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

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.


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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

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.

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