Camped in Haubstadt

Welcome back, see so far I'm keeping my word and I'm updating my blog weekly. Today I arrived here in Haubstadt, IN at Tri-State Speedway and I'm camped out in the back in the grass area. If your in the area, come on by and hang out with me. Right now it is Thursday April 22nd and it is 11:30pm. I just got done watching Survivor and my favorite (Russel) is still alive, he better hope those bee-atches he is an alliance with don't turn on him, I hope he wins this time.

Last weekend was some awesome racing, we definitely needed it after the disaster in Pocola, OK the week before. Last Friday at Paducah, KY the day started off with great weather, high 70's to low 80's and plenty of sunshine, and a slight breeze. Rumors were that there was going to be a boycott from most of the teams, but around 2pm all the teams started rolling in one after the other and that is all it was, was a rumor. After we got everything set up, Eloy and I got his scoreboard in place and ready and all the T-shirt trailers were in place, I took about an hour break and headed back to my RV to get my uniform on and ready to race. Butch and his friends had their grill and fryers going and invited me over for dinner. Man can they cook up some good food, after stuffing my face with shrimp, fish, ribs, baked beans (those were good, but I paid the price later by gassing myself out, if you know what I mean), and potatoe salad. Thanks Butch and the cooks. After the big meeting was held, which I didn't attend, it was time for the racing to begin. Bob Sargent and his staff had the track ready and the crowd was flowing in nicely, we started warming engines on the track and as we got to about the last 5 cars to fire, it started to drizzle heavily but we didn't lose the track and were able to finish firing the motors. From that point on for the rest of the night, it lightly drizzled pretty much the whole night, but never hard enough to effect the track conditions, but it did help keep the dust down. The racing in the heats was probably the best so far this year, especially the 3rd heat, watching TK and Steve go at it from the green flag and I mean go at it, sliders galore, brake checks, and just plain trying to drive eachother into the infield with neither ever backing down, awesome driving, then Joey decided to join the fun for the last lap and slid both of them in 1 & 2, but TK was able to cut under Joey and held them both off for 2nd and a spot in the dash. Bob Sargent had his track perfect for sprint car racing, a top & bottom grove perfect for slide jobs. Haud was able to pass 3 or 4 cars in the dash and got himself on the front row for the A-main. What an A-main it was, Haud put on a driving clinic on how to run the high groove up on the fence and worked the lap cars with amazing precision. Haud deserved the win and his team needed it. What a difference our racing is when we have a well prepared track to race on. After I finally got Woody on his trailer, it was around 12:30am and the skies finally opened up and it rained pretty hard for about an hour, thank you mother nature for allowing us to get the race in.

