewhere, by no means an elegant solution, but given the time factor, it was their best shot. She had thought about trying to tape the replacement box onto the two malfunctioning units mounted on the dash, but in the end it seemed simpler-and faster-just to zip-tie the new box onto the roll cage and get out of the car.

“Middle of three…” Tony’s voice was taut with urgency.

Her hands were shaking, but she nearly had it. She was running out of time, though. Badger tapped on the dash and pointed forward. Taran barely glanced up, but she nodded vigorously, hoping that he understood her to mean, “I’m working as fast as I can.”

Tony was shouting now. “Pace car in four! Come on! Gotta go! Gotta go!”

Another voice in her head. “Let him go, dammit!” That was Tuggle, and with that tone of voice she could have parted the Red Sea.

“But, Tuggle…”

“Everybody back! Badger, go!”

Badger hit the throttle and scratched off as the shouting in their heads continued. Tuggle. “Gotta beat the pace car. Speed down pit road. Do it!”

The penalty for speeding on pit road is to go to the tail end of the longest line, but Tuggle must have figured that the penalty was better than going a lap down.

When the car took off, Taran was flung backward against the roll cage, scrabbling for balance, and resisting the urge to grab at Badger to keep herself from falling. At the pit speed of around thirty miles per hour, and then seconds later at nearly three times that, they burst onto the track.

From her vantage point on the floor, now facing backward, all Taran could see was the interior of the car and Badger himself, but for once he was not a comforting presence. Barricaded in his roll cage, wearing the full face helmet and the thick gloves, Badger looked like an alien in a science fiction movie. The banking of the Bristol track was nearly thirty-six degrees-horrendously steep-which meant that if she hadn’t hung on to the bars of the roll cage, she would have been bouncing all over the car-or falling on Badger-which was somehow not as appealing at ninety miles per hour as she had once envisioned.

This is not how she pictured a ride-along with Badger Jenkins at all. In fact, in most of her fantasies, the firesuit morphed into shining armor, and the 86 had a mane and tail. But she had less than a minute to contemplate the unsatisfactory nature of Take Your Stalker to Work Day, because thirty seconds or so is all it takes to loop the half-mile track at Bristol Motor Speedway during a caution lap.

Afterward, she remembered those moments in slow motion, and there shouldn’t have been time for all of it to have occurred, she thought. First, she heard Tony Lafon shouting, “Was that Taran that just went in the window? What the hell are you doing, Badger? Pit! Pit! No-oow!”

Taran felt a little spark of pleasure at hearing the concern in Tony’s voice, which she hoped was on her account. The voices in her headset told her that her unscheduled ride along had not gone unnoticed for a second. Each pit stall has two NASCAR officials to monitor the team’s activity: one stationed at the right front tire and one at the right rear. They weren’t going to miss much. Especially not something as major as this. Badger had barely left pit road before the two frantic NASCAR watchdogs were radioing the tower to report the infraction.

“Crew member inside the 86 car!”

“Post the 86 car! Black flagged!”

Then the lord of the tower-NASCAR director David Hoots-delivered a much calmer response to the reporting officials: “Inspector, get with the crew chief on the 86 and explain to the lady the reason why NASCAR stock cars have only one seat. Then invite her and the Driver to the truck after the race.”

A few seconds later, one of the watchdogs told him, “Message delivered to the crew chief of the 86.”

Then it was Tuggle’s voice again over the radio, “You heard them, Badger,” she said. “Our NASCAR babysitters in the pit here are having a French fit.” There was an infinitesimal pause, and then she said, “Did Taran get the box fixed?”

“Yes!” Taran and Badger both said it at once.

“Bring her in,” said Tuggle. “She can get out and catch-can on this pit stop. Oh, and Badger, we’re going to the red truck after the race.”

“I hear you,” said Badger.

Taran lived through the rest of the Bristol race on automatic pilot. Since the fixing of the ignition problem, Badger was “bad fast” as he would have phrased it, fueled probably by his frustration at having mechanical problems cost him time, and also by rage at having to report to the red truck over a miscue that was not his fault.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Kathy Erwin, patting Taran on the arm. “The crew chief’s word is law. You had no choice. Neither did Badger.”

Tears shimmered in Taran’s eyes. “What will they do? Yell at us?”

“No, they prefer sarcasm. And, of course, money.”

“Money?”

“Oh, sure. That stunt will cost you a couple of thou, easy. Most expensive taxi ride you’ll ever take.”

Slug a fellow driver in a fit of temper after the race.

Wreck another car on purpose.

