A Watkins Glen Journal

IT IS 2 a.m. Saturday morning and the hard-core "Boggers" are warming up for the weekend's festivities. Two burly, bearded men stand in a smoldering fire of upturned garbage cans and old tires, long knives strapped to their thighs, drinking beer. Behind them lies the burnt-out hulk of the weekend's first sacrifice, an old sedan of indefinable lineage. Rising out into the bright night sky, thick acrid bellows of smoke reach for the high-scudding clouds. A spectral group of dancers passes by, cavorting to the raucous notes of a kazoo. Men and women are madly intertwined in their grimy jeans, holding out bottles of wine to balance their steps. Like shadows stretched across a brick wall, these forms stumble onward--players possessed by the harkening strains of Death in a Medieval Dance.

On the 6th of October the Grand Prix of the United States will be run here at Watkins Glen, along with sundry side events. Since the 3rd people have been pouring into this rural western New York state complex, for a race that will last an hour and a half. According to three veteran race fans camped next to us in the infield: "This race is one big gang bang; 60 per cent of the people don't give a damn about the race."

Nonetheless my friend and I decide to walk the 3.4 miles of glistening asphalt--where the Formula One cars will race at speeds of up to 180 mph--to get a better idea of the difficulties of the race to come. It is cool and quiet on the track as it winds through the hills and gullies, copses and boulders. By the time we are back at our tent it is 4:30 a.m. In the distance, across the track, the bog still smokes.

At 9:30 I am awakened by the high pitched roar of the Formula Super V cars (1/2 as powerful as the Ones) screaming around the course like a thousand giant bees. Out of the acres of parked campers appear the thousands of families in this record crowd of 105,000. Under the hot sun they flock dutifully to the trackside, a mere 100 feet from where we are camped. The day's first six-packs of beer are being opened. The infield, littered with dead campfires, is fast filling to capacity. Suddenly all is quiet. The cars have finished their heat.

At 11:45 the Formula One's start to practice. Running through their gears, these cars wail like air-raid sirens going at full blast. They will average over 120 mph on this course with its 11 curves and two long straights. Watching these cars run their laps is like seeing five out of every 100 frames of a motion picture; a series of loud flashes with little continuity and a great deal of suspense between glimpses. I won't know the overall story of the race until I read it in the next day's paper.

We station ourselves on the hillside overlooking the 6th curve. This, a tight downhill curve necessitating a great deal of finesse, is an ideal spot to watch the drivers. So deep into his car that I can only see his over-sized helmet and spastically jerking hands, the driver comes down-shifting through the turn and accelerates down a short straight and out of our vision. Nestled in bladders of gasoline, his is a desperate, faceless struggle to control such a hell-bent machine as it screams toward pure speed. Peter Revson's helmet was painted into a big toothy smile, but he died setting a track record in South America. So far there have been no accidents this weekend. All at once I hear the crickets' song. The heat is over. From the bog floats a black cloud of smoke. It is feasting. Down from the sky plunge Navy parachutists, trailing red, white and blue chutes.

THE BOG is but a runoff ditch, fed by the drains from the campgrounds. Left alone it is a glorified mud puddle, finely churned by the hundreds of motorcycles that scramble back and forth. In the middle a naked man is rolling about in the mire. The deeper he sinks, the greater the crowd's pleasure. A few thousand people now mill about this shallow, bowl-like dip of land, waiting for another victim, throwing empty cans of beer at each other. For the present they must content themselves with stoning the engine of an already charred hulk. Here there is no real audience. If you are not throwing rocks or Molotov cocktails, you are providing the impetus to do so. This community-sanctioned violence is a Macho Proving Ground. When a group of men can't flip a car over on its end, a girl in the crowd yells out, "You Pussies! You can't get it up." They then succeed; and this gutted vehicle, battered by their hands, is heaved into the sky for one brief moment before crashing back down upon its belly. The young boys of 12 or so are the most earnestly destructive here, throwing rocks and bottles with great perserverance. The older men are far too drunk to mount an accurately sustained barrage.

