The Daytona 1200

By this point I'd managed to upgrade Shadowfast from plain 1969 Mustang Mach One to something better than a 1969 Shelby GT-350 in overall performance and functionality. Even coming close to matching a GT-350's weight too, but without the Shelby's massive use of fiberglass bodywork. Shadow also had some elements in common with Boss 429 and Boss 302 Mustangs-- due to using suspension parts (and a few other things) from both. But being also lighter than those two Boss models, Shadow could be still more nimble on a twisting road than either.

So Shadow was now the automotive equivalent of an Olympic athlete-- in at least some ways. But his truly advanced road war armory of strobe lights, crash bars, tire poppers, siren, nitrous oxide, etc., etc., still lay in his future. He remained a little heavier than he'd be when all grown up too, as I hadn't yet replaced the dashboard and its innards with the custom GT-40 design in fiberglass. This meant Shadow still retained his heater core and overall larger coolant capacity. This would prove an important point in this particular run.

Despite still being technically unfinished, Shadow was already formidable contender in almost any real world road contest to be had among my crowd. And maybe any crowd of that era.

It's not uncommon for teenage boys-- even best friends-- to get into spitting contests of various sorts, and Steve and I got into one once over whose Mustang was faster in the quarter mile.

Although my mods to Shadowfast were meant for just about everything but quarter mile drags, I figured Shadow would still beat Steve's machine in such a match up.

But just as Shadow was no ordinary car, Steve was no ordinary best friend.

Steve had his own private set of keys to the local drag strip. So our little bunch might have been the only teenage boys for hundreds of miles around who could use official race equipment and real estate to settle bets or arguments of this kind at a moment's notice.

I think I mention elsewhere the hot rod shop which existed just some yards/meters away from Steve's dad's electrical shop in a little strip mall. And how Steve and I spent lots of time with the hot rod shop owner, as well as his racing friends, who all regularly competed at drag strips and round tracks both local and not.

Shadow's high rise aluminum intake may even have been a gift from the owner to me, if memory serves.

Besides connections like those, Steve had also endeared himself to the local drag strip bunch by using his electrician's skills to help solve some problems at the tracks on race days, when hundreds or thousands of spectators may have been present, and the pressure was on. I remember one night in particular-- I believe at the 4-11 raceway if I'm not mistaken-- some miles out of our hometown: that track suffered a major electrical problem which held up scheduled events for quite a while, and may be where Steve first offered his services as remedy.

I believe after that Steve worked at least a few or occasional weekends at two or more local tracks, maybe even running the whole shebang so far as managing the start of individual races and the recording of actual elapsed times from the tower.

All this is how we came to have private access to our hometown drag strip basically whenever we wanted it.

So Steve and I and several others decided one day to pit Shadow against Steve's steed of the moment.

Much as I figured he would, Shadow beat Steve's car repeatedly, in every absolute contest performed.

However, it was possible to cancel out one car's performance advantage over another by giving the slower car a carefully calculated head start during a race so that the real competition entailed driver reflexes rather than drive trains. And when we did that, Steve had won. Of course. As I've said many times and in many places, I can't match Steve's reflexes or natural driving talent.

Steve had originally possessed a spiffy 1971 green and black Mustang Boss 351. For six weeks anyway. That's when it got totaled, leaving Steve dependent for quite a while after upon me and Shadow, or borrowing the cars of either his mom or girlfriends to get around.

Eventually though Steve managed to get another Mustang. Almost a base model 1970 fastback, in everything but engine perhaps. So it was generally pretty near to Shadow's own original specs but for some cosmetic differences, and lacking most of the Mach One extras of the year older model.

The biggest difference between Shadow's original specs and Steve's 1970 Mustang was probably that Shadow possessed a 351 Windsor motor, while Steve's had a 351 Cleveland. While both possessed an identical number of cubic inches, beyond that there were considerable differences between the engines, with the Cleveland generally being considered the higher potential performer of the two, and a likely long term replacement for the Windsor design, which had seen its greatest glory days in earlier incarnations, such as the original 289 in many Mustangs, then the legendary 302 Bosses.

Steve's wrecked 351 Boss had been a 351 Cleveland too, only hot rodded some by Ford. The motor Steve now had was a plain Cleveland such as would eventually be found in various Ford family cars and other mainstream models.

But Steve had done a bit of shade tree hot rodding of his plain 1970 Cleveland, never-the-less. I believe he'd matched most of the same modest tweaks I'd done to Shadow's Windsor, in fact. Such as adding a new 4-barrel carb, hi-rise aluminum intake manifold, and headers.

Another possibly significant difference between my car and Steve's had been Steve's 1970's automatic transmission.

Shadow boasted Ford's FMX, which may actually have been an extra cost option for 1969 Shelby GT-350s of the period. Steve's 1970 may have sported a C4.

Beyond his engine mods, Steve had customized his street car to resemble a funny car dragster, with tiny VW bug-like wheels on the front and an outrageous rear spoiler which jutted straight up in the air so high behind as to block the bottom couple inches of view out his rear window. I believe his rear spoiler was a Camaro aftermarket spoiler he had a body man use to expand upon the factory standard bump spoiler his '70 Mustang fastback had come with new.

Steve had the same body man add a Boss 429 hood scoop like Shadow's to his vehicle too. Seamlessly via bondo, just like they'd done the extreme rear spoiler. But unlike Shadow's scoop, Steve's was just for show.

Steve also had his 1970 painted in green and black metallic paint to somewhat resemble his wrecked Boss, redid the interior in black with thick shag carpeting, and christened the car the Green Machine.

I think Steve's Green Machine briefly sported a Ford front spoiler too: but his tiny front wheels reduced his ground clearance so much I believe it got torn off not long after installation.

Anyway, our little race had really provided both of us with some vindication-- Steve being the better racer reflex-wise, and Shadow being the better car in the quarter-mile-- despite my insistence I hadn't designed him for quarter-mile racing but more for slaloms and trans am and le mans style performance and endurance. So there remained some dissatisfaction and tension about it all among our little crowd. For who was the true winner here?

Fortunately Steve didn't pursue it any further for several good reasons, including having a date that evening, as well as knowing that Shadow was just plain faster than his Green Machine. But still he enjoyed the continuing ruckus about it all going on in our group.

Mike Martin wasn't really one of us, but a recent new buddy of Steve's younger brother Will, who'd shown up a few times at our get-togethers lately. And the current argument seemed to excite him. Maybe he thought this would be a good chance for him to gain full membership to our inner circle; I don't know.

Mike suddenly jumped into the discussion and suggested a different sort of race between Shadow and someone else (it was already evident Steve wasn't going to participate: he'd exited the scene by then, leaving it to us to lock up).

"What kind of race?" I asked.

"A long distance race."

"To where?"

Mike thought for a moment, then said "How about Daytona Beach?"

"Daytona Beach? In Florida?" I asked incredulously (for we were standing in east Tennessee).

"Yep!"

"That's too far and would take too long. Let's do something easier and quicker than that," I objected.

"Oh, so your car can't take it huh? I thought you said you built it for endurance? Now we know the truth!"

That set Will and Red to snickering. Marco was grinning.

I, basically the second-highest ranking member in our group after Steve, was being challenged here by a hanger-on: somebody with no rank whatsoever at the moment.

"Shadow can hold his own endurance-wise," I responded, noncommittally.

"Yeah, I'll bet he holds his own," Mike sneered with teenage male sexual innuendo.

I could feel my face reddening with anger. Heck: I was still in high school, and still figuring out how best to react to some situations. So I was making plenty of mistakes, and sometimes too easily goaded into things.

"Mike, do you even own a car?" I asked him. If he did, I'd never seen it. Maybe I could disarm him that way.

"I'd drive my dad's. He's going to give it to me my next birthday."

"And you figure he'd let you drive his car in a race all the way to Florida and back?"

"Well sure!" Mike said, although he seemed to be losing confidence like a balloon with a slow leak.

