Latchford · Meet the driver

The Enforcer

At the wheel: Ellis Ward

Chevy 2024 Silverado PPV

The last door on the round

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Ellis Ward used to check the garage doors, avoid the wet mat, and go home. Entering the Silverado meant leaving the clipboard long enough for someone else to notice what he'd missed.

18:42, side door

Ellis knows that the last lock on the garage round works better if you lift the handle a thumb's width before you pull. He put the instruction in his handover and came back to find someone had tied a ribbon through the handle to mark it instead. The ribbon was getting caught in the door. He untied it, folded it into a small square and left it under the clock so its owner could still find it.

He used to shut the mill's meeting hall after choir, which meant he knew whose spectacles were likely to be in the washroom and which kettle should be home in whose pantry. He was good at closing a space because he remembered who would open it next. His partner Vic noticed he came home talking about the race cars in order of the last person to check the gates. That sounded to Vic like knowing everyone's bedtime but his own.

18:52, the old dust line

Ellis brought the 2024 Silverado PPV to a closed practice after work. The Chevy looked enough like a yard vehicle that somebody asked whether he was there to show them the way out. He was glad of a question he already knew how to answer. It took until his name was called to find himself standing three spaces away from his truck with a set of keys he didn't use on it.

At the bench Vic watched him write down the date, the lane condition and everything he expected the truck to do. While Ellis answered one of the newer volunteers about the gate, Vic saw a dark edge on one of the truck's front wheels. It had stood for long enough to pick up a mark along the strip where it had been leaning. Vic asked who was meant to check that. Ellis remembered he had started his own line on the sheet and stopped after the date.

“Write it where you can read it while your shoes are wet.”

Ellis Ward · Rewriting the lock-up note for new volunteers.

19:10, initials required

During a quiet pass Ellis likes to glance down the near edge first and get the box of the truck square. A second long look at the far edge means he gives the middle away. When somebody holds a good position outside the test lane and tells him where the spare space actually is, he can shorten that look. It takes a particular sort of person to say when he's doing it. Dalia from Crimson Crush will. She helped move the volunteer jobs off the sign-up line so he could drive before the spare daylight left.

Amara from Rescue Rocket knows another end of his closing round. They worked the volunteer side of a repair day and decided the first-aid table needed a spot where a person could find it even after the closest door had shut. He was fond of the original location because it hid a damaged patch of floor. She made him tell her the real problem. The floor is still serviceable, and the two have left a folding table by the better door.

After lock-up

He wants time on a closed section with a narrow entry and an open exit. The truck shouldn't need as much of a check as he gives it. Ellis has asked Vic to put his own initials by the top line of the test list. Vic has pointed out that they look suspiciously like a picture of a toe. Ellis says that's allowed as long as he can tell who did it.

The garage side door has the old ribbon tied neatly to a pipe nearby. He has moved the handle lifting instruction where he can read it from the wet mat. There is a second instruction in a different hand, telling him when to leave so he can reach the gate.

“You're allowed to check mine while I'm bent over somebody else's.”

Ellis Ward · To Vic beside the Silverado.

Mic at the pits

Sign under the toe

Mack Who signed off your truck?

Ellis Ward Vic did. That's his mark, there. I can tell it from mine because I put the thumb on the other side.

Mack Clear as a footprint.

Meet the voice behind the microphone