M-D-S Ch. 10 - Track went silent

CHAPTER 10 TRACK WENT SILENT May 1979

Mediterranean people possessed a knack for auto racing. By the 1970’s, Granatelli and Andretti may have been at the top of that hit parade but it was the great Vito Calia and his contemporaries who lit them up at Kansas City’s Olympic Speedway. By1936 mules had dragged-out the Olympic oval, pulverizing its coarse dirt into fines, partially replicating the Million Dollar Speedway’s Hank and Dan's.

The family-owned Olympic claimed no boards, no millions, but perhaps most importantly, fewer out-of-town promoters. The Miller (Molle) family’s track was removed from the Million Dollar Speedway by twelve miles and a nearly decade. Kansas City never re-embarrassed itself on the boards, the Olympic’s arching turns flowed into flat pulverized dirt. beds.

During late 1935 a portable wooden track was rail transported to Kansas City and temporarily stored in an unused convention hall, one housing infrequently used parade articles. Before Kansas City could rejoin a larger velodrome circuit, though, the old structure caught fire in late 1936, effectively eliminating additional velodrome-based events.

The Olympic Speedway seated three thousand, sometimes doubling as an arena for baseball games, professional wrestling contests or even Wild West shows, an urban venue reachable by car or bus or even on foot.

Chins hooked over sedans’ front seats, unrestrained children bounced like marionettes as their parents drove Truman Road headed toward the Olympic. Spouses carried open beer cans while drivers fumbled with admission coins. The aroma of race car exhausts was diluted by those owing their origins to coconut-oil popcorn, boiled wieners and cotton candy.

Little Otis loved the races, sharing race fan status with Andy, his Papa. He had been held back following the first grade, a similar double circuit of Otis' second grade year applied. Every September Otis raced through early review of A-B-C’s before stumbling on more advanced topics. Even with prompting Otis could not read full sentences aloud, loudly phonating through a single word before resorting to giggling.

By his sixth school week Otis, his mother, Olive, anticipated another disappointing phone call. Otis should be set back.

These limitations came as a surprise to parents who insisted he had actually been quite explorative until nearly his third birthday. As Andy and Olive elaborated, they believe Otis must have caught a pesky flu bug. Olive related how three-year old Otis was a handful, recalling how she had once found him hiding under the kitchen sink, another time losing him altogether until noticing weird scraping noises emanating beneath the kitchen floor, Otis-the-crawler.

Andy and Olive’s relatives numbered among Missouri’s country people, the sole exception being one well-educated, yet troublesome female cousin, a degreed psychologist infecting family gatherings with unwanted assessments of fecally-incontinent aunts and lecherous uncles. Curiously, Andy’s cousin

rebuffed their assertion that Otis’ three seizures and corresponding mental slowness originated with a flu bug.

As Andy became distant during Olive’s pregnancy, she had gorged on gritty cereals and pastes.

Otherwise a neat, non-drinker, such cravings embarrassed her, eventually causing Olive to question Otis’ pediatrician regarding the toxicity of wallpaper paste. Quicker with the spoken word than his pen, he phonated through its four-letter description, P-I-C-A. Pica is fortunately rare, defined by craving and often chewing non-food items. While traceable to the ancients, the origins of this odd pica condition remain vague.

Twice Olive had discovered Otis using tiny finger nails to scrape dust from a window sash. She never shared with Andy, worse yet, his cousin how she had tasted a paint chip-or-two herself.

School administrators waving Sunny Pines and Quiet Waters brochures created phony bladder wall contractions for her, launching Otis into a ladies’ room privacy. Sweltering August school sign-ups witnessed her at the head of enrollment lines, believing currently enrolled lessened the possibility of Otis being institutionalized. Otis was similarly up-to-date on immunizations, his school supplies meticulously organized, two pencils, one pink Eberhard-Faber eraser and one ink pen - non-fountain type only, as if these items guaranteed mainstreaming.

School worries hardly clouded Andy and Otis’ opening night prospects. The popcorn prankster and his young son rode the No.-15 bus, joined by an unlikely tag-along. Having peeked at Andy’s storeroom calendar, Prof Brooklyn had asked if he could join the excursion.

Olive packed a PB&J sandwich for Otis, waxed paper securing sticky contents, twice reminding Andy to remove its tooth pick before passing the snack to Otis. Before departing the college Andy borrowed Prof Mel’s binoculars. Mel reluctantly lent them, bonus-ing Andy with lens cleaning paper and an explanatory note about its importance.

On their Truman road bus ride Brooklyn explained a rather remarkable shift in recreational alternatives, one having origins in a man-of-war encounter near the Kitty Kat lounge, a 12th street tavern.

By self-admission, he acknowledged joining a belly dancer’s tassel had been a mistake. But how was I supposed to know he was her husband?

