Truck tires were still rationed and mostly unavailable. The War was over in Europe but not yet in the Pacific.
The first breakaway was at seven tomorrow morning at Pinehurst. Jess and Booty figured they could just make it if they drove all night. They did not know if they had a dog in the first brace but with six entered of a draw of about thirty Jess figured there was a pretty good chance they did.
The right front tire blew when they entered Chatham. They had no spare. What to do?
Jess left Booty to look after the rig and animals it held—four horses and six pointers— while he walked into town in search of a solution. First they put down the tail gate and walked the horses down it, tied their halters to the bottom limbs of roadside maples.
He found a drugstore open and asked to use its telephone. Answer was yes for a local call. He asked the operator to connect him to Clarence Edwards. “He runs a clothes store here.” Clarence answered on the second ring.
Jess and Clarence knew one another well from trials at Pinehurst. Clarence usually had a good derby or two entered. He handled his own.
“I blew the right front tire coming into town and don’t have a spare. Any chance you could help me find one?”
Clarence said he would be at the drugstore in ten minutes. Jess was waiting on the sidewalk in front when Clarence drove up in his ‘42 Chevy 2-door sedan.
“Get in and I will take you where we might find one.”
Jess expected they would travel to a dealership or tire store, but Clarence drove to a barber shop, its candy striped sign turning slowly out front.
The proprietor walked Jess and Clarence to a garage-storeroom reached through the barber shop’s back door, just behind the fourth barber chair, that used by the owner. The single 100 Watt naked bulb hanging from the ceiling in the garage revealed a dozen truck tires, each mounted on a steel rim with inner tube inflated within. Jess spotted the one he needed for his two-ton 1939 Chevy.
The barber gave two prices. The the lower one assumed a trade-in of an undamaged matching steel rim. Jess had just enough for that, but he would be short on his entry fees at Pinehurst.
Clarence drove Jess to his stranded truck, the replacement tire in his trunk. Booty had the flat off and the truck precariously jacked up at the right front. Booty put the blown tire with rim and inner-tube in the trunk of Clarence’s Chevy. Clarence hauled the trade-in to the barber shop.
“See you at Pinehurst,” Clarence said in response to Jess’s heartfelt expressions of thanks.
Jess did have an entry in the first brace of the first stake at Pinehurst, the Open All-Age. It placed second, yielding enough so Jess covered his entry fees. Clarence won the following Open Derby stake, with Booty scouting.
Clarence explained that the barber had owned a tire store before the War, but closed it when he was unable to get tires to sell. His used tire inventory stored behind his barber shop was remnant.