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.

Friday, looking forward to Rice Lake IRA...

I'm looking forward to the IRA race at Rice Lake tomorrow night. Last year's winner was Scotty Neitzel and it was a great night of racing.



Also on the card are the Wissota Modifieds, Wissota Midwest Modifieds and the Pure Stocks. Last year the Modified winner was Craig Thatcher but I don't believe Craig is racing much on Saturdays this season so my guess would be that Buzzy Adams will be the man to beat in the Mods.


Craig Thatcher RLS 2007


Kevin "Buzzy" Adams RLS 2007

Rice Lake had one of the better fields of Pure Stocks that I've seen in my travels. They're nowhere near as fast as the other classes but they put on a good race that's fun to watch. The IRA along with these support classes should make it an entertaining night. Rice Lake has been struggling with car counts this season from what I have seen on the results pages. I am not hung up on the sanctioning politics and don't like to see anyone struggle regardless of their affiliation.


RLS Pures 2007

There are some rumors going around the internet boards that the Rice Lake Speedway was sold. I can't verify that and have no idea what goes on behind closed doors so I'll just let those details work themselves out and leave it at that. RLS is an infrequent destination for me anyways as I have only attended a few Late Model and Sprint specials up there. Actually, I did make one attempt to go to Rice Lake sometime around the summer of 1966. There was a Supermodified special and I rode up there with my uncle Lloyd following the race car trailer. My uncle used to help our cousin out with the car so I tagged along with them. Unfortunately, that was before the days of cell phones and when we got there a heavy shower had dumped on the track resulting in the race being canceled. I specifically remember there being little or no grandstands and the track being the tiniest little thing I had ever seen up til then, a small quarter mile.



I did not return to Rice Lake until I started writing for MRC in 1999 and wanted to get out and visit a bunch more new tracks. I'm not on a mission to rack up record numbers of tracks on my racing resume but I have been to quite a few. Let me see if I can name some of them:

Minnesota
State Fair (dirt & asphalt)
Twin City (later North Starr)
Stillwater
Hutchinson
Fairmont
Jackson
Deer Creek
Kasson
Owatonna
Princeton
Grove Creek
Golden Spike
Alexandria
Proctor
North Central
Elko
Raceway (17)

Wisconsin
Cedar Lake
Kopellah
Rice Lake
Superior
ABC
Fox Ridge
Red Cedar
Central Wisconsin (formerly Monster Hall)
Angell Park
La Crosse (10)

Iowa
Knoxville
Cresco
Farley (3)

Ohio
Eldora (1)

Kansas
Kansas Speedway
Lakeside (2)

Texas
CC Speedway Corpus Christi (1)

South Dakota
Aberdeen
Husets (2)

That's 36 total but I can't help feeling as if I might have missed one. This year I added La Crosse to the list and I'm thinking about going to Chateau for the USMTS the Friday of Labor Day weekend (that's next Friday already). It's 122 miles from Forest Lake and work is 25 miles so I'd have a 97 mile drive, mostly freeway after work. Without taking any vacation I'd be leaving the office around 3:30 and should be able to get down there by around 5:30 or 6pm. That would give me enough time to sign in and walk around the pits for a while before the races started. I'm going to have to give that some serious thought because it's not that far and I have never been there before. I have seen photos and video clips and it looks like it would be a fun place to take photos of the USMTS. So far this season I haven't seen the USMTS and it's coming up on the end of the year already. I could add a new track and catch the USMTS in one shot. Might be a plan, we'll have to count the pennies.

I don't know about you but I'm about broke after a season of racing. Not the kind of broke where I'm destitute and can't afford to go to another race but the kind of broke where I'm having to pay attention to the bottom line more than I was a couple months ago. I'm just going to bite the bullet and spend the money. There's plenty of time over the winter to live like a monk and not do anything so I can save money. The rest of the season is going to cost more than I want to think about but I want to do some traveling to close out the year and I'll be damned if I'm going to let anything stop me. Photo sales usually pick up after the season for a couple months leading up to the holidays so I'll be able to bank a few bucks after the season to hopefully replace what I spend.

I've got a personal savings account that I use to fund all my racing. I have a certain amount taken out each month and lately I've been drawing more than I've put in. That might not sound like such a terrible thing but my property taxes, homeowners insurance and car payments come out of that account too. I've got another tax installment due in October and have not made a car payment in several years so I'm getting by with tired old iron. One of these days it's going to catch up with me and I'm going to have to start taking a car payment out of there again. Also, I use that fund for emergencies like breakdowns, etc. I've got credit but I don't like to use the plastic unless it's absolutely necessary so I've been dipping into that a little more than I'm comfortable with lately as well.

