Strange stories

The racer

I remember the time I tried my hand at rallying. Long ago in 1965 in between the great wars, you'd do anything to take your mind off of those mindless fights. I took an interest in the sport. Fast stock cars with catchy names and eye blaring colors and numbers. It was a big sport in my area at the time. I took off from my part time job at the gas station to watch the local big shots race at our dirt track. They made it look so easy. Flying over that dirt like magic. One summer after I graduated I tried to get an in with some of the beginner races. But you know, because of my bad foot I knew I would never be the driver of one of those monsters. So I applied to be the map jockey, the guy who's strapped into the passengers seat and yelling "Hard Left!" or "Small Jump!" into the drivers ear. Doesn't sound important but the mappy was the difference between skidding into the crowd at 90 degrees doing 140km/h and drifting through a gap a meter wide without so much as one pebble moved out of place. At least it was for my driver. Maniac that he was. Always wondered what happened to the hothead. I wonder if he's still around today or if that manic attitude combined with that thing he did to every car he touched meant that he met a quick and, hopefully, final demise. Always knew something was up with the whole race when I first took the torn and greyed out strip of paper from the recruits board. I know stelton was wasn't very renowned at the time, but it had crazy hard twists and an unforgiving dirt surface enough to make the pros of today forfeit from so much as looking at it. Back in the day things were dangerous and that made them all the more fun. This is gonna be the tale of how I made the stelton field dream run with terrifying old Buck Rivers at the helm and came out alive. Now lemme think, it was a right long time ago...

It was a cloudy yet hot day and the sound of engines revving was thickening the air more than the gas clouds of those cars could. My freshly minted crash suit was sticking to my body like a fly stuck to a fat mans ass because of the heat. The brown road crunched with every step I took. It was my official first minor cup as a mappy and it was supposed to be my great break into the big leagues. Parked in their respective places were the old rally cars and with them were their teams doing their pre-race checkups. I saw no important names, in fact I saw no one I knew at all that day. Each and every one of them was a stranger. Doing strange things too. Eyeing the insides of their exhaust pipes, licking the dirty windows clean and rubbing dirt on other windows. Every one doing checkups didn't even bother to return my friendly howdy's. Pale bunch of folks they were. Not even speaking to each other.
The bleachers, on the other hand, were nearly empty at every corner only because no one knew what the stelton rally was. And those one or two groups who did, always wore all black. Something about "mourning the drivers who dare to attempt it" or something silly. All the more reason for me to dread having been put there as my only option. And who would've guessed the reason they put me there was to be the next 'victim' of athe most dangerous driver they had! From the info I gleaned off of one of the more normal folks that came to watch me guide race I learned that ol' Buck Rivers, my soon to be partner, had a severely nasty reputation. 10 Cars totalled on this track, the only one he raced on. Only place he ever was seen too. Each at different corners one after the other. The mappy's never made it out alive of Buck's 117.
Now, the reason Buck could keep racing, was because he was damned good at it, and that stelton didn't really have official backing. The guy who officiated at stelton was some dunce called "The judge". No one knew what he looked like other than that he was round, always wore his black suit and business hat and disappeared after every big hearing. Heck, no one even knew if the guy HAD a face or not. Apparently the guy who tried to check him at the last major hearing never spoke a word of it, even after some fierce police interrogation.

Now, Buck was a helluva racer. So good in fact that before most cars had even finished their first phase of checkups, he was sitting in the drivers seat and looking dead ahead. Not. Even. Blinking. Hands like vices on his wheel, back hunched over like he was gonna pounce straight through the windshield. His helmet visor was too dark for me to make out his eyes. I joined him shortly before the race began in the brown 117 and tried to make off on good terms with him, stubborn bastard.