…that I can’t take my little screwdriver tool kit with me on airplanes, but ladies can bring their 12-inch long metallic knitting needles? I can’t repair my loose glasses or tinker with my cameras during a 4-hour flight, but Mrs. Craftmaker can brandish two deadly spikes while knitting a scarf for the winter months. I have seen this phenomenon on each of the flights have taken this year.

…that while there are two lanes at the drag strip, it seems I am almost always shooting the one lane when something more exciting happens in the other lane? It should be at least a 50/50 chance of shooting the more exciting image…but it surely seems it is a 99 to 1 chance for me.

…that an image of a nice looking woman in our gallery will generate a hundred times the number of hits than the finely sculptured form of a great race car? OK, I know, dumb question. Forget I mentioned it.

…that after making a reservation for a handicap accessible room with two beds, and receiving a conformation at a 700 room hotel in Las Vegas, upon arrival, we found out that the one and only room in the entire hotel was booked? That is correct….a 700 room hotel only had one handicap accessible room with two beds. This same scenario happened at 3 other hotels during my own “western swing” to end the 2005 season. I will be writing an article shortly on the abuse of the laws regarding the handicapped citizens of America. I just spent 3 weeks traveling with my friend and co-founder of Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com, Mike Aiello. Mike was injured on his job and is suffering severely at the hands of unfeeling insurance and workman compensation representatives in addition to retail businesses who ignore or do the absolute minimum to skirt the laws.

…that during my travels, I stop at a gas station to fill up then the station at the next exit after returning to the interstate has a price twenty cents less per gallon?

a d v e r t i s e m e n t


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…that I had just as much fun this weekend at Shady Side Dragway in Boiling Springs, N.C. as I did just one week after spending time at two of the largest venues, Pomona and Las Vegas, in drag racing? Does this mean that I am a true addict of drag racing and not of the show that goes on around the racing on the track? At the match race between Quain Stott and Scott Cannon, one of the team members asked me: “I suppose this place is a big change from Las Vegas, huh?” In response, all I could think to say was: “I am at a drag race and I am talking with my friends, it feels the same to me.” I did, however, miss the showgirls at Vegas as opposed to the ones on display at Shady Side.

…that there is so much back stabbing within the media? Why can’t members of different papers and magazines and websites co-operate more with each to build up the overall sport of drag racing as opposed to going out of their way to tear down the others in order to make themselves look bigger? I guess EGO and GREED has to play a role in there somewhere. That is rather a brutal observation but true nonetheless in my opinion. I wish it was other, but such is the way of the world.

…that all of the amazing ideas for a column evaporate when you sit down to write? And the note pad on which all of the great notes were written is still on the night table of the Red Roof Inn in Palm Springs, California.

…that I can partake of a full course lobster and unpeeled shrimp dinner and remain as relatively clean as when I entered the restaurant? However, after only one corndog consumed at the drag strip I have mustard on the front and back of both hands and all fingers, the corner of my mouth, in my mustache, down the front of my shirt and specks on my note pad.

…that none of the possible scenarios regarding the 2005 Funny Car championship were even close to what really transpired in Pomona? Didn’t any of the drivers read any of the stories before hand?

…that my cell phone never rings until I am beside the track where I can’t hear it? Vibration ring doesn’t help since most of the cars make all of my equipment shake. Then when I do return the call that is when 5 people buzz in trying to contact me. Why can’t it ring while I am in the pressroom so that people will think I am busy?

…that I am already missing going to the track? That shouldn’t be happening because I will be just as busy even thought the official racing season is over. There are year round match races and testing along with banquets and Expos like SEMA and PRI so I will be able to help fill up the pages of Torco’s CompetitionPlus.com and still see my friends somewhere at sometime until we officially kickoff the 2006 season in Pomona.

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