Mike
11-24-2011, 07:49 PM
-December 18, 1972
-Look Slow And Be Set To Go
-Hal Higdon
After a couple of months hanging out at Kniola Automotive, I learned to spot the hustlers. They would saunter in from the parking lot, lean against the soft drink dispenser, eyeball the bulletin board, finger the slicks piled near the doorway—and say not a word. Then when the counter cleared: ZIPPPP! Like a fuel dragster coming off the line they were next to Jack whispering an order for a new intake manifold or camshaft, pledging him to secrecy.
I hadn't noticed the hustlers until they were pointed out by Jack Kniola, founder, owner and chief counterman of Michigan City, Indiana's only speed shop. Jack said that when the high-performance part they had ordered arrived, they often sneaked it out under their jackets. If anyone should walk without warning into their garage: SLAMMM! Down would go the hoods of their cars. "They want to make some money before everybody finds out what they got," explained Jack.
The mark of the street racer.
In contrast, some of the punks stand around Jack's at night bragging about their rock-crusher M-22s. "If there were as many rock crushers in cars as people claim," says Jack, " General Motors would declare a triple dividend." They boast how they're turning eight grand on the tach. "He's lucky if he can get his wheels to spin in gravel," whispers Jack. The savvy street racer never brags about his machine, or even hints at the shattering power under its hood for fear of scaring away potential competition. Instead, the street racer functions like a pool-room hustler, gulling his customers, miscuing occasionally, suckering them along. Then—in a cloud of smoke and screech of rubber—stripping them of their last week's paychecks.
One night a kid named Wilbur from nearby La Porte appeared at Kniola's itching to test his wheels. He had just bought a souped-up Plymouth Duster. It had a new engine, headers and special gears, not to mention a gleaming paint job. Wilbur hinted he had run some fast times at a nearby sanctioned drag strip, but he wouldn't say how fast, and finally Malcolm, who rented a garage behind Kniola Automotive, said: "Yeah, I'll run you."
"What you got?" asked Wilbur.
Malcolm took him to the rear garage and pointed to a 7-year-old Dodge Dart. It had paint splotches all over the body and its side pipes hung loose. It looked like maybe it might make it as far as the junkyard.
"You got to spot me something for those meats," said Wilbur, indicating Malcolm's oversized rear tires.
"Yeah, but you got that gear in the car," said Malcolm, trying for a touch, a tone of apprehension in his voice. Finally, however, Malcolm agreed to give Wilbur two car lengths. Wilbur seemed surprised at the gift.
Wilbur walked back into the auto shop laughing out loud. "Hey, there's some dude out back who's going to race me in an old junker."
"That right?" said Jack, looking at the ceiling.
"Not only that," said Wilbur, slapping his hand down on the counter, "the sucker's going to give me two cars."
I could see Jack biting his tongue.
Malcolm borrowed $15 since he had no money of his own to post as the bet. They moved to a backcountry street called Schultz Road for the showdown. Malcolm shot off the starting line and passed his opponent before shifting out of first gear. By the time he shifted to fourth he had a six-car-length lead. He coasted across the finish line.
Wilbur returned in his Plymouth Duster to the starting line, rolled down the window, handed out his money and kept driving home to La Porte.
The sport of drag racing began on the back roads of America—two kids facing off to see whose car ran quickest. Only in the early '50s did it become organized into a full-fledged professional sport with drag strips, sanctioning bodies and stars like Don Garlits and Ronnie Sox. But professional drag racing is only the tip of the iceberg showing above water. "It wouldn't make any difference if they had a drag strip in every town in the country," says Kniola. "They still would have street racing."
Jack Kniola works during the day for a welding-supply company and at night runs Kniola Automotive on the U.S. 20 bypass around Michigan City, Ind. The only speed shop between South Bend and Gary, it also serves as a gathering spot for street racers. Any night during the summer there is someone at Kniola's willing to test his wheels.
"A majority of my customers will race on the street more times than on the strip," Kniola admits, "because it's simpler for them to put something on and test it right away. They don't want to wait to go to the strip on a Sunday. They don't want to wait a full week, or two days, or even an hour. They want to try it now. They roll out to the first stretch of road they can find without traffic—and whooooom!"
A drag enthusiast can peel his wheels at any intersection, but usually he wants to test them against someone else with a reputation for having a heavy foot. After a street racer puts down his acquaintances, he starts looking around town for new competition, at the same time sneaking up to Jack's counter to order new parts. According to Jack: "The young kid coming up with a lot of money in his engine, trans and chassis wants to beat the top car in town. That's his status symbol. He wants to beat Malcolm or Ted or Frank. At the same time guys from out of town will hear about the Robin Hood of street racing in this city and they'll bring their little band of merry men over to this guy's forest and want to race him. Generally the guy who races the car doesn't put up the money. It's his buddies who have confidence in their champion. They find a back road, they race, and the winner takes the purse."
