Camped in the rain at Elma, WA

Welcome back to my blog, I have some free time while I'mcamped here in Elma, WA as it continues to rain on and off every couple hours. Right now it is 9:20pm and I'm watching the CBS reality TV show "There Goes the Neiborhood". The Upshaw family is dominating this show. I also watched Big Brother, if Kevin (the gay dude) doesn't win POV on the next show, I'm thinking he's a gonner. Oh well, I guess I will find out Tuesday night. Enough of the TV crap, let's catch you up on the weekend happenings at Skagit Speedway.

Before I get into what happened Friday, I received an email from a fan from Kansas who took exception to my comment in my last blog entry when I made the comment of Kansas & Nebraska being boring. I would like to take this time to apologize to all Kansan's & Cornhuskers if you took exception to my comment, I never intended for it to offend anyone, any town, or city in either of those states. I was simply stating that driving through either of those states it gets boring, the interstates & hwy's are typically the straightest and flatest in the U.S. and you can only look at so much corn, soy beans, wheat, & alfalfa. I have good friends in both states and the few times that we do race in those states in Dodge City, KS and Eagle, NE, the fan support is always very good and the fans are very friendly and fun to chat with before & after the races. I wish we would race at more tracks in wither of those states.

Now lets get to Friday, I woke up around 7:00am so I could call Xantrex in Elkhart, IN about my invertor that quit working at Frank's place in Canada. I got ahold of them, but I didn't like there answer, there tech is 99% sure I blew up the circuit board that transforms the A/C power. So, it looks like I won't be getting it fixed until I can drive through Elkhart, IN to get it fixed. I also called my wife Donna to see if they arrived in Orlando safely, since they left in the evening from Pensacola, FL for the 8 hour drive. They did arrive safely, which I was glad to hear. They went to Orlando to visit the girls' godmother and to celebrate Selena's birthday. Selena's birthday has always been kinda passed over with it being so close to the Labor Day Weekend and the beginning of school, so this year Donna really wanted to to make Selena feel special. Donna got a good deal at the Medieval Times dinner show and bought the tickets and set it up so Selena would be at the center of attention during the show. Before the show began, they called Selena to the middle of the floor and "Nighted" her as the Birthday Queen for the night and they also brought her out a B-day cake. I called Donna Saturday morning and she told me Selena was very surprised and very happy, I was really bummed I couldn't be there, but I'm glad Selena was treated to a nice Birthday.

As for my Friday, I went into town with Walt to pick up few things for the motorhome. After I got back, it was time to get ready to go to work. The weather was beautiful, around 78 degrees and blus skies with a little overcast clouds, if you would have looked at the forecast on Wednesday for Friday, they were calling for a 80% chance for rain. 34 cars signed in for the nights racing action, with no support class, it was looking like it might be a good night and hopefully we'd be done by a decent time. The track was really soft due to all the rain on Tuesday-Thursday, we made it through all the heats with some really good racing. The B-Main had a few accidents and was a prelude to what was instore for the feature. The track got really rough, it was time for the drivers to cowboy up and see who would come out on top. Joey dominated the race and I think was the only one who didn't run into someone else or the wall, Jason Sides ran a good race and kept himself out of trouble and ran 2nd to Joey. What I was hoping would be a easy quick night of racing, I was wrong, it must have taken over 1 1/2 hours to complete the A-Main, it even sprinkled during the one red flag for Schatz, luckily it only sprinkled for about 5 minutes and it didn't effect the track. One of my friends from my Navy days, Joe, came up from the Everett area while he was visiting from Bessemer, AL, his daughter gave birth to his second grandchild a week earlier. Joe had a great time riding with me on Woody and watching the races, after the races we had a couple beers and told some sea stories. After Joe left, I went down to where Skagit's pushtrucks camp at and had a few beers with Larry and his crew. It is a pleasure working with good pushtrucks, even if they are a little crazy when there packing the track, they do have fun and the crowd seems to like there 45mph choo choo train. I got to bed around 2:00am.

During the early morning, it rained like crazy for a couple hours and with Saturday's forecast for 100% rain, I wasn't very optomistic in getting the race in, however, it never rained all day. It was cloudy and dreary all day, but after qualifying the clouds broke and the sun came out. During qualifying the track was fast, I believe 11 cars went under the track record and the fans got to see the first ever 10sec qualifying lap turned by Jason Meyers. Jason Sides ended up setting the new track record with a great lap. Again the track was soft and rutted up pretty quickly during the heats, by the third heat, the track was fast but rough. During the third heat, only 5 of the 8 cars finished, and three of those were the 3 slowest from qualifying, it was there lucky day. The B-Main was filled with some big names, Steve Kinser, Donny Schatz, Travis Rutz and Robbie Farr, well lets just say when only 3 cars cross the finish line at the checkered flag, you can guess how crazy the racing was. During the A-Main, it turned into another crash fest, the track was super rough but fast, Jamie Barnes got out to a big lead until the lapped traffic slowed him down and Meyers got by him, a flat left front might have been the cause for Barnes to get caught up in lapped traffic and spin out. The rest of the race turned out to be the survival of the fittest. Meyers held on to win the $20,000 with Joey running 2nd and Jac finishing 3rd. Schatz survived to finish 6th, but Meyers cut another big chunk of points off of Donny's point lead, hopefully the point battle will come down to Charlotte. After the races, the great fans of the Northwest came down to say hi and ask me how my parents are enjoying retirement. Skagit's Dirt Cup 1982 was the first long distance race that my Mom & Dad ever took Woody to, so there are a bunch of Work'N Woody fans in the Seattle area. I loaded Woody up on his trailer and made sure the motorhome was ready to travel, I just had a feeling that Sunday morning was going to be a washout.

It was a good thing we didn't need Sunday as a rain date, because rain it did, it started raining around 5:00am and I think it is still raining. Thank god I loaded Woody up last night, otherwise I would have been soaked to the bone if I had to do it this morning. I had a breakfast date with one of my bestfriends wife, Joelle, her husband Bryce and I have been good friends for over 18yrs, he is still in the Navy and stationed out in Virgina, they want to continue their post Navy life in the Seattle area after Bryce has put his 20yrs in for retirement. Joelle and I had a really nice breakfast and great conversation, we caught eachother up on how our families lives have been doing over the past year. After breakfast, I took off south for Elma, WA, it rained on & off all the way to Elma and hasn't stopped since. If we get tomorrow nights race in, I will be completely surprised. This place can't handle any more water, the pits look unusable (dare I say another Grand Forks senerio is in store if we are able to get the track ready to race on. There are plenty of fans camping out for the race, so for their sakes, I hope we can put on a good race for them.

Well, I had some time to kill tonight and I was in the mood to write a little bit, I hope you enjoyed reading it.

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"