2008 Barber Vintage Festival
Race Report

Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Alabama

The following report is by Charlie Steinman at the Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, Alabama

So there I was . . .

Late Monday night after the racing was over.

Rolling west on Interstate 20. 10:00 p.m. The blazing Sun had swept westward ahead of the truck and dropped to the western horizon burning into my face for hours across Louisiana. Now I was back in Texas. It always feels good being back in Texas. Don't know why . . .

. . . 700 miles into the straight-thru haul back to Austin from the Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham. 170 miles to go to reach Austin. Only 170 miles further. Home. Just entering the Dallas eastern suburbs. Interstate 20 had just expanded from four lanes to six lanes.

Then in the dark humming truck cab the little orange symbol on the truck's dashboard showing a flat tire with an exclamation ! clicks bright and blinking . . .

So there I was . . .

Three days earlier in the paddock at Barber.

Just before dawn on Friday morning and it's raining steady. Not hard. But steady. It's supposed to be a practice day on the track. There will be no time on the track in this rain for me. Just too wet for me. Oh some maniacs will rise and go out in the rain. But not me. I hate trying to ride fast on a wet surface. What's the point? Without race pace on a track it's a waste of $10 per gallon race fuel.

But I'm thinking more about the two old friends whom I know are rising in hotel rooms somewhere near, dressing, and then driving through the rain to the track. I'm thinking about them, all during the gleeful running to-and-fro in the dark pre-dawn rain to make coffee in an electric brewer, on a wet folding chair, at the wet plug on the outside of the men's restroom, using water from the tap at the sink in the men's restroom.

So I stand in a dry spot under the canopy smiling and sipping a cup of that hot good coffee anxiously waiting to see their friendly faces once again. Joy rising slowly with the anticipation. And the Sun's rising light slowly spreads in the grey sky . . . and the gentlest of Alabama morning rainfalls lives, hissing all around . . .

So there I was . . . Three days later, Monday night rolling west on that midnight Interstate highway near Dallas . . .

I did not want to enter the continuous construction zone that is Dallas and have to deal with a flat tire in the middle of the night with a trailer rig on the side of the highway. Ahead glowing at the top of an exit is one of those sprawling truck-stop-showers-motel-fuel-repairs-grocery-restaurant places. They only put facilities of such a massive scale in the Mid West and out in America’s Great Desert. And in New Jersey. So I limp the truck up the exit ramp and pull into the truck stop parking area that is lit brighter than the surface of the Sun.

Roll to a gentle stop under a tall humming cluster of iodine lamps. The truck goes silent. I could sleep right now. I feel it. But I can’t let myself. Got to be at work in Austin first thing in the morning. So I climb out of the truck into the perpetual daytime midnight truck stop air.

Sure enough . . . right rear tire on the truck is almost flat, and dropping fast. Broken valve stem. I can feel the air hissing out. Thank God for the technology that lit that flat tire exclamation ! dashboard light.

So I commence digging out the jack and the complicated fold-up handle and then cranking down the spare tire on a cable crank thingy and crawling under the rear of the truck placing the jack under the axle.

While on my back on the cooling concrete under the rear of the truck, I notice an old and worn pair of red Converse All Star tennis shoes walking up to the truck from across the parking lot. The shoes stop about 10 feet away from the flat tire. In the shoes are a pair of spindly, scabby, middle-aged, white male legs. No socks.



So there I was . . .

Barber Saturday morning.

People. People everywhere. Good friends, smiles, renewed meetings, quiet chats under the canopy about their travel and the event and the bikes.

New meetings of new friends people known on the internet just seeing a face, feeling a hand.

Time. Waiting. Waiting. First call for the race before ours. Time to get into the leathers. Second call for the race before ours. Third call . . . First call for our race . . . sitting beside the bike. Everything outside begins to fade, to just go away. No people. No crowds. The constant droning loud speaker voice drifts away . . . nothing but that pavement out there . . . shift points . . . braking points . . . the speed is everything . . . blood pressure goes up . . . breathing goes up . . . the speed is quiet . . . waiting . . . quiet waiting . . . second call for our race . . . helmet on . . . it’s quiet and calm in there . . . smells like race time in there . . . slip the gloves quietly and carefully on . . . the waiting is finally over . . .



So there I was . . .

Two days later, Monday night out on that midnight parking lot at a truck stop near Dallas . . .

I finish placing the jack, crank it up tight against the axle and shimmy myself out from under the back of the truck.

I look up from laying on the pavement at the owner of the red tennis shoes, and into a semi-bearded, unclean face straight from The Grapes of Wrath.

