Race Day
I woke on the floor of the Long peach Hilton room under a chair. I had faded out during FASTER, PUSSYCAT, KILL, KILL.
When we pushed the racer out to the gas pump on race day, the gas pump man gave our Darth Vader machine a
double-take, then pulled an Instamatic out of his shirt pocket and took a picture.
"Time to go into race mode, " says Doc. This means lots of black coffee and chewing tobacco. Chewing tobacco is as
popular here as it is with baseball players. They want that focus of concentration....
Before the race the drivers and passengers gather for a rules meeting and a final pep talk from Pete Essaff.
"Let's give the crowd a show," he says. "Let's go easy the first two thirds of the race, keep the engines warm and not go full bore --- if we
all blow our engines in the first half of the race, we aren't going to be asked back. This is a crucial moment in sidecar history ... if only four
or five bikes finish, we won't be asked back. For the last third of the race we'll go for it full bore."
At noon we push the sidecar out of the pits and wait. These are the longest minutes of the day --- each racer is lost in his own
world of concentration, no one speaks to any other.
After endless waiting and sitting in the sun, we're ready. We push-start the sidecar and all 13 machines disappear around the turn at Linden street.
Two minutes later the pack of sidecars comes screaming down Ocean Avenue, and I'm scared by the speed --- they are gearing
down for the turn, down from 120mph or so. Matt is climbing all over the machine.
After two laps Matt and Jim pass the Dobbs Brothers in
the middle of the pack. Number 37 was consistently faster than the rest of the machines in practice--we have a good chance to win.
All we have to do is stay close, then use our superior speed in the last few laps of the race to take a high finish.
Suddenly, bad news: good old #37 didn't come around with the pack. At first I thought they must have fallen behind, but then... they didn't come
around at all. Joe and I sagged. It turned out that the engine proved to be too much for the rest of the bike to handle. The drive wheel
axle hub flew apart; the chain fouled and the wheel locked up on the S-curves leading back into Pine street. The machine
slewed violently and scaped the wall and ground to a halt in the grass. Oh well.
After the race Matt and Jim had a smoke and a martini. And then we went home.
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