Even using heavy equipment, explosives, and fire, it had taken the whole winter to set up the race course.  Every time the weather warmed up above freezing, we had to stop and retreat to our holes.  Fortunately, this was one of the coldest winters in thirty years, which gave us almost 100 days to work from dawn to dusk, from mid-November to the last cold days of March.  Deepening or digging the pits was the hardest, most grueling work of all although getting the track walls high enough was a close second.  However, we expected it was all going to be worth it when the flag came down, the engines revved up, and our fans literally clawed their way onto the course.  Doing this kind of construction and prep work close to a major city these days seemed to just be asking for trouble but the Chief was adamant.  He told us again and again that putting the course out in the boondocks wouldn’t give us the huge crowds that would make this event profitable enough to justify our efforts.

On April 15Th, we’d had almost ten nights with temperature well above freezing.  With a stiff wind coming out of the northwest, all the flags were snapping on their poles.  The Chief had called all of us over the intercoms and radios the night before to have all crews ready near their pits, the gate guards at their posts, and all drivers at their vehicles.  At exactly 7:00 a.m., the speakers along the mile square perimeter walls blared out “All My Rowdy Friends” followed by every Southern Rock favorite from the heyday of Talledega.  The gate guards began to report that the fans were beginning to move towards us, a few at first, followed by dozens, and then hundreds.    The speakers along most of the perimeter shut down except for four along the main gates.  Soon we all learned that there were over 25,000 or more fans outside the main gates with thousands more coming out from the city and ‘burbs.  This was a better turnout that even the Chief had expected but he was confident that with our training and prep work, we could handle it.

The big checkered flag dipped near the start of the course, the green lights flashed, the horns blew, and the gates began to slide back into the walls.  Our fans poured in along the main concourse, until our counters passed 15,000 and the heavy hydraulic gates began to close up again helped along by our wall security guards armed with scoped rifles, grenades, and light ground charges on the approaches, to back off the tens of thousands still waiting to get in.

The first group of fans had piled up against a chain link fence about 100 yards inside the main gates, spilling into the cul-de-sacs on each side where low volume music came from the little speakers.  Suddenly, the sound of motorcycle engines started up on the inner side of the fence as three Brothers of the Three Degrees Road Club revved up their Harleys.  The sound and sight of these famous riders was too much for the fans to bear as they suddenly broke down the chain link and began to pour towards them like an unstoppable wave.  The Brothers took off at a leisurely pace as the horde of fans came after them, arms outstretched to get just a piece of one of the three.  The riders rolled single file across the narrow wooden bridge over the first pit, each one keeping a dozen paces distant, with Old Joe C. being the last to cross with the fans only a few feet behind.  The crowd surged across the bridge filling it to capacity but their combined weight was just too much and the bridge collapsed; aided by a couple of strategically placed demolition packs on the main support.  Several hundred fans fell eighty feet into six feet of oily liquid covered the bottom.  The Brothers kept revving their choppers and yelling at the top of their lungs, urging the fans to come over to meet them and the crowd was happy to oblige, surging over the edge of the pit by the hundreds.  Many who hit the liquid thrashed around before sinking but the pit continued to fill up until those that came after were stumbling across their oil-soaked compatriots to reach the other side.  Once there they just gazed up hungrily at the leather clad riders and made clumsy attempts to scale the walls but not having the coordination to do it.  Soon the hundred foot square pit was three-quarters full of our fans clawing for purchase among their fellows trying helplessly to make it up to the riders.  When there was only about fifteen feet left from the top of the pile to the edge of the pit, Old Joe C. yelled to his Brethren, “Let’s light ’em up!”  Each pulled a Molotov cocktail from the saddlebags on their bikes, lid the rag fuses, and smashed them down on to the top of the pile of squirming, grasping, moaning undead “fans” as dozens more cocktails were launched from concealed positions around the walls.   Within seconds, the pit of oily undead was an inferno as the first race of the day was over, save for the occasional gunshot ringing out from the main concourse as some latecomer had his ticket punched.

Old Joe high-fived his Brothers as the Chief watched the barbeque below from his position on the wall.  Pit crews moved around the area with long metals spears and rifles in case any hot-headed fan made it to the top.  He picked up the radio mike and said, “Open up the main gate, we’re ready for the second race today.”