Ice Cream for everyone
 

All attending Lebanon Valley Divisional pts race are invited to stop by my trailer for some vanilla soft serve ice cream [sorry Tommy D.] The machine will be running from fri afternoon til i run out of mix, bring your own cup, spoon or cone.

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Can you say - YEAH!!!!

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Wooooooo Hoooooooo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Cup? Im bringing my 5 gallon bucket!!!!!!!!!!!

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If you were to bring 55 gallons of chocolate I STILL WOULD NOT SHOW UP, THAT RACE TRACK NEEDS TO BE TURNED INTO A NUCLEAR TEST SITE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Hey Tom,

Maybe if you go up there and check your float levels, you can make an explosion. Just make sure your Suzuki is parked in front of you!


P.S. I checked your shifter and it's working fine!

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Such a shame we won't be there. Ice cream and drag racing go hand and hand. To all my D-1 friends good luck and save some for the boys down south!!!!

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Hey my friend!! Don't know about saving you some, but we will eat some for you!
Miss racing with you!! Have been trying to figure out how to get back down there!!
How is your Dad & Mom??
Tell everyone I said "Hi y'all"

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Ok. Now we know Lynn has come down here and drank the water a few too many times. :)

One burning question I have had for a few months now is this. After Gary's win at Commerce, someone mentioned something about a great meal he had one night during the event. What I want to know is if the meal was at a resturant in the area? If it was, I know Gary had to take along one of the locals to act as the translator between himself and the resturant staff. From the story Gary told us in Bradenton, his speaking abilities and the processing abilities of some people in Georgia just aren't on the same level. LOL.

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Is the Ice Cream open for Div. 3 racers ??

Derek/Tom
Is the track really that bad ? ,,, I haven't told the wife yet but I was thinking of coming East and playing with you guys this weekend ,,, I don't have to take Vacation and it is about a 7.5 hour tow for me coming out of Ohio ,,,,, I used to always go to Numidia and I really liked that track when I had my small block,,,Is Leb Valley compatible with Numidia or ,, Reading etc,,,,, I might have to bring the wife and teenage grandaughters so is there any shopping or something for wife and grandaughters to do ???

Where should I stay ,, hoetl/Motel wise that is not to far from the track ,,,,,
The schedule says that everyone runs 1st round but S/G ,,,, and we don't run untill Sunday morning :(
What gives ,,,, it seems like S/G is the step child of the family in Div. 1 ,,,,,

Any info woul be appreciated ,,,,

Hope to see you guys Friday morning ,,,,,,,"My wife will just have to understand that ,, we interupt this marriage to bring you the racing season " ( I hope she doesn't read this post :)


Colorful Racer

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I made the mistake or maybe I did myself a huge favor of doing a drive-by with my wife on my way back from playing baseball at Cooperstown last month.....the area looks a little bleak.......wife certainly wasn't too impressed(she knows Epping).....I wanted to play with my stocker, had thought it might be a fun fourth for the family, but had my doubts once I saw the area.....So I am staying home, and going to have the wife compete in street class up at Epping on Saturday instead....it will be her first trip down the track, and hopefully she gets the bug.......will be good for me!

From what I can tell, your best bet for a happy family is go towards albany or down into MA on route 20. If you go down towards Mass, you might look like super-granddad, if you pony up the $ for six flags....If they like watching racing, it will not matter, as it will be a great show. Good luck.

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Hey Eddie,
I wouldn't compare it to E-town OR Numidia!! Hopefully the dirt track won't run Saturday until we are done as they put dirt on the top end. We know how well dirt on the track works with slicks and mph!! If NHRA preps the track prior to race, we might be OK. Does have a great launch but you might not get that number on your time slip! Timing system left alot to be desired the last few Opens & Divisionals held there. Are they fixed? Don't know! Haven't been there since last years Divisional!!
Yes, S/G is the stepchild of D1. They are always last in rotation and get sc**wed when time constraints arise. Most everyone is used to it - tried rotation once - got lots of people po'd!!.

