Hi everyone. I’m back in a sleep deprived stupor to give the account of my travels over Speedweeks at New Smyrna. Call up and order some takeout; this will be a long one. Humor me and read along.

Wednesday Morning O’Dark Thirty

Cecil Palmtree, ever hear of him? It’s a racing moniker that was given to a gentleman who drove a Jarzombek backup Modified at Daytona Stadium many years ago. Lore states that a man at a Daytona watering hole once said that this guy blocked out the sun when he stood next to you, like a palm tree. It was Eddie Partridge.

A couple of years ago, Eddie dug up a small palm tree at Speedweeks and brought it to Long Island to see if he could make it grow there. I don’t know whether it was the shade of chartreuse of Mr. Partridge’s thumb or perhaps the prevailing weather on eastern Long Island that have been the worse for this poor plant. Either way, Ed decided to bring it back and plant it at the track.

When Stanley brought this potted palm to the trailer, I immediately started calling it Cecil. You know, Cecil the palm tree? I didn’t think that the plant looked too worse for the wear but it wasn’t thriving and I guess that and his love for everything living caused Ed to return it from whence it came.

Most of us are quite aware that the Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s launch site for the U.S. space program, lurks less than an hour down the road from New Smyrna Speedway. There is a space shuttle launch planned for Thursday and I can’t wait to see it! My trip to Speedweeks has something else in common with those intrepid voyagers who travel off of the surface of our orb.

When Ed told me that I’d be traveling to Florida in the racecar rig, I commented, “Better get a bucket,” which is a quote from an old Monty Python flick. He assured me that wouldn’t be necessary as he would be stopping along the way. Despite that, and thank goodness I thought of it ahead of time, I began a low residue diet, much like American astronauts do prior to space flight, before the beginning of this trip.

I had heard rumor that when traveling straight through to destinations that journeys took less time than when one stopped periodically along the way. I’m also pretty sure that if we had a healthy breakfast before we left that the only restriction we were likely to have would be the amount of fuel we carried in our rig. Ed could probably go twenty four hours behind the wheel without the requirement of a restroom break.

Our departure was scheduled for 2am. We loaded and fueled up but there was a problem. Something was wrong with the headlights. Ed and Stanley spent an hour swapping circuit breakers, testing fuses, going over wire paths and discussing light control modules while Roy was sent down the road to pick up our spotter Freddie. Roy’s venture would save one stop a short distance away from the shop.

Around 3am, shortly after Roy had returned with Freddie, it was determined that we would leave and use the rig’s fog lamps for headlights. We drove straight through to the northern Virginia area without stopping. This is where we enjoyed a late morning breakfast buffet.

There were no kind words from Roy or Stanley about the buffet. I thought it was okay. Stanley said that his pancakes were like cardboard. They even looked like cardboard. Roy earned the Walt’s Cup quote of the day when he said, “Those eggs look a thousand years old.”

We had all tried to get a little shuteye on the first leg of our journey. After our stop in Virginia, we were wired and ready for some entertainment. Freddie put “Jackass the Movie” into our DVD player. Stanley told us, “I only watch wrestling” to which Freddie responded, “Well, Jackass is a little like wrestling anyway.

While we were watching a radio chirped. “Yoooh,” said Ed, “we’ve got tornado warnings up ahead.” We shrugged our shoulders, glanced out of the windows and went back to watching the movie.

The next stop was around 2:30pm in North Carolina. It was a truck shop stop to fix our lights. After all of the concerns with fuses, breakers, relays, computers and modules, both headlight bulbs had simply blown out. We were down the road a lot quicker than had originally been expected.

I took a couple of pictures of the foreboding clouds and the skies of imminent doom as we traveled down I-95. I plugged in “Apocalypse Now”. That seemed to put everyone in sleep mode. I shut the TV down when the first disc ran out.

At about 9:00pm we pulled into the gas station at the intersection of SR44 & VC415. That’s across the street from New Smyrna Speedway. Stan pumped diesel fuel into the rig and Roy began talking. Well, he didn’t begin talking. He probably had been talking since 1:30am and all I had heard was what he talked about at breakfast.

He was entertaining two women at the gas station. One wanted to trade her friend for one or two of us. We sent them packing. I had to tell Roy that we would not trade him and Freddie for a woman in a twenty dollar motorcycle jacket and a venereal disease to be named later under any circumstance.

