Hey Gang,
Continuing on.......
Another memorable time that won't be forgotten any time soon was the night out with Walt and his family at the Painesville (Ohio) Speedway. I am not much into racing. Its fun the first couple of races but then I get bored. But Walt kept telling me about this special race that I just had to attend. What kind of race.... hold on I am getting to it.
The Painesville Speedway is a small oval track, 1/5 of a mile, so the action is quick. Everything keeps changing but this lil speedway is a constant, from its size, closeness of the wooden stands to the track, enthusiasm from the crowd which holds a lot of families, its a real throwback. It has been in continuous operation since the early 50’s!
So what kind of race was it? A Figure 8 race. For those who don't know or who never witnessed such an event the cars speed through the track in a figure 8 and yes crashes can and do happen. They even water the track some to slow the speeds of the cars down. Even then on such a small track there is plenty of near misses and an occasional WIPE OUT! Its the most exciting feature of the night. But there was more to this figure 8 race then just cars. What was it?
The figure 8 trailer pull. YES you read it correctly. All the cars had to be pulling something. Some cars were a disappointment with what they were hauling behind them and got booed. One had nothing more than just a little trailer towing a small lawn tractor and a lawn chair. Others came towing a car behind. The funniest to me was the pop up trailer being pulled, it was fully erected with the canvas sides blowing and swaying. But the best were the 3 travel trailers. One was a full size trailer, maybe at least a 20 foot job. That was a sight to see.
Walt laughed through the whole race. It was hilarious some of the set ups. And then one wreck after another. One wreck was so bad the trailer flipped the car over. You couldn't see much in the melee from all the smoke, just a tangled mess. One word kept coming to me - carnage. They kept having to stop the race to clear the mess. Out came the front end loader, pushed the debris aside and off the cars & trailers went again.
The most incredible thing about it the entire race was the full size trailer. It made it through 3/4 of the race untouched. All the other vehicles were driving on blown tires or dragging mangled metal. Not the full size trailer, it still looked as good as when it started. And then BAM, it got nailed and exploded into pieces. But wait, whats that? Its still going.. The top was gone, all four sides blown away, but the platform and the toilet was still sitting erect and the car trailer hookup was still driving. How funny.
Unfortunately there was no winner.. During the last clear out of the track the sky let loose a biblical monsoon that ended the night. To bad, I was hoping the large trailer was going to win it all, oh well.
OKKKKKKKK enjoy the photos. Two days till the Texas take off. I think I can finish this. One more installment, I think?

Gotta GoGo!!
Carey