The weekend of March 25-27 was set to be outstanding for the World of Outlaws Late Model Series with a forecast of temperatures in the 80s and sunny skies for a tripleheader weekend at Ocala (Fla.) Speedway Georgia’s Screven and Needmore speedways.
But wow…how that changed in a hurry! Ocala went off without a hitch on March 25; after I combined with track announcer Joe Linebarier to absolutely whip the capacity crowd into a frenzy for the Sunshine 50 (which was a killer race), we made an overnight drive five hours north to Screven Motor Speedway in Sylvania, Ga., where we pulled ‘Matilda’ into the pit area under warm and humid conditions. As we put up banners and got our computer equipment set up in the tower, we really didn’t notice the dark clouds building around Redd Griffin’s track. After a brief late-afternoon shower wet the track but stopped in time for us to hold out hope for racing (though with a delayed start), more menacing storms began to approach the area. With registration on hold, we started watching the skies with WoO staff meteorologist Bret Cantore (I mean race director Bret Emrick) and just knew we were going to get pounded with a storm. Around 8 o’clock the bottom finally fell out to postpone the show – and the scramble to get packed up began.
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| We got very wet at Screven on March 26. |
With rain getting progressively heavier and lightning dancing in the sky, I joined with tech man Terry Watson and pit steward Mark Coglianese to quickly take down banners around the facility and load up our equipment. The last thing we had to retrieve was the VP Fuels starting-line jugs/stands on the inside of turn four. Just as I headed down the banking of the track on a four-wheeler to enter the infield and grab the jugs, wind, rain and hail hit in a huge simultaneous burst. Rain was coming at us sideways as I grabbed the jugs and headed back to the hauler, which was swaying in the wind associated with a severe thunderstorm.
When we finally got back to the hauler to get out of the downpour, we were absolutely soaked. I weighed about 10 pounds extra from the drenching I received. I had a bag of rubber bands in my jacket pocket and when I pulled it out I dumped water down the steps of ‘Matilda’ – the bag had gotten filled during the storm!
We were actually pretty close to getting struck by a tornado, which apparently touched down a few miles south of the track. We learned the next day from Brent Robinson’s mother, Elaine, that they might have been way-too-close-for-comfort to the twister after leaving the track. Elaine said that as her husband, Dean, drove their tractor-trailer rig down a back road not far from the speedway, they heard a loud noise and then got the sensation that their truck was being lifted off the ground. Moments later they passed a fallen tree covering half of the road.
After a three-hour-plus drive south to Needmore Speedway, we set up shop again – and got rained out again. The biggest storms stayed away from us, but we still got wet enough to postponed our first-ever visit to Needmore to May 8.
After we left Norman Park, Ga., we headed straight home to Phenix City, Ala., for a day before going back out to Senoia, Ga., to meet up with the ‘Cat Daddy’ Clint Smith and his crew, the Stray Cats, at Clint’s shop. We had some repair work to get done on the WoO LMS trailer and Clint allowed Tech Man Terry to use his shop and equipment to get it done.
It’s always interesting to visit with the Cat Daddy, who never fails to teach us some new “Georgianese” when we’re with him. We spent a day at Clint’s before heading home, ready to head back out on America’s highways.
There certainly is no other life than ‘Life as an Outlaw.’