The man, wearing dirty cut-off jeans and a slept-in tee shirt nods his head, one corner of his mouth forms a smile but his eyes don't smile, and he says: "Howdy, mister . . . got a coupla dollars for gas money for a fellow Christian traveler?"

So I slowly stand and straighten-up using the bumper for help, stiff-backed, weary to the bone from adrenaline-pumped wrestling the bike out on the track for three days, packing the rig, a sleepless night, driving the rig for 16 hours, and now crawling around under a truck in a parking lot . . .

So there I was . . .

Barber Sunday afternoon.

First call, second call, in the leathers and helmet, and now finally back on the bike riding slowly through the paddock to warm the engine . . . somewhere outside the helmet the announcer rings out third call for our race . . . don’t hear it . . . only hear the engine . . . every stroke of that engine . . . alone in the helmet . . . no more waiting . . . blood pumping . . . breathing deep and fast . . . don’t notice the other guys at pit-in . . . Ken speaks into his headphone . . . left hand up rolls his finger in the air and it’s show time no more waiting . . .

An AHRMA race is about 880 seconds long for a mid-pack rider at Barber. A racer lives fully inside each of those seconds up, down, throttle hard, brake-straining . . . faster, faster, faster, never enough throttle never enough brake......and then after a lifetime and just a moment . . . the checkered flag and it’s over...

. . .blood pumps slower . . . breathing shallows and slows . . . the world starts to come back through the helmet visor . . . people . . . people all around . . .there’s a crowd here . . . back around the track one last time into pit-in up into the paddock pull under the canopy stop the idling bike from rolling close my eyes for a moment just one more sweet moment inside the helmet astride that loud, loud bike . . . then lean forward and shut off the bike.

. . . the crowd noise is back the droning announcer is back . . . and the waiting starts all over again . . .

So there I was . . .

One day later, Monday night out on that midnight parking lot at a truck stop near Dallas . . .

I consider slipping the guy a dollar to get rid of him but on a whim I say: "No. But I've got a twenty for you if you help me change that tire. I've already got the jack under the axle and I’ll do the cranking. You just break those bolts and tighten the new tire on. It'd sure help me out."

I look into his face, his eyes. There's no spark there. He's somewhere between age 40 and age 70. Gaunt. We’ve all seen a face and eyes like his in grainy civil war photos . . . faces like his in black-and-white photos from the Great Depression. His voice is southern, Mid West. Probably Oklahoma or North Texas. I think I catch a glimpse behind his eyes of desperation, there's a whiff of the vacantness of heroin in there. His hands are not strong, not calloused. Shoulders slumped . . .

He looks at the flat tire. Then at the spare tire. Makes a quick calculation. I hear his shoes squeak and some pocket change jingle as he shifts his feet. Arms hang limply at his sides fingers move slightly. He just shakes his head and says: "Mister I ain't looking to change no tire, I just want a coupla dollars for gas money".

There's no Shame in this man. I was hoping for more, I guess.

So I say: "Well, Steinbeck could have written a whole novel around that sentence you just said."

And I turn and shift my attention and I pick up the jack handle from the pavement . . . really to have something hard in my hand with this guy standing so near. I kneel, and start using the jack handle to break the lug nuts on that rear tire.

The guy says: "Huh?" and he stands watching for a few more seconds, then asks: "So how about the coupla dollars, mister?"

I don't look up but as I slowly work the lug nuts I'm watching his shadow under those street lamps and I say: "You're seeing me changing this tire myself aren't you?", and the statement hangs there in the night and the seconds tick and the big june bugs ping into the glass of the humming light fixtures far above and somewhere on the vast parking lot a big rig fires up . . .

The guy's shadow then just turns and walks away, not slow, not fast, he just wanders away . . . I turn my eyes and watch the guy's back disappear into the vast truck stop parking lot, leaving me to consider the encounter while I use the last of the energy reserves I had been saving to drive the remaining 170 miles of Central Texas construction zone . . . to break the bolts, crank the truck up, place the new tire, tighten the bolts, crank the whole thing back down, and then clean up the mess.

During the subsequent three-hour haul down I.H.-35 through the star-pricked Texas night, I'm wondering at what point Shame leaves a man. How is it possible for a man to live a life walk a path and at some point along that path to simply drop Shame and leave it behind?

And what a huge gaping hole that must leave in a man because it seems to me that when a man leaves Shame behind he also leaves Pride lying right beside it.

Waiting...

More photos from Barber Motorsports Park

This feature originally appeared in November 2008 - Updated: 06/21/10