"So let me get this straight." the forest green Gran Fury squinted into the sunlight, trying to see his friend through the glare. "Through some weird chain of events, you get shot, Mother Theresa de la Chrysler starts letting you in and out of the gate, and the first thing you do is fly two hours straight here?"
"Where else was I supposed to go?" Strip shrugged. "I've never been outside the gate before."
Wayne laughed and shook himself in disbelief. "It's good to see you, man. Even at the crack of dawn on a Saturday. Come on in."
Strip followed his old best friend into the small house, still jittery from the excitement of the trip. Flying under the cover of night, he was able to make the trip from Michigan to North Carolina in nearly no time at all. The air had been so fresh and pure up above those clouds his general distaste for flying seemed to vanish. And the roads! After he'd landed, the roads he'd driven on to get to Wayne's countryside home were beautiful. They wove in and out of the mountains and were excellent for sport driving. Despite not getting an ounce of sleep the night before, Strip was wide awake with excitement. Everything felt so new.
"Yeah so this is the living room. That's the kitchen. That's my room over there. Oh, and a guest room that's completely empty. That's about it – the grand tour." Wayne pointed out.
Strip looked around and wondered what he would do with a space this big. "I can't believe you're out on your own already. It's been what, less than a year since you were adopted?"
"Yeah." he shrugged. "I had things I wanted to do. I played my cards right and was able to move out pretty quickly. My parents were okay. We still talk sometimes, but I like being independent."
Strip nodded, turning back from his brief tour to face his friend, who was intently looking at him. A few seconds passed where neither of them said anything.
"You know, now that I'm here, I honestly have no clue what to do." Strip admitted.
"Impulsive as ever." Wayne cracked a smile. "Well lucky for you, I actually have stuff lined up for this weekend. And now, you're gonna tag along. You need socializin'."
"Alright, what's the plan?"
"I think you'll like it."
Later that afternoon they drove into the nearby town to meet up with one of Wayne's college friends at a bar near where they worked. The company they worked for seemed to be the only real business in the town. There was one tall building with a 'Dinoco' marquee illuminating the top on the outskirts of a lazy small town. Strip thought it funny that such a big name company would have an office way out in the middle of nowhere.
The name of the bar was the Slim Trim, a little hole-in-the-wall type pub in a refurbished grain silo. It stood on the edge of a field right across the road from the imposing Dinoco building, and seemed popular. Strip followed Wayne inside to a table in the back corner where a Cadillac no older than they were awaited them.
"Hey, Tex." Wayne hailed the golden car as he approached the table. "Got someone I want ya to meet."
The Cadillac looked up from his drink and acknowledged Wayne's presence with a subtle nod and a warm smile. His paint seemed to shimmer when he moved under the amber light, contrasting with the rustic nature of his cowhide vinyl top and the bull horns attached to his grille.
"Tex, this is my friend from way back in the factory days, Strip Weathers. Strip, this is Tex Dinoco, heir to Dinoco Enterprises." Wayne introduced them with a bit of his usual unneeded extravagance.
"A friend." Tex humbly corrected him as he looked at Strip. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise." Strip responded, moving slightly to the side to make room for a waitress bringing them drinks.
"Hello, darlin'." she winked at Wayne as she set their drinks in front of them.
"Hey there, sweet pea." his tone immediately changed into something much softer. "Aimee, this my friend Strip I've told you about. Strip, this is my girlfriend, Aimee."
"Oh, the racecar?" the grey Imperial asked, looking at Strip and gesturing enthusiastically. "Oh, he's told me all about you."
Strip tensed a little, but remembered his place. "Ma'am." he replied respectfully.
"Hey, so business is crazy today, but I'm off at five." she announced, more toward Wayne and Tex. "We can leave right after I clock out."
"We'll be here." Wayne told her.
She gave him a flirty little nudge in the side as she turned to tend to her other tables. The moment she was gone, Strip glared at Wayne.
"You didn't tell me you were datin' someone." he said.
You better not have told her anything sensitive was the message Wayne received, and rightfully so. Wayne was the only car outside the factory that knew Strip's secret, but despite first impressions, the Fury was incredibly intelligent. He wouldn't let information like that just slip out, even to someone he was close to.
"I haven't told her everything." Wayne quickly corrected, trying to stay as vague as possible with Tex listening. "Just that you wanted to be a racer, that's all."
Strip relaxed a little, reassured, and took a drink. He trusted Wayne, and always had, but he couldn't deny his paranoia about being discovered. He'd give anything to be like them, normal.
Well, the first step towards that is socializing, right?
"So tell me, how exactly did you two meet?" Strip asked his current company. "I find it hard to believe my boy Wayne here just drove up to a Dinoco and said 'let's be friends'."
Tex chuckled gave Wayne a look. "Well, you ain't too far off there."
"You are way off, dude." Wayne corrected, throwing an accusatory glance back at him.
"Naw, see, we majored in the same thing in school." Tex waved Wayne's disapproval away. "We worked together a lot, did a couple projects, and became friends. Managed to get him a position at the old man's company afterwards. Simple as that."
"A good position, too." Wayne added matter-of-factly.
"It was the least I could do." Tex dismissed. "Whenever the company's mine, I hope I have a whole lotta cars like you there."
"So you're really gonna inherit it?" Strip asked, trying to figure how big the company really was. It had to be the biggest major oil company in America – to think that someone his age already had that sort of business lined up and with promising future was otherworldly.