I was raised by my depression era grandparents after my folks died and I was in my formative teen years so being frugal was pounded into my head. Another thing they did was to insist that I work during the summer instead of just hanging around getting in trouble. I got my first job at 14 on a truck farm, worked 8 hours five and a half days a week. The first year the farmer paid me $3.50 per day and the second year I got a raise to $5 a day. I was one of the bigger kids so he used to take me out to do road maintenance because he had the contract for our village. Talk about violating child labor laws LOL, today they'd have hung anyone they caught doing that to kids. He contracted to do driveways too so he'd bring me along on those jobs as well. Hot sun, 95 degrees and humid I'd be out there raking asphalt and pulling the roller (water filled pushed, pulled by hand). At 16 I went to work on the golf course cutting fairways, roughs and greens with various size mowers up to and including a tractor with a gang mower. A few weeks prior to my 18th birthday I reported to basic training, got married a couple years later and have been working ever since. I guess the "abuse" according to modern libs that I received working on a truck farm at 14 gave me what they'd consider a bad habit in their eyes. I developed a good work ethic. Those lessons I learned at 14 were passed onto my children and hopefully will help my grandkids in some small way in their lives as well.

So where were we before I got sidetracked and told half my life story. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the Rice Lake Midwest Modifieds.


Midwest Modified action, Rice Lake 2007

Rice Lake offers some good photo opportunities and I'm looking forward to shooting there again. There was enough daylight last year to catch hot laps and most of the IRA time trials head on using available light. Rice Lake has some good angles for the type of head on shots I like to do where you can see the driver's eyes. This is my favorite angle for Sprint Car photos and I love shooting without a flash whenever I can get away with it. Perhaps I'll do that or maybe I'll try the straight on angle from the infield I did down at Arlington and Jackson. I'll see how the light is and make a decision when I get there.


head on using available light from outside of track


head on angle from inside of the track at Arlington


Robby Wolfgang shot from head on angle at Jackson

Well, this is going to have to do it for tonight. I'm about typed out for now...

Wednesday August 20, podcasts, IRA at RLS and more...

Was anybody out there listening to the Dirt Nation podcast? They went offline a while ago stating that they took their broadcasts offline in order to switch to a podcast only format and have not come back up yet. There is a post on the site stating that they ran into a delay because of an update to their podcast software. Now I'm not claiming to be an authority but some of you might recall my experiment creating a local racing podcast. Actually, it wasn't so much a racing podcast as a personal racing audio blog. After having played music for 40 years and having learned 4 track recording the recording and sound balancing part came easy for me. I did the entire podcast and mixing using a free open source audio recording program called Audacity. I listen to a lot of podcasts on a daily basis on my MP3 player, some are among the most popular on sites such as Podcast Alley, and many of the most popular podcasts are created using Audacity. They get way more listeners than any dirt track podcast will ever get. So I don't know what they're talking about that there's a delay due to their program being updated. All one needs is the free open source program Audacity, a mic, some podsafe music from one of the royalty free music sites, a few spare hours and presto, you've got a podcast. There are even free open source RSS feed generators out there for the taking. Actually I got pretty good at mixing the sound (attributable to past music recording and sound board experience) and my podcast stacked up pretty well as far as sound quality.

Another podcast I have been listening to on occasion is the KFAN Motorsports show. I'm not particularly fond of that one (no offense to Chris Hawkey) but it's too commercialized and NASCARized for my taste. Obviously it has to be commercialized because it's a re-broadcast of an AM radio show so they have to advertise and follow the standard radio format. Part of following the standard corporate radio format is music clips that target a young audience and emphasizing the personalities of the hosts often times it seems even more than the racing. I understand the need to do that, they have to attract younger listeners and target the biggest audience possible which in racing means television NASCAR fans.

Many of you might remember that the former host was Russ Bohaty and that Chris came in as a co-host and ended up taking over the gig. Russ is a good guy, really sincere and he loves his racing, but I think maybe his love for grass roots racing over the bigger picture (NASCAR) might have had something to do with the change. I talked to Russ as recently as last Friday night and I know Chris a little but I have never discussed this with either of them. I could be all wrong so consider this my opinions, my observations, which may not be entirely accurate as far as what really happened. All I know is that I liked Russ' more locally oriented coverage better because it had less NASCAR and not as much trendy music. Just my opinion so take it however you will but when I listen to a podcast or radio show I don't want to hear banter between hosts or endless music and commercials. True podcasts, those done in somebody's home office with a PC and mic, are often much more to the point and that's what I prefer.

You're probably thinking "if you think you can do better why don't you go ahead and do it?" Like I said, I could put out a good broadcast from a sound standpoint and set it up with RSS so your podcatcher could locate new episodes. I know how to do that and have done it. I could make the phone calls, line up the interviews and cull news to report on the podcast if I wanted. I think I've got enough contacts and friends in the racing business that I could get that done. I've got a digital voice recorder that I could use to get interviews at the track and have tested it so I know how to upload them to the computer and incorporate them into a podcast. There are programs such as Skype that are used to make the long distance calls and record the conversation directly onto a computer so with a little practice I could do that.

