short story billy bob

Creative writing

Damon 9\17\09

Billy the Rally Racer

Billy bob had two goals in life. One was to become a professional rally racer and the other was to be a stunt man for a movie at least once. Both of which were very far reaches for a 25 year old hick stuck in the deep woods of West Virginia. He was a woodsy from birth. He grew up on a 300 acre farm that had 200 acres of corn and the rest was woods. With the closest town a good 30 min drive on a dirt pothole invested road. And the town itself was only a gas station, grocery store, liquor store, a diner, town hall/police station/ fire department and a school. There were only about 800 people in Saltlick County so no one was an unknown. If you lived in Saltlick County you never left, ever. And no one would ever think of moving to Saltlick County.

Billie’s childhood involved nothing more than playing in the fields, roaming the woods and observing the awesomeness of his uncle at work. His uncle, John was the car mechanic of the town. He had decked out one of the old barns at the Bob’s family farm into a car shop. There were piles of old cars, broken down dirt bikes, quads, tractors, snowmobiles, dishwashers, refrigerators, any kind of machine that had broken down in the last 10 years in the county ended up right there. Billie learned nothing from going to school; rather he went to workshop school 7 days a week with his uncle. He would try to fix weedwackers, blenders or any super simple contraption that had a motor when he first started off at age 12. but his real passion was to one day know enough to break down a car completely and put it all back to gather. No instructions necessary. As he grew up he would move to more and more complicated things. Each spring would bring a new machine. From weedwackers to push mowers to tractors, dirt bike, quad, and then at age 16 he was approved by his uncle to be a full time mechanic at the shop.

Billy wasn’t too pleased with working in the shop all the time because he had plans of his own. Rally racer and stunt man. But through deep thought he realized that this could be his ticket in. a rather ingenious plan. Whenever a car would come in for a repair Billy would fix whatever the problem was as fast as he could, then do some research on that particular car to see what parts of it where known to be the best out of all cars. Once he found out the cars most respected part he would take it out. And replace it with a shotty one from one of the cars in the scrap pile. For example, say a Ford f150 came in for a realignment of its wheels. Billy would fix it as fast as possible, then slyly ask john what he though the best part of a Ford f150 was. Say it was the power steering system. Billy would then continue the conversation with john as to not make him suspicious of why he asked. Later that nigh Billy would rush out to the garage with a headlamp and spend hours of the night tearing out the power steering of the Ford and replacing it with another one out of the pile.

Now he had to be very carful with this whole operation because, A. it was a small town and if caught he would never be let back in the county. B. his family would be frowned upon for ever and they would frown on him. And C. its just plain illegal. How ever Billy’s commitment to his dream he would go to any lengths to achieve his master plan for success. Thankfully john’s shop was somehow very well known in the next closest town. The next town of Uniontown was a big one and although Billy had never been there he knew that the people there were not motor heads. Therefore the odds were good that they wouldn’t notice if there cars were not running quite as smooth as it was before the sent it to the shop for whatever reason. All they were worried about was that there brakes weren’t shaking.

Billy figured that if he could get away with this for a few years that he could have enough random high quality parts to make a crappy old car into a turbo charged racing machine.

It turned out that a few years turned into 10. It’s been 10 years since Billy Bob stated his epic plan to create an armature rally car. And after 25 years of living at home in saltlick County he was ready to open his eyes to the rest of the world and show them all that he is the next pro rally racer. He had saved up a huge pile of cash to hit the road and check himself into the closest rally race in Cumberland Maryland. He bought a big truck to haul the rally car and to eat, sleep and live in for the next few years or until he made enough cash off the race business to buy an RV.

Today was the big day. As Billy said good bye and good riddance to his home town he thought about all that little community had done for. Him but it was a brief thought. Because that town had held back his dreams for too many years. And now he was finally on his way to happiness. He arrived in Cumberland MD to see huge crowds of people all over the place. It turns out that this weekend had multiple events going on. Right now was the hair scramble dirt bike race. Then tomorrow would be the main event, the rally. After watching the bikers fly through the section of town that was part of the track for a brief moment he located the registration booth for the races. Without hesitation he threw down the 300 bucks it cost to be in the sport class race. He had full confidence he would win that money back along with another 700 on top of that. For 10 years he had been practicing on the Bob’s farm, making tracks threw the woods, each spring making them harder and harder, deeper mud pits, sharper turns bigger jumps. He was prepared for any kind of race track they could lay on him. No obstacle could scare him, nothing. If they had to cross a raging river no problem he had done it a thousand times. A pit with 3 feet of drowning mud or a jump so long you cant see the landing until you’ve been in the air for 100 feet, it was all a breeze.

