Diary of a mad, mad Milk Bowl motorsports journalist

Milk Bowl weekend coverage presented by Mansfield Heliflight

Nothing like a long day at the office. Or, a long day in the storage shed of the pit area at Thunder Road during the 45^th running of the Milk Bowl.

Some days I wonder how I live with myself. Now you can try and figure out for yourself how I manage.

Here’s a day in the life of a Milk Bowl reporter on a drizzly autumn Sunday in Barre, Vt.:

 

6:15 a.m. – Wake up panicked. Sure I’ve slept through my alarm. Black room. Clock is broken.

My cell phone tells me what time it is. Given the disaster finding anything "wireless" in this little town set back about three decades, I’m amazed there’s cell service.

I’ve got a couple of hours yet.

7:05 a.m. – I woke up again. Deep breath, resolve to sleep a solid hour.

7:40 a.m. – Nice try.

8:10 a.m. – I give up. Check e-mail, shower, get dressed. Pack up.

Gotta love the one-night stays.

9:15 a.m. – At least you can find Vitamin Water in this town.

9:54 a.m. – Pulling into Thunder Road. What’s that familiar sound in the distance? That would be the jet dryer from New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It rained all night, but remarkably the place looks just like it did when I got here on Saturday for Milk Bowl qualifying day.

I’m getting used to this feeling. Everywhere I go this season, it rains. I’ve heard that NHMS jet dryer way, way too much in 2008. I feel like it’s starting to follow me around. Actually, I guess it sort of is...

Heavy overcast skies at Thunder Road. Fog shrouding the mountains in the distance. Glints of light streaming through off to the west. And, miracle of all miracles, dry race track.

Maybe it’s true, I’m starting to think. Maybe Tom Curley really did sell his soul to the devil years ago....

10:15 a.m. – I just realized that Ricky Rolfe is wearing a Kevin Harvick Inc. cap.

Talk about a guy who sold his soul – gave away all the information he had about Oxford Plains Speedway, only to watch Harvick dominate the Oxford 250 this summer. Ricky’s vowing for no media coverage in 2009.

Best of all, Rolfe said he actually had to buy the hat when he was on vacation and driving through the Carolinas.

Ricky Rolfe fun fact: He’s an Oakland Athletics fan.

Ricky Rolfe fun fact #2: Something happened in 1972. You’ll have to ask him yourself.

10:40 a.m. – The pre-race drivers’ meeting has finally broken up, 40 minutes after starting.

Gee whiz, talk about a guy who loves to hear his own voice. What is Curley saying today that he hasn’t said about a thousand times over in the last, oh, I don’t know, let’s just throw a number out here – 25 years?

11:20 am. – Head out the gate to grab the aforementioned Vitamin Water and a Monster Energy – yes, Tristan, I buy it by the case – from the car. Then, of course, I remember that I left my keys in my bag, back in the press box.

My wife, of course, isn’t going to be surprised by this turn of events.

So I trudge back up the hill (Who built this thing in the side of a mountain, anyway, for crying out loud? Curley? Was this his idea of a sick joke?) to get the keys, then hike on out to the parking lot for the drinks.

And back up the hill to the press box.

11:35 a.m. – I should have brought the sunscreen. Yeah, I know. I said, "Sun." It’s out.

11:37 a.m. – Ladies and gentlemen, the sun has left the building.

11:55 a.m. – Short of breath and morning caffeine now burned off, I find Bobby Dragon.

If anyone can tell me Milk Bowl stories, surely its Vermont’s elder racing statesman. Wouldn’t you know it, we end up telling Oxford 250 stories.

12:10 p.m. – TC himself assures me the skies are clear until 3. I’m holding him to that.

12:32 p.m. – Still practicing.

And practicing.

Who needs this much practice? They’re just Crate Models, for crying out loud. I thought they were supposed to drive themselves.

12:32:30 p.m. – I just ducked when Andy B. hucked something at my head from the turn four hill.

How does he find this stuff online so fast?

12:41 p.m. – Curley was wrong. It’s raining.

12:53 p.m. – Ran into Steve Reny, who has designs on joining with Mike Harnish to start a combo Super Late Model/Late Model tour in Maine.

