# Car 54

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© 2005 / revised 2014
K Pelle

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Chapter 60:
Dead End - No Through Road

It took almost a year before our civil lawsuit against Pratt and Samuels came to trial. In fact by the time the civil trial started, both of them were already serving time on several federal charges, including bank fraud and income tax evasion. I think that time period worked to Cyrus's advantage though. At least he seemed to have found every asset that had been squirrelled away by B. J. Pratt. He'd also run down any funds or properties held by 'Bishop' Dwayne Samuels and the other seven men who were members of his cult and who had been involved in hiring Pratt. He even listed several assets that had been hidden from a casual observer, but then he had also worked with the RCMP investigation team during the criminal trial. As a result he had all of the evidence dug up by the RCMP detectives and forensic accountants and even more that was openly available to the general public.

Besides all that evidence, Cyrus had much more because John Coulter, Dad and I had hired a private investigator, given him the name of that screwball church and told him what we thought they were doing. After that Cyrus and I took the detective over to the RCMP detachment in Mountview and introduced him to Don Davis. Then I asked Don if there was any way he could disclose any information he had on the men who had raised so much trouble in town after Bill McAdam had gone on his rampage. By then trials had been held over all the incidents, so Don was able to provide us with names, addresses and even the license numbers on the cars driven by five of the men who had been there. Before we left he asked us to pass on the information if we discovered anything which might be incriminating.

Wow, did that detective ever do a job!

The first discover he made was that B.J.Pratt's nephew had been the bank clerk who had provide Pratt with the copy of our certified cheque, which is what had started the process that led to the first trial. Not only that, but he was also one of the people who had 'helped' his uncle to hide money in various 'secret' accounts, but actually the charges against him wouldn't be levied at the trial I was involved with. As the detective told me, "That's a freebee for your cop buddy for all the help he gave me that first day. He deserves that too, because he made my job easy with the rest."

Amongst other things the detective had discovered was that B. J. Pratt was a member of the 'Church of the United Brethren of Apostolical Unity' and had at least two 'secret' wives, one of whom was only fifteen years old. Since Pratt was over sixty, he was definitely going to be charged with statutory rape. When the detective told Don and Cyrus that, they both stared at him in disbelief. Pratt wasn't the only one who had a 'secret' wife under the age of majority though, so did 'Bishop' Samuels and so did another man in the group.

The six other men the detective had set out to investigate were all legally married to one wife, but also had a total of sixteen secret wives. Each and every one of the eight men on trial were not only legally married, but they each had a least one 'secret wife,' and some of them had several. One guy lived in a five floor apartment block that had been owned by Bill McAdam. The man in question worked in the apartment block as the caretaker and lived there with his wife, but he also had a 'secret' wife on each of the other floors of the building.

Then there was the mess that the detective discovered concerning the businesses those men owned. Most of that had already been exposed by the RCMP detectives and forensic accountants, but the detective discovered one business that seemed to be a financial 'black hole.' In other words money was funnelled into the company, yet it produced nothing saleable while constantly verging on bankruptcy - someone was sucking it dry, but our detective couldn't find out who or how. That was one that was turned over to the RCMP's forensic accountants and I don't know what happened afterward, but I know something did, because the business died just before the trial I had instigated went to court.

As for the trial itself, it was a romp for Cyrus. He called a total of thirty-six witnesses including Dad, Uncle Tom, Wil and me to prove harassment, attempted blackmail and several other charges.

Then I was asked to give a 'victim's impact statement' so once more I stood at the front the courtroom. I started by decribing how I met Sandy in the hospital, mentioned meeting her parents and what happened that first night. After that I mentioned meeting Jackie at the racetrack and described my first impression of her at that time. Next I mentioned her thirst for knowledge when she had visited the ranch. Instead of detailing the breakup I'd had with the three girls, I skimmed forward to the accident in Calgary and made sure I mentioned how Bill McAdam had disowned Jackie at that time. After that I described meeting and hiring the McAdam brothers and told of the way they reacted to kind treatment and how poorly educated they were at the time I met them. Then I gave a detailed account of Bill McAdams attack on the road and went on from there, describing every detail of what I had witnessed from that point to the moment the McAdam brothers left town. The only thing I fluffed over was the description of turning over Bill McAdam's possessions to his sons, but as far as I was concerned that was a private matter anyway.