The reason I didn't take my podcast any further is that I already have a full plate of things to do at the races. There is also a line that I drew in the sand a few years ago after we did a year of television interviews. I swore that I would never work that hard at the races again for free. Without advertising or some kind of compensation it just wouldn't be worth it to do all that work at the track. My photography is basically a hobby but I do sell a few photos from time to time so I get some hotdog and gas money out of it. If I did a podcast and chased interviews it would be too much like a job and even though the fans would enjoy it I'd just be obligating myself to do even more work. That's why I stopped posting news and results and went to news feed links on the gotomn.com website. There are text links for tracks and sanctions as well as Speednet and Hoseheads Newsfeeds right on the main page. In addition to that there is a links page. That's all you need to find what you're looking for. I don't have to post endless results on my main page where you have to scroll through 200 banner ads to find out who won. I've got most of the favorite local tracks (to my location just north of the Twin Cities) and links to the most popular message boards on my site. If you can't find what you're looking for from those sources there's probably not much more I can do to help you. Besides, my site does have some news but it's never going to be everything to everybody. No website is that good.

Another thing that bugs the hell out of me is dirt track racing sites that require registering a user name and password to view content. Now I understand why people need to register to use message boards and that sort of thing but no way anybody should have to register to simply enter the site. Heck, I can see photos, video, and all kinds of stuff on places like YouTube and major news and sports websites. Who do these dirt track site webmasters think they are that their content is so valuable users should have to establish a user and password. As a webmaster I know what the reason is, sponsor statistics, demographics, market share, all that commercial sh*t. Now I realize that there's a time and place for corporate mumbo jumbo but when I come home from a day of that stuff at the office I don't want to deal with it when I surf my favorite dirt track sites. I think with the worsening economy and tighter advertising dollars some of these self serving money hungry folks that thought they could get a piece of the dirt track racing pie are going to find out that it's not the cash cow they imagined. There are a few, and I won't say any names, that have come along during the last five or so years and were gonna' whip the dirt track world. One even suggested that I shut my site down and go to work for them "and do it the way it should be done." Some no longer have a presence on the internet, they came in like a flash in the pan and ran off with advertiser's money. Their sites are gone and mine (the one that wasn't doing it right) is still out there.

So if anybody comes on the message boards and says they're the next new dirt track site that's gonna' whip the world give it the test of time. If it's still there in a year then just maybe there's something to it. I think most racing fans can see that type of deal as clearly as if the webmaster had a sign on their forehead that says "I'm only in it for the money."

Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking. I used to run a few banner ads but those businesses approached me and offered to help me with my website expenses. I never solicited any advertising and when some of them started making demands I said to hell with it and discontinued the banners. I'm appreciative of all the help I got and I got to know a few business owners through the banners that I still see sometimes but it just wasn't something I wanted to continue. Other things I tried years ago was selling photo CD's and gotomn decals but I probably caused more hard feelings by doing those things than it was worth. I never made much doing it and all I was ever wanting to do was supplement my gas and hotdog expenses. Now that I have put more emphasis on the photography (and hopefully gotten pretty good at it) that's how I make a buck or two but even that isn't much. Mostly I do what everyone else does, hold my expenses down wherever possible and spend every spare penny I can muster to go racing.

And now that I'm not hung up on the financial end of it I'm having a lot more fun with the racing. I learned a lot of lessons over the past ten years. I alienated some people and made some bad decisions but now my website and my racing are coming out of pocket and I do as much or as little as I can. I'm happy and my only regrets are that I might have pissed someone off in the past and that this season is winding down too fast. One thing my experience and mistakes taught me is to be suspicious of any new internet jockey that comes out of college thinking they're going to set the racing world on fire. When I taught myself how to create a website in 1996 I was already 45 years old and building computers and learning graphics and simple web design was just for fun. I didn't have any formal training and now I'm going to be 57 in a few weeks so I don't know for sure how much longer I'll stick with it. I always told people I don't want to be hunched over a computer doing this at 60 year old but that's only three years away so now I say 70 because I'm not ready to quit yet. I'd be willing to bet that gotomn gets more hits per month than some of the supposed commercial sites because it's been around for over ten years. I just don't blow my horn as loud as some people so nobody knows I'm out here half the time. I want to give something back to racing and not take away from it so I'll continue to have fun with this as long as possible.

This Saturday I'm planning on attending the IRA race at Rice Lake. I enjoyed the show last year so it should be a fun night. Rice Lake is a high banked speed bowl and the racing there is very exciting. Hopefully Red Cedar canceling won't affect the car count too much as some teams might not travel for only one night of racing. IRA usually schedules two nights when they travel in order to make it worthwhile for the teams but RCS pulled the plug without telling anyone.

That's going to do it for tonight, gotta get some rest before another exciting day at the office...

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!

