Hello from Pueblo, CO

Hello from Pueblo, CO

Monday morning   September 3, 2012   (First travelogue of this trip).

We wrote a blog about being here on June 4, 2012.  As I noted then, I have been a volunteer corner worker at vintage car races sponsored by RMVR (Rocky Mountain Vintage Racing).  Their website:  http://rmvr.com/ .

We arrived at the track  Friday afternoon and parked in the same location we did in June - close to the dragstrip return road (map).  If you zoom in on the map, you can see the dragstrip and road race course.  They again had a Friday night drag races.  The drag racing event this time seemed to be much smaller and did not have the great cars that were here in June.  Still, I got to do some cruising of the pit on my bicycle.

I was so proud of myself bringing the bicycle on this weekend trip (did not bring a toad).  It allowed me to get a bit exercise and cruise the pits.  The other benefit was a way of getting to my station.  The track is pretty spread out and it is a long way to most of the corners.  Well, I rode the bike to my station in corner 6 thinking I was pretty smart.  However, as soon as I got on the bike to go to lunch, I found that the rear tire was flat.  Pueblo has a terrible problem with what I found to be “goathead thorns” (information here).  As I researched what the thorns were, I ran into several sites that talked about these thorns causing bicycle flats.  Supposedly I have torn proof tubes, but I guess they don't have a chance against these suckers.  To make matters worse, we tracked some into the bus and they really hurt when you step on them!!!  They even draw blood!!!

Saturday and Sunday I worked on corner 6. Compared to where I worked last time (corner 9) it had much less activity.   Like last time, we did have a car drop a bunch of oil on the track starting at our corner and going into corner 7.  The drivers seemed to heed the debris flag this time and did not have a problem.  We put some oil dry down between races and that took care of the problem.

As I said last time, being a corner worker is a mixed bag.  You are right on the track and get to observe some neat racing, but you are on your feet eight hours a day.  I used my scanner, with headphones, to monitor the control frequency, so I was quite informed about the race and the "inside" information.   Both Saturday and Sunday were hot (95 and 91 degrees).  They really treat the volunteer workers very well.  We wear all white and the racers go out of their way to thank us.   We get to go to the head of the line for a free lunch, and the special Saturday night barbeque.  AND they have a great selection of craft type beer!!!!

Pat likes to come down here.  Not so much for the races, but for the ability to “hide out” and get a lot of Stampin work done.  She has several activities over the next few weeks and this gave her the opportunity to put a big dent in the preparation work.

As we did last time, Sunday night we made the short (500 yard) trip out to the security area and spent the night on a nice flat dirt area overlooking Pueblo.  Awfully dry down here, but still pretty in a strange way.

That is all for now.