The parking lot at the Chicago Inn had a lot of race car haulers sitting in the truck parking area out back, so it was obvious that they weren’t the only ones who thought a late night snack would hit the spot. It was crowded inside, but they soon found the Kaufmanns sitting at a large table in the back, and went to join them. “Well, here’s the only ones of us who actually managed to win something tonight,” Jim grinned. “So, Telzey, are you going to come and race with us again?”

“I’d like to,” she said. “Let’s be honest, that race I ran didn’t tell me much about whether I was any good, or what. But I don’t have a car or anything, and I don’t have the money to either buy one or run it.”

“You know, I thought about it,” Will smiled. “The last time I was out at the junkyard I saw a Ford Escort that might make a pretty good Pony Stock if you put new front fenders and a grill on it. I’ll bet you could do that for only two or three hundred. The problem is that you have to gut it out, put in a roll cage, a tank, seat, and belts, and even if we did the work ourselves it’s another few hundred, and it’d take time. That’s an awful lot of work now that racing season is here.”

“And then you’re left with a Ford Escort,” Jack snorted. “That’s not exactly the hottest car out there. It’d be fine to learn with, but there’s not going to be a lot of winning done with it.”

“Yeah, there’s that,” Will agreed. “Any other time of year there’d probably be someone out there with a Pony Stock they’d be willing to sell. The real good ones go for as much as a couple thousand, but I know you can find beaters for a lot less. Five hundred, maybe less.”

“Not necessarily,” Jim said. “I know a guy with a pretty good one that I think he’d let go for five hundred. It’s sat with a tarp over it for a couple years.”

“What’s the matter with it?” Will asked.

“Nothing as far as I know,” Jim said. “Well, after sitting that long the battery is probably dead or something like that. It was a top-five runner up at Calhoun County before this guy’s kid went in the Army, so it had to have been a pretty decent car.”

“You’re talking about Dean Sprinkle’s car, aren’t you?” Jack commented. “That’s a pretty decent car! I didn’t know he wanted to sell it.”

“He didn’t, at least until just recently,” Jim replied. “They offered him a heck of a bonus to re-enlist, and he decided to take it. So Mike told me the other day that Dean decided to get rid of the car since he won’t be able to race it for a while.”

Telzey shook her head. “I wish I had the money to buy it, and that I could race it.”

“It’s really not that expensive, so long as you don’t bang it up real bad,” Jim said. “Since you’re restricted to street tires, you’re talking one set, maybe two at the most. Gas, oil, filters, other replacement parts, and like that. The entry fees and pit passes are the expensive part.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you can work a deal out with Dad over those,” Will observed. “After all, you’ve done a lot of work around the track for free, I think he’d be willing to trade you.”

“For free?” Jack smiled. “How’d you get sucked into that?”

“I’m not old enough for a work permit,” Telzey smiled. “So I just did it to be with Will and do something useful while learning a few things.”

“Will,” Jack grinned, “do you have any idea how lucky you are to have a girl as pretty as she is and be interested in racing, too?”

“I sure do,” Will laughed. “If there was any question, all I have to do is look at Chuck. Boy, he’s bummed right now. Maybe he’d be interested in that car, if he was willing to go back to racing Pony Stocks again. I don’t think he’d want to do that, though.”

Cal had been looking thoughtful for the last couple minutes. “Let’s not try to talk him into it just yet,” he said finally. “I’m not making any promises, but I think maybe we’d like to take a look at this car.”

It was just about the last thing that Telzey had expected to hear. “Grandpa,” she said in obvious surprise, “do you really mean that?”

“I’m not saying yes, and I’m not saying no,” Cal replied. “Jim, Ann, Jack: I know you’re about the closest thing to an independent observer as I’m going to get, and I know that the Powder Puff race wasn’t a fair test, but do you think that Telzey has the potential to be a competent and successful driver?”

“Yeah, I do,” Jack nodded. “You remember the start of the first Pony Stock heat, how that joker Hutchison tried to pass the whole field in turn one? Telzey was offered the same opportunity and she had a better chance to get away with it, but she played it safe.”

“Right,” Jim agreed. “Nobody in that field had much more experience as a race driver than she had, so anything could have happened. Race driving isn’t all stand on the throttle and turn left, sometimes you have to hang back and let things happen. She seems to understand that.”

“Well, I saw what happened to Will,” Telzey said. “It seemed like a pretty good idea.”

“See?” Jack said. “Not only do you learn from your own mistakes, you learn from the mistakes of others. Cal, there are no guarantees and you never know what’s going to happen. Telzey has a lot to learn, but I think she has the makings of a competent and successful race driver. She certainly enjoys it, and that’s worth something, too.”

