Stories
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They had a second car which only needed a driver of which I was to be. Midgets used expensive Offenhauser engines, which these guys could not afford, or '38 Ford flatheads of which mine was the latter. They used the money to microflux the crank shaft, (check for cracks), harden the bearings, and balance the crank, rods and pistons, and paint the body. I remember dice. These cars were small and were usually raced on one-mile clay tracks with a lot of sliding through the corners like dirt track stock cars.
We had a falling out. I got tired of sitting around waiting for the machines to empty and wanted to learn how to repair and set them up, which I started to do. The first thing I did was install longer filler-tubes so the machines would run longer between refills, thus being down less often and they would produce more. It was said by Shorty and the plant foreman that the oil-pressure would not be strong enough to push more rondels through and I was wasting my time. That did not make sense to me so I went ahead and it worked, and I was a hero with the bosses. No pay raise but what the Hey. But when I started repairing the machines Shorty got mad and said I was taking his job, which was the last thing I wanted. I was bored and just wanted to learn. He even quit for a couple of weeks over it. He was getting really lazy anyway and always out in the other room and neglecting his work. Would have thought I was doing him a favor. That was our falling out. About the only thing I got out of the race car thing was a trip to Florida.
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