"You really mean you think I should drive it?" he asked.
"Certainly. I wouldn't want to have anything more to do with you if you didn't. If I was afraid of it, I'd drive it. You don't have to win. All you've got to do is try to win and show that you're prepared to take the same chances that other drivers in the race accept.
"I used to say that all your interest in racing and racing cars was juvenile. So it was. All you were interested in then was the speed and the roar of the engines and the glamour. But now it isn't juvenile at all. You're growing up. If you race the Black Tiger, it will show that you've grown up enough to be called a man.
"And," Mary Jane concluded, "when I get married, I want it to be to a man, even if he does have to spend the rest of his life in greasy overalls."
16
The biggest opposition to Woody's driving the Black Tiger came from Worm. Woody had thought that both his mother and father would be dead set against it. They did not, indeed, welcome the prospect. Woody decided to tell his father about it when they were alone and again to explain all his reasons fully. When he had finished Mr. Hartford said, "Woody, is this what has been on your mind all the time?"
"More or less," Woody replied.
"I see why you didn't feel you could discuss it with me. In any case, discussion is rather futile. There are some things people just have to decide by themselves and this is one of them. I don't pretend that I like the idea of your driving that car. I wish there was some honorable way out of it. But there isn't. You'd better let me tell your mother, though. I think I can explain the situation better than you.
"This is where being a parent is really tough," he added with a faint smile. "My whole instinct is to forbid you to race—to protect you from danger. But I know that would be the wrong thing to do. Son, promise me that.... Well, I was going to say promise me that you won't take any unnecessary chances. But that would be silly. Promise me that if the car shows any serious defects before the race, you will have sense enough to realize that you don't have to go through with this."