Parked in York, NE

Welcome back, I know it has been over two weeks since my last blog entry, I have been busy trying to keep up with the schedule and keeping my RV and Woody running. It has been a frustrating struggle at times, but I have kept a positive outlook and I have made all my commitments so far. My last entry I wrote while sitting in the lounge at the Cummins service center in Des Moines, IA, waiting for Terry McCarl to come pick me up because they weren't going to have my RV fixed by the end of the day. So I called Terry to see if I could crash at his place for the night, when I called him he was on his way back from Huset's, so when he got back into town, he came and picked me up. So I will pick this blog up from that Monday night (June 7th).

Terry took me to his & Lori's house, wow what a nice place. Terry's arm is coming along nicely, hopefully he will be in good enough shape to race in the 50th Knoxville Nationals. Terry and Lori treated me great and i had a great time hanging out with them. Lori grilled a mean steak and shish-ka-bob's (probably misspelled, but you get the idea) dinner, yummy it was delicious. After dinner we watched the movie "Brother's" in their little movie theater/entertainment room. Terry & Lori, you guy's have a great house and thank you for the awesome hospitality you showed me. I know it was last minute, but thanks for helping me out.

Tuesday, Cummins wasn't going to have my RV ready until after 3pm, they had to wait for the new turbo to get in. So Terry suggested that we drive his duelly to Knoxville to pick up Woody and the trailer and bring it back to the Cummins place so I wouldn't have to back track to Knoxville. We arrived in Knoxville and I picked Woody up from Advance Transmission (he was getting his tranny serviced) and met up with Terry at the track. When I got to the trailer I remembered I forgot the key to the lock, so Terry called Mike Roberts for help and about 20 minutes later Duwayne Robuck showed up with the master key and I cut my lock off. We hooked up the trailer and loaded up Woody, we met Mike a little bit later and had lunch with him at the new Taos on the square in Knoxville. I have to thank Mike for all the help. Terry dropped me and Woody off at Cummins just as they were finishing up my RV, perfect timing. So, I was off to spend the night at the Ameristar Casino in Kansas City.

Wednesday I needed to be in Witchita, KS by 5pm to pick up my youngest daughter Selena, she was flying in from Pensacola, FL. I made it to the airport in time and picked Selena up, man was I glad to see her. I hadn't seen her since February. She always lights up my life when I see her after being away from her for a long time. I love traveling with her during the summer, she might get under my skin at times, but hey she is only 11, she is supposed to get under my skin. She has a fun traveling with me and she has made many friends at the races over the past years. After picking her up, we took off for Dodge City, KS, we arrived at the track around 10pm and got parked and settled in for the weekend.

Thursday - Sunday, for the past 3 years the weather in Dodge City has been unpredictable to say the least. The wind on Thursday and Friday was just brutal, 20-35 mph with gusts to 45mph and the wind was a hot wind, the temps were around 100 both days, just f'ing miserable. Last year we had a bad hail storm, this year on Saturday evening the bad weather with small hail and a bunch of rain came. After much discussions, and finally heavy rain and lightening ended any chance of racing on Saturday, so it was postponed to Sunday afternoon. Ken, one of my longtime friends from my Navy days, lives in Oklahoma City and drove up to pay off the bet we made during the winter. Ken foolishly bet that the Cowboys would beat my Vikings in the playoffs, crazy I know. Ken drove up Friday night with his girlfriend Ellie hoping to get to see Saturday nights race, well they didn't get to see the race, but we did get to spend time together during the night and catch up on some old times. Ellie, all I know is that Ken doesn't deserve a woman as nice as you, I know you could do better, but if you have to settle, Ken isn't a bad guy to settle with. Ken hadn't seen my oldest Alisha since she was 2 yrs old, now she is 18 and he couldn't get over how much she lookes like her Mom when Donna was 19. Ken also got to meet Selena for the first time, she actually spent the afternoon with Ken & Ellie doing the tourist stuff in Dodge City. Ken, I'm bummed you & Ellie didn't get to see your first WoO Sprint Car race, hopefully we will get you two to one next year.