Ed had me walk over to the campgrounds to get our golf cart, which had arrived with Ed’s camper a couple days earlier. He was planning on following a bunch of other racecar haulers into the track. I drove through the side gate and waited. As it turned out I would have had waited until about eight o’clock in the morning, the gate was locked just ahead of the T.S. Haulers rig.

I brought so much crap with me one might have thought I was moving out of my house. I did manage to fit most of it on the golf cart. My sleeping quarters would once again be the couch in the main living area of Ed’s enormous camper.

It amazes me to hear other people complain that they are fat. Spotter Freddie said that in phone conversation. I noted that he was arguably the slimmest of all five guys who rode in our rig Wednesday.

Thursday morning; practice day.

I arose to a call for help. The monstrous awning on the side of the T.S. Haulers team’s camper had to be completed. Dave “Pork Chop” Brown had erected the superstructure for the temporary edifice on Wednesday. We got together to put the canvas, which seems to be about the size of a spinnaker on an America’s Cup racer, over the skeleton.

We proceeded to enter the track and get the hauler situated. Ed chose to bring three SKs to New Smyrna; One for Showtime, one for “Jackass” (Ed told me to do it) Jay Mignogna and one for Pork Chop. Most of the day was consumed with getting the cars through tech inspection, resolving wristbands and getting tires.

I got to speak with 1954 NASCAR Modified champion Jack Choquette and Chaplain Bill Ross. These are two elder statesmen who are a blast with whom to trade stories. Bill talked to me about Ollie Silva for an hour.

I was regaled by Marty Robbins’ “20th Century Drifter” on Sirius channel 128. “I’m getting’ back about half as much as I’m givin’” is the lyric that Steve Post points out. It seems so apropos for everyone at New Smyrna.

As I had alluded earlier, one thing I had looked forward to for many years was to see a space shuttle launch. I missed it. I was moving a bunch of stuff around with Roy in Jessica “Backwoods Girl” Murphy’s pickup. A couple of people pointed to the sky declaring that they had seen the shuttle. Thanks for the tip.

One of the reasons that I chose to go to Speedweeks this year was I figured that the food would be better on the road than it was at home. Yesterday it was a breakfast buffet and a sub from that place where Jared lost all of that weight. Today I ate nothing until Roy finally cooked us up some grub after the rains fell. Grilled pork loin with a salad beats ramen noodles any day of the week, but I was still wondering about my decision.

Later, I walked back toward the track after encountering some of the residual results of that meal. There was a brief Modified practice. Nothing spectacular to report other than it had been stopped because the #96 of the Butch Perry had spun to a stop for some reason on the backstretch. Everyone seemed to choose that Thursday night was a good night to turn in early.

Shortly after I got to sleep, I heard my name yelled out over the speaker on my radio. It was “sk bob” Karbonic. Bob had experienced some difficulty posting on the Message Forum. I told him, “Apparently you have been restricted due to the content of one or more of your posts.” He replied, “That doesn’t surprise me. After all, I went to the Tom Baldwin School of personality.” That was perhaps the funniest thing I had heard in quite some time and earned the Walt’s Cup quote of the day.

Bob and his wife Peggy, former Connecticut residents, now live in the shadow of the big track. We worked together on Pete Beal’s Modifieds. They stopped by with friends on their bikes later in the week.

Friday Raceday One

Roy taught us about cooking again. At least we had a good breakfast. Later, over at the track, I waited at the Speedway office for a part we needed from a far off land called Connecticut. What can brown do for me? “Hand over the box pal.”

Once Stanley installed the new part, he got the primary SK through inspection quite easily. Jimmy took it out for a few laps and he was pretty happy with it.

At lunch Ed asked Roy to pick up some “Earth Grow” when he went shopping. I asked what that was and they both looked at me like I had four heads. Stanley later told Roy that what Ed was looking for was Miracle-Gro.

Meanwhile, the Grasso brothers were struggling to solve a few woes on the #19 Tour car. It was finally diagnosed as a fuel issue and they thought they had it licked when Jimmy turned fast time in qualifying. It stumbled again in the race.