".........another weekend of great weather and excellent racing. I was at Kopellah Friday night and Cedar Lake Saturday. Both shows were very good. Tons of side by side and three wide racing as the regular season nears it's end. With all the rainouts we had early this year I wonder where all the time went. Here we are on the door step of another specials season then it's all over for another year. Sometimes it seems as though this season never really got going. I'm about 15 shows behind my regular pace.
This weeks shot comes from the Modified feature at Kopellah Friday night. See you at the races............."

Wednesday August 13, just thinking out loud...

Jeff Shepard, Superior Speedway Gumout race. Get well soon.
Stan Meissner photo

First off I hope that my comments about having to take some time next season to get some projects done didn't cause too much of a stir. I got a decent bid on my roofing job so I'll have a little left over for the other repairs. Looking at the cars I'll have to see which one is worth keeping for a couple more years and I'll have my brother-in-law evaluate that. I know the people that own Sparkle Auto Sales so I'll probably buy used and work with them to find what I'm looking for. We've dealt with these challenges in the past and they're not insurmountable obstacles to attending races but some years I have had to adjust my schedule. I'm sure you have all had to do that from time to time. I'm a glass half full guy by nature and tend to panic thinking about how difficult something is going to be but once I dive into the task things work out fine. What's that called, fear of the unknown?

Actually I got a lot of experience remodeling when I owned a home in the Cities. Let's see, rewired, new duct work and furnace, plumbing, sheet rock, hanging windows, privacy fence, chain link fence, finishing the entire inside of an addition. You name it and I've probably done it at one time or another. I've got ladders and most of the tools I'll ever need. But I don't do that stuff for a living so I have to ask questions and research it so I know what I'm doing. I do about as close to a professional job of finishing drywall as the typical do-it-yourselfer is going to get. And if the project takes a professional a half day it might take me two or three days but my work has gotten the approval of the building inspector. The older I get the slower and more deliberate I get at these big projects.

I've got the week of the Cedar Lake 100 off this September so if I make some of the projects my priority instead of photo editing I can get a head start. The thing to try and do is try to maximize my time this fall, winter and next spring. I'm sure we'll be alright but we might have to juggle the schedule for a while to get it all done.

I'm not such a hard core racer that I have to go to a set number of races and I have been doing it for a long time. Since 1962 to be exact.

Did I mention that we camped at Cedar Lake last Saturday? I'm finding that I can't hang in there as long as I used to a few years ago. This summer I have only hung in there until around 3am before I have to turn in for the night. Maybe I'll score my best finish of the season at the Richert Memorial. If I have to drive until 4am that's a different deal, I get into the drive so much that I have trouble falling asleep when I do get home. Difference is that when I'm driving I'm drinking energy drinks and laying off the beer for weekend. There's a big difference between the effects of Rooster Booster and Miller Lite. I'm a firm believer in staying planted in one place when you're enjoying a few beers. I always make sure that I stay for the night at the party, camp or have a designated driver. Years ago we weren't as careful but back when I first started driving in the 60's they'd sometimes even let you go and follow you to make sure you made it home. Times have changed and in this case for the better because we probably wouldn't have change if there wasn't an incentive. Then when one gets older it all starts to make sense and we mellow out.

There I go getting off in left field again.

Tuesday August 12 still trying to catch up

I can't believe that it's already Tuesday the 12th and the last time I posted was almost an entire week ago on the 6th. Time sure has been flying by lately and I have been spending some time away from the computer.

We camped out at Cedar Lake last Saturday night and had a good time even though it was a just a small group. Nothing like the USA Nationals crowd, there were only a few campers and your typical week after the Nationals smaller crowd. I have noticed that even some of the owners and track workers take the week after the Nats off every year so it must be a grueling week for everyone.

The Late Model Feature got to be kind of an ordeal this time around. The track slicked over, there were still a couple of grooves of racing but cars were spinning out almost every lap. They finally shortened the race to 25 laps and awarded the win to John Kaanta. I commented to Ron Bernhagen how frustrating it must be to work just as hard on the track for every race but they're still at the mercy of humidity, wind an weather. They put in just as much work whether the track turns out perfect or not so perfect. Man, that has to be a lot like farming, you work your *ss off based on an educated guess but never know how things are going to turn out. I appreciate what those track prep guys do and share their frustration when it doesn't go the way they'd like to see it. Maybe that was the dirt gods way of evening things out after three perfect nights the week before. The racing was actually pretty good right up to the end of the night but it was nothing like the previous weekend but that was an impossible act to follow.

This week I'll be heading to Jackson for the Friday of the Nationals. I'm looking forward to the show. My hands are wiped out after keying all day at the office so should really give them a rest but I had a few things to say. I'll try to get on here a little more during the coming weeks.

I haven't been real enthused about the racing since the USA Nationals were over. It was so good that I'm spoiled and anything else is going to be a letdown for a while. That's the problem with a great weekend of racing, it takes a while before things measure up.