"That's what my old man wants." Tex shrugged. "I'm in no hurry, though. Still got a lot to learn about it."
"In the meantime, we're gonna make him pay the tab." Wayne said to Strip. "Ain't that right, Tex?"
"Yeah, sure." Tex agreed with a nonchalance only found in those with unholy amounts of money. "But anyhow. You're a racer, huh?"
"Uh." Strip faltered, not expecting to be put on the spot. "No, not really. That's just kinda a dream."
Tex narrowed his eyes as if he suspected a lie. "So you're tellin' me you wear that spoiler for kicks?"
"I wear it because I can assure you it doesn't come off." Strip retorted a bit defensively. He liked his spoiler, even if it did look funny at times. It was more practical than it seemed.
"The most aerodynamic car of the decade, and you ain't even milkin' it for what it's worth." Tex deduced. "What's holdin' you back?"
Strip glanced at Wayne, who looked ever so slightly uncomfortable. It was clear Tex had no idea where he'd come from or what the circumstances of his visit were.
"I, uh, I'm still stuck at the factory up in Michigan. Workin' for them now." Strip explained. It wasn't a lie, necessarily.
"Sounds like a dead end job to me." Tex commented, the gears starting to turn in his mind.
"You could call it that."
Wayne cleared his throat, directing their attention back to him as he finished his drink. "So. We got three hours before the fairgrounds open. What're we gonna go? I could sit here and get snockered now, or I could save it for later. I think I wanna save it for later."
Tex's gaze fell and his brow furrowed as he thought. "You boys up for a little drive? I wanna see somethin'."
A couple phone calls and a half hour later, the three of them were sitting at the end of pit row at the deserted Motor Speedway of the South. There wasn't another soul in the place aside from the forklift equipping Strip with a brand new set of racing tires.
"Are you sure this is okay?" Strip asked Tex as the forklift finished tightening the lugnuts on his left rear wheel.
"Absolutely." the Caddy said with a grin. "Now I want you to show me what you got."
Strip looked ahead of him. The banked turns looked so much steeper in person than they had on the television. He could see the grooves in the track where the racers – real racers! – had worn the asphalt down. For a moment, the quiet sound of the wind through the empty stadium erupted into the roars of fans, and the voices of commentators excitedly announcing a close finish in the making.
"Earth to Weathers." Wayne called to him as he hesitated. "Come in, wing boy. Tex, I think you broke him."
"Well?" Tex asked. "We drove all this way."
Strip snapped back to reality and blinked a couple times. There it was again, the wide open track, and no one around to stop him. He rolled forward, across the line, and up onto the lower groove of the track. He started to accelerate slowly – sixty, seventy miles an hour. He started to feel the downforce his spoiler provided pushing his rear wheels into the pavement. Something clicked.
He rocketed out onto the straightaway, following his groove to the outside, pressing himself for more and more speed. It was exhilarating. The gradient of the banks stopped feeling so steep as his body pressed against it, seemingly altering the force and direction of gravity. This really was what he was built for.
Three laps in and he was flirting with two hundred miles an hour. He'd seen Bobby Isaac break that very barrier not too long ago, and here he was on a track going as fast as the instant legend. Since most real races were run at around 180, he didn't push himself any harder. He didn't need to. His new engine felt great, screaming as it laid the horsepower to the track. Every last bit of this felt so incredibly natural.
He came out of turn two and saw Wayne had taken to the track for fun. Strip grinned and positioned himself to pass on the inside. Wayne wasn't just any Plymouth Fury – he was a Sport Fury GT, equipped with the 440 and everything. There had been a couple racers just like him on this track, so the potential existed if he wanted to tap into it. Wayne was a businesscar, however, and comfortably cruised at around one-forty.
"I thought the Rapid Transit System was supposed to be fast?" Strip goaded as he zipped by.
Wayne told him to 'get lost' in considerably coarser language, watching that tail fin dive into turn three. It was bittersweet, watching his old friend having the time of his life. He knew it was unlikely Strip would ever get to race professionally. Heck, he'd probably wouldn't get to live long enough to do any job professionally. But that's what made that moment so great. At least for this short period, he could give his life-long friend the experience he's always wanted.
Strip let himself have a couple more laps before reining it in and swinging back into pit row. He approached Tex with a revitalized eagerness to race. Tex nodded in approval as he rolled to a stop and cut his engine.
"Not bad at all." Tex said as if his mind was drifting elsewhere. "Y'ain't even winded."
"That was…" he struggled to find the right word. Incredible? Awesome? Exhilarating? It had been all those things and so much more.
"Fitting." Tex finished for him. "You sure that was your first time on a track?"
"Yeah." Strip said, looking back down pit row, imagining coming in for a stop, just to get back out there and race more. Dreams were made of that stuff.
"Huh." the Cadillac seemed too lost in thought to contribute anything else.
"Would you take a look at this guy?" Wayne finally drove up with a conniving half-smile, reaching out and hitting Strip in the side with his front right tire. "What'd you think?"
"Do you have to ask?" Strip responded. "Man, I – I've never felt anythin' like that before."
"Yeah, I thought so." his friend said more sincerely. "Glad you enjoyed it."
"While we're here, you boys want a tour of the grounds?" Tex asked, surfacing from his considerations. "Ain't every day you get a race track to yourself."
Strip nodded enthusiastically. Wayne shrugged.
"Why not? Then after that we'll head back home and watch tonight's entertainment."