In case anyone is wondering where I've been...

Doing a lot of photo processing and researching information for an article and my monthly MRC online column. I've got some photo orders to tend to during the next few days as well. There were three nights of racing last weekend and two more this weekend then I'll be done until next year.

I will make a longer post when time permits.

Monday, Monday, how ya' doin'?

It's been a while since I have typed a blog entry so I better get busy and catch up with posting my most recent thoughts and experiences.

This past Saturday night I went to Husets Speedway with Chuck Priefer and Dick Kelly. I think they got sick of me talking so I guess they better never go on a racing trip with me and GRP. It took four days to Eldora and back before we finally stopped talking racing. (insert LOL) Seriously though, I enjoy traveling with fellow racing fans and sharing our stories and experiences.

There can be no doubt that Husets is an action track. By way of example, some years I'll go all season without catching a photo of a Sprint Car flip. One night at Husets resulted in a three shot sequence of Donavan Peterson going over as well as two other flips. From an action standpoint it's wild.

Saturday was only my third time at Husets and the first time I have spent the entire night taking photos there. The only other time I took pics there was hotlaps during daylight with my old film camera. Shooting there for the first time with the digital and flash was quite the challenge. Up here at familiar tracks I've got the settings all figured out and a night of shooting goes pretty smooth. At Husets I struggled with the cramped quarters and color balance settings. For some reason I always have problems getting it set right when a track has black dirt. I managed to get some decent photos but they weren't my best work but I'm a self critic so they probably look decent to others. Shooting pics is kind of like driving a race car, you're probably not going to come into another guy's home territory and nail the setup on your first try. I was working with some new more powerful flash batteries and the additional power made a difference in brightness. I'll have to keep that in mind this weekend at Cedar Lake or I'll be doing a lot of post processing on Sunday.

Chuck was standing around talking to Doug Wolfgang so I stopped and stood around with a dumb look on my face. I get tongue tied around Wolfie and can't even tell you why. Maybe it's because he was one of my heroes while he was driving but I still get nervous around Wolfgang. I have always wanted to ask him if he really used to ask Tom Wilke if he could scrape the mud off the 87 car when he was a kid. Tom told me that but Tom never hesitated to bullshit me so I can't be sure. I'll probably never know because I don't think I'll ever work up enough balls to ask Wolfgang an off the wall question like that. He's a helluva guy, his observations are priceless. He's just a regular guy just like the rest of us trying to make sure his family does right and putting food on the table for them. That's the second time I've seen Wolfie this summer and the second time I chickened out and didn't say anything to him.

Doug Clark gave me shit about falling on my ass when I crossed the track. I didn't have any problem taking a shot back at him when he tip toed across the same spot a while later. Clark is easy for me to talk to and he invited a rebuttal by taking the first shot across the bow. I met him at one of the Gopher 50's in Owatonna years ago. He's a nice guy but giving people shit must be what they do for entertainment down in Sioux Falls because he sure handed me a full ration of it. That's alright by me, I like a dry sense of humor. Not everybody can say that Doug Clark gave them shit. Probably just a few Outlaw drivers who got sent to the back for jumping a start and a couple dumb assed photographers like me attempting to transverse a wet track.

I ran into Jimmy Schmidt, my wife's aunt's brother. He builds motors out of a shop in Flandreau. I wouldn't have even recognized him but he walked by with a lawn chair that had his name written on it in magic marker. He might as well have had a damn sign on his forehead, "I'm Jimmy Schmidt." Here's your sign! LOL It was nice seeing him and I'll sent his regards back to Dick and Barb.

