It Was One of Those Days – Part 5
The next morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table sipping on a very hot cup of black coffee and smearing some butter on the pancakes that Kelly had just fixed for us when the doorbell rang. As I got up to go answer it, I noticed the Sheriff’s cruiser in the drive that neither of us had heard pull in. Suddenly, I had a bad feeling that today wasn’t going to be any better than the yesterday.
Opening the door, I recognized Jim, a former neighbor who served on the department. Jim had a pretty straight face on when I invited him in.
“’Mornin’, Steve. ‘Mornin’, Kelly… I hate to bother you guys on a weekend but I’ve got some questions I need to ask you about last night’s accident. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure Jim. Just pull up a chair at the table. Want some coffee and pancakes?” My wife is always the hostess – even if our visitor was Bin Laden, I’m sure she would offer him some food.
But Jim politely declined, waving his big meaty hand that was holding his flat-rimmed hat in the air.
“Nah, Kelly. I’ve already ate. This shouldn’t take too long and I’ll get on out of here and let you enjoy your breakfast.”
I could see Jim waffling (pardon the pun) about the coffee though. Kelly DOES make the best coffee around.
“Ok, Kelly… go ahead. I guess I’ll take a cup of coffee if you’ve got enough. It sure DOES smell good…”
In a flash, she had it poured and the wonderful smell of fresh coffee rose from the steamy liquid’s surface like fog off a lake. Jim took a delicate sip, careful not to burn his tongue, sat the cup down and pulled a small tablet out of his breast pocket.
“Sure is good, Kel! Ok… let’s get this over with…Here’s the first question…”
For the next 20 minutes, Jim basically just asked us about the previous evening and what transpired. Not once did he broach the subject of street racing but I felt that sooner or later, he was going to ask me about it.
As he wound down, he finally sat the tablet and pen on the table, picked up the cup of coffee and in one long drink, finished it off. He sat upright and leaned forward and looked me straight in the eye.
“Steve… I’ve only got one last question. Were you racing this guy? I don’t have any eyewitnesses who say that is the case and even the girl that was in the car with this Ned fellow says he wasn’t racing, that it was just an accident. So, tell me – were you racing?”
Damn. Just when I thought he was going to ignore the obvious, he surprised me.
“Jim, before I answer that, I need to know how Ned is doing.”
Jim looked at his hat as he twirled it on his hand in sort of an awkward manner.
“Ned’s going to be fine. He was banged up pretty bad and had a broken bone in his left wrist but considering how his new Mustang looked, he’s lucky to be alive. Investigators said he hit the pole sideways, doing something like 60mph… if his car had hit farther back on the driver’s side, he would probably be dead. But it looks like he’s gonna be ok. He’s supposed to get out of the hospital later today. The girl was fine; nothing other than a few scrapes and some bruises. Just goes to show you how well these new cars are built.
So… were you racing?”
I figured honesty has always been the best policy and I sure didn’t want to be found out later that I was lying during the course of an investigation.
“Yeah, Jim. I was. I know it’s wrong but I was definitely racing him.”
Jim just looked down at the floor for a moment. He seemed to be thinking about what to say next…
“Well, Steve… our friendship goes back a long way so I’m not going to lecture you. Since I didn’t see it and since no one has come forward to make a statement that you two were letting it all hang out, I’m going to act like I didn’t hear what you just said. But I’ve got to tell you this, Steve - if I see you so much as chirping the tires in that Buick of yours, I’m gonna run you in, you got it? Street racing is illegal and dangerous, as you two clowns proved last night. Both of you could be dead right now along with some innocent driver or pedestrian. So take it to the track, ok?”
Whew…. I sighed to myself. I was thinking that Jim was going to write me up for a real nose-bleed of a ticket. I was very, very lucky. I just nodded agreement…
“One other thing, Steve…”
“Yeah, Jim?"
“Were you winning?”
I paused for a moment, appreciating the fact that Jim too is a motorhead and a drag race fan.
