DEATH IN THE DRAFT

A “Driver 27” Mystery

by Alan J. Porter

CHAPTER ONE

Daytona International Speedway – Now

 Travis Hinckley stood on the pit wall, looking over at the packed grandstands lining the front straightaway.  He slowly rotated, trying to take in as much of the amphitheater as he could.  At just over five feet tall, Hinckley was short and light for a stock car driver, his physique being more suited to that of a jockey.  His stature had been an advantage as a kid driving midget cars, but in the rougher world of local dirt tracks and now stock cars, it had become more of a hindrance.  Stock cars were heavy and physical to drive.   Hinckley had applied himself to the challenge, working on both his strength and his stamina.

The extra height given him by the wall gave him a vista that stretched from the exit of the last turn along the start/finish straight, on to the first corner where the track rose on its thirty one degree banking as it rolled off to the left, disappearing from view behind the sea of motor homes lining the infield.  Hinckley’s gaze settled on the sea of RVs .  Most, if not all, were flying flags with the numbers and colors of their favorite driver.  He smiled as he confirmed to himself that the majority of the pennants flying in the Florida breeze bore the numeral fifty-three.  His number.  To be more accurate, it was the number of the car he drove, a car owned by legendary promoter Bill Parsons.   Hinckley had been driving for Parsons since he made the transition to stock cars and he had been pilot of the number fifty-three since the day he graduated into the top series.  In the minds of the fans and the media alike, Travis Hinckley was number fifty-three, irrespective of who had driven for Parsons in the years before.

He took a deep breath, sighed quietly to himself in satisfaction and jumped down off the pit wall to make his way to his race car.  This last minute survey of his surroundings and the crowd, like a diminutive emperor overseeing the battlefield and his army before charging into action, had become something of a ritual.  Part of his pre-race preparation.  From the moment his feet hit the pit lane asphalt, he was totally focused.  Travis Hinckley was ready to do battle.

The familiar red and gold car sat second in the line of waiting vehicles, reflecting Travis’s qualifying position.  Focused on his own ride, Travis walked past the group of people surrounding the green number twenty-seven car that would start in front of him.  He passed without a hint of recognition or greeting, although he knew them all.

In stark contrast, only one person stood waiting for Travis by his ride.  His philosophy was that if the car wasn’t ready by the time it rolled from the garage, there’s nothing you could fix on the pit lane – so leave it alone.  Travis didn’t want hangers-on or well-wishers either.  The only person he wanted to see at this point was his crew chief, Pete Clanton.

While not particularly tall at just under six feet, he still appeared to tower over Hinckley .  Clanton had at one time been a well-muscled and athletic man, but in recent years had let his physical conditioning slide and was now sporting the first signs of a pot belly.  Something that his fitness fanatic of a driver ribbed him about mercilessly, much to Clanton’s annoyance.

Pete Clanton was the latest in a succession of crew chiefs for the fifty-three team.  He had only been in charge since joining Parsons’ operation over the short winter break, about ten weeks in total, and there was already tension between him and Hinckley .  Many up and down the pit lane were already laying bets as to when Clanton would leave.  The most popular was that he would be gone by the time the championship reached Indianapolis in August.  Some even doubted the partnership would last till the April race in Texas .

No matter the state of the relationship, this was the routine that Travis Hinckley wanted, and what Travis wanted, Travis got.  The only person to strap him into the car and the last person to speak to him before rolling off pit lane would be his crew chief.  Some drivers may have shared a quick word, or even a prayer, with wives or girlfriends.  Others preferred total silence or maybe just a quiet pat on the shoulder from team members.  A few were relaxed enough to sit in the cockpit and chat with the press or be interviewed for TV.  Not Travis Hinckley.

He was one of the most popular drivers on the circuit with the fans: charming, witty and affable, always happy to chat with the press and the TV away from the track.  He even enjoyed doing those goofy TV commercials his sponsor had concocted.  But in those last few minutes before a race, everyone knew to give him a wide berth and leave him well alone.  Travis Hinckley was getting “into the zone,” as he explained it.  The only other person allowed to enter that zone was Clanton.