“That’s what I think,” Cal smiled. “I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t looking at things through a grandfather’s glasses. Can you tell me how I can get hold of the guy who has this car for sale? I think I want to talk to Ray and maybe Mel first, but I think if they go along with it we might like to go and have a look at it.”

“Grandpa! Wow! Thanks!” Telzey exclaimed. “Do you really mean it?”

“Like I said, I want to talk to Ray and Mel and your grandmother and think about it overnight,” Cal grinned. “But the idea offers some potential, and it presents an opportunity that may not arise for you again. Besides, I had fun watching you tonight and think it would be more fun to have a little closer involvement with you.”

“Grandma?” Telzey asked, “what do you think?”

Laurie shook her head. “I think my daughter’s little girl is growing up awful fast. On the other hand, my daughter grew up awful fast, too, so I ought to be used to it.” She let out a sigh. “I was concerned when I saw you out on the track tonight, but then I’m concerned when I realize what your mother is doing, but I was awful proud of you, too. I realize you’re probably safer in one of those cars than you would be out on the highway, and I can think of a lot worse things you could be doing to get some excitement in your life.” She stopped and searched for words for a moment. “I’ll put it this way. I don’t like the thought of you racing, but I don’t like the thought of your mother being in a war, either. Given a choice, I’d rather your mother was driving a race car in Bradford, rather than working in a combat zone in a foreign country.”

“Well, yeah,” Telzey nodded. “I mean, I’d rather she were driving a race car here, too. But I think my reasons are a little different than yours.”

They sat talking about the possibility of Telzey getting a car for a few minutes, but after the waitress got their orders, the topic slowly drifted off into other areas. They were just finishing eating while talking about the thrilling Sportsman finish when Chuck wandered in by himself. He still looked a little dazed, and appeared to be wondering if he should join them.

“Hi, Chuck,” Jim said. “Pull up a chair. So what’s the story on the car?”

“Not good,” he sighed. “Somehow, she managed to bend the frame up in front of the back axle. The engine and transmission ought to still be good, along with everything else up front, but I don’t think it’s worth trying to fix the chassis.”

“Yeah, it looked pretty bent to me,” Jim agreed.

“I’ve been sitting up there trying to think about some way to do it,” he shrugged sadly, then continued, “I don’t think it’s worth the trouble.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Will smirked. “There is a bright side, you know.”

“You mean getting Ashley out of my life?” he snorted. “That is a bright side, I suppose. I knew she could be nasty and petty, but she set new records when the stories got out around school that a bunch of eighth graders thought that she didn’t have the guts to get in a race car.”

“That wasn’t what was said,” Telzey protested.

“It doesn’t matter what was said,” Chuck shrugged. “It was what she heard. A bunch of eighth graders, of all people, thinking she wasn’t Miss Perfect? She couldn’t have that. I should have told her no about borrowing the car, but I wasn’t ever very good about telling her no.”

“That’s sort of the bright side,” Will grinned. “You didn’t have a lot of time invested in the car over the winter, anyway.”

“There is that,” Chuck nodded. “Instead of wasting time on the car I wasted it on her. Same result.”

“I’m sorry, Chuck,” Telzey said. “I really am. It’s my fault a little. I never should have mouthed off in school, and I didn’t have to pass her on the last lap. I could have stayed back behind her and just finished there, but she’d been so catty to me that I wanted to lap her again. I’ll do what I can to help make it up to you.”

“No, Telzey,” he replied. “She badmouths people all the time but takes it personally if someone badmouths her. Like I said, Miss Perfect. You didn’t do anything wrong but rub her nose in the truth.”

“Yeah, but you were the one it hurt, not her,” Telzey protested. “Like I said, I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Yeah,” Will agreed. “Now that she’s not gumming up the works, I’m willing to pitch in. I’ll bet Dad and Gramps will, too.”

“I suppose,” Chuck shrugged. “She’s been leeching me so much to take her out and do things that I don’t have much money, so I’ll have to do whatever I do on a shoestring. About all I can do now is head out to the junkyard after school Monday and see if there’s something there that I can use to start over. If I work real hard I might be able to have it on the track in a couple weeks, although it could take all season to make it a front runner.”

“Not that it wasn’t going to take you that anyway, after the way you ran tonight,” Will observed.

“Yeah, there is that,” Chuck nodded. “It’s just that now I’m starting from further back, but what else can I do?”