“Yeah… but not by much if at all and we still had more to go. Ned’s Shelby is – er, WAS – pretty bad ass. You know my GN doesn’t have the original motor in it right now, don’t you? I put that Stage 2 mill in that I built last year. But even with the Stage motor, that Shelby had enough mods itself that it was really too close to call. I can’t really say if the race had gone the full distance who would have won.”
Jim shook his head in amazement.
“By the way, did you guys find out what happened? What caused the Ford to lose it?” I was definitely curious as to what happened.
“Well, we’re still investigating it but it looks like the nitrous backfired somehow through the blower but the explosion blew the blower off the engine, taking the hood with it. According to Carol – the girl in Ned’s car – when the hood – it was a fiberglass one by the way - blew off, Ned jerked the wheel to the right and lost control, going into a slide. It also looked like the motor might have seized and with the clutch still engaged, the rear tires just lost traction.
Like I said, we’re still investigating it but it looks like he basically blew the motor up, lost control, hit a pole, totaled the car, and is damn lucky to be alive this morning. Oh – one more thing…”
“What?”
“He wanted me to ask you to give him a call. Here’s his home number… he didn’t say what he wanted you to call him for… just that you should give him a call tomorrow sometime.”
“Ok, Jim. I’ll do that. Anything else?”
“Nah, Steve, Kelly… that’s pretty much it. Ned’s insurance has already been contacted and he claims he’ll get another car out of it. I guess EVERY one involved was pretty lucky last night. You guys take care. Kelly? Thanks for the coffee. And Steve? Remember what I said about taking it to the track, ok? I’d hate to have to scrape you up off the road.”
With that, Jim left. Kelly looked at me with one of those patented, “I TOLD you so” looks.
“See Steve? See why I’ve been telling you to get your head out of your butt about this racing on the streets? That could be YOU laying up there in the hospital, with more serious injuries than a broken wrist. Promise me – you won’t race on the street anymore, ok?”
I pulled her in close and gave her a hug. How could I resist?
“Sure, Kel… I promise…”
Even as we kissed, we both knew I was lying…
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
Later that afternoon, I finally got out in the garage and under the hood of the GN. It didn’t look any worse for the wear following the previous night’s events but as I was checking the oil, I thought I saw something on the floor beneath the engine.
Something… shiny… and wet.
Putting the dipstick back in, I grabbed the flashlight off the bench and knelt down in front of the grille. Flicking the switch on, I shined the light back under the car, not seeing anything at first.
But then – it caught my eye. There was definitely a puddle of liquid; maybe even two. Due to the angle, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from so after putting the flashlight back, I grabbed the floor jack and axle stands and got the car up in the air.
Lying back on the creeper, I glided back under the car with the flashlight in hand once more. I examined the puddle closely and smeared some of the fluid on my fingers. Bringing them up to the light, my heart sank.
Oil. And lots of it… and right beside it, almost mixing in with the oil, was a slightly smaller puddle of antifreeze.
Double Damn!
Where the hell could it be coming from? Twisting back over on the creeper, I cast the light up into the dark recesses of the underside of the engine bay, looking for a tell-tale drip or run.
It didn’t take long to find where it LOOKED like the oil was coming from - the passenger’s side of the block, possibly from around the front corner area above the pan. Not a good sign… The Antifreeze source took a little longer but ended up being just a bad thermostat gasket that was seeping and letting the fluid drip on down to the floor. But the oil leak worried me.
Three hours later, I came to a bad conclusion – the motor was going to have to come out of the car. After tearing off nearly the entire front end of the motor, it appeared that there was either a leaky pan gasket or more likely a small crack in the block casting. I just couldn’t be sure without pulling the motor so rather than guess, I slid back out from under the car and went inside to see if I could get Brandon on the phone.
Luckily, B was available and came on over. As soon as he got there, he slid under the GN and then slid back out with the same opinion – the motor needed to come out of the car.