Then I went into how everything had affected me and my family.

"Bill McAdam tried to kill my wife, my first son and myself by running us off the road. Fortunately, I had raced dirt-track stock cars for a few years, starting when I was sixteen years old, and I happened to be driving a street legal version of my stock car when he made his attempt on our lives. It was not my fault that he died. He was stupid and killed himself by trying to use a pickup truck with a high center of gravity to overtake and ram a car with beefed up suspension as we both negotiated a tight curve. Physics and angular momentum caused the less stable truck to skid off the road and into a ravine, where the resultant wreck caused McAdam's death. I feel no grief for the man, because before he died he had killed his wife and three of my friends, two of whom were his own children, but he also maimed three more of his sons so badly that they are now permanently disabled.

"That's right, the man had already killed or maimed every member of his personal family before he sought to kill me and mine. I found that fact to be almost unbelievable, but then I considered what I knew of him and realised that he was not a typical member of our society. First of all he was the treasurer of a group that calls itself the 'Church of the United Brethren of Apostolical Unity.' Only from what I have learned of that group I think they should be called the 'Cult of Unruly Bastards committing Avaricious Usury.'

However, it might be best if I explain my contention that my label is more accurate that theirs. I have seen physical proof that all of the accused men have multiple 'secret' wives who are totally subservient to their husbands. I believe those men have virtually enslaved their 'secret' wives and 'hidden' children, forcing them to follow a strange creed that keeps them penniless and ignorant of the real world. The children of those wives are schooled at home and taught to be totally subservient while being raised in conditions of virtual poverty. When the teenaged boys reach an age where they become interested in women, they are thrown out of the family. Since those young men were raised to be ignorant of the real world, they have a hard time finding a job or earning a living and often become little more than unskilled labourers or even vagrants. Meanwhile the girls are kept even more isolated and uninformed for they are expected to become 'secret' wives to the other men of the group. Those 'secret' wives and 'hidden' children do exist though and they are even known to our government agencies, because each of those 'secret' wives receives a monthly welfare cheque as a single mother. Each of those 'hidden' children is also listed with the welfare office as dependents of those supposedly single mothers and every one of those women receives aid from welfare to care for those children. I don't believe the funds from those cheques is theirs to use as the women wish though. Instead I suspect the men in the family use those ill gotten dollars for their own avaricious purposes.

"My family and I have already spoken of how Bill McAdam's family came into contact with my friends and family and how we helped them to become productive members of society. However, Bill McAdam found it intolerable that his children should be so rebellious that they would actually go to regular schools, have well paying jobs and become independent citizens. He decided that his wife, his children, and all those who had aided his children to become productive members of society had to die. He killed his wife and two of his children, as well as one of our other friends, destroyed the lives of his three remaining children, attempted to kill me and my family and left a whole town shocked and dismayed at the horror he left behind.

Do you know what the gossips and rumour mongers in Mountview call that man now? They refer to him as 'Devil' Bill and although he is dead, they say his ghost haunts the corner where he died. They also use his name to try to scare naughty little boys, but I'm not a naughty little boy, so those scare tactics don't work on me. 'Devil' Bill annoyed me when he disowned his daughter, worried me when he tried to have his sons kidnap that same daughter and angered me when he killed or maimed my friends. Then he infuriated me when he tried tried to kill my family by running us off the road with his pickup, but 'Devil' Bill never scared me. However, he and his minions have made me cautious, so I and my personal family have had to take precautions to protect ourselves.

"My wife and I have four children and we live in a hidden valley which is many miles from Mountview, the town where most of the harassment and other forms of attack have taken place. Mountview is not where we live, but it is the closest town to our ranch, so we do shop there and we have a post-office box there. The fact that we use that post-office box as our mailing address is the probably reason why those who wish to harass and attack us come there and act like predators in search of prey. In fact we live so far out of town that the ranch where we live didn't even have telephone service or hydro electric power until fairly recently. We do have a CB and a shortwave radio though, so even if the phone line is disabled, we always have communication with the people we have hired to watch the gate to our ranch. Those people receive a reduced rent just to keep an eye on our road and let us know if any strangers happen to wander through that gateway and drive down our private road. Since our roadway between the gate and the ranch is quite long and is a meandering dirt and clay trail, we will have plenty of time to prepare a suitable reception for our visitors, depending on whether they're friendly or not.

