Doug's eldest son, Danny, had recently suffered a serious and painful ligament tear while playing hockey. At 15, he was also at that age where boys begin to make up their own minds about what leisure activities they wish to pursue and Dan had decided that hockey was not his passion. He and his younger brother liked the Nitro RC racers. Much to his credit, my buddy Doug, recently divorced, decided that there was no use attempting to force the boys into pastimes that interested only him. If they were going to have quality time together on alternate weekends, then he'd better support their hobbies. Plus, he told me over the previous week that he'd become sort of fascinated by the noisy little toys. He's great at tinkering and the challenge of working on miniature models appealed to him. I like to tinker myself and I thought that this just might be a hobby I could get into, to help while away the upcoming long winter evenings.

I arrived to find Doug and Dan outside the house with one of the cars blasting up and down the street. It's a unique street; there's houses only on the south side, while the north side drops off radically onto a grass covered boulevard leading down to a major traffic artery. It's a great street for playing with the toys. Domestic vehicles are parked only on the south side, in front of the houses, leaving a wide strip of pavement on which to race the cars.

It looked to me like the thing was running all right, but Doug and Danny felt that it needed to be "trimmed". You don't adjust or tune these little rockets; you "trim" them. Hey, you gotta learn the lingo if you wanna play.

Into the garage we went. Doug has never gone into anything half-heartedly, which partly explains the success he has achieved, which helps to explain how he is able to afford the paraphernalia he had accumulated in order to fully pursue this latest passion. It came as no great surprise to find that fully half of his double garage had been converted into a workshop for the cars. He had a spare parts inventory of wheels and shocks and struts to rival any hobby shop. He even had half a dozen new motors still in their factory wrappings. He'd bought a band saw and a four-by-eight sheet of quarter inch aluminum out of which he'd cut the platform for a frame-up car he was in the process of designing and building. He was impatiently awaiting delivery of a new breed of four-stroke engine that he'd found and ordered off the internet. A motor that he hoped would turn his homemade dragster into the meanest one around.

After the motor and the steering had been trimmed to the satisfaction of Doug and Dan, we took the noisy little rocket back outside. Danny steered it through a figure eight, climbed it over the curb and onto the boulevard and raced it through the fresh cut grass, spewing plumes of clippings out behind.

"Darn" he muttered "I think the batteries are getting low in my controller."

"Come on", said Doug. "Bring it onto the road and show George how fast it goes. Shoot it down the street to that brown Volvo." (It's about half a football field away.)

"I don't know", Danny replied. "I think my batteries are getting low. I'm not sure I can control it way down there."

"Oh, go ahead. Let him see what it'll do."

"OK, if you say so, dad".

Nnnnyeoww. Away it went.

"I can't stop it!" hollered Dan, as his car raced past the Volvo.

We watched in muted horror as the motorized bullet took the curb at full throttle, sped down the boulevard and disappeared from view.

As fast as we could, Doug and I pounded down the street with Danny in his plastic cast limping along behind. Breathless at the crest of hill, we saw no fewer than a dozen cars stopped dead on Nose Hill Drive, the expressway at the end of the street. We watched the lady driver of the lead car get out and tramp puzzledly over to the passenger side. She reached down, picked up our dragster and scornfully flung it on the grass.

"Sorry", hollered Doug as she got behind the wheel and drove away.

Down on the grass we learned the reason for her scorn. The most prominently protruding piece on this little buggy is the motor. The exhaust was still red hot. The lady got a nasty burn to accompany the shock of being broadsided by our rocket.

Back at the garage, we assessed the damage. A bent muffler pipe and a missing piece from the air cleaner.

Doug assured Danny "We'll have it back up running this afternoon."

But that's enough for me. You need five hundred bucks to get started with a basic kit-car in this hobby. Then it's spare parts, fancy motors and potential lawsuits. I think I'll spend another winter on the couch.

George Jackson lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is a self-employed geologist and (according to him) has too much time on hand right now. He's always loved to read, so he thought he'd take a stab at writing. This is third appearance in Laughter Loaf.