Flaunt the rules of the sport.

Red truck.

It used to be a red truck, so everyone still called it that, although now the vehicle in question was, in fact, yellow. NASCAR track headquarters. The dragon’s lair. The principal’s office. If you broke the rules during or shortly after the race, NASCAR officials would summon you to the truck for disciplinary action. They could fine you, suspend you, put you on probation. They could do anything they wanted. NASCAR is the only privately owned sport in the world. It’s their way or no way.

They all went in together: Tuggle, Taran, and Badger. Somewhere the winner was celebrating his victory. Probably by now he had been escorted up to the glass-walled skybox high above the Bristol Motor Speedway, where two dozen journalists waited to interview the winning driver. But in the formerly red truck, nobody was smiling.

Taran felt like an eighth grader sent to the office to be punished. The big bear of a man in the rimless glasses looked at her sternly, and she felt the tears well up again. She pictured him calling her parents. Badger stood beside her, looking solemn and brave, but maybe also annoyed at being scolded when he could be out signing autographs for people who thought he walked on water. Only Tuggle remained unperturbed. She had greeted the man by his first name and made herself comfortable in the one available chair.

“What were you thinking?” the director asked her.

Tuggle smiled. “I suppose there’s not much point in pleading not guilty.”

“Not with two inspectors standing beside the car, no. Plus, I bet a few rows of spectators got some great pictures of the 86 car’s extra passenger.”

“We had to beat the pace car,” said Tuggle.

“Why didn’t you just shoot out its tires?”

Nobody laughed. In the red truck, sarcasm was not to be mistaken for friendliness-or for forgiveness. The director was not smiling, either. “This is a serious safety issue, people,” he said. “An unprotected crew member in a race car is one monkey away from getting killed. I hope you all understand that.”

Solemnly, they nodded.

“And a female crew person at that. If she had got hurt, we would be in for a public relations nightmare of Biblical proportions. And, you, Driver, would look like the biggest heel in the world of sports. Putting your ego over her well-being. For shame!”

“Sir! It wasn’t his fault, sir.” Taran’s voice was barely a squeak.

“This isn’t the army, crewman. And it was certainly partly his fault. I’m sure he noticed you were on board. He could have refused to exit pit road. A little something we refer to as a judgment call.”

“He doesn’t disobey my orders,” said Tuggle.

“Well, then try to give him more sensible ones in future, Tuggle. If he didn’t show more sense than he did today, I wouldn’t let him drive a UPS truck, much less a Cup car.” He sighed wearily. It had been a long weekend. At least Badger hadn’t shoved anybody. Short tracks meant short-tempered drivers. There were a few other drivers waiting for their turn on the hot seat. “All right, you daredevils,” he said. “There’s enough blame to go around here, but I’m not of a mind to suspend any of you over this. Driver, you will be on probation, though, for the rest of the year.”

Badger nodded mournfully, the golden retriever swatted with a newspaper. Tuggle’s expression grew more stern, but she said nothing. Taran held her breath so that she would not sob.

They were ushered out of the truck so that the director could move on to the next matter demanding his attention.

“I’m sorry,” said Taran, when they were once again outside.

“Nothing to do with you,” said Badger quietly. “We took a gamble, that’s all. I’m glad you weren’t hurt.”

“It’s part of the deal,” said Tuggle. “Just let it go. It all starts up again next week, you know.”

“Well, at least they didn’t fine us,” said Taran.

“They will,” said Badger. “They’ll think about it some first, though.”

“Fines are announced on the Tuesday following the race,” Tuggle told her. “And they have to be paid before we can race again.”

Then she and Badger walked away, talking shop, putting the incident out of their minds, while Taran stood there wondering how many minutes there were between then and Tuesday, because she knew she would agonize through every one of them.

On Tuesday, Taran was waiting at the shop when Tuggle arrived, carrying a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a bag of Krispy Kreme donuts. She offered the bag to Taran, who shook her head. “Go on,” said Tuggle. “What will that be for you? Last night’s dinner?”

Taran shrugged. Discussing dinners might lead to disclosures about throwing up. She wondered if Maalox counted as a meal.

“Have you heard anything yet about NASCAR’s decision?”

“Yep, just now. Ten-thousand-dollar fines for me and Badger. Each. For you, twenty-five hundred.”

Taran took a deep, moist breath, and nodded, digging in her purse for her checkbook. Twenty-five hundred dollars. That wasn’t so bad. In her 3 A.M. nightmare, the penalty had been a firing squad. Besides, anything was better than not knowing.