Man, I'm in a jam for next season. You see, I make a pretty good living but my wife only works a little part time and she spends a lot, a lot, I said a lot of money on frivolous things. Gifts for the grandkids, furniture, decorating, who needs all that frilly stuff. Heck, I'd line the walls with my racing pictures if it was up to me but she doesn't like them. Anyways, in case you haven't figured it out I'm saying this tongue in cheek. I need a woman who knows how to decorate and to remind me to do things for the family because I'm so one dimensional I'd never think of it on my own.

Next year things could change though. You see, we moved into this house in 1997 and really got into the website around that same time. In 1999 I started writing for the racing papers and gradually got more involved in the photography since then, especially the past five years. I was having so much fun that I neglected the house and it's getting run down and needs a lot of work. We're talking about getting into a town home if the market comes back to where we can sell this place but first I'm going to have to do the work. I'm not talking a couple hours at night, h*ll that's how long it takes just to cut the grass. No, I'm talking all summer long, a couple weeks of vacation, intense stuff like replacing windows, concrete work and a bunch of big projects. I'm talking all my vacation, nights and weekends all summer long. My wife has been kind enough to let me "check out" every summer for ten years and now she's asking for something back. We're getting closer to retirement and I'm not getting any younger so I'm dreading it but it looks like the summer of 2009 will be the year I do the work.

I'd still get to a few of the big events but probably could only do about ten nights of racing for the entire season. It has taken me ten years to build up all my media contacts and get to the point I'm at today. Racing doesn't wait for anybody, if I step aside for a season there will be somebody filling my spot and I might not get it back. That's my biggest regret but I've got to take care of family and home first, racing is just a hobby.

In addition to the house I'm due for another vehicle before long. Actually it wouldn't hurt to replace both vehicles but I can't afford more than one car payment at a time. I haven't had a car payment for several years so I've been putting the extra money into other things like racing. Well, now it's catching up with me and I'm going to have to make some sacrifices. I'm not trying to get anybody's sympathy, just thinking out loud about how I'm going to tackle these obstacles that will be coming up during the next year or so. It's the wise thing to do to take care of the necessary things and I know deep down inside that's what I'm going to have to do. I'll have to take a real close look at everything during the winter and figure out what I'm going to do.

One more thing that I'm getting more and more is that the wife is sick of me using all my vacation to go racing and not taking her anywhere. I operate on a shoestring like I already mentioned so I'm not talking about going to exotic places. She likes car trips within a couple hundred miles that are not tied in with a race. I think that's pretty reasonable of her and can totally understand how she feels. I've got a cousin who used to own Sprint Cars then in 1976 they sold out and never looked back. He used to chase up and down the highway every weekend. Fairmont, Knoxville, Sioux Falls all summer for years just like us race chasers do today. Then one day he walked away and never looked back. I don't think I could do that, I love the photography too much, but I would be comfortable cutting back some. Have you ever noticed that many of the racing photographers and writers are single? Unless they grew up in a racing family not many women will tolerate a guy being gone all summer. At ten years I'd say my wife has been pretty tolerant but now that travel is so expensive I can see her point. Just like a lot of you I'm spread pretty thin but I can't see myself quitting entirely. Racing media work is like a treadmill, you can't get off and take a hiatus because your gig won't be there when you get back. The show must go on so if you get off you're out of luck. That's where I'm having a problem, I need to take the time off but I want the racing gig to still be there when I come back. The thought of not doing this anymore is depressing.

Wednesday August 6, blog statistics...

The USA Nationals and a few other things have kept me away from the blog for a few too many days. The blog hits picked up quite a bit when I was posting every day. The best month was July when it got 1397 visits. The gotomn.com website gets a lot more than the blog at around 15,000 to 20,000 unique visitors per month during the season. Unique means the number of new persons that visited the website at least once during the month, the website monthly hits are higher.

I wore myself out at the USA Nationals and had to spent a few days recouping. Actually it's been a working recouping and it has been sort of a challenging week at work. Not that I had more than the usual amount waiting for me but I've had some tough files dumped on my desk that I had to get a second opinion on. We know what the price needs to be but we're trying to figure out how to make adjustments on two separate files. They're currently sitting on a supervisor's desk and even he is having a tough time getting an answer on how to work through some of the system edits. That's right, finding the price is relatively easy compared to some of the hoops we have to jump through when something out of the ordinary comes up. It's a complex system with thousands of interconnected users. Sometimes you don't see that kind of stuff for six months but I had it waiting for me this week. Tomorrow I have to stand in for someone who will be on vacation so that's an additional task this week. Sometimes that happens but you just buckle down and work through it. Last week it was my turn to relax, this week it's somebody else's.