For the last several years the Robin Hood of street racing in Michigan City had been Malcolm Garrett, who in the best traditions of professionalism held no nine-to-five job but worked on his car and the cars of others in a garage behind Kniola Automotive. On almost any evening one could walk into Jack's and find Malcolm sitting atop the disposal can next to the soda machine, perched like a patient buzzard. He had long, rinse-water blond hair, and a half tooth in front gave him a sly, evil look. Malcolm wore bowling shoes, red and green with a white dot showing size 7� on the back. He kept his two cars out back: a maroon 1968 Dodge that seemed perfectly bland and the anonymous gray Dodge of older vintage with eight pistons stacked on its hood. "That's my street fooler," Malcolm confided one evening. "I'm going to put a 340 in it that'll look like a 273."
The secret of effective street racing lies in owning a car that does not look too fast. ''You don't want to psych somebody out where there's easy money to be made," advises Jack. "You just want to pull in, park it, line up the race, run it off, and get the hell out of there."
Watching Malcolm hustle a customer is a lesson in the art of con. The customer and his buddies shuffle around Malcolm's old car, eyeing the set of the rear bumper, regarding its regular sized tires, noting that the dashboard tachometer appears factory installed. Finally the customer asks: "What you got in there, man?"
"Got some headers," Malcolm admits cagily. He appears naively eager, as though possession of headers on his exhaust system were some ultimate secret weapon.
"Yeah?"
"Think it's got a cam, too." Malcolm scratches his head, wrinkles his forehead.
"Mmmm-hmmmm?"
"Don't know what kind of gears," continues Malcolm. "Bought it off some lot. But, man"—Malcolm's eyes suddenly widen—"it really runs!"
In the background, the customer's buddies are elbowing each other and snickering.
The savvy street racer knows that in addition to not looking fast, his car should not sound fast. Thus, more often than not, he will select a Dodge rather than a Chevy, despite the fact that high-performance parts for the latter are more readily and cheaply available. But a Dodge engine of equal horsepower idles much more smoothly than a Chevy. "You can't get any runs with a Chevy," says Malcolm. "As soon as you fire it up, it's all over. They know you got something under the hood.
"Now my Dodge don't sound too radical. It's a GTX. Originally it was a 383 and I've still got the 383 emblems on it. My brother bought it new and turned some fourteens with it [14 seconds over a quarter mile]. You get somebody with a 12-second machine and ask them to race and they jump right on you. Well, I've got a 440 engine in it now."
Whenever possible, Malcolm avoids raising the hood. Sometimes, however, a potential opponent will demand a peek as prerequisite to a race. Malcolm then reluctantly agrees, knowing he has mastered the black art of disguise. "I don't bother cleaning the outside of my engine," he explains. "The dirtier it looks, the better. A lot of dudes try to keep everything perfectly clean. When they raise the hood you need sunglasses. But anyone who wants to race is going to figure: you care enough to keep it clean, you may care enough to make it run." After Malcolm installed his 440, he christened it by drenching the engine compartment with a quart of oil, then driving his car up and down dusty roads. By the time he finished, the engine looked like it had been uncovered by archaeologists in some Egyptian tomb.
A street racer who has neglected to check his opponent's engine before a race will never see it afterward. "You ain't going to see my engine," snaps Malcolm after a run. "Just give me the money."
Malcolm also has mastered the gentle art of sandbagging. Once in front by a car length or so, he usually resists the temptation to pull away to a five or six length victory. Buddies of the defeated driver—who may have faster cars—stand on the sideline, see the small margin of victory, and think: "Man, I can take that dude." Buddy No. 1 challenges the next night—and loses by a car length. Malcolm steps out of his car shaking his head, wiping his brow, and dripping humility: "I sure got lucky on the start." Buddy No. 2 returns the next evening—and loses by a car length. Same principle as the pool hustler who never manages to beat his opponent badly.
The street racer stands to earn some money with such tactics—but not too much. "The most I've ever seen is $100," says Jack Kniola, leaning against the counter. "I've heard of bigger purses, but I ain't seen them. Kids talk about racing title for title. Hell, half these guys ain't got their cars paid for."
Jack glances up at one of the regulars who has just walked into the shop: "Hey, Superdeal. What's the biggest street race you ever seen—moneywise?"
Superdeal, whose real name is Dennis, considers the question. "Fifty bucks," he replies.
"When was that?"
"When Boots ran that Chevelle from Illinois couple years ago."
Kniola's eyes light up at the memory of one of the classic events in the history of Michigan City street racing. The Illinois Chevelle had appeared in town at the drive-in one evening, so low-slung that its rear bumper almost scraped the ground. The car had skinny whitewall tires, and its driver meekly indicated he might like to see how fast it would go. Boots, one of the top local racers, accepted the challenge. When they assembled for the race half an hour later on Hitchcock Road outside town, however, the whitewalls had been replaced by a massive set of rear-end slicks. When the Chevelle's engine fired, the noise was so intense that leaves began dropping off the trees. "Blew Boots' doors off," said Jack, sadly shaking his head.