"Now I should mention that we have many friendly visitors, but we have also had unfriendly visitors, both human and animal. We had one pair of young thugs who managed to sneak onto the ranch one dark night with a bomb of sorts. What they had was an incendiary device which the RCMP advised me at the time was probably meant to destroy our home while we slept. Those two young men didn't count on meeting our dogs though, and when our dogs decided the two interlopers were up to no good, they gave chase and herded the invaders away from our home. The bombers thought that a fenced building would be a good place to hide, but didn't realise it was the home of an old sow who'd recently had a litter of piglets and was quite protective of them. She proved to be even more fierce than the dogs though and as a result they had to climb on the roof of the hog barn to find safety. Only they were surrounded then, with the old sow on one side and the dogs on the other three. That was the situation which confronted me when I was awakened by the ruckus and went outside to investigate, so I called the police who found the circumstances somewhat amusing. They advised me to let the dogs keep the visitors on that roof until a pair of constables could come take them into custody. In fact I had to call off the dogs when the RCMP came, just so those two young fellows could climb down to be arrested and taken into custody.

"The next set of unfriendly visitors was a pack of feral dogs that made the mistake of attacking my father's cattle and killing one of his calves. My father and my brother chased the pack across their ranch and toward mine. Then when the dogs were slowed by the steep terrain between our ranches, but exposed to our view, we shot them, then took their corpses to town and turned them over to the local authorities. That's when we first discovered that the leader of the pack had killed a woman before running wild and terrorizing the town.

"Of course since we live on ranch in a relatively untamed area we are accustomed to natural predators. Our stock has been attacked by cougars, packs of wolves and other predators of that sort, so we keep weapons handy to deal with them, but we aren't often bothered by wild animals. In most cases we are able to frighten them off, but at times we have to destroy the predators to save our animals and ourselves. To put it plainly, the ranch is surrounded by untamed foothills, a home surrounded by wilderness, so when we are attacked by predators our existance can quickly become a life or death situation. Which leads us to the reason we are in court today, because recently we have been attacked by a group of human predators, but Canadian law takes a dim view of using weapons as protection against other humans, even rogues such as the ones who have been attempting to victimize us. So since we can't legally use our normal methods of protection against the rogue humans who have attacked us and have blatantly broken the laws of our society, we are forced to ask the help of this court in an attempt at stopping their predation.

"And don't let them fool you, because through the actions I have personally witnessed, I regard B. J. Pratt, 'Bishop' Samuels and his compatriots of the 'Church of the United Brethren of Apostolical Unity' as predators, first by preying on their wives and children, but also by attacking my friends, my family and me. They made the incredible error of entrusting a portion of their funds to 'Devil' Bill McAdam, who made those funds vanish, then died in an accident while attempting to kill me and my family. By some insanely convoluted reasoning, they managed to convince themselves that I had gained control of those funds and they made the erroneous decision to attack me.

"As you can probably tell, I am not easily intimidated and I have proven that I can protect my wife and family. Since I knew that my family was protected, the slander, the harassment, the attempted black mail and all the other annoyances that the accused had thrown at me up until that time had little effect. All they had succeeded in doing was to aggravate and annoy me, but with a last act of supreme asininity they finally managed to anger me, which is the reason for this lawsuit. They hired B. J. Pratt to lead that attack, but as a lawyer he should have known better than to take their case. They broke the law and using a certified cheque which they had stolen and copied. Using that stolen information as a flimsy basis for their mistaken beliefs, they accused me of theft and misappropriation of funds, but in an act of supreme asininity they made those accusations in front of dozens of witnesses. Not only that, but one of those witnesses was an RCMP officer. He realized they were breaking Federal banking laws by misusing a legally protected document in an attempt to harrass, intimidate and blackmail me, so he immediately had them taken into custody and charged.

"That was the last straw. As a result of that action I instigated this lawsuit. I wish to bankrupt these individuals so they will no longer be able to afford to hire the thugs they have been sending to harass the citizens of the town of Mountview, my family and myself.

