Southeast Nebraska ramblings

Rain, rain, go away!! Second-guessing the police; more trip planning

2011-05-21T15:56:00.000-05:00

The scheduled opening of Beatrice Speedway on May 22nd did not happen due to weather. We had rain over the first and middle part of the week. Of course, when Friday came, the sun came out and the weather ended up being absolutely beautiful racing weather. Beatrice Speedway posted on the rainout report on DirtDrivers.com on Thursday that it was too wet to get the track in shape to race for Friday. The first regular season race ended up being Friday May 6th.

When the cancellation was posted, Brandon Johnson made the comment about “all the rain we haven’t gotten.” I don’t approve of spreading rumors, but I’d heard several stories about the road grader the track had been using. The bottom line was that it was no longer at the track! I have to agree with Brandon’s reply “Having a race track without a grader is kinda like having a Hotdog stand with no hotdog buns. It just don’t work.“ There wasn’t anything else said about this until Wednesday morning when John Meyer posted a question about the comment. The road grader issue has since been addressed, and a HUGE THANK YOU goes out to Katz Farms of Jansen, Nebraska.

I spent an hour Tuesday evening, April 19th, talking to a fellow racer about what we feel are problems at Beatrice Speedway. We both agreed that the top priority for the track should be communication. Years ago there was always an information & rules meeting held in November. At that time, any rules changes were discussed and actually voted on by the drivers in attendance. The schedule for the upcoming season was released and car registrations were taken.

I guess with classes being IMCA sanctioned, the powers that be decided they did not need to have these meetings. They neglected to realize that just because IMCA dictated the rules, the drivers still want other information passed on!

I heard about a driver from Sioux City who had been at the 2010 Octoberfest. He really enjoyed racing at Beatrice and wanted to come back for the Beatrice Spring Nationals. However, as the date neared, there was nothing posted on the Beatrice Speedway website or DirtDrivers.com. In order to get information, he called a Beatrice racer to see if Spring Nationals were even going to happen. This sort of thing can not continue!!

Beatrice Speedway now has a great looking website, but the webmaster can’t post information that she doesn’t have. The track will have to continue to feed that information to her on a timely basis. That does not mean in a few days, but as soon as the races are over!

Greg Soukup has done an EXCELLENT job with the Eagle Raceway website as far as posting results. He is an example of how it should be done. When I get home at 6 AM, I check the website and complete results are posted, including heat race and B Features, from 1st to last place. All tracks should have a Greg Soukup! I hope that Beatrice Speedway officials can follow suit and provide information to the webmaster quickly so it can be posted.

Back gate – I’ve gone racing before when I felt like the racers were paying their own purse. We normally pay $20 for pit passes at Beatrice. A couple of years ago, we pulled up to the pit shack for the county fair races and found the pit passes were $25 for that day! As I recall, the purse was not increased except for the winner. Beings it was the county fair, the grandstands were packed. The track had to have made money that night.

However, I talked to a lot of people that night who did not know the pit passes were $5 more until they bought them. Even for practice days, if you look at what pit passes cost, there is a great disparity. I’ve seen pit passes for practice just this year range from $5 to $15. I understand the need to pay for insurance, utilities, etc. but why is there such a big difference?

Beatrice Speedway had a Fan Appreciation Night in 2010. Will there be another one in 2011? Judging from the packed grandstands that night, there should be. I posed the question to Jon Weichel and he said there is “talk about it.” Things like that need to be talked about and SCHEDULED before the season, and posted on the track’s website! All specials should be posted when the schedule comes out, and then those specials need to be ADVERTISED! Eagle’s website has a “special” night posted every night of the season! Why can’t Beatrice Speedway do that?

How about a “carload” night? An entire carload of fans gets into the grandstands for, say $25.… Or the same promotion for “SUV night.” How about a “pickup truck night?” Military Appreciation night for all current and past service members. How about everybody over 55 getting in free one night? Just show your driver’s license. Same with maybe letting everybody from Kansas into the grandstands for free some night. If that would not work, how about half price? Put all of these in the schedule that is on the website. Have the announcers promote the specials every chance they get!

Why didn't the Kids' Club continue? There were a lot of kids that were disappointed. Why don't we get more coverage in the Daily Sun? Will Track Talk continue on KWBE this year, and if so, when will it be broadcast? There are a lot more questions than answers right now.

I've seen and heard comments on other websites that promoters and track officials should stay off the internet, and have even heard of the same group of saying the internet is the reason their track is failing or has failed. I call BULLSHIT on that!! Use it to your advantage!! PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE!! If the Fair Board doesn't want to spend the money on a membership to Dirt Drivers, I will pay it for you, just be sure to USE IT!!

There is a question on the Beatrice Speedway Facebook page that asks “Survey for all former racers. Please be honest here. Why are you no longer racing?” I know there are a lot of people on Facebook, but maybe they don’t look at Beatrice Speedway on Facebook, as there have only been 2 replies so far. Check it out and post a reply.

It seems like no matter where I look, there are things out there that get me fired up. On the PoliceOne.com website, I found a story about a fight in IHOP in Atlanta, Georgia. There has been a video posted on you tube.com of the video. I personally have no problems with people posting video of these incidents, but if they are going to do it, they need to post from the very beginning of the incident to the very end. This video shows the woman trying to scratch the officer’s eyes out and the results of that attempt. There are cries of “police brutality” in the background, but no citizens offering to help the officers. From what I saw, the officers were completely justified in their actions.

The actions of Police Officers are always being second-guessed. Officers have to make split-second decisions that will be looked at for weeks, months and even years to come. We all make a decision before our shift begins that we will be going home to our families at the end of the shift, no matter what. If the poor decision of a citizen means they are injured or, worse yet, killed, that decision is their responsibility.

There was an Officer Involved Shooting the last week of April where I grew up in Crete, Nebraska. Officers responded to a domestic disturbance. When they arrived on the scene, the male ran into the house and grabbed a handgun. The gun had a laser sight on it, and the laser was on one of the officers. The man was told to drop the gun, but he ignored commands and was shot.

The first news account I saw of this incident was when a neighbor was interviewed. She questioned what took so long for an ambulance to get on the scene. No questions were asked about officer safety. After shots were fired, the suspect retreated back inside the residence. Officers were told there were many more firearms in the residence. The suspect did not answer when officers attempted to talk to him. They had no idea where he was. It is an officer safety issue that the officers do not rush in to find the suspect.

It’s fortunate that the suspect will live, but the officers involved will be scrutinized for their actions for a long time, even though they did not do anything wrong. So far in 2011, there have been 63 Line of Duty Deaths in the United States. Of those, 30 have been by gunfire. The next highest number of officers killed was from vehicle crashes at 13. There have been incidents of multiple officers being killed in the same incident, so there’s no guarantee in “safety in numbers.” For the civilians reading this, when you are contacted by a law enforcement officer, PLEASE do what you are told!! You can ask questions later.

Mother Nature continues to tease us with nice weather one day and not-so-nice weather the next. With the cost of gas may have peaked here at $3.949. Since then it has dropped to $3.799, but who knows where it will be a month from now? If there is any way I can ride the Gold Wing to work instead of taking the pickup, I will. I am sure driving habits will once again change everywhere as the price of gas continues to change. We’ve already decided that the trip to Chesapeake will more than likely be our only “big” outing this season. With gas already being $1.30 more than last season, we’re all feeling the crunch. However, the trip to Chesapeake is still a “go.” We intend to get a lot of sightseeing done while we are there.

60 Years of Marriage; Beatrice Speedway Factory Stock rules are (FINALLY) posted

2011-04-20T14:10:00.000-05:00

After making plans since late January, family and friends of my parents gathered in Crete, Nebraska Sunday, April 3rd, to celebrate their upcoming 60th wedding anniversary. After Mom decided on a date, my brother’s wife Anita and my wife Jan did a lot of planning. We took a Saturday to go to Lincoln with Dave & Anita to get table decorations and some other items. We split up a grocery list for the day of the party, and at our house Jan spent all of Saturday making a pasta and fruit salad called “Frog eye salad.” We ended up with 3 buckets full of the stuff - and now there are a lot of blind frogs out there!

With the weather being nice one day and not so nice the next, we hit upon a nice day. Sunday was pleasant but windy. Mom’s brothers, one from California and one from Arizona, were able to come. Dad’s brother Francis & sister Janice were both able to be there. Dad’s cousin Donald, who was Dad’s best man, was able to make it from Omaha. Janice had been Mom’s bridesmaid.

I never really looked at the guestbook, so I’m not sure of what the final count for the afternoon was, but there were still people coming in while we were packing things up getting ready to go. I think that in itself says a lot about the last 60 years that Dad & Mom have shared, not only with each other, but with family, friends and even the surrounding community. Even though they have both been long retired, they stay active by helping with the community Food Net and the Maples, which is a local historical society.

The 2011 racing season is supposed to start at Beatrice Speedway this Friday, April 22nd. However, looking at the forecast, I’m not so sure that will happen. We had a lot of rain last night, and the forecast shows that it will more than likely rain on Friday. If the opener does not happen on Friday, it will be pushed back to May 6th.

The practice at Beatrice Speedway was cancelled because of rain earlier in the week. Practices at Junction Motor Speedway and US 30 Speedway as well as Jefferson County were all cancelled because of rain. The season openers at Thunderhill at Mayetta, Kansas was also cancelled because of wet weather. Heartland Park at Topeka was able to get their opener in on Saturday, April 16th.

The rules for the factory stock class at Beatrice Speedway have FINALLY been posted! There is really no excuse for waiting until the last minute, but the rules were not released until the week of practice. I know the webmaster can’t post the rules until they are released, so it’s not her fault. In past years, we always had a meeting in November outlining the upcoming season and everybody knew the plans in advance.

The rules this year will allow the pro-am type cars to race with us, which is what some of us were hoping would happen. However, it looks like in 2012 we will once again be IMCA sanctioned and the pro-am cars won’t be allowed to race with us.

I like standardized rules such as IMCA provides, but I don’t especially like having to buy the license. My experience with IMCA is that when you race at one track, the money paid back from IMCA at the end of the season may cover the cost of the license. However, with IMCA sanctioning, teams will have to make a decision as to what engine package they will run in 2012. If they continue to run their current engine, they will have to buy a smaller carburetor. If they want to run their current carburetor, they will have to spend money to change their engines. Seems like every time there is a rule change to save us money, it ends up costing us money.

Before a final decision is made on IMCA sanctioning for factory stock/stock cars, I would hope the people making that decision would look at the past history of the IMCA stock car class at Beatrice Speedway. The last year that Beatrice Speedway had IMCA sanctioned stock cars, by the end of the season there were only 9 cars that raced week in and week out. In 2010, the factory stock class averaged 14 cars a night. I think that with pro-am type cars being allowed in 2011, the car count may increase a little. Of course, with the cost of fuel for the haulers, there are teams that will probably stay closer to home no matter what class they race, so it’s a toss-up as far as car count goes.

I know if drivers have to purchase a license in 2012, our car will not be able to be there every week. We have been splitting driving time between Jason, Jeremy and I, and I don’t think either of them will want to buy a license.

I know that the changing economy hurts our sport. There are other reasons that car counts decline - loss of interest, expenses, family, etc. We need to do everything possible to make it more attractive to fans as well as current and future racers. Maybe we could even attract some of the old racers to come back. Making the sport more expensive for the participants will not accomplish this.

"Stolen Valor;" AKA lying about your military service, is "protected speech," Racing at I-80 Speedway

2011-04-07T15:14:00.000-05:00

I receive an online publication called Military.com. Last week, an article in Military.com dealt with a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concerning “Stolen Valor.”

The concept of “Stolen Valor” goes back as far as I can remember. I know of people who now claim they served in the military in Viet Nam. However, if they had, they would have been 12 years old, and I know they were discharged before ever graduating from basic combat training!

In a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Stolen Valor Act, under which former water board member Xavier Alvarez was fined and ordered to perform community service in 2007, was upheld as being unconstitutional. The Court upheld an earlier ruling determining that a law barring people from lying about their military heroics was a violation of free speech.

The earlier ruling, which was made by three of the court's members in August, invalidated the 2006 act by Congress.

Alvarez, a Pomona resident and then a member of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District board, pleaded guilty in July 2008 to falsely saying he had won the Medal of Honor. He was fined $5,000 and sentenced to three years of probation, which required community service.

Alvarez is currently at Centinela State Prison in Imperial County for defrauding the water district after being convicted of registering an ex-wife for health benefits with the district in 2007. It seems that he follows a pattern of being less than truthful.

Last week’s weather was still warm one day and cool the next. It warmed up long enough to be able to go to I-80 Speedway at Greenwood, Nebraska to raced on Friday night. Of course, before I left that day, the price of gas at the pump went up another 3 cents from 2 ½ hours earlier in the day. The manager told me, “Sinclair called and said we have to raise the price, so it got raised.” I still can’t figure out how that works. When I got to the interchange where the race track is, the price at the pump at SINCLAIR was 14 cents less than at Beatrice! Years ago, the price of gas on the interstate was always more than in town. I guess that doesn’t hold true any more!

Having never raced at I-80 before, I had no idea what to expect. On Thursday, I changed the rear end gear to the “tallest” gear I have. I even thought that may be too “deep” but in the end, I think I was about right.

I pulled into the pit area and got a pit stall right next to Al Humphrey’s late model. I figured that would at least be a good spot to park and if I needed any help all I would have to do is ask. Once the car was off the trailer, I had to register and draw for starting position. I NEVER draw a good number…. If there are 300 numbers, I’ll draw 299! This time - I drew #4, which would put me at the front of my heat race!

From there I hunted down a track official with some questions as to what I might have to change on my car. I also mentioned not having ever raced at I-80 before and made a decision to forego my draw and start at the back of the pack in my heat race. The only change I had to make to the car was to remove the rear spoiler. There were a couple of other things pointed out to me that need changing if I were to race there on a regular basis. Until I find a major sponsor who will fill the hauler with fuel every week, that will not happen!

At least the stock cars/pro-ams weren’t the first cars to race. We were the first ones to take hot laps, and the track was still “greasy.” Coming out of turn 2 there was still water in the middle of the track, and going into the turns at the bottom of the track got me into the slippery stuff and the car wanted to slide to the top. Thankfully, the late model heat races were first, so by the time we got onto the track it was in good shape.

Having given up my starting spot, I started 8th in the heat race instead of 1st. Once we pull onto the track, we’re lined up and get a full lap before going green. The track was a little rutted coming out of turn 4, but other than that, it was in pretty good shape. At the drop of the green there was a huge shuffle ahead of me and a couple of the cars got together, but everybody kept control. There was a black #50 Camaro just ahead of me and on the 2nd lap I was able to pass him. I was able to stay close to the next car, but not close enough to be able to make a pass on him, and finished 7th. By the end of the heat race I was feeling more comfortable with the track, but since everybody was going into the A Feature I did not want to push myself too hard and make any mistakes.

When the line-ups came out, I found myself starting on the inside of the 10th row. There were 24 cars scheduled to start the A Feature. At least the leaders would have to lap me before they ran me over!

I’d been told that the first few laps could be wild, with the cars up front jockeying for position. At the drop of the green, it was hammer down from the front to the back of the pack! The track was in good shape and the racing was great. I could actually stay with the cars directly in front of me, even though we just ran the first 3 laps before a yellow came out. Once the problem was alleviated, we were green again. There were multiple racing grooves with cars going to the bottom, middle and top of the track. The car that finished just ahead of me in the heat race was now just ahead of me, and I was having a great time racing with him. He was staying on a higher line, and I would try to go below him in the corners, but never could make the pass on him. With 11 to go, there was a yellow, and as we took the green, the leader blew up his engine, causing another yellow. Once the track was cleared, we were green once more. Another lap and another engine blew up in a HUGE cloud of smoke, engulfing the track from turn 3 all the way to turn 2. Everybody was on the brake to avoid hitting anybody. The car in front of me disappeared and I could not even see the end of my hood!

Once the smoke cleared and we were lined up again, it looked like I was in about 15th place. The green came out with 7 to go and there were 4 or 5 of us all racing for position together. I passed first one, then another car. At the same time, I was passed by other cars coming from behind me. During the final laps, Brent Schlake and I were side by side with me being able to pass him on the chute, but he passed me back in the corners. When the checkers fell we were still battling for position, with him coming across the line just ahead of me. I finished 14th with no major problems.

Having never raced at I-80 before, I had no idea if I was even in the ballpark as far as gear selection. I like to run my engines close to the 6,000 RPM range, and that’s right where I was. The car felt good except for a couple of laps from the end when I drove a little over my head and almost took Brent and I both out. He was driving pretty heads up and was able to keep me from wrecking both of us out.

I’d love to race there on a regular basis, but by the time I get the NASCAR license, register the car, and put gas in the hauler, it can’t be done. Being able to go to a race like this is fun because there are no points on the line. It was a kind of practice run for me, shaking more of the bugs out before we get down to regular season racing at Beatrice.

Officer Survival; Factory stocks/Pro-ams at Beatrice Speedway; Drunk driver sentenced to 50 years for killing 4 motorcyclists

2011-03-29T10:48:00.000-05:00

I recently attended a 2 day Street Survival Seminar sponsored by Caliber Press. The speaker was great and the fast moving program really made everybody think. Beside the great speaker and input from attendees, we spent a lot of time watching officers being killed. Video was taken from the in-car cameras of patrol cars with the permission of the departments and families of the officers involved. By seeing mistakes made by other officers, we hope everybody can learn and avoid these same mistakes. We always need to be thinking ahead and planning our moves, no matter what kind of call we are on.

As of this writing, the ODMP.org website says 51 law enforcement officers have lost their lives in the line of duty in 2011. There is still a week left this month, making 2011 on track to be the most deadly year for officers in recent memory. PLEASE, plan ahead and be safe out there!

Our department plans to have in-service training with practical exercises on such things as traffic stops and domestic disturbances. Domestics can be one of the most deadly situations for an officer, but this year so far traffic stops and arrest warrant service are the situations in which the most officers have lost their lives. Many of the suspects were REPEAT OFFENDERS who should not have even been on the street!

Mother Nature is still very fickle. After having temperatures nearing 80 degrees last week, and 70 on Sunday, it SNOWED last night! I rode the Gold Wing to work Monday evening, and when I headed home in the morning, it was 59 degrees. However, the forecast for the next morning was rain and 40 degrees, so the Wing stayed in the garage. The forecast for the next week is for highs in the upper 30’s and lower 40’s and rain/snow. I-80 Speedway at Greenwood, Nebraska has their season opener scheduled for Friday and Saturday April 1st & 2nd. I’m not sure that will come off if the weather doesn’t change.

At the pit meeting for the Saturday portion of the Spring Nationals, it was announced that Beatrice Speedway has been in contact with other tracks to attempt to formulate rules for a factory stock/street stock/pro-am class. It sounds like in 2011 we will pretty much run the factory stock rules that have been in place the last 2 seasons. In 2012, we will be an IMCA sanctioned class, but will be “grandfathered” to run the 4412 Holley carburetor.

Details were sketchy, so I don’t understand if this will be a “new” class or will we be going back to having to buy an IMCA license and running in the IMCA stock car class. Beatrice Speedway still has not released rules to the Speedway webmaster, so there is nothing in print, just what we have by word of mouth.

The factory stock/Pro-am class had 21 cars last Saturday. Seven of those cars were Beatrice regulars. Two were regulars at Beatrice in 2009 and call Thunderhill Speedway at Mayetta, Kansas their home track. The 3rd & 5th place finishers are regulars at U.S. 30 in Columbus while the 4th place finisher doesn’t call any one track “home.” There were some cars from I-80 Speedway at Greenwood and I believe the winner came from Iowa, as I did not recognize the name. I hope our class has a good car count throughout the 2011 season. The only thing that may hurt us is the high cost of fuel to get to tracks that are very far away.

If the weather ever stabilizes to where we can ride our motorcycles for more than a day at a time, we all need to be careful as riders as well as drivers. Grand Island, Nebraska recorded a motorcycle fatality Tuesday from a crash that happened Monday afternoon. A car apparently pulled in front of the motorcycle after stopping for a stop sign. PLEASE, everybody, look both ways - twice!!

Also in the news this week was the story of a drunk driver who struck and killed 4 motorcyclists on I-29 in Iowa last August. His BAC was nearly FIVE TIMES the legal limit after the accident. He pled no contest and was sentenced in Logan County, Iowa to 50 years in prison. He was 21 years old at the time of the crash, and it was his 2nd offense. Of particular interest was the comment of his defense attorney, who said he felt he could have gotten the charges reduced or dismissed because of the crash happening in a construction zone!! If the case had gone to trail the defense was prepared to call an expert who would have laid the blame on highway construction at the crash site. Unbelievable!!!

As we venture out on two wheels this spring, please, slow down and keep aware of your surroundings. Most importantly of all, get to where you are going safely!!

First race of 2011 - Beatrice Spring Nationals!

2011-03-22T16:16:00.000-05:00

After some long, late hours in the shop (and burning almost ALL of my firewood) we finally got on the track on Thursday night. While many people were drinking green beer for St Patrick’s Day, the R & R Racing Monte Carlo was making some practice laps at Beatrice Speedway in preparation for the 2011 Spring Nationals. It’s always a good think to have some practice time before the car is on the track to do some racing because it’s sure that there will be some “bugs” to work out. Our night was no different.

Even though the car hadn’t been scaled (getting the proper percentages for the rear, left side and cross weight) it handled fairly well. Toward the end of my first set of laps, I noticed some smoke coming out from under the hood. Once in the pits, I found that the valve cover gasket on the passenger side of the engine was leaking badly. We cleaned the oil off the firewall and put a new valve cover gasket on, and Jeremy was ready to take some laps. When he finally got out, he had a problem with the shifter not wanting to work correctly. He finally got into high gear and had some pretty decent laps, but he commented that he thought the new engine was down on power.

On my second set of laps, the track had dried out and the car seemed to want to “push” in the corners if I didn’t drive it in a certain way. By the term “push” I mean the front tires are turning left but the car still wants to go straight. I could correct the condition by working the brake and throttle together, and I wasn’t real concerned because of the fact that the car hadn’t been scaled yet.

After the practice session, I still had to work that night. I was up before noon on Friday and worked on getting the shifter and linkage right. Once that was done, I was off to borrow the scales from a racer friend. I spent the rest of Friday until it was too cold to work in the shop without having to start a fire. At that point, it was time to come inside and get some sleep.

Saturday morning started off with a breakfast at the Gage County Fairgrounds put on by the Women for Racing organization. This is one of the fundraisers these ladies put on for the racers. The profits go into the year end points fund. Good breakfast - thank you, ladies!

Back in the shop, I’d started a fire in the stove before I left, so it was warm enough to work. I got the final weight and percentages about where the set-up sheets said they should be. The work on relocating the upper control arm mounts seems to have paid off too, as I was able to set my front end alignment where I wanted it. I’ve never had that happen on a car until now. I changed the driver’s side valve cover because it looked like it was leaking, too, judging by the drops of oil on the garage floor. Aired up all the tires and both air bubbles, loaded up tools that were still in the shop, and finally got the car on the trailer shortly after 4 PM.

I pulled into the pits and started to get the car ready to unload when the announcement came over the loudspeaker - driver’s meeting at 5:00. I looked at my watch and it was 4:53. Still had to get into my fire suit, put my contact lenses in, let the air in the tires on the car down to where they needed to be, and get the RaceCeiver plugged in and the ear buds taped into my ears so they didn’t keep falling out. We were scheduled to hot lap 3rd, after the sport mods and hobby stocks.

The weather wasn’t exactly cooperating with the racing program. After fairly decent weather on Friday, the temperature stayed around 50. The wind made it feel really cold, and the crowd in the grandstand was bundled up.

The track was still a bit greasy during hot laps, making it hard to tell exactly how it would be in the heat race. It felt pretty good, but when the track changes, the handle on the car will change, too.

Our class ended up with 21 cars for this weekend. That didn’t include many of the regular factory stock racers from Beatrice Speedway. I ended up in the 2nd heat race, starting on the inside of the 3rd row. The track was in good shape and the car handled well. I didn’t make the invert, finishing in 8th, which ended up putting me on the outside of the 8th row in the A Feature.

The track held up great the entire night. All the races had 3 and 4 wide racing over the entire track and it stayed dust free, despite the cold south wind. Our A Feature started 21 cars. I was just hoping to get through the first few laps without being involved in anything. After a couple of pace laps, and the parade lap, the lights going into turn 3 flashed, signaling us that we would be going green. In the middle of turn 3 things began to get crazy with everybody on the gas. We’re down the front chute and into turn 1, then out of 2 with no problems. Out of 4 and back down the front chute to complete the 1st lap. Then, just like that, some cars up front got tangled up and there’s a red flag as there are 2 cars upside down at the bottom of the track between turn 1 and 2. Fortunately, the only injuries suffered were to the race cars and the red flag was short-lived.

We’re lined up on the front chute and the yellow is out, signaling us to start moving around the track. There’s a bit of speedy-dri on the bottom of the track where the cars had crashed, but after a couple of slow laps over that, it was blown off the track. We’re lined back up and once again we’re under green

I was happy with the way the car handled pretty much any place on the track. The track was still a bit tacky and I could drive on the bottom, in the middle or higher up on the track and seemed to have no issue with the way it handled. However, I was disappointed with the way the engine ran out. I felt there was a definite lack of power, and when the engine warmed up, I felt the oil pressure wasn’t where it should be when it idled. When the A Feature was said and done with, we ended up with a 13th place finish. Most importantly, there was no damage to the car to be fixed.

There is some tinkering to do, and until we get the low oil pressure figured out, this engine is coming back out. I can’t afford to damage it. I believe that with a better set of heads, the power will be more acceptable. In the meantime, the engine we finished the season with will go back under the hood.

If things work out and I am able to borrow a gear, I may go to I-80 Speedway at Greenwood, Nebraska on April 1st. I’ll just have to see how things go between now and then.

Daytona 500 coming up; "Diesel-mania" at Canyon Speedway; WalMart employees fired for apprehending armed shoplifter; Arizona cop killer sues for negligence in his arrest

2011-02-17T16:13:00.000-06:00

I got my weekly racing fix over the weekend by listening to the races from Canyon Speedway near Phoenix, Arizona Sunday afternoon, then following that up by watching Dirt Knights on Versus. I also caught some of the ARCA race from Daytona as well as some of the NASCAR practices and pole qualifying from Daytona. I was also able to listen to parts of the Budweiser Clash on Saturday evening. This week the NASCAR season will start its points race with the Daytona 500 on Sunday. Earlier practice speeds climbed to the 203 MPH mark and there was excellent racing in the Budweiser clash. Hendrick teammates Dale Earnhardt, Jr and Jeff Gordon will start on the pole and outside pole respectively, with the rest of the field being determined by the twin qualifying races on Thursday. Unfortunately, Earnhardt was involved in an incident on Wednesday and will be in a back-up car, which means he will have to go to the back of the field when they take the green flag.

The most famous mascot in racing - at least in Arizona - is currently from Nebraska. While Dylan Smith is in 2nd place in points in the winter series at Canyon Speedway- he trails by 4 points going into the last weekend - the team mascot, “Diesel” is getting all of the attention. Diesel is a Great Dane and he has his own “Hero” cards. For those of you not familiar with racing, Hero cards are the racers’ version of the baseball cards we had growing up. As I listened to the races from Phoenix on Sunday, I learned that during intermission Diesel was going to be in front of the grandstands, “signing” and giving away Hero cards. Diesel is a dog of few words, so I didn’t hear anything of the interview, but I heard a lot of shouting as his Hero cards were given away.

After the interview and give-aways were done, the IMCA modified A Feature took to the track. Dylan Smith of Osceola, Nebraska, who won last Sunday’s A Feature from the outside pole, started on the inside of the 3rd row. He did not have as easy of a time of it as last week, as he took the lead a few laps into the race, but lost it later as several drivers battled for the lead. In the end, Dylan scored his 2nd A Feature win of the young season.

I did a search on You Tube and found a video of the complete A Feature from February 6th. Hopefully there will be one from February 13th posted soon.

Back in Nebraska, work on my own race car seems to be going at a snail’s pace. With in-service training, then Valentines’ Day on Monday, and both Jan & I having the day off, nothing got done that day. I worked on making brackets for the drivers’ door and getting them welded on today. I hope to be able to put in a few hours on Friday, but it looks like the rest of the weekend will be taken up. The possibility of racing at McCool Junction on March 4th & 5th is looking pretty dim. I’m still trying to hang the doors and fenders. Once everything is in place, I plan to pull it back off and paint everything individually, then put it back together.

In hindsight, if I were to put up a garage again, it would be a conventional wood frame or pole barn type that could be relatively inexpensively insulated. That way, once I had the stove going, it would warm up faster and stay warm longer.

The ice is finally almost all melted out of our driveway and I was able to get the Gold Wing out yesterday. I decided to take it instead of the pickup when I had to get a blade for the band saw, which inconveniently broke in the middle of cutting my body brackets. It was a pleasant ride and I just can’t wait for the weather to warm up enough so it does not freeze overnight. When that happens, I’ll be riding to work every night again. With the price of gas 50 cents higher than it was in August, I really hate driving any more than I absolutely have to. If I am able to ride instead of drive, at least it doesn’t cost as much to do so.

I keep looking ahead to the time when I can retire. The bottom fell out of our retirement funds 2 ½ years ago, but it is slowly coming back up. I fear it may not ever be back to where it was before I finally retire. Social Security recipients have not had an increase for the last 2 years, and military retirement and disability payments have not increased due to the government claiming that the cost of living has not gone up. I think we can all dispute that.

Having defense attorneys personally attack arresting officers has become the norm. In the 27 years I’ve been a police officer, I’d never had my integrity challenged. If I do something wrong procedurally, that’s one thing and I can understand that. However, one particular defense attorney attacks the department, saying that the entire department is crooked. I have been questioned about my age and if I can see well enough to know that a car crossed the lane dividing lines. This is stress that I can do without and I will not miss when the time comes to walk away.

That’s not to say that I’ll retire and just do nothing. I’m sure I will be able to find another full time job that I will enjoy. I’ve even thought about selling and installing video surveillance systems for businesses. With today’s tough economic times, more and more businesses as well as homeowners are having surveillance installed, and setting up a great system is something that interests me. Of course, whatever I do, I will be sure to leave enough time for racing and riding. That is still a few years down the road, though.

I received an article from a friend about a WalMart in Utah firing four employees that detained a shoplifter. After taking the shoplifter into the loss prevention office, the suspect pulled out a gun and held it on the employees. The employees jumped the suspect, took the gun away and held him until the police arrived. I would call them heroes when you consider what might have happened if the suspect had gotten back in the store with a gun. Howevewr, WalMart fired the employees, saying they violated company policy by apprehending an armed violator!! An officer on our department told me he worked for WalMart a few years ago and he was fired under similar circumstances, so this is not made up! Chalk up another one for the bad guys; the people who are trying to do the right thing are now the “bad guys.”

A final note on how crazy things are in today’s world, a suspect in the murder of a Phoenix Police Lieutenant in January 2010 has filed a lawsuit against the Mesa Police Department, Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department alleging negligence on the part of the officers who arrested him.

Lt. Eric Shuhandler made a traffic stop on a vehicle occupied by two males. During the contact, Lt Shuhandler was shot one time and later died. Responding officers engaged in a 50 mile pursuit with the suspects before their vehicle was stopped. Both suspects got out of their vehicle and engaged officers in a gun battle. The report of the incident said the suspects were shot in their legs and feet. The lawsuit alleges that the arresting officers were negligent when they shot the suspects multiple times in their legs and feet. The suspects had taken cover behind their vehicle and officers shot under their vehicle, striking the suspects in their legs and ending the gun battle. The suspect has been found guilty of eight felony counts, but is now looking for a big pay day! I can think of only one kind of pay day for him, and it does NOT include any money!!!

R.I.P. Lt. Shuhandler, you will not be forgotten……

"Somewhere in the pits, a Great Dane is going wild!"; "You have an understanding wife, no kids at home, and two dogs that don't care"

2011-02-10T22:48:00.000-06:00

With the cold weather over the weekend, I still did not get out to the shop to work on the race car. Due to training, I have not been home all week, but even if I had been, it would have been too cold to try to heat the garage. The weather in the next few days is starting to look a bit more promising.