Sheesh… here was yet again ANOTHER one of the ‘those’ days…
A few hours later and after several scraped and bloodied knuckles, a couple of large pepperoni pizzas and some sodas, the Stage motor was out of the car and on the stand. Parts and tools were scattered all about the floor of the garage, tagged and identified for return back to the car. Sure enough, there looked to be a small, hairline crack just above the bolt hole for the pan mounting that was allowing some oil seepage. Only after complete disassembly could I be sure but it didn’t look good.
Damn, damn, damn… what a sucky weekend….
Thankfully, I still had the original motor on a stand under plastic in the corner of the garage. It was all stock internals but did have a TE-60 turbo, 009’s, etc and had propelled the car to the to a best ET of high 11’s but still had some room in it I felt.
After some debate, B and I decided, “Why not?” So, we set into another wrench fest with a fury and in a few more hours had the GN’s original motor back in the car. Thankfully, everything went back in with not much hassle. After a few spins of the starter, the 3.8 fired off and settled into a nice staccato rhythm of exhaust noise, the exhaust still not hooked up to the Downpipe. Kelly had given up a few hours before but I had no doubt that she had to have heard the motor fire – it was after midnight and in the cold night air, the little V6 sounded like a Top-fueler in the pits at the US Nationals.
For the first time that day, I think I finally smiled.
“You know, Steve – I never liked that Stage motor anyhow. Too scary for me!”
We both laughed at that one.
“Hey – did you say the cops stopped by today? What happened?”
I filled Brandon in on what had transpired in what felt like days ago but in all reality was only about 12 hours earlier. He too got a kick out of Jim asking if I won the race.
“You know Steve, we ought to run our two cars. Yours is pretty stock and mine is totally stock – for the moment. Let me get some miles on the car and then maybe we can take ‘em to the track like you tried to convince Ned. What do you think?”
I grinned and chugged another drink of Coke. “Sounds good, Brandon… Actually, that sounds GREAT!”
Just then, I heard the garage’s walk-through door open. Spinning around to look, I saw Kelly wiping her sleepy eyes and she was holding the cordless phone.
“Steve? It’s for you…”
“Who is it?”
“It's that Ned guy. And he said that he absolutely has to talk to you right now…”
More to come….
The next morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table sipping on a very hot cup of black coffee and smearing some butter on the pancakes that Kelly had just fixed for us when the doorbell rang. As I got up to go answer it, I noticed the Sheriff’s cruiser in the drive that neither of us had heard pull in. Suddenly, I had a bad feeling that today wasn’t going to be any better than the yesterday.
Opening the door, I recognized Jim, a former neighbor who served on the department. Jim had a pretty straight face on when I invited him in.
“’Mornin’, Steve. ‘Mornin’, Kelly… I hate to bother you guys on a weekend but I’ve got some questions I need to ask you about last night’s accident. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure Jim. Just pull up a chair at the table. Want some coffee and pancakes?” My wife is always the hostess – even if our visitor was Bin Laden, I’m sure she would offer him some food.
But Jim politely declined, waving his big meaty hand that was holding his flat-rimmed hat in the air.
“Nah, Kelly. I’ve already ate. This shouldn’t take too long and I’ll get on out of here and let you enjoy your breakfast.”
I could see Jim waffling (pardon the pun) about the coffee though. Kelly DOES make the best coffee around.
“Ok, Kelly… go ahead. I guess I’ll take a cup of coffee if you’ve got enough. It sure DOES smell good…”
In a flash, she had it poured and the wonderful smell of fresh coffee rose from the steamy liquid’s surface like fog off a lake. Jim took a delicate sip, careful not to burn his tongue, sat the cup down and pulled a small tablet out of his breast pocket.
“Sure is good, Kel! Ok… let’s get this over with…Here’s the first question…”
For the next 20 minutes, Jim basically just asked us about the previous evening and what transpired. Not once did he broach the subject of street racing but I felt that sooner or later, he was going to ask me about it.
As he wound down, he finally sat the tablet and pen on the table, picked up the cup of coffee and in one long drink, finished it off. He sat upright and leaned forward and looked me straight in the eye.
“Steve… I’ve only got one last question. Were you racing this guy? I don’t have any eyewitnesses who say that is the case and even the girl that was in the car with this Ned fellow says he wasn’t racing, that it was just an accident. So, tell me – were you racing?”
