Early Passions

It's intriguing how you find a certain passion in life, whether it's woodworking, flying a plane, or driving a race car full-out on a straightaway with your closet competitor breathing down your neck. I can tap my dad as the guy who instilled in me the earliest inklings of my lifelong gearhead obsession. Dad was running the family business on my grandfather's property. The company consisted of a wood and metal pattern shop, and a small sand foundry where we made all kinds of parts for all sorts of applications. Dad was also into go-karts, and the guys working for him built a lot of patterns for them. Those speed machines had sand-cast aluminum gas tanks, brakes, center columns, and butterfly steering wheels with welded steel frames.

For the most part, two-stroke West Bend engines were used for power, though I recall that some of the guys ran McCulloh chainsaw motors on the half-mile dirt racecourse Dad had graded through the five acres of woods behind my grandfather's house. Sometimes, the guys put together some twin go-karts, and with two ten-horsepower motors on the back those things would fly. As a little kid, I found the entire building operation beyond fascinating. I used to love to watch the go-karts being fashioned out of sundry parts, and then being taken to the races in their completed forms. I strongly believe that my love of the pattern making business grew from those early days when I was first introduced to the ingenuity of skilled metal workers and the rudimentary facets of automotive design. I'm sure Mom felt a little uneasy about it too. Her darling blond-haired kid with flashing green eyes that twinkled with endless mischief even at that age kept her hands full, and her husband seemed to always tease out the best and worst in me at the same time. He always made me a handful for Mom, and I think he really liked it that way.

"Gerald! What on earth are you doing with that boy now?" she'd sometimes say.

Dad would shrug and say, "Oh, just teachin' him a thing or two."

Like about go-karts!

If the go-kart competitors wanted to get really fancy in terms of a racing venue, they'd head into town and ask storeowners if they could set up a speedway in the parking lot, which I loved because there was the tantalizing possibility of an ice cream cone. Setting up a racecourse in a store parking lot might sound a little weird today. In fact, it could never happen today, what with all the worries about insurance liabilities and getting sued, not to mention the inevitable visitation from the big men in blue. Back then, though, people just figured if you crashed a go-kart during a race and you got hurt or killed it was your own damn fault. The idea of suing never came up. The cops watched and enjoyed the races and said nothing. Picture it. A group of guys wanting to race would stand at the store counter and longingly eye the parking lot.

"So can we set up here tomorrow night?"

If he or she was smart, and that accounted for most of the merchants in town, the answer would be a resounding yes. "Why sure! Go ahead and set it up!"

Go-kart racing attracted crowds. Crowds were good for business. Up the cones went to denote the course, and then it was off to the races. I cheered and shouted and whooped as I watched ten to fifteen go-karts going at it. The wipeouts were cool too.

Of course, I couldn't just sit there and watch the action. I wanted to be a part of it. I just had to race. Dad made me a small go-kart. It was equipped with an electric start and a massive three-horsepower motor. I was only three years old. I don't remember my first ride all that well, but I'm told I hit our dog, knocking her in the pool, and that I ran into a bush in the first twenty feet. Dad and Mom had a serious discussion about my talents as a go-kart racer after that, and they decided to unhook the starter until I got old enough to handle the spunky speedster. Evidently, I didn't mind all that much. I was fine with walking around my machine, admiring it and sitting in it for hours on end.

My earliest memories of actually driving a go-kart center on going down the long back stretch on the ½ mile dirt roadcourse on my grandfather's land, and having two racers split me at five times my speed, zooming by on either side. I remember not liking the feeling at all of being passed at all. It just didn't seem to feel right. I wanted to be first over the finish line, not last. More and more racing went on over the next couple years.

Evidently, my grandmother figured enough was enough. She put her foot down, and our much-loved Sunday morning two-stroke scream fests came to an abrupt halt. The racing still went on in parking lots in town, though. One pattern maker working for Dad lost it coming out of a turn and hit the curb head on. I don't remember it, but Dad said it just looked like he stood up and stepped off the go-kart. His pants around his crotch were soaked in blood when he got up. He was rushed to the hospital, having messed up his nut sack on the steering wheel as he was thrown out of the go-kart. In those days, seatbelts weren't installed in go-karts. People thought it was better to get hurled out in a crash. Well, Dad's employee was going to be okay, but he was in for some good-natured ribbing. My cousin, who also raced and worked at the shop, went in early the following Monday, got two one-inch nuts, wired them together, and hung them on the injured guy's bench vise. Of course, all the joking that week involved this poor guy's messed up balls, and to this day anybody who talks about go-kart racing in our little town inevitably brings that story up.

The bloody balls incident marked the beginning of the end of go-kart racing for me, serving as a good example of how the sport could be quite dangerous. The Sunday races were shifted to the real racecourse at nearby Spring Water Park, and they continued for a while longer. However, one day, a father who wanted to get his ten-year-old son involved in racing put his boy, who had never driven, into a go-kart and told him to take off. The kid spun out in front of the field on the first lap, causing an accident that killed another racer. The kid who hit him flipped the go-kart and died right there on the track from a head injury. Dad came home and took the wheels off my go-kart. He sold everything involved with the go-karts, and he never got back into racing.

In spite of the danger, I was hooked. The smell of hot oil and the sound of an engine, that rush when you pushed to the limits and all you focused on was the racecourse and the wind in your face, it was as addictive to me as a hot fudge Sundae, and then some. Motorsports of all kinds found their way into my life, but I also loved all kinds of sports in school. I was good at some, and pretty awful at others. I guess you might say I was a typical kid from a small town, horsing around with my pals and getting into trouble of the more wholesome kind, unlike what many kids get into today. It was just...