“Chuck, do you know what I’d be tempted to do if I was in your shoes?” Jim grinned. “You know Herman Wohlstadt?”

“Yeah, he runs Modifieds with my dad, has the last couple years, now.”

“Right,” Jim grinned. “He ran a Sportsman before that. When he switched over, he decided to get a whole new car and leave the Sportsman intact so he could race it occasionally. About the third week he had the Modified he blew a rod out the side of the block of a brand new motor and somehow screwed up the transmission in the process, so he yanked the engine and tranny out of the Sportsman and put it in the modified. He was griping at me the other day that it was just taking up space in his barn, he’d let it go cheap just to get it out of there.”

“You mean get out of Street Stocks and go Sportsman?” Chuck said. “It sounds good, but what would I do for an engine to put in that roller?”

“You just said you’ve got a perfectly good one,” Jim grinned. “Set up for Street Stock, but so what? I’d bet money your dad has a four-barrel carburetor and intake manifold and a set of exhaust headers for a Chevy 350 lying around somewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some high-compression heads and a hot cam lying around, too. If you’ve already got your engine rebuilt to the maximum factory specifications, with that stuff you’d be about ninety-five percent of the way to everyone else in the class, maybe more. You could be running respectably next weekend.”

“That’s an idea,” Chuck nodded. “And I know Dad was griping about the Sportsman car count being down a little. But what would I use for money?”

“Can’t help you on that one,” Jim grinned. “But it’s only two or three grand, most likely. Knowing who you are and who your dad is, Hermie might let you pay him so much a month. If I were you, I’d talk it over with your father and grandfather, and with Hermie, as far as that goes. They might be able to come up with something.”

“That is a thought,” Chuck agreed. “I wanted to move up to Sportsman last year, but I wasn’t old enough. This year, what with all the stuff Ashley was laying on me, I just didn’t have the time.”

“Jim, I got a question,” Cal grinned. “Are you some sort of agent for selling used race cars? That’s the second one in the last half hour.”

“I hear things,” Jim grinned. “And I like to help out my friends when I can. Chuck, if you wind up buying that roller from Herm, I’ll come down for an evening or two and help you get it pulled together. That way I can be sure I can blow your doors off next weekend.”

*   *   *

The race had ended around ten, but it was after midnight before Telzey and her grandparents got home. It had been a long day, and Telzey was just about wiped out considering everything that had happened. She was yawning as she got out of the back seat of her grandfather’s car and walked out the garage door before he closed it.

She glanced out across the yard to the Austin house. Chuck and Will had followed them home, and she wanted to give Will at least a little wave before they headed in – after all, he was her boyfriend now and while she still wasn’t quite sure how that had happened she was happy it had. Will was a nice guy and had gotten her into racing, and now it looked like there might be a chance she’d be in it even more deeply, although it was going to be tough to top everything that had happened today.

As Telzey waited for Will to look up she heard a car door slam across the street. “Charles!” she heard a man’s angry voice call, “I want to have a word with you.”

“Yes, Mr. Hitchcock?” he heard Chuck reply as she saw the man cross the street in the light of the street light. Oh, boy, now what? Telzey thought. That’s got to be Ashley’s father!

“What did you do to my daughter? She came home in tears saying that you’d dumped her because your car got wrecked when someone drove into her, and that you wouldn’t back her up.”

“No,” Chuck replied soberly, “that wasn’t what happened at all. What happened was that she was driving my car and wrecked it when she tried to wreck someone else.”

“I know she was driving it, young man! She swears that some kid driving another car deliberately put her into the wall, and you threw a temper tantrum about it!”

“Not even close,” Chuck said. “For some reason she’s jealous of this girl being a better driver, which she is. The other girl was most of the way across the track when she tried to pass her, and it was obvious that Ashley cut down and tried to wreck her. That’s not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of everyone I talked to.”

“He’s right,” Will said. “That’s what I saw, too.”

“Well, I’d expect you to stick up for your brother, but that doesn’t sound anything like what my daughter said happened.”

“Look,” Chuck said, trying to calm things. “You can ask my folks or my grandparents, and I could give you the names of maybe two dozen experienced drivers that saw the wreck, and they’ll all tell you the same thing.”

“Yeah,” Will added. “I heard one guy say that it was the most incompetent attempt at a dirty move that he’d ever seen.”

“I can’t believe that my daughter would do something like that,” Mr. Hitchcock snorted. “It’s more like her word against yours.”

