Deaf Jam

On this weekend in mid-November, Bartle Hall has become the world's largest tailgate party, crammed with dealers pimping neon-lighted sports cars and TV-laden Hummers, vendors hawking kettle corn and daiquiris, and bikini-clad women sprawled across the hoods of cars. Inside the hall, more than 200 vehicles are parked bumper to bumper, surrounded by men who are tinkering with their stereos.

Mechanics sneak nips from longnecks. Others clench cigarettes between their lips as they twist wires and pump bass-heavy tracks from Outkast and Eminem, which grow louder with each component added to the electrical daisy chain. A green Ford Metropolitan, lifted on 6-foot wheels and 5-ton axles, rises above the sea of polished metal. The truck has a detachable, touch-screen CD player, three amps and six 15-inch speakers wired to eight car batteries. A black van from Moberly, Missouri, blasts test tones that trigger car alarms -- its open rear doors reveal a cargo of amps stacked like shipping boxes. Some cars have enough raw power to torch amplifiers, shatter glass windshields, rend metal.

Welcome to the 17th annual Tuner Jam: the largest, loudest car-stereo competition on the planet. Stereo geeks from around the country converge here once a year, morphing their cars into the world's most powerful portable boomboxes, pitting sound system against sound system to find out whose is loudest.

Rule 1: Teamwork Is Important

At the center of the exhibition hall, a thick man in a ball cap rides shotgun inside a sonic bomb.

A patch on his green mechanic's shirt reads "Big Ed." He's sitting in the passenger seat of a white Honda CRX parked inside a small arena encircled by a blue-draped guardrail and rows of chairs. Beside it looms a 20-foot-tall checkered-flag tower topped by spinning red lights, a beacon visible from any point in the hall.

The CRX will be the first car to compete today. Big Ed is Ed Bausman, a 32-year-old native of St. Joseph who earned a degree in criminal justice from Missouri Western State College but has never used it. Instead, he spliced and soldered at St. Joseph Electronics until July 2001, when he jumped to a similar position at Competitive Audio in Nixa, Missouri. He used to park his ride outside and pump music, which drew crowds. In 1997 he started taking his one-man show on the road, following the sound-competition circuit, paying entry fees of $30-$50 and crashing with friends or sleeping in crowded motel rooms in places like Daytona Beach, Florida; South Padre Island, Texas; Canton, Illinois; and Tulsa, Oklahoma, to earn enough points to qualify for this, the big show. One girlfriend left him, then another. Recently, he moved in with his parents to save money.

Last year, Bausman met Greg McCool, a 26-year-old from Marion, Illinois, who in 2001 spent $6,000 in entry fees to break the world record for most points earned in competition. A sound-off veteran with boy-band looks, McCool owned multiple CRXs (the standard among competitors for cheap, entry-level cars) and had spent $20,000 to turn an ambulance into a competition vehicle he dubbed the Slambulance.

McCool needed a way to defer costs, so in 2000 he formed Team Sweep, a loose coalition of Midwest boomers who shared expenses, equipment and expertise. Most were small-town guys with day jobs -- a stereo installer, an accountant, a former all-American turned track coach at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, a restaurant manager, a carpet layer, a mortgage broker. Some in Team Sweep had spent years working with Bausman during competitions. This year for the first time, the team asked Bausman to join.

So this has become his Saturday-morning ritual: sitting in a teammate's car like a crash-test dummy. As the largest member of the team, Bausman plays a key role -- he's the girth. Inside a car, his body mass takes up enough space to increase sound pressure by a few tenths of a decibel, which is sometimes enough to edge out a competitor. This weekend, the team has brought seven CRXs and a pickup truck. "Every car I've sat in, we've gotten louder," Bausman says proudly.

Tucked between Bausman's legs is a small sound sensor in a spherical case. Just behind his headrest are four 12-inch woofers in cabinet-sized boxes. The car's battery has just been fully charged, and the CD player will resonate not music but the most guttural note the speakers can hold. The sensor is wired to a cable that runs to a counter on the judges' table. Guys in green uniforms stand behind the vehicle as Bausman puts on his protective headphones and braces his hands against the dashboard. The judge offers a wave: Ready?Bausman nods. The car is detonated by remote control.

The speakers emit a fixed tone called a "burp" -- a 3-second shock wave. Bausman knows what to expect: The reverb hits him like a baseball bat, slamming his chest, knocking air from his lungs. He can't breathe or swallow. His stomach drops. His balls vibrate. His eyes bulge.

Rule 2: Honor Your Mother

A 69-year-old woman with gold-rimmed glasses and freshly painted red fingernails stands inside a white tent, calmly watching the action. Next to her, a 1988 Ford Bronco blares club anthems to near-deafening levels. The vehicle is loaded: 15 alternators, five amps, ten 18-inch subwoofers, and 12 batteries powered by a 1995 Mustang Cobra engine. The car's steel frame has been reinforced by concrete. The back window is aluminum, not glass. The front window is 2-inch-thick bulletproof glass.