As he approached Clanton and the car, Travis carefully inspected his ride from front to back.  He ran is hand over some of the body skin as if looking for the tiniest flaw.

Satisfied all was OK from the outside, he strode up to the left hand window opening and pulled off his baseball cap, decorated with sponsors’ logos and the inevitable “53” stitched into the side, passing it to Clanton.

“Time to ride, Petey.”

Pete Clanton inwardly winced.  He hated that stupid childish name that Hinckley had bestowed on him.  He said nothing, his face a mask.  He took the proffered cap, rolled it up and slid it into the back pocket of his own red and gold fireproof overalls.  He watched intently as Hinckley slid his slight frame through the window opening as he finally entered his ride, but not before glancing up and down pit lane to make sure he was the last driver to do so.  “More mind games,” thought Clanton.

Once Hinckley was seated in the car, he shuffled slightly to fit himself securely in the vacuum-formed seat that had been molded to his body contours ensuring a precise fit.  Settled in position, he started the next step of his pre-race routine.  First, he stared out of the windshield and examined the car in front of him, looking for any possible signs of weakness.

He carefully examined the rear of the green number twenty-seven.  Checking the camber, or angle of lean, and alignment of the wheels and tires, he looked for any sort of indication as to how his rival had set the car up for the race ahead.  Travis’s gaze rose from the back of the green car to the activity around the driver’s window.  He saw a woman in her mid-thirties lean in and either exchange a kiss or a few parting words with the driver, or maybe both.  He smiled at a memory, then quickly pushed the thought to the back of his mind.  That was a distraction Travis Hinckley wouldn’t allow himself.  He refocused back inside his car, doing a visual check of the space that would be his office over the next four hours.

Satisfied that everything was in order, he lifted his left arm out of the window and extended his hand outwards.  That was the signal to Pete Clanton that he was ready for his helmet and gloves.  As Travis pulled the helmet into the car, Clanton’s head and shoulders followed through the window opening.

He helped Travis secure his head and neck restraint followed by the helmet chin straps.  Once the helmet was in place, he secured the lines for the radio, air cooling and drinks bottle.  Next followed the straps for the six point safety harness.  When fastened, Clanton normally pulled on the straps with all his upper body strength to get them as tight as possible.

This time around, he seemed to be fussing with the left shoulder strap.  Travis gave him an annoyed look.  He felt Clanton’s hands moving between the strap and his protective suit as if adjusting something.  After a few seconds of movement, Clanton removed his hands and pulled hard on the strap.  Travis felt a quick sharp sensation as if pricked by something.

“What you doin’ Petey?” he asked in a particular tone of frustration that seemed particularly reserved for his crew chiefs.

“Strap was twisted in the buckle. It’s all clear now.”  And with that, Clanton gave one final heave on the harness.  Travis winced as it once more dug into his suit.

When he was sure his driver was strapped in, Clanton withdrew his head from the car and fastened the window net over the opening.  There would be no more communication between him and Travis until he was back on the other side of the pit wall, and even then it would only be the occasional message over the radio.  Travis Hinckley liked to run his own race, a point he’d made very clear to Pete Clanton on their first meeting back in November.

Walking back to the pit area, Clanton followed the woman that had been leaning into the green twenty-seven car.  Unlike most wives and girlfriends, she didn’t stop when she reached her driver’s crew area, nor did she take up a position on the pit stand next to the crew chief as is traditional.  Clanton saw her wave at the crew in the twenty-seven pit and continue on towards the infield.

As he turned towards the area of the pit lane set aside for the fifty-three team, he gave her departing figure a derisory snort and climbed up to his seat atop the temporary control structure in the pit box.  He didn’t like that woman and her interfering ways.  He thought she was nothing but trouble.