I then realized a way I might fend Mike off-- or at least make the run worth my while.

"O.K., let's say you and I race, you in your dad's car and me in mine. And I win. What do I get? How much are you willing to bet that you can beat me in the round trip?"

"Bet?"

"Yeah. Bet."

Will, Red, and Marco's eyes all got a little wider now, as things were getting more interesting.

"Why...I'll bet you $100!"

I burst out laughing.

"Sorry Mike. But I'd want a lot more than a hundred bucks to beat your sorry ass. I got better things to do than sit in my car for hours just to show you whose car is the best."

Now it was Mike's turn to get red in the face.

"Oh yeah? Well how about we make it $500 then?"

Uh oh. Mike had ratcheted things up a notch. $500 may not sound like much in 2005, but in the early seventies it was a pretty good chunk of change. Even after you deducted the cost of gas required for a 1200 mile trip.

The rough 2005 equivalent to that original $500 figure would be over $2300 according to one inflation-adjustment formula.

"$500 huh?"

"Yep."

I looked to Will and the gang.

"You guys think Mike's good for a $500 bet?"

"Sure!" Red chimed in.

Will considered it a moment, then added his own affirmation. Marco too.

Nobody questioned my own credentials bet-wise, although they surely knew it'd be difficult for me to cough up $500 if I lost.

I'd never yet welched on anything to anybody that I knew of. And most of our gang was well aware I'd do my damnedest to fulfill any responsibility I took on. The flip-side of that was over time I was learning to better pick my battles, and be far more selective and circumspect in my promises. Or bragging.

Of course, at this particular moment I was still learning new lessons in this regard on a regular basis.

Shadow had proven himself too in various skirmishes with my high school peers and others. Plus, I'd learned a lot about cars in the design and build process-- as well as the skirmishes themselves.

And like all teenage boys, I sure hated to back down from a challenge.

Mike would have to borrow his dad's car for the race. It'd probably be some whale of a car (or 4-banger lemon) Shadow could outrun for good in the first mile or so. For that's what some 95% of the cars on the road consisted of. The rest of the trip would be pretty boring if Mike insisted we finish it before paying me my money.

But $500! That'd definitely be worth spending a day or two on the road for!

But before the bet could be finalized we had to work out lots of details over coming days. Like witnesses. Will, Red, and Marco all gladly volunteered. We'd both have CB radios in our cars for communications purposes. We'd both have to travel the same route.

We spent some time figuring out the race course on a map.

If waylaid by cops along the way a truce would be called until we were both extricated from any mess, and able to continue on our way.

I had a little discussion about the law with Mike in which he seemed to verge on disbelief in several spots about previous encounters Steve and I had had with them. But Will and others were able to vouch for the veracity of at least some of them.

What Mike found hard to swallow was me telling him I would likely escape rather than pull over, and how he might do the same. For instance, I told him if circumstances permitted I might get the trooper to chase me, allowing Mike and company to leave the area and pull off and wait for me at the next convenient exit (after I'd lost the pursuit), so we wouldn't have to deal with ticket problems.

Mike seemed to find the whole idea too fantastic to be true. So I just hoped whichever of the gang happened to ride with him would help him understand if the time came.

We needed some sort of absolute destination in Daytona Beach. Then whoever got to it first would get a head start for the trip back, equal to what they had upon arrival in Daytona.

The first guy there had to park and radio the others about the time and various features of the cityscape surroundings. And park very near some small landmark they could well describe over the radio to the other, which the other could then confirm themselves upon arrival.

Of course, the typical automotive CB radio didn't offer much in the way of range. So likely the best we could expect from the gadgets was the winner being able to alert the other of his achievement maybe 20 or 30 minutes before the loser arrived. Or in other words, I figured I'd have to talk to dead air for quite a while before Mike got in range to hear that I'd gotten there before him.

(as Shadow possessed a roof-centered (and unusually large) antenna, I was sure my CB boasted greater and more omnidirectional transmission range than Mike's; for most cars used smaller whips, mounted in less optimal locations on their bodies)

As near as we could figure, the trip would work out to around 1200 miles, not counting any detours made necessary by the unexpected.

We all agreed there was a good chance we'd get separated along the way, so we'd use the CB radios to touch base when possible, or call for help if a breakdown occurred. As well as do our best to avoid getting tangled up with the law, by monitoring the trucker channels and keeping one another apprised on the matter.

For both reasons of light third party traffic and rarity of on-duty lawmen on patrol, we agreed to try restricting the run mostly to the early morning hours. Like around midnight to dawn.

We'd all share a hotel room break in Daytona Beach for a day, then return the next night.

Naturally each would help the other in case of breakdown. But in this race if your car failed to make it you basically forfeited, with the other guy being declared the winner. Yikes!

So I definitely did what I could to prepare Shadow for the contest beforehand. I sure as hell couldn't afford to forfeit!

Heck: I figured Shadow having a breakdown of some kind would be the only possible way Mike in his dad's car could win!

It'd sure be darn humiliating to have to forfeit to a lumbering Cadillac or New Yorker or Impala-- whatever the heck car Mike would be using.

And no, of course we didn't tell our parents we were racing to Daytona beach! That would have canceled the contest for sure!

I just told my parents I was going to stay with Steve and Will for the weekend up in the country; something I'd done before. And asked Steve to play along if necessary, as he wasn't coming on the trip himself. I don't remember what Mike said he told his folks.

The race had to be put off until Mike and I could best fit it into our schedules. Which turned out to be a Saturday and Sunday a couple weeks later.

I did what I could to prepare Shadow and myself for the event, carefully selecting the tools, equipment, and spare parts I'd be toting to minimize weight while maximizing trip security. But I wasn't nearly as fastidious on weight reduction there as I would later wish.

I carefully marked up a couple different maps, as well as wrote up some cheat notes for myself in case my passenger didn't do well as navigator.

I tuned up Shadow a bit, checked his tires and air pressures, and various fluids. Changed the oil. Cleaned his windows and mirrors inside and out. Checked all his light bulbs and signals. His wipers, etc.

On the night of departure (Friday night) I figured the race was an open and shut case. I was sure of how things were going to go (barring a breakdown), and figured I'd lazily while away the hours on the road planning out how I'd spend Mike's $500, as I listened to music.

Then I turned into the parking lot of Steve and Will's father's electrical shop: the meeting place for both the start and end of the contest. It was only about an eighth of a mile from the entrance to I-40.

I was amazed to see an outright beast of legend sitting in the parking lot-- at least the legends of car circles.

Holy shit.

Mike had shown up with a gorgeous black and white 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona. I'm talking the model with the long wedge-shaped front end and the sky high spoiler wing sprouting from the tail. The car was all shining black enamel but for its white rear wing and a white band wrapping around the body's tail end to match. It sort of resembled a fantasy super police pursuit car, only lacking any blue light on top and insignia on the doors. Only moments after I'd arrived I'd also learn it had a 426 Hemi motor: Chrysler's version of the Boss 429.

This was one of the ultimate factory street cars in the world of that era. Only sold to civilians so Chrysler could legally use the design on major professional race tracks.

Holy shit.

Mike seemed to have little idea of the awful monster he was driving. He just thought it'd have a decent chance against Shadow.

Gulp!

Holy cow! I was freaking out inside! I might have to actually pay Mike $500 after this run!

A 426 Hemi? In a Dodge Daytona?

Hellfire! Was I going to have to race a Ford GT-40 after this? Or the Batmobile maybe?

I couldn't believe my terrible luck.

I most definitely was not ready for this race.

I tried to keep a stoic poker face with Mike even as my inner dialogue was more like a screaming match at that moment-- mainly consisting of "Oh, what have I done?" and "You stupid bastard!" over and over again.

Will, Red, and Marco of course were ecstatic. They weren't quite as into race cars as Steve and I, but they knew the Daytona was something special. And that I definitely couldn't be happy to be pitted against it.