I got a chance to talk to Dick Moffitt Friday. His son, Mitch, is a young phenom driver for whom New Smyrna Speedweeks is his first encounter with asphalt. The kid has an impressive resume that is only exceeded by his work ethic, attitude and how quickly he seemed to adapt to pavement racing. Moffitt took down the pole for the Crate Late Model race. Dick owns a building company in Iowa and we talked shop for a few minutes.

The Murphy racing team, for whom Mitch Moffitt drove, kept us entertained the whole week. They appear to know what they are doing but do it through a tirade of screaming, hollering and banging on things with big hammers. Jason Boyd, one of the Roush Driver X candidates, won the Late Model championship for them last season at Speedweeks. This season, the racing gods would not be so friendly to the Murphy team and it was quite an expensive week for them.

Local kids sell the race programs at New Smyrna. Ed can’t resist making their day. He bought programs for everyone on the team. It was a thoughtful gesture to us and for those kids.

The Walt’s Cup quote of the day goes to Leroy. Leroy is the large young man who stands guard at the front gate. I thanked him for putting up with all of our guys going in and out of the paddock area all day and for creating so much turmoil in his area. He replied, “Turmoil? You guys don’t give me turmoil. You guys are easy. I’m (expletive deleted) married. Now that’s turmoil son.”

Friday was a very long day. One of the brightest things for our little Ville was some news that came from fifteen miles up Tomoka Farms Road at the big track in Daytona. Ralph Solhem and his little operation, against all odds and quite a large field of ARCA entries were able to get both of his racecars qualified for tomorrow’s race. Danny Sammons reportedly will start in the top thirty. Ed Kennedy was the final car to take time and he made it in too.

One of the funniest things to watch all day was our two teammates go out to attempt to “qualify” for the race. Jay and Dave had never turned a competitive lap in a racecar prior to Friday. Some will say that neither of them did Friday night either. Their time trial runs were…let’s say intermission periods…between instances when other cars were taking time. Ben Dodge called one of the laps as about thirty minutes.

Were I the race director, I wouldn’t have allowed it. They had never taken a lap of practice. With the best of their times seven seconds off of Jimmy’s pole speed, I would have told them to save it for another day when the cars lined up for the race. Both actually were able to get the cars out to take the green flag and were able to get them off of the racing surface before the leaders bore down on them as they pulled down pit road.

In all fairness, Dave’s big racing experience is that he won a lawn mower race at the Elk’s Lodge in Riverhead. Jay could probably back a tractor trailer around the track as fast as he time-trialed. He drives for a distributor of the “King of Beers”. Bowatcher told me that he was going to get hero cards made up for them and I offered to write a press release announcing that they would be here all week.

John and Kathy White, the owners of Chemung Speedrome and Spencer Speedways, joined us at our pit stall Friday night. Kathy told me that it has been an enlightening situation to say the least to see the racing business from the other side of the fence. John had participated as a racer for many years.

At the end of the night, Jimmy took the checker in the SK feature. Where are Howie and Mary Hodge? Post-race tech was quick and we got the cars put away in short order. It had been a long day.

We got a chance to see a portion of the re-broadcast of Bud Shootout practice. Boys will be boys and it was quite entertaining. Is anyone looking for a slightly used COT? Mr. Stewart and Mr. Busch were invited to the NASCAR trailer.

Saturday Raceday Two

We unloaded and prepared to practice our primary car. That was preparation for a practice that would never come. It was a sunny day; a day when the sun seemed to sap the energy right out of people.

Tom Petty might have said it best; the waiting is the hardest part. I spent most of the morning and early afternoon listening to the discussion of the incident between Busch and Stewart on Sirius NASCAR radio. Most of that discussion was inane drivel and bashing from call-in listeners.

What was the focus of “experts”, over that and other forms of media, was that Busch was wrong for his retaliation. The reasoning from these pundits is that this retaliation hurts people who are not involved in the conflict. It hurts the guys who build the cars back at the shop.

For what its worth, here’s my take. Publicly, if my driver X gets wrecked by driver Y, I’d say that we were wronged but that it is wrong to retaliate. However, privately, if my driver X doesn’t return the favor to driver Y, he wouldn’t be driving for my team for very long, particularly if driver Y has a history with our team or driver X. The “experts” say that it’s not fair that the guys at driver Y’s shop have to repair that car from the retaliation.

