Saltbridge · Meet the driver

Clint Westglass

At the wheel: Clint Westglass

Ford 1972 Gran Torino Sport

A hard stare and a short screwdriver

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Clint Westglass draws his living from fixing what the wind rattles. He couldn't get his own Ford to sit quiet until somebody he trusted brought it past him while he stood still.

The rule about three hands

The first noise was a screw rolling through a part of the Ford where Clint couldn't put his ear and both hands at once. He could make it happen by running the car down a plank. When he picked up the lamp and leaned after it, the plank moved and he heard two things. In the glass shop he always asks a customer to give him more room before he decides what a window needs. In his own bay he spent three evenings using less room than he had.

Clint has worked on pier arcade windows since before the back stairs got a second handrail. When a sash comes out after a season of wind, he examines the places where somebody tried to quiet it without knowing what was loose. His youngest brother Milo has those repairs written down in a ledger he keeps by the putty. If a job looks impossible with two hands, Milo usually just asks whether Clint would like a third.

From the fixed bench

The 1972 Gran Torino Sport was meant to make a private practice the week he'd heard the noise. Clint didn't tell anyone he'd gone home before the start. He passed Evan from Faux Duke a brush that same evening and got a question back about why he was still in work clothes. Evan had caught the sound in the yard the day before. He also knew where a person could stand near the end of the closed strip and listen while the Ford moved slowly past.

Clint agreed to let him drive one slow pass. He tried to follow the car with his head and then understood why Evan had told him to look at the far shelf while it went by. He heard the bit that rattled as clearly as a buckle in a dryer. Evan stopped the Ford exactly where the plank met the floor. Clint knew the right tool by how much room a hand had from that side.

“I stared at it for an hour. Didn't tighten a thing that way.”

Clint Westglass · Asking Evan to drive the Ford past the bench.

A tool that will fit

At the glass shop's counter a customer brought in a window that had a crack right to the hinge. Clint and Milo put it on two padded blocks, then traded sides without ever setting it down. Clint knew what to ask for because he had seen the little screwdriver work in a similar gap on the Ford. He took it to the track that evening in the same place he keeps his wallet. The old screw is in the slot with loose change, where he can hear it occasionally without wondering what it is.

Evan wanted him to watch the Charger through a private bend, so Clint took the view he'd been given. It makes a difference to see what a friend can tell you from outside a car. Vera from Night Sting set a lamp behind Clint one night and showed him where the 1972 Ford kept moving across the light after he thought he'd stopped it turning.

Beyond that first correction

Clint wants to turn in early on a tighter practice lane without hanging on to the angle after the Ford settles. He has asked Milo to come and see if he can tell where it happens. Milo knows enough about windows to see that Clint could work this out alone in another three evenings and enough about Clint to bring his gloves for the invitation.

The glass shop has one length of plank set aside to go out for repair. Until the hinge comes, Clint has chalked out a place for Milo to stand where he could see the Ford's last correction. His brother stepped on it once without asking and shifted half a shoe toward a better view.

“Stand where you can see the wheel, would you? I'll call when I think I've stopped moving it.”

Clint Westglass · To Milo about the next practice.

Mic at the pits

Stare at the screw

Mack Did the stare fix it?

Clint Westglass I stared for an hour. Then Evan drove past once, I heard the screw, and a perfectly ordinary screwdriver did the rest.

Mack Good work, screwdriver.

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