I'm sure if Steve had known what circumstances would come together that night, he'd have canceled whatever plans with some sweet young thing he had to be on the scene himself. Maybe even went along for the ride. For it was historic in many ways. And would have been hysterically funny to Steve.

If you ask him today, I'm sure he'd say he regrets not being there to see my face. And Steve is a man of very few regrets.

After I saw what I was up against, I refused to take on a passenger. This sort of pissed off Will who'd expected to ride with me for the trip, and Red and Marco with Mike. But after seeing my competition I knew I needed as few pounds as possible on this trek. I didn't admit my decision was over weight though. Instead, I insisted I'd need all my concentration to win, and didn't want to endanger any passengers with my high speeds, considering the new info regarding Mike's ride.

Luckily for me Mike was glad to take onboard all three of the gang. Thereby increasing his car's weight by some four hundred pounds or so over what it might otherwise have been.

I'd also learn much later that those Daytonas weighed close to 3800 pounds stock and empty.

Shadow at this time likely weighed somewhere around 3000 pounds loaded with his typical tools and accessories. And me.

Mike and the gang onboard his black and white supercar had to rate maybe 4300 pounds.

I tried to calm myself by thinking of what the true balance of power to weight would be between us-- and what advantages I might have over Mike after all.

#1: Shadow and I had to be lighter. I just didn't know by how much at that moment (I did many of the calculations seen here only after the race).

#2: Shadow almost certainly got better gas mileage than the Daytona, due to engine size differences (351 cubic inches compared to 426). I hoped.

Again though, I couldn't know by how much. And the flip-side of that was Mike likely enjoyed roughly a 100 horsepower advantage over us. But that extra horsepower would also have to tote around their extra weight disadvantage.

#3: I was dead certain I was the more experienced driver of Mike and I. But on the interstate I wasn't sure how big a difference that'd make.

I had no idea how well Daytonas were configured suspension-wise for curves at speed, but I figured they must be decent. However, my front Boss 429 and rear Boss 302 suspension components and generally lighter-than-factory weight would surely help me in that department.

So I figured Shadow could match or surpass the Daytona in gas mileage and high speed curves. But in terms of top end and straight-aways things might get pretty dicey.

Mike had it pretty easy and straight for the first fifteen miles or so of interstate. And at the urging of my friends traveling with him, showed off some of his Hemi's muscle by running off and leaving me behind.

Or trying to, anyway.

I pushed Shadow to 120 mph and beyond on the straights, forcing Mike to push his Dodge really harder than he wanted in order to maintain his early lead.

Keep in mind Mike was an inexperienced driver. And perhaps unusually (but wisely) cautious for such a young American male. Especially one driving a factory-built supercar.

Right from the get-go I was forced to rack my brain for every performance enhancing trick I could think of, and then implement it if possible on-the-fly.

I was damn glad I'd been able to foist Will off on Mike before the race. And lucky that he was hauling Red and Marco too. But I needed more. Lots more.

I made sure all my windows were rolled up and shut tight for optimal aerodynamics. Though I did open my fresh air vents due to the unusually warm night.

Although I did my best to prevent Mike and the gang from realizing it, I almost immediately began utilizing the old trucker's trick of milking the downhills for all the acceleration help I could get, so as to maintain a higher average velocity overall with less strain on the engine than more unrelenting prodding would accomplish.

I disliked intensely pushing Shadow so hard at the very first like this in a marathon. But I felt I had to try to fool Mike into thinking Shadow and I had the power to roughly match his Hemi.

If Mike had known more about cars, of course, he'd have known better.

I also knew psychology was an important factor in many contests, and I couldn't afford to let the psychology in this one get too far away from me. It was one of the few cards I had available to play.

Too bad I wasn't nearly as good at it as Steve.

So over the CB I tried to sound relaxed and unconcerned even as Will and the gang tried to goad and annoy me over the air, repeatedly asking me why I didn't just get ahead and stay ahead if Shadow was so strong.

"Boys, this is one long-assed race. What matters is who's ahead at the finish line, not anywhere else," was the gist of many of my responses over the coming hours to such provocations.

Of course I had to do what I could to back up my attitude with evidence. Namely, at least stay in sight of the Daytona if at all possible. No matter how damn fast it was going.

And I had to act over the radio like it was easy.

"Don't worry fellas. I'll show you my tail end soon enough," I said more than once. While not being sure at all that I'd be able to. That Hemi was murderously strong.

I tried to plot out a strategy and tactics for the coming trek, in order to push the envelope on me and Shadow's performance while hopefully discouraging Mike from doing the same with his machine.

For instance, I resolved to do my best to minimize or avoid use of my brakes for the entire trip when on the open highway. I couldn't afford the extra gas, horsepower, or momentum drain.

Heck: even excessive electrical usage like playing music or running the heater fan or using lights when unnecessary could hurt me under the present circumstance, I realized. Due to engine drag via the alternator.

If Shadow and I had any chance at all against that Hemi, it was a tiny one. Requiring us to stay right on the bleeding edge of our performance envelope in all sorts of ways. For 1200 miles. Ouch!

That was one of my very earliest experiences showing me that big chunks of money are usually harder to make than you expect. Especially when it's originally anticipated as "easy" money.

Fortunately though, right from the beginning it didn't seem Mike was pushing the Hemi as hard as it'd go. As he tended not to exceed 120-125 mph except in brief spurts of approximately 130-140 to widen the gap, whenever he felt I was getting too close to caught up with him.

I thought for a while this was because of our awfully short distance visibility ahead during the night trek, considering our speeds. But Mike seemed to adhere to that self-imposed speed limit almost the entire trip, even when our visibility was much greater.

Mike's Hemi barely seemed to notice the difference between 120 and 140. It was Mike that got antsy there.

Even so, Mike managed to put a good quarter-mile between us on that stretch, leaving me able to see little more than his taillights glinting in the distance.

Yeah, I admit it: 140 mph was too much. At least for me. And I believe Shadow too. I rarely pushed him past 120. And am fairly sure his absolute top end during these events was at most somewhere in the vicinity of 130. I believe to do more he would have required different rear end gearing at the least. And maybe a substantial horsepower boost over what I'd given him to that point, too.

But for our typical shenanigans a 120-130 mph top end and barrel-load of low end torque was way more than enough.

And besides, his brakes could barely handle what power and speed he already possessed. I'd repeatedly looked into converting his big front drums to disks, but just couldn't afford it. So I'd done what I could below that threshold, like installing metallic linings, finned front drums for better heat dissipation, and ducting cooling air from body scoops to every brake drum on the car. And lightening him in weight had to help, too.

Anyway, it was around here that we hit the first of a multitude of nice curves between our hometown and Asheville.

And we hit it in the dark.

I knew those curves intimately. Traveled them regularly, as Steve and Will's place required getting off the exit just past this set of curves.

Steve and Will of course knew it too. So Will hurriedly persuaded Mike to slow down as they approached that stretch of road which had claimed countless lives among those who underestimated its dangers.

I routinely used the span for testing handling tweaks to Shadow. And so knew almost exactly how fast I could take it in the dry.

For instance, I knew the very first curve had a well-defined tipping point in it, whereby all hell would break loose if you didn't correctly thread the needle of a certain set of conditions there.

Not far past that is where I caught up to and passed Mike in his fabulous Daytona the first time.

Mike did have another hurrah or two left to play after that, before we hit Asheville. But he would quickly learn there were plenty more killer curves where that first one came from, on this piece of interstate winding through the mountains.

My own biggest worry through there was a landslide. For in these parts rocks of all sizes sometimes came bouncing down the mountainsides and into traffic with no warning at all. Even a few measly gravel or pebble-sized ones at the wrong place and time could derail you and send you plunging through a guard rail and into a ravine. Indeed, knowing well the entirely different road where Steve had lost control of his 1971 Boss 351 and totaled it sometime before, I suspected a few gravel on the road in a curve is what caused that crash.

