Sitting at Eldora

Welcome back to my weekly blog, today (Thursday May 6th) I arrived here at Eldora around 4pm to beautiful blue skies, what a great day. I want to thank everyone, my website went over 10,000 hits this week, not too bad for a small one dimensional website, it only took a little over 1yr 5wks to get there. Well, lets get to what I've been up to since my last blog.

Thursday April 29th I was at Jackson Speedway camped behind turn 3, during the day after I got my RV settled in at the campground, I went over to the track to see if there was anything I could help with to get the track ready for Saturday nights race. I saw Larry Hilerud with SLS and offered up my help, I also met Larry who does the track prep, he takes pride in his work. You could tell he was nervous about how well his track would hold up, he had worked on it all spring adding about 12" of new clay and working it into the track. The track was soft about 3" down from all the rain during the previous week and with rain expected Thursday night, he had the track sealed up. I also got to meet John McCorkkel (I hope I got it right) the promotor, what a nice guy who is very passionate about promoting his races, he was very excited that the WoO was coming to his track. The rest of his staff I got to meet at lunch, Dave & Dale. In the afternoon, I drove Woody downtown to run some arrends and check the town out, every business I stopped in was happy that our circus was coming to town, all of them had a poster advertising the race and thanked me for coming in. I stopped at the post office to mail off all my Mother's Day cards (I hope everyone remembers their Mom's & Grandma's on Sunday) and chatted with the post master, he said the whole town was hoping for a big crowd so we will make this race an annual event, I'm with him. At night my boy Russell on Survivor survived another tribal counsel, he is now down to the top 8.

Friday I woke up to some very wet grounds, it rained pretty hard most of the night, Jerry definitely did the right thing with the track, if he would have opened it up, there would have been no way to get the track raceable by Saturday night (nice call Jerry). The day was a nice relaxing day, I helped Larry & Dave fix up a new Laye-Laye tiller that the track had purchased, LArry went out and tested it out and proclaimed it good to go. The sun was out and the wind was a blowing all day, not good for your hairdo, but good for the track and drying out the grounds. Everyone started arriving during the day, Bill & Lynda & Eloy showed up and got settled in. Eloy and I took Bill's car to town for dinner, we ended up at the local hot spot, the town rolled up its sidewalks at 6pm and came to dinner with kareoke as the entertainment, all in the same spot. Our waitress was working her ass off, she must work it off alot, because it was small and lookin' good, Eloy and I both noticed it right away, too bad she never noticed us, except for the two old guys having dinner together.

Saturday I woke up to a beautiful day, a little windy, but it was going to be a great day. My first challenge of the day was getting all the teams T-Shirt trailers in place inside the grandstand area. Our original plan was to put three of them under the grandstands, but Saldana's & Dollansky's were to tall to fit under and we were able to get them in other spots, so we just had to get Kinser's & Lasoski's under there, easier said than done, the ground was way softer than we thought it was and backing Sumo up (Kinser's) we got his truck & trailer buried in the mud, thankfully Woody fit under the grandstand and I was able to pull Sumo out and get him on more solid ground. Next was Lasoski, we got him in there, barely, almost frying his transmission in the process, he most definitely got a very shitty spot, but the earlybird always gets the worm. I was hoping for 30 cars, but 28 showed up, not bad for all the other races that were running in the region the same night, it was enough to have to run a B-main. The stands were full before the drivers meeting took place and the crowd was excited. The track was fast, I think 5 qualified under the old track record and it was holding up pretty good. The heat races were typical for a big 1/2 mile, boring, except for the initial starts in turns 1 & 2, because thats where you have to gain your positions. The funniest thing happened in the first heat (it wasn't funny until I talked with Sammy during the Dash interviews), first, Sammy showed up very late to staging and almost didn't get to race, he gave up his 2nd row starting spot and had to start on the tail. Thankfully he only needed to pass 2 cars to make the dash invert, which he did. During the Dash interviews, I asked Sammy why he was so late for his heat, he said, "I was 4th quick and I thought I was in the 4th heat" (it was only a 3 heat show), then he said, "See what happens when Amy isn't there to keep him straight". I thought it was funny, since he made the dash. After the heats, Dash, & B-main and the modified feature, the track was starting to show its wear and 1 & 2 was pretty rough. On the initial start, 2 reds happened, one in turn 4 (3 cars) and one over turn 2 (2 cars), nobody saw the turn 2 flip (except for Justin). On the 2nd start, all the drivers were very careful and we had a good start, Joey got the lead quickly and pulled out to a very big lead, Kemenah brought out the first yellow with a flat left rear and the compition director made the call for single file restarts due to the rough track conditions, I think it was the right call ad there were no complaints from the drivers. After a late red, Kinser got a great start and passed Joey coming out of turn 2, you could tell something was wrong with Joey's car because he was really slow and was passed by Jac and McMahan, before he got back up to speed. A couple laps later Joey's RR blew, when I got to him, I wanted to get him to the work area quickly, so I started pushing him across the track to the infield, in my haste I almost made a huge mistake of grand proportions, I cut right infront of Steve who was leading and he had to extreme measures to not run into me. I'm glad his 55yr old reflexes still work and he avoided making me look like a jackass infront of 4,000 people. Steve went on to win, so hopefully he isn't mad at me. After the races, I swear every fan came down to the pits, they all had big smiles and were very excited when they walked by me or stopped and talked with me. It always feels good when you can tell the fans enjoyed the races, hopefully that means we will be back next year.

Sunday, I got my butt out of bed around 11am and actually got motivated to wash Woody. I left Jackson around 1pm and headed for Mason City, IA to the WalMart, where I was hoping their diesel would still be cheaper than everywhere else. I wasn't dissapointed, diesel was $2.91/gal, about .15-.20 cents cheaper. After filling up I parked for the night, I ate dinner at the Buffalo Wild Wings and watched my SF Giants lose to the Rockies. It was a pretty quiet night after that, on the boob tube, my favorite team (the cowboy brothers) on the "Amazing Race" made it to the final.