1:35 p.m. – Several bands of light showers have rolled through the area.

Hey, where did those mountains overlooking turn 3 go, anyway?

1:47 p.m. – Reny just stopped talking, but only because his wife threatened to leave him. Literally.

2:05 p.m. – There’s a direct correlation between how hard it’s raining and how many "media" members start crowding into the covered press area at Thunder Road.

The formula is about three media members for every minute of rainfall.

  2:06 p.m. – I’m in trouble now. New Hampshire Motor Speedway general manager Jerry Gappens just accused me of being the reason for the rain.

"It rains everywhere you go, right?" he asked me.

I guess he reads the blog.

(Note to Jerry: Uh, I was just kidding about the elephants?)

2:13 p.m. – This Curley character may be a whale of a race promoter, but a meteorologist he’s not.

The Milk Bowl’s last-chance qualifier is halted on lap 14 by, you guessed it! – rain.

2:39 p.m. – Last-chance racers are under the green again.

2:55 p.m. – Know what I hate? I hate those reporters that take a break from stick and ball high school sports to cover two races a year, and then immediately anoint themselves as "the expert" on racing when they do show up.

You know who you are.

3:20 p.m. – Ken Squier begins driver introductions for the 45^th annual Milk Bowl.

3:36 p.m. – Drivers fire engines for Milk Bowl.

3:39 p.m. – Green flag flies on first segment.

3:52 p.m. – Sometime in the middle of the first segment, Squier finally reads off the final name on his driver introduction list.

3:58 p.m. – Brad Leighton says he’d old. And forgetful. And that’s why he plans to get even with Cris Michaud before the Milk Bowl is over.

4:25 p.m. – ACT pr man Justin St. Louis and I have different ideas about what "wireless internet" is.

To me, it’s Wi-Fi. To him, it’s an air card. I don’t have an air card; there’s not a Wi-Fi hot spot within 650 miles of Barre.

So, this is how the day goes.

I write a blog entry in the press box, then unplug the laptop and trudge through the masses, down the hill to the pit area. I duck into the storage shed at the bottom of the handicapper’s tower in turn one – home to the only live phone line on the grounds.

I set the laptop on top of about 100 bags of speedy dry and fire up the old dial-up connection.

I post that Patrick Laperle has won the first segment, and a bit about Leighton vowing revenge on Michaud.

4:40 p.m. – By the time I hit save on my post. Leighton appears to have lost his chance at revenge. He’s crashed on lap 2 of segment No. 2.

4:43 p.m. – Run back up the hill to the press box. Jean Paul Cabana is in my seat.

I gladly defer to the two-time Milk Bowl champ.

5:20 p.m. – Rinse. Repeat.

5:30 p.m. – A small gaggle of media members actually clap when they learn that the Yankees beat the Red Sox in game one of a doubleheader.

Sad, how Yankee fans have become like old-school Sox fans – cheering when their team wins meaningless games over a junior varsity lineup because it’s all they’ve got left.

I remind them that the Sox are – ahem! – heading to the playoffs.

5:40 p.m. – My head is starting to hurt. All this math, trying to figure out finishing positions and projected point totals.

Now I know why my parents insisted on a well-rounded education. I’m a writer, dammit, I should be bothered with such trivial things as "math."

You know, you’d never have this problem in a Super Late Model race. One guy would just win by a straightaway start to finish, and call it good. No segments. No points. No aggregate totals.

6:10 p.m. – Patrick Laperle cried and then kissed a cow.

For most of us, I realize that it usually works in reverse.

I would cry after I kissed a cow. Then I would likely be stumbling home, inebriated, and wondering where my love life went so awry.

6:11 p.m. – Scott Payea looks like he could cry, too. Just lost the ACT title by a point to Laperle, and he’s already wishing he’d gained one or two positions in heat races at some point during the season.

6:12 p.m. – Michaud just broke the world record for four-letter words used in a 60-second interview with seven. That’s more than one every 10 seconds.

Well done.

I’m no therapist, but I think the relationship between Leighton and Michaud is beyond repair.