"You should know that if we win this lawsuit I will not touch the funds we will be awarded. Personally I don't want any of those funds because that money is tainted by the men who stole from the hungry mouths and threadbare backs of their wives and children. Instead that money will be placed in a fund which will be used to aid and educate less fortunate individuals, especially those who have been victimized by men of the same sort as 'Devil' Bill and those of his ilk who are on trial here. In fact some of that money may well be used to assist the 'hidden' children and 'secret' wives of the nine men who sit before this court as the accused. You see, in my opinion they are all just as guilty of evil as 'Devil' Bill ever was, but perhaps you feel that I am wrong. All I can do is hope that this court will find them guilty as charged, because I am not allowed to do any more than what I have done and still have my actions remain within legal boundaries.

"Thank you for permission to speak your honour and I wish to thank the court for listening."

Then I nodded to the judge and when he released me from the witness stand I rejoined Sandy and listened to the concluding arguments of the lawyers. Then when the jury was sequestered we stepped out of the coutroom to take a break. However, within two hours we were called back to hear the results and learned that the nine defendents had been found guilty of all charges.

I won't mention the final amount we settled for, but I will say that it was a considerable sum, well into seven figures. Knowing that, I doubt if any of those men left court with enough assets to buy a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of, which suited me just fine. I'm fairly certain that if we didn't get the last of their ill gotten gains, then either their lawyers or the government did. The important fact of the matter is that my family and I haven't heard or seen any sign of the group since the day the trial ended. I imagine part of the reason for that is the fact that all nine of those men were arrested for other crimes before they ever left the courtroom. I don't know why they were arrested, nor do I know what charges they faced, but I don't much care either! In my opinion those men deserved to be thrown in jail to rot because they had preyed on others and as a rancher, I have enough problems with natural predators.

Since the money was turned over to a well known non-profit society by the courts, it didn't have any effect on our income, therefore our costs for that trial was negligible. The only thing Sandy and I had to do was to arrange for the society to set up two funds to help two different foundations. The first fund provides money to the Jacqueline McAdam Foundation, which provides university or other educational scholarships to deserving young women. The only requirements are that the applicant plans on going into some form of health care, has good grades, but is having trouble finding funding to continue her education. The second fund administers the John McAdam Foundation and it is set up to aid and educate those women and children who want to or have escaped the clutches of such groups as the 'Church of the United Brethren of Apostolical Unity,' I like to think Jackie and John would have approved of our use of their names for those two foundations.

-o0o-

There was an additional, but quite wonderful result following that trial though. The trial had been in Calgary and rather than go home or to a motel after the final verdict had been rendered in our favour, Sandy and I decided to celebrate. I'd always wanted to stay at the Palliser Hotel on 9th avenue, so that's where we got a room, then we went next door and watched the sunset from the revolving restaurant at the top of the Calgary Tower. I should mention that the elevator up and down that tower did more to upset my stomach than any bucking bronc has ever done, but the view as the sun set behind the Rockies, followed by the view of the twinkling city lights was worth it. Sandy seemed to think the elevator ride was very thrilling though. Well, she might have felt the meal and the view as the sun set behind the mountains was exceptionally romantic - or perhaps she enjoyed staying in the Palliser hotel - or maybe she was celebrating the end of the trial and our success at winning. For whatever reason, she became decidedly amorous that night. I'm fairly certain that our last child was conceived in room on the fifth floor of the Palliser Hotel, a room facing onto 9th avenue in downtown Calgary, Alberta.

Jacqueline Carissa Crawford was born exactly two hundred and eighty days later, to the day - if not the hour!

She's red haired, feisty and fearless. Even though Jackie is three years younger than Josh and John and five years younger than Toby and Tina, she still tries her best to rule the roost, but she doesn't argue with the others. Instead she's a natural born politician, who can talk her siblings into almost anything - her Granny Crawford says she's a chip off the old block, meaning me I guess, but who knows, maybe she means Sandy, or even Grampa Bender? I can't say Jackie is the apple of my eye, because all my kids vie for that position, but as far as she's concerned she's certainly Papa's little girl. Jackie's view of a perfect day seems to be tagging along as I carry on with my daily work and no matter how smelly or boring those jobs happen to be, she just loves to help her Papa. So I'm fairly certain we'll have at least one child willing to take over the ranch when I retire in thirty-five or forty years.