I say, that the guys back at driver X’s shop work just as hard as the guys at driver Y’s shop. If driver Y’s team knows that whenever their driver messes with driver X, they can count on taking the remaining mangled mess of their racecar home on a flatbed, they will be the best incentive for driver Y to avoid driver X. If my driver X’s team has to spend two weeks building cars on account of driver Y, I want driver Y’s team working for a month. There, I said it.

Dave went out for time trials and cut three seconds off of the previous night’s effort. Jay didn’t go out for qualifying as there was some kind of problem with the shifter. Jimmy took down the pole again. When Blewett exited the #12 he said, “It’s a little tight; we’ve still got at least another two tenths in this thing.” The eyes of couple competitors within earshot, who timed over half a second off of the pole, rolled like Vegas slot machines.

A rumor circulated that Speed51 had posted an announcement. Chad Little will be the new Whelen Modified Tour director. Bowatcher, the first to tell me, asked if I thought it was true. I said, “It could be.”

We were in the midst of pushing three cars through pre-race tech inspection when Jason Christley and Jason Cunningham, the new Whelen Modified Tour Media Coordinator, approached me. Christley was still concerned about when he would receive a Fred Flintstone bobble-head doll, a reward which will never come. However, he will be presented a silver Newky, announcement to follow.

I saw no sight of those two gentlemen once we were finished preparing for the SK race. I had some questions for those two like: what will Ed Cox’s capacity be in the future? How will Chad be able to get to all of the Modified Tour events if he is still in charge of NASCAR Mexico? What are Speedway Motorsports’ plans to reconfigure Loudon?

Jimmy took down the win in the Modified and the SK races. We had to wait for Jeff Choquette to win the Late Model race to get out of the infield after post-race tech. During that time I got a chance to chat with Jim DuPont who was shooting pictures near the backstretch exit of cars exiting turn two. I told him to thank Denise for all of the great work she has been doing with the Live Updates. Eddie was getting congratulatory phone calls before he got to Victory Lane.

The Budweiser Shootout was underway through the time we were in the infield and loading up. I listened to the final laps on MRN. Dale, Jr. won and half of the NASCAR nation probably feels the world is back to normal.

Roy was going to prepare dinner for after the races. As he was inside the track with us, dinner wouldn’t hit the grill until after ten. The choice was made to go to the Pub down SR44. Eyes were heavy and our stay there wasn’t too long.

Sunday the day off

My sister lives about fifteen minutes away from the track. She picked me up on Sunday morning so that I’d have a chance to spend a little time with my niece and nephew. We went to eat at the place where breakfast is a homerun all day.

Stanley chased us all out of the camper as Cup qualifying was getting underway. He marinated some steaks for dinner. They turned out great and we ate like kings. Once the clandestine concoction of the marinade was complete, we were allowed to return to the camper and watch, or more accurately sleep, through Cup time trials.

Several of us went to the track to watch the sprint cars from the grandstands. It is quite obvious that someone made a conscious decision to improve this track. The differences are like night and day.

There’s the new sign-in gate that keep competitors vehicles from blocking up VC415. There is a new sign out front with a digital message board that shows color pictures. The most notable changes are those to the restrooms behind the grandstands.

I don’t know what the ladies’ room looked like, but if it looked anything like the men’s side, chances are if a guy brought a girl to NSS on a first date, it would have been a last date as well. They used to be embarrassingly filthy and underequipped. Not any longer.

The facilities are in the same block buildings where they always have been. New tile, plumbing, heat, commodes and partitions have been installed. The partitions were made from vinyl fencing which appears to be a stroke of real genius. The restrooms are immaculate. They’re so clean they don’t even have soap, or maybe Floridians are allergic to soap, or maybe that’s the next thing that needs to be addressed. If a guy brought a girl to NSS on a first date Sunday night, that girl probably stayed in the ladies’ room to get warm.

Bob Dillner’s driver, Zach Stroupe, took down the win in the Pro-Challenge race. It was great to see all of the Speed51 guys down in Victory Lane. It was neat to hear where Bob was when the FOX team “threw it” to him during the Cup qualifying broadcast. Let’s just say he was busy.

