|
Jump
to Most Recent Update
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Sunday,
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Monday, February 21, 2000
It’s great to be back in
North Carolina after 10 days in Daytona Beach, FL. However, I can
say it was a bit of a shock this morning when I went outside to
take Katie to school and then later when I waited at the bus stop
with Andrew. For the last 10 days or so I have been used to
temperatures in the mid-80’s with lows somewhere around 60°
. This morning at 7 AM, the temperature was somewhere around 30° . My blood must have gotten a
little thinner with two weeks in the sunny south.
Our promotions in Daytona were
very successful and quite frankly I was ready to come home. In
fact, I was able to get an earlier flight home than originally
planned and was greeted with squeals and hugs from Katie and a
cool wave in the driveway from Andrew,
It seems that race fans are
heading to the track earlier and earlier each race. We arrived at
the track at 5:30 AM to get our exhibit open and there were
already fans scrambling for the best parking spots. It took us
about 20 minutes to get to the track from the hotel. However, some
our team who left about 10 minutes later suffered through a 40
minute drive.
Over the weekend the big talk
was about the freak accident that involved Geoff Bodine’s truck
on Friday. His racing vehicle got airborne and almost got into the
grandstand. However, all of the safety components worked as they
were designed. The huge cables along the fence kept the vehicles
out of the stands and the roll cage protected the driver, even
after his truck was hit by another race truck. To the newer race
fan it looked like there was no way Bodine could survive this
crash. It’s a testament to NASCAR’s stringent safety
procedures that these drivers weren’t hurt worse than they were.
Bodine should be back in his Winston Cup car in a few weeks.
However, it’s going to take some stringent rehabilitation, but
racers want to race and Geoff is a racer.
There weren’t many pieces for
the cleanup crew to collect after the Bodine wreck. In fact, a
compacted roll cage came by on one wrecker and was followed by
another wrecker with the engine from his truck dangling from its
hook.
The scary moments continued on
Saturday when two Busch Grand National cars went airborne in
separate incidents. NASCAR racers aren’t used to getting upside
down and their fans aren’t used to witnessing such spectacular
accidents, so you can imagine some midnight oil is being burnt in
the Daytona Beach NASCAR offices to determine the cause of these
accidents and to see what can be done to prevent them in the
future.
And then with the parade of
Fords at the front of Daytona 500 I would be one betting on NASCAR
taking a stronger look at some of their new rules for the
superspeedways. The Chevrolet and Pontiac teams complained all
week that the Ford had an advantage and their prophecy proved
somewhat true in the race. I would expect to see some kind of
adjustment prior to the next superspeedway race at Talladega.
Congratulations to Melissa
Brown from Pittsburgh,
PA. When Dale Jarrett collected his Winston No Bull 5 bonus, she
also pocketed a million bucks in the sweepstakes promotion from
Winston that pairs fans and drivers which each having a shot a
winning a million dollar prize. What does the newest millionaire
plan to do with the money? Quit one of the three jobs she and her
husband hold between them, buy a new house and maybe have a baby,
whose name will be Dale or Dalette. Imagine that.
Drivers eligible for the bonus
at Las Vegas, the next Winston No Bull 5 event are Dale Jarrett,
Jeff Burton, Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin, all
which happen to be Ford drivers. More fuel to the fire.
With the addition of the
Winston No Bull 5 bonus, Jarrett won over $2 million in the 500,
which I think may have been the largest racing payday in
motorsports history.
And this was Dale’s third
Daytona 500 win in the past eight years. This may put him on track
to break Richard Petty’s record of seven 500 victories if he
continues at his current pace.
I have known Morris Metcalf,
NASCAR’s chief scorer, for the better part of 25 years, so I was
no surprise when he told me of his retirement plans earlier this
year. As retirement approached, Morris decided the new milleniu
provided him the opportunity to score NASCAR races in six
different decades. As he called halfway in this year’s Daytona
500, he handed over his scoring duties to another longtime NASCAR
scorer, Tim Hudson. Way to go Morris.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Tuesday, February 22,
2000
Politics can get nasty on the local level too.
When I returned home from trip to Daytona it took me a while to go
through the mound of paper awaiting my arrival. A particular
local political story caught my attention and then made me shake my
head. I have to share it here.
It seems the Republican Chairman of the fifth
district here in North Carolina cooked up this scheme that, in his
opinion, might upset the race for state auditor. It
appears he recruited two people to change their party affiliation
and then enter the democratic race. One was a homeless man
with the same last name as the incumbent, who always enjoys a police
"rap" sheet that's about four pages long. The second
challenger is no stranger to the court system either, having been
sued in the past for not paying her bills.