But sometimes the rocks falling onto the interstate here were the size of houses, capable of turning you into soup in an instant.

Our local newspaper occasionally ran stories about people randomly killed by the falling rocks.

I didn't know the interstate quite as well past Steve and Will's exit, so I did slow down a bit myself too. But Mike was forced to slow much more than I. I'm sure Will and the others would alternate between urging him to speed up and slow down at spots they figured best. But it had to be pretty confusing and scary for Mike himself.

So I ended up with a lead of some eight minutes by the time I entered Asheville.

My lead didn't last long. For the interstate straightened out after that, becoming a lot less scary for Mike.

Within the next hour he'd retaken the lead.

But almost immediately after that he had to make a gas stop, while I was able to continue on to Columbia South Carolina, not refueling until I was practically there.

Mike managed to catch up to and pass me again pretty soon after I'd gassed up. The gang marked the event with plenty of hooting and hollering over the CB.

The gang was more subdued over the radio though when I regained the lead roughly 35 miles later while they were pulled over for another gas stop.

Around the vicinity of Rosenville I had to stop for gas too once more. But that wasn't all. Shadow was overheating.

And pulling over and idling actually made it worse!

After running for all he was worth for maybe three hours, Shadow didn't like losing the massive high speed airflow through his radiators.

The station didn't have any ice but a small store next door did. I couldn't think of anything better so I got some spare socks out of Shadow (I'd lightly packed for the trip) and put some ice in them. Then I laid the socks atop the radiator. I kept Shadow running the whole time, as I figured he'd cool down faster that way. Plus I was afraid he might not start up again, while this hot.

After three ice-filled sock applications Shadow's temp and oil readings moved back to something more approaching normal. I had some ice left over and dumped it into the trunk atop the gas tank, for lack of a better place. There were drainage holes to let out the water and I figured cool gas wouldn't hurt the situation any. I was afraid to put the ice atop the motor as the temp differential might crack the intake or something. I'd been at the station around 30 minutes when I finally pulled out again.

Now I knew I couldn't be running Shadow for hours on end at 120 mph. Not on a hot summer night, anyway.

From this point on I resolved to limit my average speed to 110 or 115 with 120 or higher held in reserve for brief spurts.

Damn it! It appeared I was going to lose this race; Mike could go on forever at 130 mph or faster maybe with his Hemi and better suited gearing.

I wanted to take some extra ice with me just in case but had nothing in which to keep it cold. And nothing I could buy at that station or store for it either.

Mike of course took back the lead while I was nursing Shadow's fever.

Luckily for me though the interstate beyond Rosinville was all to pieces. Still under construction. For maybe 35 miles or so. Then it was good for 25 miles. Then in pieces again for 50 miles. The fragmentation continued on plumb through to the Florida state line!

This mess had been plainly marked on our maps, but for some reason I hadn't realized the full scope of the maze it represented. So Shadow got plenty of rest during that piece of the course.

Sure, there were some straight stretches of interstate and plain state roads Mike and I could do some sprints on here and there. But in general the terrain and conditions were at least slightly better for Shadow and I than Mike's Daytona.

(I'd find out later Mike had had some problems maneuvering his extra long car in some tight spots at low speeds among all the detours, even bumping into some things with the front end here and there).

Of course it was always possible Mike's onboard gang might make up the difference in navigation-help. As the route could get pretty confusing in some spots. Agh!

Apparently though, even with the gang's help included Mike and I ended up losing roughly the same amount of time wasted in wrong way stints.

But my absolutely biggest piece of luck turned out to be something so amazing and outrageous few people who didn't witness it first-hand have ever believed me when I told them about it: namely, that the Daytona had its own overheating problems.

No, I don't mean it was overheating at sustained high speeds like Shadow. Just the opposite. The Daytona overheated when forced to run at speeds below typical highway velocities like 55 mph for too long at a time.

Let me rephrase that: The Daytona would overheat when going too slow.

Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous. But it's true. When the designers hurriedly threw the thing together to qualify for pro racing, they neglected to consider the normal speeds of the 500 regular folks who'd buy the street version. So the wedge nose didn't allow for enough cooling airflow at low speeds. I believe they fixed this the very next year. But the 1969 Daytonas did suffer the flaw.

So in several places where we were forced to take lengthy detours off the interstate and even get stuck in fairly slow traffic for any time at all, Mike sometimes had to pull over and let his Daytona cool off. Ha!

This tendency to overheat at normal speeds was one reason Mike's dad was turning the car over to his son. It just wasn't practical for a grown up making typical adult-style trips and errands. Like a run to the grocery store.

Hooray!

As this was a known problem with the car to Mike's family, and so they all knew how to address it, it wasn't technically a breakdown of the sort we were supposed to help one another with along the way.

Of course Mike could always declare it a breakdown and forfeit the race and the $500 to me. But he didn't want to do that.

It seems Mike was surprised by all the long slow detours and bypasses we had to take away from the interstate due to construction. He'd figured the Daytona's overheating problem wouldn't be a factor in a high speed run all the way to Florida. Hence, his preference for that rather than something shorter and more local.

Me, I figured Shadow had to get some of the credit. For to my way of thinking Shadow's little 351 Windsor was taxing the 426 Hemi beast a lot more than any of us might have expected.

Needless to say, Will, Red, and Marco were all badly disappointed to learn of the Hemi's overheating vulnerability. Especially as I was keeping Shadow's own overheating problems under wraps for as long as I could.

This turned out to be another great reason for not hauling a passenger with me. For Will would surely have informed the others of my problem, thereby compromising me in the psychological aspect of the race.

I just hoped Shadow would hold together long enough to reach Daytona where we could rest for a few hours. And not be a gusher of steam for the gang to gawk and point at when we arrived. Agh!

The unfinished interstate mess between Rosinville and the Florida state line did help me squeeze out what ended up being about a thirty minute lead on Mike by the time I reached Daytona Beach. Both of us hearing warnings about prowling Smokies (highway state troopers) in Georgia over the CB helped too! Partly because I was already experienced at law evasion by this stage of my driving career, and so could cut things closer than Mike would dare to.

Once I reached the agreed upon rendezvous address I parked near the corner of a little store's parking lot where there was a blue painted news rack of a local paper and a little chain across a driveway to a lot next door, which had a small sign hanging from it. I read the text of the sign to the other guys as soon as they could hear me over the CB (we had a bit of long distance reception trouble there, but not enough to significantly affect the arrival timing notification).

I also asked the clerk inside the store to note what time it was when he first saw me, in case I needed more confirmation after Mike got there.

So by the race rules, when we left Daytona Beach for the return trip Mike was supposed to give me a 30 minute head start.

That might sound like a great victory for me-- but it wasn't. I figured I needed a much bigger buffer than that for the return trip due to the slower speeds I'd have to adhere to the whole way. For no way could Shadow run as hard going back as he had coming. I was sure I'd blow him up if I did.

On our approach to Daytona I'd been racking my brain for ways to improve our chances, but was having little luck.

At the moment it appeared Mike would most certainly win the next and final round. And so the 500 bucks. Agh!

It'd been daylight for a while already when Mike's Daytona pulled into the rendezvous point in Daytona Beach we'd both agreed upon prior to the race.

I'd managed to round up some more ice and apply it to Shadow's radiator in a way that allowed me to have my hood closed before the others showed up. Sure, there was a little vapor wafting up from under the hood when the others arrived. But apparently not enough for the gang to make much commentary over it. At least not tired and bedraggled as they were from the tense high speed race.

As we couldn't afford to buy two days worth of hotel accommodations, we had to wait until around noon or after to rent a room. So in sort of a daze we ate breakfast, then wandered the beach and its various attractions for a while. Did lunch. Walked the streets of Daytona Beach checking out the shops. Then finally were able to get a hotel room with two beds, and sack out. One of us had to take the floor so I volunteered. I did have a sleeping bag after all. And the floor was carpeted.

