By Wayne Wallace

Donna, looked into the mirror. The sixteen year-old reflection staring back at her was pretty darn cute, if she did said so herself. A few freckles on her nose, but other than that, she was fairly satisfied. She applied the new pink lipstick she had picked out at Brown's in Penn Square. She hoped Dave would like it. Big night tonight, they were going to dinner at Sleepy Hollow, then cruising around seeing friends, and finally, they would go to the late night street drag races on the far, west-end of town. The street drags were always exciting because the fastest cars in town would be there, matched up, racing for prestige and honor. The guys always brought their girlfriends. It was a great place to see, and be seen. Often, the police would come, but one of the guys had a police radio in his car and they would know they were coming long before they arrived. He would give them the word, and everyone would scatter. It was so exciting!

Donna stood and checked out her reflection. She slipped the tight, red sweater over her new, french-cut, pink bra. Turning sideways, she looked and said, "not bad." She looked over her shoulder at how she looked from behind in her tight fitting, black pants. Smiling, she left her bedroom and headed for the living room where Dave would soon arrive to pick her up.Thirty minutes later, Donna and Dave were sitting at their table in the dark, romantic restaurant, holding hands across the table and talking about their week at school. "That Biology test was a bitch!" Dave exclaimed, shaking his head, "It will be a gift from the grade gods if I even passed it!" "I know! Mr. Paden's tests are always so hard. I studied all week and I'll be lucky to make a C." Donna complained. Dave knew she was just patronizing him. Donna never made any grade lower than a B, on anything. But he let her go on, unabated. He just loved watching her as she spoke and he loved hearing her voice. "She really looks great tonight." Dave thought, as he listened to her talk about school and the latest gossip. "There's just something about that red sweater, it drives me nuts," he thought. The waiter came with their steaks and for the next several minutes, they both concentrated on the Oklahoma beef on the plates in front of them.

After a wonderful meal, Dave drove west. Donna slid close to him and craftily placed her leg close to the floor mounted shifter, so that upon finding fourth gear, Dave's hand came in contact with her outer thigh. Dave rested his hand there upon reaching high gear.

Their first stop was the Delta Drive-Inn, which was packed with Northwest Classen kids waving, seeing who was with whom, and in general, having a ball. In one direction, they saw a carload of Delta Sigma boys in Tommy Ward's blue and primer 50' Ford. Donna knew they would see them later, on County-Line Road at the street drags, they were always where the action was. In another direction, they saw Ed Makler in his yellow 58' Ford. Who is that girl he's with? Neither of them knew her. But they both thought she must be a Putnam City girl. There was Phil Murphy in that little car of his. Who was that brunette with him? And who are that couple in the back seat? The car was too small to tell from this distance. On their way out of the meeting place, they saw Carol Fonville talking to a group of girls. They both discussed how they think she was a little pissed off because Jan Epperson edged her out for Falcon Queen last week. Donna and Dave both thought Carol should have won. "She's soooooo much cuter than Jan is. Those Falcons are such retards, they just don't know pretty girls, Lancers are much cooler." They agreed on this point.

On their way to their next stop, The Rancher's Daughter, a beige 61 Chevy blew past them at a high rate of speed. "There go Nick Hodge and Nancy Petty," Donna said. "Who's the couple in the back?" she asked. "I don't know, but I'll catch them at the next light." Dave answered. At the next light they pulled up next to the Chevy. "Why, it's Wayne Wallace," Donna said, "That girl he's with goes to my church! And. she's just a sophmore! He's all over her too! He's such a pig!' Donna rolled down her window and yelled, "Let her breathe you animal!" Dave drove away quickly.

Chapter 2 (An error appeared in Chapter 1. Character Nancy Pulley was mistakenly referred to as Nancy Petty. My apologies to both lovely ladies.)

The couple pulled into the Rancher's Daughter a few minutes later. As usual, on a Saturday night, it was packed. This drive-inn was split equally in terms of high school turfism. The west side was pretty much reserved for Putnam City students while the east side was usually filled with Northwest kids. The found a space on the east side of the drive-inn and pulled up to a speaker. They ordered a cherry coke and a vanilla Dr. Pepper and looked around to see who was there and what they were doing. "You want to know who else got gipped Donna asked.?" "Jana Young." She answered, without waiting for Dave's reply. "She was by far the best looking girl up for Band Queen! And she got edged out by Nancy Petty!" Donna shook her head solemnly, "It just isn't fair." "Those band nerds are also poor judges of quality females. If the Electronics Club could have had a queen, my dear, it would have been you." Dave commented. Donna grimaced at the thought.

