Legend of the First Super Speedway (eBook)
The Battle for the Soul of American Auto Racing
eBook Download:
EPUB
2020
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1. Auflage
384 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-3517-5 (ISBN)
384 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-3517-5 (ISBN)
Barney Oldfield riveted his eyes into one of the 3.2 million bricks that paved America's First Super Speedway. He sought to blot out the din of a packed grandstand and the dangerous gusts that could sweep his car into the unforgiving concrete wall. A record run could restore his reputation as America's Speed King or cost him his life. A record run could deliver the telling blow in the raging culture war for the soul of American auto racing. Oldfield has the fastest car in the world, and now he must prove himself as America's champion and ensure the success of his friend Carl Fisher's titanic battle to raise the modern Indianapolis Motor Speedway up from a fallow cornfield. It's May 1910 and you have a front-row seat.
Barney Oldfield riveted his eyes into one of the 3.2 million bricks that paved America's First Super Speedway. He sought to blot out the din of a packed grandstand and the dangerous gusts that could sweep his car into the unforgiving concrete wall. A record run could restore his reputation as America's Speed King or cost him his life. A record run could deliver the telling blow in the raging culture war for the soul of American auto racing. Oldfield has the fastest car in the world, and now he must prove himself as America's champion and ensure the success of his friend Carl Fisher's titanic battle to raise the modern Indianapolis Motor Speedway up from a fallow cornfield. It's May 1910 and you have a front-row seat. The Legend of the First Super Speedway thrusts you into the early 20th century with vivid interpretations of auto racing and what it would be like to walk among the people and grasp their world view. You will meet the rugged characters of the era as they get "e;corned"e; on whiskey, chew "e;chaw,"e; and bounce violently as they scorch the bricks of America's first speedway. You will ride with them on trains, bound across the craggy terrain of road races, and step over dead horses rotting in the street. The world convulsed with technological change, and the winners mastered it. Everything unfolds through the eyes of protagonists Barney Oldfield and Carl Fisher as they grapple with a cultural battle for the soul of American auto racing. Most importantly, early auto racing's good, bad, and ugly are put before you in an unvarnished fashion. Why? Because it really happened. No storyteller needs to dramatize a single detail because the amazing events actually took place and the awe-inspiring people behind them walked the Earth just as you do now.
Barney Oldfield riveted his eyes into one of the 3.2 million bricks that paved America's First Super Speedway. He sought to blot out the din of a packed grandstand and the dangerous gusts that could sweep his car into the unforgiving concrete wall. A record run could restore his reputation as America's Speed King or cost him his life. A record run could deliver the telling blow in the raging culture war for the soul of American auto racing. Oldfield has the fastest car in the world, and now he must prove himself as America's champion and ensure the success of his friend Carl Fisher's titanic battle to raise the modern Indianapolis Motor Speedway up from a fallow cornfield. It's May 1910 and you have a front-row seat. The Legend of the First Super Speedway thrusts you into the early 20th century with vivid interpretations of auto racing and what it would be like to walk among the people and grasp their world view. You will meet the rugged characters of the era as they get "e;corned"e; on whiskey, chew "e;chaw,"e; and bounce violently as they scorch the bricks of America's first speedway. You will ride with them on trains, bound across the craggy terrain of road races, and step over dead horses rotting in the street. The world convulsed with technological change, and the winners mastered it. Everything unfolds through the eyes of protagonists Barney Oldfield and Carl Fisher as they grapple with a cultural battle for the soul of American auto racing. Most importantly, early auto racing's good, bad, and ugly are put before you in an unvarnished fashion. Why? Because it really happened. No storyteller needs to dramatize a single detail because the amazing events actually took place and the awe-inspiring people behind them walked the Earth just as you do now.
Chapter 1 – “Like the Battle of Santiago”
(Detroit, Thursday, October 23, 1902)
Thunderous blasts echoed off the walls of the brick warehouses along the docks of the Detroit River. Barney Oldfield reveled in the sensation of power of his giant engine as explosions from its cylinders rattled the windows in the buildings that towered as much as five stories over him.
Oldfield’s imagination failed him as he scanned the startled faces of workers behind the vibrating glass, and considered the miserable toil disrupted in the rooms hidden from daylight. To his left, a horse pulling a loading cart along the wharf cried and kicked at the air. Restraining the smile at the corner of his mouth, Oldfield flicked the throttle linkage with his grime-coated hand to make the animal jump again.
Warm oil droplets flecked off valve rockers to pelt Oldfield’s big, round face and cling to two days growth of beard as he adjusted fuel flow through the mixer bowl. Shouting faces and shaking fists loomed steadily larger as he peered over the top of the big, cast-iron block. Only rich men could afford automobiles, and he hoped the angry dockworkers were envious.
The blood flow at Oldfield’s right bicep was pinched to a stop by the tourniquet grip of a beefy hand reaching out from a man that stormed at him from behind. His curled mustache was so stiff with wax Oldfield wanted to fill both his hands with each side and yank the face. The fat man’s torso grounded him like a fence post, and when he jerked, Oldfield had to shuffle his feet to avoid falling. Unlike most men, this fat one was plenty tall enough to lock eyes with him.
“Shut it down! Shut it down!”
Oldfield wanted to clobber the man’s face. Nobody orders Barney Oldfield around. He scanned the countless figures about him and then nodded at his partner, Spider Huff, who obediently shut the engine off. The clamping pressure on Oldfield’s arm relaxed.
“Damnation, boy! What the hell are you doing? This contraption sounds like the Battle of Santiago! You’ve spooked every horse for miles. You ain’t got the sense God gave a goose.”