Around the amphitheater, the pre-race festivities were winding down.  The national anthem had been sung, the invocation had been given and it was now time for the four words that everyone had been waiting to hear.

“Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!”

Travis Hinckley’s hand reached forward and flipped the switch that would bring eight hundred horsepower to life.  It always seemed that there was a few seconds of hesitation from the slumbering monster.  A moment when he wondered if it was ready to bear him into battle.  Then came the awakening.  A sensation in the small of his back, followed by a deep bass rumble that he felt throughout his body.  The rumble was followed by noise.  Not only the noise of his own ride, but a cacophony of 42 other beasts awakening and straining at the leash.

Travis watched the green car in front start to roll off.  Once it was about ten feet in front of him, he gently engaged first gear and played out the clutch.  He slowly followed the leader out of the pit lane and onto the race track.  Now he was in his element.  It was only here that he was totally at home.  It was on these ribbons of asphalt and concrete that he worked his magic.

He now switched his focus from the pole-sitting green twenty-seven car to the car that was circulating in front of it.  Not a race car but a sports car provided by the local Chevrolet dealer, with a row of flashing lights spoiling the graceful flow of its roof line.  The car would be driven by a professional race driver with the celebrity Grand Marshall sitting in the passenger seat.

Travis never took notice of who the celebrity was; that information didn’t help win races.  What he did take notice of was the lights on the top of that high speed joy ride.  The pace car would gradually increase speed bringing the line of following cars closer to racing pace.  When they were at the right speed and with one lap to go before the start, the flashing lights would be switched off.  When the pace car reached the pit lane entrance, he would peel off the track into the pits.  This would signal the starter to wave the green flag and unleash the pack as they crossed the start/finish stripe halfway along the front straightaway.

The lights going out were the signal Travis was looking for.  If he could react even half a second quicker than the driver of the car in front, he’d be carrying more speed out of turn four and onto the straight.  Then as they passed the line and the race started, he would be able to make a pass either shortly after the line or at the entrance to the first turn.  Sure it was going to be a long race and he didn’t need to be aggressive early on, but Travis Hinckley liked to make a statement and leading into the first corner would make one.

The pace car’s lights went off.  Travis stopped the tire-warming weaves across the track that he’d been doing for the last couple of laps.  He watched as the pace car’s wheels started to turn left as it began to peel off.  He mashed the throttle of the red and gold fifty-three, willing the tires to grip as his car accelerated up to full race speed as they exited the banking at turn four and came hurtling down on to the straight.  The train of 43 cars blasted over the line at close to two hundred miles an hour as the green flag waved.  High in the announcer’s booth a TV commentator shouted his catch phrase,

“Let’s go racin’, boys.”

Unheard by the drivers or the 200,000 people around the amphitheater who stood and roared their appreciation, it beamed into millions of homes around the world announcing that the new championship season of the American Stock Car Racing Association was finally under way.

Hinckley kept his foot planted hard to the floor and stayed close to the back of the twenty-seven, hoping to cut down under his rival and take the corner on the inside.  The driver in front reacted to the pace car at exactly the same moment or perhaps even marginally ahead of Travis.  This was something Travis would never admit to himself.  He’d admit someone could, on occasion, match him, but no one was ever better.

The green car stayed low and hung to the bottom of the turn as they shot into the first corner.  There he stayed for a lap, and another, and then another.   Hinckley knew his fifty-three car was faster, he could feel it.  He just needed a way past.  He would play a waiting game.

Ten laps in and the waiting paid off.   Hinckley saw the backend of the twenty-seven shimmy slightly to the right and momentarily loose traction.  He looked at the back of his opponent’s car.  The left rear tire seemed softer than it had the lap before.  Sure enough, at the entry to the next corner, the green car ran high and Travis was through into the lead.

“Twenty-seven has a cut tire and is headed for the pits,” came Pete Clanton’s voice over the radio.  It was the first communication between the two men since the race had started.

Travis Hinckley smiled to himself under his full face helmet.  It was all going his way.

