Night of Thunder

Bob was in the pit next to a vehicle that was just as purpose-built as any Huey or Cobra gunship. It was called “USMC 44,” a Dodge Charger in the new, blurry digital camouflage just like the boys wore outside Baghdad, with the globe and anchor emblazoned king-size on hood, roof, and doors. Mechanics and submechanics leaped around, each, seemingly, with a special job to do, as they struggled to bring it to some kind of mechanical perfection. They worked in puddles of oil and fuel, and tracks crisscrossed the concrete as in Vietnam, the tracks of running men, the tracks of rolling, smooth, wide tires, and a myriad of smaller-scaled tracks for various wheeled devices that serviced the big machine. The USMC 44 carried a special-built V8 Hemi engine so brawny it was bursting to get out, rode on four smooth, wide tires instantly changeable, and devoured some poison brew of chemically adjusted fuel. Like any tool, it sported no softness for comfort, but was a hard, serious bucket of bolts meant for one thing only, and that was to zoom full-bore around a mile track five hundred times, spitting clouds of exhaust. It had all the gizmos: the spoiler on the rear to keep it from going airborne, the shocks made of Kryptonite or some other wonder steel, the four-inch ground clearance, all engineered to make USMC 44 go like hell. Inside it was like a hard devotional place, also lacking any softness for comfort, with one seat bolted in, the doors bolted shut, netting everywhere.

He stood there, on the outside of the ruckus, feeling like a tourist. But this is where he had been told to be, and this was the time, and the various obstacles to his penetration of the most intimate secret places of NASCAR had fallen when he gave his name, almost as if he were important.

It was the good old USMC retired NCO network in action. Bob had gotten a batch of pictures taken by Dewey’s Aviation Inc. out of Knoxville, and what he saw was mainly skidmarks down ten miles of descending road on Iron Mountain, and some skell in some kind of fast mover closing in upon and trying to kill his daughter. It was, even from the air, nonsense and gibberish to Bob. But he had friends, and he called the son of a friend, who was a lieutenant colonel in personnel at Henderson Hall, or HQ, and asked if the colonel could come up with some ex-marine who’d know a lot about car behavior, accidents, skidmarks, that sort of thing. Turned out, no, he didn’t, but he had something better. Someone who was fresh off the marine PIO at HQ where he’d been a part of the team that had worked with a big New York ad agency to recruit a NASCAR driver to run the USMC emblem on his car the upcoming season. Not for charity, because there was no charity anywhere in NASCAR these days. It was all marketing, done for the money. But still, the fellow, his people, his team, they all got it, and they loved running under the globe and anchor. In fact, he was still in the running for the Sprint Cup and he’d be right there at Bristol that very weekend. Calls were made, things were agreed to, and though the USMC-Chrysler team was working 24/7, there was no problem if Bob got there at eleven today, as qualifying didn’t start till tomorrow and they were still tuning.

So now Bob was standing, when a scrawny youngster in jeans and a baseball cap came up to him, smiled, shook his hand, and bid him to follow. No words were exchanged, because the noise was so loud, and Bob followed the boy through the hustle and bustle, dodging a rolling tire someone was wheeling toward the car itself, its top half-Bob wanted to call it a fuselage-visible over a wall. He ducked and bobbed and then found himself inside a trailer home that was way nice, like a hotel suite, clearly set up as some kind of relaxation area. When the door was sealed Bob popped out his ear plugs, as did the boy, and Bob introduced himself.

“Gunnery sergeant, eh? You were some kind of cowboy hero in that war all that time ago, is that right?”

“It was mostly squirming around, hoping not to get shot, was all,” Bob said.

“Well, I’m Matt MacReady.” Bob was stunned to see that this kid was the man he’d come to see, the actual driver himself, fourth in NASCAR standings, a real comer, had a shot at winning a few nights down the road and a shot at the big cup. So young. Freckly even, with a thatch of red hair. But then the chopper aviators were all young, and if you put a helmet on them and a bird under them, they’d go into hell to get the mission done. So he warned himself against holding the boy’s youth against him.

“Pleased to meet you. Congratulations on your fine racing career. Sorry I didn’t recognize you.”