"Gee, Worm," he said, "if you don't want to take the Dodge, Steve and I can find some other way of getting there."
"It's nae that, laddie," replied Worm, remarkably serious even for him. "It's nae that at all. It's something I had put oot of my mind a long time ago, and I dinna ever want it to come back again. And here it is." In his distress his Scots brogue grew thicker. Woody couldn't make any sense at all of what he was saying.
"Skip it," said Woody. "It isn't that important."
"It's nae so easily skipped, laddie," said Worm and went into his office.
Woody returned to his work of grinding valves, a task that demanded all his care. By the time he was done, he had all but forgotten his date with Steve and his strange conversation with Worm. Indeed it was nearly time to close down the shop, and it was Worm who reminded him of his appointment.
"Meet me here after dinner," he said. "I'll take ye tae the tech inspection. It's a thing I must do."
After dinner he was back at the garage to find Worm there dressed in a clean suit of coveralls. He had a box of tools with him, and Woody was surprised that he hadn't changed into his ordinary clothing and should have the tools with him. However, he said nothing to him about it. On the way, Steve did most of the talking. He explained that the inspection had two main purposes. The first was to see that all the sports cars entered for the race were in perfect mechanical condition. Every feature would be checked for safety, from the seal of the gas-tank cap to the amount of tread on the tires.
"Man," he said, "they really give them the works on that safety check. They go over everything with a fine-tooth comb—safety belts, brakes, brake lights in the rear, steering-wheel play, anything dangling underneath that might give trouble—they don't miss a thing. I've seen guys ruled out because their spare tires were a little worn. It's kind of hard to get tires for some of those foreign jobs in a hurry."
The second purpose of the inspection was to ensure that cars racing "stock," that is, without any changes from the factory model, hadn't been secretly souped up in some way to give the driver an advantage over his rivals.
"You take air filters," he said. "If the factory in England or France puts a particular kind of air filter on the car, that's the one it's got to race with. The same kind of filter may be available over here. Looks the same and does the job no better and no worse. But if it isn't the factory filter, the car can't race as a stock model."