Monday Raceday Three

There is a buzz about the paddock area as Kevin Manion’s 7ny Tom Baldwin tribute car was unloaded. JGR driver, Kyle Busch, showed up to pilot this Modified which has been prepared by Bono, Haskell and an all-star lineup of former Modified Tour crewmembers. They ran well in practice but apparently the carburetor that was on that racecar failed tech inspection.

We sent Jimmy out to practice in the second session. The car was fast. Too fast, he was catching top Modified cars in the SK. The brand new Mopar power plant that had about sixty laps on it tightened up making the plug check for which we had sent him out moot.

The rest of the day turned into a feverish blur as components from our primary car were switched over to the backup car that David had been driving. A few of the guys who were with the Grasso brothers came over and pitched in. We still hadn’t gotten the starter to function correctly on the car when time trials were imminent. We push started the car and sent it over the scales.

I’m sure that there were plenty of people who wanted to see just how fast Jimmy would be in the backup car with no practice on it. Our driver looked like he was hanging on out there for dear life. He still took down the pole to even our amazement.

We pushed the car back to the trailer. Stanley and the rest of the guys thrashed on that thing right up until we had to present the car for the race. Stanley got the starter working and we thought everything else was ready.

Once out on the track we realized that there was a problem with the radio. Stanley swapped the units and checked all of the connections to no measureable success. We sent our driver out and hoped for the best.

It was a little cold on Monday night and Brooksie decided to give the SKs a few hot laps. Jay, who was driving our other backup car, pulled it in after completing the first hot lap and had to be directed back onto the track to take the green. Hey, last place money is last place money and no one gets it until they take the green and a lap has been completed.

Jimmy got of to the lead but there was an apparent problem. Through what little we heard over the radio, the clutch was slipping. Kenny “Cannonball” Horton was ready to pounce. He got by Jimmy shortly after a restart. Jimmy looked faster but we didn’t know whether he’d have enough to get around him.

Horton had had a rough Speedweeks so far. We lent him the radiator that he was running after he was crashed into senselessly earlier in the week. On the last turn of the last lap, Jimmy got into Kenny and they both crashed into the wall outside wall coming off of turn four.

It was an incredibly exciting finish; complete with sparks and smoke. Eric Goodale weaved his was around the carnage to come across the line sideways for the win. Eric’s car spun into the wall but I’m sure the exhilaration of winning overcame whatever damage the #20 team sustained in the incident. Horton drove his car backwards across the line to finish second.

Jimmy limped across eleventh. Ed Partridge gets the Walt’s Cup quote of the day for describing the finish, “That thumping noise you heard out of the #19 car was Kenny whacking my radiator with a hammer while he was backing his car across the line.”

Meanwhile, we had a racecar that was wrecked. I was too pooped to party. I tried to help put stuff away while Stanley, the Grassos and the rest of the guys made a roller out of the car with which we won the North-South Shootout. Ed sent me down to get the payoff and that was a blessing in itself. I felt a thousand years old, five hundred pounds, sleep deprived, bludgeoned and filthy. I never felt so thankful to wait in line.

When we finally packed it in at the camper it was after 1am. Stanley said he’d be up and at ‘em at 6am. He was and he was back over at the trailer working on the racecar before seven.

Tuesday Raceday Four – Rained Out

I got up around the time that Jay took off for the airport to pickup his wife and daughter. It was easier to wash the dishes than to wash my hands. Roy, who has been sleeping in the cab of the racecar truck, came over to cook breakfast. I only feel five hundred years old this morning.

Our spotter, Freddie, looks like I feel. I think the cat dragged him in about when Stanley woke up. I hope he had a good time.

By the time I got over to the track rain had begun to fall. We shuffled things around and got two of our three cars, all of which had spent the night outside under covers, loaded into our transporter. Hey! Soap magically appeared in the restrooms! As we traveled back to the camping area across the street the heavens opened up

Stanley produced some awesome steaks once again when it came time for dinner. I went out to pick up a few things at the store and returned to find Stanley about to prepare for another meal later in the week, stuffed cabbage, which Stanley referred to as glumki.

The Weather Channel’s forecast appeared to be quite grim. They had tornado watches for the whole state of Florida. I switched the channel to watch one of the funniest movies of all times, “History of the World – Part I”.

The rains and the winds were torrential around midnight. I thought that a few of the campers would lose their awnings. The rains were copious and the winds were severe. Did all of that make sleeping easier or was I just that tired?

