The Road To Bedford
I fully understand that I am getting ahead of myself here… and that I haven't finished the story of last weekend yet. It has been a very non-stop week of thrills and because of that I feel I need to download some of them here before they evaporate.
The focus of this past weekend was the USRA Tri-State (Slot) Race at Greene's Raceway, Bedford, Indiana. For those of you who are not familiar with the heartland of the USA, this raceway is located in the heart of the "corn belt" of this country. Farms as far as the eye can see and small towns greet visitors, at the same time, the attitude of people living in this area is friendly and hospitable.
The beginning of the weekend was actually Tuesday when I took time to look at my racing equipment that I hadn't touched since the last race in Detroit. I was pleased to see that there wasn't much damage- it would appear as if with some cleanup I could run the same basic setups as run in Detroit. Then to my horror, I discovered that I was missing a toolbox full of spare parts and such. In a panic I looked everywhere I could in my house to find the missing items probably worth over $1000 in replacement value, and a serious PITA to replace as well. I never did find this toolbox or its contents; I can only think that I left it behind at the Detroit raceway and someone found it and claimed it as their own. But even with that disappointment, I thought that my tyre truer was in the box lost but I found it- thank gawd.
After that heart attack; I finished getting my racing equipment and other baggage ready for the trip. At this event I would be a reporter as well as participant so I also needed to pack my laptop, digital camera, etc.
Friday I took off from work and pointed my (well loaded) car south toward my first stop, which would be the western Indianapolis suburb that boasts a mythically regarded rectangular shaped ribbon of asphalt affectionately named "The Brickyard".
Leaving Chicago, the weather was cold (about 45 degrees F) and rainy- but as I drove further south the temps improved and the skies cleared. When I drove through the famous gates of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the temp was 74 degrees F and would climb still higher as it was only midmorning.
The IMS facility has a wonderful museum and "Hall of Fame" on their grounds; for a modest fee of $3 racing fans can browse their impressive collection of historic racing and road vehicles. Sports cars that had participated in the LeMans 24 hours, past winners and participants in the Indy 500 and United States Grand Prix and many others are on display. Of course I had my trusty new digital camera with me and shot many pictures of the cars, memorabilia, trophies and artwork on display (pics now in a new folder in my Flickr space).
After visiting the museum, and purposely avoiding the gift shop, I purchased a ticket for the raceway tour, where a guide drives visitors around the famed oval in a tour bus. Years ago, visitors were allowed to drive their personal car around the facility but as you can imagine, the liability for such is too great in the litigious times that we live in. The bus tour was interesting and I shot several photos from the tour bus as if I was in a race car at speed. The "lap" around the 2.5 mile oval was over all too soon and we were back at the starting point which was the museum grounds. I thanked the bus driver and gave him a modest tip "to get yourself a soft drink on me".
After snapping some more pics of the exterior of the museum, and marveling at the number of people enjoying the unexpectedly nice weather, I reluctantly got into my car to find a place to have lunch.
I remembered from many excursions to "The Speedway" in the past that the "Union Jack Pub" was nearby and indeed I was able to find it with no problem. A tasty order of fish & chips, and two pints of ale later and I was ready to hit the road once again.
The highway between Indianapolis and Bedford is a typical USA interstate affair, meaning somewhat dull and efficient. So I tuned on some music and settled in for the 70 or so mile drive.
About mid way into the drive I approached Bloomington, Indiana which is the home of Indiana University. The skies blackened and the temp dropped dramatically- there was a storm brewing in an area that is known for tornadoes because of the flatness of the terrain. Shortly after the clouds rolled in it started raining and shortly after THAT, hailstones perhaps .25 to .5 of an inch poured out of the heavens. People had pulled their cars off of the road and parked under overpasses to avoid damage to their vehicles. Usually there is no damage to cars from such small hail so I pressed on toward Bedford. I did have to slow the car down as driving on the hail covered roads was somewhat like driving on brittle marbles. It was quite an experience and I can't recall having driven through such rapidly changing weather. I would find out later that there were also tornadoes in the area that extensively damaged property and claimed 19 lives.
I found the hotel in Bedford effortlessly and checked in. Then off to the raceway and unloaded my equipment just as the skies again darkened and rain started pelting down.
Friday was a day of practice, setup and bragging between the participants about how they would "whip" the others. Of course it is all in good fun and no big deal. One thing that did disrupt things was a couple of momentary power outages due to the storm.
For some reason the cars didn’t seem fast and because of that I downshifted into "social" mode; renewing old friendships and making new ones is certainly one of my motivations to "traveling" racing. I could easily just stay home and only run on local tracks (there are at least 4 within an hour drive of home), but the easy and complacent path has never been mine to walk.
Eventually it was time to close the raceway and find someplace to have a (late) bite for dinner. The universal choice among those that had visited here before was "Rusty's Place", a run-down barn turned into C&W slash Rock bar. Amazingly our waitress was the same as waited on the assembled racers (about 14) in attendance the LAST time there was a major race in Bedford…of course none of the manchildren (and Ron's wife Cheryl) assembled could remember her name so we were calling out random women's names: "Gloria? Lucille? Darlene?". Finally she came over and glared at all of us: "I'm BECKY DAMMIT!" Of course for the rest of the weekend our waitress was named BECKY DAMMIT. It only got more relaxing and fun from that point on; what a good and fun time was had by all.
Tune in next for… Race Day!
PS: Here's some websites to share with you all.
http://www.zeroartradio.com A Rather unusual webcasting site.
http://www.beachwoodreporter.com Is this what "newspapers" are coming to in the 21st century?