It's one of my best birthday memories and base on the comments... I thought you might enjoy it.
When I was around 16, my father started building this hot rod car. I had no idea what it was and to be honest about it... didn't really care.
What my father decided to build himself was what he considered to be the ultimate hot rod... a 427 Shelby Cobra by a company in Connecticut called ERA... now don't get all over my shit if I mix up some of the facts. I don't really know that much about these cars, but I know that there are fans out there who know everything.
Over the next year as he was building it, I would spend hours in the garage with him. My mom was sick with breast cancer and I guess I just wanted to escape the horror of that. So I spent as much time with my dad as I could. I guess I was that typical asinine teenager who was too full of herself to really be aware of what going on around me... or maybe I was just trying to escape the horror of losing my mother.
I don't really know.. not even now... I was just too fucked up to know anything I guess.
So as my dad would work on the car, I would sit on a chair and just talk to him. Just stupid stuff, you know. Sometimes though, I felt like I was just a pain in the ass so I would stop visiting him in the shop for a week or so. But he would begin to complain that he missed me and wanted to know why I wasn't visiting with him. I'd make excuses but never had the heart to tell hm that I didn't think he wanted me around. I was throwing myself a little pity party.
I just couldn't say that to him... I was to devastated by what was happening to my mother, I didn't even want to think that my dad didn't want me around.
I guess I just figured that if I left him alone for awhile, he might miss me and remember that I existed.
As I said, I was just a stupid teenager and didn't understand that dads always love their daughters, especially given the circumstances that we were dealing with.
In any event, my dad finished his car and the first time, he fired it up, it scared the living crap out of me.
It seemed that for the new few months, every time he got a chance he was off to one race school or another to learn how to drive the thing. He got pretty good at it and ended up joining a club for guys with specialty cars like his. I think that car was his own escape.
On my 17th birthday, he told me he had a surprise for me. We got in the car and headed up the coast. It was a typical northern California beautiful day. We stopped for breakfast and a small crowd gathered around our car as we pulled in. That thing seemed to be a magnet for guys and some girls too. I felt so special sitting in the passenger seat cruising down the road with the wind blowing in my hair.
I felt like I was a part of his world again and he was sharing a secret part of it with me. It was probably a couple hour drive and we ended up at this race track. Some of my dad's buddies were there already, my dad told told me that his club had rented time at the track for the day. I thought that it was so cool that my dad included me in this. I was going to get to see him drive his cobra on the track.
But when he opened the trunk, in there was a helmet and a driving suit for me... even had my name on it. I just looked at him.
Put it on he instructed and I did.
We got in the car and pulled out onto the track and he began to lay some laps down. Slow at first, but then faster and faster until I was having the time of my life. The smell of brakes and the sound of the exhaust were an intoxicant. I'd never gone that fast anywhere and my eyes were wide open as I listened to roar of that engine at full throttle.
Then he pulled into the pits and got out of the car. He told me to get in behind the wheel. I shook my head and said no... I couldn't do that.
He laughed and just told me again to get behind the wheel.
I did but told him that I wasn't going to drive like he did.
I pulled out on the track and it seemed like life had just slowed down for me in some weird way. I could feel everything in that car. I had never driven it before, but god... it felt like a living beast. It had a 428 Cobra Jet engine in it and when you touched the gas, it just leapt forward with with a naughty little growl. When you punched it, it roared and belched smoke off the rear tires... It was friggin scary.
As we drove around the track... slowly, my dad told me about apexes and braking and when you hit the gas and when you stay off it. He warned that this car was so powerful that if you hit the gas too hard in the middle of a corner, it would just spin out and fly off the road.
Then he started to instruct me.
"Just do what I say to, when I say to" he shouted to me over the wind and noise of the car.
I was staring forward and just shook my head in acknowledgment... my knuckles white on the steering wheel.
And then it started...
When we got the straight... The lap started and it went like this... "Ok Jenn... Gas, gas, gas... right to the floor..."
As we we approached the corner, he said "brake brake brake... don't lock em up, just feel it... good, good, now gas... just touch it, turn it down so that passenger side wheel is down on that white curb... good... gas, gas... straighten it out good.... now to the floor.
That car shot like a rocket out of the corner and a moment later I was on the brakes and then the gas again.
By the 5th lap, I was actually power sliding the car through some of the turns and I felt so friggin alive. At the end of the straight when I'd let off the gas and hit the brakes, I could hear and loved the BLAT, BLAT, BLAT of the backfire through the side pipes and then the roar as I would give it the gas again.
After 10 laps or so, we pulled back into the pits and I was weak from the adventure and sweating like a little pig.
My dad had packed a lunch and we sat there in the shade of this big ol tree and just talked about the car and watched other guys out on the track. His buddies kept coming up and telling us how good I looked out there. I couldn't believe that I was a part of this world.
When lunch was over... my dad gassed up the car and told me to get in again. I did and he didn't. He told me that he wanted me to just take some laps. I was so nervous and told him that I wanted him to be with me. He said that no... I needed to do this thing myself now. I was to take 5 laps and I would be following a friend of his. He told me that he would start off slow and then slowly start cooking them up as I felt comfortable... my job was to just try to keep up with his buddy but warned be to be careful in the turns.
His friend told me to just try to keep my car exactly in his tracks... do what he did.
The first lap was faster than anything I had done with my dad and I still couldn't quite keep up with his friend. The next lap was faster still and by the fifth lap, I felt like I was going to burn the tires off that car. It all became one... the sounds, the smell and the peripheral view of the world flashing by. The only thing I was focused on was that car in front of me. I was counting laps, I was trying to stay with the guy in the car in front and he was always just out of my reach. I don't think I was even aware of how fast I was going. When we came out onto the straight for the last time, I really came out on a good line. The car felt like it was on rails and I caught him and moved over to pass. He didn't give it too me though, I had to fight for it and consequently drove it deeper and harder in the corner that I ever had. I hit the brakes to slow that beast down and then as I dove into the corner, got on the gas again. I had completed the pass and hadn't crashed. I could see him in my mirror looking for a place to pass me back, but I kept on the gas and drove the line he taught me all the around the track and finally slowed and pulled into the pits.
I turned off the engine and just sat there shaking and listening the ticking of the hot engine as it cooled. I was so full of adrenaline that I couldn't even speak for a couple of minutes. My dad came walking up and as I got out of the car gave me this huge hard hug. Other guys came over to congratulate me and my dad's friend who I had passed came over to shake my hand. He was laughing and told my dad to be careful... he had a race car driver on his hands.
I found out later that his buddy was a professional racer.
My dad was so proud that I had actually passed him. He told me that he never just gives a pass to anyone, you have to take it. I still think he might've let me by, but no matter. I fell in love with that car that day and it was probably the best day of my life and certainly the best birthday I've ever had.
My dad just laughed all the way home as we talked about the day.
Even today, I can still hear his laugh over the roar of the wind and sound of the car.
He died a little over a year later from an undiagnosed aneurysm. But I still own that car and still love it.
That's my best birthday memory...
Hope I haven't bored you all with a normal story.
a wonderful story told in vivid detail. I have always loved the pictures but I never knew what a good story teller you were. Im going to read more
