Kirjahaku

I loved racing before I ever met any racers. Yet it's the racers, the people involved in racing, the drivers, the car owners, the track owners, even the media, that have kept me coming back. It's been people like the late Paul Dunigan, the supermodified car-owner who flaunted his supposed unfair advantage over the competition in these, the fastest cars racing on shorttracks. "You can't compete? Go race street stocks," he'd tell you. It's people like the Astles, a band of brothers and sons whose Saturday night speedway-saga goes on still. And it's even folks like the sorry dads who hitch a wagon to their kid hoping to ride it all the way to big-league racing, even if their kid is more into superheroes than superspeedways. Or the moron who went to one race and decided - brace yourself - that we're all there for the crashes. Or the guy who called me out because I wouldn't accuse a competitor of a bush move from my seat a football field away. They've all been fun. So has the racing. Doing it, too. My own misadventures have only added to our affair. This is a collection of my favorite of those relationships, experiences and observations from over a quarter-century around racing. Enjoy them again.

Tony Stella is bored stiff. He lives in the Golden Acres Residential Community, an "old-folks" home he calls "the waiting room to heaven." He hates it. He longs for some excitement, and he knows where he'll find it; Spring Valley Speedbowl, where he was a multi-time champion as a racecar builder and driver. He decides he'll build a new car - a new car built the same old way as the late models he drove to his championships. But Tony knows he's too old to drive, so he signs Dale Hammond, a high school kid who's just won rookie-of-the-year honors in the track's late model division - before losing the high-buck, ultra-modern late model ride that took him to the title. Can the young gun and the old warrior team up so that Dale can avenge being dumped and Tony can avoid making bingo the most exciting thing he does all day? Can the two find a common ground between the past and the future? And what's Santa got to do with it?

You know those "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" essays teachers always give students as a new school year begins? Well, Jason Merlo finally has something to write about. He went motocrossing. Starting out in the novice class for newcomers, Jason shows how serious he is about racing. With the help of two new racing buds he learns what it takes to go fast in this brutally demanding sport. He also proves that hard work pays off, as he gets faster almost every race. Soon he's running neck and neck against the fastest guys in his class, "guys" turning out to be a much more general term than he originally thought. His success on his Honda motocrosser goes beyond what he'd even hoped for. Yet as obsessed as Jason is with motocross, it's a new friendship with an old flat-track racer that gives him his biggest thrill - and surprise - of the summer.

To Thom Ring, the most interesting people are the ones with the most challenging lives. The laborer in the dead-end job, the downtrodden, the disabled, the defeated, the down on their luck; they are the focus of this short-story collection. Ring shares memorable moments in these forgotten lives, some good, some bad, but all of them real.

Tyler Means would love to race any kind of car he could get his hands on, but with his dad confined to a wheelchair and unable even to work, his family is struggling just to pay the bills. Then Tyler finds an old race kart in a pile of scrap metal. The adventure comes as Tyler tries to turn the kart into a competitive racer again, even though he has little money and even less of an idea how to do it.

HENRY HITS THE BALL is the story of Henry Brademeier, who can hit a baseball better than anyone who's ever played the game. And can't tie his own shoes. When major-league scout Lou Esposito discovers Henry taking cuts with a local high school team, he initiates a great adventure for the intellectually-challenged young man, who's never even been away from home. Henry's own aspirations don't extend much beyond getting more chances to hit a baseball. The young men he joins as a rookie in the Chicago White Sox organization want nothing less than a lifetime in the sport. Most find the success of that retarded kid difficult to accept. How these players and coaches deal with this strange young man as he unwittingly redefines the dark science of hitting a baseball is the story HENRY HITS THE BALL tells.