Once Around the Track

Well, that’s where it gets even more complicated, Ed. One of the guys who got in on time trials also finished really well in the qualifying race, and since you don’t need both of those ways to gain entry into the Daytona 500, that created an opportunity for next guy on the list to make it in, and so on. Anyhow, Badger did really well in the Bud 150, even though he didn’t place in the top five. But there were a lot of wrecks caused by aggressive drivers, and he managed to avoid them, and then by some miracle, he did not have any engine problems or tire malfunctions, so partly by being a good driver and partly by being fortunate, he squeaked by, and after his competitors qualified in other ways, he was the last guy to make it in to the Daytona 500 on the basis of his qualifying speed. The team seems to be alternately thrilled and terrified at the prospect of being in the big race.

Well, thanks for that erudite explanation of the intricacies of stock car racing rituals, but hey, Sark, the next time I ask you a casual question like that, could you just say, “They decide that by examining chicken entrails.” It would make just as much sense to me and it would save you a lot of typing.

See? I told you this sport wasn’t for dummies! Oops-I sound like a convert, don’t I? Well, at least it’s all beginning to make more sense to me. I’ll keep you posted on our adventures.

I’ll look for you in Victory Lane Sunday afternoon.

Yeah. That’ll happen. I just hope he finishes before the start of next year’s race.

Badger got more requests for interviews after they had lucked their way into the starting lineup for the race. The press had a command center of cubicles and TV monitors in a large building in the infield of the speedway, and Sark had to usher Badger in for a press conference on Friday, where he stood beside Tuggle squinting in the bright television camera lights on the little stage at the front of the room. The fact that he had made the race was not the big story. The fact that the All-Woman Team had made the race-now, that was news.

“So what’s it like to work with a handsome race car driver?” someone called out.

Tuggle shrugged. “Let me check with one of Kasey Kahne’s people and I’ll let you know.”

Amid the laughter, she and Badger exchanged a high-five look. They had been expecting that question, and Badger himself had suggested that answer. They fielded the rest of the puff questions with equal ease, reserving the serious attention to the real questions about race strategy and team preparations.

The final question, directed to Badger by a smirking male sport writer, was also inevitable. “Hey, Badger! Tell us about your sponsor-Vagenya!”

Badger smiled. “I know your wife wanted you to ask us that, Bob.”

“Tuggle, do you use Vagenya, or does Badger do the trick?”

Tuggle’s scowl could have lowered room temperature, and Badger, eying her, shook his head sadly. “You boys are going to get me in trouble here. You know what a temper she’s got.”

When the delighted laughter died down, Badger assumed his earnest were-retriever expression, and said, “Vagenya is serious medicine, folks. If our advertising can bring it to the attention of people who need it, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

The respectful silence almost lasted long enough for them to make a graceful exit, but then a quick-thinking wag from Sports Illustrated said, “Well, if you crash into Mark Martin’s Viagra car, they’ll probably have to turn the hose on you to get them apart.”

In an unspoken accord, Tuggle and Badger smiled weakly, nodded their good-byes to the assembled journalists, and left the room before the laughter subsided.

All in all, the questions had been entirely predictable, and they handled themselves well for a first team press conference. They had declined to hug for the cameras, and they had not allowed themselves to be baited into making incautious remarks.

“We did okay,” said Badger.

“Unless they make up quotes for us,” grunted Tuggle as they left the building.

The rest of the crew didn’t see much of Badger before race day, prompting Reve to mutter about the Upstairs Downstairs nature of racing hierarchy. Drivers were treated like royalty, and the number of volunteers for the harem boggled the mind.

“They must think they’re gods,” muttered Jeanne, who had just seen a stunningly beautiful girl hit on a pit crew guy who looked like a garden gnome. And he wasn’t even a Cup driver. She could not imagine the offers they got.

“When we can’t find him, he must be somewhere screwing like a mink,” said Sigur.

“Well, you’ll never know,” Kathy Erwin told them. “In the old days, this place could have topped Sodom and Gomorrah, but nowadays they tend to be more discreet.”

“Most of the drivers are married,” said Taran.

Kathy took a deep breath, struggled to keep a straight face, and mostly succeeded. “Yes, that’s quite true, Taran,” she said.

“Badger isn’t married, though,” said Jeanne. “He’s probably buying his condoms by the case.”

“You’ll never catch him,” said Kathy. “And since we have to work with him, believe me, you don’t want to. It’s none of our business. Just be glad he doesn’t hit on us.”

They were never able to find out what Badger was doing in his limited free time in Daytona, but they pictured him frequenting expensive restaurants in the company of movie stars far into the night, and possibly sleeping off a hangover beside said starlet on the race morning before the drivers’ meeting.

All except Taran, that is. Although she would never have admitted it to anyone for fear of being laughed to scorn, Taran kept thinking of an illustration she’d seen once in a book on King Arthur, depicting the medieval squire on the night before his ordination, kneeling in prayer before an altar, his head resting against the hilt of his broadsword. She pictured Badger in his purple firesuit, helmet under his arm, kneeling in prayer in his motor home. She found this image so comforting that she resolved never to find out what he really did on the morning of a race.

But they were busy enough, anyhow, getting ready for the race, occasionally signing an autograph or posing for photos with passing fans, or shooing away journalists who were curious about the all-female pit crew. They spent long hours at the track, ate Granola bars and peanut butter sandwiches in the hauler, and trudged back to the hotel long after dark, too tired to do much besides shower and fall into bed, getting ready to do it all again the next day.

“I can’t believe I’m really here,” said Jeanne Mowbray, the tire carrier, on one of the rides back to the hotel. “When I was a kid back in Ohio, I lived next to the highway that the haulers took heading for the speedway up in Michigan. We’d get lawn chairs and put them up in a pasture alongside the road, and just sit there and watch those brightly painted haulers roll by. Nobody we knew even went to the race, but we’d listen to it on the radio. And we had seen the trucks go by.” She sighed. “And now-I’m here!”

“There’s an ocean out there somewhere,” said Cindy Corlett. “I never thought I’d get this close to an ocean and not see it.”

“I’ve been coming here since I was eight years old,” said Kathy Erwin, “And I’ll tell you what my daddy used to tell me when I’d ask to go to the beach: Just pretend you’re in Vegas, honey.”

“Well, if Badger wins, I’m going to the beach,” said Cindy.

Kathy snickered. “If Badger wins, Cindy, the beach will come to you.”

Finally, Sunday arrived, a gray day of leaden clouds and cool temperatures, and an ocean of people all converging on the speedway, those that weren’t there already, that is. Some of the spectators arrived in campers days before the race itself and spent Speed Week in a Mardi Gras of revelry. But for the pit crew Sunday was a dizzying combination of work day, final exam, and D-day all rolled into one. More than one of them had sent her breakfast swirling down the toilet before they set out for the track in the predawn darkness.

A few more hours of preparation, a pep talk from Tuggle, and they would be as ready as they’d ever be. From behind the stack of tires that she’d be changing in the race that afternoon, Sigur Nelson peered at a sturdy blond man wearing an orange Cingular NASCAR jacket. He was nodding solemnly at their crew chief, who was gesturing and talking to him in urgent tones that the pit crew couldn’t overhear. Sigur blinked and looked again.

“Hey, Kathy!” she hissed. “What is Jeff Burton doing in our garage? Isn’t he driving the 31 for Childress today?”

Kathy Erwin, the only crew member from a NASCAR family, took a long look at the visitor. “That’s not Jeff Burton,” she whispered back. “It’s his older brother.”