Summer Duel - 1990

Summer Duel - 1992

The quiet of a mid-western summer dawn, the sun just appearing on the flat eastern horizon, a bird gliding across the clear sky, a jack-rabbit sitting up looking  to the north, then to the south down an empty, divided North-South highway.  Faintly, a sound rises from the west causing the rabbit to turn its gaze across the nearby road. 

Changing the view from the rabbit's position at ground level high into the air and westward, one can see the source of the sound cresting a gentle knoll: a huge black '66 GTO with a silver stripe running from the open hood scoop to the cowl.  The large V-8 with headers devouring the miles as it runs East towards the dawn on the straight road.  The view pans from the front of the gleaming chrome and gloss black monster to the right side of immaculate machine, its classic keystone rims blurred with their spinning.

Another change of scene to the rising sun on the horizon: The silence is again giving way to an increasing sound – different yet related to the first.   A silhouette grows in the face of the sun, revealing a shiny new Eagle Talon TSi.  Devoid of chrome, the gloss black car with silver ground effects smoothly cruises westward along the road as the view moves from the front, overhead, then the left side of the car.  Moving overhead again and settling at a lower angle looking over the car's right side reveals in the distance a long freight train running parallel to the road in the same direction and speed, but just behind the little car.

A distant view from the sky shows the two cars are on the same road, heading towards each other at a nearly equal rate of speed towards the intersection with the North-South highway, the train running parallel to but south of their East-West blacktop stripe.  The two cars slow down as they approach their respective stop signs, the GTO's pitch changing with each downshift to the stop.  The Eagle signals a left turn while the GTO turns right and stops again at the train crossing, the Eagle coming up next to it on the inner southbound side of the highway.  The gate is already down as the train approaches.

The GTO's engine lopes for a few moments, obviously breathing with a performance cam, before shutting down as the mile-long train begins to cross the highway. A dog gets up in the back seat, stretches, turns around, and lies back down. The Eagle's turbo quietly runs for a while longer before the driver also turns it off.  The thin Eagle driver eyes the piece of history sitting beside his own performance car. He lowers the electric windows.  The train continues on at a steady pace.

"Nice car," the Eagle driver says.  "All original?"

"Rebuilt 6.5 litre, punched 60 over and milled 10.  Completely balanced. Ram-air tri-power with posi rear end, tuned suspension, headers, and a 4-speed designed by the shifty doctor himself.  100% made in the U.S.A. and able to blow by any factory job on the road today.  What's that got for a mill?"

"Two liter turbo, 5 speed synchro mesh, with all wheel drive and ABS.  Power tuned ports with an aerodynamic coefficient of .29.  The best handling car on the road today using the combined engineering efforts of top Japanese and American designers, plus all the top HKS mods."

"Only got straight roads out here.  Acceleration is key and only cubic inches can give you that off the line."

"The factory engine put out over 200 foot-pounds of torque..."

"See?  I'm talkin' long over twice that here."

"Getting it all to the ground can make the difference."

"Take a look at this."  GTO gets out and pops the hood to reveal the shinning chromed engine valve covers, air cleaners, and near-white headers.  Eagle gets out to view the huge power plant.

"See what I'm talkin' about?  Straight to the rear wheels and the pavement.  2 liters can't compare."

Eagle pops his own hood with a button on his key ring then raises and props it up to show the clean and tightly packed in engine with red trim and wires.  "It moves quick enough." is all he says.

"Quick enough to take on this?"  GTO almost laughs.

"What are you saying?"

GTO pulls out a map and opens it up.  "There's a gas station down the road, just after this one little curve.  First one to pump gas in his car wins.  Loser pays the bill for both."  He points out the location on the map, tapping it with his finger. "It's about 5 miles."

"What kind of traffic are we talking about?"

"Traffic? There's not a single car or another road between here and there, and the sun isn't all the way up yet.  There's no one out here except you, me, and this train."

"The gate is the signal, then?"

"The last flash of the lights after it's up."

"Done." The Eagle's hood is closed.

GTO closes his hood carefully and walks to his door.  He squats down and looks at the Eagle driver through the open passenger window.  "High compression engines require premium, you know," and smiles, full of confidence.

"Turbos don't like regular either." Eagle smiles back, but the confidence isn't there.

The train continues on, oblivious to its role in this.  The two cars start as the last box car crosses the road, the gates still down and lights flashing.  No one is waiting to come North as the two eye the gate, the lights, and each other.

Finally, the gates begin to rise.  GTO rev's his engine a couple of times, but Eagle just idles his.  A view of GTO's dash shows the add-on tach pumping to 8,000 RPM with each stroke of the gas pedal. Eagle's dash shows all gauges steady, idle sitting at only 960 with the turbo boost below zero.

The gate is straight up.  The lights blink twice more and stop.

Eagle revs his engine to 6,000 RPM, kicking in the turbo, then dumps the clutch.  The car launches without a squeal while GTO smokes his tires and the front wheels lift off the blacktop. Both fight the tracks as they cross them, Eagle concerned with damaging his suspension while GTO's only concern is keeping straight on the road. Eagle's launch keeps it slightly ahead but GTO shows signs of a quick recovery.  The roar of the six barrels is drowned out by the massive exhaust, while the whine of the turbo and Eagle's higher pitched exhaust makes its own claim to the sound of burning hydrocarbons.

GTO begins to pull up with and then ahead of the Eagle, gaining with each shift of the gears.  But the Eagle has the fifth gear and starts to gain back what it had lost, the mods showing their programming.  GTO pushes his accelerator a little harder.  The little car has more guts than he expected – he had put dozens of other cars to shame by now in past races.  A slight curve in the road, more like a lane shift, comes up and Eagle sucks through the curve like the car is on rails, taking back what it had lost since the launch. GTO wasn't done with yet, and poured it on as the road straightened out again.

In the distance, a side road comes into view.  It drops off to the right of the highway on the other side of a pond but is clearly headed towards the gas station finish line, a possible shortcut to the goal. Beyond the side road, the tall sign for the station sits to the right of the highway at perpendicular intersection, the clear path most highway travelers would take.

Eagle uses his advantage to shift into GTO's lane, and GTO holds back to move into the passing lane and avoid contact.   GTO loses some momentum, and Eagle barely lets off the gas as he pulls into the deceleration lane to drop off the highway, drifting sideways through the curves.

GTO attempts to follow suit, but the turn is too much.  As the road drops away beneath him, he launches between the two roads on the sharp curve, sailing over the edge of the pond.  With a loud splash, GTO comes to a halt well away from the edge of the road, as the Eagle hit the brakes for the gas station, the three lights appearing brightly on the tail.

GTO climbed out of the car and onto his hood.  Sitting back on the roof, his shoes resting on the cowl, he pulls out a cigarette pack as his dog joins him on the hood, shaking the water from his coat.  "Maybe there's something to those little cars after all," he said to his dog as he smoked his cigarette.  "Maybe, though, something can be done to improve this decades old suspension so we can take the curves like that.  Never really had thought about it before.  Definitely time to think about it now..."