In Lapped Traffic
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
by Kathy Bell, Knoxville, Iowa – Well, we officially had a couple of nights
at the race track, close to home. Of course, Knoxville only had a practice
night but over 40 cars showed up to iron out some problem areas, which was a
wise idea in my opinion.
According to the Knoxville Raceway website, which I might add looks pretty
awesome thanks to a lot of hard work from editor Bill Wright and raceway
historian, Bob Wilson, Knoxville expects to have close to 70 cars on a
regular basis.
A lot can happen in a week’s time. In college Ethics class I had to read a
religious based book, then prepare a paper for discussion before the class.
I read the book, “When Bad Things Happen To Good People.” I was reminded of
that paper as I passed by the 17G car owned by Ed and Theresa Gifford. I had
just talked to the Gifford’s and their driver, Jeff Mitrisin at Pevely. They
had big plans and had done a lot of preparation for the season. Then they
headed to Eldora, Jeff had a nasty sprint accident ending up with a
fractured vertebrae, T-7 area.
Jeff is now out of commission for a few weeks, recovering. I talked to him
Saturday night at Oskaloosa and he said he’s coming along ok. I was only
semi-convinced, remember my day job is in healthcare. The good news is, the
Gifford’s are holding Jeff’s ride for him while he recovers. They had Matt
Moro run the car at Knoxville practice night. No, Matt’s not jumping ship
from the Sonner’s 47 car. Don Droud Jr. raced the car at Osky and is
expected to fill the seat at Knoxville until Jeff returns.
Lenard McCarl is teaming up with talented rookie Eric Vanderploeg. I look
for that to be quite a team. McCarl has done everything from drive a car
back when you took a piece of junk “run what ya brung” and fixed it up, to
supermodifieds which transitioned into sprints, to owning cars and winning
championships with the likes of former greats, Randy Smith and Rocky Hodges,
to wrenching on cars for other racers and you can bet he taught that kid of
his, you know, Terry McCarl, a thing or two.
Vanderploeg, who graduated last year from Grandview Park Baptist High
School, showed talent at Knoxville, early on. Am I the only one who thinks
it’s amusing that a kid who graduated from a Baptist high school is teamed
up with ornery old Lenard McCarl? All kidding aside, if you’re going to
trust your kid to someone’s care, you want to trust him to a veteran who has
a kid of his own out there racing. Race people look after each other.
Mike VanderEcken and Ricky Logan have teamed up. The #10 car is now a sharp
looking red promoting Lucas Oil and Tyler Swank who has been a mechanic on
the WoO circuit for the last couple of years, came back home to wrench on
the car.
John Kearney is back in the #83 360 car. John had a tough season last year
losing his best friend and dad Bub. This season the former Knoxville 360
points champion 2000, is just going to go out and have some fun. I hope he
does, but as competitive as Kearney is, you can bet he’ll still be giving his
110 percent each night he’s in the cockpit.
I saw the familiar face of former Knoxville Raceway promoter, Ray Grimes in
the 360 pits, Friday night. Ray was helping out a new racer, 17 year old,
Dustin Selvage. Dustin is a junior at Indianola High School. This is his
first year racing, period. He’s never raced before. I guess you might like
to know he has been around sprint car racing. Ray Grimes is his grandfather,
360 driver Frankie Heimbaugh is his brother-in-law and Josh Riggins a racer
at Eagle Raceway in Nebraska is his cousin.
I was recently asked who I thought had a good chance of winning the
Knoxville championship this year. I believe there are honestly several guys
with a good shot at the title. I should know better than to try to list them
because I’m sure to leave some out but no one ever accused me of listening
to my own advice. Wayne Johnson, Kerry Madsen, Ricky Logan, Don Droud
Jr./Jeff Mitrisin, Skip Jackson, (whose talent I think is somewhat
overlooked), plus a few other guys who I need to see in the pits to remember
because this list was off the top of my head. I guess you’ll just have to
see for yourself. The Knoxville season opens this Saturday night and the
following week is the two-night World of Outlaws show. I can’t wait!
Okay, I promised to let you know what I found out about camping and the City
of Knoxville. After talking to two race fans, I was pretty wired about the
situation. So, when I hear a rumor, I go to the source or to a source that I
know will go on record with the facts. This upfront, checking out all
aspects of the situation attitude is necessary when dealing with people as a
member of the media, but it sure causes me a lot of strife in my personal
life. Anyway, I called up Knoxville Mayor Craig Kelley who was honest with
me. I told him I had heard Knoxville was going to buckle down on camping and
race fans were going to get “screwed” in the process. Which is a cleaned up
version of what I had actually heard.
Here is what’s going on. Knoxville is trying to bring in new businesses and
build new, affordable housing as we expand and grow, especially since the
opening of the four-lane highway which made Des Moines merely a hop-skip and
jump away. With those plans came a community beautification push. It’s hard
to bring new people to town if your community looks like a junkyard.
There is a city ordinance in place that states there is to be no camping
allowed within the city limits of Knoxville unless you do so at an
established campground, like at the Marion County Park, the North
campgrounds owned by the race track, etc. With this ordinance the city hopes
to eliminate those people who pull a camper into their front yard and then
have family or friends reside there for the summer with power cords, water,
etc. Craig said there is a difference between camping and residing in a
camper in your front yard all summer. I had to laugh because I have a friend
who pushes that limit.
Anyway, Craig said if an area is not brought up to specifications and city
code it can’t be used as a campground on a regular basis, example someone’s
front yard. There is ONE exception made to this rule, that is the time just
prior to and during the Knoxville Nationals. That exception is made to
attempt to accommodate the huge crowd coming to town for those races. The
exception does not, however, cover people coming to town for the two other
World of Outlaws shows.
Craig said he feels there are ample camping spots available around town
during the April and June shows. So, you are expected to camp at a real
campground during that time.
“We want people to come here for the races and have a good, safe time. We
also want them to be able to visit a nice, clean community. I drove around
the area and found 183 open camping spots during the summer Outlaw race,
last year,” Mayor Kelley said. “There is open camping available for all
races except the Knoxville Nationals and the Nationals is the only exception
to this ordinance due to the large number of people who come to our
community for the races during that time.”
If you would like to know more about this issue or would like to comment,
you may do so to Knoxville Mayor Craig Kelley at cif@harenet.net.
That’s enough for this week. If I haven’t visited your pit area yet, it’s
pretty likely I will within the next few weeks. Until next time, stay safe
and keep on turning left. I can be reached for comments (not camping issues)
at kmbell@lisco.com.
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