******

Jim West couldn’t believe his luck.  He cursed softly to himself as he brought the number twenty-seven slowly limping down the pit lane to his designated pit box.  He’d set the fastest qualifying lap to start at the front and had a competitive car.  He felt that he could win this one.  He hoped that today would end his eight year drought.  In open wheel racing, he’d been a consistent winner and a champion, but since making the move over to stock cars, he’d found it tough to make it to the front.  There’d been plenty of top ten finishes and even a few times he’d run at the front, but there was always something stopping him from taking the checkered flag first.  Often it had been some simple mechanical failure or bad luck, like a cut tire.

Sure the fifty-three had been all over him since the green flag was thrown, but he could handle the pressure.  He’d won big races in his “past life,” including the biggest one of all, the Indy 500.  But until he won here, he felt he’d never be accepted in the stock car racing fraternity.  He’d felt that today was to be that day, until luck once again rolled the dice for Jim and came up short.

He stopped the car precisely on the marks in his pit box and the seven man pit crew was immediately over the wall.  This early in the race they wouldn’t just replace the cut tire, they’d give him a full service.  It may drop him down a lap, but being “out of sequence” with the other runners could work in his favor later on if it meant he would stay out and regain track position when everyone else headed to pitlane for fresh tires and more fuel.

“Nice work out there, Jim,” came the reassuring low bass voice of Robbie Noble, his car owner and mentor, over the radio.

“Four tires and refuel. No turns on the springs,” a different voice announced.  This one gruffer and more business like.  His crew chief and life long friend, Wayne Clark, as always, focused on the task at hand.

“You’ll be tail end Charlie when you get back out there. One lap down.  You need to get past the fifty-three and back on the lead lap.”  

“OK. No problem,” Jim replied, sounding more confident than he actually felt about the task.

In the eleven seconds it had taken them to have the conversation, the pit crew had completed their work, removing and replacing four wheels and tires plus adding enough fuel to top up the twenty two gallon fuel cell.

“Go, go, go,” came Wayne ’s commanding voice.

Jim accelerated out of his pit box in a squeal of tires, leaving a hint of blue smoke hanging in the air behind him.  As he reached the end of the pit lane, Jim West glanced right to see the pack of cars screaming past.  He judged that by the time he’d got back up to speed that he would slot in between the forth and fifth place cars.  He’d be fifth on the road but a lap down; in reality, he’d be back in forty-third position.  He would have to pass the four cars immediately in front of him to get back on the same lap as the leaders.  Once on the lead lap, he’d than have to work his way back around all 42 runners to regain the lead.  Not impossible in a four hour long, five hundred mile race.  Improbable, but not impossible.  Maybe it could be his day after all.

As he’d anticipated, the number twenty-seven regained the track behind the fourth-placed number forty-seven and just ahead of the other Robbie Noble owned car, the number twenty-six driven by rookie, Scott Patton.

Knowing he had a lot to do and still a long way to race, Jim stayed in position for a couple of laps, watching how the four cars in front of him handled, where they were strong, and more importantly where they were weak.  Once he had the information he needed, Jim West mapped out his moves, projecting them in his mind like a chess player foreseeing all possible combinations of moves and planning his strategy.  But, this chess game was being played at two hundred miles per hour.

Five laps after rejoining, Jim made his first move.  He’d noticed that the forty-seven tended to drift high on the entrance to the first turn before pulling back down sharply to the inside.  The driver was fighting the car’s tendency to pull, or understeer, through the corners.  Jim knew that if he could get close enough at the start of a corner he could use his car to increase the effect.  As they roared down the front straightaway, Jim kept his foot planted full on the throttle for a fraction of a second longer than usual.  Carrying more speed into the corner, he literally ran up to the rear of the forty-seven, tapping it lightly as his nose slotted under the rear trunk spoiler of the car ahead.  Such a move took precision and fine judgment; it would be all too easy to spin out and wreck both cars if done too aggressively.  The result was that the nose of the twenty-seven in effect robbed the forty-seven of the air-flow over the rear spoiler.  The loss of air meant a decrease in loading and grip from the rear tires.  As Jim expected, the additional loss of traction caused the forty-seven to slide up the banking even further than before opening up a gap just wide enough for him to thread his car through.  It was over in a split second.  He was through, and a quick glance in his mirror confirmed that Scott Patton had followed him through promoting his team mate up to fourth position.