The racing in Dodge City Friday night and surprisingly on Sunday afternoon was great racing and the grandstands were full both races. Sammy won Friday night, Joey led most of the race and kinda put it in cruise control when Sammy snuck up on him on the bottom and passed Joey. I talked with Joey later that night and he told me that he thought Sammy was a lap car until it was to late and he couldn't catch back up and pass him back. Sunday's race started off with a bang, Schatz spun in turn 2 from 5th place and after all was said and done, 8 cars were involved and it was going to take a longtime to clean it up. After getting the track cleaned up, the crews were leaving the track to restart the cars when I heard Johnny announce there looked like a rumble going on in turn 4. I looked back and all I saw was guy's rolling around on the track with Jim driving up on his golf cart and jumping on top of the pile. After it all settled down, I found out it was Jason Sides and Willie Kahne who were rolling around together. I have no idea what happened, but somebody must of said something to piss somebody off. The crowd loved it, maybe the WoO should buy some big 16oz boxing gloves and whoever has a problem with someone, they can strap on the gloves on the front straightaway and duke it out for 3 minutes and let the crowd decide who won. Joey went on to dominate the race for the win.

Monday, man was I glad to get out of Dodge, however to get out of Dodge, I had to call my friend Todd to come and jump start my RV, the batteries went dead again. I installed a switch to stop the altenator from draining the batteries, but it didn't work (I found out later why). Thank god Todd owns Maupins Truck Services and came out and got me started, then I got the hell out of Dodge. We drove all the way to the Ameristar Casino in Kansas City, because I promised Selena I would take her to the movies and they have theaters there. We didn't get there until 9pm, so we had to see the late movie, we saw Karate Kid, it was pretty good, I still like the original one better, but they were about the same, Selena liked the movie and that is all that matters.

Tuesday we drove to Sedalia and settled in at the camp grounds at the track and went and did some much needed laundry. I also was able to wash the RV, trailer, & Woody, and Selena dusted and vacuumed the inside of the RV. I had gotten lazy and man did everything need to be cleaned. We ate dinner with Bill & Lynda, Jim & Luci, and Eloy, Bill grilled up some italian sausages and buffalo burgers, Luci made her delicious broccolli salad, it was good stuff and it is always nice to eat dinner with everyone.

Wednesday was race day, the third Kasey Kahne Budwieser race of the four race series. The weather was beautiful and hot all day. Everyone was more worried if the track would hold up to the heat. After helping get everything set up in the afternoon, I drove back to my RV to get my uniform on and eat dinner, that's when I got on the computer and looked at the radar, the storm that eventually rained us out, was originally moving northeast and go by us. Well, we hot lapped and started qualifying, after we were about halfway through qualifying, you could see the storm coming, we hoped to get qualifying completed, that way if it did stop raining, we could go right into the heats. Well, the last 5 cars were effected by the drizzle that had started, so we finished qualifying, but if we had been able to start racing that night, we would of had to qualify all over again. That ended up being a mood point, because it didn't stop raining until after 11pm. After we got everything packed back up, I was worried that my RV would get stuck where I was parked, so I got back over around 9:30pm with it still raining, the water was pooling up under and around my RV. I disconnected Woody's trailer, hoping that without the trailer I wouldn't get stuck. I started the RV up and just hung on and drove it out onto the road, I didn't care if everything flew around in the cabinets, just as long as I didn't get stuck. I made it out just fine and got the trailer out with Woody, re-hooked up and parked back up by Eloy, Bill & Lynda.

Well, so I don't make this blog way too long, I'm going to cut it short for now and continue it after this weekend. I need to get this blog up to date, because we are getting into a pretty busy time in our schedule, so as long as Woody and my RV cooperate and run like there supposed to, I should be able to get all caught up by the end of next week. So look for another entry soon.

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"