We went back to Thompson this weekend to finish off what we started two weeks ago. Before I start my account of this week’s travels, I want to apologize for last week’s long-winded page burner. I believe that “Lobster Stew, Poker and Climate Change” was the longest article I have written to date. I’m not sorry about its length. It was disappointing that I had to omit so much stuff from it as we had way too much fun up in Loudon.

This week’s story should be a considerably easier read and I promise ;) I’ll try to be brief. Let’s start off Saturday when I dropped off my laundry to the place I normally use in downtown Riverhead. It’s across the street from where the nit wits make all the important decisions for the people who live in the town that calls itself “The County Seat”.

This Laundromat used to bustle with activity when there were only about twenty washing machines and twenty driers. The owner decided to expand the place and install a bunch of additional machines. Now it’s a ghost town and that’s why I like it. Wash, dry and fold by the pound. I paid in advance went on down the road.

A few hours later I left home with full intentions of picking up that laundry. I wound up over at the T. S. Haulers shop where John Mazza seemed to blend into the backdrop of the race shop like a bow-hunter in a tree stand. He was there to finish up some body fabrication and apply graphics to the #12.

It is intriguing, to say the least, to watch a fine craftsman like John at work. The Busch race played out on a television in one corner of the shop. Periodic glances in that direction indicated that we weren’t missing much by not watching it. Mazza applied his finishing touches and we loaded up our car.

I grabbed a bite to eat on the way home and arrived at my humble abode as my cell phone began to ring. Charli Brown was nearly out of breath. He had been calling Amie and Shopgirl to no avail as he wanted to solidify arrangements to get the WSMT Live Updates done from Caraway.

I told Charli not to worry about it because I was home and ready to post. After all, I had nothing to do on a Saturday night at home. I opened some old spreadsheets and got the lineup together. Initially I posted for folks to check us out in the Flash Chat area. That would have been cool; if I actually had someone to post the updates in there.

Charli called back at the start of the race and told me that he was going to tape record his call of the race while I listened in on the phone. Charli B. is no Ben Dodge or Bob Finan but he did an awesome play-by-play. The race went by fairly quickly and the Updates went off nearly without a hitch.

During our conversation around the Live Updates, Charli and I both expressed our regrets that we couldn’t be at Oswego. Unfortunately, we didn’t have anyone up at the “Steel Palace” to call the Sunoco Race of Champions event. Why did we have to have a stinking rainout?

I called Shopgirl after we finished with the Updates. We were just chatting while watching television when I came to a stunning realization. I forgot, ever forget? It happened to me. What was I supposed to do earlier in the day? Pick up my laundry.

This normally would not be a big deal. One problem was that the Laundromat doesn’t open until 7am and our team would be leaving at 6:30am. The other was one article of clothing in that basket, my firesuit. Although I spun into action to make alternative plans to get to Thompson, ultimately I wound up catching up with our team at the ferry to ride in the hauler.

Shortly after we arrived at Thompson, I took a walk up to the Press Box. I blasted past the rent-a-cop and burst into the room. There was Paul Schaefer? I thought that Jason would be back? Don’t get me wrong, Paul has done a good job while he has been here but where was Christley?

The guard had hassled Schaefer about not having the “right” wristband to get into the Press Box. When I left the guard told me “You better have the right wristband if you come back up here again!” I replied, in typical Blazing Saddles fashion, “Wristband? We don’t need no stinking wristbands.”

I went back to the hauler and pondered where Jason could be. I called Shawn Courchesne to see if he had gotten out of the tuna can with wings. Shawn had been flying back from a UConn game in Pittsburgh.

Shawn was already in his Japanese factory version of a Nextel Cup racecar. I told him about the current status of the WMT Media Coordinator position. We both kind of figured that Jason somehow wound up on a suspected terrorist list while out of the country. We laughed about his C3M compadre stuck in a holding cell in a distant country with his new bride. Maybe someone from Daytona called it in? We were having too much fun and he wasn’t even at the track yet.

My Blog happy buddy bumped into me as I ventured across the paddock to inspect some of the carnage. Carnage you might ask? Apparently, during one of the practice sessions for the TVMRS, one car lost a freeze-out plug, spun in his own coolant and collected most of the rest, if not all of the cars that were out practicing at that time.

Six or seven cars sat mangled in the sparsely occupied paddock area. Apparently, one of these cars had barrel-rolled several times. Fortunately, it appeared that all of the drivers were okay. It looked like the end result of a one hundred lap SK race.

I told Shawn about my encounter with the Director of Press Box Security and the fact that Paul had been hassled on the way up there. Courchesne said, “Schaefer is a NASCAR employee with a hard card credential.” I responded, “I know, he’s supposed to tell the guard where to go.”

Shawn revealed that the same guard has been there for years. “Every single time I climb those stairs with my laptop and all of my other gear he’s got to stop me.” That’s actually a good thing; at least Roy wasn’t going to get up there and eat the food intended for the working media.

We had an eventful practice session where we changed almost everything in the car. When practice was over, we changed almost everything else. This led to a race where we made more changes than NASCAR has made in their public relations department in the last twelve months.

Oddly enough, we never seemed to effect a change on our car. We probably had a fifteenth-place car at the start of the race. We made about fifteen changes and despite all of the lost track position, wound up finishing fifteenth. Go figure.

Meanwhile, Ronnie Silk was on his way to his first Whelen Modified Tour victory. Congratulations to Ronnie, George Bierce, the Grasso brothers and everyone associated with the #19 team.

These guys have been the Rodney Dangerfield team of the year. They just haven’t gotten the respect they deserve. Winning cures a lot of ills and exposure and media respect are two of them.

A couple of our new Mazza body panels got bent up during the race. The Walt’s Cup quote of the week goes to the person who noticed our new speedway bodywork before the race. They said, “You guys do know that Loudon was last week, right?”

By the way, Walt’s Cup is actively pursuing sponsorship for the 2008 season. The sponsors name will be displayed in vinyl on Walt’s Cup and become a presenting sponsor of the quote of the week. Ernie still has no comment.

We head up to Stafford for the 35th Annual CARQUEST Fall Final next weekend. I’m sure that Rich Pallai and his guys will be quite a busy bunch. I look forward to seeing everyone there.