On the bright side:
1) we do have a good time in the pits
2) the creek is close and VERY refreshing after a hot day
3) circle track bar is open Sat. night
4) fireworks are pretty good
5) Jeg's points & Divisional points
6) GREAT RACERS!!!!!

After this, if you do decide to make the trek, DeWitt Motel is only about 15 miles west of track. Albany about 1/2 hr - 45 min. with numerous hotels. Some quaint little towns along the way also.
See you there??

Forgot - they usually have a Racer BBQ on Sat. night! Not sure if they are this year - haven't heard anything about it.

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Hey Eddie,

Let's put it this way... Lebanon Valley is our closest NHRA track (2.5 hours). They used to have an Open and a Divisional. We stopped going there for the Open a few years back and only went there for the Divisional because of Allstar points and it's closer than Georgia.

By the time you get there you'll get parked in a dusty (and sometimes muddy) field. Of course, you'll be able to take your time unloading and teching because they don't start until 10 or so on Friday. By then the water should be seeping up through the track causing a bigger delay. But they won't realize it until they almost wreck a few Super Streeters. Then once they do get started, the timing system will start having problems, causing another hour or so of downtime.

Eventually you'll get your first time run. If you're lucky it'll be when the sun is setting directly behind the tree so if you're in the right lane you can't see the tree, or anything for that matter until you're about halfway through the shutdown area. The shutdown area is quite short, mind you, and down the end there's a gravel pile before a concrete barrier with a road on the other side of it. Then you can make the turn onto the return road. If your car turns better than mine, you may be able to make the turn without having to make a three-point turn to avoid the curb.

Because they're running late, Super Gas will get their time run bumped Friday night to make room for their 4th of July spectacular. If we're lucky the fireworks guys will light the scoreboards on fire again. That makes for an excellent show.

Saturday morning is a suggested 8:00AM start time and usually by then things are rolling pretty good. Well, until the timing system acts up again. By the way, I hope you really didn't want ALL of your incrementals, especially the 60'. We'll get our time run and be done for the day by noon time. Then they hurry everyone else through to try and beat the start time for the dirt track that is literally adjacent to the return road right at the finishline of the dragstrip. This would be a good time to lock up everything you own and put everything in the trailer for the night. As the former track manager announced one night.. "This would be a good time to put away your belongings because our neighbors seem to like our stuff more than we like our stuff." I can vouch for that, too. My brother had his street car there a few years back because he had driven out from school and had it broken into and his book of about 500 CD's stolen out of it. I think that was the year before one of the racers saw someone driving away with his generator in the back of a truck, got in his truck and trailed him to a campground down the road, called the cops and they busted them with a whole pile of generators, coolers, chairs, grilles, etc.

Sunday morning has a nice gentle 10AM start. Which is good because it normally takes a few hours to get all the dirt off the track. But don't think about sitting in the stands on Sunday, unless that is you bring something to wipe the dirt off first with. Usually SG isn't first as scheduled because they had to at least bump SST and sometimes SS off of Saturday's schedule because they're running behind and need to get the alcohol final in before there's too much dirt on the track. Then it takes forever to run the race there, despite the alcohol cars being done on Saturday, and we wrap things up around 6-7PM on Sunday night.

And in terms of shopping, restaurants, etc, there isn't too much around there, save for a grocery store about 5 miles down the road and a little pizza joint. There is one permanent bathroom on the facility, which will be pretty much as far away as you can get from where you're parked. And it's not the nicest set of bathrooms, that's for sure. They usually look like someone at least cleaned them at the beginning of the season.

But besides that, the place is great! ;-) At least Federico will have ice cream... And after that much typing, I think I was channeling Oldfield...

Later!
.............. Mike

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HEHEHE!!
Forgot about the year the scoreboards caught fire!!!