“Mr. Hitchcock,” Will said in a calm voice. “It’s more like her word versus the video camera’s. One of the cameramen said he got the whole thing on tape. My folks ought to be home anytime now and they’ll have a copy of the DVD. You can look at it and judge for yourself. Ashley deliberately tried to spin Telzey and spun herself while trying, and piled up Chuck’s car in the process. Of course your daughter wants to blame everybody else! She won’t take the responsibility herself.”

Hitchcock stood there, facing the two of them down, and from the shadows across the driveway Telzey could see that smoke was just about rolling from his ears. “Grandpa?” she said. “Do you think maybe I’d better . . .”

“No, maybe we better,” he said, taking her by the hand. “Come on, Laurie,” he said to his wife, and started across the yard.

Hitchcock was still standing facing the Austin boys down, fuming, wondering what to say next, when the three walked up. “Evening, Sherm,” Cal said. “We were there, and the boys got it right. Then your daughter threw a couple huge temper tantrums right in front of a crowd trying to deny what happened.”

“Are you sure?” Hitchcock said in a huff, but willing to be more civil with an adult.

“Dead sure, we were all there.” Cal nodded.

“But she said that the way she was treated it made her look like a fool.”

“Well, she sure did look like a fool, she got that part of it right,” Cal smiled. “It looked to me like she didn’t like the way things really happened and tried to impose her version of what happened on everyone, including Chuck, who wasn’t buying it.”

“But she said this girl tried to spin her out.”

“It didn’t happen that way at all,” Telzey piped up. “I knew she was mad at me but I don’t know why, so I tried to stay away from her. That’s why I went way low of her when I passed her.”

“You?” Mr. Hitchcock said. “You were the girl in the other car? Did you hit her?”

“I never got close to her,” Telzey said. “But I’m pretty sure she tried to hit me when I passed her. Maybe I was at fault a little, since that was the third time in ten laps that I passed her. I probably shouldn’t have tried to show her up like that.”

Hitchcock looked down at Telzey and couldn’t quite believe what he saw. “Are you in her class?” he asked.

“No, sir,” she replied politely. “I’m in eighth grade.”

“Eighth grade?” he replied, really not ready to believe it now. “They let you drive that young?”

“Yes, sir,” Chuck spoke up. “Both my brother and I started racing when we were in the sixth grade.”

“And you’re a better driver than she is? That’s a little hard to believe.”

“I know it’s hard,” Telzey smiled. “And I was driving a car that wasn’t as fast as Chuck’s. But I’ve been out there practicing, and as far as I know it was the first time Ashley had ever been in Chuck’s car.”

“Chuck, is that true?” Mr. Hitchcock asked.

“Yes, sir, it is,” Chuck said respectfully. “She said she wanted to get in that race to show that she was a better driver than Telzey. I tried to tell Ashley that it wasn’t as simple as it looked and offered to give her some practice, but she insisted that she knew how to drive. And, well, you know what she’s like, it’s hard to say no to her when her mind is made up.”

“Yes, she does seem to get her way,” Hitchcock sighed. “You probably shouldn’t have gone along with her, but I can see that you’d have had a hard time saying no, because I have a hard time saying no to her, too.” He stood there and thought for a moment, then went on, “I suppose I should have thought for a moment about the way she does things before I came over here and spouted off. You’re right, she’ll blame someone else if she gets the chance. Is your car wrecked very bad?”

“The chassis is pretty well totaled,” Chuck said. “The engine and transmission and some other stuff can probably be salvaged, but I’ll have to come up with another car.”

“Is it insured?”

“No, you pretty much don’t insure race cars,” Chuck told him. “Unless it’s an antique or really valuable for some reason. The insurance usually would cost more than the car is worth.”

“So you really got the short end of the stick on the deal,” Mr. Hitchcock nodded. “I should have figured. How much?”

“Mr. Hitchcock?”

“How much is it going to cost you to replace it?”

“Hard to say for sure,” Chuck replied. “After the race a friend told me about another car without an engine or transmission, it’s what we call a ‘roller.’ It might be available, but he wasn’t sure about the price. Maybe two or three thousand dollars, he said.”

Hitchcock looked at Chuck. “If I told you to go get it and I’d pay for it, would you paint ‘Hawthorne County National Bank’ on the side?”

“Sure,” Chuck smiled. “I was wondering where I was going to find the money and figured I’d be looking for sponsors.”

“Well, I guess you found one,” Hitchcock smiled. “Unfortunately, this isn’t the first of Ashley’s little escapades that I’ve had to clean up after, and I hope it will be the last. But I doubt it will be. Do you want me to write you a check now?”

“If you want,” Chuck said. “I can give you change back if I can save some of the cost on the car.”

