The Good, The Bad, and . . . . well . . you know . . .

 The first weekend of April we are in Webster City, Iowa at the Hamilton County Speedway.  This is a 1/2 mile track with moderate banking and a pretty good racing surface.

The track usually holds two decent grooves for the night, one down on the very bottom and the other right up at the wall.  Still some opportunity for passing.

Most of the teams were able to park in the infield;  by the time we got there they were parking the bigger rigs outside the track at the edge of spectator parking.

Not all bad, as we had a fairly level spot in a grassy location.  And the "people" entry was just yards from the rig, so it was easy to go back and forth from the stands.  This track is right in the center of Webster City, which is an older town maybe the size of Durango back in the 80's.  The town "claim to fame" might be that it was home to the "Doodle Bug" scooter factory back in 1946-1948.   Yes, there are still some of them around - they have a big celebration/reunion each year in September during which 70 or 80 owners return to terrorize the town at 10 mph!

The "6" car was a bit faster than that on Friday night.  Went from 8th to 6th in our Heat, then in our B-Main fell back 2 spots, finishing 9th.  Did not qualify for the Main.   Casey elected to take a provisional, which allowed us to tag the Main.  That's where we ran for much of the race.  Then we met up again with that concrete wall.  

22 cars running at that point, so that's our finishing spot.  Ended our day, but gave Wade something to do for the following afternoon.

We replaced damaged tie rods, ball joints, control arms and the like, right up til race time on Saturday night.  

This night we draw a more cooperative qualifying group, in which we post the 4th fastest speed.  They invert the top four positions for a Heat race lineup, putting us on the front row pole.  No better spot than that.  Casey drives a really good race, which we win.  Yahoo!!

Later in the evening, they conduct another "pill" draw consisting of the top two drivers in each of the Heats.  Like pills numbered "1" thru "10".   Casey draws a "4", so we start the Main outside Row 2 (no invert).

Got shuffled back right away at the race start, within just a couple of laps Casey is fighting to stay in the top 10-12.  At the end of 40 laps we are running 13th, out of 26 starters.  Could be worse, but not what Casey wanted for sure.  The night is done at 11:00 p.m.   Got the car put away and things tidied up by midnight.

Then D & L climb into the Jeep and head south.  We are tired, but want to make a little ground on our Stillwater target.  Got to meet a nice Sheriff Deputy along the way, then later stopped at the first rest area south of Des Moines, a little after 1:00 a.m.   Made up a "bed" in the back hoping to get an hour or so of rest.

Woke up 3 1/2 hours later,  and drove the rest of the way, happy to be back to our camper, and our own bed, after having "slept around" the past few days.

Next scheduled USMTS races are in Louisiana May 22,23.  There has been some discussion about leaving our rig in S. Dakota and arranging another "ride" down south.  This should be interesting. 

That's it for now.   Hope you're all enjoying the recovery.

D & L