Right at the moment our five children have developed into typical ranch kids, they're enjoying life and having fun, but they are also willing and able to step in and help at a moment's notice. During the summer they ride horses, go skinny dipping at the swimming hole and race around on small motor cycles or in the winter they might hop on skis or skidoo's or else they'll clear a patch of ice and put on skates to play hockey, but they'll drop everything if there's work to do. In fact the two eldest have even graduated to driving tractors, but then Toby and Tina will be teenagers next spring. Josh and John are more like Tom was when he was younger, so if they could, they'd spend their whole day taking apart and rebuilding anything they can get their hands on. Then of course Jackie manages to involve herself in just about anything that anyone is doing, most often whatever I'm doing though. Actually Juan and Marco tease her and call her 'la sombra del jefe' or the 'boss's shadow,' but she just shrugs her shoulders, grins and carrys on 'helping' Papa. Of course that depends on whether or not what I'm doing interests her, but since she's only seven, she does have a limited attenion span.

In case you're wondering about their education, Netty approached Sandy and me about that when Toby and Tina were four years old. As a result of our talk, she updated her teacher's certificate to Alberta's standards, then we built her a one room school house. Netty isn't teaching only our five though, she also teaches Al and Em's three kids and Art and Debbie's two, so in the winter that little school house is full. She can teach the kids all their elementary classes, but they're going to have to either take correspondence courses for high school or transfer to town school when they hit grade nine or ten. My personal feeling is that they should spend at least two or three years in regular high school, but we'll see what happens when the time comes. Whatever happens should be interesting, but that's something to think about in the future, at the present time they're all doing well.

-o0o-

Time rolls on, tastes change and economics dictate reality, but fate still plays a role and Car 54 was fated to play one final role in my life. As the years passed, dirt track racing had fallen out of favour as a form of entertainment, because although it was exciting, it was also dirty, it was noisy and there was a charge at the gate. Besides anyone with a television could watch Nascar racing - it was covered in the cost of basic cable and could be watched from the comfort of their living room couch. As a result many former fans simply stopped attending the races and the racetrack lost money hand over fist as even the die-hard fans grew fewer with each race. Then a developer decided that the dying raceway at Pine Lake would be a perfect setting for a campground and he convinced the owner to sell him the property. Charlie Wells, the owner of the track, decided to have one final race as a gesture of goodwill before the ownership changed hands. He contacted all former car owners, mechanics, car drivers and sponsors, sending everyone an invitation to come and say goodbye to the track and each other.

Now I felt that when I'd sold Car 54, I'd wiped my hands of the dirt and grime from the track and walked away from racing. Besides, that final race was going to be held during haying season and I decided I couldn't afford to take the time to go. I was surprised that Sandy disagreed with me, and was astonished to hear that Tom, George and most of my family agreed with her. Even Frank insisted that I should drive and Clarence called to encourage me as well, but the deciding vote was cast by Gary Wagner when he played his trump card. I hadn't heard about it, but he'd been in an accident at work and had broken his back, so he was confined to a wheelchair. Even though he couldn't drive Car 54 himself, he felt that it should be in that final race and it should be driven by someone he trusted so he asked me to drive it for him. I argued and bitched about it, but quite simply I couldn't turn him down.

It took some doing because that old car had sat on blocks for several years, but after Clarence brought it down and dropped it off at my shop, Tom, George and half a dozen other friends spent every evening for a week getting that car ready to race. Frank donated one last set of new tires and Art Dumfries touched up the paint one last time, then we loaded it onto the trailer and Jerry hauled it to the track one last time. Once more Tom followed in his truck, then I brought up the rear in my car, but Sandy decided that our kids were all old enough to see Papa race, so they tagged along in her car. Somehow we picked up a train of other cars as we drove toward the track, and I had to chuckle at that. If nothing else I knew we'd have a rooting section in the stands.

That morning it had taken more time to get ready than I'd expected, so we were running a bit late and I knew we were going to be cramped for time. As a result by the time we got to the track I was feeling just as many butterflies in my gut as the first day I'd driven in a race. I wasn't the same person as before, the track didn't look anywhere near as well maintained as it had when I'd last seen it and even the car was totally different, but I had the same feeling of wonder and worry as I watched a half-dozen guys rush to unload that old junker. While the safety crew went over the car to check that we hadn't added any modifications that were blatantly illegal, I pulled out my old track suit, started to put it on and broke into laughter. As a kid that suit had been loose and floppy on me, but now I could hardly get into it. Even stripped down to nothing but my gaunches, I had a fight to get it on and by the time I managed to squirm into it, that dang thing felt like a second skin. The only part of my gear that fit well was my helmet, so at least I didn't have a swelled head and I decided that was a good thing, because I wasn't feeling very confident about anything right at that moment.