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Mike , Lynn , Eric

Thanks much for the info , straight scoop , hotel , and entertainment for the grandkids ( If they decide to come )----- Right now I'm not sure if I'm coming or not ,,,,, I'll know more tonight after I brake the news to the family that I'm thinking of going racing this weekend vs cooking ribs and celebrating the 4th at home :)


Colorful Racer

Re: Ice Cream for everyone
 

Your welcome to BBQ with us if you decide to come!!!
Extended family!
Tom is even looking like your brother!!!

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Lynn ,,,,, Looking like my brother ,,,,, ITFLMAO !!!

You mean Colorful # 2 :)

Colorful # 1

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Eddy
Dont worry about Lebanon Valley cause you have raced at worse in Div 3. Place reminds me of Milan or Quaker Silly without the hill to start line.LOL

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Hey Mike that pretty much sums it up! Thats why I'm going to Lake George for the weekend! I still think it would make a great nuclear test site! Good luck to all !!

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Wow i was all excited to go until i read mikes post

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Ah, don't let me scare you... That's just a collection of some of the fun times we've had in the Valley over the years.. That's not stuff that happens every year. Besides if you don't go, you won't have any stories of your own to share.

And I didn't even get to mention the usually constant headwind and the go-kart track that makes your eyes burn the next morning...

And just as an FYI, the doorway over at the Speedway bar, is *just* too narrow to fit a golf cart through. Even after a dozen beers or so, when it seems like a good idea, it still just won't fit. Believe me, I've witnessed a few attempts.

See everyone there... Let's have some fun. :D

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We have fun where ever we go! Its the racers that make it a great time not the tracks! I have raced at some pretty rough tracks so im used to it. See you all there!!!!!

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Eddie,

If you can afford the hotels in the Cooperstown area (I live 20 miles down the road from it), then please think about sponsoring my comp car-it'll be a lot cheaper than going to Cooperstown to play baseball.

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After reading Mike's post why do we keep going there for a D-1 race. We have plenty of nice tracks around the D-1 area that already have races and deserve another date or tracks that don't have dates and are well deserving of getting a race. Everytime we go up to the "Valley" we hear stories of failed timing systems, the dirt track putting dirt on the top end, water coming up through the track and wrecking a few cars. We went back in the early 90's and after 2 trips up there we added that track along with Atlanta Dragway to tracks we will never go to again. I will tell you one thing if I had never gone to that track before and was on the fence as to if I was going to go after that post I would have fired up the BBQ grill and called it a weekend. I think we have a track like Numidia which used to hold a D-1 race back in the day chomping at the bit to hold a D-1 race and yes they do need to update the guardrails to the concrete barriers and maybe a few more things but we would be better off there then at L. Valley. It would suck for the guys up in New Hamp, Mike and Ray in Mass., Conn..etc. to have to drive as much as they would have to but, I'd rather go to a track that I know I'm safe at and my stuff is not going to get stolen (of course many people probally thought the same about Norwalk).

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I have to say Mike that was a pretty impressive post. I don't think anyone has typed that much since, well, me! It's amazing how the words fly off your fingertips when you've REALLY got something to say, isn't it?

Eddie - Lebanon Valley certainly isn't Route 66. The pits definitely leave something to be desired, but so do Maple Grove and Columbus. I guess I would say just be prepared to have your stuff get dusty...unless it rains then its muddy. But, it's better than the alternative (not racing), right?

I've never experienced any thefts there, but maybe it has gotten worse over the last couple of years. This is a rural area of NY, not Cleveland where all the hoodlums hang out. ;)

All that said, if possible I would pick a different race to take the wife to unless she likes the races because there really isn't much around there. Like I said above, it's a rural area of NY.

If you go, have fun, and good luck to everyone out there!

