Little Rock, my travel van named in honor of Eric Medlen after his favorite cutting horse, just keeps on rolling. Little Rock fell right into the routine of hitting the road almost every weekend and heading to a racetrack somewhere. He has thrown a shoe (flat tire/blowout) on a couple of occasions (he is the proud owner of 4 new Goodyear shoes now) and has gotten a burr under his saddle once or twice (alternator and water pump failures) but he has proven to be a valiant steed and seems anxious to get back on the road when we are back home at the Double R ranch in Greer, SC. In the short time he and I have been partners, we have traveled close to 50,000 miles on the trail. Roll on Little Rock. God Bless Eric.

Little Rock, my travel van named in honor of Eric Medlen after his favorite cutting horse, just keeps on rolling. Little Rock fell right into the routine of hitting the road almost every weekend and heading to a racetrack somewhere. He has thrown a shoe (flat tire/blowout) on a couple of occasions (he is the proud owner of 4 new Goodyear shoes now) and has gotten a burr under his saddle once or twice (alternator and water pump failures) but he has proven to be a valiant steed and seems anxious to get back on the road when we are back home at the Double R ranch in Greer, SC. In the short time he and I have been partners, we have traveled close to 50,000 miles on the trail. Roll on Little Rock. God Bless Eric.

My apologies for not attempting to write a column for quite some time. I am not really a writer but like to try to tell a story on occasion. What prompted me to break out pen and paper again now is the tongue lashing I received recently in Kalamazoo, Michigan. While having breakfast at a Big Boy restaurant, a member of a ProMod Cuda and Viper team from Paducah, KY happened to also be there. He told me that he was one of the three people who read my stuff and kinda liked it because he could relate to some of the issues I run into during my travels. Well, he Dogged me for a while and berated me enough until I felt bad enough and humble and ……well anyway, here I am.

Usually, I have a theme or some specific thing I want to try to convey to my three readers. However, I have no theme this time, instead I think I will interview myself this time. I have some of the best conversations on a 15-hour drive to an event in the van by myself. I am rarely interrupted by myself and I am absolutely correct in most of  the conclusions to which I arrive.

So, here is my interview of the Geezer:

ME:  Do you have anything that is bothering you and you would like to vent?

Geezer’s Answer:  Well, yeah.  Recently, a friend who has just started taking his camera to a lot of the tracks to which he visits contacted me. He asked my opinion how to handle a situation that has just popped up. It seems one of the images he had posted on his personal web site had shown up in a major publication as part of an advertisement. I asked if the image was labeled as copyrighted or registered and he told me no. He wanted to know what to do as far as getting credit or compensation for use of the image. I told him that honestly, he could only contact the person and ask why they stole the image and used it without permission. Or he could pursue legal action if he wanted to invest a good bit of money in a fruitless venture. It is illegal to capture things from the Internet and use them commercially but done daily by a lot of uneducated individuals. However, it is such a nebulous area, that enforcement is practically non-existent.

He then told me of the result of the contact with the owner of the team who responded in a rather odd way. It seems, when asked about taking the image without permission and using it in an advertisement with no credit, the owner replied, “You should have not been taking pictures of my car anyway. I should be charging you for taking my picture. Besides, it was on the Internet and any thing on the Internet is free” He then told my friend what he could do which involved some sexually suggestive actions. 

I am tempted to post the image of the car and name the individual who committed the crime and treated my friend horribly. But isn’t it awful that if I post the name and picture to identify the low class individual, I would then probably be accused of slander and become the person legally prosecuted.

 

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M: I have no response to that. On to something else. Since you seem to be in a snotty mood, what is your pet peeve?

GA: Since I brought it up, it is driving. Why is it that every time I need to make a lane change or turn on the interstate there is always some idiot sitting right on my rear fender and refuses to move so I can make the turn? If I slow down to let them pass….they slow down. If I speed up to get enough room, they speed up. It seems my rear fender hypnotizes them and they totally ignore my turn signal. I understand road rage and feel that it is sometimes not only necessary but should be required. Understand that this is a Geezer’s point of view.