Wednesday Raceday Five

We awoke to sunshine but the day was mostly cloudy with windy conditions. Although the weather threatened throughout most of the day; it only sprinkled a few times. Still it would be darker for a while tonight and that had nothing to do with the weather.

Christopher Young, son of Riverhead Raceway Modified ace Chris, took a tumble in the paddock area. All the king’s horses and all of the king’s men…well, I hear they took him to Halifax Medical Center to make his arm straight again. Thankfully there were reports later that we will be okay.

As I said earlier, I was wondering where Howie and Mary Hodge were. I finally called Howie on Wednesday. The Hodges decided that they needed a break. Howie gets the Walt’s Cup quote of the day for saying, “I heard there was supposed to be an off-season that started some time in November.” Since then he had shot a number of races a few trade shows, several banquets and wondered when it all would end. I was just glad to hear that he and Mary were okay.

Lucky picks? I’m no statistician but I’ve got to say that it is a statistical improbability that we have started on the front row for so many races this week. It’s got to be driving others crazy. It’s so odd that even Ed is getting upset when Jimmy pulls the #1 chip out of the bag. I picked for SK time trials, #20, that would put us out at the end. I guess the right guy picked that one.

Apparently there was some work that had to be done on a water line or something at the track on Tuesday. The crew who performed that task reportedly told track officials that they had accidently cut an electrical line in the course of doing that work. When it was time to go racing, all of the lights on the back-stretch and the lights in the middle of the front-stretch from over the press box failed to illuminate.

One practice session was run in the dark and it really looked scary. Ed Cox stopped by to watch the Modified feature near our trailer outside of turn three. We had a good chuckle discussing what New Smyrna Speedway’s insurance carrier might feel about cars even practicing, much less racing under those darkened conditions.

Jimmy has a buddy who calls himself Doo [sic] Hast. I’m pretty sure it’s in reference to a song “Du Hast” by Rammstein. Well Doo Hast wrote “Doo Hast” on the top of the door on Jimmy’s SK. I wonder if he really understand what’s going on in that song. Does anyone smell a Rob Halford reality check?

The Cannonball, Kenny Horton, went on to win the SK race. We battled with a chronic problem our backup car had had. A slipping clutch had curtailed our forward progress

Thursday Raceday Six

We solved some problems. The 500 field was set while we weren’t listening. And these people have more money than we were led to believe.

Stanley and Jay switched everything in the hydraulic system and the throw-out bearing in the #12 SK. It seemed to resolve the clutch problem. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won another race in his #88. Will the sea of red become a sea of green and blue? The track is inundated every night by people who have obviously been to the big track. They’re mostly outfitted in brand new #88 or Daytona 500 gear. Where to people get the money for all of this stuff?

Bumper cars can be fun. I think that Jimmy figured Jay must have cleaned the windshield on the #12 with sandpaper and couldn’t quite see the #1 car in front of him. Repeatedly we’d push Blewett’s car with the golf cart, on the way to tech and Jimmy used Jay’s car for the brakes. Jay’s head looked like a bobble-head doll on a pogo stick. This might not seem funny to anyone reading this but Stanley and I were laughing so hard that I thought we might have to call the paramedics.

After pre-qualifying tech, while the Late Models took time, I got a chance to visit Denise DuPont up in the press box. One of the elder female FASCAR officials commented to Denise, “If this is somebody’s valentine, he sure is a big one.” Denise responded, “We’re going to clean him up and give him to you.”

“Showtime” had a pretty good Valentine’s Day. After pulling average chips, for once, in the re-draw, I’m sure there were a number of competitors who thought that Thursday would be “their” night. Jimmy won both the Modified and SK races for the second time this Speedweeks.

Blewett’s move to the outside and around the field in the Modified race almost dumbfounded people. From the sixth place starting position he took the lead at the beginning of lap three and never looked back. Even Ed was speechless.

For the second time I was asked to go to the pay window. As I did on Monday, I was signing for four cars, two SKs and two Modifieds. The last car for which I collected was Jay’s SK. I told Brooksie, “And for Jay Mignogna, the #1 SK, for last place, that’s $3550.00.” Someone had written in the total SK purse on Jay’s line. Dick nearly had a panic attack and then handed me $75.

