The Rustoleum Rocket

My brother used to drive a 1972 Chevelle SS. It was pristine on one side, and every color Rustoleum ever made on the other side. He and my grandfather worked for weeks on end, tuning it to perfection in our dirt driveway. It wasn't exactly professional, but under the hood, that car was a beast of a machine. Naturally, a beast of any sort feels the need to show off now and again, including my brother.

We drove a hundred miles away to a particular drag strip, overheating and sputtering, cursing and sweating, during the hottest part of the day, which also happened to be during rush hour. Finally arriving within an inch of the poor, mistreated car's life, I rush to the top of the stands while my brother waits for his turn at the strip. The top is the best view, since you can see the entire track from a vantage point where you can calculate distance, rather than just seeing the cars get smaller as fast as they can.

Settling myself down comfortably, which isn't easy on a slab of hot metal, a group of five nasty Puerto Ricans jostle each other and laugh their way up to the bench below mine. I'm not making a racial slur here, they were actually being nasty; badmouthing all of the cars that arrived at the starting line, whether they were funny-car freaks out for a good run or professional drag racers making the final day-before-the-race tweaks.

Of course, as much as I wanted to say something, I wasn't about to risk seeing a closer view of the knives a couple of them were absently flicking. As my brother pulled up to the line, the engine sputtered, still somewhat overheated. That encouraged bursts of laughter and new speculations about which junkyard his car came from. When the lights went green, my brother stomped the gas, and the car performed a pretty good takeoff until the intake manifold burned through the positive battery cable.

The group laughed even harder, pointing at the disabled car, "Look at that piece of shit ..."

When the car lurched from the sudden absence of power, the cable disengaged from the manifold. My brother pop-started the car and gunned the engine mercilessly, laying down rubber in a frantic effort to catch up to the car in the other lane.

"... Go?" All of their heads swiveled, following the Rustoleum Rocket on to its miraculous victory. It took less than 14 seconds to complete the quarter-mile race.