Finally I was as ready as I would ever be, so I squeezed my body into that old car seat, adjusted my seat belt and started the engine to warm it up, then finally pulled onto the track to do a few warm-up laps. Actually I dawdled along for the first lap or two, being passed by everything out there, then a car came up behind me that was painted the same colour as Bill McAdam's pickup. Something clicked then and the other cars on the track seemed to slow down right before my eyes, but the guy behind me was still catching up. What followed wasn't a conscious decision, but my right foot jammed the accelerator down hard and for the next few laps I flew around that dang track, passing everything I could see. On the second or third lap at that speed I realised that oddly painted car was no longer following me and I gradually eased my foot off the throttle, then it dawned on me that Car 54 was running quite well and was relatively easy to handle. I was surprised, because the last time I'd driven that car it had been a bear to herd around the track. This time the car felt good and it seemed to be running well, so I decided it was time to pull into the infield and find my place in the pits.

"Hey, Chris, good to see ya and thanks for helpin' get the old beast out here. You don't seem to have forgotten much!" Gary Wagner greeted me from the seat of his electric wheelchair as I pulled to a stop next to Tom's truck. "Ain't you glad we all twisted your arm to get you here today?"

"Well, the car sure took some getting used to and even when I finally found a grove where I could control the car, I seemed to be going slower than I used to," I sighed and shook my head. "I just hope I don't disappoint everyone too badly today."

I was surprised when Gary just looked at me, shook his head and rolled away toward Clarence's pits.

"What's with him?" I asked George, who was leaning against the front fender of the car and grinning like a fool.

"Oh, nothing much, but you should know that he timed your last couple of laps and you came within a few seconds of the record lap speed on this track, and just guess who holds that record?"

"Gary?" I asked quietly.

"Nope, some guy named Chris Crawford, a fellow who used to race here several years ago," Tom laughed as he popped the hood. "Or didn't you know that?"

"You've gotta be kidding me!" I frowned as I was squeezing out of the car. "I'm surprised no one told me. By the way, does everything look okay in there?"

"The engine looks fine and for the other, I guess we should have gone to the winter banquets, because that's where all the years records were announced. You, George and I have our names on several cups and such, so do Frank and Jerry, which means the Car 54 crew did a lot more than have fun for the two years we were here."

"Yeah, but I'll bet those banquets happened during the week and in the winter when we were in school. Besides, I don't know about you, but past prizes don't mean much to me, so I ain't gonna worry much about 'em."

"Well, I understand they'll be presenting a few today, so we may end up taking a few home tonight," George grinned at me.

I just shrugged my shoulders at that, but before I could say anything, the track marshal came up and warned me that it was almost time for me to take my hot laps. So I got back in the car and drove over to the track entrance, then pulled out when I got the green flag. I told myself I was only there to 'show the flag' as it were, and didn't think I needed to win anything, so I found my line and I 'cruised' the track, but didn't push hard at first. I did manage one or two faster laps, just to find a 'racing groove' I could run at speed, but I found it hard to run fast without anyone else on the track, so I suppose my 'competitive' gene was acting up. At the time I didn't think it mattered much, the car was there and it was ready to race, so where I place in the heats didn't really matter much. What I should have remembered is that Car 54 was set up to run fast in the first place and that Gary Wagner had spent years modifying that car to make it run even faster than before. I discovered later that he'd even made a deal to get Car 54's old frame from Frank and had spent most of the first winter he owned the car busily swapping the 'new' power train and body onto that old frame. That was probably why I had no trouble handling Car 54 that day and his hard work setting up the car was probably why my lap times were as good as they were. Although I hadn't tried very hard I'd placed surprisingly well and would definitely be running in the first heat.

As a result when it came time to run the first heat it was like old home week for me, in fact it was almost like reliving the start of my first race. Clarence and I were racing side by side and at the head of the pack, the only difference was that he was on the inside, having taken top lap time by a few seconds, so he got choice of starting position. The race was different though, because that wily old bugger got the jump on me when the green flag dropped and beat me through 1-2 corner, then try as I might I couldn't pass him, so he lead the race from green flag to chequer. However, the two of us managed to lap every other car there and as a result we were both qualified to run in the fourth and final race of the night.