“No, that’s all right,” Mr. Hitchcock said. “If you can get it for less you can probably pay for something to make it run better.”

“I don’t know that much about racing,” Cal grinned, “but I think it’s safe to say that there’s never been a racer who couldn’t use more money to get a car to go faster.”

*   *   *

Whatever reserves Telzey had keeping her awake after the discussion at the Chicago Inn were exhausted by the scene with Mr. Hitchcock. Although she felt good for Chuck in turning Ashley’s father into his sponsor, she was just too tired to go on. Somehow, she made it back across the yard to her house and up to her bedroom, but she was too tired to even take her clothes off. She just collapsed on the bed, totally out of it. When Cal and Laurie came up to go to bed a few minutes later, they thought about waking her up to get undressed, but decided it would be easier to just let her sleep.

Like most teenagers, Telzey enjoyed sleeping late and did it whenever she could, but even with going late the night before she couldn’t sleep in the next morning – there was too much to do.

It was around eight when her grandmother went up to her room, to find Telzey still dead to the world. It didn’t appear that she’d even moved from the night before. Laurie was reluctant to wake her up but she knew it had to be done. “Come on, Telzey,” she told the protesting teenager. “You need to get a shower, then you need to go out to the track with the Austins to help clean up after last night.”

“Yeah, OK, Gramma,” Telzey mumbled, reluctant to give up her blissful sleep.

“When you get done with that,” Laurie continued, “we’re going to call and see about that car we were talking about last night.”

All thoughts of sleep were instantly washed from Telzey’s mind. “Gramma!” she said, springing up to a sitting position, “Do you really mean it? I can have it?”

“It sort of depends on the car and other stuff,” she replied. “Mr. Austin is going to go with us to check it out, if it’s still available. He said that if it was the car he thought he remembered, it was a pretty good one.”

“Wow, that’s great!” she exclaimed, then stopped for a moment. “When did you talk to him?” she asked.

“Ray and Ginger got home right after you went to bed last night,” Laurie smiled. “Your grandfather and I still have some concerns, but we agreed that we’ll let you give it a try and see what happens. Now get in the shower. I left a cup of coffee in the bathroom for you. You’ve got about half an hour before you have to be over to the Austins to ride out to the track.”

“OK, Gramma,” Telzey said, starting to pull off the clothes she’d worn since the night before. Within seconds, she was down to her bra and panties, heading for the shower.

Sure enough, there was a cup of coffee sitting on the bathroom shelf. She picked it up and took a sip – it was just right; she didn’t like it too hot, so she drained about half of the cup in one gulp, stripped off the rest of her clothes and finished it while the shower was warming up. Normally, she liked a nice, long shower, but her excitement was too great this time – she still couldn’t quite believe that this was happening. She didn’t exactly have a stop watch on her shower, but it couldn’t have taken her more than a couple minutes before she was out drying off, and taking a hair dryer to her hair. She started to wrap a towel around her but decided to not take the time, and raced back to her room in the nude to get dressed. In only a couple minutes she had on jeans and one of her hoodie sweatshirts that she liked to wear.

She glanced at herself in the mirror, just out of force of habit. She looked about like she normally did, except for the huge grin, and then remembered that in addition to winning a race and possibly getting a race car, she also had picked up a boyfriend in the last day. She remembered her mother saying that she tended to dress a little like a slob, and that when she found a boyfriend she might want to dress a little more attractively for him. Well, here it was, and maybe she should. It was still April, and likely to be cool in the morning – it had been getting chilly last night, she remembered – so the sweatshirt would feel good, but if it warmed up later, maybe she should be able to take it off. She peeled it off, went to a drawer, and found a nice-looking tank top that fit – well maybe it was a little snug – and put it on. She looked in the mirror and liked the effect. Maybe there was a good reason to not be quite as shy about the way she dressed.

Resolving to think about it a little more, she put the sweatshirt back on over the tank top and headed downstairs, to find Will standing in the kitchen. “Dad says that if you’re ready to go, we can stop out at the Chicago for breakfast,” he told her.

“Sure, let’s go,” she smiled enthusiastically. “I can stand a good breakfast. We’ve got a big day ahead of us, got lots to do.”

“Wow, is this the Telzey I know, that usually can’t get out three words on the way to the bus stop?” Will shook his head sleepily. “I figured there’s no way your grandparents could drag you out of bed this early. I know I wasn’t too thrilled about getting up.”

“You can’t just sleep the day away,” she smiled, and gave him a quick ‘good morning’ kiss that made him blush. “Let’s go.”