Camped at I-55 Speedway

Hi everyone and welcome to my 3rd blog entry. Right now I am sitting in the parking lot at I-55 Speedway watching Celebrity Apprentice on the boobtube. It has been rainin off & on all day, it has finally stopped about an hour ago. With all this rain, I have found that I have a new leak in my RV from somewhere in my roof in the right front corner. It is always something when you live in an RV full-time. It will give me something to fix this week.

Well, I last left you when I was in Hope, AR heading to Paducah, KY. I arrived safely Thursday evening and unloaded Woody and parked the motorhome for the night. The track looked good and ready for us to put on a great race the next night. Bob Sargent and his staff worked thier butts off and you could tell, the facility was in great shape and looking good. After driving through the Paducah area to the track, man did that Ice Storm back in February put a hurtin on the area, you couldn't look anywhere and not see broken tree's. There were huge piles of cleaned up tree's all over the place (the last time I saw piles of debris like that was after Hurricane Ivan put a hurtin to my hometown area of Pensacola, FL).

If you are ever driving to Paducah from the west, I recommend going to Sikeston, MO on I-55 and then turning on I-57 North for about 10 miles, then turn onto HWY 60 East after you cross the Mississippi River (skinny 2 lane bridge, definite white knuckles when a semi truck is passing going the opposite direction) you will turn onto HWY 62 cross another tinny bridge and then you will just have a nice drive through the country passing through two small towns on your way into Paducah.

The weather for Friday nights race was beautiful, it was about time we had great weather for our race in Paducah. In 2007 it was so cold we had snow flurey's during hotlaps and it was 27 degrees when the green flag flew for the A-Main, in 2008 we got rained out after the 1st heat. So, it sure was nice to have blue skies and 70 degrees during the day and 50's at night. Bob Sargent did a great job of promoting the event and even brought in BIGFOOT to entertain the crowd during a break in the action. 36 sprint cars showed up to race with us, it sure was nice to see Paul McMahon back racing with us (Good Luck the rest of the year Paul). Man was the track fast for the early cars in qualifying, Joey Saldana set a new track record and was the first one ever to turn a lap under 13 seconds there. The heat races were exciting, Jason Meyers made his whole evening in his heat race, he started 8th and finished 2nd making the draw for the Dash. Jason ran a good race and lead wire to wire, but it wasn't as easy as it sounds, the battles from 3rd all the way to 15th were fantastic. Congrats to Jason. The high banks there at Paducah International Raceway are pretty unique and we put on one hell of a race there. If I can attach a photo to this blog, check out me and Steve racing on the high banks, I'm pretty sure he would win.

With three other classes of cars racing with us, it made for a long night, by the time we got everything packed up and I got Woody back on the trailer, it was 2:00am, after a shower and a small chocolate pudding snack, my head hit the pillow around 2:30am. I was up at 7:00am and left Paducah for Pevely, MO (I-55 Speedway) at 8:00am. I arrived at 11:00am and unloaded Woody and washed him, I was ready for work by noon. After getting the drivers Souvenior trailers in place around 2:00pm, it started to sprinkle and it just kept getting heavier & heavier and by 3:00pm the grounds were soaked and they finally pulled the plug and cancelled the race. That was a bummer, because we always put on a great show at I-55, atleast we will be back the first weekend in August (7 & 8th) for a big 2-day show.

Saturday wasn't a complete loss, one of my good buddies (Todd) from my Navy days in Guam, now lives in Warrenton, MO and drove down to see me. He was almost here when I called to tell him the race was cancelled, so he continued down and we hungout and drank some good brews and told some old sea stories. We had dinner with Gene & Starla (they run the WoO souvenior trailer, stop by and say hi at your next race) at my favorite BBQ joint in Pevely. After dinner we drank way too many brews but had some good times with some of the fans who stuck around a partied. Like I said, after too many brews were drank, Todd ended up sleeping on my couch and taking off the next morning.

Tomorrow I will take off in the morning and head for the Memphis area, I have reservations at the RV park on the Navy base in Millington, TN. I've still got some good friends stationed there and some who have retired in the area, so I think we are going to get together and act like a bunch of sailors on liberty and have a good time.

Next weekends races are at two more exciting short tracks. Friday night we will be in Swindell & Sides country, Riverside Speedway in West Memphis, AR better known as "The Ditch". It will be good to see Jeff Swindell, Marshall Skinner, & Tim Crawley again. After we survive "The Ditch", then it is a long overnight drive to Tri-State Speedway in Huabstadt, IN. I can't wait to get to Tri-State, that is my favorite short track on the tour. Tommy Helfrich and his Family & staff do a great job and are good people, they run the most efficient show in the country. If you live with-in 200 miles of Evansville, IN (Haubstadt is 10 miles from Evansville), you have to make the drive and come see us put on a great show.

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"