Duals in the North Dakota

Welcome back to my latest blog entry. Right now I'm camped at the WalMart in Sioux Falls, SD and its 12:37am Wednesday morning, and I'm watching a movie that my daughter Alisha rented. I think the name of the movie is "I'm not that into you". So far, I'm thinking that Alisha wasted $1.00.

Last week was a very good week, it started off slowly, on Wednesday we left Sioux Falls, SD and headed north, since I didn't need to be in Grand Forks until Thursday, I decided to call my friends Glen & Jill in Madison, SD. This is the town that Bonzi grew up in and I was introduced to Glen & Jill by him in 2006. We arrived in Madison around Noon and when I shut the motorhome off you could hear a bad air leak coming from the engine compartment. After a little troubleshooting, I found the main air supply line that goes from the Air Dryer to the Air Tank (it is about 20ft long and is intertwined with a bunch of other lines & wires), so I really didn't want to remove the entire line. It was a good thing I was at Glen's, with his help we were able to drive all around town and finally found all the parts needed to make a new line about 3ft long, then we were able to cut the bad line were the hole was and we spliced the new line in. So, about 3 hours later, we had the motorhome fixed and ready to go for the next day. We spent the the rest of the day & night with Glen & Jill. They let us use their laundry room and we went out and had a really nice dinner with them. It is really nice to have good friends who will help you out at a moments notice. Thanks Glen & Jill.

Wednesday it was off to Grand Forks, ND, we arrived with no more issues with the motorhome. Thursday morning I had my appointment with Progressive Insurance for my claim from the hail damage in Dodge City. The adjuster was really nice and easy to work with. After the adjuster was done, Selena & I drove Woody around Grand Forks and found a bike shop to get her bike a new tube in the front tire. We got a few strange looks and a bunch of thumbs up from other people driving by. We got her tire fixed and headed back to the RV, on the way we found a Dairy Queen and had some ice cream. Later that night Selena & I drove Woody and Alisha rode with Tom on his Harley to the Canad Inn for the "Meet & Greet" SLS set up, there was a bunch of fans that came out to see the drivers and their cars. The "Meet & Greet" also included a meal at the Inn's resturaunt, it was a really good dinner, buffet style, so we all left there stuffed. Selena had a great time playing w/Payton at the small water park at the Inn. At 10pm Selena & I drove Woody back to the track, I wasn't sure how the cops in Grand Forks would like me driving Woody at night, but the two that I drove by didn't seem to mind.

Friday was race day, River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks is one of my top 5 favorite tracks that we race at. A very high banked small 1/4 mile. The heat races were kinda boring for that type of track, but it was so dry slick that nobody could drive very aggressively. Feature time rolled around and sun finally went down, the track was still pretty dry slick, but it didn't take rubber. Donny Schatz ran off and pretty much wasn't challenged, but there was a yellow about every 8-10 laps, but the battle from 2nd to 10th was really exciting with Joey making a crazy pass on the outside of Steve in turn 4 and beating him by a nose wing at the line. After the races, I met a group of Canadians partying it up, so after I put Woody to bed, I went and party'd with them for while. Canuck's really know how to have a good time.

Saturday I had to get up early and drive to Fargo for the next race. I pulled into Fargo around 11:00am and both of my daughters were still asleep, they really know how to be good pasengers and keep their Dad awake while he's driving. After getting the T-Shirt trailers situated it was off to work, I really wasn't looking forward to the Fargo race, it is such a big 1/2 mile, the racing usually isn't that exciting, man was I in for a huge surprise. The heat races really weren't that good, but the A-Main was the best sprint car race I have seen in a long long time. The track was blazingly fast after the track was reworked. Dollansky & Meyers waged a furious battle for the last 25 laps. The lapped traffic made the race very exciting. There was about 6 cars that were about 40mph slower than the leaders and they didn't pull off like most slower cars do when they get lapped, one of the slower cars was lapped 5 times. Craig & Jason swapped the lead about 8 times (officially 3 times at the line) with Jason getting the best of Craig on the last lap and winning, at the line, Donny & Jac were only about 2 car lengths behind Craig. What a crazy race.

Sunday (Happy Father's Day) morning came really early, since I had a 5 hour drive to Minot for Sunday's race. I decided to stay the night in Fargo, a good thought, but I didn't take into account all the partying that takes place in Fargo after the races. I'm pretty sure the music stopped around 5am. I was up at 7:30am and on the road around 8:30am. My girls woke up around 11:00am and helped keep me awake by watching the movie "Step Up 2" at a very high volume. We arrived in Minot, ND around 1:30pm and got settled in. I took Payton and Selena to the store so Payton could get her Dad a Father's Day card & gift. So, the three of us took Woody through downtown Minot and down the main drag to the grocery store. Again I pushed the limits of driving Woody in town, this time it was having Payton & Selena sitting in the passenger seat together using one seatbelt. The cops didn't seem to mind, as I drove past the Minot Police Station twice and nobody ever came after us. The racing in Minot was another great race, Lasoski & Saldana battled for most of the race never seperated by more than 1 car length, with Danny getting by Joey and getting to the checkers first. What was amazing to watch was Joey driving his car one handed and pulling his tearoffs with his opposite hand because he had so much oil on his normal hand he uses for tearoffs, he couldn't use it. Amazing to watch, these 12 drivers we have on the WoO tour are the best in the country.

Yesterday I took the time to sleep in, because I knew I had a long day ahead of me. I took advantage of good weather and washed the motorhome top to bottom and the trailer and finally Woody, that is about a 6 hour job if you do it right. My daughters cleaned the motorhome inside from the ceiling to the floor. By the time I got everything done, I decided to spend one more night in Minot. Justin came by and picked us up and we went had some Mexican food for dinner and then went to the movies, we saw "Hangover", it was a really funny movie and we all laughed pretty hard during.

Today was a very long drive, but thankfully I never ran into any rain, which normally happens after you wash everything. Hopefully tomorrow (i mean today) on my drive to Council Bluffs, I won't run into any rain, I would like to keep the motorhome clean for more than 2-3 days this time. Now you are all caught up with whats been happening for the last week. Now it is off to Osborn, MO for Friday nights race at US 36 Raceway and then Saturday nights race at Knoxville. If you make it out to these races, come by and say hi.

Just to catch you up on how my Mom & Dad are spending their retirement, on Saturday they got back to Vancover, BC from their 7 day cruise to Alaska. Last night I received an email from Shane Carson saying he saw them at the "Dirt Cup" in Skagit, WA. Now they are going to stay in Canada for about a month traveling to places they haven't been able to go to for the past 30 years.

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"