Craziness in Oklahoma

Welcome back, first I need to apologize for taking a month long break on my blog entries. I really don't have any good excuses except for I was being lazy and procrastinating. Just think of my blog as a teenager, how hard is it to get them off their ass to get something done. I'm not going to make any promisses, but I will do my best to keep up with this weekly from now until the end of the season. Right now it is Wednesday April 14th at 2:35pm and I'm at my friends house (Casey) in Hernando, MS doing my laundry, no one else is here except for his dog Harley and the two cats.

A lot has happened since my last blog, I'm not going to write this blog day by day like I usually do, but I will catch you up from the races at Bulls Gap, to Easter, and finally our last race in Oklahoma. Bulls Gap was a fun weekend, my friend Joe from the Birmingham, AL area came along with me and had a great time. We arrived Thursday evening and after putting Eloy's scoreboard in the infield with Woody, we all went out to dinner at the only local diner in Bulls Gap, the food wasn't bad, but the hospitality was great, good ol' southern manners. I was really looking forward to the racing on Friday night, because I knew it was going to be a fast track, just by watching them do the track prep. Man was I right, in hot laps the first group was in the low 10's, not bad for a 3/8. But I soon realized that the track was probably too fast, we started tearing up cars in hot laps. First Lucas Wolfe got upside down then in the third group, TK took one of the hardest hits I have seen in racing, he entered turn 3 at full song and the car never turned and he drilled the fence with the right front corner and then the car bounced and rolled down the banking (36 degrees) twice before coming to a rest on the frame upright. I was the first to the car and Tim was definitely woozy but crawled out on his own power, man what a hit, he is one tough sum bitch. Once we finally got qualifyling underway (about an hour later than scheduled due to all the accidents in hot laps) Kasey Kahne set a new track record with a lap that I believe was in the 9 sec bracket. The fans definitely got to see speed during qualifying, however with the track so fast, there really wasn't much passing during the heats & mains, but it was a good night of racing. During a double file restart towards the end of the A-Main Haud was on a spectacular run up on the fence in turns 1 & 2 and came from 12th to 5th and was going by everyone else on the back straight until Paul McMahon turned up the track to make a pass himself and Haud drove over his right rear and helicoptered into turn 3 ending his night. If he would have got by Paulie, he would have made it to 2nd by turn 4. What a set of cahonies he has at the age of 52. Saldana won the race making his boss and Budweiser happy since they were the sponsor for the weekend. My friend Joe had a great time, he was recruited to be the pace truck driver, after a little bit of coaching by me and directions by our compition director, Joe did a great job and even got complimented over the radio during one of the yellows.

Saturday night the track was preparred a lot drier and harder, hoping to make better racing. It worked some what, there was a bit more passing in the heats and dash, but the A-Main was a good one. Unfortunately Joey qualified bad and started in the back and on an early red for TK in turn 4, Joey was flying on the outside in turns 1 & 2 and didn't hear the red called the track lights in turn 3 the red didn't work so he didn't see the other cars stopping and he drove through Greg Wilson and went for a nasty end over end flip. When I got to the accident Joey was out of the car and walking back to his pits, but the car was junk, the right front corner was twisted all the way back to the cage, he had to of hit hard, he is lucky he only broke his hand. Meyers went on to win the race and take over the points lead.

Sunday Joe and I drove back to Birmingham and I hung out at his place for the week until I took off for Bill & Lynda's on Friday. I had a good time hanging out with Joe and helping him out. His parents are really nice and we had a good lunch with Joe & Peggy one of the days I was there.

On Friday I took my time driving to Bill & Lynda's, when I got into TN, I took the little 2 lane highways across and up to Clarksville, TN, what a beautiful drive, TN has some of the best kept roads in the country and all the beautiful homes and farms with all the trees & plants starting to bloom, it was hard for me to keep my eyes on the road, too many things to look at. I arrived around 6pm and everyone waited for me to eat dinner. By everyone, I mean Eloy, Bill & Lynda, and Jim & Luci, all parked on Bill's property. That is four full size motorhomes, Jim's truck (well Bill's old truck), Bill's car, Woody, Woody's trailer, and Eloy's scoreboard. Each motorhome had full electricity also, and we only drove on Bill's precious grass a tiny bit parking everything. It was a really nice time spending 11 days with everyone, Jim & Luci left for there OK City to spend Easter with their family, so the rest of us had a really nice Easter Dinner that Bill & Lynda cooked up. It was really nice spending Easter with friends, if I couldn't be home with family, spending it with my racing family is the next best thing.

I took off for Oklahoma on Wednesday April 7th and I stopped here in Hernando, MS (just south of Memphis) to see some ol' Navy buddies that retired around the same time as me. Of course hangin with Navy friends usually involves drinking, which we took part in a little too much, but we had a good time and nobody got hurt, well except if you count how we felt the next day. Our 40 yr old bodies don't recover like they used to back in the day while on liberty in the Philipines, Thailand, Austrailia, and other fun ports. There definitely were some see stories told, it sure seems like they get better each time I hear one. I hung around Hernando until Friday morning when I took off for Pocola, OK.