Even though we’ve been in the deep freeze, I was able to get a racing fix over the weekend. The 2009 IMCA modified National Champion, Dylan Smith of Osceola, Nebraska, has been racing in the Winter Series at Canyon Speedway near Phoenix, Arizona. With today’s technology, I have been able to follow his progress and actually have listened to a couple of A Feature races. He won his first A Feature of the year on Sunday February 6th, leading the entire 25 lap race. For those who don’t know Dylan or his car owners, Mike & Lisa Gocke, their traveling companion and mascot is a Great Dane named Diesel. As the race was winding down Sunday afternoon, Dylan was in lap traffic and the 2nd place car was closing the gap. One of the announcers excitedly proclaimed “Somewhere in the pits a Great Dane is going wild!” I don’t think I’ve heard that sort of proclamation before.

Not long after the Arizona races were over, Dirt Knights came on Versus channel. This reality series chronicles the travels of several USMTS drivers at the end of the 2010 season and comes on at 5 PM Central time on Sundays. The episodes can also be viewed over the internet later in the week by going to dirt knights.com. There is some great race footage from in car cameras, as well as pit action. If you watch it over the internet, there are no commercials, either. I really enjoy watching the show, and have watched it a second time over the internet. I hope it continues to be aired.

There is now a new and, from the looks of it, greatly improved Beatrice Speedway website. It has been a long time in development and I’ve been told there will be a lot of information added to it. I’ve heard here may be some things on it later on that haven’t been tried before.

Just by the very nature of our chosen profession, law enforcement officers don’t always have the best hours, meet the nicest people, or have a stress free life. Some departments ask that their officers put in their vacation requests almost a year in advance. For many years, I have spent some of my vacation riding the Gold Wing to a Blue Knights function and this summer will be no different. My two main “stress relievers” are riding and racing. If I could somehow incorporate them, I would have the best of both worlds. Last summer I raced at Columbus, Nebraska a few times. However, with gas for the hauler currently 50 cents a gallon higher than it was last summer, I doubt that I will be making many of those 230 mile round trips at 8 miles to the gallon. Maybe I’ll be riding there to watch instead.

That’s not all bad. When I’m going to watch, our car isn’t on the track and we aren’t burning fuel to get to the track and we’re not burning fuel in the race car. When Jeremy was in High school, we rode to Eagle on Saturday night to watch the races, then rode to Columbus the next night. He thoroughly enjoyed doing that and at 30 years old, still talks about it. I hope that in a few years down the road there will still be races that he can take his son to. Maybe I’ll even be lucky enough to still be alive so I can go too.

It’s really a family effort to race in our case. One time in the pits after the races, somebody asked me how Jan puts up with my racing. I pointed out another place in the pits and told him, “That’s where we met.” That’s not to say she was a racer herself, but she was at least interested in racing. Our first date was going to watch the late models at Sunset Speedway. We would have ridden the motorcycle that night, but it was pretty windy and I didn’t want to scare her off on the first date. Now, she tells me that I do the things I do because “You have an understanding wife, no kids at home and two dogs that don’t care!” You can just bet that when we’re on a long trip on the Gold Wing, I’m looking for race tracks along the way that we may get to stop at and watch a race!

Last summer, we stopped in Rawlins, Wyoming on the way back from Blue Knights International in Billings, Montana. My then 13-yr old granddaughter was on her first motorcycle trip. We were at a downtown ice cream shop with some other Blue Knights when a couple of race cars went by on trailers. I told Kayla to hurry up and finish her ice cream because we were going to the races. She’s not as understanding as her grandmother……. That was a race we did not go to.

Once the weather warms up and we are able to take to the road on two wheels, I hope to be riding a bit more this summer. Unless you’ve taken a trip on a touring motorcycle, you don’t know what you’re missing. Late May and early June is great- the smell of spring is all around. Flowers, clover, feedlots….. well, there aren’t that many feedlots. We try to stop about every 100 miles to stretch, top off the fuel tank and grab a snack, then it’s back on the road. If we see something we want to stop and look at, we’ll stop.

We’ve never been to Nashville or Memphis. We want to spend a couple of nights in Nashville and hopefully take in the Grand Ole Opry. Another night in Memphis, then 2 days to get back home from there. Probably go across Arkansas and into Oklahoma to get back home. If there any Blue Knights from around Nashville or Memphis reading this, I would sure appreciate any information about the area I can get.

Line of Duty Deaths in 2010 - 2011 is off to a bad start; more cold weather kills work on the race car

2011-02-04T15:52:00.000-06:00

The Officer Down Memorial Page tells us that in 2010, 162 Law Enforcement Officers lost their lives in the line of duty. Of those, 59 were killed by gunfire. Ironically, 2009 had the fewest officers killed since 2001.

Unfortunately, 2011 has started off on an unhappy note. I had a message the other day that in a 24-hour period, 11 officers had been shot. As of February 3, 2011, sixteen officers have been killed in the line of duty. Ten of them were killed by gunfire.

Fox News had a special report on the other night about this. In the online publication, PoliceOne.com, an article says the Feds will be looking into the issue by appointing a commission to study why these officers have lost their lives. There is a comments section after the news articles and it looks like the people who commented are much smarter than the Feds.

When I saw the headline, my first thought was “How many of the suspects were out on bond or had recently been released from jail? What kind of criminal histories did each of these suspects have?” The same question was posed by many of the people in the comments section.

Officers constantly train in officer safety. We need to be constantly on alert in all situations. Last weekend, a man walked into a police department and immediately opened fire, wounding 4 officers before being killed. This goes to show that officers are not even safe where they should be safest at.

I wonder what the Feds will suggest? New laws? Better officer training? One comment in the article even suggested the killings were the fault of the officers involved. Four of the officers killed were in two separate incidents in which a wanted criminal was being sought. Maybe their deaths WERE their fault - they could have been avoided if the officers had not tried to arrest these dangerous felons!

How many of the suspects were out on bond or recently released from prison? Had they been previously charged with killing somebody? Why are these people out running around? The parole boards that parole these people or the judges who release them on bond should have them as their neighbors.

Once again, the weather became a deep freeze and I was not able to even think about starting a fire in the garage so I could work on the race car. Maybe this weekend - the forecast is looking a little better. I was able to get the right side door and fender hung before having to stop. I’m still pointing toward having the car on the track at McCool Junction on March 5th, but that seems to be a pretty lofty goal at this point. March 19th at Beatrice will be a bit more realistic, IF the weather starts to cooperate a bit more.

With snow covering the U.S. from Texas to New York and beyond, we haven’t heard much from the global warming people lately. I saw some video from Chicago that at first glance I thought was a large car dealership. I then heard the commentator say that it was Lakeshore Drive with abandoned cars sitting bumper to bumper!

The cold days that keep me out of the garage even make it hard to think about planning motorcycle trips. We’ll be pulling our trailer behind the Gold Wing on our trip to the Blue Knights convention, and will need to pack the wheel bearings on the trailer before we go. Another rider in our chapter said he wants to pack wheel bearings, so we will probably do both trailers at the same time. I just dread the thought of the price of gas this summer - I noticed today it went up another nickel since 3 AM today. With the price of fuel going up, more people seem to “forget” to pay after filling up. The simplest solution to this problem would be to make the customer pre-pay. However, many of the businesses in our area won’t do this because they don’t want to “inconvenience” the customer.

I found out a few years ago that in Nevada it is the state law that you must pre-pay for your fuel. I think that would be a good law for Nebraska to have; then the businesses could blame the inconvenience on the state law. On the other hand, law enforcement would not be taking reports on gas drive-offs that the clerks have no license plate number or even a description of the vehicle to give to the officer. It’s a winning situation for all of us.

Race car progress; swap meet; IMCA modifieds at Canyon Raceway in Arizona; Schlitz, Hamms, Storz, Colt 45, Falstaff, Carling Black Label beer

2011-01-25T16:23:00.000-06:00

I was able to get a few hours worth of work on the race car Friday afternoon. The brakes are all done except for bleeding. I still have few small clamps to put on the front brake lines where they run across the firewall.

I made it to the Columbus swap meet on Saturday. With the weatherman threatening more winter weather, I get a fairly early start and was home by 4 PM. The drive there wasn’t bad; the roads were clear and the frost-covered trees were actually kind of pretty. Of course, they would have been a lot prettier if it had been about 70 degrees warmer. The trip ended up being worth the drive as I was able to buy a fire suit that was only worn one season for about 25% of what I would have had to pay for it new. I have been guilty of scrimping on fire resistant clothing since we’ve started racing. So far we’ve been lucky and I decided I do not want to push our luck any farther.

Both U.S. 30 Speedway and Junction Motor Speedway had schedules and rules available. Junction Motor Speedway was also accepting NASCAR license applications. On a related note, Beatrice Speedway still has not sent out information about car and driver registrations for 2011. There is a banner on the DirtDrivers.com website for the Beatrice Spring Nationals, but when you click on it for detailes, you get the Beatrice Speedway website that gasn’t been updated since August 24, 2010. Come on, Beatrice Speedway, GET WITH IT!

With the temperature on Sunday only being 8 degrees at noon, I decided to not even try to start a fire in the wood burner. I’m sure I could not have gotten the garage warm enough to work comfortably in. The forecast for Wednesday and Thursday looks better, so I should be able to get some serious work in on those days.

I checked on the races at Canyon Raceway in Peoria, Arizona this weekend. The track is hosting a winter series that covers 5 weekends - 10 races, the end of January and first part of February. IMCA modified driver Dylan Smith of Osceola, Nebraska, had moved into the top 5 during Saturday’s A Feature before getting caught up in a crash that happened ahead of him. He made a pit stop and got back o the track, hoping for a top 10 finish. However, he was involved in a 2nd crash and was done for the night.

Sunday’s races went better as he won his heat race and took home a 6th place A Feature finish. I plan to keep track of how he does during the rest of the series. Their latest post on Twitter says they are trying out a new car this week.

Monday warmed up enough that I was able to build a nice fire and heat the garage enough to work for about 3 hours before I had to stop and get ready for work. I think I have everything done on the brakes that needs to be done. Still have a little to do on the rear deck, then it’s on to straightening the doors so they can be mounted. I have Wednesday-Thursday off this week and the forecast looks like it will be nice enough to be able to keep the place heated so I can keep on working out there.

During a gathering the other evening, one of the guests walked in with a 12-pack of Schlitz beer! It was actually an inside joke, but it brought back memories. I hadn’t seen Schlitz around for quite a few years and only recently learned that it is still being made. I actually drank one for old times’ sake! I joked that the “born on” date was 1970.… The discussion turned to some of the “old” beers. Only three of us remembered the Hamm’s commercials with the Hamm’s bear. “From the land of sky blue waters.” It’s my understanding that Hamm’s is still sold in some parts of the country. Another beer that I remember was Storz. I almost forgot about that, but a few years ago, I saw a Storz sign hanging in a window in a bar in Falls City, Nebraska. We stopped for a burger there and when the waitress asked what we wanted to drink, I asked for a Storz. She had no idea what I was talking about, even though they had a sign in the window.

Around 1971 or 1972, Nebraska bars and liquor outlets started selling Olympia beer. It seemed popular at first, but died out quickly and I haven’t seen “Oly” for quite a few years. I also remember Colt 45 Malt Liquor and Falstaff, which was brewed in Omaha. For old time stock car racing fans in Nebraska, who remembers Bob Kosiski’s blue stock car sponsored by Falstaff? There was also a “plain label” Beer made by Falstaff. Yes, that’s what is was called, and it was in a white can with black letters that simply said “Beer.” Another one I remember is Carling Black Label, which I believe was also a malt liquor. There was a commercial that went like this “Mabel, Black Label, Carling Black Label Beer!” In the Saline County area of Nebraska, all of these beers, as well as Budweiser, were the popular ones. Of course, back then, there was no such thing as “Light” beer. We’ve sure come a long way in our “beer technology” since then. The most popular beer in the southeast Nebraska area now seems to be Bud Light and Busch Light.

While I’m mentioning Busch Light, I just have to tell about past experiences in Las Vegas. We went to Las Vegas several years in a row to go to the NASCAR weekend. When we started going, Busch was a huge NASCAR sponsor and the now Nationwide series was called the Busch series. We got into Vegas, checked into our hotel,, and the guys hit the 7-11 next door to get some beer. They had NO BUSCH BEER!! I don’t know if it’s still like that in Vegas, but at the time, we couldn’t believe that there was no Busch beer in a city that devoted an entire week to NASCAR.

Racing in other parts of the U.S; 2009 IMCA Modified Champion in a Late Model; more progress on my car; having "fun" with alcohol; more trip planning

2011-01-19T14:48:00.000-06:00

Even though we the Nebraska winter isn’t conducive to much more than hibernating, there is dirt track racing going on in other parts of the country. The annual “Ice Bowl” races were held in Alabama the 1st week in January. Street Stock racer Jeff Joldersma of McClelland, Iowa, won the A Feature both nights the street stocks raced there. Last week, USA Raceway at Tuscon, Arizona had 6 nights of racing, with the finale being on Sunday evening, January 16th.

Dylan Smith of Osceola, Nebraska, who won the 2009 IMCA Modified National Championship, raced a Late Model owned by Al Humphrey of Giltner. It was around Al Humphrey’s late models that I really fell in love with dirt track racing in 1974.

Dylan actually started driving Al’s late model in 2010 on a limited schedule with some success. He won an A Feature at I-80 Speedway near Greenwood, Nebraska, only to lose it in the tech area when the engine was found to be over the compression limit.

I had a chance to talk to Dylan a little at Columbus one race night last year and asked him about his late model deal. I told him I’d known Al for a long time and wondered out loud if Al was giving up driving. I learned that long time engine builder Larry Danhauer of Lincoln had actually gotten the together. Dylan was enjoying his time in the late model and was on the phone to Al several times during the week.

I was mildly surprised when I read in another blog, The Rest of the Dirt, that Al & Dylan had ventured to Arizona for the Wild West Shootout at Tuscon. Al has a new Victory Circle Chassis, which is manufactured in Batesville, Arkansas by Billy Moyer. Originally from the Des Moines area, Moyer has been a threat to win at any track he shows up at since the late 1970’s. Billy Moyer’s name is included in the list of winners of the Late Model Nationals at Mid Nebraska Raceway.

Dylan struggled early in the 6 race series. On Saturday he won his B Feature, started 13th and finished 13th in the A Feature. On Sunday he won his heat race and started on the outside of the 5th row in the A Feature. On the 15th lap, he got together with another car and clipped the wall, rolling his #6 machine a couple of times. The message posted on Twitter was that the car was totaled but that Dylan was sore but OK. That is a testament to how well built the race cars of today are.

This weekend, Dylan will be back behind the wheel of his modified at Canyon Raceway, where he won that series in 2010. Here’s hoping he has better luck this weekend!

With some warmer weather last week, I got a few hours work done on the car Thursday & Friday. I got the wood burner fired up and warmer the shop enough that I was able to get the rear brake lines put on and the bottom of the rear shocks re-mounted. It got cold over the weekend and it was my weekend to work anyway, so I didn’t get a chance to do anything for those 3 days. I did get about 8 hours in on Monday, and almost completed the rear deck. When that’s done, I can start to straighten the doors to get them ready to put back on.

The rear deck is almost complete

Getting closer all the time!

The annual Columbus swap meet is this Saturday and if the weather holds out, I hope to take a look around. I want to be able to work on the car on Friday and Sunday if I don‘t have to burn the place down to keep it warm!

Our weekend at work was fairly quiet. What little activity we had could be attributed to alcohol use. While some people might think that over-indulging is funny, there comes a point when it’s revolting. It’s one thing to relax and have a drink with friends, but when it gets to the point where a person drinks so much that they pass out and wets their pants, there is a problem that they need to seriously seek help for. I doubt that having to walk home 5 blocks in 13 degree weather with wet pants cured the problem, either! That HAD to be a COLD walk!!

In another incident, we had a call from McDonald’s about some possibly intoxicated people walking in to get food. One of them carried a BEER inside with him!! We were able to locate the people involved. The only one who was drinking was the one who took the beer in with him. When asked why he thought he could do that, he said he “forgot” he had it with him! How do you “forget” that you have a beer in your hand?? Was he just going to wash his Happy Meal down with a Bud Light??

I continue to work on plans for our trip to the Blue Knights International Conference at Chesapeake, Virginia in July. I hope that we can spend a day in Washington, D.C. I know this really makes me sound old, but the top two things I want to see are the Law Enforcement Memorial and the Viet Nam wall. Neither of those had been built when I was at Ft Lee in 1971. I would actually like to attend Law Enforcement Memorial Week in D.C. before I get too old to go, but it’s not in my plans for at least two more years.

Three nights of New Years Eve; cold weather putting the brakes on working on the race car; still working on plans for Blue Knights International

2011-01-13T12:34:00.000-06:00

Here we are 13 days into the new year and this is my first entry. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, I just have to be careful of how I say it so I don’t get myself in trouble.

In some of the on-line Police publications, I see articles on law enforcement officers being reprimanded, suspended or even fired for making questionable posts on social sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Some of those postings are plain stupid and if the person stopped to think about what he/she was posting, maybe they would think better of it and not make the posting. A law enforcement officer could post a questionable picture or statement, and a defense attorney might find it and use it against the officer in court. If the item puts the officer or his/her department in a bad light, disciplinary action is very possible. For that reason, I try to shy away from making work related comments in my blog or on my Facebook page.

I must really be grabbing at straws if I’m reduced to talking about this stuff in my blog!! Enough said on that subject….

Our Christmas and New Years weekends were pretty uneventful. I was on days off the entire Christmas weekend, and Jan was off Christmas and the day after. We were fortunate that we were able to spend those two days with our families. We were even more blessed with decent weather. We had to work the three days of New Years’ Eve, and even though it was pretty cold, there was no white stuff and all in all it was a fairly quiet weekend. Our Police Department had a DWI arrest about 3:30 AM on New Years Day, and the Sheriff’s Department had two more right after that.

This last weekend brought a change in the weather and now we’re going into a “deep freeze” for a few days. I hope everybody uses good sense when they have to go outdoors or travel. We don’t see as many problems in the city, but the deputies and troopers seem to have to deal a lot with stranded motorists in cold, miserable weather. According to our local newspaper, city road crews will be out through Thursday trying to get the streets cleaned. At least we aren’t having weather patterns here like we did a year ago with a new snowstorm coming in every few days.

I had to get the snow blower out to clean the driveway yesterday. I found there was a bit of a gas leak from around the carburetor, but was able to get the snow moved. In looking for a gasket for the float bowl, the parts houses I went did not have anything. I found out that one of the local lumber yards carries parts for small engines, and as luck would have it, they had the right gasket. I should be set for the rest of the winter now.

I planned to work on the race car on my Friday-Saturday-Sunday off this last weekend. I got all my parts together so I can finish my brake lines to the rear brakes. When that’s done, I can start on making the rear deck. However, the weather started to turn a lot colder and I didn’t even attempt to start the wood burner as it looked like a fire would be futile. I’m on days off Wednesday and Thursday this week, and the last time I looked, Thursday may warm up close to 30. If there’s no wind, I should be able to heat the garage to a point where I can work out there.

I am pointing toward having the car on the track at McCool Junction on March 4th & 5th. There is a USMTS modified show that weekend and in the past the open stock cars have been the support class. It hasn’t been announced yet if that will be the case, but if it is, I hope to be able to race then. When I stand back and look at the car, it looks like there is a ton of stuff to do on it, but if I can keep the garage warm enough to work out there, there really isn’t that much to do. I plan to straighten and use the old doors. I need to straighten the left rear quarter panel. I’m afraid the front fenders can’t be re-used, so I will either have to use the new after market ones I have or find some used stock ones. I’m hoping to find some used fenders for a very reasonable price. The aftermarket ones look nice, but they are so thin they crinkle if you look hard at them.

I was able to pretty much finish my expense sheet for the racing operation for 2010 over the weekend. I have to have a copy of the bill on the engine that is at Hastings so I can itemize it on the expense sheet, and 1099 forms from Beatrice and Columbus and that task will be all done. I need to remember to keep myself caught up on this stuff so I don’t have to re-construct the entire year at the end of the year.

I’ve also spent a little more time planning our ride to Chesapeake, Virginia this summer. The Blue Knights International Convention is there the 3rd week of July. One way or another, we want to spend a couple of days in Nashville as Jan really wants to go to the Grand Ole Opry. I think a day or two in Memphis should also be in order. Right now, I kind of have a 3 day ride from here to Chesapeake planned. The return trip will be a bit more leisurely and routed through Nashville and Memphis. We’re just hoping the price of gas doesn’t go up too drastically that we can’t enjoy our time.

While we’re in the Chesapeake area there are a lot of things I want to see. I was stationed at Ft Lee for AIT in 1971 and made trips to Washington, D.C. and Williamsburg, Virginia. I hope to be able to go to both places while we are there. I also went to the Petersburg Battlefield just outside of Ft Lee and would like to go back there. There’s so much history in that area that it is impossible to see it all in an entire summer, let alone the few days we will be there.

We kind of kicked around the idea of maybe camping along the way to make the trip less expensive. However, I think I’d rather have a hot shower and a real bed after riding 450 miles each day. Irregardless of what our plans are, we will have to pack carefully and wisely in order to have everything we need for the entire trip,

I’ll have to have the Gold Wing checked over closely. We now have about 32,000 miles on it, and it should go to the dealer for a complete check-up according to the owners’ manual. The front tire has almost 20,000 miles on it, but still looks pretty good. The back tire has about 10,000 miles and still looks good. The original rear tire went about 22,000 miles and I expect this one to go that far, too. I will have to pack the wheel bearings on the trailer, but other than that, it should be ready to go.

Blue Knights just had their election for International President, Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer. I want to pass on my congratulations to all of the new officers. I know you will do the job to the best of your abilities.

I subscribe to “Google Alerts.” This gives me an alert to other blogs about specific subjects. I came across one today by a crime analyst in Texas. He writes about a guy who, when stopped by law enforcement, gave them his cousin’s name. Turns out the cousin had a warrant for his arrest, so the guy went to jail. Now he’s suing the Sheriff’s Department for false arrest. In Nebraska, a guy like this is “Job Security.” Here’s the link to the newspaper story, in case anybody wants to read about it:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/010811dnmetalias.a15fbd.html

More 2010 Line of Duty Deaths; Blue Knights at Chesapeake, VA; Progress on the race car; Beatrice Speedway releases 2011 schedule

2010-12-22T02:00:00.002-06:00

Since I talked about the LOD death of Weld County, Colorado Deputy, 8 more law enforcement officers have died in the line of duty in the United States. As of today, 156 officers have lost their lives in 2010. Of these, 55 have been killed by gunfire. The Officer Down Memorial Page reports that the next highest cause of death in 2010 has been from automobile accidents. That does not include motorcycle accidents, of which 5 officers died.

The latest reported death was that of Officer Andrew Rameas of the Harker Heights, Texas Police Department. Officer Rameas was killed while providing a motorcycle escort for a funeral procession through Killeen, Texas on December 20th.

Of the 5 reported LOD deaths on motorcycles, four were in Texas and one was in Louisiana. The one in Louisiana also involved an escort; however, it was a parade escort.

Texas has had 16 officer LOD deaths, while both California and the Federal Government has had 11.

The National Transportation Safety Board released figures that showed that in 2009, 4,400 people were killed in motorcycle accidents. Miles traveled by motorcycle are on the increase, and will probably keep increasing as the price of gasoline keeps going up. I know that if it weren’t for having a motorcycle, there are a lot of places we’ve been that we couldn’t have afforded to have gone to. We’ve ridden close to 150,000 miles since I got my first Gold Wing. We got our ‘06 in July 2006 and currently have 32,000 miles on it. Many of those miles have been going to and from Blue Knights events. We plan to attend the Blue Knights International Convention at Chesapeake, Virginia in July of 2011. We will be doing a lot of sightseeing on the way there, once we get there and on the way home.

Given my occupation and my off duty pursuits of motorcycle touring and stock car racing, I am statistically more likely to be killed at work or play than the average person on the street. A few years ago, Jan & I both had our wills drawn up. Three years ago, a Gage County Deputy, who was also a volunteer firefighter, lost his life in a house fire. Shortly after that, officers in my department received data sheets to fill out with all our last wishes to include pallbearers, songs and music to be played, etc. This is something I haven’t done yet, and it’s something I really need to finish. I plan to finish our my career, retire, race every week and ride a million miles, but JUST IN CASE, I really need to finish filling out that paper!

Speaking of Chesapeake, the time will be here before we know it. I need to start planning routes and how long it will take to get there and home. Jan reminded me she will have to get her calendar marked so she will know how much time off she will have to take.

I’m spending some time in the garage working on the race car on my days off. I have most of the interior fitted and spot welded into place. I’d have liked to have spent more time working on it tonight, but I’m running out of firewood for the woodburner and it was getting pretty cold so I knocked off.

Beatrice Speedway has put up their 2011 schedule. They still haven’t put out anything about factory stocks & pro-ams being able to run together in 2011.

The season will kick off with Spring Nationals on Friday March 18th & Saturday March 19th. Sport compacts will be on the program on Friday and factory stocks will race on Friday. April 9th will be Test & Tune and the season will start on April 22nd. This will be the latest starting date in recent memory, but Beatrice always seems to have a lot of rain-outs the first part of the season, so maybe this will eliminate the rain-outs.

With the price of gasoline already being $3 a gallon, I probably won’t be going to Columbus this summer. Of course, maybe a sponsor will step up and offer to keep my hauler full of fuel for me….. That's about as likely to happen as me winning an A Feature in 2011,

Beatrice Speedway 2011 schedule?? Cooperation between racers

2010-12-03T13:09:00.000-06:00

It’s December 3rd, and still no word out of Beatrice Speedway about what will be happening in 2011. I sure hope something comes out soon. I’m not the only one - there was a question posed this afternoon on the Beatrice Speedway message board on DirtDrivers.com about when the schedule would come out. The Beatrice Speedway website still hasn’t had an update - the last time that happened was August 24th.

I have heard from what I consider a reliable source that the Fair Board will make a decision on the Beatrice Speedway website in the next week. I hope this comes to fruit and changes are made SOON!!

Judging by the classifieds section on DirtDrivers.com, a lot of people are either updating equipment, selling out, or changing classes. I’ve been asked why I don’t change classes - maybe go to a Sport Mod. There are many reasons for me not to change classes.

According to a poster on the message board who calls himself Salty Dog “ ernie would run last if they gave him an unlimited budget! “ I know who “Salty Dog” is, and I wonder how he came to that conclusion. He constantly posts complaints about how long race programs last. He must turn into a pumpkin at 10 PM. I know that Salty Dog has been around racing a long time, but for the life of me I can’t remember ever seeing him drive a race car.

Even though I’ve been around stock car racing since 1973, I did not get behind the wheel until 2002, when I was 50 years old. For the most part, I have to fix anything that gets bent or broken. If I’d started driving these things when I was 18, like a lot of the people out there, maybe I’d have gone faster or would go faster. No matter where I finish at on the track, I do the best I can. If I see that the leaders are coming up on me, I try to stay out of their way. If I can run with somebody, I will do it, but I am also careful to not run into them in order to make a pass on them. Change to a faster class - nope!! I am going fast enough right now, and there are times I go fast enough that I scare myself!!

Ever since we started racing, we’ve been careful about how we spend money. I have always had a very hard time asking anybody for money for anything, and racing is not a money making venture. Expenses and costs go up, but purses don’t. For somebody just starting out, it will take 3 or 4 seasons before an operation such as ours starts to have spare parts. The first two seasons we raced, we did not have a spare engine.

We’ve had a lot of help along the way. We’ve been given used wheels and tires that other racers were throwing away. When we first started racing, we didn’t have a garage or a trailer to haul the car with. Tom & Lori Wolf let us use their garage in Blue Springs. Flip Bitting let us use his trailer. The garage wasn’t insulated and Guy Brollini gave us a small wood burning stove to heat the garage.

Ron’s Automotive in Beatrice allowed me to use their parts washer when I needed it. We didn’t have a welder for the first couple of years, and Jeff Shew let us use his shop and welder. Pat Wells at NAPA in Beatrice did a lot of machine work on our engines over the years and on some of it I am sure he did not charge full price.

Over the years, Blue Knights Nebraska I have given us sponsorship money. Early on, we also got a little sponsorship money from Huston Motors and Penner Insurance in Beatrice. Most recently, Fashionette Salon and Nancy Gerdes, C.P.A./ P.C. in Beatrice have been my main supporters.

While racing is a sport driven by money, it is also a lesson in cooperation between competitors. I have borrowed tools and parts from other racers, and have also loaned tools and parts. I’ve had racers want to pay me for the parts, and I simply told them to bring me the same part the next time we saw each other. I can’t think of a time when they didn’t do that, be it a fan belt or a control arm. I’ve even loaned out an engine for a few weekends after we got to the point where we had a spare available.

New tires now cost $94 each and some of the more well-funded teams have new tires every 3 or 4 weeks. I’ve been able to buy the used tires for a fraction of what new ones cost. I’ve also been given tires that were in a lot better shape than the ones I have been using. I had a guy who owns a Sport Mod team give me 11 tires, 4 of which had only one race on them. He also gave me 4 wheels that he could not use. When I asked what I owed him, he told me “Nothing. If somebody else needs some of those tires, let them have them.”

I usually go to the track by myself or with just one pit crew member. However, once our pit stall is set up, our numbers fluctuate. I’ve always had plenty of help from the teams pitted near me. I’ve pulled in with a flat, thinking I was done for the night, and just like that, a half dozen guys are changing the tire for me so I can get back out.

I’ve had pictures posted showing the work I’ve been doing on my car during the off season. Believe me, I don’t have the tools, know-how and expertise to make a firewall and floor pan for my race car. However, there are other racers who do. Rod Latta told me to get the materials and he would cut & form everything for me. All I will have to do is take it home and weld it together.

Speaking of which, I found that the sheet metal is supposed to be available in Beatrice. I called a week ago and was told that I could pick up what I needed on Wednesday. I called Rod and made arrangements to have him cut & bend everything on Thursday evening. I stopped Wednesday afternoon to get the sheet metal - they were STILL out! It MIGHT be here today…… We’ll see if it is or not. So much for “buying local?”

As you can see, racing year in and year out on the local scene really comes down to cooperation between all of the racers in all of the classes helping each other out. Without that cooperation, a lot of us could not afford to be involved in the sport we all love.

Al Humphrey - Midwest Speedway, Lincoln, NE 1976

"Hacked" on Facebook; No, I am NOT selling out and retiring - YET!! I-80 announces $25,000 to win Late Model show

2010-11-30T16:41:00.000-06:00

Imagine my surprise Saturday when I logged onto my Facebook page and I saw my status: “blog update. I'm selling my race car. Any bidders? I'm quiting my job and leaving town on my motorcycle.” When the time comes, I may post something like that, but it won’t be for a couple of years, anyway. I also will not be selling my race car, unless it’s to upgrade.

I DO have a race car for sale, but it’s the SCS stock car we raced in 2009. I have advertised it on DirtDrivers.com on and off since last season but haven’t had any serious inquiries. Make me an offer, you might end up with a race car!

When I retire, that will give me more time to race. I will also be leaving town on my motorcycle a lot more than I am now.

This just goes to show that a person must ALWAYS be sure to log off any computer they are using. I am glad the AWP (Anonymous Weasel Poster) didn’t put anything bad on my status.

After working Wednesday and Thursday (Thanksgiving) nights, I got about 2 hours of sleep Friday morning before getting up and going to Lincoln for the Nebraska/Colorado game. We met Heather, Hollie & Ed on the west edge of Lincoln after having a quick cup of coffee with my brother and sister-in-law and nephew. Heather’s friends from Greeley saved us a parking place in the area where the new arena will be built and we spent almost 2 hours tailgating. Hamburgers, hot dogs and a variety of refreshments. I got about 20 winks, then we made the half mile walk to the stadium. By the time we found our seats, it was just under 30 minutes to kick-off.