Across the drive-in from the couple, ten or twelve tough looking guys were hanging out around a car full of PC girls. "Those are the Coors Kids," Dave told Donna, "They are bad news, always looking for a fight. Most of them are PC guys, some have graduated, some dropped out, but all of them are bad. " Dave told her. "There's Bill Watts, he's the leader of the group. He's about 20 but still gets in a lot of street fights. They say that he once whipped Rocky Wade and Joel Kinancer in the same night!" Dave exclaimed. "What do you think they're doing here?" Donna asked. "I bet it's not for a meeting of the Great Books Club," Dave quipped. Within seconds, they watched as six Oklahoma City Police cars screeched into the drive-inn and a dozen officers jumped out with their weapons drawn. The ten members of the infamous "Coors Kids gang" were frisked, cuffed, and inserted into the back seats of the patrol cars. "Wow, wonder what they did?" Donna thought aloud. "Beat up some old guys at a bar up on 39th street. I heard em' bragging about it," the carhop answered. She had brought their drinks. "Seventy-seven cents." Dave gave her a dollar and told her to keep the change. "Wow, those guys really are evil, "Donna exclaimed.

More people came through the drive-inn and the news was hot! The Coors kids busted right here in the "Bitch!." As soon as another car came in and parked, someone would relate the news to the newcomer. The place was literally buzzing! At ten o'clock, Dave mentioned that if they wanted a good view at the street drags, they had better head that way. The drags were scheduled to start at 11:30. Even though they had plenty of time, Donna dutifully agreed with her date. Dave started the car and the couple headed for the secluded race area, Northwest Highway and County-Line Road.

At the dark and secluded intersection, Dave turned onto the blacktop road that was the Canadian County Line. He drove north about a mile until he saw the red starting line painted across the blacktop. "You wanna' watch the start or the finish?" Dave asked his lovely date. "Everybody will be at the start", Donna reasoned. "And I want to see who is here." "Okay, we'll park over here, near the start, "Dave told her. "We're a little early, but that's okay. I was hoping we'd have some time alone" Dave said. He turned off the car and the lights and put his arm around the beautiful blonde.

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The hottest cars in the city made their way west, attracting a following of spectators like a pied piper charming wide-eyed children. Each well-known hot rod was followed by 6 or 7 carloads of high school kids anxious to witness the tire smoking event that was the Saturday Night street drags.

Frank Walder made his way from Bixler's drive-inn. He drove a 1952 Willis sedan that sported a highly modified, fuel injected corvette engine. A beautifully painted, lowered, 1950 Chevrolet fastback, Tudor sedan, that sported another full-house corvette engine with dual fours under its highly polished candy orange hood, led a parade of a dozen cars westward. In another part of the city, a group of mechanics that would have made a Daytona crew envious, made the final preparations on a 1957 Corvette, whose owner coveted and fully planned to capture the title of "fastest car in town," this very night. The Corvette's rough idle indicated the presence of a radical camshaft, and the huge drag slicks that filled its wheel wells were for more than just decoration. In his Windsor Hills garage, Bruce Hopster, sat behind the wheel of his newly purchased, 1964 Ford Cobra. It's 429 c.i. engine rumbled ominously as he and his ever-present entourage, who were in a blue 1958 Chevy Impala, followed closely.

Along the way to County-Line road, other contenders joined the parade. Randy Moodley and his infamous pea green 56' Chevy pulled into the lineup. Larry McIntire's jet-black 55 Chevy pulled into the line of west bound traffic, behind the pea green legend.

Meanwhile, at the sight of the clandestine racetrack, the security crew for the races slowly and meticulously drove the measured quarter mile, and the mile or two north and south, searching for problems, problems such as, debris on the road, or policemen lying in wait. The front men spotted the darkened, parked 57 Chevy right away, parked just off the road, near the starting line. "This might be a problem," one of them said, "we better check it out." They converged on the car and noticed the heavily fogged windows. One of the boys knocked on the window and shouted, "Everything Okay in there?" A feminine scream. A muffled male curse and a flash of pink fabric took place. The security crew, laughing heartily, retreated to their car, and finished their pre-race checks.

Donna put on fresh lipstick, and fluffed her teased blonde locks. She looked over at Dave. He looked at her. The two burst out in laughter. They had been so caught up in what they were doing that neither of them had noticed the car pull up. Then when the guy had knocked on the fogged up window, it had scared the living daylights out both of them. Donna stopped laughing long enough to say, It's a good thing that wasn't some pervert with rape on his mind!" Then she started giggling again. "I was the only person with rape on his mind." Dave managed. Donna playfully slapped him and they started the car to defog the windows. People were beginning to arrive.

Blue Clark and Ken Newman purred by in Blue's boxy, Red MG. They looked for a place to park that afforded the best view of the races. They opted for a spot nearer the finish line. Henry Beltz and his steady Toni Binkly pulled up in their custom VW. They parked next to Blue and Ken. Carload after carload of kids arrived, some of the people Donna and Dave recognized, others they didn't. There were high school kids there from every corner of the city. By the time the first two cars were ready to race, the crowd was about 200 strong. The NWC electronics club was there with a police radio which would tip the large gathering off if the police decided to make an appearance. Guys had blocked the roads north and south of the race sight to make sure no one wandered onto the raceway, everything these kids could do was being done to keep a disaster from taking place.