Tonight I was going to cut the grass but it rained here north of the cities so it was too wet. It's not that bad anyways, this time of the year the lawn growth slows down so a person can get away with going over a week between cuts. I'll find a couple hours sometime during the next few days. Probably on Friday night the way it's looking. I wonder if I could drive to work and sneak out early to get a head start on it. I'll have to think about that because an hour head start never hurts on a Friday. I've got grandkids coming over Thursday that I need to visit with so everything is going to converge all at once on Friday and Saturday.

I'm going to back off for a few weeks and only take in one night of racing per week through the Richert Memorial. The following week I'm planning on going to the 100 for most if not all of the four nights. I've got some work pending around the house that I really need to devote some of my vacation time to. I get pretty busy on the computer tending to photos when I shoot three or four nights in a row and am getting to the track mid afternoon. Probably with the 100 I could leave a little later than usual and maybe spend a night or two out there. I'm sure the campground isn't full yet so I've got time to plan this out. Thing is that week off is going to be my last serious opportunity of the summer because I don't get much done during the week. Usually after the last printed issue of MRC I can back off a little because the online version is monthly and everybody has seen photos from every possible angle of every car that races within 500 miles so I'm not in a big rush to get them posted the very next day. By that time of the season I can swap CF cards and not take as many shots. Who knows, maybe I'll even watch a Feature from the stands. I'm thinking about doing that one of these days because I haven't watched a Feature from the stands all season. I do watch some Heats and some of the semi Features from the pit side stands at Cedar Lake sometimes if I have to take a break.

Anyways, I'm rambling too much tonight. I'll try to get in the habit post more often again now that we've got the big weekend out of the way.

NAVY DAVY'S SHOTS OF THE WEEK!!!

".........it all started Wednesday night at The Superior Speedway for a WDRL show. It was a hot and humid night. I was waiting for that big air conditioner just to the north to kick in but it never did. The track was great and the racing was pretty darn good too. Jimmy Mars was the class of the field that night making his win in the 50 lap feature look easy.
Thursday found us back at Cedar Lake Speedway for night one of the 21st Annual USA Nationals. With another beautiful night WDRL was on hand for another great 50 lap feature. On hand also were the Nascar Superstocks. Mike Weber won the feature. The 50 lap WDRL feature went to John Kaanta who held off Jimmy Mars after a lap 41 caution.
Friday night we were once again at Cedar Lake for night two of the USA Nationals. With 50 cars taking qualifying, a full show of Nascar Late Models, six USA National heat races and a pole dash the night was topped off with another 50 lap WDRL feature which was a make up from the Masters back in June the fans got more than their monies worth. It just doesn't get any better for us Late Model nuts. The track held up well and the racing was as good as it gets. In the Nascar feature Pat Doar and Rick Hanestead ran side by side for 20 plus laps before they got into lapped traffic at which time Hanestead pulled away for the win. A very excited Brady Smith entered victory lane after the 50 lap WDRL feature. It was a great night.
Saturday was third and final night of racing at Cedar Lake. What another great night it was. On tap this night was another full show of Nascar Late Models, two 20 lap B-Mains for the last chance to get into the 100 lap USA Nationals and of course the 100 lap feature. After Friday night I thought maybe Saturday would be a yawner. Boy was I wrong. The final night of the 21st Annual USA Nationals was as good as it gets. In the Nascar 30 lap feature Kerry Hanson in the 4 car took off in the lead and stayed there for ten or so laps. Brent Larson and Lance Mathees were making their way through the field. Larson grabbed the top spot as Hanson fades back. Right there with Larson was Mathees and these two fought back and forth for the remainder with Larson getting the win less than a car length in front of Mathees. After some track prep the 100 lap feature was next. With the lights turned off and spot lights and smoke the feature cars entered the track one by one. This was another great race. There were several leaders at different points throughout. Early in the race there was one scary moment when Eric Pember lost a tire in turn four and rolled his car. Fortunately he wasn't hurt. Can't say the same for his car though. After 99 laps it came down to Scott Bloomquist, Shannon Babb, and Brian Birkhofer. Birkhofer had a flat tire earlier in the race and had to start at the rear and worked his way back to third. It was nearly a three wide finish to another great night. Bloomquist was the winner.
After attending all 21 USA National events this I think was the best yet. As I said all weekend "it just don't get no better than this".
Each of this weeks shots comes from all four great nights. See you at the races.................."

Saturday August 2, final night of the USA Nationals

Here are a few Friday night photos:


Justin Fegers comin' atcha!


The "Intimigator"


The WDRL make up Feature salutes the crowd


Brady Smith (2) battles Ashley Anderson (81) for the lead


Brady Smith celebrates in Victory Lane

It's been a busy weekend and tonight is the big Feature event. I'm enjoying the show and it should be a good one tonight. Last night Bloomquist uncharacteristically hit the wall during his first timed lap forcing him to start from the back of his Heat. Bloomer worked his way up to second putting him in the show. It should be interesting to see him work his way up from the back.