His temples pulsating, Oldfield fought an impulse to hit the man, to punch his superior tone back into his face. Where was the response that would protect his pride?
“Listen, old man. I do what I do. I got a right to make my way in the world.”
“Keel-haul the fucker,” came an anonymous shout, the originator lost in a blur of faces. Somewhere deep in Oldfield’s gut, a jolt set his jaw and clenched his fists as he braced himself more in fear than rage. Deceived by the boxer in him, he had misjudged impossible situations and taken beatings in the past. Taunting, sour faces of a dozen or so men surrounded him. Mercifully, the big, waxy mustache shifted its position on the fat face to accommodate a smile.
“Aw, Hell, boy, you better come with me. There ain’t no advantage I can see from you losing your teeth. You, other men, get on back to whatever you do.”
With an undercurrent of indistinguishable groans, the group melted away. Some men pointed at the car, some at Oldfield. They talked, or worse, laughed, as they walked back to loading docks. The fat man looked to the other side of the car at skinny Spider Huff, whose head was consumed by a gray felt cap and a wild mustache that obfuscated his mouth and reminded Oldfield of the hand brush he used to clean his workbench.
“That your partner?”
Oldfield glanced over his shoulder to the always-quiet Spider.
“Yeah. Good man. Hell of a mechanic.”
The wooden cart not two hundred feet from the car grew larger as Oldfield followed the fat man. He introduced himself as “Red Hot” John, the owner of the lunch wagon some workers relied on for all their meals. A large glass jar packed with hardboiled eggs in green-tinted pickle juice made clear John’s intentions to feed the working men in Detroit until they stopped coming. Beside the cart were a grill and a tray of sausages.
“Shit,” John muttered, looking down at his dirty leather boots. He scraped his left sole against the street gravel to clear off horse manure.
“You want a red hot?”
“No money.”
“That ain’t no never mind. I’ll make you one, and one for your friend, too. You just tell me about that horseless carriage. That’s the funniest looking one I’ve ever seen. Bigger than all get out.”
Oldfield studied John as he pivoted more like a ballerina than a fat man. With the quick precision of a surgeon, he sliced a couple of small loaves of bread with a knife, then stabbed two red sausages and inserted them. Like a machine stamping metal, it was fluid motion. The gravel street crunching under his filthy boots, he stepped around the side of his cart. In greasy hands that had tiny black lines under each fingernail, he extended the food.
Oldfield grabbed the meal from John’s hands, and hungrily took big bites of sausage that steamed in the morning air. While Oldfield ate, John served several other young men. He didn’t breathe as he clamped down on the sandwich before chewing the previous bite. Quiet Spider smacked his lips as crumbs lodged in his mustache.
“Jesus Christ! You boys eat in the last week or so?”
Like a rodent, Oldfield shifted a wad of wet bread and chewed sausage to the inside of his cheek. Caught forgetting himself, he felt naked. He never liked people seeing him, really seeing him. A weak smile stretched his face.
“So, what the hell kind of horseless carriage is that, anyway? It looks like it ought to be on rails.”
“It’s a race car. Just came over the lake from Cleveland. We’re taking her over to Grosse Point for the meet. I’m going to whip Alexander Winton.”
“Winton, huh? How old are you, boy?”
Oldfield ran his fingers through his thick brown hair now matted down with machine oil.
“Twenty-four.”
“Well, shit-fire, you ought to be old enough to know better. Son, do you know who Alexander Winton is?”
“Does he know who Barney Oldfield is?”
“That’s easy. Of course, he doesn’t. You’re a nobody.”
“Look, mister, maybe we ought to just start hitting each other right now, because it seems like it was meant to be, don’t it?”
John stared down at his grill and flipped a couple of sausages. He smiled and shook his head.
“Alexander Winton is the most famous automobile man in America. I know that, and I don’t give a crap about those races. Everybody knows Winton has those Bullet cars. They are fast as blazes, and the newspapers call him the world champion. What makes some farm hand like you think he can whip a millionaire with nothing but a wagon with an engine on it?”
Oldfield’s eyes traced the Ashwood frame of his blazing red race car, with matching metal spoke wheels, four inches wide, and nearly three feet in diameter.
“That motor is twice as big as Winton’s. You’re looking at seventy horsepower right there.”
John paused, and Oldfield marveled at how stupid he looked as his mouth unconsciously dropped open, and the point of his first chin disappeared into the fatty layer of his second. The obese man studied the red-painted wood car.
“Well, son, you damn sure have all the gumption it takes. Now how are you going to get that crate out to the horse track?”
“I was trying to drive it when you got all riled up.”
“You need to get a horse.”
“Now, how am I going to get a horse when I told you I couldn’t even buy a red hot?”
“See that nag over there?”
A dumb-looking brown mare, with its tongue hanging out and a sagging spine, cast a blank stare at the telegraph pole it was roped to.
“That’s my horse. You hitch her to your machine and have her pull you out to East Jefferson Highway and then turn her loose. She knows the way back. Your contraption won’t bother anybody out there.”
Oldfield cocked his head, squinting more than the rising sun required.
“Why are you doing this big man?”
“Look around this wharf, son. These are my boys. Most of ‘em will be working all their lives just to get by. You, you’re different. Different can be good, or you might just be a loon. I’m going to be watching you. In a couple of days, all I have to do is read the papers to know if Barney Oldfield is just another tough guy shooting...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 15.10.2020 |
|---|---|
| Vorwort | Willy T. Ribbs |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Historische Romane |
| ISBN-10 | 1-0983-3517-1 / 1098335171 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-0983-3517-5 / 9781098335175 |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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