I don't think Mike and I the drivers rested as well as the others. But at least the long wait between driving and sleeping had helped us unwind from the trip.

It was nearing 12 AM Sunday morning by the time we were once more topping off our gas tanks and about to hit the interstate again. We'd all had a hearty meal not long before, and performed a few maintenance checks on our rides.

Mike and the gang of course were supposed to wait for thirty minutes after I left before starting themselves-- since I'd had such a lead upon arrival.

After pulling onto the interstate, I knew I had no time to waste. Keeping an eye out for coppers and an ear to the CB, I soon cranked Shadow up to 110 mph and for the most part stayed there.

If only I could just sit at 110 the whole way, I mused.

But Mike's monster would not be denied. Heck: maybe it could do 200 mph, I thought, after I was flabbergasted to see them pass me by only about one hour later. I was almost 120 miles out of Daytona Beach. Mike had apparently covered that in roughly thirty minutes.

Hellfire if that didn't work out to over 200 mph! Holy cow!

Damnation, but I didn't stand a chance!

But surely they'd cheated! Not waited the full thirty minutes! I called them on it over the CB.

They laughed and laughed at my protestations.

"No man, we waited exactly thirty minutes like we were supposed to," Will told me, with the others chiming in affirmatively in the background.

Will was one of my best friends. But I knew he wasn't above engaging in some cheating and lying. Especially for entertainment purposes.

But so long as all of them kept to the same story, even a court of law might have accepted it as fact. Damn it!

"But that means your car can do 200 mph or something! You didn't do that on the trip down!" I came perilously close to losing it there in terms of the psychological balance.

"I didn't have to," Mike replied, with the others snickering and speaking just out of earshot in the background. "But I couldn't let you get too far ahead of me now, could I?" More laughing followed.

Damn it!

I was definitely the turtle in this race between rabbit and tortoise. Agh!

Well, damn it. Was there some way I could just try to hold on all the way within striking distance and then go for it with a sprint at the end?

No. No way. Mike's Hemi just had that brutal top end. No matter what I did Mike could just out do me by pressing his gas pedal down a little farther.

But wait a minute...! There would be that curvy mountainous stretch between Asheville and home, that I'd beat him on before. If I could just keep him in sight until then, maybe I could get past him there and win.

Of course beyond the mountain curves was that final 15 mile stretch of straight-aways where top end ruled.

I'd have to get a big enough lead through the curves that he couldn't eat it all up again in the final straight.

But man, that seemed impossible!

I looked at Shadow's gauges. He seemed O.K. Although tonight the air seemed even hotter than the previous one.

Mike and the gang were having so much fun over the radio at my expense that they hadn't pulled too far ahead of me yet.

I had an idea.

Still fretting about the wear and tear on Shadow I decided to give Shadow another kind of break if I could, while also transferring some of my gas mileage burden onto Mike (thereby forcing him to stop even more frequently for gas, and me less). But I was a bit worried about what he might do in response, as drafting looks like pretty aggressive tailgating-- and was risky too if the frontrunner suddenly slammed on his brakes.

I also didn't want to goad Mike into speeding up. I was afraid he might run off and leave me entirely.

So I tried to reduce such possibilities via radio first.

"Hey Mike," I broadcast.

"Yeah Jerry?"

"Is it O.K. if I ease up behind you? Not try to pass you or anything. Just pull up some?"

"Sure. I guess so. Why not?"

So I gradually pushed Shadow up behind the flying winged car, gently adjusting the throttle until I got a pretty good idea where the sweet spot was aerodynamically. At this speed you could actually feel the difference. Then I settled in.

I hoped Mike didn't detect the increased drag on his end of things.

But Will and the gang recognized what I was doing and wouldn't let me get away with it so easily.

"Hey Jerry." It was Mike.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"Will and Red and Marco say you're drafting me. Is that true?"

"Yeah. That's why I asked you first if it was O.K." Crap!

"Well, they don't think I should let you do that," Mike continued.

"Why not?" I asked. Wondering how much the other fellows knew about drafting.

"Because they say it could help you slingshot past me and get ahead."

I tried to be very careful in my response.

"Well, maybe it could, but I'm not planning to do that. We've got lots of miles left to go and I just wanted to lay back here a while without you getting too far ahead. Are you saying you want me to pass you?" I bluffed. I hated bluffing. I was also trying some reverse psychology.

"No! Staying back there's fine with me. Especially until the race is over!" Mike laughed.

"Well, I'm not going to promise to stay back here forever. But if you're going to stay at this same speed for a while I'd like to stick here too."

There was some hesitation in his response. I figured there was a major drafting discussion going on between Will, Red, Marco, and Mike.

Finally Mike came back on the air again.

"O.K. I guess it's O.K. But if you try to pass me I'll take it to 200 this time," Mike told me.

Gulp! Surely to hell he was joking! But I couldn't be sure. After the beating Shadow had taken on the trip down Mike only needed to stay around 115 or 120 to win now. And I knew for a fact he had at least 130-140 mph capacity. Because I'd seen it.

Heck: maybe with that Hemi and giant wing he really could go to 200!

Damn it!

Uh oh. What if Mike was trying to psych me out? Will and the others might be angling him that way. If nothing else it'd be interesting to them to hear my response. For they didn't know of Shadow's overheating problems. Or what his own true top end might be.

After all, I had beat them to Daytona! They might not realize I'd done it primarily via fewer stops for gas than them, plus Mike's need to stop for his Daytona to cool down several times during the slow detour stretches.

I figured I had more to lose by being intimidated than not. So I went for broke.

"Well Mike, if that's what you want to do we'll play it your way. We'll take it up to 200 for a while. But I better warn you about something first," I said. Then left dead air awaiting a response.

"What's that?" Mike asked.

"Well, a couple things. One, if we have to make any fast stops from over 150 I'm afraid you won't make it. I might, because of the metallic brake linings I've got on my car. They're race car linings. The hotter they get the better they work. But I'll bet you got plain factory linings. Plain linings just quit working when they get hot, so you won't have any brakes. I know because that's what I had before I switched over to metallics. I almost got killed several times with those plain jobs." I stopped again.

I could imagine some discussion going on in the other car. I knew I'd talked about my metallics with Will before. But would he remember? And substantiate my story?

The trouble was Will wasn't nearly as much into car gear as I. So he may have forgotten about it completely, or never realized the significance of the equipment in the first place.

"You said there was something else?" Mike said, as if he might just ignore the brakes factor.

"Yeah. Mike, we're already going faster than the tires on our cars are designed for. Next time you stop for gas right after high speed, feel of your tires. I'll bet you'll be amazed by how hot they are. We've already been risking a catastrophic blow out as it is. We're neither of us using race car tires. I might have a bigger safety edge here than you, since your car's a lot bigger and heavier than mine. So your tires are probably closer to bursting than mine. So for reasons of both brakes and tires, I wouldn't advise pushing ourselves much faster than we've already been doing."

Damnation but I hoped Mike wouldn't get pissed and suddenly floor it and disappear ahead of me. If he really could do 200 mph...agh!

But I was telling him the truth. Mostly. I was positive the tires we were both using weren't rated for anything over 80 or 90 mph sustained speeds. And it was truth in regards to the metallic brake linings too.

Of course, I was misleading him like crazy on any notion that Shadow and I could approach 200 mph. Heck: I was fairly certain we couldn't even do 140 with our existing gears. Maybe not even 135. And I sure as hell didn't want to try it!

Again there was more hesitation.

"You can't even do 200," Mike finally replied, changing the subject. And going straight to the topic I was hoping to avoid.

I thought hard on my response.

"You might be right Mike. I can't say for sure because my factory speedometer only registers 120, and although I've took it past that a few times I don't really know what my top speed was then. I've never known that, and never will-- unless I can find a speedometer that'll better fit my hot rodded engine than this one.

"Have you or your dad ever installed hot rod parts on your car?" I asked. Surely they hadn't, as that Daytona Hemi probably had all the hot rod parts available in the world already included.

