Brass Harbor · Meet the driver

Night Sting

At the wheel: Vera Moss

Chevy 1972 Stingray Convertible

The hour after the last voice

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Vera Moss likes to know what her night shift leaves behind for the morning crew. On the closed test strip, after the last conversation trails off, she can finally hear what the Corvette is leaving her.

The click at half past

Vera has one hour in the flower cooler when she can hear a loose part in the fan behind the orchids. The rest of the night a door goes up and there are voices asking whether the pinks have been sold or merely set aside. Her staff can tell whose radio has been left on from the way the bass carries through the floor. At half past three the only person coming through the door is usually her friend Sab. Sab makes sure Vera has walked out into the daylight at least once before going home.

Vera likes a quiet job when it follows a loud one. At home her living room looks a little like a place she could go to sleep at a moment's notice. Her father regularly rings just when she has proved the point. Vera doesn't ask him to stop. He always recognizes what he has done and goes straight to the part he was saving for the end of the call.

Switch off the big lights

She brought the 1972 Stingray Convertible to a private test on a night when nearly everyone else wanted an early finish. The wheel made a slight rubbing sound she could hear only before the exit opened out. Two people who offered to help stayed on either side of the workbench giving different accounts. After they left, Vera turned the wheel next to a lamp and heard exactly when the sound began. She asked one of them to come back in the next evening and tell her whether it began at the same point in a moving car. He had to walk to her end of the garage to hear what she meant.

In the dry, Vera likes to slip into the turn and let the Stingray pick up quickly as soon as it points clear. When she doesn't recognize a noise she starts looking for it again on the next pass. There is usually a stage when her mind has gone back to the bench while her hands are still on the wheel.

“Stay exactly where the click stops, not where you first think you've heard it.”

Vera Moss · To a helper listening for rubbing by the practice strip.

Where the rain landed

The Lantern Run was a closed, non-scored practice. When the lights failed, Vera helped other crews shift work lamps while drivers came back into the pits. Later she and Ina from Ghost Runner stood under the awning to find the source of a little repeated click. Vera thought it was something loose in Ina's equipment. It turned out that drops were falling into an empty cap. When Vera tried to flick it clean she got one down her shirt sleeve and watched Ina take a much smaller step back before she tried.

Clint Westglass asked for a separate sort of view when he was working on his long Ford. Vera placed a lamp behind him and had him watch the shape move, so she could show where it kept tracking across the light after he thought he was done. He asked if she'd ever put the lamp there for herself. Vera had used it to look at a wheel, never to watch the rest of the car.

An hour before dark

She wants a private practice slot earlier in the evening with other people doing their ordinary keys, tea and tool business beside the pit lane. Sab has offered to come and stand wherever Vera says, then tell her what she can actually hear. Vera has handed over the lamp and drawn a little space at the edge of the test where Sab can put it. She'll need to know the rest of the strip when nothing has gone quiet yet.

Vera's father calls while she is packing the car. She waits to see if he can tell what she's doing by the sound of the latch. He tells her to mind her fingers before he tells her what he called about.

“I can leave the lamp on. I want to know if I need the quiet too.”

Vera Moss · Arranging the earlier practice with Sab.

Mic at the pits

Rain in the cap

Mack What's been clicking all night?

Vera Moss Ina and I thought it was something loose. Rain was hitting this cap. I tipped it straight down my own sleeve.

Mack Good ear. Wet elbow.

Meet the voice behind the microphone