Past the Kitty Kat incident, Brooklyn’s week did not improve. While his caregivers stressed drug adherence, they had no idea of the exceptions he created. Favoring lead toxicity as a lead-in, Brooklyn diverted patient education opportunities into monologues devoted to pollution problems applicable to Bo-Zur Louisiana. Dissatisfied with medical advice, he consulted medical textbooks about his Graves’ disease, one full of scary explanations applicable to racing heartbeats, failed hearts and high fevers.

On that post-Kitty Kat Wednesday, he prowled the college library, searching for fresh insights into this morbidly labeled Graves’ disease. Spotting a newsletter describing the Mallinckrodt General Clinical Research Center’s contributions, the G-C-R-C as it was also labeled, Brooklyn noticed this Harvard research arm had first investigated lead toxicity.

He oddly reinterpreted the G-C-R-C’s legacy as proof he didn’t suffer from difficult-to-treat Graves’ disease, weirdly concluding his symptoms owed their origins to his time in Bossier City, Louisiana, his inner voice whispering he hadn’t just been dismissed, he had been lead poisoned in Bo-Zur. The G-C-R-C receptionist took Brooklyn’s call but failed to understand its Missouri origins given his New York City accent. However, the internist she paged quickly appreciated his caller had been diverting laboratory reagents for dangerous uses, forcibly steered the conversation past lead contamination toward the inadvisability of that dangerous practice. It is hard to say who first hung up.

Upon their Olympic arrival, Brooklyn broke into an antsy monologue, and was unable to sit still, shortly disappearing. Anticipating his return, Andy and Otis generously expanded their personal effects along the bleacher seat, anticipating his return.

Using Mel’s binoc’s to scan the infield, Andy made a remarkable discovery, viewing Brooklyn among race crew mechanics. Focusing the binoc’s, he noted that Brooklyn had set a small amber bottle atop a mini-crate he had brought along.

Used the box as a makeshift podium, he pointed to a small amber bottle. What was he describing, perhaps an oil or gas additive? Andy watched Brooklyn dropper tiny volumes of his bottles’ contents into six crewspecific gas cans, mechanics grinned as if he had invited them to a bank vault scramble.

Mythology regarding fuel specifications was extensive, controversial, too. While none of the crews possessed an extensive knowledge of fuel chemistry, each had heard tales regarding the good stuff, hard-to-acquire octane boosters. An angular crew chief finally interrupted to announce the race’s start.

Turning to Brooklyn, he asked if they could speak following the contest.

On the heels of the start flag, it wasn’t more than two minutes before a more composed Brooklyn joined Andy and Otis. All three witnessed the preliminary heats, two warm-up races, anticipating the evening finale, a forty-lap feature. Perhaps exhausted by yet another frustrating day spent at school, Otis’ dozed on his father’s lap.

The forty-lapper featured twelve cars set two-three wide, a roster of short country names, two Carl’s, one James, a Junior, a Jud and a Howard. Other colorful entries appeared, too, an Iron Head, a Hacksaw and a Grim, plus the great champion, Vito. None of drivers were midget-dimensioned, abundant torsos and helmeted heads filling their long-nosed chassis. The bleachers’ temporary occupants stood for both the bell and final laps.

Into the final turn, Vito-the-great high-sided Carl-the-first, attracting enough of Carl’s attention for the latter’s car to drift wide. Vito-the-great tapped his brakes, slowing momentarily to gun under highdrifting Carl, turning the oldest racing trick into yet another victory.

Midget racing teased multiple senses, eyes, ears and noses all ramped full-on. Following a long evening race card, racers and their crews looked beat. Not unlike the Cook Painters, accomplished midget racers worked day-jobs before competing at the professional level. Some would transition to full-bodied cars the following night at Odessa, Missouri, perhaps a more suitable venue for pilfered octane boosters like those Brooklyn had shared.

Relieving himself at a waterfall-style urinal, Brooklyn reviewed a placard. Midgets and sprint cars will be inspected for sound muffling devices on opening day 1981. Lines of confused pigeons circled beside otherwise quiet roosts, anticipating an hour when the noise gratefully disappeared.

Birds and race fans alike required nearly twelve quiet hours for delicate inner ear mechanisms to recover.

The track went silent at eleven pm, one hour past the city’s newly enacted, yet unenforceable quiet hour.

Road guards swung red-shielded flashlights like batons, waving fans onto Truman Road, drivers gunning their engines, blue-collar salutes to Vito and his contemporaries. Otis walked between his dad and their professor friend, his small hand linked to Andy’s right. A cavalcade of trucks and race trailers departed last. The final entry was driven by the angular crew chief who stopped to give the retarded boy and his two adults companions a ride home.

Racing’s legendary bad boy, bootlegger roots prompted mixed responses. How much longer could a family-owned enterprise offer accessible, yet noisy entertainment, so near Kansas City’s core. Racing’s noise, speed and risk attributes weren’t attractive to everyone in Kansas City. Yet those simple Friday nights spent at the Olympic Speedway were loud and frenetic, and so much fun.