What A Looooong Strange Trip It's Been

The weekend at Texas Motor Speedway was a wash out... literally. Who knew it was monsoon season in North Texas?

Things started out well enough enough on Thursday. I had to make 2 trips hauling stuff in from The South40 mothership. First was my Suzuki Carry filled with firewood and lawn furnature loaded on a flatbed trailer. Second was Battlestar Redneckia filled to the gills with food, beer, sodas, clothes and everything else you would need for a weekend at the track. That is except a phone charger for my Moto Q whick was on it's last battery bar. Like Roseanne Rosannadanna said, "It just goes to show you. It's always something."

I also told you about damn near electrocuting myself when I plugged into the generator. That fried my home theater system in Battlestar Redneckia and ended any TV/Radio/DVD for the weekend.

I got the bright idea of borrowing Littlesister's laptop and charging it with a USB cable. Yeah, I remembered the USB cable and forgot the charger. "The Darwin Award goes to..." Anyway she arrives with the laptop but for some odd reason it would recognise the the phone, but absolutely refused to charge it. And there went my contact with the outside world about 1 AM Saturday morning. Coincidently that was just about the time the monsoon arrived.

I already told you the Krista Voda saga. I was really hyped up about doing that interview in person. I had even conned/bribed a SPEED cameraman into shooting it for me with my video camera. I completely understand her not being able to get free for the interview. Their schedules are incredibly tight and constantly changing. Live TV is live TV. And with the weather their schedule went completely out the window as the TV crews had to scramble to fill a LOT of time. Que sera, sera.

Oh yeah, the weather. Friday night was the usual TMS version of Mardi Gras. Beads were flying! The ATV subculture was in full swing with vehicles of all shapes and forms cruising the camgrounds loaded down with drunken race fans. I may have fit into that category at one point. OK, I was solidly entrenched in that category.

Saturday morning it did not look good. The monsoon was open for bidness and bidness was good. The camground quickly turned into a swamp. What wasn't covered in water was covered in mud. The traffic turned the roads into muck. It went downhill like a ride thru Wolf Creek Pass in a truck with no brakes from there. Every time the skies would show promise of clearing, along came another band of rain. I was wearing my favorite pair of old Nike's that decided they had reached the end of the line right then. The soles started separating from the leather and that was the end of dry feet for the weekend. Thanks, Nike. I had no other shoes for backup.

I looked at it this way, some people pay big money for mud baths and my feet were getting some quality spa treatments for free. Always look on the bright side of life.

Sunday was just pure hell. The mud was 5-6 inches deep. Everything, and I do mean everything was wearing a thick coating of slick, brown, sloppy mud. Most campers had given up any hope of seeing racing and started to pull out. Well, they tried to pull out. Most just spun their wheels slinging mud on anything behind them. But in the middle of tragedy comes triumph. I broke out my 4 wheel drive Suzuki Carry and a tow strap. They laughed, I hit 4 wheel low range. Oh ye of little faith. I yanked them out of the mire with a stunned look on their faces. I didn't even have mud tires on it. I had street tires off a Honda Accord, "dinky little pizza cutters" as one guy described them.

In all I pulled out 4 Ford trucks and 2 Dodge trucks, one of them hooked to a 30ft 5th wheel camper. I'm going to have to put logo stickers on the door for each of them like fighter pilots do for their kills. I have stills or video of most of them that I'll post later. People were so impressed with the performance that they were asking me where they could buy one after they sell their Rhinos, Gators or Mules.

We finally decided it was time to call it quits and loaded up for the trip home. NASCAR has rescheduled both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races for tomorrow starting at 11am.

Now if you'll excuse me there's a long hot bath with my name on it waiting for me. Calgon, take me away!