Skip to main content

Live fast and play dirty

The green flag went down and the low grumble of the 900 hp engines swelled to a roar as the trucks rounded the corner into the straightaway. The race was on! A dozen mean machines bounded over bumps, skidded around the corners and bashed each other's bumpers as they hurtled around the dirt track. Up in the stands, we jumped up and down as we cheered on our chosen drivers to the finish line. The once-shiny trucks got muddier and muddier, the track got more and more littered with broken-off pieces, and the competition got more and more intense until finally the chequered flag waved and the winner went into his victory spin.



We'd been downtown on a Thursday evening when Graham noticed some powerful trucks standing by the kerb, and went over to have a look. One of the drivers answered some of his questions and then produced a voucher for four free tickets to the Traxxas TORC race at the Texas Motor Speedway that weekend.


So it was that I found myself doing something completely new - sitting on a plastic seat watching five bulldozers move mud around on a Saturday night. It had rained all day and they were frantically trying to get the track in shape again for the evening's race. The time for the practice race passed, then the time for the first race. The sun went down. We'd seen the sponsor's ads about 10 times each, and could sing the jingle backwards. Finally it looked like something might be happening.

We stood, somewhat bemusedly, through a prayer thanking the Lord for the joys of dirt-track racing, and through the obligatory rendition of the National Anthem. Then came the brrrrrrmmmm that really got everyone's hearts going!



Picking a truck definitely made the races more exciting. I managed to get a winner for the first one - the driver's first win, too, so I'm sure he was a lot more excited than I was! Graham somehow managed to find the crazy ones, including a truck that executed a spectacular flip right in front of the grandstand and had to be towed out of the race.

A brief three races later and it was all over. The winners received their laurels from Miss USA 1999 and the fans poured out of the stadium - with a couple of new ones among them. BRRRRMMMM!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Baby Language

For some reason baby equipment is an area in which American English differs markedly from British English. As well as learning how to care for a baby, we had to learn a whole new vocabulary! Fortunately we are now fluently bilingual, and I have compiled a handy US-UK baby dictionary for you. Diaper n. Nappy Mom says if you can read this change my diaper. The first time you change one of these you will be all thumbs and stick the little adhesive tabs to yourself, the baby and probably the changing mat before you get them where they ought to go. A few years later you will be able to lasso a running toddler and change them before they even know what's happened (yes, I have seen it done). You will also get through more diapers than you ever thought possible, creating scary amounts of expense and waste. Hence we are now mostly using: Cloth diaper n. Reusable nappy Cool baby. No longer those terry squares, the main drawback is that there are now so many types it can be qu
5 comments
Read more

our new apartment

Moving was a slightly surreal experience given that our new place looks almost exactly the same as the old one, except for being a different layout. That's what you get for living in a throw-'em-up-and-pack-'em-in apartment complex I guess - albeit a very nice one. So, entering apartment 433: To your right is the master bedroom: with en-suite bathroom: and looking back, from your left, that's a walk-in closet, door to the hallway and door to the bathroom: Following the layout so far? OK, go back to the hallway and put your back to the front door again, and this time walk straight forwards into the sitting room: As you can see, ahead of you is the door to the balcony: for which I have grand plans for a herb garden and other plants. Leading off the living room is the dining area: and if you walk through that and round to your right you reach the kitchen: Go back through the living room again: and if you turn right (
3 comments
Read more

Speedy Steamed Pudding

One of the highlights of being in catered halls for a couple of years at university was the sponge puddings. Great big sheets of chocolate or vanilla sponge, carved into hefty blocks and doused with thick custard. The main courses were edible at best, but those puddings would fill you up for a week. Good solid puddings, whether baked, steamed or boiled, have been a mainstay of English cooking for centuries. Something about the cold, damp, dark winters inspired British cooks to endless variations on suet, jam, currants, custard and other comforting ingredients. Once I left the nurturing environs of my parents' house and university halls, pudding stopped being an everyday affair and became a more haphazard, if-I-feel-like-making-any event. And steamed puddings especially, with their two hours over simmering water, don't really lend themselves to spur of the moment dessert-making. However, technology has moved on since those first days of puddings. I'd been vaguely
5 comments
Read more