Two old hags (that's Mark on the left, BTW)
The view from the passenger seat
I came into the picture way back on Friday the 10th, when I arrived in Topeka for Nationals. Topeka is a sort of mecca for autocrossing pilgrims; almost a thousand of us converge on Forbes Field for a week every year. We both competed in C Modified this year, me in my own 1988 Van Diemen RF88 Formula Ford, and Josh sharing Gary Richardson's car, which is ironically also a 1988 Van Diemen RF88 Formula Ford. We've both been competing in C Modified for a number of years, though in a variety of different cars. Josh won the class in 1996; I had yet to win a trophy, though I'd been close.
Josh had arrived late Thursday night from California, and I arrived Friday afternoon from Philadelphia. I reached him on the cellphone as we approached Topeka, to learn he was driving around the city in his BMW trying to find a way to get the motorhome's starter repaired. The beast had made it all the way to the paddock area at Nationals, then refused to start again. Fortunately, it was stuck in a nearly perfect location for the week, but it did mean that we'd be unable to stay in it overnight, since it was on the tarmac at a live airport, and everyone had to clear out by 9pm each night.
The plan had been to stay in Solo City, which is a grassy parking lot just outside the fence at Forbes Field where people with tents and RV's stay for the night. Fortunately, I still had a hotel reservation I hadn't yet cancelled, so we stayed in the hotel until the starter got repaired, which turned out to be on Tuesday. That's probably just as well, since our class competed at 8am on Tuesday and Wednesday, and it was important to get a good night's sleep on those nights.
Nationals was as much fun as it always is... We both competed in the warmup event on the first weekend, then had Monday off, then competed for real on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. In the end, I won my first Nationals trophy, 7th place in the 38-driver C Modified class. I was 12th on Tuesday, but was second-fastest on Wednesday, which moved me up to 7th. I'm very psyched about that -- there's a LOT of talent in this class, and I'm very proud to have finished where I did. Josh was very disappointed with his finishing position, which was 13th on Tuesday and 11th on Wednesday, for 12th overall -- unfortunately, there were only 11 trophies.
On Thursday and Friday, Josh and were co-Chiefs of Timing and Scoring. We worked all five heats, covering one of the two courses each day. That was fun, but a lot of work. I'm not sure what job I'll volunteer for next year. Josh spent some time on Friday behind the mike in the announce van with Scotty White, and had fun with that.
We slept late this morning in Solo City; by the time we got up at 8:30, almost everyone had left already. That was the latest we slept all week; we were at the site before sunrise every day all week, which is probably a record for my entire life. As we just heard in a McDonald's ad on the radio, I could be a morning person if it came in the afternoon...
We left Topeka and headed east towards Kansas City, where we stopped at the Hallmark Visitor's Center. I didn't know Hallmark was a family business (the Hall family). There's also a big Hall's department store and a big mall there. That was fairly interesting.
Back on the road, we headed up north on I-35. Once out on the open road, we stopped for lunch and then I got my first shot behind the wheel... It's hard to imagine that this is a narrow-bodied motorhome. Do the wide ones actually fit within a lane? Had one moment with a big crosswind gust that got me a little nervous, but it's otherwise fairly easy to drive. Eventually I'll find a comfortable position for my right foot. The driver's seat is actually a little more comfortable than the passenger seat, because there's considerably more legroom.
Our current destination is Minneapolis. Tomorrow evening I'll fly back home from there. We ended up choosing that because it was about the right distance from Topeka, a place we'd both never been, and had enough of an airport that I'd be able to find a flight home at the last minute. Our original plan had been to head up through Nebraska to South Dakota and see Badlands and Mount Rushmore, then fly out of Rapid City (which is the closest airport to most of the South Dakota sights), but I procrastinated too long and we were unable to find a flight. So this is Plan B. I think I'll get enough of a flavor...
We got off the highway to drive through the town of Owatonna, Minnesota to see a locomotive that was driven by Casey Jones. Perhaps we were going too fast, 'cause we never found it. Ah well. We also considered stopping at the Hobo Museum in Britt, Iowa, but they weren't open. And it turns out Iowa has a ski area, called Fun Valley, but it wasn't quite along our route. Tomorrow, we'll drive around Minneapolis in the BMW to see what there is to see, including the Mall of America.