About all you could do to that car was slow it down by replacing existing parts with worse ones. Yikes!

But hopefully Mike wasn't savvy about such things.

"No," Mike responded.

"Well, I guess I might have an edge on you there then. But you surely aren't wanting out of our bet are you?" I tried to muddy the waters.

"No."

Again, there'd been a hesitation over the radio before Mike's response. As our conversation was threatening to get out of control and force my hand anyway, I tried another bluff.

"So you're wanting me to pass you, Mike?"

He didn't immediately answer, but rather began gradually increasing his speed beyond the 110 we'd settled on before. I was still drafting him, and doing my best to stay docked in the sweet spot.

I monitored my speedometer as I continued to make adjustments on the fly to stay in full draft mode. The needle crept up to 115. Then 120. Then beyond. Where I could only try to estimate the reading.

I'd decided to push my luck, and stick behind Mike in draft mode as long as I could. For if there was going to be any circumstance in this whole race where I could come closest to matching Mike's Hemi in speed without blowing up, it was going to be here and now while I was drafting him.

This was because Mike was basically dragging me along in his wind wake, thereby allowing Shadow to squeeze out a few more mph than he otherwise could. And making it ever so slightly more difficult for Mike's Hemi to bulldoze its way through the atmosphere.

Shadow's temperature and oil pressure gauges started to move towards undesirable territory.

I wondered how far I could let them go before it was too late.

I turned on my heater full blast to help the radiator cool the motor. Even with my fresh air vents in the kick panels wide open, it soon got remarkably hot in the car. So I got to feel some of the blistering heat Shadow himself was enduring.

I was quickly sweating like a pig. With sweat running down my face.

I didn't dare crack the windows due to needing every bit of aerodynamic advantage we could get. Heck: aerodynamics counted more at these speeds than anywhere else!

I also couldn't pull off my shirt for relief. Not at these speeds! And not while tail-gating Mike so closely, either!

Though Mike slowly nudged the pace up for only a few minutes, it felt like lots longer.

Then, just as Shadow seemed on the verge of developing an intermittent miss at the horrendous revs (and thereby forcing me to abandon my strategy), Mike suddenly gave us a surprise reprieve.

"O.K. I guess you're right. No need to cause ourselves a lot of extra trouble, I guess," Mike was saying over the radio.

I hadn't forgotten my previous unanswered challenge to Mike. The one which spurred him to ratchet up our speed. It appeared he'd gone into retreat now, psychologically speaking.

It was now or never, I figured. Make or break. I was sure Steve would tell me to 'go for it' if he'd been there.

I consciously tried to make my voice sound utterly unconcerned by Shadow's proximity to catastrophic engine failure, and how drenched in sweat I was in the moment. I was having some scary vision problems due to the sweat running down into my eyes, too.

"So you're saying you definitely don't want me to pass you?" I asked with all the smoke and mirrors bravado I could manage. No way could I have passed him at that moment! It was all we could do just to stick behind him, even with the slipstream help from his Hemi!

Once more there was a momentary delay.

"No. I guess not," he came back. As Shadow's temp continued to push upwards, and his oil pressure down. I pushed Mike some more.

"So what speed do you want to do for a while? Keep in mind if you change around a lot I'll have to pass you because it'll be too much trouble to hang on your tail."

"Huh?" Mike responded.

"Are you going to keep going up and down in speed or are you going to choose one? If you're going to bounce around I'd rather just go on ahead. But if you're going to stick to something for a while, I'll stay here. Your choice," I told him. Hoping no one in the other car could hear Shadow's engine sputtering over the radio or otherwise.

More hesitation. Then our combined speeds began edging downwards again. Had I won?

"I guess around 100 will be fine. I'll stick to that for a while," Mike was saying. Retreating to his own comfort zone.

I kept Shadow locked into draft mode as we both eased on down to 100.

100 mph seems positively slow motion after 130 or so! Ha, ha.

But you know what really saved me there was likely the fact we were approaching the first major interstate construction detour past the Florida border. Mike had no choice but to slow down drastically. So he cut that deal with me after testing my top end for what brief chance he had.

I'd surprised him by keeping up with him and repeatedly talking like I could still pass him even then.

We'd end up both abiding by those terms struck just before the Florida line, every time he'd catch and pass me again the rest of the way.

Until Asheville, anyway.

So after hitting the Florida line Shadow got more than one welcome respite from the competition.

Naturally I felt I could now exult in the results of this mix of confrontation and negotiation.

Man, had I dodged a bullet there or what? Actually stared down Mike and his Hemi! With a pure bluff of unadulterated bullshit! Ha, ha.

Steve would have been proud!

Stuff like that was what Shadow kept me around for, I thought with amusement.

My old noggin and big mouth might be worth 50 or 100 horsepower all on their own! Ha, ha.

We'd done it! Secured ourselves a way to stay in sight of Mike's monster until we could make a final hard run on friendlier territory! At least unless or until Mike changed his mind.

And at just 100! Whoopee! That was better than I'd dared hope! Shadow might just make it at that velocity and still have some extra left for our final effort!

Something else occurred to me then. Could it be that the gang-- Will, Red, and Marco-- wasn't aware of the benefits of drafting besides the slingshot effect? Maybe!

I'm sure Steve would have known them though. So I guess it was a good thing he wasn't with Mike too.

So besides the Hemi's greater fuel thirst than Shadow, and its tendency to overheat at slow speeds, I apparently also had another element in my favor: Mike's reluctance to push the Hemi beyond a certain point.

Sure, part of it was his inexperience with the car, and driving in general. And much a very understandable fear. After all, high speeds are not for the squeamish. Or the tired. Or the lazy. For it's hard work maintaining the necessary level of concentration required to avoid crack ups at stratospheric speeds.

After the race was over I'd learn from Will that Mike nearly lost control of his car at least three times during our trek. The first time was less than ten minutes from the start when we hit the first major mountain curves and he braked too hard. The second happened maybe a hundred miles later when he simply got distracted and over-corrected when he realized his error.

The third was another hard braking situation when he ran up too fast onto an exit for one of the many detours off the interstate we had to take along the way. All these had occurred on the south-bound leg, when we often weren't close enough for me to see such things.

I think I might have witnessed just the beginning of his first trouble as his Daytona wobbled a bit when I passed him in the first curves close to home. But after that I'd lost sight of them around the turn in the mirror, and also in the distance as I gradually built up my lead through the mountains. But Will had been in the car, and said Mike was actually bleeding from the skin stretching between thumb and forefinger of his right hand afterwards, due to his terrifying struggle with the wheel at that juncture.

Whoa!

It doesn't take much to lose it at the speeds we were typically traveling here. I was much more experienced at it than Mike. So he did a heck of a job there. Showed real talent.

But those near disasters scared the crap out of him, as well as the rest of the gang. And so helped to restrain his enthusiasm for pushing his Hemi even faster in order to beat Shadow. As well as temper the gang's tendency to urge him on.

But of course they all of them wanted badly to beat me. Despite one of them losing money in that event. They wanted it for two reasons: one, because none of them were riding in Shadow at the moment, and they all got a visceral thrill every time their car passed me by; two, they perceived Mike as the underdog here-- not me-- due to knowing about me and Shadow outdoing others before.

Heck: Shadow had even beaten the Green Machine just weeks before; something which didn't seem right for number two to do to number one among our ranks.

Friends just sometimes like to see friends taken down a notch.

And they surely knew they'd never have a better chance than the present one, to see me and Shadow bested at our own game.

And there was the matter of the $500, after all. It turned out later that there'd been side bets amongst the gang in addition to the main one. Much smaller bets of course, as $500 was big money for us then.

Although I had a few interesting driving tales to tell by that point, most of the gang hadn't witnessed any of my adventures first-hand. And Shadow was only now approaching his prime as a supercar.

On the other hand the Daytona with its Hemi was a known (and legendary) factory fact. For anyone who kept up with that sort of thing, anyway.