In between races Clarence, Gary and I got together and 'shot the shit,' catching up on recent events in each others lives and had a lot of fun remembering past races. Other drivers joined us as well though, so at times there must have been twenty or thirty of the old racers joining in, but I can't even remember most of their names now. I do know we all had a good time and that I was somewhat reluctant to get ready for the final race of the day. At that point I knew that I'd be saying a final goodbye to an important part of my life.

Then during the first lap of the final race of the day I glanced in my mirror and that strange memory of Bill McAdam bearing down on my rear bumper invaded my mind once again. I do not recall the majority of that race, but I do know that after it was finished I made the decision that I'd never be involved with another stock car race in any way.

Sandy described that race to me after the kids were in bed that evening and it seemed to me that she was telling me a story about someone else who lapped every car on the track and won first prize for the day. I don't remember any of it and I really don't want to try, because each time I do, what I remember is the feeling of racing away from Bill McAdam. Unfortunately that memory reawakens feelings that I have sought to bury and forget since they virtually horrify me.

I wasn't afraid when Bill McAdam was chasing us down that road, if anything I was angry that anyone would dare to try to kill my wife and son. It was hours after the incident, when I went to move my car from where it had been hastily parked at Lucille's house, that I realized how close I had come to killing my family. That's when I noticed that the car's left-side rear-view mirror was damaged and folded back out of position. That mirror was mounted on the frame of the driver's door and extended about five or six inches past my fender, but it had been undamaged when I backed out of my parking spot at the ranch. I realized that the only place it could have been damaged was when we raced onto that rickety, old, wooden bridge in a four wheel drift. I knew then that if I'd been even a few inches further to the left when my wheels hit the bridge deck there might well have been two wrecked vehicles laying in that ravine that day. That's when I felt the terror of knowing that my driving might have cost my wife and son their lives.

Now some people may wonder how I could still drive the actual car that raced away from that lunatic without being affected, since it was the street version of Car 54, but I can't answer that question. Actually within six months of that encounter with Bill McAdam I had traded off my old Ford car. In return I got another old Jeep, but it had a full roof, actual doors, windows and a heater, which meant plowing light snow off the ranch's roads and trails would be a lot more comfortable. Besides, I hardly ever used that old car by then, if we went out with the kids we used Sandy''s station wagon and if I went anywhere on my own I used my pickup. Then the kid who had made the trade with me totalled that old Ford car by trying to take a corner way too fast. So that was that, my old car ended up being crushed and shipped off as scrap metal.

Other than that all I can say is that I suspect that time compression sensation had to do with the mindset I'd slip into when I sat at the wheel of a stock car. However that curious slow-motion effect does still happen, just not very often. Now it only seems to affect me when I'm in danger of being injured. Since that's usually when I'm on the back of a horse that's trying to buck me off, I don't mind that at all because it's something useful to me and my business.

However for a few years there was still one reminder around of my days as a stock car driver. After that last race Frank Dolens bought Car 54 from Gary Wagner, had his guys strip it down to frame and body, then repainted it and mounted it on a pedestal right at the entrance to his used car lot. So for a few years if you were driving around the foothills of Alberta on one of the secondary highways you might have noticed an old stock car that seemed to be parked on a concrete block a short distance off the road. Since the name of everyone involved and what we had done when the car was raced had been painted on the driver's door, you would have known you had found our home town. It might have still been sitting there today, but after a few years the folks in town got tired of answering questions about that old junker and asked Frank to get rid of it. By that time I don't think it was much use as an advertising gimmick anyway and I'll be honest, I was glad to see it gone.

Now, before I ramble on too much longer about my friends and family or about our trials and triumphs, I've read over what I've written and I feel I've achieved my original goals. The story has covered how Car 54 came to be and the results of ownership of that hunk of metal and rubber. I've told of the friends that car brought me and even of the adversaries I met along the road, mentioned joint triumphs and personal tragedies, even boasted of friendships I made, loves I found and mourned the lives of family members and friends I've lost. Then, I wandered far afield, telling peripheral details and happenings that were brought on by decisions made because I'd had that old car in my life. Since this started out to be a yarn about a shy teenage kid with an old car, and before it becomes a tale of a middle-aged rancher and his family, I've decided to put away my pen and declare this story complete.

So, it's time to wave THE CHEQUERED FLAG. Car 54's race is done!