Damn. Just when I thought he was going to ignore the obvious, he surprised me.
“Jim, before I answer that, I need to know how Ned is doing.”
Jim looked at his hat as he twirled it on his hand in sort of an awkward manner.
“Ned’s going to be fine. He was banged up pretty bad and had a broken bone in his left wrist but considering how his new Mustang looked, he’s lucky to be alive. Investigators said he hit the pole sideways, doing something like 60mph… if his car had hit farther back on the driver’s side, he would probably be dead. But it looks like he’s gonna be ok. He’s supposed to get out of the hospital later today. The girl was fine; nothing other than a few scrapes and some bruises. Just goes to show you how well these new cars are built.
So… were you racing?”
I figured honesty has always been the best policy and I sure didn’t want to be found out later that I was lying during the course of an investigation.
“Yeah, Jim. I was. I know it’s wrong but I was definitely racing him.”
Jim just looked down at the floor for a moment. He seemed to be thinking about what to say next…
“Well, Steve… our friendship goes back a long way so I’m not going to lecture you. Since I didn’t see it and since no one has come forward to make a statement that you two were letting it all hang out, I’m going to act like I didn’t hear what you just said. But I’ve got to tell you this, Steve - if I see you so much as chirping the tires in that Buick of yours, I’m gonna run you in, you got it? Street racing is illegal and dangerous, as you two clowns proved last night. Both of you could be dead right now along with some innocent driver or pedestrian. So take it to the track, ok?”
Whew…. I sighed to myself. I was thinking that Jim was going to write me up for a real nose-bleed of a ticket. I was very, very lucky. I just nodded agreement…
“One other thing, Steve…”
“Yeah, Jim?"
“Were you winning?”
I paused for a moment, appreciating the fact that Jim too is a motorhead and a drag race fan.
“Yeah… but not by much if at all and we still had more to go. Ned’s Shelby is – er, WAS – pretty bad ass. You know my GN doesn’t have the original motor in it right now, don’t you? I put that Stage 2 mill in that I built last year. But even with the Stage motor, that Shelby had enough mods itself that it was really too close to call. I can’t really say if the race had gone the full distance who would have won.”
Jim shook his head in amazement.
“By the way, did you guys find out what happened? What caused the Ford to lose it?” I was definitely curious as to what happened.
“Well, we’re still investigating it but it looks like the nitrous backfired somehow through the blower but the explosion blew the blower off the engine, taking the hood with it. According to Carol – the girl in Ned’s car – when the hood – it was a fiberglass one by the way - blew off, Ned jerked the wheel to the right and lost control, going into a slide. It also looked like the motor might have seized and with the clutch still engaged, the rear tires just lost traction.
Like I said, we’re still investigating it but it looks like he basically blew the motor up, lost control, hit a pole, totaled the car, and is damn lucky to be alive this morning. Oh – one more thing…”
“What?”
“He wanted me to ask you to give him a call. Here’s his home number… he didn’t say what he wanted you to call him for… just that you should give him a call tomorrow sometime.”
“Ok, Jim. I’ll do that. Anything else?”
“Nah, Steve, Kelly… that’s pretty much it. Ned’s insurance has already been contacted and he claims he’ll get another car out of it. I guess EVERY one involved was pretty lucky last night. You guys take care. Kelly? Thanks for the coffee. And Steve? Remember what I said about taking it to the track, ok? I’d hate to have to scrape you up off the road.”
With that, Jim left. Kelly looked at me with one of those patented, “I TOLD you so” looks.
“See Steve? See why I’ve been telling you to get your head out of your butt about this racing on the streets? That could be YOU laying up there in the hospital, with more serious injuries than a broken wrist. Promise me – you won’t race on the street anymore, ok?”
I pulled her in close and gave her a hug. How could I resist?
“Sure, Kel… I promise…”
Even as we kissed, we both knew I was lying…
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
Later that afternoon, I finally got out in the garage and under the hood of the GN. It didn’t look any worse for the wear following the previous night’s events but as I was checking the oil, I thought I saw something on the floor beneath the engine.