I’m glad I bundled up. My only regret was that I did not have a ball cap. We were in the northeast corner of the stadium and after shading my eyes for the entire first half in order to see, I was glad when the sun dropped behind the west grandstands. It was a good game with a great crowd. I wonder what it will be like in the future, when the Big Red are in a different conference.

Once we made it back to the car, we were able to find our way to Spaghetti Works where we all enjoyed a good meal and some catching up. Once we were dropped off at our car & headed home, I slept like a rock until we pulled into the garage at home. Two hours of sleep just doesn’t cut it for me any more!

After all of the match-ups against the Oklahoma Sooners in the past, it’s only appropriate that Nebraska will be playing Oklahoma for the Big 12 Championship on Saturday night. That brings back memories of Thanksgivings in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s spent at an uncle & aunt’s in Elkhorn watching Nebraska and Oklahoma battle for the Big 8 title. I sure miss those gatherings!

After spending Saturday at Jason & Emily’s for an “official” Thanksgiving, Sunday was spent removing the rest of the tin from the race car. I hope to be able to get the sheet metal cut and formed for the floor and firewall on my days off. I’ve NEVER done this much work on the car during the season!

David tells me that the engine he built for his class project at college will be going to the dyno between now and Christmas. Since it’s a class project, he says the dyno won’t cost me anything. I sure hope he’s right - I know that in Lincoln, dyno time runs at least $50 an hour.

I saw an announcement on DirtDrivers.com that I-80 Speedway near Greenwood, Nebraska is holding a late model special in July. They have announced that the winner of the A Feature will take home $25,000 and it will pay $1,000 just to start. This will be the largest “to win” race ever held in the state of Nebraska and should pull in the top dirt late model drivers from across the United States. I would just love to go, but it looks like this will be at the same time that we will be on the road to Chesapeake, Virginia for the Blue Knights International Convention. Maybe the race will become an annual event and I will be able to attend in the future.

While I-80 is already announcing their late model special, we have yet to hear anything out of Beatrice Speedway in regards to the 2011 schedule and rules. I sure hope they don’t wait as long as they did before the 2010 season to make any announcements. I do know that about 30 loads of dirt have been brought in and put on the track to help make the racing surface better. Other than that, if anybody knows anything, they certainly haven’t passed it on. I sure hope something is released soon!

Deputy Sam Brownlee, Weld County, Colorado; EOW 23 Nov 2010

2010-11-24T14:46:00.000-06:00

I opened my e-mail when I got up today and found one from the Blue Knights e-mail list I am on. This concerned a Weld County, Colorado Deputy who was also a Blue Knight who was killed in the line of duty yesterday.

I have written in the past about officers losing their lives in the line of duty, and the Officer Down Memorial Page - ODMP.org - shows that so far in 2010, 147 officers have died in the line of duty. If I reported on every one, I would unfortunately be doing it full time.

The story of Deputy Sam Brownlee caught my eye for a couple of reasons. First, Deputy Brownlee was a Blue Knight. Blue Knights is the largest and best Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club in the world, with over 20,000 members world-wide. The other thing that caught my eye was the fact that it happened in Evans, Colorado, which borders Greeley on the south. My oldest daughter, Heather and her husband and son live in Greeley. Three years ago they moved from Evans to an area in Greeley which is farther west than where they were living.

There have not been a lot of details released about the actual shooting, but today it was reported that Deputy Brownlee was involved in a struggle with the suspect. The suspect eventually got Deputy Brownlee’s sidearm and shot Deputy Brownlee three times. Other officers on the scene returned fire and the suspect was also killed.

The incident started an hour earlier with a domestic violence call in Ft Morgan, 55 miles east of Greeley. A woman reported that her car was stolen by a man she knew. The stolen car was spotted on Hwy 34 and a Morgan County Deputy and a Wiggins officer attempted to stop it. The driver refused to stop, and a nearly hour-long chase ensued with speeds reaching over 100 MPH at times. At times the suspect drove on the wrong side of the road and at Kersey, 10 miles east of Greeley, his vehicle was clocked at 107 MPH. Stop sticks were deployed to slow the vehicle down. The driver eventually stopped in Evans in the area of Coyote Lane and Cedar Lane. The suspect ran from the car and there was a foot pursuit that ended when Deputy Brownlee and the suspect were both shot.

The Greeley Tribune had a map along with the story. I thought the area sounded familiar to me, and when I checked it, I learned why. It is just about 4 blocks from where Heather and Dana used to live.

I will not name the 20-year old suspect because he does not deserve to have his name and picture made public. I will say this - he was a gang member and was currently on probation for felony menacing in January and DUI in July. He was also arrested for assault causing serious bodily harm in March, but that charge was dismissed. According to the Greeley Tribune, Court records show that the suspect still owes $30,000 restitution in the felony menacing case.

It appears that Colorado’s judicial and probation system failed the public by letting this career criminal back out on the street.

I send my condolences the family, friends and co-workers of Deputy Sam Brownlee. May God guide you through these difficult times. To Deputy Sam Brownlee, thank you for your service and rest well. Your fellow officers will take over from here.

I HATE winter and cold weather!!

2010-11-21T15:14:00.000-06:00

I have lived in Nebraska all my life, but the older I get, the more I hate the cold weather. We haven’t even had a lot of cold weather yet, and I already have one heck of a head cold! I woke up Tuesday afternoon with a scratchy throat and a bit of a runny nose. Wednesday was about the same, but got worse as the day went on. I started taking AlkaSeltzer Plus cold Wednesday evening. I stocked up on sugar free cough drops, more AlkaSeltzer and Kleenex yesterday, I don’t really look forward to going back to work tonight. Oh, well, I’m training a new officer, so I can let him do all the talking.

When people talk about the racing season being over, it really means there aren’t any races going on. If you know anybody who races, stop by their shop and see what they are doing to their race cars during the off season. Some are freshening old engines or building new ones. Others may put new skins on their cars, while others completely rebuild their cars over the winter. We are kind of on the end of completely rebuilding.

While we ended the season with a nearly fresh engine, my nephew, David, took one to Hastings Community College, where he is taking Automotive classes. The engine has now been completely rebuilt with some new internal parts, and has actually been run a little. I think it’s been run quite a little, as he told me he needs another five gallons of fuel for when they get it on the dyno. I sure hope it gets better fuel mileage when it is in the car.

I am also in the process of cutting the entire firewall and floor out of the car and will have a new aftermarket floor and firewall made. This will make working on the car a lot easier by giving us a lot more room. I will be spending as much time on the car, if not more, than during the season.

My other passion - traveling on two wheels - is also be coming to a halt with the coming cold weather. It’s already been over a week since I’ve ridden the Gold Wing to work due to rain a couple of nights and cold weather. However, in what little spare time I have, I can still sit down and try to figure out the best way to go to Virginia Beach and back next summer to attend the Blue Knights International Convention. We have a lot of sightseeing we want to do on the way there and back, as well as once we’re there. Thanks to the internet, when I get tired of working on the race car, I can come into the house, fire up the computer, and research the highways and byways between here and Virginia Beach. I already have one route planned out to get there which includes an overnight stop at Nashville. Before we are ready to leave, I’ll have several routes mapped out. There is at least one other couple that is planning to ride with us, so it will be a great, fun trip.

I took training at Ft Lee, Virginia in 1971. During my time there, I got a lot of sightseeing done in my time off. There is so much history in that area of our country, from the time of the early settlement through the civil war. I spent several weekends in Washington, D.C., visiting Ford’s Theater, Arlington Cemetery, the Smithsonian, and Washington and Lincoln Memorials. We’ll just be in the area for a week, so we will have to plan our trips accordingly so we can see as much as possible.

The off season will also bring the opportunity to schedule some maintenance on the Gold Wing. At 32,000 miles, there will be some things that should be looked at by the dealer as they are far beyond my expertise. With the price of fuel slowly creeping up we will be much more aware of issues that keep the bike running more efficiently.

Beatrice 2011 race schedule??

2010-11-19T00:38:00.000-06:00

Almost a month ago, a question was posted on the Beatrice Speedway message board of DirtDrivers.com. The question was when would the Beatrice Speedway schedule for 2011 be posted. They noted that Eagle Raceway’s schedule was already posted.

I did not check Eagle’s website to see if the 2011 schedule was indeed posted. However, I responded to the posting with the following “If they hold true to form, the schedule will come out at the end of February. That's what happened this year.

Sometimes I feel like the Fair Board is hoping we will leave them alone. If they would work with track officials and the racers, we could pack the grandstands and pits every week.

That being said, I know there won't be any rules changes in the IMCA classes. However, PLEASE, PLEASE, Fair Board and track officials, let's put our heads together and make the factory stock rules so the pro-ams can come race with us on a weekly basis if they so wish. The sooner we can do this the better.”

I got the following response from my comment “Ernie, You are very right on it. Beatrice could easily pull in the crowds if they wanted to. I am not sure who makes the decisions (if anyone), but something has to change. I don't like to knock on anyone...but really... this year was terrible. The track needs to be taken more seriously, and ran as a business. They will be lucky to keep the doors open if they keep it up. Is there anyone to talk to about possibly getting a new group to run the speedway? The main simple essentials that a track needs to do are not even done..... (example...working functional website)”

The 2010 season saw the 2nd year that Beatrice Speedway raced on Friday night. After racing forever on Saturdays, racing was moved to Friday in 2009 in the hopes that car count and grandstand attendance would increase. When Beatrice raced on Saturday, they were up against Eagle, McCool Junction, Doniphan, Minneapolis, KS and Mayetta, KS. Since most people work on Friday, the starting time was moved back to 7:30 PM.

I’ve never seen any figures as to what grandstand attendance did, but I don’t believe the car count changed much. However, just changing nights won’t make people attend the races. The races need to be PROMOTED!! Let people know that Beatrice is racing! Toward the end of the 2009 season, a racer at another track told me he didn’t even know that Beatrice was still racing!

Years ago the Beatrice Daily Sun had some pretty good articles and results from Beatrice Speedway. KWBE radio also had a half hour program each week. The Daily Sun seems to have a hard time putting results in the paper, let alone having a story. KWBE moved the Track Talk program to a different time slot, so I continually missed it this season.

Beatrice Speedway has a website, but the person who has been doing it is slow putting up results, and there has NEVER been a story on the races posted. The most recent addition to the website was August 24th, one week before the end of the season. If somebody was being paid to maintain the website, they were overpaid.

When I would get home from work at 6 AM on Sundays, I would look at the Eagle Raceway website to check for Saturday night results. I would not only see COMPLETE results from the heat races and any B Features, but a complete story on the entire evening. I have seen where several Women for Racing members offered to help with the website, but apparently they were never taken up on the offer.

I know a lot of times drivers don’t respond, but a simple questionnaire given out te the drivers at the beginning of the year would be a start. It would outline their racing career and any highlights. Each week of the racing season, a couple of these couple be printed out and put in the program. Maybe the newspaper would even put them in an article, or they could be put up on the Speedway website. That way EVERYBODY would get exposure, not just the A Feature winners.

In the past, there were rules meetings in November, which set the rules and schedules for the upcoming year. That hasn’t happened in the last couple of years. For the 2010 racing racing season, registrations were taken at the end of February.

I would certainly like to see a better flow of information coming from the track. With a lot more effort, Beatrice Speedway can once again be the place to start your racing weekend.

Looking ahead to the 2011 racing season

2010-11-16T16:10:00.000-06:00

Looking ahead to the 2011 racing season at Beatrice Speedway, it looks like there will be some changes made for the better. At Octoberfest 2010, pro-ams were allowed to race with the factory stocks. When the announcement was made, there was a lot of discussion on the DirtDrivers message board about the rules.

Current pro-am rules at I-80 Speedway at Greenwood mandate 3,400 lbs minimum weight, 360 cubic inch engine and 11 to 1 compression with a 4412 carburetor. They also use a different tire. Factory stocks at Beatrice are similar to IMCA stock cars with the exception of having to weigh 3,100 lbs, running a 4412 carb, being able to add a spoiler and hood scoop and allowing IMCA Hoosiers or American racer tires. There is no cubic inch or compression rule.

The discussions on the message board suggested that the factory stocks would be faster because the rules would give them the advantage. A pro-am started on the pole in one of the heat races and won. He started up front in the Feature and finished 7th. We had 17 cars race in the factory stocks at Octoberfest. I don’t think we had that high of a car count during the regular season. Also consider that there were a few of the regular weekly cars that weren’t at Octoberfest. If they had showed up, we would have had over 20 cars in factory stocks that night!

I talked to one of the pro-am drivers about the difference in cars. He feels that when the newer “metric” cars started showing up on the racing scene, the front geometry of the pro-ams was a lot better than that of the metric cars. However, the metric cars have improved with being allowed weight jacks and “correcting” the upper control arm mounts for better steering geometry. He feels that the metric car currently has the upper hand in the handling department.

Beatrice had IMCA sanctioned stock cars but they were dropped when the car count became too low. IMCA touts their point fund, but unless you race multiple tracks, their point fund might come close to paying the cost of your license. When Beatrice raced pro-ams, there were rumors for several years that they would be dropped and naturally the car count dropped until they were dropped from the program. There have been rumors since about 2004 or 2005 that the factory stocks were being dropped and the car count has suffered.

There are still a few pro-ams sitting in garages in our area, and there are pro-ams currently being raced that would come to Beatrice at least on a part time schedule if they were allowed to. One of the pro-am guys I talked to is building a car for his son, so that would make 2 new cars at Beatrice Speedway at least part of the time.

I would propose that the pro-ams be allowed to race at Beatrice under the same rules that the factory stocks currently use. Let them weigh 3,100 lbs and have the engine of their choice, instead of being limited to 360 cubic inches and 11 to 1 compression. They already use the same carburetor. Let them run their pro-am tire, the Hoosier IMCA tire or the American racer. Remember, more cars in the pits mean more people in the grandstands.

I have heard that some of our local teams will be changing classes in 2011. At least one hobby stock driver is moving to a factory stock, and a modified driver is having a factory stock built. I also heard that a couple more factory stocks are being built in the Fairbury area. Hopefully everybody who raced factory stocks at Beatrice in 2010 will be back, and with the anticipated newcomers, our car count will increase.

End of summer

2010-10-20T22:13:00.000-05:00

This time of the year always makes me wonder what happened to the summer. After the winter we had, and the late spring, we jumped right into hot weather. I heard a lot of grumbling about how hot it was, but I did not have to shovel the heat!!

We did get some riding in on the Gold Wing. Not as much as what I’d have liked to have gotten, but still a fair amount. We were able to take a short weekend trip to St Joseph, Missouri in June. We did that between thunderstorms and a flood on the Missouri at St Joseph. We made several short trips over the summer, and the big trip to Billings. A week before I left, Mikayla asked if she could go with me. She’s never been out of town on the motorcycle, and I tried to talk her out of going. I think a 13-year old doesn’t realize exactly how far 1,000 miles is, or how hot 100 degrees is when there is no air conditioning. She knows now. By the time we got home, we’d covered 2,994 miles and saw a lot of great scenery. I got to spend 12 days with Mikayla, and will always remember the time we spent together. I hope she does, too.

I missed the Blue Knights Fall Conference in Grand Forks. I took a trip to Chicago with Dad & Mom the week before for Dad’s World War II re-union. Except for some time spent in the suburbs of Chicago in the early ’80’s for automotive schools through K-Mart, I’d never been there. In addition to Dad getting together with some of his fellow surviving WWII heroes, we rode the subway into downtown Chicago and took one of the trolley tours of the city. Somehow, I neglected to take the camera, but I was able to get a lot of pictures with my cell phone. I have the pictures all posted on my Facebook page.

For the most part the weather for this trip was decent. It was breezy and cool, but tolerable. If you ever happen to be in Chicago, taking one of the trolley tours is a great thing to do. A 2 or 2 day pass can be purchased so you can spread your sightseeing out over s couple of days. Our greatest difficulty was in finding our way around downtown and finding the right subway to take back to where we started.

The racing season in this part of the country is all but over. With my work schedule, I raced at Beatrice Speedway every other week. On the Fridays that I worked, either Jeremy or Jason drove the car. At the end of the season, I finished 13th in points and Jeremy finished 14th in points, just 4 points behind me. We knew we wouldn’t be racing for a top 10 in track points, but it was fun to race against each other for track points. If it hadn’t been for an opening night mishap, Jeremy would have finished ahead of me in points.

I also made the trip to U.S. 30 Speedway at Columbus several times. The weather didn’t cooperate as it started to rain on 3 different nights before I finally got to do more than hot laps and a heat race. I really like that track and would race there more often if I could find somebody willing to pay for the fuel in the hauler.

The last trip I made to U.S. 30 Speedway was for the Abe Lincoln Memorial on a cool damp Sunday in September. With 28 street stocks on hand, I missed out on making the A Feature. I started 3rd row in my heat and finished 6th, missing out by one spot. That put me on the pole for the B Feature. I fought an inconsistent, ill handling car for the entire race and didn’t make the A Feature. When I started to load the car, I found that a brake must have locked up on me as the car wouldn’t budge. Once the car was back in the shop and on jack stands, I found the right rear caliper had almost no pad left. Apparently the caliper was hanging up once the brakes were warmed up.

Fantastic weather greeted Beatrice Speedway’s Octoberfest. What a difference from last year when we had snow! The factory stocks raced on Saturday and we had 17 cars in our class. Not all of the Beatrice regulars showed, and we had a few cars show up that hadn’t previously been at Beatrice Speedway. I hope that the track can tweek some rules for 2011 so the pro-am cars can race with us. I think it will put more cars on the track and more butts in the grandstands if that happens.

I felt like the car was pretty good and had a 10th place finish going with 2 laps left. However, I had the right rear go flat before taking the white flag and dropped out, finishing 13th.

The final race of our season is this weekend at Junction Motor Speedway at McCool Junction. Jeremy will be taking the wheel as it’s my weekend to work. He’s been looking forward to this weekend since he raced there last fall. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and Jeremy won’t have any problems with the car.

We’re already looking forward to the 2011 riding season. Blue Knights International Convention is at Chesapeake, Virginia and we’re making plans to attend. We want to stop in Nashville and hopefully attend the Grand Ole Opry. I have a rough schedule worked up, going through St Louis, then on to Nashville. From Nashville, it’s just less than 500 miles to Roanoke, Virginia, then the 4th day we’ll be at Chesapeake for the Convention.

We’ve signed up some new Blue Knights in our area and hope the new members will be enthusiastic about attending regional and national events. I sponsored a new Special Honorary member who is a local pastor, and he has already recruited 3 new members and wants to make the trip to Chesapeake.

Final days of our trip

2010-10-20T22:04:00.000-05:00

We decided to not do a lot on Sunday. There was laundry to do, and I wanted to clean the Gold Wing up a bit. When I went to bed on Saturday evening, my feet were a bit swollen, but I figured when I got up in the morning, they would be OK. However, the swelling had actually gotten a bit worse, so I tried to pretty much stay off my feet as much as I could. It didn’t seem to help much as when I went to bed Sunday night, the swelling actually seemed worse. However, when I got up on Monday morning, my feet were back to normal.

We decided to go to Estes Park on Monday. Mikayla still had some souvenir shopping to do and I told her she could shop all day in Estes Park if she wanted. Besides, Hwy 34 from Loveland to Estes Park along the Big Thompson River is one of my favorite rides and every time I’m at Greeley I find time to take that ride. It’s 20 miles of curves along the river and an absolutely beautiful ride. Leaving Estes Park, Hwy 7 back to Lyons is also a great ride.

Once we found a place to park in Estes Park, we browsed through some of the shops, then decided to eat lunch. After that, it was back to shopping. Once all the stores were ravaged, we rode to the edge of town to where the go-kart track is and spent an hour or so riding go-karts. Final score - we each beat the other at least once. After giving Mikayla some driving tips, she learned and with some practice she could be a pretty good racer!!

Tuesday we took in Pike’s Peak; however, it was in a “cage.” I was happy we did it that way as it ended up being over 300 miles round trip. We took in the Garden of the Gods along the way as well as Manitou Springs. In 1972, I’d spent a weekend pass at Manitou Springs and as I remembered it, I don’t think it’s changed much in the years since then. The last time I’d been on Pike’s Peak was in 1974, and the road to the top hasn’t changed a lot. Parts of the road to the top are still gravel. We also ran into a little rain, so we didn’t get wet this way. After a lot of pictures, we made it all the way to the top and back down. As we were headed back into Manitou Springs, it was already 4:30 and a stop at Cave of the Winds was out of the question.

As we got closer to Greeley, conversation turned to how soon we would be leaving for home in the morning. I made the point that Mikayla would have to be sure to set her alarm so she would be ready to go when she wanted to. Back at the house, we finished packing, loading the trailer and cleaning the bike up a bit.

After a light breakfast, we were on the road about 8:30. The trip back to Nebraska was warm, but not nearly as warm as going to Greeley. We were sure to drink plenty of water on each stop. Our first fuel stop was just off I-76 at Sterling. From there, our next stop was for fuel & lunch at North Platte. As we continued east, I told Mikayla that we may be a couple of miles short of having 3,000 miles and maybe we should take a little longer way home. Her comment? “Just get me home!”

We were back at Beatrice about 7 PM, having covered 2,994 miles. Asked if she would go again, Mikayla told me “If we don’t go out of Nebraska!”

Trip from Billings to Rawlins, then to Greeley

2010-08-10T16:34:00.000-05:00

We were up, packed and loaded and ready to go shortly after 7 AM. Continental breakfast today FINALLY had biscuits & gravy!! I had figured we’d be on the road by 9 AM - it was actually about 8:15 when we pulled out of the hotel parking lot. The first 100 miles or so was mostly rolling hills with the mountains off in the distance as we went first west from Billings on I-90, then south toward Powell.

Made our first fuel stop at Powell and got a cold bottle of water. After a short break, we were back on the road - next stop would be Thermopolis, where we’d fuel and grab a sandwich for lunch.

The weather for this entire leg of the trip was pleasant. The warmest temperature I saw was 85 later in the afternoon. We filled at Thermopolis and when I came back out from paying, Mikayla was off the bike taking pictures. A deer had wandered into a patch of weeds 25 yards away from us and was grazing there. It seemed oblivious to people and traffic and eventually wandered back in the direction it came from, stopping in a yard across the street for a bite to eat. We wondered if the animal was somebody’s pet.

A quick sandwich at a brand new Subway and we were on our way again. While we were eating, I noticed a different road on the map that would cut off about 30 miles from the day’s trip. Going south our of Thermopolis, we were soon into the Wind River Canyon area. What a spectacular ride & view! Continuing south one gets a great view of the Boysen Reservoir. After going through Shoshoni, we rode across the south end of the reservoir and to Riverton. At Riverton, we went southeast on Hwy 135. More great scenery along the way. However, if one ever travels this way, be sure you have plenty fuel because there is none between Riverton and Rawlins if you take Hwy 135.

Turning south from Muddy Gap, we encountered some wind the last 45 miles. Sometimes it came straight at us, sometimes from the right, sometimes from the left. By the time we pulled into Rawlins, I was tired of the wind. One nice thing about the day’s ride, however, was that the temperature did not get into the 90-degree and above range. We were sure to drink plenty of water each time we stopped.

I hadn’t made reservations ahead of time, but that didn’t look like it would be a problem as we scouted the motels. We decided on the Travel Lodge, which ended up being nice. I’d probably do some looking around if I were to stay in Rawlins again, but just because they had no restaurant or pool. The continental breakfast was not conducive to a diabetic as it was heavy on pastries, but I was able to have a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee before we got on the road.

We took I-80 west to Hwy 789 at Creston Junction. If you are looking at a map to find some of these places, be sure to see what the population is. They may only be the name of where 2 highways intersect, which is what Creston Junction is. We turned off the interstate and took the highway under it, and we immediately saw a dozen or so antelope on the west side of the road. They were grazing and paid absolutely no attention to us as we rode past. Over the next 50 miles we saw literally hundreds of antelope along the way with a few deer scattered about. I wonder how many deer we would see in Nebraska if our terrain was the same as this part of Wyoming? We drove for miles and never saw a tree!

We stopped at Craig, Colorado for fuel and a quick sandwich from the Quik Stop. Grabbed a couple of cold waters out of the cooler and back on the road. Rode through some awesome scenery on the road to Steamboat Springs. I told Kayla to grab the camera and get some pictures. When we got to Steamboat Springs, I asked how many pictures she got. Her answer…. “I was taking a nap!”

When I was 8 years old, we took a family vacation to California. When we came back, we came through Colorado and Steamboat Springs. It runs in my mind we stopped there for supper. The place has sure changed in 50 years as I only remember a 2 lane highway through town. On Saturday, we parked the motorcycle and walked around for about an hour before taking off again. More great scenery and we stopped at Walden for fuel and lunch. Gas was $2.999 there, which was the most I paid on the entire trip.

We grabbed a sandwich at a café in Walden. There was a magazine on the table about the local sights and I found that there is a large moose population in the area. Before two years ago, I didn’t know there were moose in Colorado. While going to Grand Lake in 2008, we saw 5 moose a few miles outside of Grand Lake.

The entire trip from Walden to Ft Collins was beautiful. From seeing “Moose Crossing” signs to the mountain passes, we could have stopped and taken pictures for hours and not make it back to Greeley until way after dark. We stopped at Rustic to stretch our legs and use the restrooms. While there, we checked out the local watering hole where they were getting ready for an evening of festivities. Stepping out on the back deck, we had a bird’s eye view of the river running behind the bar. The water was so clear you could see the bottom, unlike the rivers back home in Nebraska.

The entire trip from Rawlins was pleasant weather wise. The temperature was in the 80 to 84 degree range. Once at Ft Collins, I noticed that it had warmed up and checking the temperature, I found it was 97. So much for those pleasant mountain temperatures. We got into Greeley about 6 PM. Once getting unloaded and cleaned up, Dana took us to Roma’s for supper. This place has GREAT pizza, spaghetti and calzones, and every time we’re in Greeley, it’s one of the places we just have to go eat at!

Billings Wednesday/Thursday

2010-07-25T23:57:00.000-05:00

Wednesday morning was mostly sunny. We decided to ride to Pryor to Chief Plenty Coups Park at Pryor, Montana, then to the Little Bighorn Battlefield near Crow Agency. We took the frontage road from the host hotel to South Billings Road and headed south. This was all rolling plains and later open range. About half way to Pryor we stopped at a historical marker which told of a battle between the Crow and Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in 1864. Something that struck me as unusual was that the women and children watched the battle from a nearby hillside. The Crow were hopelessly outnumbered but were saved by herds of buffalo and elk!! The herds kicked up dust in the distance, which the Lakota and Cheyenne thought were reinforcements coming for the Crow, and they fled.

The Crow Chief Plenty Coups was compared to George Washington because he led his people through difficult times and helped them transition to new ways. He built a house on his land, but also maintained ways of the Crow. He visited Washington, D.C. and designed his house after what he saw at Mt Vernon. Chief Many Coups died in 1932 and is buried on the park grounds. This was a very interesting place to visit and somewhere that many hours could be spent. It gives a new perspective on the struggles of the Indians in the 1800’s.

While riding toward prior, I pointed out to Mikayla that we were riding trhough an Indian reservation and the people we saws outside a ranch house were Indians. She informed me they were not Indians, but Native Americans. We had a short discussion about why they were called Indians and how times have changed since I grew up.

One of the ladies at the museum mentioned that we would see a quarter horse ranch if we would be traveling east. Mikayla wasn’t sure what a quarter horse is until I explained to her that it’s one quarter horse and three quarters cow - or is it the other way around?? The lady then set us both straight!!

We actually spent more time at the museum than I’d expected but it was actually a pretty short visit for all there is to see. We headed east toward Hardin, where we topped off with fuel and grabbed a Subway before riding south to the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Even though it was the middle of the week, there was a good crowd.

I’ve seen several movies about the Battle of the Little Bighorn and read several stories about it. None do justice to the actual location. It is hard to imagine the events on that June day in 1876, but a tour of the battlefield puts things in perspective.

The cemetery near the visitors’ center is a National Cemetery. I had always thought it was where the soldiers who died in the Battle of the Little Bighorn were buried. Most of those soldiers were buried in a mass grave at the base of the monument on Last Stand Hill. U.S. military veterans are eligible to be buried in the National Cemetery. This is another place a person could easily spend an entire day at and still not see everything. We got back on the Gold Wing about 4 PM and headed back toward Billings as there was a meal planned at Beartooth Harley Davidson at 6 PM.

The BBQ was a bit of a disappointment as we all got a hot dog on a bun, a small bag of chips and a bottle of water. We browsed around the Harley store but didn’t buy anything. Mikayla rode a motorcycle simulator and I decided she would not be driving my Gold Wing any time in the immediate future.

We checked in at the hospitality room for a few minutes and then rode to downtown Billings in search of a place to eat. We found a Perkins across the street from the local baseball park and decided to have something there. I got coffee, and for the first time since we left home, they brought the WHOLE pot!!

The 50/50 drawing back at the hospitality room was to be at 10 PM and I wanted to be back for that. We finished up and went to the register to pay our bill and saw that it was POURING RAIN and the wind was blowing the doors open. Our helmets were on the motorcycle, so I ran out and grabbed them, getting plenty wet in the process!

After an hour’s wait, the wind had gone down and it was raining lightly. I got the rain suits out of the saddlebag and brought them in, where Mikayla got her first lesson on putting on a rain suit. Once we were both suited up, we made our way to the parking lot. Although wet, the trip back to the hotel was uneventful. Needless to say, we missed the 50/50 drawing. A check of the winning number at breakfast Thursday morning found that I did not have the winning number.

The motorcycle parade through downtown Billings Thursday afternoon kept us in town that morning. I stopped at WalMart for bottled water to put in the cooler for the ride home, then we went to the host hotel where the motorcycles were starting to line up. At 1 PM, we pulled out of the parking lot, following a Billings Police Department police car. All the intersections were blocked as we rode through downtown Billings to the Metra fairgrounds in the east part of Billings. There were TV cameras along the way, so I’m sure we got some press time.

After a quick lunch, we headed back toward the hotel. The day before we had seen a fun center with a go kart track and I challenged Mikayla to see if she could beat me. I told her I’d already beaten her dad and her uncle, and now it was her turn!

We located the track and went inside to get our tokens. The first session was just a learning experience for Mikayla. After some “expert” tips, we had another session and she did a lot better, really making me work to get around her. At the end, she did beat me across the line. I’m getting a rematch, though, as when we get to Estes Park next week, we’ll have a go at it on their tracks to see who gets bragging rights.

Thursday evening’s banquet was well attended. I heard the figure of 880 being thrown around. Colors were presented by the Billings Police Department. International President Mulford read the names of the members who transferred to Heaven I in the last year. Meritorious Service awards were presented and the buffet style meal was served. At the conclusion of the program, we started to filter back outside to find a light rain just beginning. We moved the Gold Wing to the front of the hotel, under the awning, to keep from getting wet. Talked with a few Blue Knights, then when it stopped raining, headed back to our hotel to get packed and ready to head to Rawlins on Friday morning.

Blue Knights at Billings - Monday & Tuesday

2010-07-25T10:56:00.000-05:00

Monday we decided to explore the Billings area. There were some rides scheduled but after riding the two previous days, we decided to stay close to home base. I got a map of the city from the front desk and we started looking at it. We decided to take a look first at Boot Hill and then the downtown area.

Once we located the Boot Hill area, we found the road has deteriorated and is not being maintained much. After riding part way, I parked the Wing and we walked…. And walked…. And walked. Got some great pictures of the city and located the grave of Yellowstone Kelly. However, we did not find the Boot Hill Cemetery. I’m sure if we’d have walked farther we would have found it.

There has been a Gold Wing Touring Association convention in the downtown Billings area. When we found our way back down from Boot Hill, we made a stop to see the Gold Wings. I talked to a couple of guys who were in Billings for the GWTA convention, but are also Blue Knights and are making trips back and forth between both conventions.