Steve hadn't wagered anything due to not knowing what car Mike would bring to the contest, and not planning to be on the scene to witness the end himself. And Steve was the one of our little group most familiar with me and Shadow's previous exploits, and thus the best judge of our chances. Second to me of course.

It would turn out that Will had bet against me, with Marco taking me to win. Red had been too broke to bet.

To be honest, if I'd known what car I'd be racing I wouldn't have accepted the challenge at all. For it was way too risky, and I knew Shadow's engine was no match for a Hemi in decent running shape.

But I couldn't back out after the fact without losing both money and prestige.

So I let Mike and his Daytona pull Shadow and I along every chance I got after that. Of course Mike had to pull over a few times to let his Hemi cool down in the slow poke pieces of the route among all the construction mess between the Florida border and Rosinville.

During those periods of course I ran Shadow as hard as I dared to try getting some breathing room in the competition. For I knew I'd need all the lead I could get to win. Even with the mountain curves beyond Asheville.

And I didn't feel I could count on Mike to keep our top speed bargain indefinitely. Especially if he decided he was managing to catch back up to me again all those times a bit too easily.

That last 15 miles of straights would be awful. Especially if Mike really could do 200 mph.

Mike of course would always catch back up to me after these sprints and get in front again. After his cool downs, and the extra gas stops he had to make compared to my own.

But dragging me and Shadow along in his slipstream was making his Hemi drink more gas-- enough so that I believe he ended up having to make at least one more gas stop traveling north, than he did south.

Shadow's own gas mileage was helped of course-- but not as much as Mike's was hurt.

I hoped the horrendous speeds he had to push the Hemi at to catch up all those times would wear down the Dodge motor some, but you couldn't tell if it did. I believe the worst wear and tear was on Mike himself. For as I said before, driving at sustained speeds of well over 100 mph is hard on the driver-- if he's lucky. If he's unlucky he gets turned into red pudding by a single mistake or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So we did this hopscotch thing all the way back to Asheville, with Mike always managing to get caught back up again after his extra stops by virtue of his brute top speed capacity. He was able to dispense with his cooling off stops though after Rosinville. After that, his only extra stops compared to my own involved refueling.

We tended to stay around 100 mph when together. But whenever Mike had to spend 15 minutes for a gas stop or even longer for a cooling stop I pushed Shadow to 110 where practical. No higher though because I'd been too rough on him already on the initial trek south. And though Mike and I had come to terms on a fairly sedate 100 mph speed for most of the trip north, sustaining 100 mph for hours wasn't a cakewalk either for Shadow's motor. Especially not on such an unbelievably hot night.

It was so hot it wasn't until we began entering the mountainous terrain beyond Asheville that the temperature dropped below 95 or so I believe. And this was in the dead of morning! Sheesh!

It'd been hovering at something over 100 degrees prior to nightfall, Saturday, in Florida and southern Georgia. But it actually felt hotter the farther north we got, due to humidity changes I think.

Man! I couldn't believe my bad luck! If the temperature had been ten or twenty degrees cooler I was sure I could have run Shadow at least a bit harder in the race.

So we were eventually running neck and neck out of Asheville. Me drafting Mike again.

But that was going to change. We were just now reaching the first of the many curves winding round the mountains. Mike was lowering his speed. I slowed a bit more than Mike in preparation for my slingshot maneuver-- as that required me dropping back a bit to make Mike's slipstream exert an even stronger pulling force on Shadowfast.

"Mike, remember I said I wasn't promising to stay back here forever?" I asked him over the radio.

"Yeah."

"Well, I got to go now. I'm cranking it up to 200 for this last leg. Catch me if you can!"

I just had to say that, regardless of the outright lie involved. I was also smiling as the words came out. For it was going to be a huge relief to finally end all the drafting I'd been doing. Drafting is basically high-speed tail-gating, which means you have to be on super high alert at all times for changing circumstances. Otherwise you will be ramming the car ahead of you or worse. And even a relatively soft bump to our front end could put Shadow out of the race, due to his vulnerable radiators up there. Not to mention his aerodynamic integrity. And those were the results you'd hope to get if something went wrong. Because the alternatives could be zillions of times worse than that...

I was also getting very tired of staring at the underside of the Daytona's wing only some ten or twelve feet from my face.

To maximize my draft boost-- as well as add some emphasis to my words-- I'd whipped out of my near tail-gating position even as I floored Shadow.

I think Mike had slowed us both down to about 80 or 90 mph by that time.

Shadow had roared around Mike's Daytona almost too fast for any of us to see one another inside our respective cars during the passage.

This was it. I had to build up the biggest lead I could through the mountains to try to neutralize Mike's advantage on the final 15 miles of straights at the end.

Again, I was glad this was all taking place at a time when there was minimal traffic on the interstate: for that allowed me to often utilize the entire width of the road in order to maximize my speed through the winding trek.

And I don't just mean both standard lanes of the two which made up our side of the interstate highway back then. I mean the emergency lanes too, where available and clear of debris or stalled autos.

For to get the absolute top speed on any corner you want to effectively unwind or widen the corner all you can via your maneuvering. For instance, in a curve towards the right you want to start your slow nudge in that direction from the leftmost side of the road you can-- and not finish the move until you've passed the heart of the turn to reach the leftmost border again, on the far-end. For a curve to the left, you'd start and end at the extreme right-hand sides of the highway. The wider the pavement you have under you for any given curve, the more leeway you have in this respect, and so the faster you can take the curve. In theory.

I hadn't used the emergency lanes this way on the trip south. But I was sure going to now!

Of course there's other factors involved too. Like suitable banking angles in a turn. If the road's too flat you could easily try making the turn too fast and crash.

Most of the curves through here had decent banking. Not great, but decent. A few though had been miscalculated by the engineers, thereby basically turning into traps for fast but unwary drivers. The road bank wouldn't be angled or placed where it should have been, and so a driver could find themselves in trouble with little or no warning.

Of course, there was also the expected speed of drivers in the road builder's calculations; assumptions for both the average and top speeds people would be taking through the curves.

And I guarantee you the numbers they used were considerably lower than what racers like myself would try here.

And that's where driving technique and suspension mods came in.

I'd learned and practiced a lot of high speed driving methods over the previous year. And considered myself well on the way to becoming an excellent driver. Steve of course was a natural talent in this area. And even without training, typically better than me.

And that's where Shadow came in.

Lightened by hundreds of pounds over a standard Mach One, Shadow also boasted much stiffer springs front and back, and extra springs over his rear shocks-- which were staggered like those of Shelby Mustangs. His original fairly decently sized Mach One front anti-sway bar had been replaced with the beefiest bar ever made by Ford for his model: a Boss 429 bar.

In the back his axle sat swaddled by the entire rear suspension, leaf springs and anti-sway bar of a Boss 302 Mustang.

Shadow also had traction bars under the front of his rear leaves, tightened up as far as they'd go, and side restraining clamps on the leaves to further minimize sideways motion throughout their length.

Shadow had wider than standard tires front and rear too. Race car-like rear spoiler and front air dam to add downward pressure aerodynamically at speed. Around 100 mph you could feel Shadow hunker down on the road like he was being bolted to it.

I still tried to maintain a decent safety margin here. I had all my forward lights-- head lights and driving lights-- switched on. With my headlights on bright wherever it didn't appear to cause excessive problems for drivers ahead or drivers in the opposing lanes.

Again, the sparse late night traffic helped on this point.

I needed to win this race. I couldn't afford to lose $500! Agh!

As the driving here was too close to the edge I didn't listen to any music or radio. For I needed to concentrate. I turned off the CB radio too, as I could afford no distractions at all through the mountains.

Shadow and I simply couldn't compete against Mike's Hemi on the final 15 mile straight to come. No, our only chance at all was what lead we could build up here. This was where we'd win or lose the race.

