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LOSTCIRCUITS	SHORTCUTS: A Day At The Races Preparations In The Pits / Qualification Hail Broke Loose The Show Must Go On Side Lines Give Us Some Feedback
A Day at the Races A different kind of speed
(Review by MS, July 14, 2004)

The Weather

Meanwhile, the dark clouds in the North were moving closer and closer, which provided for exquisite light for photography and a spectacular background but whoever has witnessed a hail storm in Colorado knows how serious the weather can be. The opening ceremony saw the midgets already in the starting lane to take off immediately after the honors but it was not supposed to happen. The first hesitant raindrops can down resulting in the midgets quickly being covered with tarps and it almost looked like the front was going to pass by. However, those first raindrops were followed by larger ones and the larger raindrops turned into hail, peanut-size at first but quickly reaching quarter-size.

                    

MOPAR trucks running about 1/2 million US$ each were dominating the scene. Midgets and other racers were pushed around using ATVs or queuing up at the entrance to the hot-pits.

Fifteen minutes later, a river ran through it. The infield was about 3” under water with no place to run, no place to hide, other than the small flatbed trailer. Luckily, we were invited into the neighboring trailer, at least we got out of the rain and hail. The ambulances and fire trucks tried at first to keep the tracks somewhat dry but after a short time, they gave up, with visibility approaching maybe 500 feet and a black cloud that appeared to hover restlessly without moving over the race track.

                    

After coming "home" ... time for a last famous shot - #46 was the "smoker" that fell out before us - there was nothing left to do other than wrapping up and trying to get out before the flood - guess we didn't make it.

Time to go Home

Drenched and worn out we stowed away everything and the crew left. I hung around a little longer to see whether the races would be resumed and the almost impossible happened, with about 2 hours delay the races were started in the fleeing daylight. Because there are no flood lights, and these were really races against time or, more precisely, dusk, all races were shortened, that is, the Sprint and Midgets were only doing 30 laps and the Silver Crown were reduced to 60 laps. There was still some light left to get some pictures during the Midget race, for the Sprints and Sliver Crowns it was already too dark..

                           

It was not über-bad but it was bad enough.. 2-3" of floating hail everywhere. The cable was not live . - 90 minutes later, there are still pits large enough to cast a reflection of the entire MOPAR truck - meanwhile, their team was working as usual on the cars in the comfort of the garage - Others had to be happy with a tent.

We missed this one, but the team will be back in three weeks in Minneapolis, with hopefully just that extra bit of luck that was missing from the PPIR event. Stay tuned…..

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