The Democratic party
quickly challenged his address, saying Mr. Campbell lived in a
homeless shelter. The new candidate then spilled the beans,
saying that two
Republicans tracked him down at a homeless shelter to file the
paperwork so he could enter the race.
Ain't politics great.
There has been a lot of conversation about
the Daytona 500 and how NASCAR should have reacted before the race
to prevent such a situation in the sport's biggest event.
The light finally seemed to click in the grand halls in Daytona
after the 500 when the sanctioning bodies saw Ford dominate the
race. It was then they decided to impound several cars and
head off to the Lockheed Martin wind tunnel in Atlanta to finally
see if there really was a problem. Doh. Mike
Mulhern has this story in the Winston-Salem Journal as
to how NASCAR had dropped the ball on this one.
Barbara F. Thompson [barbara@ttgnet.com]
wondered if it would do any good to make your opinion on the
current state of NASCAR Winston Cup racing known to the powers in
Daytona Beach. Naturally, I suggested she fire up pen and
paper.\
Just a curiosity. Does it do any
good to write to Mr. France and complain that he is ruining
Winston Cup racing. I hope I am not being brainwashed
<snip>, but I do feel that NASCAR can control things to
the point where they can have drivers and manufacturers be the
winners based on their darn rules.
If he controls the testing and the
rules he is controlling the ball game. Iknow Daytona is just the
first race. And every year the manufacturers that do not
dominate the field cry foul. Than as the other tracks are run
and restrictor plates are not an issue it tends to balance out.
Looks to me like NASCAR and politics are getting like leftovers
in the fridge. Starting to stink up the place.
By all means, make your opinion
known. Lets not allow them to forget that we are the ones
who pay the bills. You can contact NASCAR
Online here or send a message the
old fashioned way here.
Is the NFL wary of NASCAR? Flamboyant
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had planned to have two Dallas
Cowboys painted cars in the Direct TV 500 in Texas later
this spring, but the NFL commissioner may not think that's
such a good idea. The
plan is on hold while the NFL decides if it wants to play ball
with NASCAR.
The Charlotte Observer has an excellent slide
show of Geoff
Bodine's Craftsman Truck series accident from Daytona. It was
a fortunate thing the stands weren't full as you will see if you
take a look at the photos. However, some fans were slightly
injured.
Word is Bodine was released from the hospital in
Daytona Beach today and is headed to North Carolina where he will
undergo surgery. It's reported that he may miss as many as
eight weeks of competiton and Ted Musgrave will be filling
in on a race by race basis.
It was only a matter of time. I see
now that 3Com is offering the Palm
Pilot in a color screen verison.
Here's a nasty trick. I my stack of
junk mail today there was an oversized envelope from some shopping
club. Normally, I would have just thrown this away with the
rest of the junk mail unopened, but Katie now likes to help by
opening the mail. After she opened this envelope, I noticed
the top of the piece said something to the effect of, "here's
the membership you requested. If you don't cancel within 30
days we're billing your credit card."
I was incensed. I have been attempting to
call call their toll free number to raise the roof, but naturally,
other angry consumers have beat me to the punch. I think we
should eliminate all junk mail and hang unscrupulous marketers by
their toes (or other parts).
I can safely say we did not authorize this
membership by phone. As a matter of course we hang up on all
telemarketers.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Wednesday,
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Thursday,
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Friday, February
25, 2000
Thanks for hanging in there with me. I know
my notes have been rather sporadic since I returned home from Daytona
Beach. I am not going to give you that I've been busy
catching up speech again. I hope to do better, although I am
leaving again next Wednesday for a week in Lost Wages for another
Winston Cup event, another Winston No Bull 5 event none the less.
I am using Microsoft FrontPage 2000 and like the
product fine when I am here with my desktop. Although it's
not too good when you make changes to your pages on the
road. In the previous version of FP I could open the root
web on my server and make all the changes I wanted while traveling
and then when I returned home I would just open the root web again
and then publish to my local copy. That way, both copies
were in synch and I could continue updating my web locally and
then publishing the changes. I guess now if I make changes I
will have to ftp the pages I change down to my local
machine. I guess this is another one of Microsoft's product improvements
that's really a step backward.
There were a couple of stories in this week's
Winston-Salem Journal that I thought I would pass
along. One shows the lengths a North Carolina judge used to
find jurors and the other deals with proposed dress codes in our
local schools.
The jury pool got a little slim in Cleveland County, so the
judge sent deputies out to Wal-Mart to round
up some jurors. Our justice system at work!