After arriving at Tri-State Speedway in Pocola, OK, I realized there wasn't much parking and I didn't want to park my RV in the upper pit area, so I joined everyone else over at the Choctaw Casino about 2 miles from the track. I figured since Woody is licensed & insured, why not just drive him back & forth on race day. The WoO had never raced at this track before so everything was going to be new for us. First there were a couple of safety issues with the track that I brought up early in the day and the track crew with SLS were very accomidating and fixed the issues very quickly. All the fans were really excited that the Outlaws were back in Oklahoma and by hot laps time, the grandstand was pretty much full. What a beautiful day weather wise, blue skies and around 85 degrees, it was new clay on the track and it was hard to get water to soak in to it, everytime they dumped a truck load of water, by the time the truck was filled up again, the water ran to the bottom or evaporated. So, from the beginning I think everyone knew it was going to be a rubber down track for the A-Main. We pitted everyone in the small infield, man was it crowded with 26 sprints and 27 modifieds, but everyone cooperated when we parked them, so it all worked out OK. As the night went on, everything was running smoothly until a schedule change happened during our B-Main. The mods originally weren't going to run a B-Main, but since more than 24 showed up and it was a points race for them, they needed to run a B-Main. At first the sprint car main was going to run after the Mod main, but with this new Mod B, the Sprint A was going to run before the Mod A. Then after some discussion, SLS wanted the fans to enjoy the Sprint A last so they would get more time to visit with the teams after the race (normally when a Mod A is run after the Sprint A, all the teams are packed up and ready to leave before the Mod A checkers). So, they ran both the Mod Mains back to back. Now with the track completely rubbered up, it was time for the WoO A-Main to start, boy would Goodyear get challenged this race. By lap 6 or 7 Joey's left front was flat, then Meyers' left front went flat, after both of them pitted to change left fronts each on seperate yellow's, the next 12 laps ran non stop until the first RR went down, after another restart and another blown RR, the Red was flown for a fuel/open red. After picking up Haud with Woody's winch and taking him to the work area, you could see everyones RR was bald or damn near bald and we still had 16 laps to race. After that red, all hell broke loose for blown RR's, cars were coming to the work area like flies and even though they don't get afforded the one minute in the work area after we get past halfway, if they can fix the car before a good lineup is made and the lights go out for the next restart, they are allowed to rejoin the race. Well, after every yellow the drivers would argue over there position and it would take 4-5 laps to get a good lineup, so everyone who came to the work area was able to re join the race. On one of the restarts I don't remember what lap, but the 83 & 22 spunout together in turn 4 and the flagman threw a Red instead of a yellow (again the WoO uses the track flagman, he was used to throwing a red when a multi car accident occurs for Modifieds, so he threw the red instead of a yellow) an honest mistake that caused major caos. By now I noticed that what started as a crowd of 4,000 was down to about 2,000 and you could hear the boos from the crowd. We finally got to lap 34 and then the leaders RR blew and after about 4 more restarts that never completed a green/white/checker and numerous yellow laps run due to the fact that the drivers would not follow lineup directions the decision was made to throw a red flag for fuel after the 15H and 7s ran out of fuel. This race was now over 1 1/2 hours long and the crowd was down to about 500 and we finally were able to run a green/white/checker and Meyers got his 4th win (maybe). This race turned out to be an embarassment for our celebrated return to racing in Oklahoma, I just hope that we will race in Oklahoma again and when we do, that the large crowd will come back and we will put on a great race/show for them like we do for 99% of all our other races. After the races were done and all the teams had left and everything was packed up, I now needed to drive back to the casino towing Eloy's scorboard, I stopped to ask permission from the police and I also had Jim following me in his pickup. The cops gave me the OK and we were all back at our RV's around 2am. What a night!!!!!

Sunday I drove up to the Rogers/Bentonville, AR area to see my Uncle Jerry and cousin Teri who I hadn't seen for over 25 years. I got to meet Teri's husband Ali and their two boy's Conner (9) and Ian (7), what a great family. Teri & Ali run a home building company together "Boulder Creek Homes", I toured one of their homes that was close to being completed, man they build really nice homes. If any of you are looking to relocate to the Bentonville, AR area, look them up. Sunday night all of us drove over to my Uncle Jerry's place in Rogers, AR right on the lake in a secluded cove, when we were there, you would never know there was civilization close by, what a beautiful place. I had a great time getting reacquainted with my Dad's side of the family, 25 years is a long time and a lot of catching up to cover. Monday I waited for their boys to get home from school so they could help me wash Woody, man we had a good time, I'm quite sure we got more water on eachother than we did on Woody, the weather was absolutely gorgous and perfect to have a water fight. Afterwards I gave each one a ride around the neiborhood on Woody and even let them drive him a little ways, they had a great time as I did. Man was I wore out by the end of the night, keeping up with a 7 & 9 year old is tough, I slept like a baby that night.

Finally yesterday, I drove back to Hernando, MS to hangout with my friends, do laundry and recharge my batteries. Tomorrow I'm off to Paducah, KY for Friday nights race at Paducah International Raceway and then to Pevely, MO for our first visit to I-55 Raceway on Saturday night. Our season is now started for earnest, I will now be racing for the next 26 straight weekends and a lot of races during the week also. Come on out to race near you.

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"