Detroit wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2020 10:33 am
It was a damp, foggy morning in a field just outside of Chicago where the first auto race of the 1921 racing season was to take place. Henry Ford puttered up to the starting line in his newest racing machine, leaving behind tire tracks in the fresh morning dew. Rumors were swirling that this machine was easily capable of triple digit speeds, and all looked on with amazement as Wap rolled up next to him in his own homebuilt contraption. Like nothing the world had seen, Wap ignored the gasps from the crowd as he snugged up his driving gloves, and while lowering his goggles over his eyes, shot his dear friend Henry the first side eye in motor racing history.
A woman donning a fresh bobbed haircut and a trench coat strutted in front of the two machines. Both Henry and Wap revved their eager machines in a building crescendo to redline. The woman dropped her red handkerchief that Wap had given her the night before and the men were off.
The speed was brutal and unrelenting, but unfortunately short lived. As the two rounded the first corner, Henry's machine suffered a catastrophic steering failure which sent him straight past the turn. Wap's front tire caught the grooves left in the field, and combined with the slick morning dew, Wap's machine went rolling.
The crowd gasped as the machine barrel rolled across the field. The sound of metallic crunching and internal combustion combined with the smell of smoke and raw fuel. Fearing the worst, Wap's racing crew came rushing to his aid, and as they approached a figure emerged above the smoke atop the now wrecked heap below. It was Wap...he struggled to rise, but determined as he was, he stood up, winked at the woman donning the bobbed haircut and shot a sharp solute to the crowd.
The crowd erupted in cheering, cheering that they say could be heard all the way in Detroit. Wap, while miraculously alive, suffered a drastic injury to his left leg. He was in a cast for three months recovering, and being stuck at home he worked to develop an automatic transmission for racing applications. It was the first of it's kind and the world marveled the next year when he beat Henry at the same race. Wap has driven an automatic transmission ever since both out of necessity, but also out of pride for what he was able to accomplish when he was at his weakest.