Having found a parking place and not wanting to lose it, we elected to walk to a downtown café for lunch. Found a place called “Hog Wild” that had good sandwiches, then walked back toward where the GWTA convention was. Across the street and just to the east is a restored railroad depot so we stopped to look around. It reminded me of the old Burlington depot in Crete and brought back a few memories. I told Kayla about some of the things I remembered and she acted like she was listening. There are a lot of times I wish we could go back in time about 50 years so the grandkids could actually see and understand what we are talking about. There were 3 old cabooses outside and I explained what I could remember of them. We were able to look inside one of them from one end and she could see what I was talking about. As we were getting to the end of the “lesson” we were approached by three women from the GWTA. They were having a scavenger hunt of sorts and needed a Blue Knight to sign cards that they had. He had a nice conversation before going our separate ways.

Monday evening’s hospitality room gave me a chance to connect with a few old friends and meet some new ones. We had 4 Nebraska I members in attendance - Clyde, Roger, Jack and I. It had been several years since I’d seen Jack even though we send e-mails back and forth all the time.

Tuesday we went on a group ride of about 275 miles. We left the hotel and rode 12 miles west on the Interstate, then headed south. We went through an area that looked a bit like home, but you could see some mountains in the distance. We stopped at Red Lodge, Montana and topped off with fuel. From there we began climbing the foothills and got into the mountains. We had a couple of stops along the way to take in the view and get pictures. At one stop, hungry chipmunks swarmed anybody that had foor for them. Kayla fed them her entire bag of dill flavored sunflower seeds. She could get them to sit on her leg as they ate, but they were entirely too fast for her to touch.

We continued climbing to an elevation of almost 11,000 feet when we went over Beartooth Pass. There were a lot of signs warning us that we were in grizzly bear country. Our guide told us that a grizzly bear can run 35 MPH. I’ve never been much for running, but I’m thinking I might be able to run 36 MPH for a short distance!

We were able to get through the entire day without seeing any live animals on the road or near us. We crossed into Wyoming, then back into Montana through absolutely beautiful scenery. We stopped for lunch at Cooke City, Montana, which was our turning around point. The little town was busy since not only were there a ton of Blue Knights there, but a large number of the GWTA people were also there. On a side note, gas there was $3.40 to $3,80 depending on what you wanted, which was the reason for topping off at Red Lodge. On leaving Cooke City, we backtracked to Hwy 296 which becomes the Chief Joseph Highway. When we got to the top of Dead Indian Pass (elevation 8,060 ft) we took another break for pictures. We were able to look back in the direction we came from and see Beartooth Pass about 15 miles to the north. It is hard to imagine how Chief Joseph and his Nez Pierce tribe were able to travel through these mountains while fleeing the Army.

There was a lot more great scenery from Dead Indian Pass to Hwy 120. We took Hwy 120 back north and eventually ended up back on I-90, which took us back to our home base for the week. We got a ton of pictures and saw a lot of great country while getting a little bit of history.

Billings trip day 2- Greeley, CO to Billings, MT

2010-07-22T08:07:00.000-05:00

Sunday started out about 74 degrees and sunny. We were out of the driveway right on time - 7 AM. It was a great ride to Cheyenne where we stopped at a new Denny’s at the Flying J for breakfast. That was a real busy place!

Back on the road and northbound around Cheyenne. I’d forgotten it was the beginning of Cheyenne Frontier Days. We crested a hill and saw a couple of patrol cars with their emergency lights on and hit the “slow down” button. Coming our way on the road along I-25 was a herd of longhorn cattle and cowboys following them. Kayla was able to get a couple of pictures of the longhorn cattle.

Farther north on I-25 we saw the first antelope on the east side of the interstate. There was a vehicle pulled off to the side and I slowed a bit to see it they were having mechanical problems. Then I noticed they were out taking pictures and I saw the antelope out a ways.

As we continued, I thought of the “Home on the Range” song. Remember the part about “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word?” That’s because there is nobody there to hear it!

Our next fuel stop was at Douglas. As we rode between Cheyenne and Douglas, I realized how big and wide open this country really is. We’d top a rise and see the highway go as far ahead of us as we could see. What looked like it might be a couple of miles turned out to be 10, 15 or even 20 miles! It was just an ideal day to be riding, with the temperature around 85 and only a light breeze most of the time.

As we got to the south end of Douglas, we encountered road construction which made traffic one lane in each direction. A mile into the construction area is where I pulled off for fuel. I filled up and remembered I wanted a Wyoming map that was bigger than the road atlas I had so I could show Kayla where we were easier. I’d wanted to get a map at Cheyenne and completely forgot about it while looking for something to put on a bee sting.

When we were getting ready to get back on the Gold Wing, a car pulled up on the other side of the pumps. As it was stopping, I could hear the brakes grinding. When the woman got out to get her gas, I told her what I heard. She said she would have the brakes looked at, and we took off. Our next stop would be at Casper to grab a quick sandwich and top off with fuel.

I don’t know if it’s just because it’s Wyoming, or what, but everywhere we stopped for fuel had lines. Maybe it was because it was Sunday and a travel day? Even McDonald’s had a line out the door when we stopped for a couple of sandwiches.

While we were eating, I looked up to see the same car with bad brakes pull in the parking lot!! I’d thought those were some local people before, but now I’m thinking they were not planning ahead on their car maintenance. Depending on what their destination was, driving that car was fast becoming dangerous!!

The weather out of Casper was still great. Checking fuel mileage, I was doing better than the day before, and was going about 7 MPH faster. Maybe the weather not being 106 has something to do with it?

What a great couple of days!! No phone calls, no nothing!! My only worries are where will my next fuel stop be, and what kind of place can I find to eat at tonight.

We took a break at Sheridan and topped off with fuel. Once again, there was a long line at the gas pumps. Had another bottle of water while we waited in line.

When I plotted out this trip, it figured out that I should be in Billings about 6:15 PM. We took more time when we stopped at Cheyenne than we expected; however, we were within 15 minutes of being where I thought we would be. However, as we approached the Montana state line, the skies were increasingly cloudy, with very dark clouds building to the west-northwest. It was really hard to tell if we’d get any of it or not because the highway isn’t straight anywhere. One mile it’s going north, the next it’s going west. We stopped at the state line and took a couple of pictures, then took off again. About 12 miles south of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, we rounded a curve and ran smack dab into the storm with no warning! I don’t believe I’ve ever ridden in a wind that strong! I’d just checked the temperature and it was 88. In less than 5 miles it dropped to 64. I slowed to about 25 MPH and hit the emergency flashers as there was absolutely no place to pull over at. I felt like a drowned rat, and just about as cold! Then, as fast as it started, it stopped and the wind calmed down. We pulled over at the Crow Agency exit for a break and to regain our composure. After a 15 minute break, we started the final 65 miles into Billings.

As we neared our destination, the skies once again started to darken. The host hotel was the Holiday Inn and Convention Center at exit 446. We no sooner got turned in and under the canopy than the wind and rain hit again. However, once again it didn’t last long. It was shortly after 6:30 PM and my trip meter showed 1,032 miles since we left home. Judging from the number of Blue Knights already there, this Convention will be a large successful one.

Billings trip - Day 1 - the ride to Greeley, Colorado

2010-07-19T08:19:00.000-05:00

We were on the road at 7:27 AM - earlier than I initially planned but later than I wanted. Started out in 81 degree weather. As we rode west on Hwy 4, there was a cloud in the northwest and I was thinking if it came our way it may cool things off a bit. We must have been on the edge of it because by the time we got 75 miles, it cooled down to 73. At that point, the road was damp and there was water on the shoulders. However, a bit farther and the temperature started coming back up.

West of Campbell, Nebraska, Hwy 4 had a detour. It was a gravel road that went north 3 miles to another blacktop, which went 2 miles west to Hwy 10. Anyway, the detour must have been a mud road that the county just dumped gravel on. I had hardly gone 100 yards when I could feel how soft the road was. Shifter down into low and tried to go at a crawl, but that did not even help as the Wing tipped over. Fortunately, we weren’t hurt, but Mikayla was pretty shook up. It was her first time out of town on the Gold Wing and this had to happen!!

It was 96 when we stopped at McCook for lunch and when we left, the temp went to 106 for the next 200 miles.

We tried to keep drinking water and taking longer, more frequent stops. At Wray, Colorado it was still 102, and we took about a half hour break. With the next towns only being about 30 miles apart, we were in good shape. We stopped for more water before getting on I-76 at Brush. From there, it was just 12 miles to where we were going to take a break at Ft Morgan.

It was a good thing we didn’t HAVE to have fuel, as when we got off at Exit 80 for Ft Morgan, the Conoco right by the interstate was OUT OF GAS!! I went another block and a half to the Shell …. OUT OF GAS!!

Back on I-76, then off onto Hwy 34 to Greeley. About half way to Greeley- “Grandpa, we have to stop, I got stung by a bee!” Got a good place to stop and took a look - sure enough, she had a bee sting on her right forearm. I got the tweezers out of the First Aid kit and got the stinger out. Check for antiseptic - could not find it in the kit. I used a cloth to wrap up some ice, then put it under the shirt sleeve and buttoned it up. Makeshift - yes, but effective.

The rest of the drive into Greeley was uneventful, We got in about 6:30 PM. Miles - 488.

Final preparations for Billings

2010-07-18T07:24:00.000-05:00

I finished my last work shift at 6 AM Wednesday and headed for home. It stayed warm and humid all night. When I put my helmet on as I got on the Gold Wing, the shield immediately fogged over. Just like my glasses did every time I got out of the car or came out of the office. Then again, after the winter we had, I will NEVER complain about warm weather again!

Of course, when planning a motorcycle trip in hot weather, I may need to alter my original plans a bit. I had planned to strap a small cooler with ice and water on the trailer. Plans have changed to putting a bigger cooler on the trailer. I usually drink a pot of coffee in the morning to get myself going; I’ll try to cut back on the caffeine for the trip, It is said that a person dehydrates more in hot weather when they drink a lot of caffeine.

The long range forecast shows the temps will probably be in the 90’s the next two weeks. Being on the road during that kind of weather means not only being mindful of heatstroke, but sunburn as well. I wear a long sleeved shirt in this kind of weather to keep from getting burned. Cool collars can be purchased at motorcycle shops and soaked in icy water. I’ve used them while racing stock cars in the heat of summer and they work great.

We need to remember to take a lot of breaks when riding in hot weather. When we rode to Spokane in 1998, we ended up stopping at almost every exit to drink more water and even wet our clothing down. In a few miles, we were completely dry.

I plan to take a lot of pictures. One good thing, in the age of digital photography, all I need is to be sure to have a good memory card and a way to download it to my laptop. No need to worry about film, but I will have to be sure I have batteries and/or have all my rechargeable batteries charged. When Jan & I got back from our honeymoon, we had 11 rolls of film to get developed. Now, I just download the card to the computer.

I’ve located the extended warranty for the Gold Wing and bought an extra oil filter. Maps and reservations are being packed. Suntan lotion and chap stick, meds, ect all being packed. Maps and atlas. Bike has been checked over and ready to go.

Hopefully the race car is ready for Friday night. I got everything I could think of done on Monday & Tuesday. I always have nightmares about what could go wrong.

Marshall County Deputy recovers; Why wasn't the suspect STILL in jail?; Ride to Billings coming up

2010-07-13T16:23:00.000-05:00

Marshall County, Kansas Sheriff’s Deputy Fernando Salcedo is recovering at home from wounds received in a shootout in Blue Rapids, KS last month. Deputy Saldedo was released from the hospital on June 15th. That is great news, as since that incident several officers in other parts of the United States have lost their lives in similar incidents. It‘s a tragedy when these incidents happen; what’s an even bigger tragedy is when it should not have happened in the first place.

Since the Blue Rapids incident we’ve learned that the shooter is a career criminal. Steven Macomber, at 43 years of age, has already spent 23 years of his life in prison. Bill Miskell, spokesman for KDOC, said Macomber was convicted of aggravated battery in Sedgwick County, Kansas in January 1986,three counts of aggravated robbery in August 1987 in Sedgwick County, and aggravated battery in Reno County in 1992. Macomber was paroled in February 2009, but was returned to prison in May 2009 for a parole violation. He was once again paroled on September 9, 2009.

Macomber is also a suspect in a homicide in Topeka that happened about 4 hours before the shooting in Blue Rapids and a May bank robbery in Omaha. He is facing Federal charges in the bank robbery.

Everyone’s question in this case should be - WHY WAS THIS IDIOT NOT STILL IN JAIL?? Looking at his record, he was obviously not rehabilitated! Maybe their parole should include having to live with the judge who gave them a light sentence or a parole board member who voted to parole them! Enough said - if I get started on this I will never stop!

Four more shifts to work until I’m on vacation and on the Gold Wing for 10 days or so! I’m really looking forward to riding and getting some sightseeing in. I’ll also get to race a couple of times before I take off, the first time on July 9th and the next time on July 16th.

There’s nothing like being able to pack up the Gold Wing and take to the road. It’s not like being closed up in the car. You’re at the mercy of the elements, kind of like the pioneers when they traveled through all kinds of weather. If the weather is hot, I can’t turn up the air conditioner. If it’s cool, we have to put on a little extra clothing; if it’s wet, add some rain gear. If it’s TOO wet, hopefully we can find a spot to pull over and have some coffee until it blows over. You can smell the freshly cut alfalfa and the wildflowers as well as the feedlots when you go by them. Most of the people you meet on the road are friendly, and it’s interesting to chat with them for a while.

A tank of fuel doesn’t last as long as with the car, but it will far out last my butt. Depending on how and where I ride, the Gold Wing will get between 37 and 47 MPG pulling the little trailer behind it. I’ll be watching gas prices to compare them to what we’re paying at Beatrice. I’m guessing it will take about 26 gallons of gas to get to Billings. At even $3 a gallon, that’s just under $80. Probably can’t go that far in the car for that price.

Talking about gas prices, gas in Beatrice went up a dime the middle of the week before July 4th. We rode to Grand Island of July 1st and gas there as a dime less than in Beatrice. We stopped at Git-N-Split on West O in Lincoln on the way home to clean the bugs off the windshield and gas there was 17 cents less than at Beatrice!! So much for buying locally! By the way, on July 6th, gas in Beatrice went down a dime.

Looking ahead to my trip to Billings, I’m probably going to stop in Cheyenne on Sunday morning for breakfast. I was going a Google search to see where there might be a Village Inn, Denny‘s or Perkins is in the area, and I found the Flying J website. They list their gas prices on their website. Their current price for unleaded regular is $2.539, while ours is at $2.699.

I made a quick run into Lincoln Saturday morning and when I turned around to come home, I filled at Git-N-Split on West O for a dime less than I would have paid in Beatrice. It’s only 40 cents for a tank of gas, but it eventually adds up, especially when you’re on a trip or are there anyway. I’m wondering how much gas is east and south of Nebraska. My brother and his wife went to Camp Lejuene to visit their son, but I haven’t heard anything from them on gas prices.

I have the week left to get ready to go, but too much to do. I think the race car is ready to race on Friday. The National Special Olympics Torch Run will be in Beatrice Friday afternoon, I have 2 more shifts to work, and still have to get my bags packed. Gotta take more than just a few things for a couple of nights. I plan to take a lot of pictures and post them in a new album on Facebook every night.

Marshall County, Kansas Officer Down; Price of gas

2010-06-09T13:12:00.000-05:00

OFFICER DOWN - A Monday evening incident in neighboring Marshall County, Kansas put local law enforcement on high alert. According to a news release from the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department, Deputy Fernando Salcedo made a routine traffic stop on Hwy 77 in Blue Rapids, Kansas about 8:15 PM. As Deputy Salcedo approached the vehicle, a suspect got out of the vehicle and fired a handgun at Deputy Salcedo. Deputy Salcedo suffered wounds to a wrist and his lower back. He was able to return fire, striking the suspect once.

The suspect, Steven A Macomber of Topeka, is a suspect in the killing of a Topeka man on Monday afternoon. Macomber stole Salcedo’s patrol vehicle after the shootout with Salcedo and drove a short way to a residence in Blue Rapids, where he forced his way into the house and took a hostage. Law enforcement quickly converged on the residence and set up a perimeter. Negotiators spoke with Macomber and he released his hostage about midnight. He surrendered about 6:40 AM on Tuesday and was taken by ambulance to a Marysville hospital.

Deputy Salcedo was taken to a Lincoln, Nebraska hospital by air ambulance where he underwent successful surgery and is expected to fully recover. Deputy Salcedo started his law enforcement career with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department as a Corrections Officer. He attended the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center and has been a Sheriff’s Deputy since fall of 2009. This goes to show that as law enforcement officers, we can NEVER, EVER be complacent on even the most routine of traffic stops.

Most generally, when something such as a murder has occurred and a suspect is at large, local, regional and statewide bulletins are put out with suspect information to include possible vehicles the suspect may be driving. The little information I have been able to find from news reports does not indicate whether there was any suspect information in the Topeka case. We should treat every traffic stop as though the occupant may try to kill us until we determine that is not the case. BE SAFE OUT THERE, and ALWAYS COME HOME AT THE END OF YOUR SHIFT!

Gasoline prices tend to somewhat dictate how we plan our lives. Last summer, gas prices were as much as $1 a gallon lower than they are now. With a gallon of gas almost $3 recently, a lot of people are looking at how they will be spending their vacations. However, I am confused as to how the price of a gallon of gas is set.

From 2003 through 2009, we made an annual trip to Las Vegas at the end of February to attend the NASCAR weekend. We took a couple of different routes and found regular places to get fuel, eat and stay overnight. We always tried to fill the gas tank before we got to Vegas, because gas there was always a bit higher.

In 2009, the highest price we found for a gallon of gas was in BEATRICE!! It was even less expensive in Las Vegas than in Beatrice!

I believe in promoting the idea of buying in your own community. However, when I leave Beatrice to go to, say, Grand Island, I will try to find out ahead of time how much gas is in Grand Island. If it’s less than in Beatrice, I’ll hold off on getting gas until I get to Grand Island.

When I left to go to Columbus last Thursday, gas in Beatrice was $2.729. I filled up in Lincoln on the way home for $2.499. I got a total of 40.6 gallons; at 23 cents a gallon, I saved $9.34. That may not sound like a lot, but it paid for my supper!

I’ve just never understood how Casey’s in Beatrice can charge 15 to 20 cents a gallon more for gas than Casey’s in Crete, or Wilber, or Exeter. I’ve heard rumors why Beatrice is higher, but have never been able to confirm those rumors. For people who are watching their budget and are going that way anyway, so much for spending your money at home.

We'll be riding to St Joseph, Missouri in a few days, so it will be interesting to see how much gas costs in Kansas and Missouri.

Race track prep and advertising

2010-06-06T15:49:00.000-05:00

After a Thursday night, June 3rd, road trip to Columbus to watch it rain, I’m thinking I could be a weather forecaster when I retire. I can be wrong a lot more than I am now and not get in trouble for it. That makes two trips at 234 miles each to: pack track, hot lap and run a heat race; and pack track and hot lap. As much as I want to run double features, I sure don’t like driving all those miles and then not racing! It looked like the track was going to be decent as the massive holes in turns 1 & 2 did not seem to be there any more during hot laps.

Most of the mud got washed off the race car Friday afternoon in getting it ready for Jason to race. Weatherman said 40% chance of rain, so it was wait & see for a bit whether or not he would get to race. Thunderstorm watches were posted until 11 PM for our area, and the weather radar showed some heavy storms between St Joseph and Maryville, Missouri. Normally, that would not have been a concern, but radar showed it was turning and coming back this way. If we’d been going any distance to race, it would have been a sure bet that it would have rained.

Friday evening ended up being a decent night at the races. Even though there was lightning in the distance in all directions from Beatrice, it stayed dry all night! Jason had never been in this car before. He started in the back in both his heat race and the A Feature. The track was VERY heavy, especially in the heat race. After starting 13th in the Feature, he ran a consistent race and missed a couple of spinning cars, finishing 8th. It looks like the worst part this week will be getting the car clean!!

I don’t profess to be a farmer, but Beatrice Speedway needs to look at how the track is being watered. With a 7:30 start time, there should be no problem getting the track ready to race. Most weeks, the track is already being worked on Thursday evenings. Some water on Friday probably isn’t a bad thing, but what’s happening is ridiculous. There was so much water put down that the WATER TRUCK GOT STUCK!! We had 2 ½” of rain on Tuesday night, and more rain for an hour about 2 AM on Friday!

With all the water on the track, it took a lot of extra time to get the track rolled in. By the time the first heat rolled onto the track, it was 7:50 PM. In some circles, maybe starting 20 minutes late isn’t bad, but track officials always want the show to go in a timely manner. If there’s a problem with your car, the show is being rushed through so fast that there isn’t time to get it fixed. I know we have to get the show done in a timely manner, but that starts with getting the show started on time!

In these tough financial times for fans, drivers, and yes, even race tracks, we all need to be mindful of where our money goes. The race fan wants a smooth, well run show that starts on time and is done at a decent hour. If the races run too late, fans get discouraged and may not come back. On another note, people who live near the track may call the police and complain about the noise. If I was answering those calls, I would be in trouble because people who live close knew the track was there when they moved there. But, the track also has a responsibility of being a good neighbor and getting done at a decent hour.

I must say that I am EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED at the amount of communication, or rather lack of communication, from Beatrice Speedway this season. I have several points to make when I address this. In the past, there were always short rules/organizational meetings for each class in November. For the sanctioned classes, that was nothing more than talking about tentative schedules and registering for the upcoming season. For non-sanctioned classes, rules were discussed and, if needed, changed. Tentative schedules were discussed and registrations were accepted.

At the end of 2009, there was NO INFORMATION put out by Beatrice Speedway about the upcoming season. The first information we got was that the track was going to require all drivers to have RaceCeivers in 2010. They did not have any further information as to where to get them, how much they cost, etc. This ended up being an additional cost to each driver of $105 if they bought one. They can also be rented for $10 a night, but if you race every week, you’re a lot better off buying one.

The Women for Racing organization at Beatrice Speedway is, in my opinion, the saving grace of Beatrice Speedway. They sponsor the drivers’ points fund, and without WFR there would be no points fund. They do fund raising all season long with the goal of providing a points fund for the drivers. They sponsor a Kids Night in August, which includes a coin toss and bicycle giveaways. They have a Casino Night and Bowl-a-Thon before the season, once again to raise money for the points fund. Last season, they donated to the Beatrice/Gage County FOP Charity Race, as did Beatrice Speedway.

I don’t know if Beatrice Speedway has had a falling-out with the local newspaper, but the coverage by the Beatrice Daily Sun has been very minimal at best. Having interesting, informative stories on the race results amounts to FREE ADVERTISING, so why not take advantage of it? Isn’t the Daily Sun sending out a reporter any more?

I have been VERY DISAPPOINTED in the Beatrice Speedway website this year. Results and points are not being posted in a timely manner. If somebody is being paid to do this, they are not earning their keep! Somebody needs to take a look at the Eagle Raceway website. Greg Soukup, AKA Eagle Pit Shack Guy, writes an excellent article each week on the races at Eagle. It is posted on the Eagle Raceway website by 6 AM on Sunday morning, and his results include the complete finishing positions of EVERY heat race, B Feature and A Feature that was run that night. Something like that could be done at Beatrice and posted on the Beatrice Speedway message board on DirtDrivers.com. That would not cost anything except somebody’s time.

I don’t get a chance to listen to the local radio station a lot, so I don’t know if they still have a Beatrice Speedway show. That was an excellent source of information in the past. If they still have it, the word needs to be put out there so everyone is aware of it. Once again, post the times and dates on DirtDrivers.com.

So much for my ranting on that subject - for now!

Friday and Saturday nights at work were fairly quiet. It almost looked like the people who weren’t at the races left town, as the downtown bars were almost empty. With the nice weather, maybe everybody took to camping. One more night before my short weekend starts. I hope everybody behaves themselves.

My call of the night on Friday night was when dispatch tried to send me to Arby's to check on a snake near the entrance. I am NOT a snake person, and even though it was about midnight, I think maybe that should be a call for Animal Control. I let dispatch know that I would be stopping for binoculars, and thankfully the Sergeant jumped in and said he was closer. Ended up being a dead snake that he disposed of.

Memorial Day & alcohol; ANOTHER rain-out!!

2010-06-04T11:23:00.000-05:00

We got through the Memorial Day weekend with no major incidents. After a nice, quiet weekend, I got into the office shortly before 6 PM on Monday evening. Before I had a chance to get logged in on my car computer or the video camera in my car, I got sent to a domestic disturbance. Dispatch didn’t have much information for me so I didn’t know what to expect. I got to the location, and my Sergeant pulled up at the same time. When I got to the door, I was met by a drunk, belligerent guy who called me every name in the book. He told me there wasn’t anything wrong and to just leave. I asked where his wife was, and he indicated she was inside. When I asked her to come out, he grudgingly allowed her outside. Seems for some reason he wouldn’t let her out to go to work.

We cleared that and I followed her to work, where I asked her to stop at the Police Department when she got off work. She assured me she would. She did stop later, but would not wait for an officer to talk to her.

We no sooner cleared that call than we got sent to the Emergency Room. They had a drunk, loud person there that was causing a problem. When we got there, he was outside. We convinced him to take a ride home with a friend. Less than 30 minutes later, we were dealing with him again, and this time he went to jail for disorderly conduct. Just the way I’d want to spend the end of a holiday…..

The Nebraska Legislature has passed a law that will allow bars to be open until 2 AM, and the Game & Parks Commission has voted to allow alcohol in State Parks. I think alcohol sales need to be shut off at noon!!

Tuesday evening we had storm warnings with wind, heavy rain and hail threatening. It was just a couple of days short of the 30-year anniversary of the Grand Island tornadoes and brought back some memories. I spent that particular night at the house of some friends and when things finally calmed down, found the neighborhood was devastated. We tried to leave, but found trees and power lines across the road blocking our way. It was not an experience I would ever want to repeat. At least this time there were no tornadoes. We did have over 2.5” of rain in our rain gauge when I got home Wednesday morning.

With Wednesday and Thursday being great weather and only a slight chance of any rain, I headed to U.S. 30 Speedway at Columbus on Thursday June 3rd. About half way between David City and Columbus it started getting dark in the west. As I arrived at the track, it looked like it was raining off in the west. I was just getting ready to get in the car to pack track when Jeremy called. He told me there was a tornado watch for Greeley County, which is northwest of Columbus.

The track was rolled in and looked like it would be a good track if the weather held off. We started to get some mist about the time the drivers’ meeting started. The stock car feature, postponed from May 6th, was to be the first race on the track. However, we started to get a light rain and track officials decided to wait 30 minutes to see what the weather would do. About 20 minutes later, the rains came and the night was another rain-out. It’s one thing to have a rain-out at home, but driving a little over a hundred miles each way - TWICE - is a real bummer! I’ve always thought that race tracks are rain magnets.

At least there isn’t anything mechanical to do to the car before Jason takes the wheel tonight. Just have to wash the U.S. 30 Speedway mud off the car and trailer and we should be ready to go. It’s my weekend to work. Next week is the Blue Knights Spring MWRC and we’re schedule to attend that. A weekend of riding and relaxing is just a short week away!!

Racing FINALLY happens at Beatrice Speedway!!

2010-06-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

After a 2 week lay-off, we FINALLY got to race! Friday’s weather was perfect, with a temperature of about 85 when I left the house to go to the race track. I always try to go early so I’m not rushing around getting the car unloaded and doing a lot of other last minute things once I get there. Dave has gotten a job in the pits that actually PAYS him (maybe I should do the same) so I figured I may be by myself. However, on my way to the track, I got a call from a co-worker, saying he may be a bit late, but he planned to come help me. Later, Aaron Roth called and said his Dad & him were also on their way to help out.

The first 2 weeks of racing at the Beatrice Speedway were apparently an experiment in farming. Even though there had been plenty of rain, I’m guessing maybe the valve on the water truck wouldn’t shut off. After the first week, I must have scooped about 300 lbs of mud off the garage floor. Believe it or not, you can’t put dirt in the garbage! I got a nasty-note from the garbage company once because I had dirt in the garbage. Now I have to hide it a lot better.

Anyway, we loaded up all the mud and took it back to the track when we returned the next week. That week, the track was still plenty wet, but this week, it looked like they finally got it right!

I got 2nd row of the 2nd heat race. Seems like I always get the first heat race, but for once, I got to watch the first heat while I was buckled in my car. I’ve made some modifications to my RaceCeiver ear buds so they will stay in my ears and block out the engine noise, and that has helped tremendously in helping me hear what is being said as well as blocking the engine noise.

The 48 car started on the pole, and he was in only his 2nd race. I wanted to be careful of him, as he almost took me out on Test-N-Tune, even though it was not intentional. We get our one lap, then the lights on the back chute are out and we’re anticipating the green. In the middle of turn 4, the field is on the gas and the green flag waves. We’re racing!!

The 48 washes up in front of me and everybody goes to the inside to pass him. I’m momentarily caught on the outside behind him. Out of 2 and down the back chute, I start to go under him, but he drops to the bottom and I’m blocked. I don’t want to take chances because I’ll be in the A Feature no matter where I finish the heat race. I move higher going through 3 & 4, then try to go under him on the front chute. We’re almost side by side going into 1, but I back off and let him into the corner ahead of me. Out of 2 I take a high line and make the pass on the back chute. The next car is already over a half straightaway ahead of me, but the car feels good and I’m confident I can catch that next car. Through 1 and 2, and back on the back chute again, and I’ve closed half the gap already. Into 3 and through 4, then back on the gas - TOO HARD!! I’ve just committed a stupid rookie mistake and spin out , hitting the inside wall at the beginning of the front chute. The car is still running, but by the time I get turned around, the field is coming through 4 and the yellow is out. In the heat race, if you cause a yellow you’re done, so it’s back to the pits for me.

Fortunately, there wasn’t any serious damage that would keep me from running the A Feature. When the line-ups came out a little later, I found myself starting on the outside of the 3rd row in the A Feature. During the rest of the heat races, I kept an eye on the track and it looked like it was staying fairly smooth. It was a lot dryer than the first two nights, but not dusty dry. We decided to top off the fuel cell and drop the air pressure in the tires by 2 lbs all the way around.

Time to strap in for the A Feature. With the RaceCeiver, it takes a little extra time as I have to be careful not to pull the ear buds out of my ears. Even with the medical tape holding them in, they tend to move around a little. So, settle into the seat, find all the belts and hook them, be sure somebody puts the window net up, helmet on CAREFULLY, then the neck brace, gloves, and be sure to get the steering wheel on SECURELY! Then double-check everything again!

The field is pulling onto the track. They’re telling us on the radio to move high to roll the track in a bit. It looks like it is a great track, and everybody is anxious to get the green. Out of 4 slow and in front of the grandstands and everybody is waving. We’re going green next time around. I grab my belts one last time and give them a tug to be sure they’re tight. Through 3 and out of 4 and the green flag flies and we’re racing!

The first lap or two always seems like a blur to me. Cars are usually side by side and bumper to bumper and you may not be running where you want to be on the track. I’ve always felt more comfortable on the bottom on a dry slick and was able to get there after a couple of laps. However, after a lap down there, the car felt tight and I moved back up a bit and found a spot to run. With just a handful of laps gone, the L2R makes a run on my outside going into 3, but blows in way too hard and goes clear to the top of the track. I don’t see him the rest of the evening. The 00 is off the track on the bottom just before 4 as a result of an on-track skirmish with another car. However, there’s no yellow. The next lap around, the 00 pulls back onto the track just ahead of me. He’s always fast so I try to follow in his tracks. A few more laps down and we’re half way to the checkers. Into 1 and through 2 and there are 2 cars spun to the bottom of 2, causing a yellow. When the field is set, I find myself in 6th. I’m not sure that I can hold it as the two cars right behind me are fast, having finished 1 - 2 last week.

