Sunday drive

The traffic-cone orange fire suit has room for two and the helmet makes my head a goldfish in a fishbowl. Five separate straps join in my lap, holding my upper body against the back of the seat while my legs are free to straddle the car's battery. "How fast do you want to go?" Casey Schladweiler asks.

"I wanna go fast."

The yellow stock car merges onto the dirt track, Schladweiler hits the gas and swings the car around the first turn, its rear-end proclaiming "LONG LIVE BUMP-N-RUN."

Hot laps, pre-race practice runs, feel like the car's backside is drifting across glass until the brakes clinch, the tires dig and the nose of the car rips towards the next turn. The first time over the finish line hill, my stomach has to catch up and I'm too distracted to notice if the car's three gauges fluctuate. The laps are over too fast and I can't stop grinning. More statement than question, Schladweiler says, "It's addicting, isn't it?"

It is.

Drivers show up to Ekalaka's Bump-N-Run as early as 8 a.m. and keep pulling into the grass field serving as the pit area until the driver's meeting a little after noon. Locals drive their cars straight to the track, others, many who have driven hundreds of miles, show up with their cars on trailers.

Doug Stieg and his wife Sandy have been putting on Ekalaka's Bump-N-Run for almost two decades. Their daughter, Jennifer, organized today's event.

Stieg and his son, Justin, are both driving today. Stieg wins the stock car division's second heat and Justin Stieg goes on to finish third in the modified division's main event.

Later this afternoon, the PA announces, "Happy anniversary to Doug and Sandy Stieg."

The best part of his day? Stieg smiles, twirls a dipstick and looks out over the cars lined up in the pit area. "All day," he says.

Today's race has two different divisions, the stock cars and the modified cars. The stock cars are just that, stock. Typically, they're more beat up and dirtier than the mod cars. There are dents in the paneling and bends in the frames, some cars look covered tin foil that's been crumpled, flattened and wrapped around a roll cage, painted, hit with a sledgehammer and papier-mâchéd with dirt.

They look cool.

The modified cars are driven by drivers who have the cash and time to sink into their hobby. Anything goes in the mod division, except methanol fuel and cars structured with a tube chassis.

As cars have gotten faster, safety standards have gotten higher. The introduction of fire suits and extinguishers, specific helmets and neck restraints are coupled with a rulebook that can adapt in the span of a week to accommodate safety.

Pivoting, digging cars fling dirt up over the first turn's berm as they head into a quick second turn. The cars pick up speed after the track's third kink, heading into the straightaway. During each heat, at least one car loses a tire, gets turned around or stalls out. Some drivers, like Schledweiler, are able to move off the track or to its edge, but the cars that can't present a surprise obstacle for other drivers. A large green tractor comes over at the end of races to tow wrecked cars to the pit.

There are 12 stock racers today and seven modified cars. Turnout is down, due to a race the previous night, some cars won't be fixed in time to race here, but it has been a trend the last few years. The oil fields crashed and drivers sold their cars or moved away. Regular maintenance is expensive and the sport's startup price has gone up. Despite this, driver's say there's been a recent uptick in entries. The sport is revving back up.

This is driver Anthony James' first season in the modified division. His father, Jeff, races too, but is spending today as pit crew for his son and his friend Tanner Dey. They had a fire start at last night's race due to electrical issues and have spent the morning rewiring, changing a tire and monitoring the car's transmission. The repairs pay off and James finishes fourth in his division's main event.

Jim Heaton's pit crew consists of his son, Taylor, who will be racing next season, and his daughter, Keely. Between races, Keely helps scrape dirt off the car's tires and mud flaps.

Some folks are new to racing, others have two decades or more of experience, and then there's Randy Lewis.

Lewis' business card reads, "World's #1 Trackchaser." He's seen races in 80 countries and Ekalaka is track 2,450. Lewis says he saw his first track when he was five, but didn't see his second until he was 15. At 40, he'd seen 150. After retiring 16 years ago, he's picked up the pace. As the cars churn dirt, he says, "I realized I liked seeing a track for the first time more than the 10th."

He'd rather spend the day at a track like Ekalaka's than at Daytona.

The closest NASCAR track is 863 miles away in Kansas City. The consensus on this: good.

A Bump-N-Run is the sort of place where the pit meeting happens "at the old porta john," the PA announcer sits on her pickup's tailgate and teases drunk spectators by name, and on the other side of pit areas fence are two animals rating one horsepower a piece. Rolls of hay in pairs are on the outside of the track. Inside are two more. Instead of Pepsi, DuPont or Laughing Clown Malt Liquor, the sponsors are small-town retailers. Bob's Body Shop, Dean Trucking, Runnings. Daniel Shennum's car has a Budweiser logo on the hood. The company isn't paying his bills though, his brother just liked the sticker.

The PA's announcement of the beer truck's arrival is tuned in, the repeated pit meeting reminders tuned out. The concession stands estimate they grill 150 burgers. Half will be eaten by the crowd and the other half by the drivers, crews and volunteers. For the flaggers, water tenders, wreckers, concession workers, announcers, organizers, firefighters and ambulance service it isn't the pay (there isn't any) that keeps them coming. Volunteers show up to support their friends, their community and the sport.

For the kids though, this is the big time. They rush the fence to get their T-shirts and arms signed by drivers. Over the PA, Jesse Scott, who has been spitting one-liners all day, asks a driver if he has prepared head shots to give out.

Local driver Aspen Smith-Kuehn's autograph is most coveted. When his police squad patterned car vrooms past the bleachers, kids climb the checker box fence, entwining their fingers so they don't fall, and yell, "Aspen! Go Aspen!"

Smith-Kuehn wins the stock division's first heat and the main event.

In the mod division, Daniel Shennum drives his white and blue, centered steering wheel car to win the only heat of the day and the main event.

Jesse Stotler's pick-up, with "'MERICA" and the U.S. flag painted on the side, is the only one registered. He declines the automatic win and speeds through the track. "He'll either be first or last," says Scott over the PA. He's first.

The crowd thins out quickly, affected by the last few hour's RPMs. Those parked closest to the bleachers imagine their pickups as race cars and anxiously wait for people to speed walk past before they peel out.

"Fans expect us to be here even if the car isn't 100 percent," says Luke Holestine. He pushed Heaton's stalled car across the line in the first heat. During the mod main event, Holestine's engine malfunctioned and his steering went out. "It's hard not to finish," he says.

Heaton smiles a "what can you do," smile as he sits on the edge of his car's window as it is towed off the track by a green tractor. His detached tire won't fit behind the car in his trailer, so he rolls it around to the side door.

After loading up their cars, drivers review the race, eat burgers and plan repairs. Heaton says they can't be letting Tristan Silweland win the point standings again.

"You'd better get used to it," Silweland replies.

Half of the drivers weren't able to finish the race, one car never got off the trailer. Still, no one moans, no one complains. "There's a little bit of attrition to it," says Clint Dietz, who, despite a blown out front tire, finished third in the stock division. "It's kind of the nature of the beast."

That's Bump-N-Run. And they'll all be ready for next week.