Race Day Narrative

June 30, 2016, 10:30 AM, Greenwoods Camp for Boys, Decatur, MI 49045
It was a hot and sunny day after a dark and stormy night. I was headed to riflery class with my friends, Doug, Ryan, and Quin. Upon arriving at riflery class, reeling my paper bullseye target out, and taking my firing position under the overhang, I was set to shoot my first bullseye. The blue mat made my shooting more comfortable to ensure that I would shoot well; I shot my first bullseye that day. Quin shouted, “WHAT IS THIS?!” Doug, Ryan, Quin, and I found ourselves in a colossal wormhole bright enough to almost blind us. We had suddenly been transported. We were all our nineteen-year-old selves. Shocked, I exclaimed, “That was tougher than a 400 IM!”
May 17, 1946, 1:48 PM, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, IN 46222
Amid the blur, I found myself

seven decades in the past, at a familiar place. By seeing the bricks, smelling the scent of hot oil, and listening to the loud engines, I knew it was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I then found Doug, Ryan, and Quin nearby. They had for me a modified 1993 McLaren MP4-8 chassis equipped with a 2013 Renault engine with two turbochargers. Quin told me, “This Renault’s got twin turbos, and we’ve beefed up her compression ratio to 20:1. Her engine makes about 750 horsepower normal, but here this baby’s gonna hit a megawatt easily.” Greeting our gang appropriately, a mysterious young lady said, “There is a time traveling race car driver named Dr. Bernd Rocciola who is attempting to bomb the first three cars at the immediate moment the winner crosses the finish line if you don’t win. According to the Pact of Felice and Biagio Nazzaro, you are responsible. You must win.” Quin, the automotive expert I met back in 2015 at Greenwoods Camp, found a car relatively unaccustomed to the time period. I vividly remembered that all but two qualifying cars were constructed prior to World War II because of the resulting metal shortages. Apart from our car, it was the only futuristic racing special fabricated after the “Rear-Engine Revolution”. Although the rear-engined German Auto Unions were dominant in Europe before the war, the rear-engined revolution in America would not occur for 15 years. Dr. Rocciola had the most powerful car ever built in F1 history - the Benetton B186 - under his belt. Qualifying was due to start at noon, and time was scarce for preparations!
May 25, 1946, 5:27 PM
Dr. Rocciola won the pole position a week before this, on May 17. A frantic Doug cried, “We only have another day to qualify! If our car isn’t fixed, the Speedway is dead for sure! I knew that Ralph Hepburn would qualify his Novi Governor Special, one of only two postwar cars to qualify, at 133 miles per hour, astounding the crowd. However, to qualify was relatively easy in 1946 with our McLaren MP4/8. I told them that “In the Forties, a few friends could build a racer, take it to Indianapolis, and qualify for the 500. Those are US!” As we frantically prepared our car, it was nearly the 6PM deadline for all qualifiers and the line was nearly vacant - only two cars were out to qualify at 5:40. Waiting anxiously for my revolutionary qualifying attempt, my pulse rose as I pulled on my helmet and spare goggles. I had already shod myself in my futuristic Nomex coveralls when I climbed aboard my McLaren-Renault. Upon the signal from the chief steward, I took off for my third qualifying attempt. Feeling uneasy on my warmup laps, I limited the speed of my car for control’s sake. Raising my right arm, I gave official starter Seth Klein a signal that I was to start my official qualifying attempt the next lap. I deactivated the speed limiter to allow my full speed for the ten miles and challenged the Speedway legends’ records. There were more than 100,000 fans in the grandstands and infield for Bump Day, all watching me tear into the first turn. Careening through the second turn, I saw my tachometer and speedometer rising toward their redline while I was traveling 225 miles per hour. Approaching the hallowed third turn, I jammed on the brakes to slow my car to approximately 185 miles per hour. As I scaled the fourth turn, the crowd greeted me with an inaudible wall of applause while I blurred down the frontstretch at 215 miles per hour. Starting my second lap, I heard a faint “It’s a new track record! Two hundred and one point seven!” from then-new track announcer Tom Carnegie. After my first lap of 201.7 miles per hour, I lapped at 196.6, 199.3, and 202.4 miles per hour for the second, third, and fourth circuits, respectively. Kayla met me in my pit box on the track alongside an ecstatic Ryan, an elated Doug, and a delirious Quin. After patting their thighs twice, clapping twice, and snapping their fingers twice, they all shouted, “IT’S A NEW TRACK RECORD!!! TWO HUNDRED EVEN!!!!” For that swift series of seconds, I did not trust my own six senses. At the Speedway, I had a sixth sense of adrenaline.
May 30, 1946, 9:40 AM
A warm and windy Race Day arrived.

