On my way to Knoxville

Hi again, its Wednesday night and I am parked at the Harrah's Casino in Coucil Bluffs, IA. It was my planned stop for a couple of reasons, the parking lot at Harrah's is right on the river and normally really peaceful at night and there is a nice laundromat in Council Bluffs that also has a big enough parking lot to park my RV & trailer. My plan was to do laundry tomorrow morning and then drive up to Huset's Speedway in Brandon, SD. Well, so much for plans, I got the text message letting me know that Huset's has been cancelled, so now tomorrow I will drive to Knoxville, IA for Saturday nights race.

To catch you up with what I've been up to for the past 10 days, sit back and enjoy. When I last left you, I was at I-55 Speedway, well Monday (April 20th) I left for Millington, TN. It was a nice drive, I took I-55 south to I-155 east, then I took HWY 51 south to Millington. HWY 51 is a really nice HWY, really smooth. I got to Millington around 3:30pm and got parked at the RV park at Navy Lake, a really quiet & peaceful place. During the week I got to see a few of my old Navy buddies and on Wednesday night I went to Beale Street for Bike night. I met Casey, a good friend I met in Guam in 1985, who rode his Harley over. We had a few beers and caught up with eachothers lives before he had to take off. I also met Gene & Starla there, we got to see over 200 bikes. Thursday I fixed my leak in the RV and I replaced the broken header gasket on Woody, and I was now ready for the racing for the weekend.

Friday I drove over to West Memphis, AR to Riverside Speedway, better known as "The Ditch". Man, do I love short track racing, and this track usually stays kinda tacky and makes the drivers have to get their elbows-up. And get his elbows-up is what Tim Kaeding did all night. His heat race was the best heat race I have seen all year, his battle with Brooke Tatnell was great, he passed Tanell on the last lap to finish 2nd and that put him in the dash. Then in the feature, the sold out crowd saw TK start 4th and promptly showed why he is considered one of the best short track sprint car drivers on the planet, he put on a clinic and clearly was the best that night. A big Congrats goes out to TK's crew of Guy Forbrook & Ray Brooks, and also to Dennis & Teresa Roth. It was good to see and chat with Jeff Swindell (Jeff, thanks for not forgetting to go to the scales after your qualifying laps).

Saturday morning it was up at 7:00am and on the raod by 7:45 for the long drive to Haubstadt, IN to Tri-State Speedway. It was a long drive, but I followed Bill & Linda's advice and I drove up I-55 to I-155 and then drove up through Tennessee & Kentucky, it was a really nice drive, and man to see all the damaged trees from the Ice Storm in February was amazing, I never knew there were so many homes in Kentucky, you normally wouldn't see. I rolled into Tri-State Speedway around 1:00pm and relaxed for about an hour before it was time to go to work. Tri-State is my favorite short track that we race at, Tommy Helfrich and his family do a great job and take great pride in their facility. With another huge crowd, we put on one hell of a race. There was a little bit of everything, Randy Hannagan looked like he was going to dominate and win his 2nd race of the year, however, something broke on his car and he stopped in the infield. Then TK, Steve, & McCarl battled it out, it looked like TK might sweep the weekend, but when the next yellow came out, TK & McCarl touched and TK stopped on the track with frontend damage. That left McCarl & Steve to finish it off, after the last yellow, I had to take a car to the pits with Woody and I didn't make it back out to see the re-start, I guess Steve & McCarl touched on the front straight with McCarl getting the worst as he flipped. Steve led the last 4 laps and man did the crowd go crazy cheering for him.

After everything got packed up, we celebrated Tom's birthday with some cocktails and then called it a night. Sunday I got a call that Jim & Lucy's RV broke down and they were at the Flying J. I drove Woody the 3 miles on HWY 41 to the Flying J to see if I could help. They broke the serpentine belt and we couldn't find one and I don't think I could have replaced it, so we got an appointment with Cummins for Monday morning. I did fix their step while I was there, so now Lucy won't be scared to step out of their RV. I then drove Woody to Haubstadts carwash to clean him up, on my way back to the track, a nice Indiana State Trooper decided to stop me (I think he was just curious), after seeing that Woody is licensed in New Mexico, he then just wanted to know what frame Woody was. He was a jeep fan, and let me go on my way. That night I drove to Bill Floyd's place in Booneville, IN for a nice dinner, I got to meet Bill's family and his wife Brenda made a great sishkibob (sp). After watching Celebrity Apprentice with Bill & Brenda, it was time for bed. Monday I drove back to the Flying J to make sure Jim & Lucy were taken care of, Cummins got them fixed (they had to remove the muffler to get to the front of the engine to replace the belt). Then I went to my meeting with Bill Floyd at AFCO. Bill gave me the grand tour where I got to see Shocks, Brakes, Radiators, and Muffler Systems, if you ever need any of these items check them out at www.afabcorp.com . What a grand facility and all the employees were really nice. Thanks for everything Bill.

Monday night I stayed at my campground of choice (WalMart) in Booneville, IN. Tuesday morning I took off for Kansas City, it is a realative easy drive on I-64 to I-70, I arrived at the Ameristar Casino around 6:00pm. This morning I took off for Council Bluffs, IA. Tomorrow, I will head for the Sprint Car Capital of the World, Knoxville, IA, with Friday night being a day off, I'm pretty sure you will find me at Dingus having a few beers with AJ and the gang. If your there, come by and say hi, you can always buy me an adult beverage.

Thanks again for supporting Woody, myself, and sprint car racing. So, until my next blog, be safe and keep all 4 wheels on the ground.

Work 'N Woody