Thursday Notebook: October 6, 2016

I am a lucky man, I have three fantastic children, and while my daughter will keep me hopping over the next year with the planning of her September 2017 wedding, my two sons each gave me a thrill this week. The older of the two, Kyle, is the President of Dallas-Fort Worth I-Club so he came back to Iowa City on Friday for meetings that the University had with all of the leaders of the clubs based throughout the country. With the trip he was given two tickets to Iowa's homecoming football game against Northwestern and I was thrilled when he invited me to go with him, but it didn't stop there.

Kyle had also "won" the opportunity in a lottery to buy two tickets to the Sunday finale of the Ryder Cup up in Chaska, Minnesota, so his invitation to me included that as well making for one fantastic sports weekend. Yes, I had to miss some late season racing, but believe me there were no regrets as just the opportunity to spend the entire weekend with my Dallas-based son was great enough.

It has been awhile since I have been to a game in Kinnick and while I had a great time it did nothing to change the thoughts as to why I stopped coming on a regular basis and of course the Hawks went down to a disappointing defeat to the Mildcats 38-31. Just after the game-sealing interception we hustled out to the car, parked about five blocks away in a nice gentleman's yard, well at least he seemed nice as he smiled and took my thirty dollars from me earlier that morning, and we then made the drive to Minneapolis for a short night of sleep before getting out to the Ryder Cup by 8 a.m. in an effort to "beat the crowd".

Let's just say that we didn't.

Kyle and I in front of the first tee

I have never been to a professional golf tournament, let alone the final day of a Ryder Cup, and I can tell you that it was absolutely nothing like I had imagined. Nearly half of the fans in attendance were decked out in some funky, or funny representation of the stars and stripes and it wasn't hard to spot a few European fans in attendance as well who were mostly wearing the flag of their home country as a cape. Let's just say that it was much more of a "festive" atmosphere than I had anticipated and that the local Budweiser distributor probably made more money in one weekend than he has all year. Yes, even here in the Twin Cities!

After failing to get there early enough to get into ANY of the grandstands, and remember that we were there more than three hours before the first tee time, we staked a claim to a spot along the first fairway that did put us about ten yards from announcer Mike Tirico as he opened the NBCSports and Golf Channel coverage. But it did not give us a view of the golfers as they teed off as we had anticipated due to the media and assorted entourage that ended up standing between us and the golfers on the first tee. Thankfully we were with Kyle's brother-in-law and sister-in-law who had attended on Saturday as well and they suggested that we head out to hole #15 and claim a spot along the fairway where the players would typically hit their approach shots from. Plus there would be a big video board that we could watch until the first pairing made it to that hole.

Patrick Reed walks to his drive on #15

So, after being at the course since 8 a.m., it was around two o'clock when the weekend star of the United States team, Patrick Reed, hit his drive to a point right in front of us and finally we got to see our first actual shot hit "live". Seven more pairs came through and with the Cup all but in hand I decided to head for the exit to beat the massive crowd out and make the five and a half hour drive home while Kyle would spend the night and fly out of Minneapolis in the morning. The day was an absolute blast and while I was driving home I couldn't help but think of how I better never hear a golf fan say that you just don't "see enough" when they go to a race, local or NASCAR! With the face value of the ticket at $140, that wound up to be about ten dollars a swing that I actually saw in person. I know that he seldom reads this since I was never able to indoctrinate him into racing like his brother, but Kyle thank you so much for the fantastic weekend!

My youngest son, Morgan who is also currently based in Dallas and whom some of you know from around the tracks, had an adventurous weekend as well. On Friday he informed me that he had been offered a job in Des Moines, something that he was definitely considering, so when he was calling me just after noon on Sunday I thought that he had news about that. Nope, the first thing that he said was, "I want you to know that I am okay," and he then told me about how he had been hit over the head after leaving a convenience store in Dallas an hour earlier. The blow had knocked him to one knee and when his attacker then went for his car keys Morgan threw an elbow into his neck that knocked the wind out of the would be thief who then turned and ran. The store clerk had already called 911 and when Morgan gave the description of the man to police they told him that it matched a suspect who had committed a pair of armed robberies in the area that morning.

He did not think that he needed medical attention so Morgan returned home and a short time later the police called to not only check on him, but to also report that the man had been captured and that he was sporting a pretty nice bruise to the neck. Obviously Christine and I were worried about his head, but he assured us that he was fine and on Monday Morgan confirmed that he had accepted the job and that we would have him just a couple of hours away from us again in Des Moines! The lows and highs of parenthood, huh?

So I thank you for reading through all of that non-racing stuff because it will then let you know why I did not have a story from my Friday night visit to the widest track in the Midwest, the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Missouri. That was my stop on the way home from Kansas City and once again the place delivered with another entertaining night of action. After not having a show there since the Fair race in July, promoter Mike VanGenderen had to do a little extra track work in between races to not only improve the surface for that night, but to also make it better for Saturday and from all reports it sounded like that was the case.

Cayden Carter started off a nice weekend for him with a win in the Modifieds after overtaking Steve Stewart on lap four and he doubled up with a win on Saturday night as well. Carter was also one of the five Stock Car drivers that raced in tight formation for the lead through Friday night's finale that saw Jeff Mueller hang tough to the low line and take the win. John Oliver Jr. was definitely letting Mueller know that he was there in the closing laps, but they raced each other clean just as they have on numerous occasions over the years. Carter finished third, Mike Hughes was fourth and Nathan Wood was close in fifth.

Hughes doubled up with a convincing win in the Hobby Stocks that saw a surprisingly short field of just six cars on Friday night before growing up to ten on Saturday. The race between Josh Barnes and Barry Taft was as good as you will see anywhere in the Sport Compacts as they essentially raced side-by-side for the final ten laps of the 14-lap event. Even while splitting lapped cars Barnes would hold the lead at the stripe for every lap except for the one that counted as Taft would take the win. I believe that Barry also doubled up on Saturday as well. The Sport Mods drew the strongest car count with 34 signed in on Friday and the competition was stout as evidenced by the fact that the defending All Iowa Points Champion, the newly crowned IMCA National Champion and the recently named Eastern Iowa Driver of the Year Tony Olson could not crack the top five either night. In Friday's show Curtis VanDerWal slipped by Brett Lowry at the mid-race mark to go on to victory ahead of Logan Anderson, Lowry, Tim Plummer and Jim Gillenwater. The hard charger in this one was definitely Plummer who came all the way up from a ninth row starting sport. Gillenwater came back to win on Saturday as VanDerWal apparently broke and Lowry made the short trip down to Moberly to run in the top five there during the Magic City Nationals.

Positively Racing's Brian Neal and Danny Rosencrans both filed more detailed reports from Memphis and I encourage you to take a look at their work. I also encourage you to mark your calendars for Friday and Saturday October 21st and 22nd for the Memphis Fall Nationals because if you have not yet been to this hidden gem, this will be your next chance!

More non-racing plans will keep me away from the tracks this weekend so for the third or fourth year in a row I will miss the Musco Lighting Fall Challenge in Oskaloosa, plus I will not get to repeat my Sunday afternoon visit to Octoberfest in La Crosse. I am thrilled though that The Darkside, Timmy Current and Ryan Duhme, added a Thursday night session to their three-day Fall Bash at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton and now I am just watching the radar in hope that it will stay dry until after midnight for what might be the last "warm" night for racing this season. Hope to see you there!