Selecting a course for a street race is an art in itself. The street racers carefully scout and measure backcountry roads, painting start and finish lines exactly 440 yards apart. They consider dragging at stoplights as strictly for amateurs and only do it as a teasing tactic to attract business. They sneer at the novice racers who sometimes face off on East Michigan Boulevard, one of the main streets that continues into the country. They know its concrete surface provides such good traction it can snap the axle on a fast machine. Pros such as Malcolm prefer to run on smooth asphalt.
They also want a straight pavement wide enough to accommodate two cars side by side, not too much slope to the crown, and no side traffic. The street racers used Schultz Road for a while, but that posed hazards because of a sweeping turn just beyond the measured quarter mile. "You got a car that was even a high 12-second machine and you couldn't handle it out there at the end of the quarter," recalls Malcolm. In addition, one of the farmers used to come out on his front lawn and fire his shotgun at the cars racing past. They shifted to Tryon Road, where another farmer would throw lead balls with spikes implanted in them onto the road to puncture tires. Homeowners understandably dislike cars minus mufflers roaring past their front yards at midnight, and usually they call the police.
One night several years ago the street racers blocked off a section of Highway 2 near Westville for an event. Indiana State Police Lieut. Tim McCarthy passed on another road in an unmarked vehicle and saw cars lining up on both sides of the highway. He turned around, and, as he approached, the flagman motioned him into position for the next race. Just before the flag dropped, McCarthy stepped out and began writing tickets for parking, loitering, improper mufflers and any other violation he could find. The flagman received a ticket for standing on the highway. Street racers complain at what they call harassment, whereas McCarthy complains that when he brings the racers into court the judge often refuses to suspend licenses. The police find it difficult to obtain convictions for "engaging in a speed contest" unless they catch someone in the act, so they usually must settle for "harassing" tickets.
On another occasion the racers decided to test the runway of the municipal airport. They had run several races when a police car approached. Everybody exited in different directions. Big Ted drove his car into an empty hangar and closed the doors. Malcolm jumped out of his car and let it roll, headlights off. He lay in the ditch as the police car passed, then rose and retrieved his car which, unnoticed, had rolled to a stop at the end of the runway.
The current favored racing spot in Michigan City is a frontage road that was built during the construction of Interstate 94 and parallel to that expressway. Besides being straight, smooth and away from any houses, the road offers security because of its location in a flat and relatively treeless area. Thus the headlights of approaching cars, police or otherwise, can be seen from nearly a mile away. During the summer a group from Michigan appeared towing a Camaro to challenge the town champion. There was much bargaining at a local drive-in, and money began to emerge from wallets. Malcolm was selected to drive a Nova belonging to Big Ted.
Near the Interstate, the Camaro driver began doing burnouts to warm his tires. The roar of the Camaro's unmuffled engine echoed through the countryside. At that moment police cars, which had approached with headlights off, blocked both ends of the strip. "All drivers bring their licenses," the police announced over their loudspeaker. Everyone got a ticket except the driver from Michigan. He hopped the fence of the expressway and may still be running.
Nobody knows for sure whether the police had been attracted by the engine noise, like moths to a flame, or simply had spotted the caravan moving from drive-in to countryside. Normally, if the police notice a group of teen-agers heading out of town in hot cars, they follow. The drivers in another match earlier in the year had to visit four different locations before they could race. Everywhere the racers went, the cops came right behind them.
Young drag enthusiasts more often attract police attention than pros like Malcolm, since, yearning for fame, they announce their intentions to race well in advance to their friends. The news spreads and crowds gather. "If you plan in advance," advises Jack, "the guys with the concessions in the pits will be law-enforcement officials and they'll be selling 30-day suspensions." Malcolm agrees to race, races, collects and is back perched on the trash can next to the soft drink machine before anyone really notices he was missing.
The rallying point for street racers, in addition to Kniola Automotive, is whatever drive-in currently is fashionable. It used to be Azar's on Franklin Street, but the management kept calling the police. Everyone shifted to the Red Barn, but non-spenders were shagged out. The crowd then began congregating at McDonald's where, if one person bought a Coke, a carload could remain for the evening. Then McDonald's got tired of burnouts in the lot and put in speed bumps—so the current rallying point is the parking lot next to Kroger's supermarket.
But the greatest hazard faced by street racers is neither ticket-happy police nor belligerent drive-in managers, it is their own occasional lack of sense. "When I see some of the narrow roads they run on," says Lieut. Tim McCarthy, "I wonder why more of them don't get killed."