We’re green again and back on the gas! I’ve moved my line up a bit - perhaps a little too much - but I’m comfortable where I’m at. The 69 and 4t pass me on the back chute and I try to get in behind them. They’re running about the same line as me, and the track has a lot of grip there. Meanwhile, the top 3 cars are battling it out, running side by side every lap. Out of 4 one more time and the flagman gives us the “2 to go.” I’m not sure if anybody is close behind me and don’t want to make any mistakes the last 2 laps. I’m still within striking distance if either the 69 or 4t have a problem on the last lap. The white is out and as I come out of 1 and into 2, one of the top 3 cars is sitting at the bottom of the track and they’re telling us on the radio there is a car there. We stay green and I go under the checkers in 8th place. Another fairly decent night at Beatrice Speedway for the R & R Racing, Fashionette Salon, Nancy Gerdes CPA, Shew Towing, Blue Knights Monte Carlo. Just normal maintenance and replace the front bumper this week, and we should be ready to go. Plans right now are for me to race at U.S. 30 Speedway in Columbus on Thursday evening and Jason will race the car at Beatrice on Friday June 4th.

Saturday turned out to be very nice, with the high temps near 90. There was a wind, but not so bad that it interfered with riding the Gold Wing a bit. I didn’t get as many miles as I’d have liked, but I did get to ride and my arms are starting to tan. Or is that rust from all the rain?

On Sunday I rode to Wilber for a family reunion with some of Mom’s cousins. When I left Beatrice, it was close to 80, but the sky was overcast. I left Wilber to go to Lincoln and the temperature had dropped 10 degrees. Luckily, I had a sweatshirt that I brought with me. Later, coming back from Lincoln, I ran into about 5 miles of light rain near Princeton. Wasn’t enough to stop and put on rain gear, though.

We’ll see what the rest of the week brings. Hope it stays dry for a while.

High school graduation PLUS 40 YEARS!! ; Memorial Day

2010-05-31T13:11:00.000-05:00

I had the opportunity to attend my nephew’s Crete High graduation on May 15th. As we drove up the hill to Fuhrer Fieldhouse located on the Doane College campus, it really struck home that my own high school graduation had taken place at this very location - 39 YEARS and 50 WEEKS AGO!! That day seems so far removed, yet it’s hard to believe that it’s been that long. Our graduating class was either the first of second to graduate from the fieldhouse. As I drove to the south looking for a parking place, I found that a NEW field house is being built! I always thought the old one was big, as indoor track meets were held there. The new one appears to be HUGE!!

The graduating class was decidedly smaller than the Class of 1970. I’m not sure how that happens since Crete’s population has increased by approximately 2,000 since we graduated. Another thing I noticed was that there were not a lot of last names I recognized as the graduates were called to receive their diplomas. However, a lot of the same concerns still exist. In 1970, the U.S. was in the middle of Viet Nam, and today our military is in Iraq and Afghanistan. I noticed there were several of the graduates who will be serving in the military.

From our seats in the bleachers, we had a good view of the crowd on the floor. I was disappointed when the Star Spangled Banner was played, as I saw about half the crowd just standing. I was taught to place my right hand over my heart. Is that no longer the case??

While growing up, my heroes were Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Marshall Matt Dillon, Cheyenne Bodie, John Wayne, Audie Murphy and Randolph Scott. I still watch their old movies every chance I get. They were my role models right behind my parents. If they were to attend an event today where the Star Spangled Banner was played, they would stand straight and place their hand over their heart. That’s just the way it is.

With Memorial Day just a couple of days away, I think back to when Memorial Day was celebrated while I was growing up. There was a ceremony at the city park, then a parade that ended at the cemetery, then another ceremony at the cemetery. That is something that I will always remember. I wonder how many of today’s youth have had the opportunity to attend such an important ceremony and to appreciate what it stands for.

Memorial Day is for remembering those who served our country and lost their lives preserving our way of life. It is also a time to tell our surviving veterans “Thank you for your service!” Attend a Memorial Day service to honor ALL veterans! When the Star Spangled Banner is played, stop what you are doing, remove your hat, and place your hand over your heart. Listen to the words and what they mean and be thankful that you live in the United States of America!

Racing season is finally started; put a few miles on the Gold Wing; Nebraska legislature; immigration

2010-05-26T14:18:00.001-05:00

It’s been way too long since I’ve written. I’ve had too many irons in the fire the last 3 months or so, and then there are times I seem to have a mental block. There are a lot of things I have an opinion about and could write about, but some of them may get me in trouble.

Where to start? The weather has been so fickle this spring. By now we should be getting warm, sunny days. It seems like we do get a couple of days of nice weather, then Mother Nature rears her nasty head and strikes at us.

Beatrice Speedway got two practice sessions and one race night in of a scheduled 4 nights of racing at the beginning of the season The 2nd night of Spring Nationals was weathered out, and with threatening weather, it was not postponed to Sunday. The scheduled April 16th start was cancelled by rain, pushing the start back to April 23. Over an inch of rain on the 22nd cancelled the races on April 23rd. There are no races scheduled for April 30th at Beatrice Speedway due to the Gage County Relay for Life taking place that night.

We were able to get our car on track for both practice sessions. We had a couple of issues during the first session before the Spring Nationals and got that taken care of. The test & tune session on April 10th went well, but I did have a heating problem. Last fall there was no problem, so once I got the car back in the shop, I made some changes to the shroud. I still had an oil leak, part of which I traced to a pinhole leak in the bottom of the pan. I also found the radiator was about a gallon short on water. Since the first scheduled night of racing was April 16th, I made an engine change before the season even started. However, Mother Nature kept having other ideas, cancelling the April 16th opening night as well as the April 23rd program. With no racing on April 30th due to the Relay for Life, it would be May 7th before the season got started at Beatrice.

Wanting to actually RACE, I made the long haul to U.S. Speedway at Columbus, Nebraska on Thursday evening, May 6th. The weather took its toll on the track over the winter and early spring, as it was smooth about ¾ of the way around. However, turns 1 & 2 were like a plowed cornfield. Then, as the evening wore on, weather started to move in and with 6 laps down in the IMCA modified A Feature, the program was called. That postponed our A Feature to May 13th, which got weathered out. May 20th also got weathered out, which further moved our A Feature to June 6th.

Beatrice Speedway got their opener in on May 7th. Being my night to work, Jeremy was “the nut behind the wheel” that night. On the 2nd lap of the 1st heat race of the season, a car in front of him lost control and Jeremy got collected, taking out the nosepiece, radiator and water pump and ending his night prematurely. Back in the shop on Monday, I was able to cut all the ruined pipe out and replace it, then mount a new radiator and water pump. Jeremy and David came over in the evening and before they left, all that was left to do was mount the nosepiece. That got finished up the next night.

Even though the area had a lot of rain the week of May 13th, we were able to race. We are now using RaceCeivers, which are scanners the drivers wear so the officials can tell them where to line up, etc. I had a hard time getting my earpieces to stay in my ears, thus not hearing anything except engine noise. I’ve made some modifications to my earpieces and hope that will solve the problem. The night of racing was actually pretty good for me, even though the track was to the liking of the “big” horsepower engines. The track was sloppy in the heat race, but better in the Feature. I started in 11th and as I finally took the checkers, I glanced up at the scoreboard and found myself in 5th. Not pretty, but 5th neverless, and we never touched another car all night.

I have had a chance to ride the Gold Wing a little, putting about 800 miles on it since the snow finally all melted. I’d had an issue with it seemingly having a dead battery occasionally, but after getting underneath the bike and trying to move some wires, it would start. I was finally able to get it back to the dealer where they found a loose wire on the starter solenoid. Beings the battery was almost 4 yrs old, it also got replaced with one that I got a lifetime warranty on.

The weekend of April 29- May 1 was Blue Knights Nebraska I’s Paxton Run weekend. I was planning to attend for the first time in several years as I attended the State FOP Conference in Kearney in the same time frame. However, Dad’s cousin and family from Texas were in Crete for the weekend and we got together with them. I had a great ride to Kearney and back, leaving on Thursday afternoon in a strong wind. However, I seemed to ride out of the wind before going very far. I stayed on 2-lane highways so I didn’t have to fight the wind from the trucks on the interstate. It was a great trip overall, with sunny skies both ways. I even got my first “red stripes” of the year. That’s what I call the small area on my arms between my gloves and shirt sleeves.

Nebraska’s Legislature passed bills on a couple of controversial issues before they adjourned. The first issue was that of text messaging while operating a motor vehicle. The original bill was to completely ban texting. By the time the issue was passed, it became a secondary violation. That means a driver can’t be issued a citation for texting unless they’re stopped and cited for another violation first. This follows the seat belt law and Provisional Operator’s Permit, which can’t be enforced unless a driver is stopped and cited for another violation. Thankfully, the proposed repeal of the helmet law did not happen this year, but we can expect more debate on it next session.

The Nebraska Legislature has also passed a law which will allow bars to stay open until 2 AM. However, individual cities and villages will have to put a vote before their governing bodies to allow their bars to stay open until 2 AM. The city council has to vote on it and there needs to be a clear-cut majority in order for the bars to stay open until 2 AM. I don’t feel like the argument that the extra hour will give people an extra hour to sober up before they leave to go home holds water. In my opinion, the last hour will give people that much more time to get that much more intoxicated. Complaints of loud after hours parties at houses and apartments will come at 3 AM to 4 AM instead of 2 AM to 3 AM.

On the national scene, the immigration reform issue has come to a head in Arizona. Gov Jan Brewer put her signature on a bill that makes it against the law to be in Arizona illegally. Law Enforcement officers will have the authority to ask for proof that somebody is not an illegal alien. The law was immediately decried by many activists, and the “Reverend” Al sharp ton called for a boycott against Arizona. Personally, if he wanted to boycott Nebraska, I would be thrilled! The immigration issue will not die any time soon as the war on the southern border heats up. Murders in Mexico related to the drug cartels are at an all-time high, and U.S. towns along the border seem to be like a war zone at times. However this ends will shape the future of the U.S. for years to come.

Personally, I wish the United States would have the same immigration laws as Mexico. I guess with our current liberal administration, that will not happen.

Follow-up on comment on the War on Terror; February 18, 1969 railroad derailment in Crete, NE; Crete High won 1969 Boys State Basketball crown; 60,000 Officers assaulted on the job yearly; Philadelphia officer kills assailant; winter weather continues in Nebraska

2010-02-22T01:26:00.001-06:00

I commented in my last blog about the newspapers and TV stations talking for months in advance about upcoming offensives in the War on Terror. I subscribe to an e-mail newsletter from a site called Military.com. The day after I posted my comments, there was an article about news being released. The military actually feels that by releasing some information, insurgents are more likely to surrender or come over to the other side. I’m sure the brass knows a lot more than all of us old NCO’s, but it still doesn’t make any sense to me.

I’m not sure what made me think of it, but while working the other night, it suddenly hit me that February 18th was the anniversary date of a Burlington Northern derailment and subsequent rupture of a rail car of anhydrous ammonia in my home town of Crete, Nebraska. On February 18, 1969, I was a junior in high school. Crete had, and still has, a volunteer fire department. In 1969, firemen were alerted to fire & rescue calls by the city’s fire whistle. About 6:30 that morning, the fire whistle went off, waking most of the still-sleeping residents of the town of 4,500. I remember waking up, then starting to go back to sleep when the fire whistle started going off again. It ended, then started up again. Wondering what was going on, I started to get up when Mom came to my bedroom door and said there had been a train wreck and a tank of anhydrous ammonia had ruptured.

I don’t remember there being Emergency Management back then. Growing up in a farming community, I knew a little about the hazards of anhydrous ammonia, but not a lot. What I mostly knew was that people needed to stay away from it.

Dad was a Police Officer with the City of Crete at that time, as was my uncle. Dad worked the previous evening and did not end up going back to work until later that day. My uncle had also worked the night before and was waiting for a new mobile home to be delivered to a lot in Crete. The lot happened to be across the highway from the accident scene. That ended up being put on hold for several days. A Nebraska National Guard unit from Lincoln was activated for traffic and crowd control.

The temperature was extremely cold that morning. The derailment happened just east of the Blue River. Officials later said that this ultimately helped dissipate the deadly fumes, but six people died as a result of breathing the deadly fumes. Three other people died as a result of illegally riding on the freight train that derailed. Fifty three people were injured as a result of being exposed to the deadly cloud of ammonia. About 500 people were evacuated from their homes, including my grandparents. Several of my classmates lived close to the accident scene. One lost his father as a result of stepping out onto the porch and being overcome by the anhydrous ammonia.

As I remember, the threat from the anhydrous ammonia was pretty much over by the end of the day. The clean-up from the derailment took longer. Two of the people that died owned a dry cleaning business just to the west of the derailment site. That business never re-opened and the building and their residence next door remained as a stark reminder of the events of the day until they were recently demolished.

I did a Google search on this disaster but was not able to find a lot on it. It was mostly government statistics and figures. Maybe because the internet is pretty new, the information on a 41-year old disaster is not available. If anybody is reading this that has any memories of this to share, please add to the comments at the end of this entry.

Another big event in Crete shortly after the derailment was the Crete Cardinals basketball team winning the State Class B Championship. I tried to find articles on the path to that championship but was not able to locate anything on that, either. All I found was a listing of state basketball championships that showed Crete beating Cozad for the title and that the Cardinals’ final record was 17-3. I remember thinking that should have been the Cardinals’ second title in as many years. During the previous season, Schuyler won the championship. During the season, the Cardinals were the only team to beat Schuyler. If I remember correctly, one of the state newspapers still rated Crete over Schuyler after the state Tournament, which the Cardinals were not able to go to due to a loss to Auburn in the district finals.

It’s hard to believe that these things happened 41 years ago. I guess it truly means you’re getting old when you remember some things that happened years ago but can’t remember what you did with the car keys.

Every year, 60,000 law enforcement officers are assaulted on the job, resulting in about 16,000 injuries, said Craig Floyd, chairman of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. Floyd didn't have statistics on how many of those assaults and injuries involve female officers compared with males. There have been 18,661 male officers killed in the line of duty since 1792, and 237 women have been killed on the job since 1916.

On Wednesday evening, February 17th, Pittsburgh, PA Police Officer Janine Triolo was involved in a fight for her life, In this case, the good guy(girl) won the fight.

Officer Triolo was in the area of a reported armed robbery when she contacted 20-yr old Ryan Davis of Lawrenceville, the suspect in the robbery. Officer Triolo began to handcuff Davis and had a cuff on one of Davis’ wrists when he began to resist. Davis hit Officer Triolo in the face several times with his fist and shoved a gun into Officer Triolo’s armpit and pulled the trigger. The gun jammed and Davis attempted to gain control of Officer Triolo’s service weapon. Officer Triolo managed to maintain control of her weapon, draw it from her holster, and fire at Davis, striking him in the chest. Davis, who was 6’1” and weighed about 200 lbs, died at the scene.

The assault left Officer Triolo with a broken eye socket, a broken nose and broken left hand a concussion and a detached retina. Officer Triolo, 28, is a 3 year veteran of the Department. "She was literally fighting for her life. The suspect had already robbed someone, and we believe he was willing to kill her if it meant he would get away," said Officer Dan O'Hara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1.
"She stood her ground and did her job. She is a hero."

Officer Triolo, still in an undisclosed hospital on February 20th, is on paid leave while the incident is investigated, which is normal in police-involved shootings. The Allegheny County District Attorney's office will oversee the investigation.

It’s nice to see that the bad guy will never be able to rob or assault anybody again. If Davis’ gun had not jammed, we most certainly would be adding Officer Triolo’s name to the Officer Down Memorial Page. Get well soon, Officer Triola, and job well done!

The winter weather in our area continues. It started raining about 1 AM on Friday. By 1:30 AM the rain was freezing on parked cars and the street was getting slippery. I went home shortly after 2 AM and when I got up about 9:30 AM we got about 3” or 4” of wet, heavy snow. Just about the time it looked like we were getting rid of some snow, we got more to replace it. It was snowing again Saturday morning, but not staying on the pavement. I just don’t think this winter will EVER end!

I was able to spend some time in the garage working on the race car. I’m really happy that I didn’t have to completely rebuild a car like we did last winter. Even with the wood burner going full blast in the garage, it was just about 55 degrees inside. If I ever had it to do over, I would put up a wood frame garage and insulate it conventionally as soon as possible. We put up a metal building and are now finding out that it will cost more to insulate it than the building cost! I guess we’ll just keep gathering wood and keep the fire going as well as we can.

I gave up turning wrenches in early 1983. It was a time when manufacturers were going to a lot more electronics and mechanics were having to buy metric wrenches. Mechanics were spending a lot of money to purchase more electronic testing equipment as well as metric wrenches and sockets to supplement their SAE tools. I would be lucky today to be able to change the oil and filter on most new cars today.

Believe it or not, working on race cars is a lot easier than working on today’s passenger cars and trucks. There are very few electronics to worry about, and most everything is located in a position that is at least kind of easy to work on. Most race cars today are built from the ground up on a bare frame, and components have been located in such a way that they can be worked on.

At the Cool McCool 100 race last fall -(it seems like it was at least 2 years ago), I ran into some problems with my brakes. On Saturday evening, I found that my rear brakes were locking up. On Sunday morning, we unloaded the car in the motel parking lot and Jeremy eventually found a pinched brake line. We got that taken care of, and I thought my problems were over.

Once the season was over and we got the car in the garage, we put it on jack stands to work on it better. I found that the front brakes had quite a drag on them, too. I tinkered on them on and off, looking for a problem. I even went so far as to replace the right front caliper and spindle, thinking that maybe the piston was froze in the caliper or the spindle was bent, causing the caliper to be cocked and applying unequal pressure to the rotor. Each time I would put it back together, the wheel would spin freely until I applied the brake, then there would be a lot of drag on the brakes.

I finally opened the reservoir on the master cylinders and found that each had some kind of small round black plastic thing in the bottom of the reservoir. These apparently fit into an orifice in the bottom of the master cylinder that allows brake fluid to enter the brake lines. Looking closer at these, I saw they had an arrow on them with the word “front” printed on it. The arrow was not pointing quite to the front. When I made sure the arrow was pointing straight to the front, the brakes began working correctly.

In all of the other master cylinders I’ve worked with, I’ve never seen these in the bottom. These are a Willwood brand, which is commonly used in circle track racing. I’m guessing that these are an older design.

With the weather, it is now very possible that the cars in this area will be ready to race before Mother Nature is ready to race.

www.jetracinginc.com

By: Twitter Buttons

War on Terror - Why do we tell the enemy our plans months in advance?? More Law Enforcement Officers hurt; Two indicted for the murder of a Phoenix area officer; Danica crashes out of the Nationwide Race; McMurray wins, Junior 2nd in the 500; Start of Nebraska racing season postponed 2 weeks

2010-02-16T20:01:00.002-06:00

After months of planning, forces in Afghanistan are on a major offensive against the Taliban. News reports tell us that the going is rough for our troops as they encounter roadside bombs and resistance fighters. I’ve followed the war on terror with interest since my nephew is a career Marine. He is currently in the U.S. but has done tours in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. When he has been overseas and we actually know what area of the country he is in, I try to find a map in order to get a better idea of where he is and what the country is like.

Something I find unusual is this: why, when a major offensive is being planned, is the information released to the entire world? We’ve been reading for months about how the offensive is being planned, how many more troops are being deployed, etc. WHY isn’t this information classified? Are there new Rules of War out there that us “old soldiers” don’t know about? What would happen if the enemy didn’t know about our plans 6 months in advance? Maybe, just maybe, with an element of surprise, our troops would have an easier time of things. If the enemy didn’t know there was a major offensive in the works, they wouldn’t be able to take months to plant roadside bombs for our troops to be setting off. When I worked on the drug task force, we didn’t tell the newspapers and radio stations what we were doing or who our targets were. Why should fighting a war be any different? If our leaders want to bring our troops home, then they need to stop telling the world what their battle plans are for months before they carry them out!

Another thing I have a problem with is the R.O.E. - Rules of Engagement. If an enemy fighter is shooting at you and suddenly runs out of bullets, he can put his weapon down and walk away, and our troops are not allowed to shoot at him! This guy has just tried to kill me, and he suddenly puts his gun down and walks away, so I am not allowed to shoot at him until he has a chance to go get a fresh weapon and start shooting at me again! This is war! These guys strap explosives to themselves and blow themselves up, killing scores of innocent civilians as well as our troops!

On the home front, our law enforcement officers are in a battle of their own. It is becoming increasingly more dangerous to be a law enforcement officer in Washington State. On Saturday evening, Trooper Scott Johnson, a 25-yr veteran of the Washington State Patrol, was processing the car of a suspected drunk driver in downtown Long Beaach, Washington. The wrecker driver had arrived and was also on the scene when a man approached Trooper Johnson and said something to him. Trooper Johnson replied to the man and when he turned his attention back to the car, the man pulled a small caliber handgun and fired twice at the back of Trooper Johnson’s head. One bullet grazed his ear while the other bullet lodged in the back of his head. Miraculously, Johnson was conscious and alert when he was taken to the hospital and was able to give a description of his attacker to investigators. The shooting comes amid one of the bloodiest stretches for Washington law enforcement in at least 50 years. Nine law-enforcement officers have been shot since Halloween, and six of them died. They include four Lakewood police officers — Sgt. Mark Renninger and Officers Tina Griswold, Ronald Owens and Greg Richards — killed in the deadliest single attack on police in state history.

At Richmond, California, near San Francisco, police were seeking a hooded gunman who horrified the congregation of a San Francisco Bay area church when he paced the aisles then pulled out a gun and shot two teenagers. The gunman, flanked by two companions in hooded sweatshirts, walked into the church, scanned the pews and fired about five shots, hitting a 14-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man in front of about 100 people. The 14-year-old was hit in the shoulder and the 19-year-old was struck in the leg. Both victims, whose names haven't been released, were hospitalized and were expected to survive. There were no other injuries.
In Phoenix, a grand jury has indicted two men accused in the murder of a Gilbert Police Lieutenant on January 28th. Lt Eric Schuhandler was shot and killed when he made an early morning traffic stop on a car being driven by Daimen Irizarry of Gilbert. The passenger in the car, Christopher Redondo, is accused of fatally shooting Lt Shuhandler in the head. He's charged with first-degree murder, four counts of drive-by shooting and 19 counts of aggravated assault. Irizarry is charged with four counts of drive-by shooting, nine counts of aggravated assault and unlawful flight from police. Authorities say that after a 50-mile chase, Redondo and Irizarry were wounded in a gun battle with 40 police officers from five different agencies.

Even Daytona Beach couldn’t escape the wet winter weather. Between activities at the track it rained - and not just sprinkles. Between the rains, there was racing. The Budweiser Shootout provided a good preview of the racing to come as Kevin Harvick took home that win. The qualifiers on Thursday were both photo finishes with the top cars bumper to bumper and door handle to door handle. All of Friday’s activities were rained out, which moved the truck race to Saturday, after the Nationwide race. (On a side note, 49 of 50 U.S. States had snow on the ground on Saturday. How’s that for global warming??)

Danicamania reigned over the Saturday Nationwide race. Patrick quickly lost the draft at the beginning of the race and got a lap down. She missed an early crash that took out Chrissy Wallace. After a couple of pit stops, Patrick was the recipient of the Lucky Dog and got her lap back, restarting in 27th place. She seemed to be getting more comfortable in her car and had moved up to 21st when she got caught up in a crash that was not of her making. Her car was too damaged for repairs and was loaded into the trailer, credited with a 38th place finish. However, Danica was swamped by the news media. She has taken all of the attention in stride so far and has been well spoken.

After Danica’s crash, attention turned to her boss, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. He was in the top 10 a good portion of the race until being tapped from behind and taking a wild ride into the outside wall and going upside down. Despite this, Junior was still able to smile when he came out of this infield care center. The finish to this race proved to be exciting as Tony Stewart crossed the finish line .309 seconds ahead of Carl Edwards. Kevin Harvick, who owns the #4 car that Stewart was driving, finished third, with Justin Allgaier and Brian Vickers chasing Harvick. Stewart’s Nationwide win was his 3rd in a row at Daytona.

Saturday evening’s Camping World Series Truck race finished with 12 trucks crossing the finish line under a blanket. With a last-lap pass of superspeedway ace Todd Bodine, Timothy Peters won Saturday night's NextEra Energy 250 Truck Series race Receiving an aero push from polesitter Jason White, Peters passed Bodine on the backstretch and won the race to the finish line. Bodine, who had won the previous two season openers at Daytona, crossed the stripe in second place but spun into the infield grass after taking the checkered flag. The Daytona win was Peters’ 2nd of his career, with the other coming at Martinsville, which is a .525 mile track.

Sunday’s Daytona 500 was led to the green flag by Hendrick Motorsports teammates Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. The Daytona 500 actually became three races, with a red flag coming out with 78 laps to go to fix a pothole in turn 2. Due to cold temperatures and the banking of the track where the pothole developed it became a problem to fix. After a delay of about an hour and 45 minutes, the race got back under way. Forty laps later, the hole re-appeared and there was another 40 minute delay as it was fixed. This led to a finish under the lights. Jamie McMurray, driving the Bass Pro Shops #1 for Earnhardt-Ganassi Racing, held off Dale Earnhardt, Jr for the exciting win.

NASCAR announced earlier in the week that they would allow three attempts at a green-white checkers finish. If a yellow comes out before the leader has taken the white flag, the cars wil be lined back up and when the green comes out, they will once again have a green, white, checkered situation. The first time the yellow came out, Greg Biffle was out front but a bit short of taking the white flag. Earnhardt, Jr started 10th on the last last and made a charge reminiscent of his win at the July 2001 Daytona race. However, he came up just short and McMurray won in his first ride back with car owner Chip Ganassi. McMurray won in his 2nd race with Ganassi at Charlotte a few years back when he filled in for the injured Sterling Marlin.

NASCAR now takes its show west as they will be at Fontana, California this weekend and Las Vegas on the 26th, 27th & 28th. I certainly hope the weather cooperates more out there than it did in Florida. I think we made a good decision to not go to Las Vegas this year. We’ve always driven out, and with the weather being what it has, we may not have good driving conditions no matter which route we would have taken.

In a perfect world, no matter which NASCAR races I wanted to attend, the weather would allow me to ride the Gold Wing to them. In looking the Gold Wing over a little, I see that it will be due servicing before I put many miles on it. I put a new back tire on last summer and the front tire is looking pretty decent, so unless I ride 20,000 miles this summer, I shouldn’t have any worries. The tires on the trailer are in good shape, so I shouldn’t have any problems there. I’m just short of 25,000 miles on the Gold Wing, so I should look the owners manual over to see what services are required that I can’t do myself and as soon as the weather warms up, get the work scheduled. Once I finally get to start riding, I don’t want to have to stop somewhere along the road for service.

Our early season racing schedule has already changed due to the weather. It was announced yesterday that the season-opening USMTS Modified show at Junction Motor Speedway has been moved from the first weekend in March to the last weekend in March. The Stock Cars are to be the support class. Hopefully, this well provide better weather for the event. Unfortunately, that is my weekend to work, so we will not be racing that weekend. Our season will start on March 20th at the Beatrice Spring Nationals.

Speaking of Beatrice Speedway, we still don’t know any more about the RaceCeivers than when it was announced that all drivers will be required to have them for the regular season. I posted a question about whether they could be bought or rented at the track and still have not gotten an answer back. Hopefully, will have an answer soon.

By: Twitter Buttons

www.jetracinginc.com

Nebraska helmet repeal rejected; proposal to ban texting while driving; "Make My Day" bill being looked at; drug testing for ADC recipients?; "Special privileges" for Law Enforcement and Military?; Florida racing action heating up; will it EVER warm up enough to race in Nebraska?

2010-02-13T15:35:00.000-06:00

After hitting a snag about insurance for motorcyclists, the helmet law repeal was re-hashed again and finally defeated. It seems that, under the proposals being looked at, riders who chose to ride without a helmet would have to purchase extra insurance to cover medical bills if they have a wreck. However, it appears that kind of insurance is not available. The cost of the insurance was estimated to be from $3,000 to $4,500 a year, which would amount to $250 to $375 a MONTH!! Sounds like a lot of money to be able to ride without a helmet. There were a lot of other problems with the proposed repeal. One proposal was that not wearing a helmet would be a secondary violation, meaning that a rider could not be stopped for not wearing a helmet. The rider would have to be stopped and cited for some other violation before being written for not wearing a helmet or having the proper insurance. Another part of the bill mandated eye protection, and made helmets mandatory for riders under 21. The fallacy of this once again was the fact that if it was a secondary violation, a 16-yr old without a helmet could pull up alongside a police officer and unless the officer saw a violation, he could not stop the 16-yr old for not wearing a helmet. The proposal of a helmet law violation being a secondary offense has been brought up repeatedly the last few years. This follows the Nebraska statutes on seat belt violations, which make not wearing a seat belt a secondary violation.

As much as I’m against it, I think that sometime in the future, the Nebraska helmet law will be repealed. However, the Legislature needs to look at the laws of the states that currently have no helmet laws to see what provisions they have, then put together the best package possible for Nebraska motorcycle riders.

Other bills before the Nebraska Legislature are drawing attention. One concerns driving and the other concerns personal safety. LB945 would ban texting and driving . Nebraska currently has laws in place banning texting by young drivers but none for “older” drivers. If the bill is passed as written, violators would be assessed three points on their licenses and pay a $200 fine for the first offense, $300 for the second and $500 for violations after that.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration research shows nearly 6,000 people died last year and more than 500,000 were injured in crashes involving distracted drivers. The Nebraska Department of Roads has tracked crashes resulting from cell phone distractions since 2002. In 2007, it reported 121 crashes with 59 injuries and no deaths. In 2008, there were 141 crashes with 68 injuries and one death. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have banned texting while driving for all drivers. I hope the Legislature moves forward on this and will pass it before the current session closes.

A controversial bill before the Legislature, LB889, the so-called “Make My Day” bill or the Castle Doctrine, would allow the use of deadly force if a person has reason to believe someone is going to commit felonies that include the use of force. The felonies are not clearly defined in the bill, but an NRA lobbyist pushing the proposal acknowledges they could include crimes such as burglary and stalking. A key element of the castle-doctrine laws is the new, legal presumption that a shooter needed to use deadly force. That makes it harder for prosecutors to prove that using deadly force was unjustified. The Nebraska bill would also shield shooters from civil lawsuits and clarify that when confronted with danger, one would not have to first retreat or surrender possessions to avoid using deadly force.

Another controversial bill (LB940), would provide for drug screening of recipients of aid for dependent children (ADC), impose testing if there is "reasonable cause" and cut off benefits for a year for those who fail the test. Many Nebraskans already are required to submit to drug testing to qualify for employment in a number of jobs.

Statistics show that 25,210 people receive ADC assistance in Nebraska, including 19,000 children. So the bill could have potential impact on about 6,200 adults. James Goddard, speaking for the Nebraska Appleseed Center, said the proposal is based on and feeds "the myth, stereotype, stigmas associated with low-income families." Goddard said there is no evidence drug use is any higher among ADC families than in the general population.
Jim Cunningham, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Bishops Conference, described the proposal as "unjust and punitive." The end result of such legislation would be to "make the household poorer and the children more dependent," he said. Amy Miller, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the measure is "patently offensive to the Constitution."

How many privileges should an occupation give a person? I’ve always heard that a cop does not ticket or arrest another cop. I’ve had people on the street tell me that, insinuating that if an off-duty officer is caught breaking the law, all he has to do is show his badge and he is home free. Maybe in some circles this is true. I personally don’t believe in this philosophy. If I am going too fast, or doing something I should not be doing and I am contacted by law enforcement, the last thing I want is to have anybody know I’m a police officer. If I deserve a ticket, so be it. If, God forbid, I deserve being arrested, I most certainly am not going to tell the arresting officer I’m a police officer. I’ve seen a lot of discussion about this on different law enforcement message boards and it looks like about 1/3 of the officers think they deserve a break. My feeling is that this attitude gives all of law enforcement a black eye. Comments in favor of not ticketing or arresting another officer include that if you see an officer having a problem alongside the road, you may not want to stop to help that officer if he/she has ticketed or arrested you. In my opinion, that is total B.S. and if that is your attitude, you need to find another occupation.

How about people in the military? Does being in the military mean you should have a “Get Out of Jail Free” pass? Our department has had contact with several service members, both active duty and National Guard or Reserves. I’ve had at least one, who, after getting a ticket, asked me about the court date because it was set for when they would not be able to go to court. That was the first I knew they were in the military. I
explained the waiver procedure and told them if they did not want to take care of it by waiver, to contact the prosecutor’s office.