Air temperatures exceeded seventy degrees in the air, with the average thermal energy on the Speedway course averaging 100 degrees. For the 500, I had installed a thermally activated cooling system into my racing suit and my McLaren-Renault. Paralyzed in a state of panic, Doug seeked the starting grid for George Robson’s Adams-Sparks #16, the first auto with one of Dr. Rocciola’s bombs. Ryan looked for Ted Horn’s Maserati #29, once driven by Speedway sovereign Wilbur Shaw and one of the cars on which Dr. Rocciola placed a bomb. Quin was the only member of my small four-man pit crew who saw one of the fuses, panicking after returning from Jimmy Jackson’s sixth-place starting place, Jackson’s blue #61 parked there. It was twelve years old, the war forcing his team to use a reserved car due to the metal, fuel, and rubber shortages. While I was in deep conversation with Mauri Rose, another future Speedway sovereign who drove car number eight in 1946, Ryan tried to keep his emotions in, his pulse extra high. He frantically announced, “There’s a bomb in the 61!” The Gasoline Alley administration had no time to

pause.
Kayla told me, “The race is four minutes away! May whatever physics concepts you encounter be with you!” I climbed into the cramped but comfortable cockpit of my number four McLaren-Renault, bidding goodbye to Doug, Ryan, Kayla, and Quin. Stating his temporary farewell, Ryan exclaimed, “Show ‘em that the GWC Crew is the best!” In the last row, I started alongside Billy Devore and Duke Nalon. An aerial bomb exploded, and Doug activated the starter, plugging his ears. A matter of seconds later, the pace lap commenced. A lap later, the pace car peeled off of the track as we approached the front straightaway and “yard of bricks”. The starter whipped the green flag and Dr. Rocciola immediately inherited the lead. I held back, ensuring that my car would have maximum potential for the final laps.
After nine laps, I experienced the unexpected. I was leading the race, only the fans noticing that I was two minutes ahead of Mauri Rose and Ralph Hepburn. Noticing that my car was not accustomed to my aviation fuel, Quin called “Box box box box!” on my two-way radio to summon me into the pits. He realized that one of my spark plugs was defected and had burned. Despite the fact that I had trained my crew to change spark plugs, this particular pit stop took five minutes to execute. Doug noticed that Dr. Rocciola driving his Benetton-BMW #00 was battling the Kurtis-Novi number two driven by Ralph Hepburn for the lead. I reentered the race in 32nd position. However, Doug told me, “This is a test of sheer speed and we have the best car. You can destroy this. As Doc Hudson said, ‘I didn’t come all this way to see you quit.’” Careening around the track, I set new track records from every distance from one to forty laps. My single-lap record was more than 207 miles per hour! I kept breaking records, lapping the field six times in 125 laps. I had a six-lap lead over Dr. Rocciola and a 69-lap lead over the bombed cars.
Unexpectedly, Dr. Rocciola started attacking me with only twenty laps remaining. Hijacking my radio system, he told me, “Zis is a zisgrace. I shall steal your zurbozuperchargers!” On lap 185, I noticed my engine was only functioning on seven cylinders and Dr. Rocciola stole my goggles four laps later. I tiredly steered my car back into the pits. I told Kayla, “I think I can win this... if I can find what’s wrong.” Succeeding to motivate me, she replied, “There are only seven laps remaining. Take these laps like it’s a fifty free. But only this time, it’s bigger. You’ll be the immortal of the year if you win! I’ll love you unconditionally!” Ryan saw a black box that had failed after Doug and Quin replaced the front and rear wings. He told me, “Rocciola’s car has failed! The bombs are deactivated!” I gunned my car out of the pits for the final seven laps. After my last lap at a world-record 211 miles per hour, I was greeted with the checkered flag and racing immortality. My average speed of 188.2 miles per hour cremated the old record by 71 miles per hour. I stayed one more day in 1946 for the Victory Banquet and to put my money in a bank for reclaim in 2016. When I returned to Greenwoods, my winning McLaren, nicknamed “Accelerative Arlene” by others, was in the recreation lodge! But I had not missed anything in my time travel pursuits. I returned a second later, and I checked my face. It was covered with grime, indicating I had won at Indy.