I'll be posting more when I get a chance. Just wanted to let everyone know I haven't forgot about the blog.

Tuesday and it's gonna' be a warm one at the USA Nationals...

Forgive me for I have screwed up. How's that? Well, I forgot to reserve a campsite for the USA Nationals this year. I got a few offers for some extra space but now that I see the forecast calls for hot weather I'm thinking that it might be kind of tough staying in the tent trailer for three days. I don't have A/C in my truck so I wouldn't get a break from the heat for three straight days and nights. Not that a little warm weather would hurt me but I prefer to limit my camping to two nights. I'm thinking about pulling the camper out there the following Saturday for a regular night of racing. That would be more laid back and if it's hot it will only be for one night.

So I'm gearin' up for the USA Nationals without the luxury of a campsite. I've got a writing deadline on Sunday so it's probably not a good idea to be up all Saturday night and then try to process photos and write a column. There are certain big weekends in my annual racing schedule that deserve special attention and the USA Nationals is one of the biggest. If somebody offers me a place in their camper to crash I might stay out there Friday night. We'll see what happens on Friday but Saturday is out of the question. I've got Thursday and Friday off work so I'll figure something out. It's a win win deal, if I find a place to spend the night on Friday I win and if I drive home I'll have a chance to work on my photos. Either way is fine with me, I don't mind sleeping in my own air conditioned bedroom.

Who do you think will win the USA Nationals? I'd have to go with Scott Bloomquist, Jimmy Mars or Brady Smith. Those are the three that I think have the best chance of winning this weekend. I haven't paid much attention to who's coming up here and there are a lot of Late Model drivers I'm not familiar with. I'll have to defer to a statistician like GRP to verify how many different Late Model drivers I've seen at Cedar Lake during the past decade but I'm sure there are a lot of them. I never paid much attention to the Late Models before I started writing for MRC. I'd bring the kids out to CLS to watch them sometimes but mostly we went to Sprint shows. When I got into the website, writing and photography I came to appreciate them a lot more. Now I start having withdrawal pains if I go more than a week without seeing the Late Models. It's funny how things come around isn't it. Am I mellowing with age or just a closet four wide fanatic?

Mostly I like watching the guys I see week in and week out so I'm happy to see they've got a full program of the Nascar Late Models. I've gotten to know a lot of those guys during the past ten years so that makes it even more enjoyable. Weekly shows at Cedar Lake are a lot of fun so I try to get to as many as possible each season. It's a great bunch of people and sometimes I even regret occasionally heading to other destinations for special events. But I have to remind myself that variety is the spice of life and that I cut my racing teeth in the grandstand of a big ol' half mile and enjoy the quarter mile bullrings. This year included asphalt Midgets at La Crosse so I got a taste of some different types of racing. We even saw indoor Midgets and that's going to be something that's going to get bigger every year.

Les and I went to the Arlington Raceway last Saturday night for the IRA Sprint special. Here are a few samples of some of my photos.









Arlington is a tough place to shoot. They've got a darker color of dirt than I'm used to up here north of the Cities and east into western Wisconsin. It's not as black as the surface down in Jackson, Husets or Knoxville but it's darker than places like Cedar Lake or Princeton. Every track has different lighting and angles, taking racing photos is a moving target, that's for sure. I was please with the results from Arlington but a little disappointed with my percentage of "keepers".

This week I'll be back on familiar turf at the USA Nationals. It's going to be more crowded than usual so that makes it a little tougher getting around the grounds and getting in position to take a photo. Not only for the outside the track stuff in the grandstand and tiered parking but there are usually a lot of visiting photographers as well. Not only do you find people standing where you usually do every other weekend but somebody done planted their *ss in your folding chair while you were taking pictures. There's just more people to deal with, great for the track but it's more of a challenge for the photographer. We adapt. I've got some ideas that I'm anxious to try out. Watch my photo gallery for the results.

NAVY DAVY'S SHOT OF THE WEEK!!!‏

"...............after getting rained out for the 8th time this season at Kopellah we beat feet for The Red Cedar Speedway Friday night. The Modifieds put on one of the best shows I've seen in awhile. All through the heats and the feature they were side by side and three wide. After all the heats were finished I realized they didn't have a photographer on hand so I went out to the truck got my camera and did the features. The Modified feature was great. There was Dave Cain and Craig Thatcher, two of the best runners around doing battle with Jake Hartung. Wouldn't you know it-Jake got the win.
Saturday it was back to Cedar Lake on a warm clear night. Another good night of racing. Congrats to Cory Davis(superstock winner), Craig "The Wild Child" Brightbill(A Mod winner) and Jeremy Houle a rookie in the Midwest Mods for his first win. All are first time winners at CLS in '08.
This weeks shot comes from Red Cedar. Craig Thatcher, Dave Cain, and Jake Hartung battling in the A-Mod feature. See you at the races..........."