M: OK..Grumpy old man.  Anything else you want to get of your chest?

GA: I am glad you asked me that. Media and gas prices….what a panic we have created. Mike Perry, media director for the IHRA just blogged in an article on the IHRA site that says exactly what I am thinking and I might as well just copy what he said rather than trying to re-write a great thought:

Gas Prices

I am about sick and tired of the media. I am actually starting to hate the media (of which I am a member, by the way) because they are scaring the price of gas and diesel fuel up. Here is how they do it...they put out all these stories about "Record High Gas Prices Around the Corner" or "$12.00 a gallon gas inevitable." They they go on to slam the oil companies. Here is a little insight for you, oil companies have nothing to do with setting gas prices. Commodities brokers and speculators do. And when the general public is reading stories about how oil is up to $133 a barrel, the speculators chuckle to themselves and buy oil futures at higher prices...knowing full well the media will continue to perpetuate the fear mongering about high gas prices and drive the price up even more. It is not Dick Chaney and his cronies who are responsible for the high prices, no matter what the liberal democrats might tell you, it is the media with its scare tactics and the commodities brokers taking advantage of the panic. The only way the prices will come down is if we, as consumers, drastically cut our consumption. Leave the Wall Street fat cats holding a handful of inflated oill futures they will not be able to cash in on. If you are all upset at the Oil companies, reading about "record profits" and everything (by the way, percentage-wise, oil companies' profits are slightly down), you will continue to be part of the problem. The lesson here is this...do not trust the media. They look to sensationalize things and throw shocking headlines out there to get you to read their stories or click on the links to their stories. Enough is enough. I just wish we lived in a world with responsible journalism.

Amen Mike


M: Anything humorous happen to you in the last few minutes?

GA: Yep. As I sit here writing this in a Flying J truck stop restaurant on my way back from the ADRL event in Martin, MI, I just witnessed an elderly gentleman emerge from the restroom area and strike up a conversation with one of the young waitresses. After a couple of pleasantries, he asked, “Miss, could you tell me where I am seated?”  You know, I understand what just happened.

M: Any observations that strike you as odd while you have been traveling?

GA: Gee, it is strange! You are asking me exactly the questions I want to answer. Yeah, I have traveled up I-75 a couple of times to Milan for the IHRA and to Martin for the ADRL and cannot believe the number of animals on the side of the roads. I counted, on the first trip, no less than fifty deer lying in the road and nearly an equal number on this trip. I think the insurance companies would like to contact whoever sets the limits on the number of kills a hunter can make during the hunting season. They have got to be losing a ton of money for car repairs due to the amount of damage. The deer population is at a level now higher than it was prior to the invasion of the white man from the European continent. Of course the paint and body shops probably are happy about the situation.

 

M: Anything else you wish to grumbe about since you are on the travel and driving binge?

 

GA:  Man, you are good with these questions. Since I am in this state at the moment I do have another observation concerning Michigan road conditions. I have been coming to or passing through Michigan several times a year for most of the time I have been involved with drag racing. When crossing the state line into Michigan, it is like driving into a giant pothole and not getting out until you exit the state. I see a tremendous amount of construction or at least construction equipment and workers taking up space and causing even more congestion, but it appears they are just rearranging the pot holes as opposed to really repairing them

 

M: You seem to be less happy-go-lucky as you would have people believe about you?

GA: Yeah well things in the world just seem out of kilter a bit lately. Beside, as you get older, it is not only expected, but also required to be a cantankerous old crank….just like my mentor, Larry Sullivan, AKA, the old man in the corner. But I never forget that regardless of the ways things are, I still consider myself one of the lucky people in the world. I continue to wake up each day and get to go play instead of going to work. I get to meet new people each day who share a common love of the same sport. What a way to spend retirement.

The luckiest man in the world.

Roger "Geezer" Richards 

 

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