Saturday morning I was up around 7:30am and on the road by 8:30am on my way to I-55 in Pevely, MO. The drive was really nice and easy, I took I-24 North to HWY 146 West (a nice 2 lane hwy that goes through a few small towns) to HWY 3 and finally into Cape Giradeau, MO to I-55 North. It was a relaxing drive even when I caught up to about 200 bikers driving like Miss Daisey. When I got on to I-55 my drive turned a little stressful, the slow lane was really rough so I decided to drive in the fast lane because it was a lot smoother. I was cruising at 65mph and the cars were passing me just fine and I moved over for the faster trucks and was going along just fine until the fine MO highway patrolman decided to pull me over. At first I was nice and respectful and he said he was going to give me a verbal warning for driving in the left lane in an unsafe manner. When I explained why, because the state of MO doesn't know how to spend mine and others road taxes correctly, he didn't take that comment very well and started to lecture me on how to drive properly. I got a little pissy with him until I could tell I needed to shut my pie hole and let him think he won the arguement and to get back on the road. Thankfully about a mile later, the slow lane smoothed out and he only followed me for about 20 miles. I arrived at I-55 around Noon and Ray Marler met me at the gate showed me were he wanted me to park. Ray is a really nice guy and runs his racetrack really well, him and his staff are very friendly and real easy to work with. One of my good friends from my Navy days (Todd) drove over from Wright City, MO and arrived around 3pm and made himself at home in my RV. After helping get everything set up, I took off for some diner and to get my uniform on, thankfully Ray parked me near Butch and I invited myself over for diner again. Todd missed out on some good food since he just ate a Wendy's meal, this time Butch and his friends (I'm so sorry I can't remember their names because they deserve to be named by their names not Butch's friends) cooked up some more shrimp, ribs, morel mushrooms, and the best prime rib I have ever tasted and I topped it off with a big slice of apple pie. Thank god it was time for racing to start, I needed to work off some of that food. As usual, Ray had the track ready to go as scheduled, hot laps got started on a bad note, one of the track push trucks accidently drove over Lasoski's rr and trashed his wing, shock, tire, nerfbar, and header, I hate it when that happens, because it reflects on all of us push trucks, we can all do a great job, but one mishap and that is what everyone remembers, after getting that truck shutdown for the night, everything else went smoothly the rest of the night. I-55 is one of my favorite tracks, short track racing at its best, surprisingly all the heats went off without any accidents and we were ready for the A-main. Ray takes pride in making sure the track surface is at its best for the main events, so he worked the track for over an hour before the mods feature. The mod main event always takes forever at that track, I don't think any of them know how to drive, they just know how to run into eachother, even on yellows, Ken Schrader got drilled on a yellow by a pissed off driver, that wasn't very nice. Well, the mod main took about 45 minutes to complete, the temp dropped to the low 40's and the fans were getting restless for our A-main. What an A-main it was, it was definitely worth the wait, Haud took off early and again was putting on a driving clinic in the high groove, mean while Joey, Sides, and Steve were working the low groove to move up from poor starting positions. I'm pretty sure if the race had gone non-stop Jac would have won, but that didn't happen and on the 2nd restart of the race, Jac spun his tires and Dollansky got a run on him into 1, well Jac did his best to get his lead back, but forgot where turn 1 was and turned turned after he hit the wall, amazingly he only lost 2 spots and he didn't kill his car. Joey worked his was from 13th to 2nd and a late caution gave him his chance, Criag did the same thing Jac did, spun his tires and Joey beat him into turn 1 and held him off to the checkers. With a broken hand, Joey did a great job on a tough short track and deserved the win. A lot of the fans still came down to the pits and everyone was talking about how great the race was and they all can't wait for August and the Ironman 55. Todd and I hungout after the races and drank a few beers with everyone in Eloy's RV and we finally went to sleep early in the morning.

Sunday morning Todd and I got up around 10am and after helping Terry McCarl get his T-Shirt trailer hooked up to his motorhome (I hope his surgury this week went well and he recovers quickly and he has full strength by the time Nationals start), we went to breakfast at the Bob Evans (I don't recommend their meat lovers breakfast burrito). After getting Woody loaded up and hanging out for a little while, Todd went his way home and I got on the road to Clarksville, TN to Bill & Lynda's place to spend the week with them, Jim & Luci, Eloy and my Mom & Dad (Art & Carol). Yes, they were traveling in the area and decided to come hangout for the week. I got there around 6pm and got settled in for the night. I watched Celebrity Apprentice and thought the men's team got robbed, oh well, Goldberg got fired (he should have beat the crap out of Trump, that would of been better TV), now only two men are left Curtis the chef and Brett Michaels.

Monday, was kind of a lazy day for me, my Mom & Dad arrived around 1pm and got settled in. I washed Woody and the bugs off the front of my RV and that was pretty much it for the day. Bill & Lynda BBQ'd some ribs (good stuff, staying at their place is like living at a great resturaunt) and all of us relaxed in the car port and enjoyed eachothers company. It was a nice relaxing day, I needed it to recharge my batteries.

Tuesday my Dad and I worked on Woody, it is always good to have the one who designed and built Woody from scratch to ask questions about some strange noises I have been hearing. Of course his answer was, "thats just Woody being Woody, he'll be ok, don't worry about it". We also worked on the cabinets in Woody's trailer, they are starting to delaminate from all the water damage from leaks for the past 10yrs. We shored them up and hopefully they will last the rest of the year. All of us went out to diner, we ate at Campbell's Kitchen, and home town favorite of Bill & Lynda's, they make German & Korean food (an old Air Force couple), their Schnitzel and brauts are delicious, this time I had a Korean dish called Bolgogi, it was really good too. I watched the Biggest Loser and American Idol, I was glad to see Victoria sent home from the Biggest Loser, my favorite (Michael) is still going strong, he started out at 536lbs, he is now at 380lbs, that is amazing 156lbs in 14 weeks. On Idol, my favorite Crystal was by far the best singer for the night, she can really sing, I think she is by far the best singer & performer and should win, I just hope all the idiots voting get it right.