Jack recalls a race where the rear end of a car slid off the road, its front bumper clipping the second car, which spun into a barbed-wire fence. "Neither driver dared claim the damage on his insurance for fear of getting canceled." A racer known as Taco failed to brake in time and went straight off the end of one road, finally grinding to a stop in a cornfield. "He only races on sanctioned strips now," says Jack. Another Kniola regular recalls two friends who drove at 100 mph into the side of a cement viaduct. The other car in the race left, and police found the bodies an hour later.
One night near the end of the summer, Malcolm began to get itchy. Business had slowed. There comes a point in each street racer's career when his reputation reaches such a level that nobody wants to risk money on a confrontation. So he must either race for fun, a highly unprofessional motivation, or begin to spot his opponents car lengths to entice them to compete. But giving somebody a head start in a street race can be risky, particularly if he takes more than his share of the road. According to Malcolm, "Some guys think they can run six-pound wrinkle-wall tires in all that dirt and sand. They start wiggling around out in front of you. I'll back off. I'd rather lose the race than get killed. If anybody's been drinking, I won't race them, because they're not going to endanger my life. There's a little bit of risk, but you watch your pavement. And your car has to be right. You don't race nobody with some junk that's all butchered up to the point where it might not stay on the road."
One night Malcolm loaded his Dodge onto a trailer and headed toward South Bend. He trailered the car since driving it even 30 miles on regular roads might damage the 5-13 gear as well as take the edge off engine performance. But using a trailer caused other problems. "If you come pulling up with a trailer you'll usually scare everybody away," Malcolm explained as he drove, "so you don't let them know you towed into town. You just tow it and park it. Every town has a place where they gather. In South Bend, it's Bonnie Dunn's. And they cruise up and down the main street and sit in parking lots. You wait.
"The bad thing about going out of town is you don't know the area where you'll race. You have to trust the other guys, but you don't know how much racing they do. You might be running low twelves or high elevens, and be up to maybe 120 mph at the end of the quarter and get in a bad part of the pavement. Then you're in trouble.
"You go out of town and the guys will have a quarter that's all set up. The quarter may be real short and they'll run a car with a big gear that can handle a short quarter. Or maybe they have a quarter that's a couple hundred feet long, so they'll equip their car with a higher gear, figuring they can come around you on the high end."
Malcolm pulled up in the parking lot of a factory and unloaded his Dodge from the trailer and cruised into town. He stopped at Bonnie Dunn's. Two local racers wandered by.
"Got a fast car there?" said one.
"Yeah, that's right," said Malcolm.
The second racer eyed the car and its driver: "You're Malcolm from City, ain't you?"
Malcolm admitted he was.
"See you around," said the two drivers, departing.
Malcolm remained parked, did some more talking, cruised a bit, then finally trailered his Dodge and drove home. "You might race 10 or 12 times a night." he said. "Then some other times you might run once or twice a week. Other weekends you might not race at all, because if you're top dog, ain't nobody around town going to run you. And there is no sense running for kicks."
Later during the week, while cruising the main street of La Porte with a friend named Frank, Malcolm found someone with a 442 who wanted to race him. They agreed to meet at a nearby shopping mall, then head for the course. Malcolm stopped at his garage behind Kniola's shop for a quart of oil, but when he arrived at the mall his opponent never appeared. Frank suspected that the other driver asked around and learned who he would be racing: "Everybody knows Malcolm. And if he was driving a showroom stock car they'd be afraid to race him." Frank, too, was experiencing difficulties in his newly finished Camaro. "I sink all my money in this car and I can't find anybody to race," he complained. Part of the problem was a more stringent Indiana law that prohibited high rear bumpers and too loud mufflers. Also a larger proportion of the younger generation rode on motorcycles instead of in hot cars. A few weeks later Frank did race one biker on a 750cc. Honda. "None of them bikers got any money," said Malcolm. "They had to pass around the hat to a dozen guys before they could come up with $25." Frank beat the bike by six lengths, jeopardizing future competition with that crowd.
At the end of the summer, Malcolm looked particularly glum. He explained that he had accumulated too many points on his driver's license and had lost it. The only legal way he could get around town was to have his girl friend drive him. "Maybe I can still race at the drag strip," said Malcolm. But racing under supervision had little appeal.
A month later a friend wandered into the shop. "Where's Malcolm?"
"Gone to Florida," said Jack. "He drove over to the junkyard one night to dump some parts and the police spotted him. Jailed him for two nights. I had to go bail him out." That had ended Malcolm's career. Deciding too many people knew him in town, he left his street fooler with his brother, loaded his furniture on the back of a flatbed trailer behind his maroon Dodge and headed south with his girl.
"Who was driving?"
"Malcolm."
"Without a license?"
Jack shook his head dourly.
Malcolm's seat has been vacated. You can walk into Jack's now at night and see others perched there, but somehow they look awkward in his place, as though they might topple any minute. They don't have that look of a buzzard ready to feed and they don't wear bowling shoes.