He set his sights on the next car and watched the third and second place cars run down the back straight side by side.  They stayed that way all around the banking, neither able to take the ideal racing line.  As a result, Jim was quicker than either of them as he came out of the fourth turn, using the extra speed to his advantage as he passed both on the start/finish straight.  All he had left to do was pass Travis Hinckley and he’d be back on the lead lap.  He knew that Hinckley had no intention of making it easy for him.

Jim West decided to wait.  He figured that at the speed they were circulating, Hinckley would catch and need to lap the next batch of back markers in about ten laps.  At that point, Hinckley would be more focused on getting past the group in front than in keeping an already lapped car behind him.

It only took nine laps before they caught up to a group of three cars running at the back.  If he managed it correctly and passed Hinckley as he negotiated these cars, he would not only un-lap himself, he’d also have three less cars to pass back on his way to the front.

Hinckley tried to go around the outside of the back markers and Jim followed, but it didn’t work.  At the next turn they tried again, and it still didn’t work.   Hinckley tried for three laps with Jim mirroring every move.   Hinckley was starting to get frustrated; Jim could see it in the subtle way his moves across the track had changed.  A hint of ragged direction changes was creeping into Hinckley ’s usual smooth driving style.

Frustration can lead to mistakes.

Hinckley went for the inside move, but Jim could see the gap he was aiming for wasn’t big enough.  Instead of following, Jim went high and around the outside keeping the car as close to the wall as he dared.  He made it through, and got back on the lead lap.  Perhaps the improbable had just become the possible.

Jim West heaved a small sigh of relief and glanced in his mirror, just in time to watch all hell let loose behind him.

******

That sudden sound of silence.  She hated it. It almost made her sick to the stomach.  No matter how many times she experienced it, she never got used to it.  She knew that this particular silence would be followed by pain.  Men in pain, at the very least.  There may even be broken bones and blood.  At worst, there would be death.

On this particular occasion, the sudden silence had come immediately after a sickening dull thud and rumble that penetrated the walls of her sanctuary.  A sound almost like a distant thunder.

For those people outside, it sounded less like thunder and more like a bomb going off.  First there was the shrieking squeal of tormented rubber being dragged across asphalt, friction burning it away and producing clouds of acrid smoke that billowed into the air blocking all vision.  Then came the explosion of sound as metal met metal at high speed.  Soon, multi-colored shards of bent and battered lumps of steel went spinning and flying.  Most stayed in contact with the ground, but some became airborne.  A couple of the larger pieces began their own sickening airborne dance, almost appearing to pirouette in tandem before settling once more to the ground.

Two hundred thousand pairs of eyes strained to pierce the smoke and debris hoping to see their own champion emerge unscathed.

It had lasted less than thirty seconds.  When it was all over, the noise was replaced by that strange silence as though everyone took a breath at the same time and silently prayed.  It was an unnatural silence that even seemed to blanket out the sounds of the other cars that still circulated the amphitheater.

As soon as she heard the silence, she sprang into action, preparing her sanctuary to receive the wounded.  Her well rehearsed team went to their assigned posts, each a specialist with a particular job to do.  She took a quick glance around the medical center making sure that everything was as in place.  She had lobbied long and worked many hours to get this facility to the state it was now.  She had hoped it would never have to be used, but she knew that was wishful thinking.

