"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"

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.

Beatrice 2011 race schedule??

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.

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

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/

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

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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Octoberfest 2009

After spending a good portion of my free time the last three weeks working on getting the race cars ready for Octoberfest at Beatrice Speedway, I’m not sure if we will get to race. Not because of some unexpected mechanical bug, but because when I got up a little while ago, there was SNOW on the ground!! Not much, mind you, since the ground is still too warm for the dreaded white stuff to stay for very long, but snow nonetheless.


I didn’t go to the track last night as I figured one day of freezing would be one day too many. From the looks of the results posted on the www.dirtdrivers.com website, there was a good field of cars. I heard Beatrice Fire & Rescue leave the track and head for the station at 11:20 PM. I wonder how many people were left in the stands. The weather last night was clear, calm and as soon as the sun went down, it was COLD!!

I keep hearing about how Congress is spending billions of dollars to keep “Global Warming” in check. Here’s news for our Congress - I DON’T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING!! I keep pretty detailed records on my Gold Wing, especially when it comes to changing oil, putting gas in it, etc. In 2006, the last time I put gas in it was in December. The following year it was the middle of November. As much as I love to ride, if this weather doesn’t straighten up soon, you probably won’t see me on the Gold Wing until spring!





I’ve gotten cold at the race track before, but March of 2008 was the first time I was in a snowstorm while waiting for the races to start. We went to Thunderhill Speedway at Mayetta, KS to race on a Sunday afternoon. The forecast called for high temperatures of 50. I knew as we unloaded that the temps were nowhere near that. We went out and rolled the track in, then pulled back into the pits to get ready for hot laps. As we pulled back into the staging area, it began snowing!! It was not just a few flurries, as for a while visibility was about a hundred yards. It didn’t last long, though, and it quit while we were on the track, before the green came out for hot laps. I thought that would be the coldest weather I would ever race in. However, there’s the distinct possibility that it will be colder today if the races come off. The predicted high for today is 38 degrees. I hope I can find enough warm clothes. I do know where my long underwear is because I only just recently put it away.

We had originally planned to load the 6x last night, then Jeremy was going to pull it to work. As soon as he got off work, he was going to head to the track. However, the schedule was moved up and with the questionable weather, I plan to take one car to the track, then return and get the other car. He will come to the track with the other trailer when he gets off work. If we get the plug pulled before he gets off work, we won’t have to unload his car in the weather.

If we do get weathered out, we will still have the chance to race at McCool Junction next weekend. The Cool McCool 100 is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, October 17th & 18th, and we are planning to make the trip out there with both cars. That will be the end of the season for us.




Just got back from the Women for Racing pancake breakfast. The races are cancelled. Here’s hoping next weekend is better and we can finish the season with good weather.