On the other hand, I recently made a traffic stop for some traffic infractions. When I contacted the driver and asked for his driver’s license, the first thing he gave me was his military ID. As things progressed, I suspected that the guy had too much to drink to be driving. He also made a point to tell me that he’d served in Iraq and expected to be deployed to Afghanistan soon. Several times during the investigation he told me that if it weren’t for him fighting in Iraq, I would not be able to do what I’m doing. When the time came to arrest the guy, things got to the verge of being nasty. For most of the rest of my contact with him, I was told that I did not respect our service members or what they are doing these days. He jumped back and forth from that to threatening my job - “You arrested a Federal employee. I hope you have another job lined up!” Once again, if I was in his situation, I would not want anybody to know that I was in the military. How does that reflect on the rest of our military? I remember a time when I was serving that a DWI conviction would result in a bar from re-enlistment. On a footnote to this incident, I found that he did not have a valid driver’s license due to two DWI convictions in 2009. I wonder if he had the same attitude with the arresting officers in those incidents?

The racing action in Florida heated up last week. On Saturday afternoon, Danica Patrick made her debut in a stock car, driving the JR Motorsports #7 to a respectable 6th place finish. She drove a good race, staying out of trouble and keeping her car in one piece. She spun near the end and restarted deep in the field. In the last few laps she got into the top 5 and at the checkers she was 6th. Her finish helped her make the decision to race in the Nationwide Series race on February 13th. In final practice on Thursday, Patrick was 5th fastest in a field of 57. Patrick will be racing against a completely different field of drivers, including her car owner, Dale Earnhardt, Jr, who was 9th fastest in final practice.

Both of the Daytona 500 qualifiers were photo finishes with Jimmie Johnson coming from last to first to win the first qualifier. Johnson crashed his primary car in practice and had to go to a backup car which he did not get any practice laps in. On the last pit stop he did not come in for tires and held off Kevin Harvick at the line. Kasey Kahne won the 2nd race driving a Ford for Richard Petty Motorsports. Tony Stewart was 2nd by inches.

With a larger restrictor plate and some of the rules on bump drafting being loosened up a bit, the Daytona 500 should be a great one. Mark Martin - my favorite to win the championship in 2010 - will start on the pole, with Earnhardt, Jr starting on the outside pole.

I remember years ago when I was helping Al Humphrey on his late model, that he was about finishing up his race car for that season about Daytona 500 time. We watched the 1976 Petty-Pearson wreck on the last lap from Al’s shop. Seeing that finish made me want to go to the Daytona 500 some time in my life. I haven’t made it there yet, but we’ve made trips to 7 Cup races at Las Vegas. This year we’re staying at home. I think that was a good decision given what the weather has been doing all across the country. Last week, it rained most of the week in Las Vegas, and several inches of snow fell a few miles up the road at Charleston.

We had some snow this week, but the temps were close to freezing and we didn’t have much accumulation. We did have temps in the 5 degree range a couple of nights. All this makes me wonder if the weather will be good enough the first weekend in March so we can race. The last couple of days there has been a little bit of melting but not enough for it to seem much like spring. Seems like the older I get, the more I dislike winter. However, when I look at the weather from Chicago east, I’m glad I’m in Nebraska.

I finished putting the engine together for the stock car and it’s now sitting in the engine compartment where it belongs. However, before I quit for the night, I noticed that it looks like the center link is awful close to the oil pan. I turned the steering wheel and found that before going very far, the center link hit’s the oil pan. That puzzled me because there was no problem with clearance when I took the engine out. After stopping for the night, I was thinking about it and realized this is not the engine that I had in the car last fall. The configuration of the oil pan on this engine is different. I’ll have to add a spacer between the block mount and the chassis mount in order to gain the needed clearance. This being my weekend to work, I won’t be able to do anything more until Monday. I also have work to do on the trailer, but I need to get it inside where it’s a bit warmer to do anything to it.

www.jetracinginc.com

Nebraska legislature debates helmet law repeal; Blue Knights International Conventions this summer and in 2011; Law Enforcement Memorial Week; Nebraska racers competing in Arizona and Florida

2010-02-07T00:37:00.002-06:00

The Nebraska Legislature is considering the repeal of the helmet law. This is a debate that goes back to 1989 when the helmet law was passed. Senator Charlie Janssen of Fremont introduced LB200, which would end Nebraska’s 21-year helmet mandate. Janssen said repealing the law is all about personal choice, freedom and tourism dollars. He contends motorcyclists going to the Sturgis rally in South Dakota do not go through Nebraska, rather detouring through states that do not require helmets to be worn.

Apparently Senator Janssen has not traveled Highway 2 northwest out of Grand Island during the Sturgis rally. It’s been 12 years since I went, but when I did, traffic was heavy along the entire route. Maybe things have changed a lot since then?

Other states that have repealed helmet laws have experienced an increase in fatalities and serious head injuries. Insurance premiums on motorcycles also have been found to increase with the repeal of helmet laws.

A later amendment was added to the bill that would require motorcyclists to buy long-term health insurance to ensure the public doesn’t have to pay if they’re injured in an accident. However, the insurance requirement raised so many new questions that Senator Janssen said he will work to clarify or eliminate the issue. The helmet issue has now been put on hold for at least a week while the insurance requirements are being looked at.

Discussions about helmet use have been on the Blue Knights message boards off and on for as long as I’ve been viewing them. The issue of “choice” and “personal freedoms” keep coming up. I seem to remember many years ago, when I was taking Drivers’ Education (yes, they had it waaayyy back then!!), I heard that driving is not a right, it’s a PRIVILEGE! If your driver’s license is revoked, your operating PRIVILEGES are taken away.

Among the goals of the Blue Knights are promoting and advancing the sport and safety of motorcycling and to promote by example and any other acceptable means, the safe use, operation and enjoyment of motorcycles. Blue Knights rules require us to wear helmets on all organized Blue Knights rides whether we are in a helmet law state or not.

Now that I’ve stirred up some hate and discontent, I’ll move on.

Even while I’m in the planning stage of the trip to Billings for the 2010 Blue Knights International Convention, I’m already looking ahead to 2011 when the International Convention will be held at Chesapeake, Virginia. We’ve talked for several years about taking a motorcycle trip to the east, and this is a chance to fulfill that dream. I was stationed at Ft Lee, Virginia in 1971 and was able to get to Virginia Beach twice. I spent several weekends sightseeing in Washington, D.C. and toured the Petersburg battlefield. One stop we definitely want to make, whether on the way there or coming home, is at Nashville and we also want to stop at Memphis. As soon as the ride to Billings and home is over, I’ll be planning the ride to Chesapeake!

Actually, there is another ride I want to make. Every year in May, the National Police Week Ceremony is held in Washington, D.C. A good portion of this week is geared toward the survivors of those officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice. The COPS (Concerns of Police Survivors) have a picnic at the end of the week and members of the Blue Knights COPSRUN attend and give motorcycle rides to the children and family members of the fallen officers. A K.C. Metro Blue Knight, the late Steve Weinberg and his wife, Rose, were huge supporters of the Law Enforcement Memorial Week and attended yearly. I always enjoyed hearing his first-hand experiences and have always wanted to go to D.C. for it. I want to be able to go before I’m too old to go.

We had a good portion of our snow melt, only to be replaced by some more snow. Actually, our area in Nebraska was fortunate as we only got an inch or so of the white wet stuff. Other parts of the state got more. While I was working on Thursday night, I heard radio traffic from other agencies that were working a lot of fender benders. It sounded like there were plenty of accidents on the interstate.

Gage County recorded a fatality a few miles east of Beatrice on the highway when a driver lost control of his vehicle and slid into the path of an oncoming vehicle. PLEASE, not matter where you are, BE CAREFUL DRIVING IN WINTER WEATHER!!

Speaking of winter weather, the Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia areas are getting hammered with 2 FEET of snow! I guess there won’t be any global warming summits this week!

I know there are some areas of the country where it’s nice enough to ride and there are races going on, too. Nebraska IMCA Modified driver Dylan Smith, who won the National Points battle in 2009, won the A Feature last Sunday afternoon at Canyon Speedway Park at Peoria, AZ. He is competing in the Winter Challenge Series. Dylan came through the B Feature for a starting spot in the A Feature. He took the lead in the A Feature just before taking the white flag.

Kyle Berck of Marquette, Nebraska has been racing his late model in the Lucas Oil Series at East Bay Raceway in Florida the last week. He is racing against the likes of Billy Moyer, Scott Bloomquist, Shannon Babb, Jimmy Mars and Earl Pearson. The series wraps up with a $12,000 to win show on Saturday February 6th.

www.jetracinginc.com

Motorcycle tour of Nebraska; Are "New" tires safe?; Danica Patrick announces 2010 NASCAR Nationwide series schedule; RaceCeivers required at Eagle Raceway, Butler County Speedway and Beatrice Speedway in 2010

2010-02-01T23:17:00.001-06:00

While browsing through a motorcycle forum, I came across a thread from a rider overseas who was planning to take a trip to the United States and asked about taking a tour with somebody giving guided tours. There are several such companies in the Southwest and West. I haven’t had a chance to look yet, but I’m wondering if there is any place in the Midwest that does something like this.

It would be interesting to plan tours from Beatrice or Lincoln. I’d need to either have an agreement with a dealer to rent motorcycles for the tours or have my own motorcycles to either rent or include the price of in the tour. The problem with either is that the weather in the Midwest can be so much different from one year to the next. It’s hard to plan any kind of road trips before, say, May 1st, and by the time you get toward the end of September the weather can once again come into play.

Would a trip out of Beatrice be more local or a few days to a few weeks? Something I’ve thought about doing myself but never have is to take a trip around the “edge” of Nebraska. If you look at a map. Nebraska has 6 “corners.” I’ve thought about leaving Beatrice westbound on Hwy 136. At Jansen, I’d go south on the State Spur to the Rock Creek Station. This was originally a supply center and resting spot for the many travelers headed westward on the Oregon and California Trails in the 19th century. From the Rock Creek Station, a short ride south would take me to Hwy 8. From there, it’s about 5 miles into Fairbury. Continuing west on Hwy 8, I’d cross Hwy 81 and stay on Hwy 8 until it ends in Superior, Nebraska.

From Superior, I’d take Hwy 14 north to Hwy 136. Hwy 136 will take me to Red Cloud, which the birthplace and site of the Willa Cather State Historic Site. Another 32 miles west on Hwy 136 brings me to Republican City, which is the location of the Harlan County Dam. Another 8 miles and I’d be in Alma.

At Alma, I’d go north on Hwy 136/183 for a couple of miles, then west on Hwy 136 until it meets Hwy 89. I would then follow Hwy 89 west to Hwy 83, then north to McCook. From McCook, I’d go west on Hwy 6/34 to Hwy 61 at Benkelman. From Benkelman, I’d go north on Hwy 61 to Ogallala and the home of “Boot Hill.“ Staying on Hwy 61 will take me to Kingsley Dam and Lake McConaughy. I would then return to Ogallala and head west on Hwy 30 to Kimball.

From Kimball, I’d go north on Hwy 71 to the Gering-Scottsbluff area. From there I’d take Hwy 26 to Hwy 29 and head north to Harrison. At Harrison, I’ll go east on Hwy 20 to Crawford. I’ll stay on Hwy 20 from Crawford to Chadron. Continuing east on Hwy 20 to Valentine, then Hwy 12 all the way to Sioux City. From Sioux City, take Hwy 75/77 south to Winnebago, then stay on Hwy 75. This will take me to Omaha, then Nebraska City. I’ll stay on Hwy 75 into Richardson County, where I’d go east on Hwy 73 into Falls City. At Falls City, I’ll go west on Hwy 8 to Hwy 77, then north back to Beatrice.

I haven’t figured out the mileage for this trip, but depending on how much sightseeing would take place along the way, this could be a 3 or 4 day trip. I’m thinking about other trips out of Beatrice, and I’ll talk about them in posts down the road.

I had our car serviced and while it was up in the air, the tech looked the tires over. They all had about 4/32” of tread left, which is pretty close to the tread wear indicators. Before we do much more traveling in the car, the tires will have to be replaced. We knew we were getting close, and had talked about it this winter. Since we’re not going to Vegas this winter for the NASCAR weekend, we can put it off just a little longer. Ironically, about the same time, a fellow Blue Knight sent me a link to an ABC News Special Report on tires. The news report brought up something that people in the automotive industry have known for years. When you go to a tire store to have tires put on your car, there’s a good chance that even though they have never been mounted on a rim, the tires you buy could be several years old. As a matter of fact, they claimed that a customer could buy a set of tires that have been on the shelf for as long as 10 years. Here’s the link to that report: http://abcnews.go.com/video/PlayerIndex?id=4826897 You can copy and paste this link into your browser if it doesn’t appear as a link in this article. I will point out, though, that some parts of this are a bit slanted. They show tire tread along the road that is from truck tires, and some of it appears to be from retreads. Anyway, we’ll be doing some looking around and try to get the best value for our dollar.

In NASCAR news of the last few days, Danika Patrick has announced her 2010 NASCAR Nationwide series schedule. She will be competing in an ARCA stock car race at Daytona on February 6th. Her comfort level in the car will help her determine if she is ready to race in the Nationwide race at Daytona the following Saturday. If she does not compete in the Daytona Nationwide race, she will debut at Fontana, California on February 20th. She will follow that up with Las Vegas the next week, February 27th.

Patrick will not compete in Nationwide again until June 26th at Loudon. She will then race at Chicago on July 9th, Michigan on August 14th, and Dover on September 25th. She will be back at Fontana on October 9th, Charlotte on October 15th, Gateway on October 23rd, Texas on November 6th and Homestead on November 20th.

Brad Keselowski, Paul Menard and Carl Edwards will be competing in the full Nationwide schedule in 2010. Other Cup drivers competing in the Nationwide series part time will be Kasey Kahne, Brian Vickers, Reed Sorenson, and David Reutimann.

On the local scene, Eagle Raceway At Eagle, Nebraska, Butler County Speedway at Rising City, Nebraska and Beatrice Speedway have all announced that they will be requiring all drivers to use RaceCeivers. Eagle says they will rent them for $20 a night and at the end of the night will refund $5 when they are turned in. They can be purchased outright in the $100 to $150 range. In looking at IMCA rules, I found the rule that says “No unapproved cameras, transmitting or listening devices.” The rule does not specify what is “Approved.” Beatrice has not given any more specifics and has said registration information will be sent out to drivers in the next couple of weeks.

RaceCeivers are a one-way radio that each driver has in his car. The driver listens to the radio through ear buds and can hear the track officials. If there is an accident on the track, the driver will know before he/she is caught up in the accident. During restarts, the driver is told by track officials where they should line up. Dawson County Speedway at Lexington, Nebraska and McCook Speedway at McCook, Nebraska used them in the past and the drivers liked them. It's my understanding that Minneapolis Speedway in Minneapolis, Kansas also used them with success in 2009.

Eagle has said they will rent the RaceCeivers for $20 a night, and when they are returned they will refund $5. I haven't heard what Beatrice is planning.

I had a chance to look at the RaceCeiver website and found that larger orders may be able to get a bit of a discount. If a bunch of us order maybe we can get a better price.

www.jetracinginc.com

Who are the Blue Knights?; motorcycle trips; local IMCA and NASCAR weekly racing series schedules

2010-01-24T00:24:00.005-06:00

Some of you who have been following my blog know who and what the Blue Knights are, particularly those in Law Enforcement. Others may have some idea, and if you’ve been following me, you know that Blue Knights is a Law Enforcement Motorcycle club. What many may not know is how wide-spread we are or the history of the Blue Knights.

The following comes from the blue knights.org website: “The BLUE KNIGHTS® is a non-profit fraternal organization consisting of active and retired law enforcement men & women who enjoy riding motorcycles.

In the Spring of 1974, several law enforcement officers* from the Bangor, Maine (USA) area met and and formed a small, local motorcycle club. The rest, as they say, is history.

Soon, Blue Knight chapters were being formed in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and beyond. With the addition of Canada, and later Australia, the Blue Knights became an international organization.

*Our Founding Fathers are: Joel Rudom, Bill Robinson, Doug Miner, Ed Gallant, Mike Hall, Chuck Gesner, Wayne Labree, Chuck Shuman

As of 1 June 2009, we have 599 chapters and almost 20,000 members in 29 countries.

According to the By-Laws, our purposes and goals are to:

1. Provide for the mutual assistance, enjoyment, entertainment, education, physical, mental and social benefit of its members and the general public.
2. To promote and advance the sport of motorcycling and the safety of motorcycling.
3. To serve the interests of motorcycle owners and users.
4. To promote by example and any other acceptable means, safe use, operation and enjoyment of motorcycles.
5. To develop a fraternal spirit between law enforcement personnel and the general public.

Many Blue Knights work long and hard to raise money for various charities. Especially near to our hearts is helping children. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Make-a-Wish Foundation, Toys for Tots, D.A.R.E., and Concerns of Police Survivors are some examples of our favorites.

As of 31 July 2009 Blue Knights have donated to numerous charities; contributing time in the amount of $4,092,292.00, goods with an estimated value of $631,217.24 and $6,921,532.87 in cash for a total of $11,645,042.11 (USD)

We're the good guys!

The Blue Knights is a family fraternity. Spouses and children often accompany our members to the various rides and functions. When travelling, local members can provide assistance, directions and sometimes a place to stay. We are truly a family.

Among the Blue Knight members, "There are no strangers, only friends you haven't met." “

My Chapter, Nebraska I, was chartered in 1985 at Grand Island and has about 45 members. Nebraska I is in the Midwest Regional Conference (MWRC) which is made up of 45 chapters from Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South and North Dakota and Manitoba, Canada. The MWRC has about 920 members.

I joined Nebraska I in 1992. At the time, I was riding a 1980 Kawasaki 750 LTD. I mostly rode it around the Beatrice area. I made frequent trips to Lincoln and in the summer, to Sunset Speedway in Omaha. As I rode down the highway, I’d meet riders on Gold Wings and Ultra Classics and I would tell myself that some day I’d have a big bike.

In the late summer of 1992, I saw an advertisement for a farm sale north of Friend, Nebraska. One of the items on the auction was a 1981 Gold Wing Interstate with less than 19,000 miles. I ended up being high bidder on that Gold Wing and drove it home that evening.

I attended my first MWRC in June 1993 at Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I had no idea of the makeup of the Blue Knights at the time. Except for a couple of hours layover in Wichita waiting out thunderstorms and then running through a real gully-washer prior to hitting the Cimarron Turnpike, the trip was a great one and I was hooked.

In the time since, I’ve had a 1984 Interstate that we put 73,000 miles on, a 1987 Kawasaki voyager that we put 15,000 miles on and our current ride, a 2006 GL1800 Gold Wing that we’ve put over 25,000 miles on since we picked it up from the showroom in July of 2006.

We’ve made trips to Spokane, Washington and Las Vegas Nevada for Blue Knights functions. We’ve been to Blue Knights functions in Oklahoma City, Broken Arrow, Tulsa and Bartlesville, Oklahoma; St Joe, Springfield and Branson, MO, Ft Scott, Kansas City and Hiawatha, KS; Des Moines, Spirit Lake and Davenport, IA; Egan and Shakopee, MN; Grand Forks and Minot, N.D.; and Sturgis, S.D. We also try to ride to Colorado in the summer to spend time with Heather & Dana and now Landon, and do some riding in the mountains. A great ride is taking Hwy 34 from Loveland to Estes Park. All the turns along the Big Thompson River are a blast! Leaving Estes Park to go back toward Loveland; Hwy 7 toward Lyons is 24 miles of breathtaking scenery with plenty of twists and turns.

Once the riding season gets under way, we just like to get on the Gold Wing and go. With work schedules being what they are, that is sometime hard to do. I try to schedule supper rides out of Beatrice on a weekly basis for riders in and close to Beatrice. One such ride was just a jaunt to Odell, 20 miles south of Beatrice. When we were done eating, we took a side trip and ended up at the Rock Creek Station for a little history lesson.

Just getting out and riding is an experience in itself. The trip to the Spring MWRC is usually the first long ride of the season. The smells of fresh cut alfalfa and clover as well as the wildflowers is in the air. You don’t usually notice that riding in a car. Of course, get too close to a feed yard or similar facility and you’ll get smells you’d rather not smell.

The feel of the warm sun is great and not the same as feeling it through the car windows.

How many of you have taken a 600 mile round trip to have a few burgers and a couple of beers? I’ve made a couple of trips from Beatrice to Burlington, Colorado to a barbecue with some Blue Knights from Colorado. Nebraska I makes an annual trip to western Nebraska just to meet up with other Blue Knights, share a couple of meals and have a few drinks. There are no strangers in Blue Knights, just friends you haven’t met yet.

On the area racing scene, Thunder Hill Raceway at Mayetta, KS has their website up and running. They have their 2010 weekly schedule and payouts posted. They will be racing IMCA Modifieds, IMCA Stock Cars, IMCA Sport Mods and IMCA Hobby Stocks on Saturday nights. They are also working on scheduling some late model and spring car shows. Their season will start - with the cooperation of Mother Nature - with practice sessions on March 20th and March 27th from 2 PM to 5 PM. The season opener is scheduled for Saturday, April 3rd and will run through September 25. The schedule also shows “Thunder on the Hill” on October 8th & 9th. Racing is to start at 7 PM. That’s 26 nights of racing (NO BAD WEATHER!!) plus the year end special! If you live in the area, you will be able to get your weekly fix at Thunder Hill.

Warm weather in the area had greatly diminished our snow banks and I can see you back yard in places! Maybe the snow will be gone in time for the USMTS show at McCool Junction. If all goes well, that will be my first race of the season. Two weeks later, on March 19th & 20th, Beatrice will host the Spring Nationals. Factory stocks will share the show on the 19th with Modifieds, Sport Mods and Hobby Stocks. The Saturday show will be Modifieds, Sport Mods, Hobby Stocks and Sport Compacts.

The race car show at Beatrice, sponsored by Women for Racing, will be on Saturday, April 10th and will be followed by Test-N-Tune. The regular season will start the following week, Friday April 16th. Regular night shows will consist of IMCA Modifieds, IMCA Sport Mods, IMCA Hobby Stocks, IMCA Sport Compacts and Factory Stocks.

On April 10th, Eagle Raceway will kick off their season with their annual Icebreaker Challenge hosting Sprint cars, IMCA Modifieds, hobby stocks and sport compacts.

I-80 Speedway at Greenwood, NE has their schedule up on their website. It shows opening night as Saturday March 27th with Late Models, Pro Ams, Compacts, Modifieds and sport mods. I-80 will also have NASCAR sanctioning.

The regular season for Junction Motor Speedway at McCool Junction will kick off the night after Beatrice’s opening night, April 18th. JMS will once again be NASCAR sanctioned. They are also scheduled to hold a World of Outlaws Sprint Car show on June 25th. The last weekly show of 2010 will be September 11th.

There you have it, “brief” rundown on my two biggest hobbies. Now if only Mother Nature will cooperate so I can participate in both.

www.jetracinginc.com

Race car driver safety - then & now;Playland Speedway at Council Bluffs, IA; Midwest Speedway in Lincoln, NE;Kasey Kahne at Chili Bowl; Kevin Swindell races to Chili Bowl win ahead of dad; Wild West Shootout in Tuscon

2010-01-20T03:12:00.002-06:00

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While looking through web pages on stock car racing in Nebraska, I came across the Playland Speedway website. Playland speedway was a paved bullring located at Council Bluffs, Iowa near where the I-480 bridge is today. The track was built in the 1940’s and was first raced as a dirt track in 1947. Prior to the 1954 season it was paved.

The reason this interested me was because I went to Nebraska Technical College in Milford, Nebraska in 1972-1973 where I took Auto Mechanics. A classmate, Howard Koziol, raced at Playland. He wrote a good article on his recollections of Playland, both going to the races there as a youngster and racing there in the last years of the track’s operation. He has some nice pictures of himself on his page.

I hope Howard ends up reading this, because I’m going to make some observations as well as poke some fun at him. The first thing is - LOOK AT THAT HAIR!! Who did the perms for you back then? How much of that hair is left 35 years later?? The second thing I want to ask - although it was the first thing I noticed - were those bib overalls your driving uniform??

For you youngsters reading this, it may sound funny and far out - but go to www.playlandspeedway.com and look at the old pictures of the drivers and their cars. Go to the link to Howard’s page and take a look at his pictures from when he won some trophies. He is wearing bib overalls in each of those pictures. Under those bid overalls he was wearing what looks like a short sleeve t-shirt!

I remember the first races I attended as a spectator. Midwest Speedway in Lincoln, Nebraska had “late models” and “hobby stocks” in the early and mid-’70’s. Most of the drivers wore blue jeans and white t-shirts. I don’t remember if most wore some kind of gloves or not. There were a lot of open face helmets being used, and as I look back I wonder if they were really racing helmets or football helmets.

I remember going into the pits after the races at Midwest Speedway. Some of the cars had a factory bucket seat and stock seat belts!! It’s amazing that a ton of drivers weren’t killed in that era.

Safety is an area in our race cars where a lot of drivers - me included - continue to scimp. There have been a lot of articles on safety in racing magazines covering everything from helmets, fire suits, gloves, shoes, and seats to how to mount the seats and belts. One thing that is emphasized is if you can’t afford the safety equipment, DON’T RACE!!

Helmets have evolved from open-face, possibly football helmets to Snell-approved helmets that are required by every sanctioning body as well as most un-sanctioned tracks. Prices range from $200 for a plain-Jane white RCI brand helmet with no frills to $580 for a Bell GTX that can be hooked up to a clean air machine. A roll-off machine, either manual or electric, can be attached to the helmet to change tear-offs. Fire suits will range from $100 for a bare-bones suit that is good for only a few seconds to a close to $1,000 for a 3-layer SFI-5 rated suit. Then you have to have gloves, ranging from $50 to over $200, shoes for the same price, and a good idea is to have a nomex hood, fireproof underwear and socks. If it sounds like you might get a bit warm with all this protective clothing, you can look into a Kwik Kool shirt for $190. These are charged with a special Freon that can provide up to one hour of cooling. Extra Freon is $12 a can.

While racers and future racers are reading this and making a list of what they need to purchase in order to race safely, others have been racing in other parts of the country. The annual “Chili Bowl” races at Tulsa, Oklahoma have come to a close. These midget races are held indoors and host drivers from all walks of like. NASCAR driver Tony Stewart is a past winner and Kasey Kahne has been a regular competitor. The final A Feature found 20-year old Kevin Swidell taking the checkered flag, with his father, 5-time Chili Bowl winner Sammy Swindell, following in 3rd place.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to attend races indoors. I’ve joked that if I would win the Powerball, Beatrice Speedway would become an indoor venue. I would have a lot better chance of just attending the Chili Bowl sometime.

For late model and modified fans, there has been dirt track racing in the Tuscon, Arizona area for the last week. The 4th annual Wild West Shootout saw Billy Moyer and Terry Phillips taking home A Feature wins. Omaha’s John Anderson had a 2nd place finish in Saturday night’s finale.

The Columbus, Nebraska swap meet was held January 17th. It was my weekend to work so I wasn’t able to attend. Rules from several area tracks were available and are to be posted on track websites soon. The USMTS Frostbuster at McCool Junction is scheduled for March 5th and 6th. I hope the snow is gone by then and the temperatures are more conducive to racing.

The cold weather doesn’t help me out any while working in the garage. I spent a few hours with the woodburner going and got it above 50, but the concrete floor was still awful cold.

I also spent some time trying to get more things lined up to put in a proposal for a Blue Knights Conference for Beatrice in June 2011. Once again, due to work schedule, I was not able to go to our Blue Knights chapter meeting over the weekend, but I e-mailed the information I had to the Chapter officers. For Nebraska I members reading this, don’t forget, dues have to be paid! Chapter dues have to be received by International before January 31st. If your dues haven’t been paid by now, send them to Clyde or Diane ASAP!!

Trips to the doctor; Grand Island, NE bridal show; Blue Knights trip planning; Utah says goodbye to Deputy Josie Fox

2010-01-15T03:31:00.002-06:00

I’ve always been a wimp when it comes to going to the doctor. I’ve never liked blood & guts, and have a dislike and fear of needles. I remember going to the doctor for a checkup when I was in grade school. The nurse stuck me in the finger for a drop of blood and I fainted. My phobia has never gotten any better.

I’m not sure how I made it through Army basic training. It seemed like about every week we lined up to get shots of some kind. I found out I was not the only person in the world that didn’t like needles. I remember a couple of guys passing out while waiting in line to get shots. The military, in it’s infinite wisdom, did not mess with needles when giving shots to hundreds of people at a time. They used an air gun of sorts, and I found if I held my arms tightly to my sides, the shots did not bother me a whole lot.

When I got into Law Enforcement, people who knew me asked what I would do when I had to respond to a dead body, a bad crash or a shooting. I didn’t know how I’d react but hoped I would be able to work my way through it. I was able to make it through several incidents early in my career without embarrassing myself.

One thing I learned about going for a physical - when there was a blood draw involved, I could generally get through it by lying down on the examining table. Most everybody who has drawn blood from me was very good at it, and if I felt anything, it wasn’t much. After a while, I could sit up, then stand up and walk and there were no problems. However, I always continued to remind them that I had to lie down.

As a result of a visit to the doctor during the summer of 2002, I learned that I was diabetic. All sorts of images ran through my mind. My grandmother was diabetic and I remember seeing her giving herself shots. Fortunately, I’ve been able to control the diabetes with oral meds and watching what I eat. Sometimes, like during Thanksgiving and Christmas, it’s particularly difficult as I LOVE chocolate!!

I’ve found that my regular check-ups cost less if I go to the V.A. for them. However, when I have a blood draw, there’s no place for me to lie down. I keep telling them I need to lie down, but I find myself sitting in a chair. On my last visit, I was all through with the blood draw and thought I was about ready to get out of the chair. The next thing I knew, I had 4 people standing around me and somebody holding a cold cloth to my forehead. I suddenly began to feel nauseous, something that had NEVER happened to me before! That subsided and I decided I could get up and go to the waiting room. As I stood up, a wave of nausea came over me and this time I did throw up.

Now, the same people that thought I did not have to lie down to have a blood draw decided I needed a wheelchair to move around. They wheeled me outside to get some fresh air. During conversation I told the nurse that I hadn’t had anything to eat (the blood draw was after fasting) and she decided to roll me to the canteen for something to eat. Part was down the hallway I started to get that feeling again. She turned me around and we ended up in a sort of emergency room. A cold cup of water, then they brought me a granola bar, which I nibbled on. I got most of it down, then the nausea came back and so did the granola bar.

The doctor stopped and checked on me a couple of times. He asked how I’d gotten to Lincoln and I told him I rode the Gold Wing. He asked how I was going to get home and I told him the same way. He shook his head and told me he didn’t think so. About noon, he came back in to check on me. I was feeling a bit better and he let me walk around a bit, then he walked outside with me. After a while we went back in and I headed for the canteen where I had a light lunch. It all stayed down this time.

When all was said and done, my blood work came back fine. My blood sugars were acceptable and I am still on my oral meds. I continue to try to watch my diet. The doctor has cautioned me against gaining very much weight, and so far that has not been a problem. If the time comes that I end up on insulin, I don’t know what will happen. Hopefully, there will be an oral insulin before that time comes.

My two older daughters, Heather and Hollie, started a venture together several years ago that they call “Nebraska Wedding Guide.” Hollie has a photo studio in Grand Island, Nebraska called “Hotshots by Hollie.” Hollie has developed a photography business doing senior pictures, babies, weddings, families, children, birthday packages, announcements, holiday cards, dance and sports. Their mother and stepfather own a flower shop in Grand Island and my youngest daughter, Abby, works at the flower shop. As part of the Nebraska Wedding Guide business, Heather and Hollie put on a bridal show twice a year in Grand Island. There are vendors at the show such as other photographers, clothing places, caterers, flower shops, etc. They just finished up doing a bridal show that looks like it was a great success. Jan and I went to Grand Island to help out where we could. Admission to the show was one can of food per person. The food went to one of the local food pantries in Grand Island. At the end of the show, they had collected almost 500 food items for the pantry.

