Reboot

Why did I have to say I was a good driver? How do I know if I’m a good driver?

I was drunk that’s why. I’m no better or worse than anyone else. Not a bad idea when I gave it some sober thought. Hide in plain sight and all that. But now I had to follow up. Put up. Drive. And not die.

I hesitantly joined Rudy and William in a very well maintained garage, you could eat on the floor it was so clean, and Rudy showed me the car. It looked like a dune buggy. The kind used in desert racing. Just bars and a large engine up front, visible. Big tank in the back, four wheels. We spent a little time going around the car looking over the different parts.

“Get in,” said Rudy. “I think we may have a lot of work to do, eh?”

William sat in the car with me; he barely fit in there. We went over the controls, the basics. I turned on the engine and the noise was staggering. William handed me some wadding to stuff in my ears. I guess mufflers were unnecessary. At his signal I drove out of the garage and into the street. We had cleared a 500-meter track in Cotton Grove. Rudy walked out to join us. William held a watch, Rudy also. At his signal, I took off, they both clicked their stopwatches, and I barreled around the course as fast as I could, sliding and swaying. Cursing. William relayed information about the car to Rudy. He mostly answered Rudy’s questions.

How does it feel around a tight corner?

Do the wheels spin when you accelerate out of a turn?

Does the back end spin out? By how much, at what speeds…etc.

I did ok I guess, eventually. I was all over the place at first, but I learned about heel-toe shifting, when to speed up out of a curve, downshifting to acquire more power, sliding, on purpose… Rudy adjusted the shocks and played around with the size of the fuel lines. He fine-tuned the carburetor and other gizmos that I knew nothing about. I didn’t want to know either. I had enough to worry about.

We used another dirt track outside of town for variety’s sake. It was just a round shaped trail away from curious eyes. We went around many times. Until I thought I couldn’t go any faster. We spent a few weeks at it. Veneta could wait. This was fun. And we thought it was a good way for me to disappear.

“Rudy, can you tell me more about methanol? Why don’t we just use gas? Can’t be that hard to make,” I asked.

He sat down. Turned on his academic face.

“Methanol has about half the energy value of gasoline, that’s why we need a bigger tank. It is a liquid at room temperature and therefore fits right into our old gasoline infrastructure — as opposed to compressed natural gas or electricity, which require a whole new delivery system. Methanol can be made from food waste, municipal garbage and just about any other organic source. Historically, methanol was first produced by destructive distillation of wood, that’s why it used to be called wood alcohol.

We’re working on a system where methanol fuel is produced using anything that is or used to be a plant, and carbon dioxide as a feedstock. So no pollution. And so you see, it runs on garbage and the exhaust is used to make more Metho.”

“What are the advantages of using methanol instead of gas?”

“Well, there are disadvantages. But the advantages outweigh them I think. Metho is difficult to start in the winter for example. It corrodes certain parts of the car and inner lining of the gas tank. Nothing serious. It’s a better fuel. Less polluting, cheaper and easier to make. Need larger carb jets, larger tank, some seals have to be changed like I said. Alcohols, including methanol and ethanol, can be corrosive to certain materials in some vehicles. And you have to be careful with the fumes. We already know the main selling point for racing with alcohol fuel (methanol). In an engine tuned correctly it can be more powerful than gasoline. That’s all you need to know, right? But alcohol is also a tricky fuel that is notoriously hard on engines, especially wherever aluminum is involved. It offers virtually no lubrication, unlike gasoline. These drawbacks don’t offset the fact that you can use alcohol to make gobs of power, but care must be taken with your weekly and off-season maintenance programs. For example we solve the problem of lubrication by adding a little oil in the fuel.

“What about oil?”

“Canola. It works. You can use vegetable oils. But more interestingly, we use a new process called pyrolytic gasification to break down polyethylene, a common plastic product found in many consumer containers. The plastic is melted and then pumped into a furnace. The heat of the furnace breaks down the molecular chains of polyethylene into wax. Finally, the wax is subjected to a catalytic process that alters the wax’s molecular structure, leaving a clear oil. And we have plenty of plastic! The dump has become our energy source. You want to see how we do it?”

“Of course”.

“Here it is.” He pointed to a box with a small pipe coming out of it.

“What? That little thing?”