The first UMSS meeting is tentatively slated for Saturday October 25. I plan on attending and listening to what their plans are. I'm not an authority on motor rules, tire compounds, that sort of thing but I'm familiar with the MSA of eastern Wisconsin and know they've got a good deal over there. I think this deal will be good for the Sprint teams and it will help out some of the promoters that can't afford to book an ASCS, IRA or Outlaw show. We've got a lot of tracks around this area that fall into that category and they know a Sprint show might draw more fans but aren't able to book one. This might give them that opportunity. The IMCA had some Jackpot Junction series shows this year at Jackson and Kasson that I attended on other nights of the week but they run Arlington on Saturday nights. That makes it difficult to run a JJ show at another Saturday track. Just like everyone else the IMCA teams are fighting increased travel expenses. I think this deal at Cedar Lake, maybe Kopellah and a couple other tracks in that area might work out pretty good. The people organizing this want to generate interest among Street Stock, Super Stock, Midwest Modified drivers that would like to try Sprints. Sprints are never cheap but this deal will make it possible for more people go get involved. Sprint Car racing in eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin will die out if new drivers don't get involved.

Brooke Tatnell in the Forbrook 5 was leading the Cheater's Day A Main while Mark Dobmeier in the Lunstra 13 worked his way through traffic to second. Mark caught Brooke and got underneath him coming out of turn two. They got together on the backstretch sending Tatnell into a wall scraping pirouette ending his run. Guy Forbrook wasn't very happy with Mark and expressed his displeasure to Dobmeier as he approached victory lane. This was one of those racing deals where you really don't know if one of them slipped or it was on purpose. I have never met Mark but I can't imagine a driver who subbed for Brooke in the Volcano Joe's car at Wilmot

Brooke would be catching a 5am flight the next morning to meet up with the Craig Dollansky team in New York. Craig's arm was broken in an Eldora crash that some have described as the worst they have seen there in 20 years. I wish Craig a speedy recovery and congrats to Brooke for getting the opportunity. When I heard about Craig's misfortune right away I knew Brooke was the best candidate to fill in based on his driving talent, easy going nature and close proximity to Craig's shop. He's been running his own limited deal and subbing in various cars all season so this is a good opportunity to get some WoO exposure. Hopefully he'll have some good finishes and keep his name out there for the next time something opens up. Personally I think if Guy and Brooke could get some sponsorship to run a full or partial Outlaw schedule they'd be a force to be reckoned with. I wish some Minnesota based business would take note of this sponsorship opportunity and come on board.

That's going to do it for tonight. I'll add some more later this week during the Badger Nationals. This should be a good show.

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".........what a great weekend. Perfect weather both Friday and Saturday. The pits at Red Cedar Speedway over flowing with cars for the 29th Annual Punky Manor Challenge of Champions. Friday night with the Midwest Mods on hand there were nearly 200 cars on hand. So many in fact they were pitting in the infield. Friday was a full show for the midwest mods and heats for the Supers, Mods, and Lates. A very enjoyable night.
Saturday they ran two B-mains for the Supers, Mods, and Late Models. Great racing there. Then it was off to the features. Friday night they ran the MWM feature and Shane Halopka came from 17th to take the win. A very impressive run. Also Friday night they ran The Debbie's and Bongo Dash for the Late Models which was won by Harry Hanson. Saturday's features started with the Superstocks. Shawn Huse in the 1H car was strong and took the win. Craig Thatcher remains nearly unbeatable at Red Cedar. It was his at least his 8th Punky win. John Kaanta got the Late Model win with Harry Hanson second and a fast moving Jimmy Mars third.
All in all it was a great way to end my 2008 season behind the camera. I'll be in the stands at Cedar Lake next weekend to kick back and watch some racing sitting on my butt. That will be it for 2008 as I have other things planned in October. The 2008 season was shorter for me this year with all the early season rainouts. Doesn't seem right we are once again at the end.
This weeks shot comes from the Modified feature at Red Cedar. See you at the races............."