-Look Slow And Be Set To Go
-Hal Higdon
After a couple of months hanging out at Kniola Automotive, I learned to spot the hustlers. They would saunter in from the parking lot, lean against the soft drink dispenser, eyeball the bulletin board, finger the slicks piled near the doorway—and say not a word. Then when the counter cleared: ZIPPPP! Like a fuel dragster coming off the line they were next to Jack whispering an order for a new intake manifold or camshaft, pledging him to secrecy.
I hadn't noticed the hustlers until they were pointed out by Jack Kniola, founder, owner and chief counterman of Michigan City, Indiana's only speed shop. Jack said that when the high-performance part they had ordered arrived, they often sneaked it out under their jackets. If anyone should walk without warning into their garage: SLAMMM! Down would go the hoods of their cars. "They want to make some money before everybody finds out what they got," explained Jack.
The mark of the street racer.
In contrast, some of the punks stand around Jack's at night bragging about their rock-crusher M-22s. "If there were as many rock crushers in cars as people claim," says Jack, " General Motors would declare a triple dividend." They boast how they're turning eight grand on the tach. "He's lucky if he can get his wheels to spin in gravel," whispers Jack. The savvy street racer never brags about his machine, or even hints at the shattering power under its hood for fear of scaring away potential competition. Instead, the street racer functions like a pool-room hustler, gulling his customers, miscuing occasionally, suckering them along. Then—in a cloud of smoke and screech of rubber—stripping them of their last week's paychecks.
One night a kid named Wilbur from nearby La Porte appeared at Kniola's itching to test his wheels. He had just bought a souped-up Plymouth Duster. It had a new engine, headers and special gears, not to mention a gleaming paint job. Wilbur hinted he had run some fast times at a nearby sanctioned drag strip, but he wouldn't say how fast, and finally Malcolm, who rented a garage behind Kniola Automotive, said: "Yeah, I'll run you."
"What you got?" asked Wilbur.
Malcolm took him to the rear garage and pointed to a 7-year-old Dodge Dart. It had paint splotches all over the body and its side pipes hung loose. It looked like maybe it might make it as far as the junkyard.
"You got to spot me something for those meats," said Wilbur, indicating Malcolm's oversized rear tires.
"Yeah, but you got that gear in the car," said Malcolm, trying for a touch, a tone of apprehension in his voice. Finally, however, Malcolm agreed to give Wilbur two car lengths. Wilbur seemed surprised at the gift.
Wilbur walked back into the auto shop laughing out loud. "Hey, there's some dude out back who's going to race me in an old junker."
"That right?" said Jack, looking at the ceiling.
"Not only that," said Wilbur, slapping his hand down on the counter, "the sucker's going to give me two cars."
I could see Jack biting his tongue.
Malcolm borrowed $15 since he had no money of his own to post as the bet. They moved to a backcountry street called Schultz Road for the showdown. Malcolm shot off the starting line and passed his opponent before shifting out of first gear. By the time he shifted to fourth he had a six-car-length lead. He coasted across the finish line.
Wilbur returned in his Plymouth Duster to the starting line, rolled down the window, handed out his money and kept driving home to La Porte.
The sport of drag racing began on the back roads of America—two kids facing off to see whose car ran quickest. Only in the early '50s did it become organized into a full-fledged professional sport with drag strips, sanctioning bodies and stars like Don Garlits and Ronnie Sox. But professional drag racing is only the tip of the iceberg showing above water. "It wouldn't make any difference if they had a drag strip in every town in the country," says Kniola. "They still would have street racing."
Jack Kniola works during the day for a welding-supply company and at night runs Kniola Automotive on the U.S. 20 bypass around Michigan City, Ind. The only speed shop between South Bend and Gary, it also serves as a gathering spot for street racers. Any night during the summer there is someone at Kniola's willing to test his wheels.
"A majority of my customers will race on the street more times than on the strip," Kniola admits, "because it's simpler for them to put something on and test it right away. They don't want to wait to go to the strip on a Sunday. They don't want to wait a full week, or two days, or even an hour. They want to try it now. They roll out to the first stretch of road they can find without traffic—and whooooom!"
A drag enthusiast can peel his wheels at any intersection, but usually he wants to test them against someone else with a reputation for having a heavy foot. After a street racer puts down his acquaintances, he starts looking around town for new competition, at the same time sneaking up to Jack's counter to order new parts. According to Jack: "The young kid coming up with a lot of money in his engine, trans and chassis wants to beat the top car in town. That's his status symbol. He wants to beat Malcolm or Ted or Frank. At the same time guys from out of town will hear about the Robin Hood of street racing in this city and they'll bring their little band of merry men over to this guy's forest and want to race him. Generally the guy who races the car doesn't put up the money. It's his buddies who have confidence in their champion. They find a back road, they race, and the winner takes the purse."