“That’s what we use to create oil. We could make gasoline or diesel with it too if we wanted. Just distill the oil.”

“How does it work?” I asked, very interested.

You put the plastic in it through here.” There was an opening on the top of the box. “Then you heat it. The gas that comes out is cooled down and boom. Oil.”

“How do you keep it from making all that black smoke?”

“No oxygen in the heating process. The same process works for burning biomass by the way.”

“That’s great. It’s so small. I expected a big furnace.” I said.

“Nope. Can be almost any size. Our idea is to attach it to a car. Then you could just go cross country and head to any dump to hoard more plastic. You’d help clean up the place.

“And methanol is cleaner? I think we have a serious responsibility here. We will be held accountable later on and I think we should choose a cleaner method don’t you think?” I said.

“Yes. Absolutely.

“Can you make a machine that will use both methane and gas?”

“Sure. But why would you want to?

“I’m thinking of a long distance trip and I want to be able to make my own fuel. What if I run out of biomass and I find tons of plastic?

“Ok. Well, yes. Of course it can be done.”

“So I could drive my car across the US, using plastic and apples to make my fuel and leave no trace?”

“That’s correct. Clean up as you go.”

“That sounds hard to beat. So we can make methanol from bio waste, and diesel from plastics? Why didn’t we do that before the war?”

“Mass consumption made for different cost ratios. It was more costly to make Methanol than gas. By the way, we can also make clean generators with this system. Your house can be electrified using garbage while creating no waste.”

“And you share this info with others?”

“The idea behind this race is to improve relations with our neighbors and to get better at making these cars. So yes, we share everything.“

“Wow. I’m impressed. What about electricity, sun power and such?”

“We have less info on that, but I’m sure we’ll get there.”

“Batteries would be cool…”

“Don’t you think you should be concentrating on the race?”

“Sure… but it’s just driving. I’m not going to win. I just want to have fun. And also I’d like to survive. That would be nice too.”

“Yes. You’ll have to be careful. You might get bumped,”said Rudy.

“Bumped?”

“Yes bumped. Rubbed. It happens. It will happen. Be ready for it. It’s not aggressive, you don’t get upset ok? Just look at it as part of the fun. Just expect it, deal with it and stay on the road. If you get upset, you’ll crash.”

“Jesus! Bumper cars.”

____________________

While I was practicing, Dutch and Tony were travelling. Their official task was to go from town to town to meet other mechanics and talk about the race. There was a lot to discuss. Dutch made sure to ask people what they thought of the radio message to gauge its effect. His job was to talk to as many people as possible and tell us his conclusions when he came back.

Everyone was happy to take part in the race, but there was a lot to do. Rules had to be agreed upon. For example, size and weight of the cars and engines. Size of wheels. Methanol was the only fuel allowed, no mixes. It wasn’t difficult since most of these mechanics had been working together on the cars in the first place. They’d all used similar cars. Dune buggies.

We had two months to get ready. Mayor Rather had decided to go all out for this racetrack. We could’ve used an existing track, but she wanted to do something different. She decided to use the Eugene arena and adapt it to our needs. There was a lot of destruction and creative renovating to be done, and she was up to the task.

They went to Roseburg, a small town of only 22000 people pre war. There were 5000 now. The timber capital of the old US. They talked to Mayor Barbara Joyce there.

Junction city had 5600 people pre war, now boasting 7 000. They talked to mayor Mitch McDonald there. Florence is a coastal town where 8500 people used to live. Now they had 15000. The populations had grown because they had accepted some wanderers during the hard times, and later on, when it was safer to travel, others had started to trickle in from the outlying areas. They talked to mayor Georges Walker there. Waldport is another coastal city. Its numbers swelled from 2000 to 5000. They talked to mayor Jane Porter there.

And, of course, our friends at Veneta.

That made six participants, one car each. A nice number for our first effort I thought. Everyone was very excited about it. It was the first such effort since the war and we were hoping it would bring people together. It would be an immense success.

Mechanics were very popular now. Cars were quickly becoming the favored toys in all population centers. Everyone wanted one and they all needed to learn how to take care of them, so garages were busy and engine hacks were collecting quite the pile of U’s.. Mechanics were the new heroes, superstars. But that would soon change. Race drivers were soon to depose them.