Some time ago I wrote a piece on my first ever vehicle, a 1951 Chevrolet pickup. As I remember I posted that I had several more stories to tell about the “Fine RIDE”. One of those stories is about the “GREAT RACE”.
Although this is not my truck , mine looked a lot like it, rust and all. The 1951 with a lot of rust. My wheels were all “snap-ring” truck types and the wheels were not all the same color.
It has been many years but I recall this looks a lot like the one Bill had? I may be wrong and his may have been a few years newer than 1958? Still an old work-horse type pickup.
The “GREAT RACE” all came about in the Spring of 1968 when most of the guys (driving age) in school had nice , but older, cars. Some of us had resurrected JUNQUE, but not many. In the JUNQ”UE category were Me, Billy Tuck, and the Broomfield boys. I remember the Broomfield boys had a 1958 or 1959 Mercury 4 door car. That poor thing had been used and abused it’s whole life but like me they had transportation on the cheap. That car had a starter problem and they had to carry a collection of coke bottles to get it started. The problem had something to do with the solenoid and how it would not stay kicked in? I never really got too involved in their problems but I do remember that Lonnie had to sometimes get an empty bottle form the trunk and jam it into the starter solenoid or behind it or something so he could get it started. Of course that would get it started but when it did start it would break that bottle and throw glass down every where under the car. The would collect the big pieces and throw them in a box to be dumped later… Sure was a funny sight to see him hanging over the fender trying to jam that bottle in to the starter… You see Lonnie was a Jockey as was his little brother and they were , for lack of any other explanation, short, small guys. Me and Billy tuck both had pickups of the vintage class. Mine was several years older than Bills but both were old farm work trucks. His was an old International with a 4 speed tranny just like mine.
As with all teen age boys, we were bragging about our RIDES. Since mine had very little to brag about, not being freshly painted, fast, good for dragging main, good for girl bait, etc.… I had to brag about it being the slowest vehicle in town. I knew that none of the guys with cars could even be in the same class of slow that my truck was. My only competition was that International of Bill’s. I had ridden in his truck but was not sure just how slow it could be but was pretty sure mine was pretty close to the slowest damn thing on 4 wheels. In fact I think it was slower than most wheel chairs with the brakes on?
As the school year progressed the bragging continued and finally Bill couldn’t stand it any longer and he made a small wager ( out wagers were usually a coke at Tooties – more accurately called Howards Recreation Parlor). Stuff about Tooties is another set of stories to be told later. I have no idea why it took so long in the school year to gather up enough “STEAM” to actually cause the wager as usually our disputes only took a few minutes and we were all off to prove something, but this one drug out for weeks. In a small school where all 12 grades are present some things are just common knowledge. The fact that we were having a wager RACE was all over the school. WE were both warned by “THE ADMINISTRATION” that they would not tolerate such activities on the school property. Well alright then, that settled it for a location, it would be in the parking lot after school. That news also went through the school like wildfire. I do not know if we were playing it up or both of us had a little fear of loosing but we delayed this “RACE” for a another week or so then finally we both agreed on a date. It would be a Friday after school so that if we got in trouble it would be the next week before “THE ADMINISTRATION” could haul us in. The fact that it was a “SLOW – RACE” seemed to elude nearly everyone else but Bill and I and a couple of the other guys we all hung with. The little kids, the ADMINISTRATION, some of the girls, etc. all thought it was going to be a “REAL RACE”. Strange that we were both getting Pep talks, advise, and all kinds of acknowledgement before the race.
When the big day came up we waited in the parking lot until nearly every one was gone. Only a few had stayed as most had to leave with the buses or had other things to do. The few that stayed were cheering as we marked off the track. It would be all of about 300 ft. (One block in length) and the winner would be the LAST to cross the finish line. How else would you measure a race for the “SLOWEST” vehicle in town? We line them up and just like a real race we raced the engines, “warmed up the tires just a little” (which was a ridiculous thing but we were playing to the crowd at this point). Then one of the guys pulled out a flag and proceeded to mark us off and with a big wave of the flag, we were off! At first I was doing really well. Bill was pulling away and as I suspected I was every bit the slowest thing on 4 wheels. But then, he slowed down and was really crawling along and I was catching up… ? How could that be? It didn’t make sense that the was moving out then slowing down? I figured that some “hanky-panky” was going on here, so I jumped out of my vehicle and ran over to Bills to find that he had loaded up the choke so he was barely running and was “riding the clutch”!!! I yelled “FOUL” and several of the other guys came running up and declared a violation and I was declared immediate winner of the “SLOWEST” vehicle in town. Bill laughed, although I know he was a bit peeved as he hated to loose anything.
As I ran back to my truck, that was still chugging slowly along across the parking lot I caught the Superintendent and several other teachers standing in the main lobby of the school looking out at us. Some were just walking away. I figured we would not be in trouble for this one, as we had not endangered anyone or anything with this race. When I put the truck in neutral it actually moved a bit faster across the parking lot to the finish line. Being a Friday we all ( the guys that is) made our way to Tooties for the cold bottle of pop and then headed home to get our chores done so we could be back out on the town that night.
So went the “BIG RACE” to prove who had the “SLOWEST” vehicle in town. I got compliments from a lot of my friends. They didn’t even think a vehicle could run that slow. Heck there were a lot of times I drove it like that when putting up hay. I could drive and pick up hay by myself. I could put it in gear, get out and walk along with it and load hay with only grabbing the steering wheel (through the window) every once in awhile to straighten it back up. Did the same thing feeding cattle that winter the few times we had to. Actually the steering was pretty stiff so it would run really straight unless it hit a big hump or something. Never feared it running away from me, and seldom feared getting a ticket as it just didn’t run that fast and usually you felt like you were going way faster since it was such a damn rough ride anyway. – WD0AJG