“I don’t suppose the team owners pay the fines for us?” she said.

“Nope,” said Tuggle, dumping another sugar packet into her coffee and stirring it with a screwdriver. “They don’t.”

“Well, who should I make out my check to? The team, or NASCAR, or what?”

“The fines are paid,” said Tuggle.

“But I thought you said-”

“Badger is paying your fine as well as his. Guess he figured he could afford it more than you could. Oh, jeez, you’re not gonna cry again, are you?”

Taran took a deep breath and shook her head. “How can I ever thank him?” she whispered.

The next week’s race was in Martinsville, Virginia, NASCAR’s shortest track-without the steep banking of Bristol, but still a difficult track for passing. Heavy March rains canceled qualifying, which meant that Badger started in the back. He was lucky to start at all, since without a qualifying competition, slots in the race are assigned on the basis of owners’ points from the previous year, and then past champions’ provisionals, and finally the current year’s drivers’ ranking for the seven or so remaining places in the race. Badger started forty-second out of forty-three slots, and though he struggled all day to work his way forward, the half-mile track with its sharp turns kept him bottled up, as more and more cars fell off the lead lap. Finally, one of the young punks from out West, eager to get past him on the narrow track, tapped the bumper of the 86, and Badger fishtailed into the wall, ending the day with sore muscles and a car too damaged to make it back into the race.

“Is there a race in which you think you might do well?” asked Melodie Albigre. She had opened a small leather notebook and she sat with pen poised, watching Badger on the treadmill with clinical disinterest.

Badger wiped his face with a towel. He looked at her sharply to see if that remark had been intended as sarcasm, but Melodie’s face bore its usual expression of businesslike boredom, as if he were an underperforming stock that she regretted having invested in.

Badger turned the exercise machine to a quieter speed. “There’s a lot of factors in racin’,” he said. “It’s not just me, you know. I always try to win, but sometimes we don’t have the car, and sometimes we run out of luck. It’s seven o’clock in the morning, Melodie. Why do you want to talk about this here and now?”

He was already awake, of course, when she rang the doorbell at seven A.M., because he began his workout every morning at six, but he didn’t much care to have visitors at that hour, especially not charmless ones determined to hold a business meeting before he’d even had his coffee, which, she’d informed him, she had no intention of making for him.

“I understand about the vagaries of the racing gods,” she said. “I’m not asking you to do any fortune-telling. I’m simply asking you on which track in the next couple of months do you think you could reasonably expect to place higher than twentieth?”

Badger shrugged. “Darlington is a drivers’ track. You can’t buy Darlington with fancy engineering.”

“Yes, and you’ve already won that one, haven’t you? So I suppose that would be a safe bet. But it’s in May. You can do well sooner than that, surely?”

He thought about it. “Phoenix, maybe. That one takes some driving know-how. It’s got real tight turns on One and Two, and a dogleg going into Turn Three. I’d take my chances at Phoenix against anybody else out there.”

“Fine.” She consulted a printed NASCAR schedule the size of a credit card. “Phoenix, it is. That’s in late April. I suppose it will have to do.”

“What do you mean, ‘Do’?” said Badger. “You’re not betting on the races, are you? I think that might be illegal.”

Melodie rolled her eyes. “I do not wager on sporting events. And if I did, I think Jimmie Johnson might be a safer bet than you are. Oh, stop looking daggers at me. I told you I wasn’t your fan. I’m only here to get your business affairs in order. Now, before I go and do more important things, I need you to sign some papers.”

“What papers?”

“Oh, just the usual dull merchandising agreements and things. Of course, if you’d like to sit down and read them-”

Badger looked at his watch. “I have an interview in an hour with the guy from the Greensboro Record.”

She took a stack of papers out of her briefcase and set them up on the shelf of the treadmill, flipping off the machine as she did so.

“Hey! I wasn’t finished!”

“Sign your name a dozen times and then you can run ’til you drop, for all I care.” She handed him the pen and watched while he scribbled his name at the bottom of every page. “Thanks. I’ll get out of your way now.” She eyed his sweaty tee shirt and wrinkled her nose. “I could use some fresh air.”

Badger’s lips tightened, but all he said was, “Why did you want to know what race I was likely to do well in?”

She shrugged. “Just a deal I’m putting together. It’s easier to impress people when you’re not representing a guy who finished last. I’ll be off now. Get back to your treadmill like a good little hamster.”

Before he could reply she swept out of the room, closing the door behind her, just seconds before an empty water bottle hit it and bounced back onto the floor.