On the drive to Grand Island, we saw snow drifts like we hadn’t seen for YEARS!! It’s no wonder roads were closed as long as they were! Some of the railroads in Nebraska were shut down, including AMTRACK between Hastings and Holdrege, Nebraska. The wind would blow the tracks closed as soon as they were open. However, it looks like there may be some relief in sight as this week promises that the weather is to warm up and there is no precipitation forecasted. We might even be able to get the 2’ berm of ice and snow out of the end of our driveway.

Looking outside right now, the days of getting on the motorcycle and taking a ride seem a long time away, but it’s never too soon to be doing some maintenance and safety checks now. While the motorcycle is in the garage up on the center stand, take a good look at the tires. How much tread is left? Check the tires over carefully for cuts or any other damage. How old are the trires? Are they weather-checked? When I bought my 1984 Gold Wing, the tire tread looked decent, but when I looked closer at the tires, they were badly weather-checked. The rear tire was weather-checked into the cords in the sidewalls. Needless to say, I changed them at the earliest opportunity.

When you need tires, research what tires will give you the best service. Everybody who rides has an opinion on the best tires for their motorcycles. When I got my GL1800, ’d heard horror stories about how poorly the tires wore. I asked the dealer I got it from about tire pressure, and was told to run 40 lbs in the front and 41 in the rear. My front tire lasted 13,000 miles and still had tread when I replaced it. I replaced the rear tire at the beginning of the season last summer at 23,000 miles and it still had fair tread on it.

When I had my ’84 Interstate, I took it to the Harley shop for tires. One of the mechanics there had worked for a Honda dealership for 12 years. I bought what he recommended and was very satisfied as I consistently got 23,500 miles out of the tires and they were still not unsafe to ride on.

While the motorcycle is garaged during the winter, it is a good idea to put a Battery Tender on the battery. This will give the battery a trickle charge when it’s needed, and when it’s fully charged, it will automatically shut off. It can most certainly extend your battery life.

If you’re planning a road trip of any great length, look at your riding gear. Boots, chaps, gloves, helmet. If any of these need to be replaced, do it now. If your trip includes a route through the mountains, consider that a change in elevation means a change in temperatures. We came back from Las Vegas in July 2001 through Colorado. The first day we rode from Las Vegas to Grand Junction, Colorado. The last 100 or so miles, the heat was pretty bad. Jan commented that she was starting to feel a bit light-headed and felt the heat was affecting her. The next day, we rode south to Montrose and then east along the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The highway climbed to over 13,000 feet when we went through Monarch Pass. There was a light rain and it was very cold for that time of the year. Coming out of the pass and continuing east, the weather warmed up again. If we hadn’t been as well prepared as we were, it could have been a miserable ride over Monarch Pass. As it was, it was a bit uncomfortable but we came out of it no worse for wear.

I’ve been trying to decide what route to take coming home from the Blue Knights International Convention in Billings, Montana in July. When we were in Colorado in 2008, we rode to Ft Collins, then west on Hwy 14 along the Poudre River Valley. I’d have loved to have gone farther than Rustic, which was about 21 miles. However, one of the guys had to be back in Greeley early, so we didn’t go any further. I’d have liked to have gone to Steamboat Springs, but it looks like it would be almost a full day each way from Greeley. I’m now thinking of leaving Billings the same way we got there, then fron Casper going southwest on Hwy 220 to Muddy Gap, then 287 south to Rawlins. After an overnight stay at Rawlins, we’d go west on I-80 to Hwy 789, then south to Craig, Colorado. From Craig, we’d take Hwy 40 east to Steamboat Springs. East of Steamboat Springs, we’d take Hwy 14 to complete the ride we started in 2008. If anybody has taken this route please feel free to comment.

Delta, Utah paid its respects to fallen Millard County, Utah Joise Greathouse Fox on Monday January 11th, 2010. According to the Salt Lake City Tribunethe center where the funeral took place was designed to hold 1,500 people andit was overflowing. Police from across Utah, California, Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Montana attended the service. When the services ended, the procession to the cemetery stretched the entire length of the town. Adulta and children lined the streets, creating a tunnel of American flags. There was a two hour delay between the end of the services and the beginning of the graveside services. We must remember that the services were a celebration of the way Deputy Fox lived, not how she died. Rest in Peace, Deputy Fox!

All photos by Salt Lake Trib

Millard County, Utah Deputy killed on traffic stop;NASCAR at Texas;planning for a Blue Knights trip; gas & energy costs on the rise again

2010-01-06T15:21:00.002-06:00

Grant County, Washington Deputy Sheriff John Bernard died as a result of a single car accident January 3rd. The west bound patrol car left the roadway and rolled. It was found by a passerby around 7:20 PM. The cause of the accident is being investigated. Deputy Bernard had served with the Grant County Sheriff’s Department for 4 years and had been in Law Enforcement since 1997. He is survived by his wife and two sons, one who is also a Grant County Deputy Sheriff.

At the Federal Courthouse in Las Vegas, Nevada, a gunman opened fire with a shotgun, killing a Court Security Officer and wounding a U.S. Marshal before he was shot to death. The slain Court Security Officer was identified as 65-year old Stanley Cooper, who was a retired Las Vegas Police Sergeant. He served with the Las Vegas Police Department for 26 years and retired in 1991. The wounded 48-yr old U.S. Marshal was not identified. He was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Condolences go out to the families, friends and co-workers of Deputy Bernard and Officer Cooper.

Shortly after 1 AM on Tuesday January 5th, Millard County, Utah Deputy Sheriff Josie Greathouse Fox, 37, was killed by gunfire when she made a traffic stop near Delta, Utah. A massive manhunt is underway as this is being written. The suspected shooter is an illegal alien and convicted felon who was previously deported. Deputy Fox had served with the Millard County Sheriff’s Department for 5 years. She is survived by her husband and two children. Prayers and condolences go out to the family, friends and co-workers of Deputy Fox.

I just learned that Deputy Fox’ accused killer and the “person of interest” suspected of being an accomplice were captured while hiding in a shed at Beaver Utah about 8 AM on January 6th. He will now face charges in Millard County, Utah.

WINTER!! What more can I say?? I know it could be worse, as we have been getting a few days between each storm. It’s getting old, and I could not imagine living in Alaska and working in this weather 8, 9 or 10 months out of the year. Heck, I was tired of the snow when Octoberfest at Beatrice Speedway got snowed out way back in October!

It’s been so cold I haven’t even attempted to start a fire in the wood burned in the garage. I just don’t think it would do much good, but if the wind stays calm, I just might try it. If I can get the temperature up to 50 I will be able to work in it. I’ll just have to try it. I did manage to get enough wood inside to last me a day before the rest of it got buried under the snow.

All Ready to Race and Nowhere to Go

I still haven’t made a 100% decision on going to Texas Motor Speedway in April for the NASCAR weekend. There’s no problem in getting tickets and the last I looked there are plenty of motel rooms left at a reasonable price. I’d love to be able to ride the Gold Wing there, but the weather may not be warm enough yet. I’m just hoping it will be warm enough to ride to Montana in July for the Blue Knights International Conference. The other long ride I want to make is to Grand Forks, North Dakota in September for another Blue Knights get-together. I also hope we can find the time to go to Colorado for a few days this summer, too.

I haven’t looked real close at the map yet, but if I remember right, Billings in between 1,000 and 1,100 miles from Beatrice. That would make it about 550 miles a day to make it in two days. I’m guessing Greeley, Colorado might be about half way, depending on the route we take. Coming home, I’d like to take a little more time to do some sightseeing along the way. While we’re in the Billings area, I’d like to go to the Little Big Horn area as well as into Yellowstone. That’s a couple of places we’ve never been.

I can look at different routes to Billings without leaving the house. By doing Google searches, I can even see what the scenery along the way looks like If we have to make there in 2 days, the best way would probably to go west out of Beatrice on Hwy 4. That’s the route we’ve taken the last 3 years when we’ve gone to Greeley. We make the first part of the trip a bit long as we don’t stop until we get to Holdrege where we get fuel and take aa bit of a break. That’s about 150 miles from Beatrice. We usually try to take a break about every 100 miles.

From Holdrege we go west on Hwy 6/34 for 73 miles and stop at McCook for lunch and fuel. From there it’s another 92 miles on Hwy 34 to Wray, Colorado where another fuel stop and break are in order. From Wray to Ft Morgan is another 88 miles and we stop at the 80 exit for fuel and a break. From Ft Morgan to Heather and Dana’s is about 55 miles, making for about a 460 mile day. If we leave Beatrice by 8 AM, we can ride at or just under the speed limit and take an hour for lunch and be at Greeley before 5:30 PM. If we push a little, we can make even better time. However, traveling by motorcycle isn’t usually a push to see how good a time we can make.

If we can get out of Greeley by 7 AM on Sunday, we should be able to be in Billings at a decent time. Going north out of Greeley on Hwy 85, it’s 42 miles to the Colorado/Wyoming State line. From there it’s 8 miles to I-80 and 3 miles west on I-80 to I-25. It’s another 70 miles north on I-25 to Wheatland, where we will take a fuel stop and break. By the time we leave Wheatland, it will be 9:30. It’s 108 miles to Casper, which should put us there about 11:15. We’ll get fuel and take a lunch break and should be back on the road by 12:30. From there to Buffalo it’s 113 miles, so we should be there about 2:15. After fuel and a break, we’ll be back on the road about 2:30. It’s 60 miles to the Wyoming/Montana State Line and we should be there about 3:30. From there to Billings is 110 miles, which should put us in Billings by 6 PM. That day will be about 515 miles total.

With the big fuel tank on the Gold Wing, there should not be any fuel issues. It has always been our experience that the fuel tank far outlasts our butts!!

I’ve noticed the price of gas is creeping up, even though I keep reading that we have plenty of oil. When racing season started in 2009, gas at the pumps was $1.999. It went up 12 cents last week - maybe because our gas tax went up a half cent??

A newspaper article now says that gasoline prices are expected to soon be above the highest prices of 2009. It already is here. There is also a sidebar that says we paid 54 cents per therm for natural gas in November and will be paying 72 cents in January due to the severe cold weather we’ve experienced for the last month. While all this is going on, we keep hearing of global warming. I guess we can all be glad about global warming, because without it, I’m afraid it would get pretty cold around here!

I was stationed at Ft Lee, Virginia the first part of 1971. I drove my 1964 Chevrolet Impala back home to Crete, Nebraska from Ft Lee which cost me $40 in gas. Who today can say they can fill their empty gas tank for $40? In 1996, we rode our Gold Wing to Tustin, California and back for $149 in gas. When I was in high school and just out, I remember people driving to Wilber, 10 miles away, to get gas because it was 2 or 3 cents a gallon cheaper. It was cost effective back then, when gas was 30 cents a gallon.

More nasty winter weather; Pierce County, Washington Deputy succumbs to wounds; attempt to blow up airliner; plans for 2010 FOP Charity race

2010-01-03T17:33:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year, everybody!!

I find it ironic that so much is being made about global warming and we’ve just experienced the biggest snowstorm in 60 years. We had a late Christmas on December 30th and I saw a note from Heather that they weren’t leaving Grand Island as soon as they thought because the interstate was closed again. We got light snow but it stopped after an hour or so. We’re now in the “deep freeze” with lows the next few nights dropping well below 0. We may also get some more snow. It’s my firm belief that the fuss about global warming will pad somebody’s pocket, if it isn’t already.

Just for fun, do a Google search on “blizzard of 1949 Nebraska.” There are pictures of railroad locomotives stuck in snow banks that are taller than the locomotives. When you read about that winter, you’ll find that it started snowing in November and was actually a series of blizzards. It looks like the big storm hit in January 1st, and the forecast did not call for any snow that day!!

On a sad note, Pierce County, Washington, Deputy Sheriff Kent Mundell, 44, succumbed to his injuries with his family at his side Monday evening, December 28th. Deputy Mundell had been on life support since being shot on December 21st. Deputy Mundell and Sgt Nick Hausner responded to a call from family members to have David Crable, who was intoxicated, removed from the home. Crable, who had a history of domestic violence, opened fire on the deputies and wounded both deputies. Deputy Mundell was able to return fire and David Crable died from his wounds on the scene.

Deputy Mundell had served with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department for 10 years. He is survived by his wife, 16-year old daughter and 10-year old son. Rest in peace brother thank you for your dedication and sacrifice.

This is another sad day for our nation. While another family mourns the loss of a husband, father, son, and hero, defense attorneys everywhere are demanding rights for their clients that commit these most heinous of crimes. Something just doesn't seem right with this.

In 2009, Law Enforcement nationwide lost 125 Officers to Line of Duty Deaths. Please keep all of the officers, families, friends and co-workers in your prayers.

We woke up on Christmas morning to learn that an attempt had been made to blow up another airplane. Now, there is a call for congressional investigations to find out how the suspect was even able to board a plane. We know he was on a “terrorist watch list” that consists of 500,000 names. A HALF MILLION PEOPLE ON A WATCH LIST!!?? “Profiling” isn’t allowed, so do we have to ignore these people? When does the right to privacy over shadow the rights of everyone on that plane to arrive safely? Fortunately, this incident ended safely, but what about the NEXT time? Flying can be an inconvenience, but is necessary at times. The last time I flew, I only had a small carry-on bag, as the rest of my stuff went ahead of me by way of 4 wheels. I had to take my shoes and socks off and walk through a metal detector three times. An elderly lady ahead of me had a small bottle of perfume taken out of her purse and was not allowed to take it with her. However, there were no terrorists among us that night and we made it safely to our destination.

Thanks to the support and dedication of my wife, Jan, most of the 2009 R & R Racing season at Beatrice Speedway is on videotape. She had her hands full, especially when we had two cars on the track at the same time.

In August, members of the Beatrice/Gage County Fraternal Order of Police took to the track for a Charity Race. Including me, we had 9 drivers in cars that owners/drivers let us drive. Who drove what car was determined by a draw, as was starting position. Before the evening of the race, each driver picked a charity that they would be racing for. Money was donated for the purse by Beatrice Speedway, Women for Racing, FOP Lodge 45, and individuals who donated by putting money in a jug at the WFR booth or sending money to the FOP. The total purse ended up being $1,000. The winner’s charity got 40%, 2nd place 30%, 3rd place 20% and 4th place 10%.

At intermission that evening, the track announcer had the 9 drivers come to the front straightaway where each driver was interviewed. When it was time for us to strap in and get on the track, we were given a few “hot laps” before lining up and getting the green. At the white flag, three cars were battling for the lead, and the pass for the win was made going into turn 3. People in the grandstands were hooting and hollering for the drivers at the end. It was probably the best race of the evening. We all had fun doing it and have talked about doing it again in 2010. We’re looking into what we can do to raise money for the purse.

In the age of computers and social networking, I’ve registered with Facebook and am adding to my “Friends” list at every chance. I have this blog as a “Group” on Facebook and encourage everybody to become a member of the Group. I have almost 1,100 friends on Facebook and over 300 members of my Group. I am going to try to raise purse money for the 2010 FOP Charity Race by asking for donations from my Friends on Facebook. If everybody would donate just $1, that would give us over $1,000 just to start. We hope to raise enough money for the 2010 Charity Race to be able to donate to every charity represented. I am going to try to start promoting this event through Facebook and this blog and hope that everybody that reads about it will be willing to donate to it in order to make it successful again in 2010. If everybody would donate $1, it would be a huge success!

Our chosen charities in 2009 were the YMCA, Special Olympics, American Cancer Society, Salvation Army, Mother to Mother Ministry, Habitat for Humanity, Food Pantry, Make A Wish Foundation and the Beatrice Youth Center. I am already going to post a sign-up roster so we can see what kind of turn-out of FOP members we will have to drive in this event. Keep watching here and on Facebook to keep track of updates.

Christmas Eve Blizzard; one Washington Deputy released from hospital; a little prep for the 2010 racing season; dreaming of taking a motorcycle trip

2009-12-26T23:25:00.004-06:00

Just when I thought I could stop talking about the weather, we get yet ANOTHER storm! Late last week and early this week, the forecasters said we could get a Christmas storm. What appeared to be a massive winter storm was headed our way! Local forests said we would have snow by Wednesday evening.

People in the Beatrice area woke up to ice-coated trees and rain/freezing rain on Wednesday morning. With the temps staying right at or just above freezing, there was not much of a problem. There was already a lot of snow and wind in the west and central part of the state, though. Over Wednesday night we had periods of light rain, drizzle and mist. When I went home on Christmas Eve morning, I thought the forecasters were wrong, even though they were still saying we were in for a big storm.

I woke up on Christmas eve to find it snowing and blowing. Forecast was for winter storm warnings, blizzard watches and blizzard warnings across most of the state. When I got to work, arrangements had already been made for us to use the Beatrice Fire Department’s Expedition to get around in the snow. I stayed in my Crown Vic until about 10:30 PM, when I switched over. About 7 PM, the local radio station announced that we were in a blizzard warning until 6 AM on Saturday with high winds and periods of heavy snow. TRAVEL WAS NOT ADVISED!!

Gage County Courthouse

The street department was to start cleaning emergency snow routes at 11 PM. The State Department of Roads was already out by 8 PM. With the high winds, they had a hard time of it. I fill my car with gas about 7 PM and the highway on the north end of town was already almost blown shut. Calls started coming in about stranded vehicles all over the county. Near the state line, a car was in the ditch with 2 adults and 2 infants. Roads all around them were drifted shut and deputies could not get to them. By now, there were many locations with zero visibility due to the blowing snow. Gage County Emergency Management organized a Search & Rescue effort and was able to reach the stalled vehicle and rescue the occupants. Several other vehicles were stalled in the south end of the county. About midnight, the highway on the north end of town was blocked again and several cars were stranded north of the city limits.

City crews kept on working to keep snow routes open. Around 4 AM, a report was received of several stalled cars on Hwy 77 between the east and west junctions of Hwy 41. One was a Jefferson County ambulance on its was to Lincoln with a patient. The ambulance was able to continue after a snowplow arrived to clear the way.

400 block N 6th

It’s been so long since we’ve had a true blizzard that many people may not realize how dangerous this weather event is. The bottom line is, when the Weather Service says to stay home, STAY AT HOME!! At this point, this area has been lucky and there have been no serious injuries or fatalities.

The weather outside is frightful, but it can also help families enjoy time together. As long as there are enough supplies in the house, there is no reason to go out. At work on Christmas Eve, one of the dispatchers told us That her son told her "I wish that we could just stay home and spend Christmas Day together." I think he has wisdom beyond his years. He also got his wish!!

On Saturday we celebrate Christmas with Jason and Jeremy and their families and they will only have to go across town. Wednesday we’ll have Christmas with my side of the family and watch Nebraska win another bowl game. Hopefully, the weather will give us a few days’ break.

Downtown Beatrice, Christmas Eve 2009

In following up on the two Washington deputies shot early this week, one has been released from the hospital. Sgt Nick Hausner left the hospital on the morning of December 24th and a motorcade of police escorts accompanied him to Harborview Medical Center near Tacoma, where he visited his wounded partner, Deputy Kent Mundell. Deputy Mundell is still listed in critical condition. Vigils are being held at the hospital by officers from numerous agencies. The Law Enforcement community worldwide is praying for Deputy Mundell’s recovery.

Fighting the weather makes the beginning of the racing season seem like a very long time away, but everybody is still working on getting their equipment ready for the 2010 season. I got my engine block, crankshaft and heads back from the machine shop before the bad weather hit us. The block is on the engine stand, wrapped up in a plastic bag. Maybe before the weekend is over I can build a fire in the woodburner and warm the garage up enough so I can put the crank in and torque the main caps. I still need to find a set of pistons before I can put the short block together. I also have to get the engine that is in the car, out so it can be freshened, but I don’t want to have two engines apart at the same time.

I’ve also been looking at the map trying to figure out if I can make it to Billings, Montana in two days on the Gold Wing. We’re going to attend the Blue Knights International Convention there in July. I’d wanted to take my time going both ways, but we won’t be able to leave Beatrice until Saturday morning and I wanted to be there on Sunday evening. I haven’t figured the exact mileage, but it looks like about 110 miles.

We rode to Spokane in 1998 for the International Convention. We left Grand Island about 5:30 AM on Friday and planned to stay in Coer d’Alene, Idaho, on Saturday night. However, mechanical problems on one of the bikes set us back. Anyway, we stayed at a KOA campground at Sheridan, Wyoming on Friday night and were in Billings well before noon on Saturday. Of course, we didn’t take time to do any sightseeing, and Grand Island is 13 miles closer than Beatrice. I hope to be able to take more time coming back from Billings to do some sightseeing.

Jan and I have really gone modern as we got new cell phones. I’m through the first 20 pages of the 150 page instruction manual and am already thoroughly confused. I hope this phone gives me as good of service as the last one. I had it for 5 years and never had a problem with it. Of course, I’d be satisfied if I could get calls, make calls and have my address book. Both of our phones have Navigation and that is included in the monthly bill on Jan’s phone. I can have it if I pay $9.95 a month more. I decided if I ever need it, we’ll probably be together so we’ll just use hers. We both have cameras incorporated in our phones, which is kind of cool. The pictures I took on Christmas eve were taken on my phone. I even got “Bluetooth” with my phone. They say I can talk on my phone without having to hang onto it, which will be cool if I can make the silly thing stay on my ear!!

Happy birthday; Advances in police technology; area dirt tracks setting 2010 schedules; two Washington deputies ambushed, suspect killed; white Nebraska Christmas

2009-12-23T02:58:00.001-06:00

My oldest daughter, Heather, celebrated a birthday December 18th. She had a posting on her Facebook page about being 29. I wish she was - it would mean that I’m not as old as I am. However, she also tells on herself because she also has her birthday posted on her profile, including the year she was born.

The night she was born, we headed to the hospital about 1 AM. We lived on the west edge of Grand Island and came in to the old Grand Island Memorial Hospital from the west on Faidley. We’d had a pretty good snowstorm just a couple of days earlier and the snow was still blowing across the road. There were no houses along Faidley back then, it was all cornfields. We got to the hospital and I had a couple of papers to fill out, then I went up to begin my wait. When I got upstairs, it was already over and we had a new daughter! I guess that’s the way to do it!!

Things came full circle last winter when Heather & Dana had their 1st child, a son, Landon. He will be 10 months old in a few days and he rules the roost in their home. Unfortunately, it’s over 500 miles to Greeley, Colorado, so we don’t get to see him much, but Heather keeps us updated with pictures. She also has Skype on her computer and we have it on ours, so if we’re on the computer at the same time, we are able to talk and see each other on the computer.

Technology, especially in the last few years, has come such a long way. Cell phones, computers, GPS, video, video surveillance. I can set up video surveillance in cities all over the United States and through the internet, I can sit at a computer in an office and watch all of the surveillance cameras at once. I can remember at times thinking that I wish something was on video, now I have it. When our patrol cars got the first video systems, we had a big lock box in the trunk of the patrol cars that had a VCR in it. We had to ch ange the tapes every 8 hours. We now have digital video that is recorded on a memory card and the entire system is contained in the rear view mirror. We have laptop computers in our patrol cars from which we can run license plates and warrant checks. We can talk to dispatch and other officers through chat on our laptops instead of using the radio. All of our patrol cars have GPS so dispatch can see where we are at all times. They can see us on a map of the city or county and even know how fast we are going.

I found out the other night that the GPS and mobile data now works when we’re out of the county. I had to make a trip to Lincoln, and could communicate by mobile data to dispatch. They could tell me where I was before I knew it, naming cross streets I was passing. All this technology enhances officer safety.

With winter setting in, all the racing going on here is “bench racing.” Nebraska Raceway Park at Greenwood, Nebraska has a tentative schedule posted on their website. Thunderhill Speedway, at Mayetta, Kansas, is under new ownership and they have announced that they will be IMCA sanctioned in 2010. Their program will be IMCA modifieds, sportmods, stock cars and hobby stocks and they will continue to race on Saturday nights. We raced at Thunderhill in a special at the beginning of 2008 and I’d love to go back there some time when the weather is nice and the track is in good shape. Maybe we’ll be able to make another trip there in 2010. We’re already making plans to go to Ft Worth in April for the NASCAR weekend. I’m hoping that with the economic downturn, rooms will be a bit less expensive. Tickets aren’t available as a package deal like they were at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but it looks like even buying them individually, they will be less than they were in Las Vegas.

At about 8:45 PM (PST) on Monday evening, December 21, two Sheriff’s Deputies were ambushed when the responded to a call near Eatonville, Washington. They were responding to a dispute at a home between two brothers. The deputies were shot by David Crable before he was killed when they returned fire. The gunman has a history of "terrorizing" his family. The names of the officers were not immediately released.

The officers were met at the door by Crable's brother. When the deputies entered the house, Crable fired at the deputies from upstairs, hitting one of the officers multiple times.

One deputy was flown to Harborview Medical Center In Seattle, where he was listed as critical in the intensive care unit. The other deputy was taken to Madigan Army Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition.

We’re in the Christmas season, but not everybody is in the Christmas spirit. PLEASE, everybody, BE CAREFUL out there!!

It looks like we’ll have a white Christmas as there’s another storm taking aim at Nebraska. If you’re living in this area and you don’t have to drive, please stay indoors. If you absolutely must be out in it, be careful. I might be boring to read, but I would not want to spice this up by writing about the misfortunes of people who are playing bumper cars in the bad weather.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everybody!!

Nebraska snowstorm; Danica will be in NASCAR; McCool Junction awards banquet; more Officers down

2009-12-16T14:25:00.003-06:00

Following the snowstorm last week, we went into a DEEP FREEZE! Having Monday and Tuesday off, I didn’t have to deal with the falling snow, but when I went back to work Wednesday evening, the bottom fell out of the thermometer. Of course, it could have been worse as it “only” dropped to -14 here. Thursday night it was about 0 when I went home shortly after 2 AM.

My nephew, Charlie, is a Marine Staff Sergeant stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He posted a comment on his face book page about the bad weather they were having, with rain and weather in the 60’s. I told him I’d gladly trade places with him as long as there wasn’t a hurricane. He did not give me an answer.

In the world of NASCAR, IndyCar driver Danica Patrick has finally signed a two year contract with JR Motorsports to drive in select Nationwide series races in 2010 and 2011. The races she will drive in have not been announced yet, but it is anticipated that she will be scheduled around her IndyCar season. Patrick admits that she will have a steep learning curve, but hopes to be competitive in the GoDaddy.com #7. Patrick will be testing an ARCA car at Daytona later this month.

On the local racing scene, The Junction Motor Speedway held their annual awards banquet on December 12th. Their tentative schedule shows the annual USMTS Spring Thaw race will be Friday and Saturday March 5th & 6th, 2010. Support classes will be open stock cars and 2-preson cruisers. Junction Motor Speedway is also planning to add limited modifieds to the schedule, but officials are still working on rules for the class. The regular season opener is scheduled for Saturday, April 17th, 2010. I’m really hoping the weather for the USMTS show is nice, as it will fall on my weekend off and I’d like to go race that weekend. However, with the snow and nasty weather we’re having now, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was still snow on the ground that first weekend of March.

Over $20,000 in track and NASCAR money was presented to the drivers in the top 10 in points in each class. I got my first ever (and probably my only) NASCAR trophy for our 10th place points finish. With fog and light freezing drizzle in the evening, our decision to stay overnight was a good one. We slept in on Sunday, then had a good breakfast and hot coffee before heading back to Beatrice.

Since the murders of four Lakewood, Washington Police Officers two weeks ago, at least 6 more officers have died in the line of duty. Two were the result of traffic accidents and four were from gunfire. I’ve mentioned this before and I can’t stress it enough, most fatal line of duty traffic accidents CAN BE AVOIDED!! For those officers reading this, PLEASE USE YOUR SEATBELTS!! The other thing I would urge is to SLOW DOWN a little. On December 3rd, Osage County, Oklahoma Deputy Sheriff Michael Mehagan, 26, was responding to back up another officer on a call when he lost control of his patrol car on an S-curve and rolled twice. Deputy Mehagan was ejected from the vehicle and sustained fatal injuries. He is survived by his wife and 11 month old daughter.

On Friday December 11th, Jefferson County, Indiana Deputy Sheriff Roy Sutton, Jr, 33, was killed while responding to a domestic disturbance call involving weapons at about 11:30 PM. Deputy Sutton met a vehicle on a hilly, winding section of road when his patrol car ran off the right side of the road and down a steep embankment. His patrol car went airborne and hit a tree on the drivers’ side of the car. Deputy Sutton was wearing a seatbelt and suffered severe head trauma and was pronounced dead at the scene.

On December 3rd, Pelham, Alabama Police Officer Phillip Davis, 33, was killed while making a traffic stop when the suspect opened fire and fled the scene. On December 6th, Penn Hills Police Officer Michael Crawshaw, 32, was shot and killed in an ambush while responding to a call. He parked several houses away from the call, then reported that he heard shots fired. The suspect exited the house and shot Officer Crawshaw several times as he sat in his car before he was able to get out. The suspect had shot and killed the resident of the house over a drug debt. On December 8th, Martin County North Carolina Sheriff’s Deputy Charlie Brown, 38, was shot and killed as he and other officers responded to a call of a man walking on a street and firing a long gun. Officers located the man and confronted him, telling him to put the gun down. Instead, he fired and killed Deputy Brown. Other officers on the scene returned fire, killing the suspect. Finally, on December 13th, Henderson, Tennessee Police Captain Dennis Cagle, 56, died from a gunshot wound he suffered three days earlier when he responded to a robbery call at a local grocery store. Captain Cagle was the first officer on the scene and was shot once when he entered the store. He returned fire and wounded the suspect, who was taken into custody at the scene.

It would appear that in addition to our military fighting wars overseas, our police officers are fighting a war in the United States. Three of the above suspects were captured and the fourth was killed. I would hope that none of the three is ever released from jail. Please, officers out there, don’t take any chances and come home at the end of your shift! Non-law enforcement reading this, if you are contacted by law enforcement, use common sense and everything will be OK. We are all in a heightened state of awareness, so if at times we seem short or terse with you, please understand.

Nebraska Cornhuskers lose heartbreaker, Suh for Heisman, Nebraska winter storm, NASCAR at Texas Motor Speedway

2009-12-09T13:49:00.003-06:00

The Nebraska Cornhuskers lost a heartbreaker to Texas Saturday evening at Arlington, Texas. After taking a 12 - 10 lead with less than 2 minutes to play, it appeared that an incomplete pass by Texas’ quarterback ended the game as time expired. However, an official review of the play clock had the officials reset the clock with one second and Texas kicked a field goal.

Nebraska has nothing to be ashamed about in the way they played. The match-up between Texas quarterback Colt McCoy and Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh thrust Suh into the Heisman spotlight and he will be making the trip to New York at the end of this week. Wouldn’t it be a great honor for a defensive lineman the caliber of Suh to be the Heisman recipient? His interview with the Lincoln TV station was very gracious and he said he wouldn’t even be considered for the award if it weren’t for his teammates.

With the big game on TV and the weather being decent, we expected there to be a lot of traffic in town during the evening. However, it appeared that the parties were all at home as it was a very quiet night, even after the game was over. There was not much traffic on the street all night long.

Winter has taken aim at southeast Nebraska and after dropping about 6” of snow on us Sunday afternoon and evening, we are bracing for what forecasters are saying will be another 7” to 12” by the time it stops sometime Wednesday. So far, we haven’t had much of a wind, but the weather service says we could get 40 MPH winds in the next day, too.

Even with the nasty weather Sunday evening, there was a lot more traffic on the streets. It’s almost like some people don’t have the good sense to stay home when the weather is nasty. If I hadn’t had to work, I would not have left the house. The Sheriff’s Department was busy with two injury accidents between 6 PM and 7 PM in the Wymore area. Fortunately, none of the injuries were serious. The snow stopped before midnight and Beatrice street crews began cleaning the downtown streets.

