Prime Rib, Racing, Basketball, And Good Conversation

Matt and I drove to Grand Island yesterday for the Heartland Hoops Classic-8 high school basketball games featuring match-ups that don’t happen anywhere else. Eight games are too much for us. We arrived at half-time of game 3, watched all of games 4-5-6-7, and left at half-time of game 8. Yes, we were there for about 9 hours.

I can hear I-80 promoter Joe Kosiski telling Matt “your dad complains about how long our shows are and they aren’t 9 hours long.” Well three things:

-every one of the games started on time. Not 15 minutes late, not a half-hour late, they started on time.

-we were back in Fremont by midnight. There have been far too many times when I have been at a race track-and not just I-80 Speedway-well past the witching hour.

-I did not have to suffer through 4 heats, a consolation race, and an A-feature of the infamous B-Mods.

All in all it was a great night. I enjoyed the two hours of conversation driving to Grand Island, and the two hours of conversation on the ride home.

Admission was $16, far less than any race special. AND, Matt found us seats in a three seat row so no one was crawling over us every five minutes. Courtside seats cost $75. We were maybe 20’ away from the court and could see the action far better than if we were in the courtside seats. Two thumbs up for Matt.

On Friday we went to Z’s Bar and Grill in Scribner. I have no idea why small towns like Waterloo, Hooper, and Scribner can have good steak houses but Fremont does not. Anyway, that was our first visit to Z’s, but it won’t be our last. Good food and good service too.

I got home just in time to watch the B features and A features of the Lucas Oil series race at Golden Isles Speedway in Waynesville, Georgia. It wasn’t great late model racing-very little passing, not unusual for a track’s opening night, but it was still late model racing with plenty of name drivers in the field.

As seems to be the case every race, Scott Bloomquist arrived late. He tagged on the rear of a B feature so he could use a provisional to start in the A main. Yeah, he finished at the rear of the B feature, and was even worse in the A. He spun out early in the race and then was going so slow that leader Billy Moyer Jr. virtually ran over the Zero car, spinning him out a second time.

Whether the wreck damaged Moyer’s radiator or the 21 Jr. was overheating for some other reason, both Bloomquist and Moyer Jr. left the track-Moyer after leading the first 37 laps. Brandon Overton led the final 13 laps and collected $10,000 for the win.

I do not know who won last night’s race. And don’t want to know. I will watch the race on Lucas Oil Racing TV later today. That is a nice feature of having a LORTV subscription-all the live events are archived.

The Lucas Oil series takes tonight off, but will be back in action tomorrow at East Bay Raceway Park near Tampa. And yes, LORTV will be covering the event. Late model racing on a Monday night in February-fantastic. East Bay is late models only, and the track runs all of the races quickly, no messing around. So yes, I will be watching.

I will admit that even though the temperature at TROTD Speedway will be a comfortable 68 degrees, and even though the concessions at TROTD Speedway are as good as at any race track-and far cheaper, and even though my bedroom is only steps away, it is not quite the same as being there. I do envy my friend Ivan Tracy who has been doing his usual winter thing in Arizona attending races.  Yeah, I wouldn’t mind doing that, even watching sprint car races. Maybe someday when I get older.

Thanks for stopping by.