6:15 p.m. – It’s pouring. Raining so hard I can’t even read the words I’m writing.

But what I can see is the most unusual snack tray ever. Hood is off Eric Williams car in the tech area, and sitting on top of the radiator is a tray of crackers, cheese and sandwich meat.

Nice touch. Look out for the axle grease.

6:30 p.m. – Just set up my press box away from the press box in the storage shed to finish up some stories.

8:12 p.m. – The Milk Bowl has been over for two hours, and I’m wrapping up for the day. Nothing like a nice little four and a half hour drive through the mountains to look forward to now.

10:50 p.m. – After two days of torrential rains, the last thing you want to see in the pitch black of a back road is a construction sign reading, "Caution. Falling Rocks."

Right?

12:48 a.m. (Monday) – I slink into the house, hoping not to wake my wife.

When I get upstairs, she sitting straight up in bed, arms folded over her chest and madder than a hornet in a shaking jar full of tacks.

"Where did you sneak off to this weekend?" she demands. "I called and called and called. No answer. Where the heck were you?"

She doesn’t believe there’s no service in Barre. Who would?

Comments

[Norm]

Awesome post!

Nobody ever really realizes just how much effort it takes to cover an event like that to the level that you do...

It's not all fun and games either...

Had to be an experience talking to Cris and Brad after that race....

I've had some interviews like that...

Usually those are the ones that get erased by the selfcensor....And I've been thanked before by the driver for not printing some of what was said...

I figure the sport has enough problems without adding some more...JMO.. but whatever....(thats just me)...

There's surely a ton of work involved... and it has to be tireing... even for a young man like yourself....

Good job TB!... thanks for the extra special effort this weekend and sharing a day in the life!!!

From TB:

Thanks, Norm.

Interesting take on how we all walk away from interviews. I hold myself to a single standard -- hey, it may not be pretty, but it should be reported.

Corny as it sounds, we're the voice for the fans sitting in the stands. They all saw Brad and Cris wreck, and they were all buzzing about it, too. We all want to know what they think about what happened -- and as a journalist, I have the opportunity to go ask and put it out there.

Funny, too, I don't think it hurts short track racing at all. In fact, I think it's good for it -- why do we all prefer short track racing to cookie-cutter Sprint Cup racing? Because of all the emotion. Warts and all, that's what makes it so great.

I truly believe that to be the case, and it's why I've chosen to make my living this way.

TB

[The Backstretch]

Ah, the Cow. TMI bud. And I think there's about three vitamin waters rolling around in my backseat. Thanks.

From TB:

Can you overnight those to me? I'm running a little low, and this "internet journalism" thing isn't exactly lucrative right now, you know?

[Tristan]

I almost got quoted by the Great TB. Maybe next time...

Hey, I heard that right before that last segment, Leighton came over the radio and said that he was going checkers or wreckers for the win since he had such a bad day and he was starting pole. He said something about nobody getting in his way. I guess Michaud didn't get that message?

From TB:

There is nothing great about TB. Just a guy trying to find his way, is all...

Better story: Leighton told me he'd get Michaud back before the day was over, info was relayed to Michaud, Michaud still went for it. I love it. Tell me, really, what's better than short track racing with strong personalities like that?

Good to see you guys this weekend. You've got a great family, man. Awesome little tikes.

[steve reny]

Trav I guess amy doesnt scare you like she does me did you see the "look"

[Mike Lange]

I was fortunate enough to see two Milk Bowls when a driver won all three segments: Robbie Crouch and Dave Dion.
The track is really something else. They had a couple of Busch North races there which were televised on TNT - Tracy Gordon won one of them. The coverage was unbelievable. It looked like they were running on a superspeedway.

[Ricky Rolfe]

1972 The year of champions.Hey Travis,don`t forget fun fact #3 either we all have`em or no one has`em.

From TB:

Who could forget something like that?

[Tristan]

You've got to love the fire those guys have. It was the last race of the year for most, if not all, of them and they put on a hell of a show.

Thanks. I'm sure we will run into you at Wiscasset this weekend. Hopefully you don't bring the rain with you this time!