THE RACER Chapter 11



Race Car
courtesy photobucket.com



 

While Lucas was pretending to be a race car driver, Mason talked to Abel and John, Lucas's father.

A few days later he came back and had some plans for an engine driven small race car.  

 

After some discussion they made some changes in the plans, and Mason said, “I will draw up a new set of plans reflecting the changes we decided on.”

The next time they met they made a couple of minor modifications.  The biggest problem was the steering and the brakes.

Mason never showed up for a week and when he did, he had the frame, axels and steering in place.  He used light weight channel for the basic frame that was reinforced at the crucial points.

He told Abel, “We can use the engine from the mower, but it will have to be rebuild it for it is getting old.”

Abel said, “I checked and a rebuild kit will run twenty dollars, which I don't have.” Mason said, “I have some connections and will take care of that.”

The next consideration was the tires and wheels.  Mason managed to get some pneumatic wheels off of some old heavy hand trucks.  The wheels had roller bearings (Which Mason replaced with new) and could be greased with a grease gun.

Now they had to figure out how to put brakes on them. As it turned out that was the hardest thing to fix on the race car.

Abel rebuilt the engine and had it running so it was ready to be mounted in the car. Next came the shaping of the sheet metal to make it look like a racer.

Mason cut the top out of a couple of junk cars and used that metal for body. It took a lot of cutting and shaping but it was finally ready for paint.

Abel had made the seat and padded it with some soft padding.

They both stood there looking at the car when Lucas came over and was looking for the old mower when he saw the new racer.

       

He had not been allowed to come over to Abel's for a week, and now he was ready to take the mower for a spin.

He first looked at the car and then over at Abel and Mason and back and forth.  Mason said, “What do you think?”

Lucas began to tear up and finally started to cry.  He never dreamed that they were building this machine.  It was bright red and had the number one on it.

After he settled down he slowly walked over to the car and began to check out each and every part.  He said, “Can I drive it?”

Abel said, “Sure, on Saturday we will take it to the track and you can do the test drive. For now you can sit in it and see if it will start.”

Lucas easily slipped into the seat and figured out how to start it up. When he started it the rebuilt motor was much smoother running than before and sounded great.

He examined the pedals and it had a real transmission so he could change gears.  Lucas said, “The only thing it doesn't have is a horn!”

He shut it down and they explained everything about the car and how to drive it.  

 

Lucas could hardly wait for Saturday to come around.

Over the years Mason had done some work for the owner of the track, and had gotten permission to use the track when it wasn't busy.

Lucas found what was left of the old mower out back in the junk yard and thought about how much different his new race car was than the old mower.

It was hard to find a helmet for Lucas but they found a small one they stuffed paper in so it would fit tight and not fall off.

Lucas was familiar with the track for his father had taken him to see the midget cars race, but now he was going to drive around at a speed a lot slower that they went.     

To be Continued