Something… shiny… and wet.
Putting the dipstick back in, I grabbed the flashlight off the bench and knelt down in front of the grille. Flicking the switch on, I shined the light back under the car, not seeing anything at first.
But then – it caught my eye. There was definitely a puddle of liquid; maybe even two. Due to the angle, I couldn’t tell where it was coming from so after putting the flashlight back, I grabbed the floor jack and axle stands and got the car up in the air.
Lying back on the creeper, I glided back under the car with the flashlight in hand once more. I examined the puddle closely and smeared some of the fluid on my fingers. Bringing them up to the light, my heart sank.
Oil. And lots of it… and right beside it, almost mixing in with the oil, was a slightly smaller puddle of antifreeze.
Double Damn!
Where the hell could it be coming from? Twisting back over on the creeper, I cast the light up into the dark recesses of the underside of the engine bay, looking for a tell-tale drip or run.
It didn’t take long to find where it LOOKED like the oil was coming from - the passenger’s side of the block, possibly from around the front corner area above the pan. Not a good sign… The Antifreeze source took a little longer but ended up being just a bad thermostat gasket that was seeping and letting the fluid drip on down to the floor. But the oil leak worried me.
Three hours later, I came to a bad conclusion – the motor was going to have to come out of the car. After tearing off nearly the entire front end of the motor, it appeared that there was either a leaky pan gasket or more likely a small crack in the block casting. I just couldn’t be sure without pulling the motor so rather than guess, I slid back out from under the car and went inside to see if I could get Brandon on the phone.
Luckily, B was available and came on over. As soon as he got there, he slid under the GN and then slid back out with the same opinion – the motor needed to come out of the car.
Sheesh… here was yet again ANOTHER one of the ‘those’ days…
A few hours later and after several scraped and bloodied knuckles, a couple of large pepperoni pizzas and some sodas, the Stage motor was out of the car and on the stand. Parts and tools were scattered all about the floor of the garage, tagged and identified for return back to the car. Sure enough, there looked to be a small, hairline crack just above the bolt hole for the pan mounting that was allowing some oil seepage. Only after complete disassembly could I be sure but it didn’t look good.
Damn, damn, damn… what a sucky weekend….
Thankfully, I still had the original motor on a stand under plastic in the corner of the garage. It was all stock internals but did have a TE-60 turbo, 009’s, etc and had propelled the car to the to a best ET of high 11’s but still had some room in it I felt.
After some debate, B and I decided, “Why not?” So, we set into another wrench fest with a fury and in a few more hours had the GN’s original motor back in the car. Thankfully, everything went back in with not much hassle. After a few spins of the starter, the 3.8 fired off and settled into a nice staccato rhythm of exhaust noise, the exhaust still not hooked up to the Downpipe. Kelly had given up a few hours before but I had no doubt that she had to have heard the motor fire – it was after midnight and in the cold night air, the little V6 sounded like a Top-fueler in the pits at the US Nationals.
For the first time that day, I think I finally smiled.
“You know, Steve – I never liked that Stage motor anyhow. Too scary for me!”
We both laughed at that one.
“Hey – did you say the cops stopped by today? What happened?”
I filled Brandon in on what had transpired in what felt like days ago but in all reality was only about 12 hours earlier. He too got a kick out of Jim asking if I won the race.
“You know Steve, we ought to run our two cars. Yours is pretty stock and mine is totally stock – for the moment. Let me get some miles on the car and then maybe we can take ‘em to the track like you tried to convince Ned. What do you think?”
I grinned and chugged another drink of Coke. “Sounds good, Brandon… Actually, that sounds GREAT!”
Just then, I heard the garage’s walk-through door open. Spinning around to look, I saw Kelly wiping her sleepy eyes and she was holding the cordless phone.
“Steve? It’s for you…”
“Who is it?”
“It's that Ned guy. And he said that he absolutely has to talk to you right now…”
More to come….
