a booth beside him sat a shirt-sleeved commentator whose voice would fill the p.a. system through the race. At a desk behind, two uniformed Alabama State Troopers directed traffic in the nontrack areas.
The race director was communicating with his forces: 'Lights work all the way 'round? . . . okay . . . Track clear? . . . all set . . . Tower to pace car: Are you ready to go? All right, fire'em up!'
Over the Speedway p.a., voiced by a visiting fleet admiral on an infield dais, went the traditional command to drivers: 'Gentlemen, start your engines!'
What followed was racing's most exciting sound: The roar of unmuffled engines, like fifty Wagnerian crescendos, which swamped the Speedway with sound and extended for miles beyond.
A pace car, pennants billowing, swung onto the track, its speed increasing swiftly. Behind the pace car, competing cars moved out, still two abreast, maintaining their starting lineup as they would for several preliminary, nonscoring laps.
Fifty cars were scheduled to begin the race. Forty-nine did.
The engine of a gleaming, vivid red sedan, its identifying number 06 painted in high visibility gold, wouldn't start. The car's pit crew rushed forward and worked frantically, to no avail. Eventually the car was pushed by hand behind the wall of pit row and, as it went, the disgusted driver flung his helmet after it.
'Poor guy,' somebody in the tower said. 'Was the best-looking car on the field.'
The race director cracked, 'He spent too much time polishing it.'
During the second preliminary lap, with the field still bunched together, the director radioed the pace car, 'Pick up the tempo.'
The pace car driver responded. Speeds rose. The engines' thunder grew in intensity.
After a third lap the pace car, its job done, was signaled off the track. It swung into pit row.
At the start-finish line in front of the grandstand, the starter's green flag slashed the air.
The 300 mile race - 113 grueling laps - began.
From the outset the pace was sizzling, competition strong. Within the first five laps a driver named Doolittle, in number 12, charged through massed cars ahead to take the lead. Shooting up behind came car number 38, driven by a jut-jawed Mississippian known to fans as Cutthroat.
Both were favorites, with racing pundits and the crowd.
A dark horse rookie driver, Johnny Gerenz in number 44, ran an unexpected third.
Pierre Flodenhale, clearing the pack soon after Gerenz, moved up to fourth in number 29.
For twenty-six laps the lead switched back and forth between the two front cars. Then Doolittle, in 12, pitted twice in quick succession with ignition trouble. It cost him a lap, and later, with smoke pouring from his car, he quit the race.
Doolittle's departure put the rookie, Johnny Gerenz, in 44, in second place. Pierre, in 29, was now third.
In the thirtieth lap a minor mishap, with debris and spilled oil, brought out caution flags, slowing the race while the track was cleared and sanded. Johnny Gerenz and Pierre were among those who pitted, taking advantage of the noncompeting laps. Both had tire changes, a fill of gas, and were away again in seconds.
Soon after, the caution flag was lifted. Speed resumed.
Pierre was drafting - staying close behind other cars, using the partial suction they created, saving his own fuel and engine wear. It was a dangerous game but, used skillfully, could help win long races.
Experienced onlookers sensed Pierre was holding back, saving a reserve of speed and power for later in the race.
'At least,' Adam told Erica, 'we hope that's what he's doing.'
Pierre was the only one among present leaders in the race who was driving one of the company's cars. Thus, Adam, Hub Hewitson, and others were rooting for Pierre, hopeful that later he would move into the lead.
As always, when she went to auto races, Erica was fascinated by the speed of pit stops - the fact that a crew of five mechanics could change four tires, replenish gasoline, confer with the driver, and have a car moving out again in one minute, sometimes less.
'They practice,' Adam told her. 'For hours and hours, all year-round. And they never waste a movement, never get in one another's way.'
Their seat neighbor, a manufacturing vice-president, glanced across. 'We could use a few of their kind in Assembly.'
Pit stops, too, as Erica knew, could win or lose a race.
With the race leaders in their forty-seventh lap, a blue-gray car spun out of control on the steeply banked north turn. It came to rest in the infield, right side up, the driver unhurt. In course of its gyrations, however, the blue-gray car clipped another which slid sideways into the track wall amid a shower of sparks, then deep red flames from burning oil. The driver of the second car scrambled out and was supported by ambulance men as he left the track.
The oil fire was quickly extinguished. Minutes later the p.a. announced that the second driver had sustained nose lacerations only; except for the two wrecked cars, no other damage had been done.
The race proceeded under a yellow caution Rag, competitors holding their positions until the caution signal should be lifted. Meanwhile, wrecking and service crews labored swiftly to clear the track.
Erica, a little bored by now, took advantage of the lull to move rearward in the box. Kathryn Hewitson, her head down, was still working on needlepoint, but when she looked up, Erica saw to her surprise that the older womans eyes were moist with tears.
'I really can't take this,' Kathryn said. 'That man who was just hurt used to race for us when we had the factory team. I know him well, and his wife.'
Erica assured her, 'He's all right. He was only hurt slightly.'
'Yes, I know.' The executive vice-president's wife put her needlepoint away. 'I think I could use a drink. Why don't we have one together?'
They moved to the rear of the private box where a barman was at work.
Soon after, when Erica returned to rejoin Adam, the caution flag had been lifted, the race was running full-out again, under green.
Moments later, Pierre Flodenhale, in 29, crammed on a burst of speed and passed the rookie driver, Johnny Gerenz, in 44, moving into second place.
Pierre was now directly behind Cutthroat, clinging to the lead in number 38, his speed close to 190 mph.
For three laps, with the race in its final quarter, the two fought a blistering duel, Pierre trying to move up, almost succeeding, but Cutthroat holding his position with skill and daring. But in the homestretch of the eighty- ninth lap, with twenty-four more laps to go, Pierre thundered by. Cheers resounded across the Speedway and in the company box.
The p.a. boomed: 'Yes 29, Pierre Flodenhale, out front!'
It was at that moment, with the lead cars approaching the south turn, directly in front of the south grandstand and private boxes, that it happened.
Afterward there was disagreement concerning precisely what had occurred. Some said a wind gust caught Pierre, others that he experienced steering trouble entering the turn and overcorrected; a third theory maintained that a piece of metal on another car broke loose and struck 29, diverting it.
Whatever the cause, car 29 snaked suddenly as Pierre fought the wheel, then at the turn slammed head on into the concrete retaining wall. Like a bomb exploding, the car disintegrated, breaking at the fire wall, the two main portions separating. Before either portion had come to rest, car 44, with Johnny Gerenz, plowed between both. The rookie driver's car spun, rolled, and seconds later was upside down in the infield, its wheels spinning crazily. A second car smashed into the now spread-out wreckage of 29, a third into that. Six cars altogether were in the pileup at the turn; five were eliminated from the race, one limped on for a few laps more before shedding a wheel and being towed to the pits.
Apart from Pierre, all other drivers involved were unhurt.
The group in the company box, like others elsewhere, watched in shocked horror as ambulance attendants rushed to the two separate, shattered portions of car 29. A group of ambulance men had surrounded each. They appeared to be bringing objects to a stretcher placed midway between the two. As a company director, with
