Having never been to a car race before, I found the Grand Canyon Classic quite exciting in and of itself. The roar of the engines at high RPM, waiting for the starter to drop the flag to start their time trial, flexed the glass in the nearby stores. Especially the Ford GT40, a low slung rocketship that looked more similar to the Ferraris then our Mustang. The squeal of the tires as it took off followed by the sonic explosions as the driver fired through gears accelerating down the road out of sight left its mark. Only for another car to take its place on the start line and repeat the process again.
Every 30 seconds a car took off, serenading the city of Flagstaff with its song of war before heading off into high speed battle amongst the trees of Coconino National Forest. The Ferrari was a real show stopper, literally shattering the windows of a nearby shop as it took off, the ear piercing scream of its V12 engine being enough to make anyone a car fan. Meanwhile McClaire and Star were busy taking notes, as they had been all day.
“GT40, private entry with Shelby as support but he’s retiring”
“512m, NART with factory support”
“910 Porsche, Private team, no support.”
They scribbled notes like these into their notepad, sizing up the compilation they might face next year. Some classes were for proper rocketship race cars, others were for GT's. These were your Mustangs, Corvettes, 911, sports cars people could actually go to a dealer and just buy if they had the money.
Growing up in and around Chicago, I never saw anything like this. Several times various people tried to make a car race happen around Millennium Park, but it just never came to be. Shut down for this reason or that, but what a thing to miss out on. The drama, the danger, the excitement, and this was a low effort deal according to McClaire, and the next race we would be attending would be even more spectacular.
I had heard of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and its 500 mile sweepstakes held every May. It was the highest paying, most dangerous race in the world, where speed records were broken on a yearly basis. The entire month of May was spent with drivers risking their lives trying to qualify for this race, with 33 positions available for the big day. The pole speed, set across four laps based on average speed, was 178 MPH, and that was skyrocking every year.
Now, what I didn't know was there was a turn by turn copy of the Indianapolis Speedway in California. Called the Ontario Motor Speedway, it was home to the California 500, and the 3rd to last race of the USAC Championship for 1971. McClaire had been contracted not to drive into the race, but to qualify a car for the race in time trials for the McLaren racing team and someone named Danny Hulme, who would be racing elsewhere on Friday and Saturday.
Of course, to get there, we still had a day's drive into California, which meant I was back in the trunk of the Mustang before too long. I know it sounds weird, but I didn't even mind at this point. I just accepted this was my seat for this adventure, and now as I was getting on the girl’s good side, I was allowed to stretch my legs at every fuel stop.
It did kinda amaze me, not a single person on this entire journey stopped to ask why two cute girls had a random dude in the trunk of their car. Nor why I was getting in and out of it willingly with no signs of distress. But honestly, I even had to remind myself how I ended up there in the first place. How far my relationship with both McClaire and Star had come in a week, and how much my life had changed for the better was just shocking.
Maybe McClaire really was some sort of god?
After leaving Arizona Monday morning, we ended up at the Speedway by dusk with a few stops in between. First was the LA Airport, where McClaire met with the rest of her racing team. There was Jack Martin, a middle aged racing veteran hailing from Ohio who acted as McClaire’s teammate. Max Grayson, the team's self described scribe and other “driver in training” alongside Stella Star. Joe Jackson, the suit wearing, clean cut butler who always addressed you by “mister” or “miss” no matter how many times you told him to stop. Finally, there was a man simply known as Tak. He didn't say much, and just sort of hung out by the plane with his sunglasses on.
McClaire introduced me to them all, and to be honest, I was kinda shell shocked. Star was much less kind about it as you might expect, but it became clear I wasn't the only person she treated like this. While McClaire had her back turned, Star took a swing at Max Grayson and the fight was on from there. They tackled each other to the ground, punching and kicking the hell out of each other until Star started to win the fight. She eventually got on top of him like she did me, unleashing punch after punch into his face until Jack Martin finally pulled them apart.
“What the hell Stella, get off of him!” Jack had to pull her arms back like reigns on a horse. Max had gotten a couple good punches in too, as both of their faces were bleeding, but he definitely looked a lot worse.
“Call me a bitch again Stray, I dare you!” Stella ranted like a woman possessed. Max meanwhile got up, spit out a mouth full of blood as he dusted himself off, and then took a fighting stance again as if ready for round two. Star, like a dog on a chain, started trying to rip herself away from Jack, until she finally cut his legs out from under him. As he fell on his ass, Star launched herself at the speed of light.
Star is so unbelievably fast, that same burst of speed I saw when she spun around on me with the knife. She shot past Max stopping herself just one step to his flank, rechanneling all her momentum into her elbow as she smashed it into his back. Max fell forward onto the ground, desperately trying to catch himself, just as I had done that night. But Star was already on top of him, she jumped on his back and rode him to the ground like a surfboard, smashing all the breath out of his lungs with a loud groan.
However, the fight ended as quickly as it started as a gunshot deafened all of us. We all looked to the source of the sound to see McClaire's eyes glowing with anger, 357 magnum in her hand, pointed to the sky, barrel smoking
“ENOUGH! Get off of him Star!” She ordered, voice raised so it could be heard over the ringing in our ears. Star glared back at her, but reluctantly stepped off Max, allowing him again to get back up. They stood side by side, hissing insults at each other under their breath as McClaire walked over and smacked them both.
“I'm going lock you both into a room until you're both dead or you kiss if you do that in public again! Got it?!” Both Star and Max nodded, and just like that, it was over. They glared at each other one more time, but they walked their separate ways as McClaire returned to her conversation with Joe Jackson.
“Miss McClaire, I highly recommend against firing your gun into the air at an airport in the future,” he said, not a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
“Jesus, it's like pulling apart a pair of cats with those two,” Jack said to me as he stood back up.
“Yeah, Star is a little… untamed don't you think?”
“Ha… you have no idea kid!” He laughed before continuing,
“You get on Stella's bad side, she never forgets and never forgives.”
“Yeah, I see that…” I said with a sigh, before adding on under my breath.
“I hope I can be the one that changes that.”
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