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

"............Mother Nature once again has not been kind to us this weekend. Two of the four days of "The Legendary 100" at Cedar Lake have been washouts. Wednesday night was Midwest Mod and Streetstock night and that went off good. Thursday a steady rain most of the day and then a persistent drizzle wiped us out. All I got for my efforts that night was about two pounds of mud on my shoes. Friday night was great. Cool temps and a mostly clear night made for a fast and racy track as the Late Models, Modifieds,Superstocks,Pure Stocks,and hornets took to the track. It was the hornets first ever appearance at CLS. With the pits full to overflowing it was as good a night as I've seen there. There was some excellent racing and the fans definitely got their moneys worth. Saturday was another story. Once again the steady afternoon rain cancelled the days events. Since Thursday was a washout they ran that show Friday night. Friday nights show was to be run at noon on Saturday. They got two Superstock heats in and once again old Ma Nature stepped in. Today now they plan to wrap the weekend up. Once again Ma Nature threatens to step in so I'm staying put.
Next weekend is the "Punky Manor Challenge of Champions" at the Red Cedar Cedar Speedway in Menomonie.
This weeks shot come from the front stretch at Cedar Lake Friday night. See you at the races..........."

Sunday morning vacation week recap...

I scheduled this week for vacation way back in January when the seniority list went around so here's a recap of how the week went.

On Saturday September 6th I attended the Jerry Richert Memorial at Cedar Lake. Despite about an hour rain delay they managed to get the entire show in. Due to the rain delay we weren't able to pop open our first barley pop until the stroke of midnight. The JR Memorial is an annual camping weekend and we enjoyed the camping experience and post race BBQ put on by the Richert family. If not for the rain delay we'd have been done a lot earlier and had more time to enjoy the post race festivities. Just once I'd like to see the racing conclude at 10:30pm but it wasn't to be this year. Maybe next time. The all night partying is getting to me a little more each season and it's getting harder to recover. I made it to something like 3:30 or 4am but didn't check the time because I couldn't see my cell phone clearly.

Sunday was a recoup day from the JR. I must have got home around 10am but again didn't take note of the exact time. The rest of the day was spent unpacking and cleaning camera equipment, editing photos and watching a little television. I fell asleep early in the recliner.

Monday? The only thing I remember about Monday was going on a long walk and watching the Vikes fiasco. I suppose that I spent some computer time catching up with photos and such. The day doesn't stand out but that's what vacation is for, to unwind. One does not have to be chasing a race or doing anything special to relax. I think I might have had a few beers that day because I had some left over from the JR.

On Tuesday I finally got around to cutting and installing some base board that my wife had stained months ago when we redid our bedroom. We have a powered miter saw so the job went off without a hitch and it looks pretty good. I ran up to Menards and got a couple of 36" laminate pre finished sliding closet doors and track so we put those up. The only problem I ran into was that the doors were about 1/2" too long so I had to cut that much off the bottom. The doors are hollow core but the bottom inner core was longer than 1/2" so it worked out perfect. I have cut a little off the bottom of doors before. You have to use masking tape so the saw blade doesn't splinter the door. What I did to get a perfect cut was clamp a straight piece of board across the bottom of the door as a guide for the skill saw. When we were done we lightly touched up the cut edges with steel wool and presto, a perfectly straight cut that you can't even tell we did.

Wednesday, another day spent wrapping up a few things around the house. The wife has been on call all week for one of her Doula clients so we couldn't do anything special like spending a night at Hinckley. Her client is going to deliver down at Regions in downtown St. Paul so she didn't want to go anywhere. Besides, when she has a birth pending there's no drinks allowed if we were to go anywhere and she's on edge wondering when the phone will ring. That pretty much kept Debbie occupied for the whole week so aside from eating together and saying hi and bye on the way to and from races I didn't see much of her. She spend a good deal of the time doing research down in her office. We've got some family issues with one of our daughters that have been keeping us on the edge of our seats as well. I hope that works out but it's not something I have any control over. Our door is always open but the older we get the more difficult it gets to give up our privacy.