It seemed an interminable length of time until she heard the rescue vehicle pull up outside the door.  When the Emergency Rescue Team entered with the stretcher between them, she knew it was bad.  She could almost sense it before they had come through the door.  The look on the face of the lead rescuer confirmed it.  His face was gray, his gaze downcast as if he wanted to avoid all eye contact with her.  His broad shoulders sagged as he gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

“Oh my God.”

She steeled herself to look more closely at the figure on the stretcher.  She felt a touch of guilt as a wave of relief flashed over her that the uniform wasn’t green.

“At least he’s safe.”

Almost as soon as the thought had entered her mind, she suppressed it.  This was no time for emotion, only for professional detachment. She had a job to do.

The members of the rescue team gently laid the prone form of the fallen champion on the examination table in a gesture of deep respect.  They stepped back, heads bowed before turning to leave.  The team leader gave one last lingering look at the body, slowly shaking his head before he turned and slowly walked away.  As he left, she noticed that he was limping.  She made a mental note to check afterwards and see if he’d sustained any injuries in the rescue.

She turned to the body on the table, taking in the red and gold colors of the fireproof suit.

“Travis.”

She said the name softly, as a rush of memories intruded.  She pushed them to the back of her mind.  Grieving and nostalgia could come later.

There would be an official autopsy and inquiry to come, but as the chief medical officer on the scene it was her duty to undertake an initial examination.  It was swift, efficient and thorough.  She thought she’d know the results as soon as she’d seen him.  This was one champion who would not rise to face another battle.  His clothing still bore the signs of the recent carnage.  They were torn in numerous places and marked with a mixture of dirt, grass, white extinguisher powder and blood.  A lot of blood.

Her first thought was to examine the base of the skull for a basel skull fracture, the most common cause of death in impacts like the one she assumed he’d been through.  But the tell-tale signs weren’t there.  Sometimes the head injury could be purely internal caused by the sudden deceleration of impact with the wall.  While the safety harness keeps the body still, the brain can keep moving inside the skull and literally fracture it from the inside out.  Another tell-tale sign would be the extent of the harness marks on the body.

She stepped back to pick up her shears to start cutting the clothing loose.  She looked again.  There was too much blood for an internal head wound.  She could also see evidence of a shattered leg that had bled out.  It didn’t explain the blood patterns on the chest area.  Unless the rescue team had picked up blood from the leg on their hands then transferred it to the chest area as they extracted Travis Hinckley from the smoking wreck of the number fifty-three.

Returning to the table, she carefully cut his race suit and fire proof undershirt away.  As she expected, the body was covered with welts and bruises from a series of severe impacts.  She suspected cracked ribs as well as the shattered leg.  Extensive and painful injuries for sure, but she hadn’t seen anything so far that would have been fatal.  Following up on her deceleration theory, she bent closer to examine the harness marks.

The bruises down the right side of the chest were consistent with the harness cutting into it from the impact, but in her experience it didn’t look severe enough to induce the sort of deceleration that would produce a fatal head injury.

She switched to the marks on the left.

There seemed to be a lot of dried blood obscuring the strap bruising.  She gently swabbed it away.  She couldn’t believe what she thought she saw.  A wound that was all too familiar from her days working in an inner city emergency room, but not one that she expected to find here under these circumstances.

At the edge of the harness bruise there was a puncture wound, just over the heart, partly hidden in the discoloration of the skin caused by the bruising.  But this wasn’t a puncture caused by a piece of flying metal from the car; the edges were too clean.  To confirm her suspicions, she leaned closer.  Just above the wound was a small bruise, perfectly circular and about one inch in diameter.  Curious to be sure, but not what she was looking for.

She discovered it in the area immediately surrounding the wound.  Around its periphery was a distinct area of discoloration in the shape of the pommel from a knife handle.

Catherine West stepped back and looked down at the body of Travis Hinckley.  One question spun through her mind.

“How do you get a fatal stab wound driving a car.  At close to 200 miles an hour.  In the middle of a race?”

to be continued....

"Death In The Draft" and all associated characters are (c) Alan J. Porter, 2006-2007

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