For the last several years the Robin Hood of street racing in Michigan City had been Malcolm Garrett, who in the best traditions of professionalism held no nine-to-five job but worked on his car and the cars of others in a garage behind Kniola Automotive. On almost any evening one could walk into Jack's and find Malcolm sitting atop the disposal can next to the soda machine, perched like a patient buzzard. He had long, rinse-water blond hair, and a half tooth in front gave him a sly, evil look. Malcolm wore bowling shoes, red and green with a white dot showing size 7� on the back. He kept his two cars out back: a maroon 1968 Dodge that seemed perfectly bland and the anonymous gray Dodge of older vintage with eight pistons stacked on its hood. "That's my street fooler," Malcolm confided one evening. "I'm going to put a 340 in it that'll look like a 273."
The secret of effective street racing lies in owning a car that does not look too fast. ''You don't want to psych somebody out where there's easy money to be made," advises Jack. "You just want to pull in, park it, line up the race, run it off, and get the hell out of there."
Watching Malcolm hustle a customer is a lesson in the art of con. The customer and his buddies shuffle around Malcolm's old car, eyeing the set of the rear bumper, regarding its regular sized tires, noting that the dashboard tachometer appears factory installed. Finally the customer asks: "What you got in there, man?"
"Got some headers," Malcolm admits cagily. He appears naively eager, as though possession of headers on his exhaust system were some ultimate secret weapon.
"Yeah?"
"Think it's got a cam, too." Malcolm scratches his head, wrinkles his forehead.
"Mmmm-hmmmm?"
"Don't know what kind of gears," continues Malcolm. "Bought it off some lot. But, man"—Malcolm's eyes suddenly widen—"it really runs!"
In the background, the customer's buddies are elbowing each other and snickering.
The savvy street racer knows that in addition to not looking fast, his car should not sound fast. Thus, more often than not, he will select a Dodge rather than a Chevy, despite the fact that high-performance parts for the latter are more readily and cheaply available. But a Dodge engine of equal horsepower idles much more smoothly than a Chevy. "You can't get any runs with a Chevy," says Malcolm. "As soon as you fire it up, it's all over. They know you got something under the hood.
"Now my Dodge don't sound too radical. It's a GTX. Originally it was a 383 and I've still got the 383 emblems on it. My brother bought it new and turned some fourteens with it [14 seconds over a quarter mile]. You get somebody with a 12-second machine and ask them to race and they jump right on you. Well, I've got a 440 engine in it now."
Whenever possible, Malcolm avoids raising the hood. Sometimes, however, a potential opponent will demand a peek as prerequisite to a race. Malcolm then reluctantly agrees, knowing he has mastered the black art of disguise. "I don't bother cleaning the outside of my engine," he explains. "The dirtier it looks, the better. A lot of dudes try to keep everything perfectly clean. When they raise the hood you need sunglasses. But anyone who wants to race is going to figure: you care enough to keep it clean, you may care enough to make it run." After Malcolm installed his 440, he christened it by drenching the engine compartment with a quart of oil, then driving his car up and down dusty roads. By the time he finished, the engine looked like it had been uncovered by archaeologists in some Egyptian tomb.
A street racer who has neglected to check his opponent's engine before a race will never see it afterward. "You ain't going to see my engine," snaps Malcolm after a run. "Just give me the money."
Malcolm also has mastered the gentle art of sandbagging. Once in front by a car length or so, he usually resists the temptation to pull away to a five or six length victory. Buddies of the defeated driver—who may have faster cars—stand on the sideline, see the small margin of victory, and think: "Man, I can take that dude." Buddy No. 1 challenges the next night—and loses by a car length. Malcolm steps out of his car shaking his head, wiping his brow, and dripping humility: "I sure got lucky on the start." Buddy No. 2 returns the next evening—and loses by a car length. Same principle as the pool hustler who never manages to beat his opponent badly.
The street racer stands to earn some money with such tactics—but not too much. "The most I've ever seen is $100," says Jack Kniola, leaning against the counter. "I've heard of bigger purses, but I ain't seen them. Kids talk about racing title for title. Hell, half these guys ain't got their cars paid for."
Jack glances up at one of the regulars who has just walked into the shop: "Hey, Superdeal. What's the biggest street race you ever seen—moneywise?"
Superdeal, whose real name is Dennis, considers the question. "Fifty bucks," he replies.
"When was that?"
"When Boots ran that Chevelle from Illinois couple years ago."
Kniola's eyes light up at the memory of one of the classic events in the history of Michigan City street racing. The Illinois Chevelle had appeared in town at the drive-in one evening, so low-slung that its rear bumper almost scraped the ground. The car had skinny whitewall tires, and its driver meekly indicated he might like to see how fast it would go. Boots, one of the top local racers, accepted the challenge. When they assembled for the race half an hour later on Hitchcock Road outside town, however, the whitewalls had been replaced by a massive set of rear-end slicks. When the Chevelle's engine fired, the noise was so intense that leaves began dropping off the trees. "Blew Boots' doors off," said Jack, sadly shaking his head.