After a night like that, it was great to go to the pub down the road. Roy offered one of the barmaids a million dollars to stay with him. It was a fake $1,000,000 bill. She said she’d only agree to it if her partner could share in the experience, she turned and pointed to her girlfriend behind the bar. Roy was nearly speechless.

Friday Raceday Seven

The Weather Channel was on when I awoke. I decided to check out what has been going on in the world while we have been insulated from it in the midst of the Speedweeks circus. It was then that I learned of the shootings in Northern Illinois.

I hate it when somebody bad mouths good people. I dealt with a little of that this morning. Sometimes I wonder whether the people who decide to perform a mass shooting are crazy or maybe they’re just tired of someone bad mouthing someone they respect.

Over at the track I ventured up into the lounge of our trailer. That’s the place we sat during our trip down. I hadn’t been in there in a few days. I immediately started cleaning it out. If Ed had seen it in that condition, he would have had a canary.

I became brothers of Stanley and Jay on Friday. A jack-stand post released on a stand I was sliding from beneath the car. My wound is only a small bruise on my hand but it hurt like heck when it happened. I can hear the Old Man now, he’s hollering at me. “That’s what you get for not paying attention jackass”.

Speaking of jack-stands; I’ve got to mention this kid who has been tearing it up down here in a Late Model. The kid’s name is Logan Ruffin. I believe he turned thirteen last week. He’s won three features down here. He’s so small that when his team has the car up on jack-stands, he can walk underneath the fender openings. During one of his celebrations, he jumped up on the roof of his care without causing any damage. He looks like a little Bill Elliott.

Tire selection is getting slim. Many of the teams have resorted to different tactics to stretch tires so that they can get the stagger they need. See all of the right-rear tires basking in the sun.

There was a legend’s reunion scheduled for today. I saw a couple of people walking around with name tags but it seems like it could have been organized a little differently. The organizers should have either invited the current stars to visit with the legends or brought them all around in a van to the various teams of today. Most of the media people I’ve spoken with really didn’t meet many of the legends either. I do think I saw Ted Marsh over by Ricky Carmichael’s Late Model.

We had quite the eventful evening with the SK and the Modified tonight. Jimmy did a great job getting by Josh Sylvester and fending him off to the finish. Josh has been quite fast all weekend and it looks like he’s got a boatload of talent. That was win #4 for the T.S. Haulers SK; two for each car we’ve used as the primary.

Tonight was the first time that the guys from the T.S. camp went down to pit road to help the Grasso brothers with the #19 Modified. The group worked well together, just like at the North-South Shootout.

After the majority of the field pitted for tires there were a few incidents. Keep in mind, from where I was standing, I didn’t get a chance to see these; so what is contained herein is hearsay. Jimmy got into Ted Christopher between turns one and two and the #00 went around.

They had been battling for third place at the time. Ted supposedly tried to hit Jimmy in retaliation shortly thereafter under the ensuing caution. Jimmy saw it coming, avoided the contact and TC supposedly ran past the #19 to hit the wall. People were congratulating me, like I had something to do with it or even approve of it. Jimmy said later that he didn’t hit Teddy any harder than Teddy had hit him earlier in the week. I think he was even surprised that Christopher didn’t hang on.

Meanwhile, Kevin Goodale, who had led a substantial portion of the race by virtue of pitting early to gain track position and some killer restarts, was trying to seal the deal. It wasn’t going to be easy with Eric Beers and Jimmy behind him. Blewett went to the outside at the south end of the track to try to pass Beers. I was told that Goodale adjusted his line a little higher to try to thwart Jimmy. Then Kevin and Eric made contact and Goodale spun.

Apparently, someone up in the spotters stand was placing the blame fully on Blewett. We couldn’t see anything from where we were and without a radio; I didn’t even know what our spotter and driver were saying. From the icy stares we got from the #58 pit stall, which was adjacent to ours, they felt our driver was to blame. Even when we heard there was a Beer’s apology in victory lane it didn’t quell the angst directed at us.

Our SK car got stuck in the infield for lengthy post-race tech inspection after the Modified race was over. Even after the car was through tech, the truck race was running seemed to take seven hundred hours to run twenty-five laps. I think I found that week I lost in Lake Placid.