It is 3 p.m. and we head for the Ferrari garage. Niki Lauda, their No. 2 driver, walks in and takes a Coke from the work-bench while fishing a long, black cigar from his pocket. With his jutting teeth and bulging fish-eyes, this pale, slightly stooped man appears to have been in his share of crashes. He is talking in a soft, imploring voice with his chief mechanic. Rumor has it Ferrari will sack him after this race, the season's finale. Though he has won two Grand Prix this year, he has also crashed twice while leading. As they converse, two sleek and fashionable women wander carelessly about his car.

It is 4:10 and all about us people are rushing to the far side of the track. Apparently there has been a crash. Huge volumes of black, grimy smoke pouring towards us have caused the drivers to slow up on the track. The source, however, is the bog. Stranded in the middle of the mob is the charred hulk of a 40-seat Greyhound bus, bursting like popcorn as the children stone it. The burning continues through the Oldtimers' Race, a special side event this afternoon. Spinning clods of mud in the waning light, the motorcycles continue their catatonic sorties through the now near-solid crowd.

Glistening sweat in the violet sunset, they hoist the bus onto its back. The horde swarms over its body, urinating from on top. A '72 Dodge Challenger, stuck in the mud, is sucked up by the crowd. Before the driver can climb out the windows are bashed in. Out of the crowd arch Molotov cocktails, their path flickered across 8,000 forms, the fire mirrored on their foreheads. Lurching into the warm at top speed comes a bog car to the tune of I'm the King of Rock and Roll. It runs head on into the bus. The night sky is consumed by a rising pillar of fire, weaving its eerie, smoke-obscured path across the entire breadth of the countryside. There is no end to the burning. I drift off to the garages to see the cars being taken apart. At 2:00 the bog still lights the western sky.

THE CAMPGROUND is extremely quiet Sunday morning. At 10:00 we pack to leave and park our car down the exit road. On our way out I hear a man exclaiming: "I think just seeing what's going on here is fun." By the time the race starts it is 3:30 and we are again standing at turn 6. The race is 59 laps long. On the 10th lap there is a spinout down the straightaway. The next day I will learn the driver, Helmuth Koinigg, died crashing under the guardrail. He was decapitated. Standing next to us is a man with a radio who tells us the lap numbers. After the first few places we have no idea who is in what position. The cars come hurtling at us, then down and away in a matter of five seconds. For the next 100 seconds we are left with an empty track, changing foliage, and a bottle of wine.

Every so often cars just fail to come around. Later, on our way out, we will see them being towed down the track, some grotesquely mangled, others strangely untouched by the misfortune that cut short their brief plea for glory. Like taut, shiny beasts they crouch, ready to spring at any moment--except that their insides are shot to hell. As the race progresses the cars become more strung out. The engines now scream shrilly. Carlos Reutemann, who has already won races this year, is leading. Reggazoni, Ferrari's No. 1 driver and hope for the championship, has dropped out. I later read that he had had suspension problems. Lauda too is no longer a threat. Suddenly Reutemann appears around the curve with his right arm cocked in the air. He has won and the crowd breaks out in cheering he cannot hear. Immediately we head out for the car. It is 5:00. We have neither the time nor the inclination to stop off at the bog. Its smoldering fires still darken the sky. At 2 a.m. I am on the bus from New York City to Boston, travelling down Amsterdam Avenue; a desolate, devastated area pocked with abandoned tenements. At 6:15 a.m. I am back in Cambridge.

IN THE New York Times I will read that one stolen Greyhound bus and 11 cars, four of which were stolen, were burnt. I will read that Emerson Fittapaldi, who placed 4th in the race, won his 3rd Grand Prix Driving Championship, the cumulative point total of all the races run this year, and makes over $1,000,000 a year. I will read about the crashes and laptimes, mechanical failures and prize money. But the people of that instant city of 105,000 have now disappeared, their lives unrecorded, back into the bowels of America. And the drivers will continue defining their precise arcs on the edge of death, ripping across the edge once too often, once too far.

Later I read that The Watkins Glen Corporation has announced plans to fill in the bog with gravel.

Night Editor for this Issue: James Cramer '77