Wednesday I finally got my motivation and washed my motorhome and trailer from top to bottom, polished all my wheels, and cleaned the windows. It takes a while when you do by yourself, but it sure is satisfying when you look at it when your done and it shines in the sunlight. After I was done with that, I decided to put Woody in two wheel-drive and take him for a good 5-8 mile drive through the back roads of TN. Well, thats when the excitement started, I got about 2 miles from Bill's when I started to smell smoke, I looked back at Woody's engine and didn't see any smoke, so I kept going. The smell kept getting worse, so when I slowed down the smoke started bellowing out of the engine right below my seat. I pulled into a driveway and shut Woody off, as I got off of him, I looked at the engine and then I saw the orange flames coming from the left side header. Thank god I carry my Cold Fire extinguishers and was able to quickly put the fire out. After inspecting Woody, I couldn't find any leak, so I cleaned him up and started him up, still no leak, so I shut him off and called my Dad for help. He showed up and tried to find the leak, but he didn't find one either, we did determine it was power steering fluid and the only thing we could come up with is that the fluid burped out of the resevouir and spilled on the header. So, I drove him back to Bill's with no further problems, after further review, I might of loosened up the cap when I checked all the fluid levels and didn't tighten the cap. If I do have a problem and the cap wasn't loose, you should come to Haubstadt Saturday night, you might get to see Woody flame up again. For diner, Luci made her killer spagetti for everyone, man it was good along with asparagus, green beans, and garlic bread, again I was stuffed and felt like I just ate at a great Italian resturaunt. I watched American Idol and after 2.5 hours of them trying to get everyone to donate money for charity (why doesn't Simon match the funds the fans donate, he can afford it), Tim was booted, finally America made the right choice, Big Mike should go next.

Today after I ate breakfast with my parents (Thanks Mom for the tastey egg pancakes) I loaded Woody up on his trailer and took off for Haubstadt. I wanted to beat the rain so my clean shiney RV wouldn't get trashed driving in the rain on Friday. I took HWY 41A from Clarksville, TN into KY and then got on the Edward T. Breathitt Parkway to Southern IN, where you get on US 41 into Evansville, IN, Haubstadt, IN is about 8 miles North of Evansville and the track Tri-State Speedway is right on US 41. I called Tim Engler who owns Engler Machine & Tool with his wife Tammy, they have supported me & Woody for the past 3 years advertising on Woody's wing during the Knoxville Nationals and last year at the World Finals. I called to see if I could stop by his shop and get the nickle tour and to show him what his sign looks like on Woody in person, I have had it on Woody since Paducah just to show my appreciation for his support, it will be on Woody for Haubstadt also. Tim makes the best fuel injection system (the complete system) in racing, I would say 80% of all Outlaw teams use his system, his shop was impressive, he must of had 10 or more CNC machines working making all the parts from stock billit aluminum, his machine work is amazing, he also builds the huge multi engine tractor's for the tractor pulls from the ground up. He has developed a injection system for mini-sprints, I will predict once they catch on, everyone will be using them. I was very honored that Tim took 45 minutes out of his busy day to give me a personal tour, I was very impressed and I would encourage anyone who races to stop buy his shop in Princeton, IN and talk to Tim, you will walk away in awe and you will start using his injector system. Thanks Tim & Tammy, I had a great time touring your shop and getting to know you two better, I value your support and friendship and hope to continue our relationship for years to come.

Well, lets hope for a break in the weather on Saturday and we get this race in, Tri-State Speedway is a class facility run by great people the Helfrich Family and the racing is always some of the best short track sprint car racing you will ever see anywhere in the country. Everybody come on out and enjoy great racing.

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"