Memories of my teenage drag strip days

--- “Two Lane Blacktop” The old man stood at the edge of the soybean field, boots sinking into the soft October earth. The wind carried the scent of harvest and distant exhaust, but it was memory that made his eyes squint—not the sun. There used to be a drag strip here. Not just any strip. Two Lane Blacktop. A name that sounded like rebellion and rhythm, like a Springsteen lyric scrawled in tire smoke. It wasn’t sanctioned. It wasn’t safe. But it was sacred. Back in ’72, it was nothing but a stretch of county road with a few cones, a chalk line, and a crowd of grease-stained dreamers. Muscle cars lined up like gladiators—GTOs, Road Runners, Novas with headers that rattled the bones. The old man, then just Jimmy “Redline” McCall, ran a ’69 Chevelle SS with a 396 and a hood scoop that looked like it could inhale the moon. He remembered the ritual: the burnout, the rev, the silence before the green. And then—boom—the world narrowed to a quarter mile of fury. No sponsors. No trophies. Just pride and pink slips. Two Lane Blacktop was more than pavement. It was a proving ground. A place where heartbreak and horsepower collided. Where rivalries were settled with rubber and rumble. Where the local preacher once ran a ’68 Charger and baptized the crowd in nitro fumes. But time, like rust, crept in. By ’85, the county paved over the strip, planted soybeans, and posted signs: No Trespassing. The racers scattered. Jimmy parked the Chevelle in a barn and traded torque for timecards. The roar faded. Until today. He knelt and brushed away a patch of dirt. Beneath it, a ghost of the old chalk line shimmered faintly in the sun. He smiled. Not because he missed it—but because it had lived. And in his head, the engines fired again. The crowd cheered. The light turned green. Jimmy “Redline” McCall stood, wiped his hands, and whispered to the wind: “Two Lane Blacktop lives, if you remember how to drive.” ---