Selecting a course for a street race is an art in itself. The street racers carefully scout and measure backcountry roads, painting start and finish lines exactly 440 yards apart. They consider dragging at stoplights as strictly for amateurs and only do it as a teasing tactic to attract business. They sneer at the novice racers who sometimes face off on East Michigan Boulevard, one of the main streets that continues into the country. They know its concrete surface provides such good traction it can snap the axle on a fast machine. Pros such as Malcolm prefer to run on smooth asphalt.
They also want a straight pavement wide enough to accommodate two cars side by side, not too much slope to the crown, and no side traffic. The street racers used Schultz Road for a while, but that posed hazards because of a sweeping turn just beyond the measured quarter mile. "You got a car that was even a high 12-second machine and you couldn't handle it out there at the end of the quarter," recalls Malcolm. In addition, one of the farmers used to come out on his front lawn and fire his shotgun at the cars racing past. They shifted to Tryon Road, where another farmer would throw lead balls with spikes implanted in them onto the road to puncture tires. Homeowners understandably dislike cars minus mufflers roaring past their front yards at midnight, and usually they call the police.
One night several years ago the street racers blocked off a section of Highway 2 near Westville for an event. Indiana State Police Lieut. Tim McCarthy passed on another road in an unmarked vehicle and saw cars lining up on both sides of the highway. He turned around, and, as he approached, the flagman motioned him into position for the next race. Just before the flag dropped, McCarthy stepped out and began writing tickets for parking, loitering, improper mufflers and any other violation he could find. The flagman received a ticket for standing on the highway. Street racers complain at what they call harassment, whereas McCarthy complains that when he brings the racers into court the judge often refuses to suspend licenses. The police find it difficult to obtain convictions for "engaging in a speed contest" unless they catch someone in the act, so they usually must settle for "harassing" tickets.
On another occasion the racers decided to test the runway of the municipal airport. They had run several races when a police car approached. Everybody exited in different directions. Big Ted drove his car into an empty hangar and closed the doors. Malcolm jumped out of his car and let it roll, headlights off. He lay in the ditch as the police car passed, then rose and retrieved his car which, unnoticed, had rolled to a stop at the end of the runway.
The current favored racing spot in Michigan City is a frontage road that was built during the construction of Interstate 94 and parallel to that expressway. Besides being straight, smooth and away from any houses, the road offers security because of its location in a flat and relatively treeless area. Thus the headlights of approaching cars, police or otherwise, can be seen from nearly a mile away. During the summer a group from Michigan appeared towing a Camaro to challenge the town champion. There was much bargaining at a local drive-in, and money began to emerge from wallets. Malcolm was selected to drive a Nova belonging to Big Ted.
Near the Interstate, the Camaro driver began doing burnouts to warm his tires. The roar of the Camaro's unmuffled engine echoed through the countryside. At that moment police cars, which had approached with headlights off, blocked both ends of the strip. "All drivers bring their licenses," the police announced over their loudspeaker. Everyone got a ticket except the driver from Michigan. He hopped the fence of the expressway and may still be running.
Nobody knows for sure whether the police had been attracted by the engine noise, like moths to a flame, or simply had spotted the caravan moving from drive-in to countryside. Normally, if the police notice a group of teen-agers heading out of town in hot cars, they follow. The drivers in another match earlier in the year had to visit four different locations before they could race. Everywhere the racers went, the cops came right behind them.
Young drag enthusiasts more often attract police attention than pros like Malcolm, since, yearning for fame, they announce their intentions to race well in advance to their friends. The news spreads and crowds gather. "If you plan in advance," advises Jack, "the guys with the concessions in the pits will be law-enforcement officials and they'll be selling 30-day suspensions." Malcolm agrees to race, races, collects and is back perched on the trash can next to the soft drink machine before anyone really notices he was missing.
The rallying point for street racers, in addition to Kniola Automotive, is whatever drive-in currently is fashionable. It used to be Azar's on Franklin Street, but the management kept calling the police. Everyone shifted to the Red Barn, but non-spenders were shagged out. The crowd then began congregating at McDonald's where, if one person bought a Coke, a carload could remain for the evening. Then McDonald's got tired of burnouts in the lot and put in speed bumps—so the current rallying point is the parking lot next to Kroger's supermarket.
But the greatest hazard faced by street racers is neither ticket-happy police nor belligerent drive-in managers, it is their own occasional lack of sense. "When I see some of the narrow roads they run on," says Lieut. Tim McCarthy, "I wonder why more of them don't get killed."