Students and teachers in our local school system must
have been dressing a little sloppy. The School system is
instituting a new dress policy for students and teachers. I
remember when I was in school that your sideburns could not grow
below your cheek bone (and Elvis was still going strong) and the
girls could not allow their skirt to rise more than three inches
above their knees. We didn't have to appear in formation every
morning for a check, but the principal would offer a spot check
once in a while. If you were out of compliance, they boys were
sent to the rest room to shave with cold water and the girls
were sent home to try getting dressed again.
We also didn't have police officers posted in our schools. Didn't
have to worry about someone bringing a gun to school to mow down
half of the population or some pervert standing in the street
corner selling drugs.
Today, the boys dress like girls and the girls dress like
boys. I've heard the local system in thinking about banning
certain body piercing and revealing
clothing, etc. I wonder if they'll speak to the pants hanging
half-way off their butt?
Here's a site for you to wander through if you want get
ahead of the Academy Awards telecast on March 26. This
NetGuide offering assembles all kinds of Oscar related links
for you on one page. Let the real movie buff in you come
out.
One of the things that has been occupying
me since I returned from Daytona is I am going to attempt to diet
some. I am also trying to spend an hour each evening
exercising (walking), something I have never done. I
desperately need to drop about 25 pounds and at my recent physical
my physician in his most humble way strongly suggested I start exercising.
"I am not kidding this time," he said.
I have a route picked out in our neighborhood that
runs about three miles, includes hills (urrrgh) and I can complete
the jaunt in about an hour. I'm not going to breaking any
speed records, but hey, I'm trying.
So, I am not officially declaring myself on a diet
or officially saying that I am exercising, but I am giving it a
try. Does my starved cranky mood show in this post?
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
[Sunday] [Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday]
[Friday] [Saturday]
Saturday, February
27, 2000
The furor over the disparity between the Ford and
General Motors makes on the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit has not
calmed down as the tour moved to Rockingham for this weekend's
event, even after NASCAR took a handful of cars to an emergency
wind tunnel session after the Daytona 500. Word is they may
be going back to the tunnel after Las Vegas.
It should come as no surprise that NASCAR's Mike
Helton vowed, in an Orlando newspaper story, to get the cars
competitively even quickly. But here's one that might make
your head turn. Helton couched his words, but indicated that
NASCAR might be thinking of adopting one
body style for all NASCAR Winston Cup race cars.
I hope the powers in Daytona aren't falling into
the trap of not being able to see the forest for the trees.
Competition amongst car makes is one of the founding principles
behind NASCAR. If there is some generic body style, then the
large sucking sound you hear from the sport could just be Detroit
leaving town and taking its millions and millions of dollars with
them. I hope they wake up and take the blinders off. I
hope they work a little harder to make the racing more even and
not jump to a simple conclusion. I'll bet Bill France, Sr.
is rolling over in his grave.
And just in case NASCAR hasn't already realized
the Daytona 500 stunk up the joint, the television ratings for
the year's most important and prestigious race were in the
toilet. The ratings
for the 500 were the worst since 1993. My friend Barbara
Thompson said she was going to fire off an email to NASCAR voicing
concern on how the sport's new rules may need further
review. She said today she'd received a reply thanking her
for her concerns. I am sure they have received so many
emails that this response was probably auto generated.
Here's a link to NASCAR's
online mailform if you are interested. The NASCAR snail
mail contacts are here.
There must have been some heads turning in
Rockingham when Darrell Waltrip qualified on the first day...in the
top 10 no less. That in itself tells you that Ford has an
advantage. We're used to Waltrip having to take a provisional
starting position in order to get into a race.
My sister sent me an email with a story
from the Richmond Times-Dispatch about
a trio of kids from our hometown of Farmville, VA who had made it
big in the dot.com world. This story was of particular
interest, naturally, because we know the boys and their families,
remember them from when they were kids and are happy for their
success.
The story also holds a personal note. My
father was very involved with our high school even after all of
his kids had left the nest. He was a particular strong
supporter of the athletic teams and in fact drove the football
teams to their away games. After his death in 1981, these
same kids were tri-captains of the football team and honored my
father at their annual awards banquet. My sister is a pack
rat (must run in the family) and still had the newspaper clipping
of the boys giving my mother a plaque at the banquet. The
entire family was included in the newspaper photo. She scanned
the photo and sent it along, so I thought I would share it as
well. Our family has changed a bit since this picture was
taken. There are a couple of new husbands (at least of couple of
this guys are currently out of the picture, so to speak) and we
have new hairdos and have aged some.
TOP
[Wakeolda Home]
[Email Steve]
|
