Made it to Concord, NC

"GIANTS WIN, GIANTS WIN, GIANTS WIN" Finally, one of my favorite major sporrts teams won the championship. Ever since i started watching Football and Baseball, I have faithfully rooted for the SF Giants and Minnesaota Vikings, I can finally say my team won the World Series.

I'm back, I just noticed I took a month off from updating this blog, wow I didn't realize it has been so long, sorry. Right now it is Wednesday Nov. 3rd around 8:51pm and I am camped at Brian & Jeanie Butler's shop (ButlerBuilt) in Concord, NC. Tomorrow morning I will be heading over to the Dirt Track and getting ready for the first night of action of the World Finals, lets hope that Mother Nature doesn't rain on our parade Thursday like they are predicting. I'm watching Survivor on the boob tube, they finally merged to one tribe, I don't have a favorite yet, but I really want to see the black chick voted out, she has a real smart ass getto attitude and needs to go, well she didn't get voted out tonight and it looks like she has aligned herself with the stronger alliance and might be around for a while. Enough about Survivor, lets catch you up on what I've been up to for the past month, when I last left you, I was camped in Syracuse at the Fairgrounds hanging out with the big Modified crowd.

On Oct 9th, we raced at Rolling Wheels in Elbridge, NY (just about 20 miles west of Syracuse on HWY 5), there was a huge crowd on hand, just like last year, a ton of people came over from the fairgrounds. We put on a good race for them, Kraig Kinser led the first have of the race and looked like he might be able to get his first win this year, but hear came the master of Rolling Wheels (The King Himself) and he showed no mercy on his son, Steve blew by Kraig and ran away from the rest of field, Donny made a late charge to get to second, but not enough to catch Steve, Kraig hung on for 3rd. Meyers stayed out of trouble and finished in the top 5 to maintain his big point lead, Steve needed the win after his terrible weekend at Williams Grove the week before.

Sunday after the race, I hung out all day and ended up spending the night in Weedsport, NY at the laundramat. I took my time driving to Haubstadt, IN, I took the back HWY's in NY all the way to Buffalo. I highly recommend if your driving a big RV towing a trailer not to take HWY 20A through Warsaw, NY. It is a pretty steep climb into Warsaw and out of Warsaw, I made it, but I really didn't want too once I got there. My first stop for the night was in Erie, PA, it took me 7 hours to drive 245 miles and I only stopped twice, thats a whopping average speed of 39 mph. My second stop was in Akron, OH, I spent the night at the WalMart close to the Football Hall of Fame. Wednesday I spent around 4 hours at the Hall of Fame, it was free for Active Duty & Retired Military. It was a neat place to see, there is a lot of cool stuff in their, I saw a lot of my favorite players from the Minnesota Vikings. I drove to Mansfield, OH, and again I had another altenator issue, so in the WalMart parking lot, I spent a couple hours tracing wires and troubleshooting the problem, it wasn't the altenator, so it took me a while to figure it out, after bouncing ideas off of my Dad over the phone, I removed the relay and re-plugged it in, low and behold, that fixed it for now. Thursday I drove the rest of the way to Haubstadt, IN and camped at Tri-State Speedway through Sunday. Friday night before our race on Saturday, my good friends Jimmy & Glenda came and picked me up brought me over for a nice steak dinner at their house in Evansville, IN. I had a great time and the food was outstanding, they have some really cool stuff at their place and Jimmy has a ton of cool stories about pushing sprint cars over the past 30 years. Glenda sent me back home with a big bag of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, yummy they were good.

Saturday Oct. 16th was race day, what a beautiful day it was for a race, Tommy Helfrich and his family couldn't of asked for a better day/night for a WoO Sprint Car race. The huge crowd starting showing up early Saturday morning and just kept coming, it had to be one of the largest crowds ever. They were treated to a great race that night, Donny, Dollansky, and Saldana put on a great race. Tommy had a great race track, two groves and great racing throughout the field. Dollansky put a great move on Donny in heavy traffic and took the lead around the halfway point and then held off a determined Saldana on a bunch of late race re-starts for the impressive win. Saldana finally looked like his old self, since his big crash at Eldora, I think he is finally recovered from his concussion, it was awesome to watch Joey drive hard and aggressive again. After the races, I hung out in the pit area selling my T-shirts & decals when I met another one of you loyal readers of this blog, I had a nice conversation with Jacob, it is cool meeting someone who reads my blogs.

Sunday, I slept in till 10am before I got up and washed Woody before loading him up his trailer and headed for Clarksville, TN to Bill & Lynda's place. We had 3 weeks off before the World Finals, Bill & Lynda have plenty of parking space and I always have a good time hanging out with them and Eloy.

With the 3 weeks off, I spent five days at Bill & Lynda's, during that time I worked a little bit on Woody and my RV, getting them ready for the last big race of the year and long trip back to Deming, NM. With it only 600 miles to my place in Pensacola, FL, I rented a car for a week and headed home to spend 5 days with my wife Donna and my girls Selena & Alisha. It was great to sleep (well sleep and other extracericular activities) in a bed with Donna, it had been since February. Selena is doing good in her first year of middle school, and Alisha is thriving in her 2nd year of college. I had a great 5 days at home, but I had to have the car back in Clarksville, TN on Friday. After spending the weekend at Bill & Lynda's, Monday morning I loaded Woody up and headed out to Concord, NC. Monday night I spent the night in Newport, TN at the WalMart. Tuesday I drove the rest of the way to Concord and parked at ButlerBuilt.

Tomorrow night the World Finals starts, god there is going to a ton a laps turned on this track, they are expecting over 50 sprint cars, 70 late models, and 40 big block modifieds. Randy (track prep) has his work cut out for him the next 3 nights. Hopefully the rain will stay away Thursday, because no one wants to start racing Friday morning with qualifying. It should be a great 3 nights for the fans, I hope everyone who comes or watches the race "Live on SPEED Saturday night at 8pm est", enjoys the races, if you see me on TV, yes I was feezing!!!! They are calling for temps below freezing starting Thursday night, and no, Woody doesn't have a heater on him.

Well, thats a quick cliff notes version of what I've been up to for the past 4 weeks. I sure hope the racing is good this weekend and I tip my cap to Jason Meyers and his entire team for finally making it to the top of the Sprint Car World. Sunday night at the Awards Banquet, I hope Jason invites DJ up on the stage to celebrate winning the championship, because DJ was a huge part of Jason winning it. CONGRATS to a great team.

Again, I want to thank all the fans for supporting me and Work 'N Woody and the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series. So, until my next blog, stay safe and keep all four wheels on the ground.

Work 'N Woody,
"Just Push'n Off"