Wednesday, night one of the Legendary 100 and I was looking forward to four nights of racing. The racing in the Street Stocks and Midwest Modifieds was excellent with two exciting Features. These guys aren't the top classes anywhere and they don't race for a huge chunk of money but close racing is always fun to watch. I got home late and stayed up until almost 3am uploading pics to my website. My four and a half year old rechargeable batteries that I use in my flash and power pack were giving me trouble and went dead after only 100 shots. Fortunately I was carrying eight fully charged spares so I continue shooting with four in the flash only. It doesn't recycle as fast but I could still take one shot per lap of the Features and victory lane photos.

Thursday, day two of the Legendary 100. I made the rounds going to Fleet Farm, Menards, Home Depot, Office Max and Northern Tool that morning looking for replacement batteries. I have used a 15 minute charger the past five seasons which works especially well when camping out. Unfortunately Rayovac discontinued the product line so I was forced to consider something else. After running around to the stores and calling the Battery Store I decided to wait until after the season was over. That night the rains came and we all ended up waiting around to see what would happen. The rain eventually stopped and it looked like we might get the show in but right around that time a steady mist that didn't even appear on the radar forced CLS to cancel. They rescheduled the Thursday preliminary to noon Saturday. The pits and infield were a muddy mess.

Friday went pretty well. I decided that I'd have to settle for overnight rechargeables so I went to Walmart and picked up another overnight charger that had two in the package and an additional eight pack to make the total of 10 that I would need. I put them on the chargers and would have to try to get by one more night with the old ones. CLS ran something like 17 Heat races, B Mains and Features. It was a wild night with one Mod tearing down a section of catch fence and snapping the posts right off. There were several other roll overs during the course of the evening so it was a wild night. It was a late night as well and it was going on 2am by the time I got home. The racing went well past midnight so I'm sure the track ended up having to pay a fine for going past curfew. I haven't had a cold in over a year but I started to notice that my throat was getting scratchy and that my nose was a little runny. D*mn, this might not be much fun if it gets any worse. In the meantime my 15 minute batteries only lasted for about 50 shots but I had plenty of backup to finish the night.

Saturday the weather was overcast, damp, humid, cool and clammy. I quickly took a shower, pumped down a couple of cups of mud and put my new batteries in the camera and auxiliary power pack. Unfortunately as it would turn out I didn't get an opportunity to test them at the track. I felt run down and my throat was sore when I woke up and I was getting an irritating tickle so I had to cough once in a while. The cold was obviously getting worse and the weather was not going to help it any. I stopped at a nearby convenience store to get some cough drops then drove through rain all the way from Forest Lake to Osceola. By some miracle it wasn't raining south of Osceola but the skies didn't look good. I got out to the track around 11:15am, signed in, made some quick rounds then ran out and got my camera, long lens and monopod to try some outside shots. They must have been in a rush because they went right into the Canadian and American anthems without hot lapping. They got three Super Stock Heats in the books before it started drizzling. I put the camera away and walked over to where Dan Plan, Vinster and Rick Blewitt were camping. Navy Davy was there with his wife Mary and they invited me to go to the Cedar Creek bar for a burger. I had a couple of beers and a tasty burger and it appeared to have stopped raining. We went back to the track and heard that they had been wheel packing but unfortunately it started raining around the time we arrived. After waiting around a couple more hours in the cool mist (great for my cold...NOT!!!) they canceled until Sunday afternoon. By this time it was obvious I wasn't going to be feeling very well the next morning so I decided I wasn't going to go back on Sunday.

So here I sit on Sunday morning with a sore throat, runny nose and that zonked feeling one gets with a cold. The weather didn't look any better this morning so I checked the CLS website and they canceled the Sunday afteroon race due to wet grounds. The pits were a mess and they're probably still pulling haulers out of the mud with the grader as I type this blog entry.