The first two competitors were Randy Moody and his pea green 56 Chevy and the beautiful orange, 50 Chevy. The flagman readied both drivers then dropped the flag. The two cars screamed off the line. The smell of burned rubber and clutch permeated the late night air. The pea green chevy got the hole shot and led the race early, but the orange chevy pulled ahead and won by 5 or 6 car lengths by the time they reached the finish line of the quarter mile race. A red haired, freckle faced boy with a stopwatch made the winner's elapsed time 13.44 seconds, an admirable time for a "street car." Under the rules of the street drags, the green car was eliminated from the competition, while the orange car would go into the winner's group and race again. The next car that rumbled to the starting line was the supercharged 57 Corvette who someone said was owned and driven by a guy named Fred Reinauer, whose father owned a local car dealership. Matching up with the radical looking Corvette was Bruce Hostler and his factory fresh 429 Cobra. The flagman readied the drivers. The flag dropped, and the two machines screamed down the two lane blacktop. It was no contest. The Corvette with the eerie sound of the GMC blower whining, was across the finish line and had shut down before the Cobra even reached the ¾ line. The red headed timer was astonished! 11 seconds flat! An unheard of time for a car driven on the street! Frank Walby and his pals cursed at the incredible time. He would be hard to beat!

The pairings continued until half of the cars had been eliminated and only 6 competitors remained unbeaten. The orange 50 Chevy was on the line next to a shiny, new factory superstock 406 c.i. Ford. The two powerful engines revved and when the flagman dropped the flag, the vehicles rear tires screamed and smoked as the machines roared off into the darkness. At that very moment, farmer Fred Day, whose darkened farmhouse sat a half mile west of the finish line, cursed and jumped out of his bed. "I'll teach them damn, noisy kids and their flashy cars!" He snarled and grabbed his old double barrel twelve gauge, and he pulled on his overalls.

The unbeaten competitors were down to just three. Frank Walder's Corvette powered Willys sedan, a car and driver famous for doing "wheelies" in Bixler's. Rumor had it that this car was built totally from parts acquired at "Midnight Auto Supply." (This was street racer slang for being stolen). The car was a product of "shadetree engineering." It had been painstakingly built from the ground up, over the past two years, in Walder's garage by a group of teens; some of whom would grow up to be master mechanics and others who would spend the best parts of their lives in prison. The boys lightened the frame; the engine they assembled was pure corvette as were, the 4:56 rear end and running gears. The front end, brakes and steering were acquired from a Jaguar XKE. The Willys sedan was hand built by these teens, with nothing but speed in mind.

Also unbeaten was Frank Reinauer's red 57' corvette convertible. This beautiful little car was powered by a 327 cubic inch, corvette engine block that had been bored and polished by the most well known machine shop in the state. The same skilled craftsmen reworked and lightened the crankshaft, and installed an Iskederian, full race camshaft and a matching roller, lifter kit. Sitting atop the full race engine was a GMC blower that was fed its fuel by two, huge Carter AFB, 4 barrel carburetors. The Corvette had Goodyear racing slicks on the rear that more than filled the modified rear wheel wells. Attached to the rear deck of the Corvette was a fully functional, drag chute that could be deployed by the driver to aid in stopping the car if necessary. This car was built by professionals, at a cost of many thousands of dollars, with the goal of winning drag races. Its engine produced somewhere in the area of 500 horsepower.

The final, unbeaten car was the beautifully customized and meticulously painted, 1950 Chevrolet fastback, tudor sedan owned by the Collins brothers who had graduated the previous year from Harding high school. The twin brothers were talented young artists, whose canvas was, in this instance, an auto body. They took the rusty, aging Chevy body and hand sanded it perfectly smooth, frenching in the headlights, taillights, removing all the external chrome, insignias and handles. The car's paint was a hand mixed creation the brothers concocted that produced a pearlescent orange color that was far ahead of its time. Tommy Collins airbrushed murals on both sides and the rear deck of the car that were astonishingly realistic accounts of local landmarks. (Tommy later gained fame internationally by painting incredible murals on buildings in inner cities throughout America.) Terry Collins hand brushed pin striping and spider webbing inside and outside the car. He also decoratively, hand etched the glass in the edges of the windows. (Terry died tragically, a few years later, in the jungles of Vietnam). The boy's wealthy uncle took an interest in the, then stock Chevrolet, and provided it with a highly modified, chromed Corvette engine, rearend and transmission as a graduation present for the twins. The end result of these artisans work was arguably one of the most beautiful cars ever involved in street racing.The three drivers flipped coins and thus decided who would race whom. The Willys would race the orange Chevy and the winner of that race would then race the Corvette for the title of "fastest car in town." The Orange Chevy and the primered Willys sedan lined up next to each other and throttled up their engines as the flagman readied them for the race. The two hundred people watching had their eyes glued on the cars. A quarter mile away, the angry, sleep deprived farmer, Fred Day waited in the darkness for the cars. He cocked the hammers back on the ancient, double-barreled, twelve gauge.