That stretch would turn out to be one of the most strenuous runs Shadow and I ever made together. Much more harrowing than all the rest of the Daytona trip combined. For here we had to perform at the ragged cliff's edge-- in more ways than one. For a mistake here could literally plunge us off a precipice into all sorts of different kinds of doom.

And there was always the awful rock fall hazard inherent in the terrain. If it happened at the right moment and place, we'd be done for. What minimal safety margin I was keeping here wasn't sufficient to cover but just a smidgen of rock fall possibilities.

When we finally emerged from all the major curves just past Steve and Will's exit, I accelerated to 120 mph, hoping that Shadow could stand to maintain that for the remaining 15 miles.

But we'd run too hard through the mountains, at times touching 120, other times dipping to 100. The result was Shadow had started getting hot over that thirty minute span.

Turning my heater on full blast had seemed to help keep it in check, but it just seemed too much now to push him up to 120 and stay there unless I absolutely had to.

So I dialed back down to just 100 mph again, hoping to maybe have something in reserve if Mike suddenly showed up in my rear view.

I kept a fearful watch in my mirror for Mike's headlights over the next ten minutes or so.

But he never showed. I'd switched my CB radio back on as I entered the straights, but heard nothing from them. I was beginning to wonder if they'd crashed or something.

Of course the mountains could have been blocking their signal too.

Another five minutes later I was sitting in the parking lot before Steve and Will's dad's shop, outside the car, leaning against the driver's side door.

If it'd been a week day, local business owners would have been starting to trickle in to open up their stores about then. But being Sunday, the lot was deserted at this hour.

Shadow was still running, idling, with his heater going full blast in an attempt to cool him down to normal before chancing a shut down.

I'd managed to get hold of the others by radio not long after arrival, and read aloud to them the text Mike had written and placed into a sealed envelope hidden nearby for winner confirmation. I'd left an envelope too for Mike if he'd gotten there first.

Although the decades since have rendered some things pretty fuzzy for me, I easily remember Mike's text today. Because it was a refrain from a popular TV commercial for bologna of the time. You know: the one where the bologna has a first and last name? I had to sing the kids' song over the radio to them. Fortunately that early in the morning there were no witnesses around in the lot to laugh at me.

But it was the agreed upon signal for the winner of the race, after all. The mystery contents of our two letters, I mean.

While I waited for the others I was glancing regularly at Shadow's gauges to determine if he required further action on my part to cool down.

I wanted to go get some ice and other things, but was afraid I'd lose winner status if I wasn't at the shop when the others arrived, despite having given the proper radio signal.

Plus I still didn't want the others to know how badly the race had taxed my car.

Fortunately Shadow seemed to be cooling off all right on his own. So long as I kept him running and the heater going. Parked. And the windows rolled down. And the Sun not yet a significant thermal factor. The general temperature outdoors had dropped to something more normal as well, like 80 or 85 maybe.

Some 15 minutes after I'd first contacted them with Mike's favorite jingle, here they came. They appeared O.K., if somewhat disappointed and tired.

I was smiling despite my fatigue. Part of my glee simply stemmed from the ordeal being finally over and done.

As they pulled up Will shouted from the open passenger side window at me.

"Well goddamn it, you did it! You really did it."

Will was smiling. Red and Marco too, but in a more strained and dissatisfied manner. Marco was muttering something inaudible.

Mike of course wasn't happy. For he now owed me $500!

Upon face-to-face meeting we shook hands and he gave me...$100.

"Hey, what's this?" I said, still smiling.

"I'll have to give you the rest later Jerry."

I looked at him a bit skeptically.

"O.K. I guess I can accept that. After all, you put up one hell of a race!" I told him.

With that there erupted lots of agreement amongst the gang, and we talked for a while about various aspects of the journey from our different perspectives.

And no, I did not reveal how close the race had truly been to my friends. Instead I acted like I'd been sure I'd win the whole time, and just been humoring Mike with his Hemi challenge. I even made some fairly ridiculous suggestions for how he might improve its performance with after-market add-ons-- being careful to stay within plausible sounding territory I was sure I knew more about than anyone else there.

But by God I'd never race a Dodge Daytona Hemi again-- I silently resolved to myself amid all the hoopla.

Mike never did get around to paying me that other $400. Well, he did give me another $50 maybe a couple weeks later. But after that he seemed to decide it was too expensive and scary to hang out with our group, and made himself increasingly scarce from our company.

Of course I was just glad the race was over and Shadow and I had survived. Plus other matters drew my attention away from Mike's debt over time.

Looking back on it later though it was probably worth losing the other $350 of the prize money just to have had the chance to put Shadow up against such a factory supercar-- and win.

And it turned out my win was bigger than I thought. For Will eventually revealed to me that they'd managed to talk Mike into cheating when leaving Daytona Beach. Rather than wait for thirty minutes to give me the head start I'd earned by having such a lead upon arrival, they'd given me only ten minutes. Or basically the time it took them to persuade Mike into the scheme. They told him if I won anyway, or Mike won by a bigger time than 20 minutes, the cheat would be meaningless. And if that 20 minutes did become the winning edge, they'd reveal the cheat to determine the true winner.

But in the meantime it'd be fun to put one over on me.

I suppose you could say that was one of their own tactics of psychological warfare used in the contest.

That cheat had allowed them to catch sight of me again only around 45 minutes after I'd left Daytona Beach myself, or some 80 plus miles out of Daytona.

Of course they'd also had to conspire to keep me from guessing the truth by making sure not to run up on me again too quickly.

This meant they couldn't afford for me to see them for another 20 minutes. So they'd hung back in the distance until then and suddenly raced up and passed me once more, not far from the Florida border.

Those damn punks! I'd thought Mike had popped up awfully fast behind me after leaving Daytona Beach! Turned out there was a good reason! Cheating!

But as I'd won despite their scam, no harm done, I supposed. Indeed, that meant I'd basically beat Mike by 35 minutes rather than fifteen!

Shadow didn't seem to suffer any permanent damage from the run. But to be on the safe side I changed my motor oil and filter soon after, as well as performed a few other maintenance chores.

And no, I found no metal particles in the oil, or oil leaks from a blown head gasket in the coolant (or vice versa). And he didn't smoke or burn oil afterwards.

Those 351 Windsor motors were tough suckers!

So anyway-- that's how Shadowfast managed to outrun a 1969 Dodge Daytona with a 426 Hemi. Wing and all.

Yeah, the margin of 35 minutes wasn't all that big. Especially for that long of a race. But technically a single second would have been enough.

So we had 2,099 whole seconds which were completely extraneous there! Ha, ha.

Sorry Mopar fans!

If it's any consolation, your champion beast was one of the toughest contenders we ever faced.

It's just that it wasn't Shadowfast.

An actual 1969 Boss 429 Mustang like the one above always sat parked on display at a service station in Morristown TN during the time I owned Shadow. Steve and I and others several times stopped by to admire the car back then (Morristown was only a 25 mile trip from our hometown). I personally never ever saw this car on the road and moving. And cannot recall ever seeing a second Boss 429 in real life, either. Not even at the drag strip.

The hot rod shop owner-- operating just a few doors down from Steve's dad's electrician's shop-- had a Boss 302 Mustang owning buddy. To be more precise, the guy owned a hollowed out 1970 Boss 302. That we actually rode around in a bit, with him. I say hollowed out because the original Boss 302 engine had blown up in racing I believe, and been replaced with a regular motor. So it still possessed the suspension goodies and looks: just not the original heart of the machine. I think the guy said getting another Boss engine would have been too expensive.

Boss 302 Mustangs seemed to be much more common than the 429s and 351s, back then.

Steve's gorgeous 1971 Boss 351 Mustang. Like the Boss 429, I never saw a second one of these in real life, either.

SEQUEL NOTE: Several adventures down the road Shadowfast would race another Daytona. Not a Dodge, but a Ferrari. However, that's another story: Daytona 2.0: Between a Ferrari and a hard place. END NOTE.