All of the action from the Richie Evans Memorial 100 is available from MustSeeRacing.com. In car footage, feature driver interviews and views from topside are available by download for a fee. It would have been interesting to see the in-car from the #19. The crew from Must See Racing however put the camera on our SK car thinking that car was the Modified. The camera was back on the car Saturday night for the only extra distance SK race of Speedweeks.

Saturday Raceday Eight

I got a late start on Saturday. It didn’t have anything to do with partying or not getting enough sleep. Between having been on the road for that amount of time and hostility laden air from the night before, I wasn’t ready to jump right in. On top of that there was laundry to do. Jeanine Garofalo believes the longest type of time is that spent on a Stairmaster. I think the only increment in time that might be longer is that time spent waiting for clothes to dry in an electric dryer.

Tom Bigelow came over to interview Jimmy before the racing got started. He works with Must See Racing. Tom used to race Sprint, Midget and Indy cars back against A.J. Foyt, the Unsers and the Andrettis. Bigelow was the 1978 USAC Sprint Car Series champion and 1984 USAC National Midget Series champion. Tom is an ordinary guy who did extraordinary things.

I think of so many of the NASCAR fans that are up at the big track, fishing for an autograph that might be valuable someday. Meanwhile, even some of us, meandering through the pits at New Smyrna, might think that Bigelow is just an old man in a blue hat with a video camera. He is a racing legend who is not likely to garner the notoriety or the financial windfall befitting today’s Nationwide Series winner, despite his nine consecutive Indy 500 starts.

George Bierce cooked up a storm for the T.S. teams. He spent at least six hours working on a meat sauce that was just awesome. He had a deep-fried turkey, shrimp and a whole bunch of other delicious stuff. My thoughts as I chose what I would eat were of the long trip home on Sunday. Remember? There could be a long time between stops.

Jimmy did what he had to do to win the Modified championship. I’m not sure but it may have been one of the closest point races in years. Ted Christopher was victorious Saturday night and I was glad for him and Joe & Linda Brady. JBIII drove their car last season and I know that win had special meaning for them.

The SK race originally was supposed to be fifty laps, it was reduced to thirty. That’s fine with everyone here. Let’s get on with it and go home. Jimmy took down the win to match his victory tally from last season, five with the SK and three with the Modified; plus one extra championship trophy.

Sunday Homeward Bound

We started to get things wrapped up while Roy cooked breakfast. One last thing had to be done. We had to plant Cecil. I bought the fertilizer that Ed needed for the palm tree. I didn’t realize how little of it we would use. The soil there looks so rich that I didn’t think the fertilizer was even necessary. We’ll find out if Cecil is still there next year.

I traveled back in the lounge, much the way I had ventured there. I didn’t know whether I should feel like a leper or a king. My two travel companions on the way down rode in the camper. I got to watch the 500 on a big TV by myself. I even had the satellite radio going so I could listen to the MRN call during the commercials.

We actually stopped more frequently on the way home than on the way down. The fact that we had a couple of ladies traveling with us may have contributed to that blessing. The best was probably the final rest stop.

We took a break at the “Chesapeake House” on I-95 somewhere between Baltimore and New Jersey. Several in our company were excited to eat at a place with so many options. There were six or seven restaurants listed on the signs. The only one open was the home of the Whopper.

Through the ordering process it appeared as though this was going to take a long time, kind of like what it has taken for you to read this article. I told Eddie, this is going to take longer than it took to drive through Georgia. There was one person working on the grille and one on the register. That was it.

Roy demonstrated his ability to irritate anyone. He ordered a burger and a regular fry. The cashier told him the price. He said, “Is a regular fry a small fry?...I’m not supposed to eat fries…Make that a large fry.” She told him that she’d give him the large fry because she wasn’t ringing his order up again and quoted him a price that was three cents less than what she previously told him. I thought her head was going to explode.

When we got out of the truck in Calverton at 3:30am, the temperature there was warmer than it had been in Florida on a few of the mornings. However, the wind was gusting to nearly fifty miles per hour. The winds seemed to come out of nowhere. Maybe the winds followed us from somewhere. It is just good to be home.

The next event on the docket is the SpeedwayEXPO presented by Sunoco, February 29th – March 2nd at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, Massachusetts. Check out updates for this event in Lou’s House on the MSS Message Forum. I look forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.