Jack recalls a race where the rear end of a car slid off the road, its front bumper clipping the second car, which spun into a barbed-wire fence. "Neither driver dared claim the damage on his insurance for fear of getting canceled." A racer known as Taco failed to brake in time and went straight off the end of one road, finally grinding to a stop in a cornfield. "He only races on sanctioned strips now," says Jack. Another Kniola regular recalls two friends who drove at 100 mph into the side of a cement viaduct. The other car in the race left, and police found the bodies an hour later.
One night near the end of the summer, Malcolm began to get itchy. Business had slowed. There comes a point in each street racer's career when his reputation reaches such a level that nobody wants to risk money on a confrontation. So he must either race for fun, a highly unprofessional motivation, or begin to spot his opponents car lengths to entice them to compete. But giving somebody a head start in a street race can be risky, particularly if he takes more than his share of the road. According to Malcolm, "Some guys think they can run six-pound wrinkle-wall tires in all that dirt and sand. They start wiggling around out in front of you. I'll back off. I'd rather lose the race than get killed. If anybody's been drinking, I won't race them, because they're not going to endanger my life. There's a little bit of risk, but you watch your pavement. And your car has to be right. You don't race nobody with some junk that's all butchered up to the point where it might not stay on the road."
One night Malcolm loaded his Dodge onto a trailer and headed toward South Bend. He trailered the car since driving it even 30 miles on regular roads might damage the 5-13 gear as well as take the edge off engine performance. But using a trailer caused other problems. "If you come pulling up with a trailer you'll usually scare everybody away," Malcolm explained as he drove, "so you don't let them know you towed into town. You just tow it and park it. Every town has a place where they gather. In South Bend, it's Bonnie Dunn's. And they cruise up and down the main street and sit in parking lots. You wait.
"The bad thing about going out of town is you don't know the area where you'll race. You have to trust the other guys, but you don't know how much racing they do. You might be running low twelves or high elevens, and be up to maybe 120 mph at the end of the quarter and get in a bad part of the pavement. Then you're in trouble.
"You go out of town and the guys will have a quarter that's all set up. The quarter may be real short and they'll run a car with a big gear that can handle a short quarter. Or maybe they have a quarter that's a couple hundred feet long, so they'll equip their car with a higher gear, figuring they can come around you on the high end."
Malcolm pulled up in the parking lot of a factory and unloaded his Dodge from the trailer and cruised into town. He stopped at Bonnie Dunn's. Two local racers wandered by.
"Got a fast car there?" said one.
"Yeah, that's right," said Malcolm.
The second racer eyed the car and its driver: "You're Malcolm from City, ain't you?"
Malcolm admitted he was.
"See you around," said the two drivers, departing.
Malcolm remained parked, did some more talking, cruised a bit, then finally trailered his Dodge and drove home. "You might race 10 or 12 times a night." he said. "Then some other times you might run once or twice a week. Other weekends you might not race at all, because if you're top dog, ain't nobody around town going to run you. And there is no sense running for kicks."
Later during the week, while cruising the main street of La Porte with a friend named Frank, Malcolm found someone with a 442 who wanted to race him. They agreed to meet at a nearby shopping mall, then head for the course. Malcolm stopped at his garage behind Kniola's shop for a quart of oil, but when he arrived at the mall his opponent never appeared. Frank suspected that the other driver asked around and learned who he would be racing: "Everybody knows Malcolm. And if he was driving a showroom stock car they'd be afraid to race him." Frank, too, was experiencing difficulties in his newly finished Camaro. "I sink all my money in this car and I can't find anybody to race," he complained. Part of the problem was a more stringent Indiana law that prohibited high rear bumpers and too loud mufflers. Also a larger proportion of the younger generation rode on motorcycles instead of in hot cars. A few weeks later Frank did race one biker on a 750cc. Honda. "None of them bikers got any money," said Malcolm. "They had to pass around the hat to a dozen guys before they could come up with $25." Frank beat the bike by six lengths, jeopardizing future competition with that crowd.
At the end of the summer, Malcolm looked particularly glum. He explained that he had accumulated too many points on his driver's license and had lost it. The only legal way he could get around town was to have his girl friend drive him. "Maybe I can still race at the drag strip," said Malcolm. But racing under supervision had little appeal.
A month later a friend wandered into the shop. "Where's Malcolm?"
"Gone to Florida," said Jack. "He drove over to the junkyard one night to dump some parts and the police spotted him. Jailed him for two nights. I had to go bail him out." That had ended Malcolm's career. Deciding too many people knew him in town, he left his street fooler with his brother, loaded his furniture on the back of a flatbed trailer behind his maroon Dodge and headed south with his girl.
"Who was driving?"
"Malcolm."
"Without a license?"
Jack shook his head dourly.
Malcolm's seat has been vacated. You can walk into Jack's now at night and see others perched there, but somehow they look awkward in his place, as though they might topple any minute. They don't have that look of a buzzard ready to feed and they don't wear bowling shoes.