After a peaceful night sleep in the back of his car. He was well rested for the big race. With his confidence through the roof he showed up at the starting line bright and early. He ate his breakfast on the starting line in his rally racer. An hour later the organizers of the race began to show up and play around with the computers in the observation booth. Still Billy was not one bit nervous. A good 2 hours after he had first gotten to the staring line the other cars started to emerge. There were 23 cars total. 23 cars on the track all at once. 23 cars to cut you off, screw with your line, distract you and block your view. But still Billy remained totally confident and not one bit nervous. Billy had a choice of doing this, it was one that he had been thinking of for a long time. When he was young he had dreamed of this and now he his there, the feeling is surreal. His emotions were rushing through him with the same speed that he wishes to go in his race. The main emotion he was feeling was success. He had made it to his dream.

Once everyone was settled down on the starting line the commentator did the classic “Racers start your engines” and everyone quickly fired their ignitions and began revving up. Billy plugged in his cassette player, pressed play and turned the volume all the way to the top. It was a cassette of the greatest pump up rock songs of the 80’s. The first song was We Will Rock You, clearly the best choice for track 1. one the intro to the song was over Billy strapped into his race seatbelt a put on his helmet. He figured all he had to do was imagine that he was back at the farm on his own track. He thought he could fool his brain into thinking that he already new the race course. But the problem was he didn’t.

The gun fired signaling the start of the race. All 23 cars sprang to life. Their tires all spun and squealed for a second before collecting the friction and flew off the line. There’s no skill involved in getting out front in the beginning of one of these races. As long as you know how to shift a car you’re as good as everyone else. What makes the difference is the car. Some are just plain faster. Billy had about average acceleration in his ride. So he was right around the middle of the crowd. Once the first turn comes is when you can instantly figure who is going to be some real competition and who should have stayed at home. Billy definitely should not have stayed home.

The first turn was a tricky one. Right at the apex of the turn was the transition from pavement to dirt. Billy cam in super hot just like everyone else around him and then everyone had to slam the breaks once they saw the dirt. The guys in front with the super fast cars were in for trouble. Didn’t have nearly enough space to slow down to avoid hitting the barricade. So 7 cars in front of the main pack slid into the jersey and piled up. The 2 second gap was enough for everyone else to realize what needed to be done. The peloton came in much slower and made the transition/ turn super easy. Billy came on the inside just as fast as the guys on the outside of the turn. If he could keep the traction he could pass everyone and be in the lead. But his wheels were spinning too fast and he slid across the turn bumping into the guys on the outside of the turn. They were all shaken up from it but were able to avoid crashing into the barricade.

Once through the first turn there was a dirt straight-away wide enough for 4 cars. This was where everyone would get resituated on the track and prepare for the next turn. Billy pinned it. Not paying any attention to the other cars around him he went as fast as his car would let him go. He and 2 others were pretty much all tried for first at this point one man to his left and one to his right. The next turn was a right had turn. Billy was planning on slowing down well before the turn then gunning it through the turn while staying in the middle of the track the whole time. The man to his left was a bit ahead of him. About 1.5 car lengths. And the man to his right was just barley behind him. 50 feet before the turn Billy hit the brakes. The racer on his left didn’t slow down until in the turn then he power slid. Billy got to the beginning of the turn and gunned it again. He was going to swing wide then cut back across the inside of the turn. But as soon as he started his plan of execution he notice what the outside guy was doing. He hadn’t slowed down and now Billy was heading, at speed, right for him. Billy t-boned the car at 30 miles an hour. Once he bounced off that car he tried to correct his steering to stay on the track but he over corrected and started heading towards the inside of the turn where the 3^rd place car was. And bam he hit the inside car at and angel causing Billy’s car to flip onto its side and off the track. The thoughts that were running through Billy’s head had no direction of what was going to happen next but of how hard he had worked to get it to that race, to be on the track. Billy was just happy that all off his hard work had paid off and he made it. No matter what happened next. The car, still going about 25, slid off into the woods and cracked into a huge tree. The impact crushed the roof of the car in 2 feet right on top of Billy’s head. Crushing his neck and crumpling his back. Billy was dead on the spot.