Camping at Dodge City

Welcome back, sorry I'm a little late in writing this weeks blog, but having my daughters out here with me has kinda altered my schedule, hopefully I will get back on track next week.

Last weekends races at Lawrenceburg Speedway in Indiana were really good races. The improvements made to that facility since 2006 are amazing. I still wish it was a 1/4 mile, but at least it is a racey 3/8ths and not a big circle. During the A-Main's, the racing action was good both nights. Lapped traffic makes all the difference in this sport. Each night to make for better racing, the track staff had to re-work the track surface wich made for about an hour intermission before the feature races for all the classes started. The first night Joey just kinda stalked McCarl for about 25 laps before he took advantage of lapped traffic and got by Terry and hung on for the win. Saturday night, Meyers jumped out to a big lead with Joey and Schatz battling for second, Joey's car broke and gave Donny 2nd and then Donny just patiently waited for Meyers to get held up in lapped traffic and blew on past for the win. It was a pleasure working with al of the Lawrenceburg Speedway staff, everyone was very accomidating and easy to work with. I have to give extra kudo's to the Fire & Safety crew and all the push trucks, what a very professional group of people.

When I last left you in my last blog, I was going to Kings Island Amusement Park with my 10yr old daughter Selena. We had a blast and what a perfect day to go, the weather was overcast around 68 degrees and the park was no more than 1/4 full. The longest wait we had was about 20 minutes. Selena rode every roller coaster in the park and had a great time.

We left Lawrenceburg Sunday morning and drove on U.S. HWY 50 all the way to St Louis, what a nice drive, smooth roads and some really nice towns to drive through. We stopped at a Dairy Queen in Illinois and had Ice Cream and then just cruised to St Louis. If you want to take a nice drive through Indiana & Illinois, I highly recommend HWY 50. Selena and I spent the night in Harrah's Casino parking lot, it is normally a very quiet spot to stay the night. We went to dinner with Justin & Gene at Dave & Busters, the food wasn't great, but Selena and I had a good time in the arcade.

Monday, we drove over to Kansas City on a very boring stretch of I-70. We stayed the night at the Ameristar Casino, Justin came by and picked us up to go do laundry. After his Garmin GPS took us to the south side of KC and to a laundermat in the getto (I swear I saw two drug deals go down in the 30 seconds we were in the parking lot), we very quickly got the hell out of there. So, it was up to the garmin to find another laundermat, so we followed it to a nicer neiborhood and it took us to a dead end to a house in a residential area. So, the third time was a charm for the garmin and it took us to a nice laundermat in a good area. Justin brought us back to the motorhome around 9:00pm, so Selena and I went to the movies there at the casino. I always stay at the Ameristar Casino in KC, because it has a 16 theater cinema on the back side. We saw "The Night at the Museum 2", it was pretty good, not as good as the first one, but it was pretty good and we laughed a lot.

Tuesday my oldest daughter and new high school graduate flew into KC's airport. Justin offered to pick her up for me and to meet us in Dodge City in the evening. So, Selena and I took off around 9:00am and headed for Dodge City. On our way on I-35 just as I got into Emporia, a severe thunderstorm brewed up very quickly, so I got off the freeway and parked under a overpass. The winds got up to around 60mph with pea size hail for about 15 minutes. When the winds died down, we headed over to the Flying J in Emporia to fill up with water and dump the tanks. We left Emporia around Noon and headed out on HWY 50 to Dodge City. Man is Kansas a flat state, it seems like you can see forever when your driving. As we got closer to Dodge, I decided to take a detour to Greensburg, KS (the town that got leveled by a F5 tornado a few years back). I had went to Greensburg the year it got leveled, so I wanted to see the progress they have made, as I turned to head into Greensburg about 40 storm chasing vehicles were leaving town headed northwest. After driving through Greensburg (they are making good progress and I applaud them for building everything environmentally friendly), we headed out for Dodge, as we got about 20 miles out, the sky started turning green & black and the clouds were starting to form into a funnel cloud over Dodge City. I stopped and turned on the radio and the listened to the warnings, which were possible tornado's and large hail with strong winds in Dodge City. So, we turned around and ate dinner at a nice resturaunt in Ford, KS. We drove to the track in Dodge City and saw a bunch of tree limbs and hail on the ground. When we got to the track, Ed the promotor came over and said the storm formed a small tornado and it went directly over the track, luckly there wasn't any damage to the facility. So, if I wouldn't have decided to go 40 minutes out of my way to Greensburg, we would have gotten to the track before the storm and been pounded by 2.5 inch hail and 75mph winds. I guess the big guy upstaris was looking out for Selena & I, you just have to love the weather in Tornado Alley. Justin & Alisha showed up about an hour later, so now I have both daughters with me for the summer. No more going 2 weeks before having to fill up with water and dumping the tanks. Now I have to fill up every 4-5 days and dump everytime I see a place to dump. But, the best part about having my oldest with me, no more cooking and doing laundry for me until after the Nationals.

Yesterday I was able to wash the motorhome, Woody and his trailer, in the rain, so I had the perfect spot free rinse, no water spots. Selena & Alisha cleaned the inside (vacuumed & dusted), so we are good to go for awhile. Today I had to take the motorhome over to Maupin's Truck Service to get the RF hub seal replaced, now I am ready to head for Grand Forks, ND on Sunday.

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"