After running the warmup, I just sort of wandered around the paddock visiting various people I haven’t seen in a while. I had a beer with Rob Carpenter and the Tennessee mafia, spent some time with Jonathon Roberts and Eric Peterson, and unsuccessfully tried to find Team BlenderBlaster. I was afraid HPT had shut them down, but I found out this morning that they are ok, I just must have missed them.
Sorry for the absence of posts - I actually wrote a pretty long entry last night, tried to save it as a draft, and then found that it had disappeared into the ether. It was a fairly crabby post, so maybe that’s for the best.
I ran the warmup event yesterday. It’s always an slightly scary experience jumping into a new car - you don’t want to embarrass yourself yet you want to push the car hard enough to find out what it does at the limit.
A good time was had by all (except for Karen Kraus, who did not seem to enjoy being the first player knocked out). We had a full field of 45 players, and the tournament ran pretty smoothly - kudos to Erik and Beth.
Pulled into Heartland at 3pm today. Met David (Hedderick, the owner of my ride) briefly, then headed to the hotel to check in. Time is of the essence as it’s an hour to Poker Tournament time, so this will be brief.
The buzz in the paddock is of course all about the impending arrival of Team Neon. Last reports put the Dream Machine somewhere in Missouri, heading west. Mike O. and special guest star Jeff Hurst will be arriving in the early evening.
More later, after poker.
I’m not even in Kansas yet, and already I’m feeling rushed and behind schedule. Nationals just seems to do that to me. Justin, his Dad and Eric Coffman pulled in around 11:30 last night. They definitely got the worst of the weather from the sound of it.
We stayed up talking till almost 2 o’clock, so I’m especially fresh and rested today.
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I got to Nick’s at about 7:30 local time. I was pretty lucky with the weather - it was quite overcast, but I mostly got drizzled on. There were a few heavy rain showers but I drove out of them fairly quickly.
Nick and Anna have rolled out the red carpet for me - beers, steak kebabs, Mexican egg rolls and even dessert. I feel pretty spoiled, and a wee bit drunk.
Sartre (the writer, not the Ferrari driver in Grand Prix) said that “Hell is other people” which leads me to believe that he spent some time driving on Interstate 70 in Ohio.
Many apologies to all my fans for not updating the blog this week. I’ve been running around like a course worker during the CP heat. Anyway, who wants to read about what errands I have to do before laaving?
I’m hitting the road this morning, hopefully at 10am. The plan is to get to St. Louis this evening. One of our Steel Citiies guys, Nick Jackson, has recently moved to the St. Louis area, and generously offered me a place to crash.
