The Water
Can
He drives like a madman
2 Kings 9:20
NIV
It was ten o'clock on a Sunday morning in the fall of 1963. Thousands of Portland Christians were either in church, on their way to church, or at home trying to make up their minds. Meanwhile thousands of other residents of the City of Roses were streaming south on highway 99W heading for the McMinnville drag races — America's new national craze, directly descended from the chariot races that intoxicated ancient Rome.
At the freeway offramp leading to highway 18, a preposterous traffic jam had formed. Green, blue, beige, buff, and raspberry vehicles of every imaginable size and description were bumper to bumper, impatiently idling, engines racing and snorting. Occasionally a supercharged Oldsmobile would roar out of line and cut down the embankment — then horns would honk and a siren would wail. Waiting in the lineup was Dick Zugman, scion of an old Portland family and heir to a cluster of jewelry stores. Dick was tooling a box-shaped little MG that boasted a Corvette engine. He liked to spend his Sundays drag racing, and on this particular day he had lured a friend along.
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That friend was Michael, who was idling just behind him in a 1956 two-door Chevy hardtop.
Michael was excited. Thanks to a recent car accident that had left him with a mild whiplash, an insurance company had come through with $1,200. "Bank it," advised his friends, but Michael chose to slap it down on the Chevy. First he adorned his treasure with chrome wheels, then he installed a different engine built up to Corvette specifications. Behind the wheel of this souped-up creation he could forget everything, and Zugman's invitation to race was the neatest thing yet.
As he waited for the traffic to move, Michael noticed his engine was heating up. He raised the hood and found the fan belt had broken. He let the engine cool, but by the time they reached the drag strip he knew he was in big trouble.
The strip itself was a wild intrusion into the placid farm country of the Willamette valley. A flat, open field had been transformed into a blacktop runway a quarter of a mile long. At one end was the starting line, and by it a ten-foot tower was standing on stilts. At the other end was the finish, where electric timers had been rigged. Adjacent to the tower was a paved artery leading off the track to the pit area. Here a hundred cars were coughing and rumbling and belching rings of blue smoke as mechanics in coveralls worked on them. In the middle of the pits were other cars lining up for the next race, with engines roaring. Several hundred people were seated in bleachers alongside the track, and another hundred stood around the starter with his flags.
Of assorted liquids Michael found no lack of supply, but no water for his engine. Half a mile away stood a farmhouse, and there was nothing for it but to start walking. In due time he was back with a full five-gallon water can, borrowed from a good-natured farmer. Michael reasoned
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that as the drag strip was so short in length, the broken fan belt would not knock him out of the race. He tanked up and drove to the entry area where the drivers were lining up for classification assignments. The official, unaware that Michael's engine was different from the usual stock Chevy, routinely assigned him to the stock class. A registration number was duly painted on his car window.
His race was called, and Michael lined up with one other car for the first heat. At the flag he slammed his engine into low gear, floored the accelerator, and leaped two lengths ahead of his rival before the powerglide shifted into drive. By the end of the quarter mile he was racing at a hundred miles an hour and won easily. Thanks to the farmer's water can he survived two more heats, and the eliminations were completed. As preparations were made for the final run, some friends of an eliminated driver walked over to Michael's Chevy and studied it. They listened to the cam and the solid lifters, and one of them raised the hood.
"Hey!" he shouted to Michael, "you're not a stock." Michael responded by ignoring him and going to the starting line, where he roared out ahead of the remaining contender, as he had done in the heats, and captured the event. Tingling with pride he drove around the back of the strip and approached the tower to receive his trophy. It was a moment never to forget: his first race, and he had come off a winner! He accepted the trophy, smiled for the camera, waved to the applauding crowd in the bleachers, and drove back to pick up some tools and the five-gallon can. As he stepped out of the Chevy he found himself in an ugly crowd, and facing him was the director of the racetrack.
"We want that trophy back."
"You want what?"
"The trophy. You won your race illegally."
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"What do you mean? I paid my five dollars. There's my registration number on the window."
"It's your engine, Buster, your engine."
"What about my engine?"
"It's illegal. Give back the trophy and we'll forget it. Otherwise we'll have you kicked out of the National Hotrod Association."
Michael laughed, "I don't belong to the National Hotrod Association."
But now, he noticed, several of the onlookers were making menacing moves and gestures. Turning quickly, he jumped into the Chevy. "Baloney!" he shouted, waving the trophy. "I won this race and it's mine!" And down the road he roared, his radiator leaking a trail in the dirt.
Several of those present leaped for their cars and the chase was on. But they did not reckon on the water can. Michael had promised to return it, and a short distance down the road he swung off (the leak having by this time run out) and drove up a lane leading to the farmhouse. The can was returned after Michael tanked up for the last time, while a string of cars disappeared down the highway. He took his time driving back to Portland.