I was looking forward to seeing all the 100 Features and the Sprint Cars on Saturday night. But I only lost a few hours of my time and the irony of rainouts is that I had the opportunity to talk to some people and get to know them better. You too Jason!!! LOL So my loss really wasn't a loss because anytime I can get to know people it's good. The Saturday night crowd is always the best at the 100 so Cedar Lake did not have a good week. I'm sure some of the internet idiots are going to be blaming them for the weather but any reasonable person knows they did the very best they could. I felt bad for them because I talked to a couple of the owners as well as the track prep people a lot during the course of the weekend. Besides the weather they dealt with torn down catch fences, a very muddy pit area and a lot of unhappy people looking for someone or something to blame. Believe me, I would not want that job but as they say "it is what it is" so that's the hand we have been dealt. All they can do is pick up the pieces sand hope that their remaining events go better than the 100.

Meanwhile I'm going to lay low today and nurse my cold. Tomorrow I have to go back to work after nine days off and it's going to be busy. I'll have to stock up on cough drops and cold medicine. Meanwhile my wife is still waiting for the call from her client so we can't really do anything today. I think it's time to sign off and go watch the Vikings and Nascar race (side by side pictures is great for that).

Later.

Legendary 100 craziness

In my last blog post I wrote "I hope the Legendary 100 isn't going to be that crazy" in reference to the Richert Memorial. Wrong again!!!

Thursday night of the Legendary 100 produced some legends. Unfortunately I can't go into much detail but I'll drop a few hints. The incident involved sippin' whiskey, hooties and several gentlemen not wanting spilled spirits to go to waste. This happened in the vicinity of a certain Late Model with "evil inside" according to a decal on the valve cover. This story will probably end up being legendary.

Gotta get going so I can get out to the track. It's wet and clammy out there this morning so I hope we can dodge the bullet on the "R" stuff.

Hey ya'll, I'm still out here...Tuesday September 9...

I'll bet you thought I gave up blogging. No, I didn't give it up but I have been really busy lately. Labor Day weekend I spent a night at the races and the rest of the time was taken up with family obligations. Last weekend I went to the Jerry Richert Memorial and was dealing with a roofing company and Dish Network. They had to move the dish off my roof and put it on a post out in the yard to clear some trees that had filled in over the years. I've still got a couple that we're going to have to find a way to top off without having to hire it done. I've got an olive tree my wife has been b*tching about for ten years so I'll probably get my brother-in-law over here with the chainsaw sometime after the season ends. I could use some more firewood anyways so we might as well get it done.

I took vacation this week from the JR Memorial to the Legendary 100. I'll probably commute most of the time but maybe I'll spend the night on Friday to take in some parties.

I thought I had seen everything out at the Cedar Lake campground but last Saturday night was a first. There were a couple of "yoopers" (UP of Michigan) who follow the IRA around camping near us. One of them was playing a guitar and both of them had (I'm not kidding) rubber pigeons on their shoulders. I didn't see any bird shit running down their backs so I presume they were rubber. Anyways, they're playing and singing so the guy decides to play the song "tie my kangaroo down" for Brooke Tatnell's pit guy. I didn't catch his name and he went back to Australia yesterday but I'll find out eventually. Anyways Brooke's helper and this guy with the parrot got into a bit of a pissing match trying to outdo each other imitating Arab accents. Then they'd both go back to an Aussie accent, actually the guy with the parrot sounded right on to my untrained ear. And Brooke's helper did a pretty good job at the Arab.

So watching their verbal joust I figured they were just kidding each other. Anyways, a little while later I was sitting in a lawn chair and we hear this crashing sound. Evidently from what I heard second hand Brooke's bud went and got a boom box to drown out the sound of the parrot guy's guitar. So the parrot yooper guy gets ticked off and does a Who concert impersonation smashing his guitar to smithereens. The guy goes back to drinking beer and I ask his brother what the hell happened. His brother says he was pissed at the guitar because a string broke and didn't like that one anyways so he decided to end it's service life then and there. He threw it in the fire and we watched it burn. He let me play it earlier in the day, it had a decent neck on it and played pretty good. I'd have taken it off his hands if I had known he was going to smash and burn it. I could use a second guitar, especially one that sounded that good.