Of course, the snow started again on Monday evening and as of 6 PM Tuesday, we’d gotten another 9” of snow. I got the snowblower out just after noon and cleaned the driveway as I had to get the grandkids from daycare. When I got home, I wasn’t able to get the car back up the driveway. I got an area on the street cleaned so I could park the car close to the curb, not 3 feet from the curb where the street crews cleaned the snow. On the way back with the kids, I saw a sure sign of a huge storm coming in when I passed two people who are well-known to local law enforcement. They were walking along the street, each carrying two 30-packs of beer. I’m guessing they were afraid of running out of beer before the snow stops.

I remember snow storms when I was in grade school and junior high. From about the 5th grade on, Crete had students from country schools that had closed, and those were the only bus routes. If I remember correctly there were five bus routes then. The kids that lived in town usually either walked or rode their bicycles to school. It seemed like after we had bus routes we had a lot more days off for snow.

I also remember when I was in 7th grade, in February 1965, a storm that we had. Dad worked at Cushman’s in Lincoln and went to work the morning the storm started. Dad ended up staying with his cousin in Lincoln and didn’t get home for 3 or 4 days.

I happened to check the Beatrice Speedway website last night and found that the schedule for 2010 has already been posted. Spring Nationals is set for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 18th, 19th & 20th. Thursday night will be an open practice for all classes. Friday night will have IMCA modifieds, IMCA sport mods, IMCA hobby stocks and factory stocks. Saturday night will be IMCA modifieds, IMCA sport mods, IMCA hobby stocks and IMCA sport compacts. The regular season is scheduled to start on Friday April 16th. I hope that the snow will be gone before Spring Nationals time is here. The R & R Racing #6 entry should be ready to race long before the practice night.

Beatrice Speedway’s car show & test & tune are scheduled for April 10th, and the regular season opener is scheduled for Friday April 16th.

I’ve attended the NASCAR weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway each year since 2003. Each year, we’ve taken two days to drive each way, and spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the track. The economy has hurt the attendance as in 2009, there were a lot of empty seats in Turn 4. That is where we sat in 2003 and 2004 and except for not being able to see Turns 1 & 2, we had decent seats. The cars came out of 2 and down the back straightaway straight at us.

We’ve enjoyed the city, the vendors, the tailgating and making new friends at Las Vegas. I keep track of what’s going on in the valley by looking at the Las Vegas Review Journal on-line several times a week. Every time we go back, there are a lot of changes on the strip from the year before.

In 2010, we plan to go to the spring Texas NASCAR weekend. It’s the same weekend as the scheduled start for Beatrice Speedway, but I’ve decided I want to do some other things in 2010 than just race. I’m hoping the weather in April is nice enough that we can take the Gold Wing when we go to Texas. Due to the economy, ticket prices have been lowered and, depending on the location at the track of the tickets, I can get Friday, Saturday and Sunday tickets for $100. If I book the hotel soon enough, it looks like I can get a room for about $65 a night. I’m guessing we’d stay overnight in Oklahoma City on the way back, so all in all, it would not be as expensive as going to Las Vegas again.

This last weekend I found out that Dad gave the Veterans Day speech at Crete High School this year. He’d originally been asked to talk to a class about his experiences in WW II. Somehow, that didn’t develop, and he was asked to do the Veterans Day address. He even found one of his old uniforms to wear. Mom said he talked a little longer than he was supposed to, but everybody enjoyed it. He also got a video of it, and I want to be sure to see it soon.

As police officers, we see the best and worst of society. I’ve dealt with kids that I’ve never seen their parents and wonder why the parents had kids if they weren’t going to take responsibility for them. I’ve tried to point teens and others in their early 20’s in the right direction and hope they become respected, contributing members to society. Now I’ve come across a website honoring the heroes in our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The website, http://www.Americanvalor.net gives short stories of our soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen/women who are doing their jobs at a great risk to them selves. As I read through some of these stories, it struck me how young most of these heroes are. I can see that many of our younger people ARE becoming responsible citizens. These are our next generation of heroes. Thank you to our military for keeping us safe at home.

States visited on our Gold Wing

Lakewood, Washington cop killer dies

2009-12-02T17:08:00.003-06:00

Suspected Seattle cop killer Maurice Clemmons was shot and killed by a Seattle Police Officer in the early morning hours of Tuesday December 1st. Clemmons had a gun that belonged to one of the slain Police Officers tucked in his waistband. When the investigation into the cowardly murder of 4 Lakewood, Washington Police Officers started, Clemmons was developed as a person of interest. He soon became a suspect.

On Sunday evening, police narrowly missed capturing Clemmons as they cordoned off a neighborhood and SWAT teams began checking house after house. Clemmons had a network of family members and friends who helped hide him and provided him with money, food and cell phones. The investigation does not end with his death as several accomplices have been arrested and Law Enforcement has announced that several more will be arrested.

This was a senseless tragedy that could have been prevented if the criminal justice system worked the way is is supposed to. What I mean by that is this: this piece of human trash should not have been on the streets- not now, not EVER! In 1989, before his 18th birthday, he was sentenced to spend 95 years in prison in Arkansas for a laundry list of charges including robberies, burglaries, thefts and bringing a gun to school. However, in 2000, after spending 11 years behind bars, his sentence was commuted by then-governor Mike Huckabee. According to newspaper reports, Huckabee said that the fact that Clemmons was 17 at the time of his sentencing was a factor in his sentence. He was later arrested for violating his parole and landed in jail to serve his full term, but the charges were dropped and he was released.

He was recently charged with the rape of a child and assaulting a police officer and was released after a bail bondsman posted his $150,000 bond.

I am sure there will be a long and drawn out investigation into this case. Where do we begin? Every was I turn, I see news about gun control and new laws. Here’s a news flash for those that want more gun control - IT IS AGAINST THE LAW FOR A FELON TO POSSESS A FIREARM!!! Let’s enforce the gun laws we already have instead of making new ones. Clemmons did not buy his gun at a sporting goods show.

How about early release, parole and probation? Let’s see, if you get 20 years in Nebraska and are a good boy or girl, you’re out in 10 or less. With jail overcrowding, it’s all about parole and probation. Get them out and back on the streets as soon as possible. Said Brian Wurts, The Lakewood Independent Police Guild president and Lakewood police officer, "I can't believe he was out on the street," Wurts said of the suspect. "You have 5 percent of the people out here committing 90 percent of the crime -- not against just us, but against all of you. And we've got to hold these people accountable. We've got to keep them locked up. And if they want to rehabilitate them, you can rehabilitate them, but you rehabilitate them in prison, where they're supposed to be. This guy should have never been on the street."

This is a time for healing for the families, friends and co-workers of the fallen officers. It’s my hope that something like this will never happen again, but we all know it will. Contact your lawmakers and let them know you are outraged that someone like Clemmons can be out on the street and you want the laws changed. Let those changes be the legacy of Sgt Mark Renninger and Officers Ronald Owens, Tina Griswold and Greg Richards.

NASCAR to crown 2009 Champion in Las Vegas; local IMCA and Whelan Weekly Racing series; 4 Officers ambushed and killed in Pierce County, Washington

2009-11-29T23:20:00.002-06:00

The world of NASCAR is getting ready to formally crown the 2009 champion, Jimmy Johnson. Johnson’s week will begin on Monday with public appearances in the San Diego area, then on Tuesday in the Fontana area. The festivities will move on to Las Vegas, where there will be activities open to the public all over Las Vegas as well as at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There will be a “parade lap” on the strip by the Chase drivers, and pit stop competitions for fans using real Sprint Cup cars. These will also be held all over the city. The awards banquet will be at the Winn Vegas and for the first time, a select few members of the public will be able to attend. Even though I was pulling for Mark Martin to win the Championship, I congratulate the #48 Team on their 4th in a row. I believe that after the season Mark Martin had in 2009, he will once again be near the top of the heap in 2010. In his 2nd year with his Hendrick team, he will be a force to be reckoned with.

I’m sure that anybody spending this week in Vegas will not find a shortage of things to do if they are NASCAR fans.

On the local racing scene, some awards banquets have already been held and others are coming up. IMCA has already posted the 2010 rules on their website. At the Beatrice Speedway Women for Racing Banquet, it was announced that there were no changes being made in the non-sanctioned factory stock class. The 2010 schedule was not announced yet. The Junction Motor Speedway awards banquet will be held on December 12th, and any changes being made at that venue will be announced at that time. Eagle Raceway located 12 miles east of Lincoln, Nebraska already has a tentative 2010 schedule, having added IMCA Sport Mods to the line-up. Eagle’s awards banquet is scheduled for January 9th, 2010.

After input from fans and participants, the Butler County Motorplex near Rising City, Nebraska will once again race on Friday nights.

I-80 Speedway will be holding their awards banquet on January 9th. The last I checked, there was nothing out about schedules, etc for I-80 for 2010.

Dawson County Speedway at Lexington, Nebraska has announced their classes and tentative schedule for 2010, with more discussion planned at their awards banquet on December 12th.

Moving 125 miles southeast of Beatrice, new owners took over Thunderhill Speedway at Mayetta, Kansas. The track was closed before the end of the 2009 season and put up for sale. The Conkwright family from Manhattan, KS, longtime racers themselves, purchased the track and since have been working on it every waking minute they have to spare. It looks like they will keep the same classes they ran in 2009, Modifieds, Sportmods, factory stocks and hobby stocks. They will be racing on Saturday nights, but a schedule has not been set at this time. With a background in Late Models, the new owners would like to get a late model special or two on the 2010 calendar.

At Beatrice Speedway, there are some drivers switching classes. I’ve heard that Kyle Vanover is selling his IMCA Modified and will be racing a factory stock in 2010. I haven’t talked to Kyle to verify this, but he has a ton of modified stuff for sale and yesterday I noticed a stock car body sitting next to the his garage.

Tyler Phelps will be driving a factory stock for Watts-Pope Racing out of Beatrice. That could prove interesting as Jeff Watts will still be racing. It will be interesting to see how Tyler does against his car owner. Another rumor I haven’t verified yet is that IMCA Modified driver Brent Schlake bought a factory stock. Beatrice factory stock driver Gary Laflin was in an IMCA Sport Mod at the Beatrice Octoberfest and has said he will be racing a Sport Mod in 2010. I haven’t heard where his factory stock went, or if it did go anywhere.

We got our old trailer sold last week. The SCS car is still for sale, either with a floater rear end with no gears or with a metric rear end. It looks like the block of the engine we had problems with will clean up with a de-glazing. I will have to find a new set of pistons and rings and of course the heads need to be fixed. In the meantime, I need to get the 360 out of the “new” car so I can freshen it and go over the rest of the car with a fine tooth comb so it’s ready to go come the 2010 racing season.

Before I close, I must once again address the issue of “Officer Down.” At 8:15 AM on Sunday November 29th, four officers of the Lakewood, Washington Police Department were shot and killed as they sat in a coffeehouse working on their laptops. It isn’t clear whether the officers even had time to draw their weapons to return fire. Pierce County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Ed Troyer said the attack was clearly target at the officers, not a robbery gone bad. The officers’ marked police cars were parked outside and all of the officers were in uniform. PLEASE, ALL OFFICERS READING THIS - BE IN CODE RED AT ALL TIMES!! Here’s hoping that the perpetrator of this vicious crime is caught soon. Condolences go out to the family, friends and co-workers of these fallen heroes.

http://www.policeone.com/Fugitive/articles/1970694-Manhunt-continues-motive-unknown-in-Wash-coffeehouse-ambush/

weight loss products

Las Vegas Metro Officer killed

2009-11-25T15:03:00.001-06:00

Once more we are reminded of the dangers of police work. At this time, this incident is thought to have been a random robbery, but it’s possible that the suspects knew that their victim was a police officer. A little after midnight on November 19th, an off-duty Las Vegas police officer died after being shot in his garage by robbers. Reports from the online edition of the Las Vegas Review Journal say that 30-yr old Trevor Nettleton was a Marine Corps veteran who had been a North Las Vegas Police Officer for 3 years. Officer Nettleton was found dead of apparent gunshot wounds inside his home in the 1100 block of Emerald Stone Avenue, North Las Vegas police spokeswoman Chrissie Coon said.

Coon said the officer was gunned down in the garage of his home during an apparent robbery attempt in which there was an exchange of gunfire. Neighbors called in reports of gunfire at 12:18 a.m.

Clark County Undersheriff Rod Jett said the police officer had just arrived home after his shift with the Bolden Area Command, near Martin Luther King Boulevard and Vegas Drive. Jett said the shooting appears to be a random act. The officer was not in uniform and did not have his patrol car with him. The officer's wife, mother, a 1-year-old son and 2-month-old daughter were at home at the time of the shooting, Jett said. Heartfelt condolences go out to the family, friends and co-workers of Officer Nettleton.

One follow-up story tells us that Officer Nettleton was a 2nd generation police officer. His father, Richard, is a retired Nevada State Trooper. When Trevor told his father of his plans to become a police officer, Richard tried to talk him out of it. When Trevor graduated from the police academy, his father pinned the badge on Trevor.

In another story, we learn that three suspects are in custody. At least two are gang members and one lived in the neighborhood. Kind of leads me to believe that maybe this was not a random robbery after all.

Police officers do a lot of things in their off-duty time to relieve the stress of police work. I know of guys that do carpenter work in their off-duty time. When I was with the Grand Island Police Department, several officers rode motorcycles. I’d have liked to have joined them on some rides, but at the time I didn’t have a motorcycle. Shortly after I started working in Beatrice, I bought a 1980 Kawasaki LTD 750. I rode around the southeast Nebraska area quite a bit and made several trips to Sunset Speedway in Omaha to watch the races. It wasn’t long before I realized I wanted to get a bigger motorcycle. I’d be going down the road and I’d meet Ultra Classics and Gold Wings and always thought to myself “I’ll have one of those one day.”

All told, I put about 10,000 miles on that Kawasaki while I had it. In August of 1992, I saw an ad for a farm sale north of Friend, Nebraska. They had a 1981 Gold Wing Interstate advertised on the auction with less than 19,000 miles on it. I went home with a new 11 year old Gold Wing that day. Before the riding season was over, I’d put almost 3,000 miles on it.

Right after I bought the Kawasaki, I joined the Grand Island Blue Knights Chapter. At the time, that was the only Blue Knights Chapter in Nebraska and we had 12 members. Today, Nebraska I has about 50 members and there are 4 chapters in Nebraska. Worldwide, the Blue Knights have over 20,000 members. I attended my first Midwest Regional Conference, at Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, in June 1993. At the time, that was my longest road trip on a motorcycle. It was also the first time I ever had to put on rain gear. As we were going to get on the Kansas turnpike at Wichita, there was a trooper sitting on the side of the road. He told John that there was a tornado warning for Wellington, which is about 20 miles south of Wichita. There was heavy rain, wind and hail. We pulled off the highway and went to a café a couple of blocks east and waited out the storm while drinking coffee and sampling the homemade pies. In a couple of hours, we heard the weather had cleared and took off in a very light rain. A few miles inside of Oklahoma, we stopped and put on the rain gear as the sky was getting darker. We were only back on the road for a few miles when we hit with a real gully washer. It rained so hard that we were going less than 25 miles an hour, and I had a hard time seeing the taillights on the motorcycle ahead of me. Luckily, it only lasted a few miles, and when we ran out of it, the skies almost immediately cleared. We stopped just before the Cimarron Turnpike and took the rain gear off. From there on, we had a beautiful ride.

Since then, I’ve had several different rain suits; some did a fair job and others didn’t help much at all. This particular weekend ended up being sunny and hot the rest of the trip. I made a lot of shorter trips, traveling about a total of 8,000 miles that summer, but didn’t end up using the rain gear for the rest of the season.

The 1993 MWRC Fall Conference that year was at Springfield, Missouri, but I ended up not going. Instead, Nebraska I decided to ride up to the Ft Randall dam just inside South Dakota. I asked Dad if he wanted to go, and he agreed. It had been quite a few years since he’d been on a motorcycle, but we would ride about 100 miles between stops and everything worked out great. At the last minute, the other guys who were going to make the ride backed out, but we had a good time.

I’d never been to that area so I took a camera and over the 2 days took a bunch of pictures. We took Hwy 281 north from Grand Island to Ft Randall. The next day we went back east to Yankton, South Dakota to Hwy 81 and came back south into Nebraska after a stop at Gavins Point Dam. It was well after dark when we got home. All in all, it was a great weekend of riding and sightseeing.

Firearms deer season starts; NASCAR Chase for the Championship; IMCA Duel in the Desert; plan ahead for 2010's motorcycle rides

2009-11-17T15:04:00.049-06:00

This was the first weekend of firearms deer season in our neck of the woods. Of course, the bow-and-arrow hunters have been out there for a while already. With the harvest in full swing and the deer on the move, this is the time of year to be especially alert when you’re driving. It doesn’t matter if you are on the highway, a country road, or in town, you have a chance of hitting a deer. Thursday evening, I took a call about a car-deer accident in the middle of Beatrice. The car was driving west on Hoyt St west of Runza, When a deer came out of the west ditch and ran into the right front fender. The deer kept on going. The driver checked around and could not find the deer. When I got done taking the report, I spotlighted the area on the north side of the road. I did a double-take when I saw three deer about 75 yards north of me. One of the deer was flipping me off!!!

The deer problem isn’t unique for Nebraska. I got an e-mail from the Blue Knights Yahoo Groups Sunday evening. Larry Talley, a member of Blue Knights VA XIII, hit a deer while riding his motorcycle Sunday afternoon. He was airlifted to Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina where he it was found that his right leg is broken in two places between the knee and ankle with a compound fracture.

Let’s all be careful for the next few months so we don’t end up hitting one of these critters and having the chance of being hurt ourselves.

I had to start a fire in the woodburner this afternoon so I could work in the garage. I got the engine out of the SCS car earlier in the week and took it apart yesterday while watching the Nebraska Cornhuskers on the TV. I finished doing what I wanted to get done this afternoon while watching and listening to the NASCAR race from Phoenix. As much as I’m pulling for Mark Martin to win the championship, Jimmy Johnson will take the big trophy home next week at Homestead. If Mark leads the most laps and wins, Jimmy will have to finish 26th or worse in order to not win the championship. I hate for Mark Martin to have another one slip out of his fingers. He’s finished 2nd in the standings 4 previous times in his NASCAR career.

I got the engine apart that was in the SCS car Satday afternoon, too. The head on the driver’s side has all the exhaust valves bent. The #5 piston started to melt and the #7 piston has a broken ring land. The #4 & #6 pistons also have broken ring lands. The middle cylinders on both sides look like they were running lean. I thought the carb was jetted big enough so I’m wondering if there’s a problem with the carburetor. We had to run the 350 Holley for that race, and we hadn’t run that particular carburetor in the past as it came with the car and trailer we bought at the end of the season. I’ll have to take the block in to NAPA to see if it can be saved. There weren’t any holes or cracks in it that I could see. All the bearings looked like new, even after about 30 shows on them.

Thanks to the internet, I was able to watch the Duel in the Desert races from Las Vegas, Nevada Friday and Saturday night. The races started Thursday night with heat races and qualifying A Features There were 262 IMCA modifieds signed in representing 23 states and 3 Canadian provinces. The Saturday night A Feature paid the IMCA modifieds an IMCA record $7,777.77 to win. Beatrice regulars Johnny Saathoff, Jordan Grabouski and Chris Burk made the long tow to try to take home the winner’s share of the purse. Eagle regular and 2009 IMCA National Champion, Dylan Smith and Rising City and Junction Motor Speedway regular Shane Stutzman were also there. Last year’s winner, David Murray, Jr of Oberlin, Kansas as well as Darrick Klima of Belleville, Kansas were also there. Shane Stutzman qualified for the A Feature by winning his last chance race, passing for the lead coming to the checkered flag and beating out Randy Hall, who made the trip from New York. Murray and Grabouski both missed making the A Feature. Jeremy Payne, who has two Duel in the Desert A Feature wins, drove Jet Racing’s 96p car and made the A Feature. When the green flag dropped on the A Feature, Ricky Alvarado, who has won at Beatrice Speedway in the past, jumped to the point. On the 3rd lap, Saathoff took 2nd place and began to reel Alvarado in. After a lap 36 caution, Alvarado went high in turn 4, allowing Saathoff to get under him and make the pass. Saathoff never looked back after that and took home another Duel in the Desert trophy. Shane Stutzman finished 12th, Klima 13th, Dylan Smith 20th, Jeremy Payne 23rd and Jay Steffens of North Platte finished 24th. Twenty eight cars started the A Feature. Las Vegas officials are hoping for 300 IMCA modifieds next year.

A couple of years ago, when we were in Vegas for the NASCAR weekend, we went to the races at the dirt track at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The track reminds me somewhat of I-80 but doesn’t seem as high banked. It’s a wide track and looks like it would be fun to race on. During the Duel in the Desert, they also have IMCA stock cars. Maybe some benevolent race fan out there would finance a trip for R & R Racing to next years event?? I guess not. The night we went to the dirt track, we only had to go from the Speedway to the dirt track, but no matter which way we turned, we could not get going in the right direction. That is a story for another time.

We’re going to pass on Vegas this year. Instead, we’re planning to go to Texas for the April NASCAR weekend. If I remember correctly, all three NASCAR series are racing at the track that weekend, so I hope to get my “fix” for a few days that way. Who knows, the weather might even be good enough to make a motorcycle trip out of it.

Looks like while I’m daydreaming about taking motorcycle trips on the Gold Wing next riding season, I’d better be getting my long underwear and stocking cap out. In the meanwhile, I received another link to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation site which gives you tests on road signs and collision trap tests. I’m going to bookmark it and go to it a lot!! http://www.msf-usa.org/riderperception/
Thanks, Fred, for sending it to me.

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Active shooter incidents; Officer Down in Seattle

2009-11-09T17:00:00.003-06:00

I’ve often heard it said that bad things happen “in threes.” The events of the last few days enforce this saying.

For as long as memory serves, Law Enforcement has been in the business of reacting to things that happened. Yes, there are a lot of things we can do to stem crime and bad behavior. Locally, I’ve had people tell me of an area where drivers seemingly ignore the speed limit. When I have the chance, I will run radar in that area. After making a few traffic contacts, the flow of traffic usually slows down. It’s common knowledge that stepped-up traffic enforcement causes the motoring public to be more mindful of how they drive.

In recent years, Law Enforcement everywhere has stepped up training in the area of responding to an active shooter incident. This is something we all hope we will never have to respond to but if we do, we need to be prepared to respond. Look around at your communities and see where an incident could happen. Schools, churches, malls, hospitals, offices, just anywhere a shooter can go and kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible.

On Thursday afternoon, reports began to filter in over the news services about an active shooter incident at Ft Hood, Texas. How could something like this happen at, of all places, a United States military base on United States soil? Over the next days, weeks, months and even years, we will learn what happened to cause an Army major to snap and kill 13 people and wound 31. Rather than dwell on the shooter, my focus is on the first responders at the scene. In particular, the Ft Hood Police Department police officers who confronted the shooter and neutralized the threat. Sgt Kimberly Munley engaged the shooter and suffered a gunshot wound to her right wrist and was shot in each thigh. Her partner, Sgt Mark Todd, also exchanged fire with the shooter. According to news reports, Sgt Munley started her Law Enforcement career with the Wrightsville Beach, N.C. Police Department as a reserve officer. She later worked as a beach patrol officer and as an officer in the uniform patrol division. Sgt Munley is a U.S. Army veteran who joined the Ft Hood Police Department in January 2008. She is a member of the emergency response team and a department firearms instructor.

Sgt Mark Todd is a retired soldier who is a police officer with the Ft Hood Police Department. He arrived just after Sgt Munley. Sgt Todd related that seconds after he arrived on the scene, he saw a calm-looking Hasan, his gun drawn and his fingers pointing at people outside the Soldier Readiness Processing Center. Todd said he then saw Hasan shooting at soldiers as they attempted to flee. Sgt Todd shouted at the shooter to stop, but he turned and fired at Sgt Todd, who returned fire. The shooter then slumped down against a utility pole and fell on his back. Sgt Todd then approached the downed suspect, kicked his weapon away and handcuffed the suspect.

Both Sgt Munley and Sgt Todd are heroes who did exactly as they were trained. They located the shooter and quickly neutralized him. Because of their actions, they undoubtedly saved many lives.

The next day word was received of an active shooter incident in Orlando, FL at an office building. One person was killed and five were injured. The shooter was a former employee who was able to leave the building before officers arrived. He was arrested without incident at his mother’s home about three hours after the shootings. He had been fired by the company in 2007 after working for the firm for a year. When a reporter outside of the Police Department asked the shooter why he did it, he replied “Because they left me to rot.”

On Sunday morning the Lincoln, Nebraska newspaper reported on a shooting in a Vail. Colorado bar. A 63-yr old Vail resident is in jail at the Eagle County Jail on a charge of first degree homicide and possibly some other charges.

Witnesses said the shooter was involved in an argument and was escorted out of the bar by staff, police said. Once outside, he began shooting, police said. He then re-entered the bar and continued shooting, police said.

The man who died in the shooting was identified as a 70-yr old man from Carbondale.

The injured victims include a 63-year-old Vail resident who sustained multiple gunshot wounds and was transported via helicopter to Denver Health with “life threatening” injuries, Sheriff Henninger said. A 29-year-old victim remains in the Vail Valley Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the arm, and a 25-year-old was released from the Vail hospital after being treated for a leg wound.

The 29-year-old was a Sandbar employee, while the other three victims, including Kitching, were patrons, Henninger said.

The shooter appears to have acted alone, and there are no other suspects, Henninger said.

The story gave no information as to where the arrest occurred or the response of Law Enforcement.

If there was never another active shooter incident, that would suit all of law enforcement just fine. But with the current social and economic conditions, it will happen again. We just need to be sure we are prepared when they happen.

On Halloween night, two Seattle police officers had cleared a traffic stop and were sitting on the side of the street discussing the stop. A car pulled alongside the stopped patrol car and somebody inside the car opened fire on the officers without warning. Field training officer Timothy Brenton was killed and Officer Brit Sweeney was injured. Hundreds of officers from scores of agencies became involved in the investigation. Through the hard work of law enforcement and tips by citizens, a suspect was developed. When officers attempted to contact the suspect, he drew a gun and officers fired at him, wounding him. He is in a Seattle hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The Seattle Police Department has said the suspect is also suspected in the firebombing of four police vehicles a week prior to the shootings of Officers Brenton and Sweeney.

The senseless attack on the Seattle officers reminds all of us that we never can be complacent. We need to always be mindful of our surroundings. I was reading an officer survival article last summer that was written by an expert who teaches officer survival all across the United States. One comment he made stuck in my mind, and it says volumes about attacks on police officers. He said that as police officers, we should be thinking about how to survive an attack by everybody we meet. In the end, we want to always come home to our families at the end of our shifts.

Wednesday is Veterans Day. Please make an effort to honor all our veterans past and present. Remember, if you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a veteran.

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Special Olympics Torch Run, Blue Knights trips planned for 2010 and proposed Federal laws

2009-11-06T15:37:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I really HATE computers!! I just spent about 30 minutes typing, then one slip of a finger and I lost EVERYTHING!! I do well just to type, and have no idea how to recover what I lost, so I’m starting all over again!

After being hired by the City of Beatrice in late 1989, I found that area Law Enforcement had not yet participated in the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics, which precedes the Nebraska Special Olympics games each year. In 1990, I went back to Grand Island and participated in that leg of the Torch Run. I was also able to do some networking and in 1991, a leg of the Torch Run was run from Beatrice to Lincoln. I was able to participate in this for several years, and was even able to participate in the final few blocks of the run in Lincoln. At that time, the runners coming in from the west met the runners coming from the south a couple of blocks west of the Nebraska State Capitol . The groups merged and were joined by many Special Olympics athletes and ran the torch the last couple of blocks to the Capitol, running under a gigantic U.S. flag that was suspended over the street. This was a very emotional experience for all involved. I left the Patrol Division of the Beatrice Police Department in 1998 to work on the SEADE Task Force and got away from helping with the Torch Run. Other officers stepped up and took over for me.

The National Special Olympics Games will be held in Lincoln, Nebraska next summer, July 2010. A leg of the Torch Run will be coming through Beatrice leading up to the Games. A note from Chief Lang a week ago asked for a volunteer to help with coordinating the Torch Run with the Chamber of Commerce and other entities. After some thought about it, I left Chief Lang a note and told him I would take the responsibility. I have my first meeting at the Chamber of Commerce on November 24th.

The motorcycle riding season is almost over. We are looking forward to 2010 and I’ve already looked at the road atlas to try to decide the best way to go to the Blue Knights International Convention in Billings, MT in July. We also hope to make it to both the Spring and Fall MWRC rides which will be at St Joseph, Missouri in June and Grand Forks, North Dakota in September. The off season can be used not only for planning your trips for the upcoming year, but riders should use the time to replace worn out parts, equipment and riding gear. We need to take an inventory of our safety equipment to be sure we have what we need during our trips, whether they are only a few miles from the house, or all the way across the continent. I have taken the following from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation:
http://www.msf-usa.org/index_new.cfm?spl=2&action=display&pagename=library Things mentioned are helmets, eye and ear protection, jacket, pants, gloves, boots, rain gear, and even high visibility gear. Late last summer, I was at the Blue Knights Fall MWRC in Lawton, Oklahoma. Ft Sill is also right there and there are some very good museums there. However, in order to legally ride on base, I had to have a high visibility vest.

Be sure your driver’s license and insurance is up to date. I carry year round insurance on our Gold Wing for those rare days during the winter that I might be able to make a day trip. During the off season, look your motorcycle over to be sure it is safe for the upcoming riding season. Change the oil and filters, be sure your tires don’t need to be replaced, drain and replace the brake fluids, be sure the brake pads aren’t worn out. Maintain proper air pressure in the tires. If you have an air suspension system, be sure to maintain the proper air pressure in it. If you will be pulling a trailer, be sure to inspect it, too and repair or replace worn parts on it, too. Be sure the lights work and the tires are good. When were the wheel bearings packed last?

I was just looking through the October issue of the FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) Journal, which is put out by the National FOP. They usually highlight some of the pending Federal legislation that the FOP either lobbies for or against. I see that there are two pieces of Federal legislation being looked at right now. The first, HR 3245, the “Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act,” would remove references to “cocaine base” from the U.S. Code, thereby greatly reducing sentences of offenders convicted of offenses involving crack cocaine. The goal of this legislation is to eliminate the difference between the Federal sentences received by crack and powder cocaine offenders. The FOP opposes this legislation and maintains that the differences in sentencing should be addressed by increasing the sentences for powder cocaine offenders.

The other piece of legislation that the F.O.P. is tracking is S. 714, the “National Criminal Justice Commission Act.” This would create a national commission to examine the criminal justice system in the United States. The concern of the F.O.P. is the narrow and prescriptive nature of the commission’s recommendation - which are predicated at “solving” the problem of the high prison populations and the disparities in the racial demographics of the prison population by weakening Federal drug laws. My personal feeling is that passing these laws as they are written would further tie the hands of law enforcement and endanger the public. Maybe that’s what happens when a person works on a Drug Task Force for over 8 years.

I’ve heard time and time again that “drugs are a victimless crime.” I strongly oppose that statement. There are many victims in a drug crime. I’ve bought methamphetamine from a mother with a newborn baby. She was afraid if she sold me the meth she had, she would not be able to get more, so she took her newborn with her to get more from her source. That baby was a victim with no say in what happened. I bought meth from a guy who had a 4 yr old and a newborn in the house. He had never met me before and did not know if I might be an axe murderer. Those two little ones were victims. I bought meth in a park from a guy whose 7-yr old son sat in the back seat of the car and watched as his father sold me an “8-ball” of meth. That 7-yr old was a victim. Even after coming back to uniform, I still have no use for drug dealers.

Rehab?? Statistics show that 47% of everybody who try meth are hooked the very first time they use it. “Marijuana is harmless.” I’ve interviewed several hundred people about their drug use, and 99% say their road to meth use started with marijuana. I’m not saying that rehab does not work as I know of people it has worked for and they are doing great now. However, as many times as not, it takes more than once in rehab. They need to completely change their lifestyle, beginning with the people they hang out with.