Wednesday 7/23 thoughts...

We missed a Saturday night of racing last weekend due to rain and I'm feeling out of it. I'll probably get the passion back this weekend when I go to the IRA at Arlington. Arlington will kick off a busy week with the USA Nationals next Thursday through Saturday nights. I'm still not 100% sure whether I'm going to spend the entire weekend out there in the camper, drive back and forth or some combination of the two. My writing deadline is a week from Sunday and it's brutal just trying to stay awake the Sunday after an all nighter let alone write and edit photos. Maybe somebody will twist my arm but I'm kind of leaning towards driving back and forth so I can get some things done around the house and keep up with the writing obligations. I've got a contractor lined up to do my roof and it's beginning to look like the job might fall right in the middle of the USA Nationals. The wife is going to want me at home so I can handle the details with the contractors. It looks like it could end up being a busy two days of vacation more than a relaxing one.

Anytime I've got consecutive nights of racing like that the routine goes something like this. Get up, cut the grass, get online and check email etc., while I charge camera and flash batteries. Get out to the track early so I can get a parking place reasonably close to the back gate. Walk around and stake things out, plan my photo strategy for the night, talk to a few people and say hello to those I don't see very often. Have the camera setup by the time hotlaps start and shoot all night until the conclusion of racing. Make my way to the truck (back and feet are usually aching by this time) and drive home. Fire up the computer, grab a glass of water or sometimes a beer if I've got any, upload my photos and start sorting through them. Check email, make some notes for my column before I forget what happened. I'm usually wound up so I've got to watch a little television then get to bed by 3am. The next morning get up and work on the previous night's photos, charge flash batteries, check the truck, say howdy to the wife and head back out to the track. Same routine at the track and at home for three days and nights.

You can probably see why it's so tough for me spending the weekend at the track when I've got deadlines. When I do that I'm three days behind by the time I get home on Sunday and I've still got a column to write. Sunday I send photos, write my column, send the column, send any additional last minute photo requests, and get as many of the Saturday photos processed as I've got time for. Do a few loads of laundry, make sure I turn the alarm clock on and put the trash and recycling out on the road. So it's not just a matter of sitting around relaxing and drinking beer by my camper for three days and nights. As a matter of fact, sitting around drinking beer can be more of distraction because I'm sitting there thinking about everything I have to do when I get back home. Long race weekends are a lot of work, I'm usually on my feet for five or six hours at the track, so it wears me out. That's why I would prefer not to camp on the weekends that I've got a writing deadline. Some years it falls that way. I didn't reserve a campsite but I've had a couple offers so I might relent and take them up on it. It would be grueling to stay out there but there's something to be said for the parties. If I wasn't doing the photography and writing there's no question about what I'd do. I'm probably going to go right down to the wire before I decide.

Speaking of photos and graphics I hope some of the people that have inquired about me doing graphics for them understand my situation. I'm not going to be the most responsive at getting it done because I've got a day job that keeps me away from home from 6am until 5pm every day. The photos and graphics are just a side deal that I squeeze in on nights and weekends when possible. As you have already seen, next weekend during the USA Nationals I'll have little time for working on photos and no time for graphics. Oh, if I got a special shot that someone needed an 8x10 of I could get it developed in one hour (at a higher cost per photo) and bring it with me the next night. Usually I try to put the photos on the back burner during those long racing weekends. I think me being kind of slow might have irritated some people that have been after me to do some artwork but I have to remind them. Those guys getting their artwork to you the next day have all day to work on it and they own $5,000 roll stock printers. I send all my stuff out and have to do it on nights and weekends when I get a spare moment. Kids and grandkids drop by, things break down around the house, sometimes I just need a break. Are other guys faster than me? Yes. Will I eventually get your order done? Yes.

It helps, especially with the artwork, if people can give me an idea what they want so I don't spin my wheels designing something they don't like. Those guys that do graphics for a living will come up with one design for the big events. Every graphics event border design is the same except it's got a different car in it. When I do them I sit down with a blank piece of paper (actually a blank computer screen) and start from scratch. With my method you're going to get a one-of-a-kind design but it's going to take me an hour or two, sometimes more. Seeing as processing is about $4.95 and I'm spending 2 hours on the design there's $20 profit so I'm making $10 per hour or less. Usually when a person starts a side business they want to make more per hour than they do at their day job, not one third or less. So I'm not doing it to make a huge amount of money but it's something I can do in my shorts while drinking a beer instead of vegetating in front of the television. I figure if I'm going to sit here I might as well make a little something.

So I do appreciate the orders and I'm sorry that I can't be as fast as those folks that do this for a living. The way I figure is this is the only way I can make a few bucks to supplement my travels. Next year who knows, I'm due to buy a car and that means the payments will cut my racing budget down to just about nothing. I don't even want to think about it right now... We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime I'll have fun this season.