So that was the first time I ever saw guys wearing rubber pigeons performing in the campground and smashing their guitar. Come to think of it I had never seen an Australian with a boom box speaking Arab before either. That's two firsts in one night. I hope the Legendary 100 isn't going to be that crazy but I have a hunch it will go beyond what we saw last Saturday night.

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".......another great weather weekend for racing. Friday night it was season championship night at Kopellah. The two best races were in the Streetstocks and the Modifieds. Chanda Fjordin Nord won the Streeters by less than a car length over Jeff Hientz and Jason Schill got his first feature win after battling Mike Mueller all race long.
Our original plan for Saturday and Sunday was to head to Hibbing for the "Labor Day Shootout" which is their final weekend of the season. We decided to stay around here though and went to Rice Lake for their final show of the year. It was a good night although a long night. I photographed this show also and was very tired by the end. There were 172 cars in the pits. The high light race of the night was the Streetstock "Little Dream Race". It's pretty neat how they get the payout. They take donations and it adds up pretty fast. Scott Clark the winner took home over 1000.00 dollars. People also donate to different positions such as we did. We put 25.00 bucks up for the 17th place finisher. Everyone comes out with something. I even heard someone put a 12 pack of beer out there for somebody.
Tonite is our final night at Kopellah.
This weeks shot comes from the Late Model feature Satuday night as they go three wide down the front stretch. See you at the races................."

Holiday weekend racing, the Richert Memorial, other ramblings...

Did everyone enjoy the racing over the Labor Day weekend? The only night I had free for racing was Friday so I went to Chateau from work to watch the USMTS Modifieds. Chateau is a nice track, Musco lighting, good food, racy surface, friendly people, I really liked it. I like Mark Noble's new wrap too, it makes me thirsty just looking at it. The 40 lap Feature was outstanding, one of the best I've seen all year in any division. I'll be going back down there in the future.



I have been trying to find Mighty Axe Sprint results. Good luck on that. I checked Speed Net results as posted by North Central, they posted every division except the Sprints. That's the mentality around here that I despise, Sprints getting second class treatment as if they didn't even exist. I don't even want to get started with my thoughts on that because I'll end up putting my foot in my mouth and getting in trouble. In my mind when entry class results are posted but not the Sprints there's something major wrong with this picture. Since when are Sprint Cars second fiddle to Streets, Supers, Pures, B Mods? Or to put it another way, if the Knoxville Raceway held a Super Stock Nationals would the stands be full and the event televised on Speed. You get my point, the Wissota anti Sprint agenda strikes again. We saw it at Rice Lake last week. The ATD paper comes out and there's one brief sentence that says Bill Balog won the IRA Feature but they've got whole paragraphs describing the Modified and Midewest Modified races in lap by lap detail. Sometimes their "back gate" mentality gets to me.

Anyways, I managed to find the Friday results posted on the ASCS website. Joseph Kouba won the Friday A Main. Wow, that one caught me off guard. I don't recall Joseph ever winning a Feature then to come out and win the Axe prelim, congratulations Joseph. I hope that cheered your dad up, he was seeing red earlier this week.

Jerry Richert Jr. and Brooke Tatnell will have their cars on display at County Line Liquor, Forest Lake, Minnesota, on Thursday September 4 from 3pm to 6pm. County Line Liquor is at the first stop light as you head out of Forest Lake on the south side at the intersection of Greenway and 8. I'm going to do my best to hustle over there after my 4pm doctors appointment over in Fridley. Whenever I go to this particular doctor I end up sitting in the waiting room so I'm probably going to get to County Line about the time they're loading their cars in the haulers. I'm going to do my best to get there before they're done. Sprint Car fans, come out and show your support if you're going to be anywhere near Forest Lake.

The Jerry Richert Memorial is the biggest, most anticipated event on my entire racing schedule. I won't go into a long explanation about how that came to be but will simply point out that I know the family and there is a connection to my past.

I don't have time to type much more this morning but maybe later.