Monday I drove a little out of my way up to Cresco, IA to Featherlite Trailers, to get an estimate on getting a new box made for my trailer and to get an estimate on repairs for my current box, which is suffering a slow and methodical death. Hopefully I can get a good deal from Featherlite, I keeping my fingers crossed. After I got done at Featherlite, I didn't feel like driving a long ways, so I made it to the WalMart in Waterloo, IA and called it a night. My computer has been really slow lately, so I walked over to the Best Buy and the Geek Squad told me my computer is on the verge of dying, so I better back-up all my important files, because it probably won't be long. Looks like I'm on the market for a new laptop, any ideas or suggestions, please contact me through the contact button at the top of the page. My night was pretty boring, I had a nice dinner at Olive Garden and just vegged infront of the TV. Sorry Starla, I really can't spice up my blog when I don't do anything exciting.

Tuesday I drove to Le Claire, IA, the home of the show "American Pickers" on the History Channel. I parked the RV at the IA Welcome Center and got permission to spend the night, so I unloaded Woody and drove to downtown Le Claire. I found a small clean Laundramat w/air conditioning, so I took advantage of it, the American Pickers shop, called (Antique Archaeology) was located just behind the Laundramat, so I drove Woody up there and looked around. If you have seen the show, Mike & Frank go around looking through people's junk to find classic antiques, they weren't there today, I was told they were in NY. I did get to meet Danielle (the chick with tatoo's who works there). They got some pretty cool stuff there, I highly recommend going to that town if you get the chance. I had dinner at the local saloon, Sticky Pete's (I hope I remembered that correctly), it was built in 1832 and it still has the original tin ceiling with bullet holes from old shootouts. The locals were very proud of there town, it was where William "Buffalo Bill" Cody was born, there is a museum on the river there. The locals tell me that Cody, WY bought the house Buffalo Bill was born in and moved it to Wyoming, but the house he grew up in is still there. They also told me about the tug-a-war they have every year with the Illinios town across the Mississippi River, they have a mile long 3" rope stretched across the river and have a tug-a-war, all boat traffic & railroad trains are stopped during the tug-a-war, afterwards both towns have a huge party get drunk and watch a huge fireworks show. Le Claire, IA was a pretty cool town with some really nice friendly patrons, I had a great time.

Wednesday, Happy Cinco-de-Mayo, another great day for driving, a little windy but for the most part it was a tail wind, I drove down I-74 and arrived at the WalMart in Brownsburg, IN and camped for the night. After cleaning all the bugs who celebrated Cinco-de-Mayo on the front of my RV, it was time to do a little celebrating myself. Gene & Starla called me and said everyone was going to the Wings Ect. to eat and drinks. I walked over and met up with everyone, there was about 7 people there and they had already ordered, it took about 30 minutes before I had to track down a waitress to order, then it took another 15 minutes to get my beer, it was the worst service I have ever had. I didn't get my food for about another hour and it wasn't very good either. I will say the beers were huge, called scooners, Starla was getting a little tipsy when she started ripping me about how boring my blog was getting, I told her my last one would have been a little more interesting if I had wrote about how she eats crab legs, but I didn't think she would like me writing about her, but she gave me the OK. Last week when the three of us ate at the Harrah's Casino, at the Seafood Buffet, I learned never get in the way or impead Starla from her crab legs. Watching her eat was a sight, she is a woman posessed, her eye's roll in the back of her head and she just starts ripping into the crab. She must of ate 1/4 of her body weight in crab, she needs to go to Dutch Harbour, AK and work on one of those crab boats.

Today, was a perfect day, 70's, blue skies, no wind, I drove East on I-70 to the Flying J in Spiceland, IN to dump and fill up with water and diesel fuel. Indiana really screws you over if you use diesel and your not a trucker, they have some sort of bullshit tax (.20 cents per gallon), and their roads are some of the worst in the nation. Thanks Indiana politicians, way to put the screws to us RV'ers. I arrived at Eldora Speedway around 4pm along with Jim & Lucy, the track looks good, Chad has been working on it all week and has it groomed and ready to go. Larry Boos was out riding his John Deere cutting the grass, the place looks good, hopefully the rain will hold off Friday night and the weatherman is wrong about Saturday night's low of 36 degrees, but a cold night at Eldora watching the best sprint car drivers on the high banks of Eldora is way better than a warm night anywhere else in the world. I was all set for a quiet night of watching Survivor, when Luci came running over screaming for help with blood on her hand. Jim cut his head open on the slideout of his RV after adjusting his blocks under his jack. Man it was a good gash and he was bleeding like a stuck pig, I recommended that Luci take Jim to the Hospital to get it looked at, I figured he was going to need a couple staples to close it up. It was a good thing Luci took him, because the cut was bigger and deeper than it looked, but the worst part is Jim is on Plavix and it is a blood thinner (which I didn't know, now I do), so they couldn't use staples, they had to stitch it up to get it to stop bleeding. That Plavix might be good for your heart, but it isn't very good if you gash yourself, so for all you out there using Plavix, be careful. Jim & Luci got back from the hospital in Coldwater, OH (11 miles North of the track on Hwy 118) around 10:30pm and Luci needs to keep an eye on Jim through the night, but I'm sure he will be OK and ready to work tomorrow. I'm telling ya, those slideouts are dangerous if you forget about them. Well, tomorrow is race day, its about time, starting tomorrow our season finally gets going in full swing, hopefully I'll have more to write about in the coming weeks and my blogs will be more exciting to read, at least for Starla.

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"