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Glad I decided to stay home . ....sounds like a repete of several years ago, heavy rain and not enough drainage equal a crash by the first pair of SuperStreet cars to go down the track! ....Eddie, I hope you decided to stay home and barbeque! .....hppefully no one else has to sacrifice their equipment to this s**t hole......Tom

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I am home this weekend hanging out with friends, Building a Swing Set for my son and not thinking twice about that Lebanon....HATE IT!

I would have won the ALLSTARS in 2005 by teching at LV
I would have won the ALLSTARS in 2007 by teching and going 1 round at LV
I STILL AM NOT GOING!

F**K that hole, lets see when the people from Pinks at LV would have rather handed the keys over to their car than run down that surface, doesn't that tell ya something....and besides it is a holiday weekend. Think of all the BBQ's you miss by going there.

HEY NHRA D1 (Dave Mohn, Bob Lang).....I know you are reading this.......GET RID OF THIS RACE.....lets have it ANYWHERE ELSE have 2 divisonals at MG like Atco has...... or maybe 3 races at Atco.(maybe a different weekend) Delmar was better than this dump

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sounds like a nice place........

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Tom,

Who crashed? I'm assuming everyone is OK?

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Heard it was Annalice Lachappel , sorry ,I'm not sure of the spelling. ... She's been racing S/ST for several years. ......Rock, Chris hits the nail on the head when it comes to this place. ..... When we first came here, Vince Barletta did a great job trying to make it a good track, but after his death several years ago the track reverted to the owners, whos prime interest and money maker is the dirt oval track. ......

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Someone needs to come up with an answer to this "water weeping up" problem that is happening more today than at anytime in all the years I've been racing. I was at Lebanon Valley a few times and had no problems at all there. My dragster loved the place and I went 4 or 5 rounds at the first race I attended there. That same year for the Lucas race was the one where Mark Butler crashed his S/ST car and that was just plain ugly and it took most of the day to get a decent dry track. Island dragway is now having this water weeping problem pretty often and I read about it happening at Norwalk and again at Lebanon Valley. We have also sat for quite a while at Maple Grove for the same issue... ........I like that L.V. race, we have a lot of fun up there if the weather behaves but I too am VERY glad I did not go this weekend.........

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I went ,,, 8 hour tow !!!

Had a great time for the exception of Running 9.895 in the second round ( took to much stripe - .05 , still getting use to driving the stripe with the big block ! )

Met the Ice Cream maker , Made a new friend from Jersey ( WMS Racing :) , saw a lot of old friends !!

Over all the track is not that bad , as someone had posted previously , I've run on worst , the shut down is longer than Norwalk , they gave me a great Pit spot with the T/S racers , the racers wer great the hotel was expensive , and overall I would go again if the Div. 1 guys wasn't so tough on out of Divison racers :)

The best part is if you go and read Mike Sawyer's post he almost describe the weekend to the T in advance !!

Thanks all you Div. 1 folks for making me feel really welcome ,, I'll see you at the Sportsman or Maple Grove .

Colorful Racer

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Oh !!

And they even put a picture of my car on Drag Racing Central ,,,, now only if I could have went 2 or 3 rounds per the plan to pick up some points on the Div. 3 racers :)


Colorful Racer

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Glad you came out to "play" with us Eddie!!

AnnaLise is OK. Sore as expected, car not too good. She is definitely sidelined for awhile. Of course, it was stated right after her crash that she blew her motor. Think the same was said when Mark crashed. Mark's car was totally trashed unfortunately, but AnnaLise was able to have her "blown motor" DRIVEN back to her trailer!!! Guess no one wanted to tell the truth except the racers.
Water seeping is an issue for alot of tracks. Difference is, most of them try to correct it in some type of fashion. NOTHING gets done at Lebanon! Put in a PVC drain where it seeps or something! I'm no engineer, but think there should be a way to control this issue up there.

Now, to the original part of this thread - THANK YOU GARY !!!! The ice cream was FANTASTIC!!!!

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The Ice Cream was yummy, I needed that "pick me up" on Sat, after such a wasted day, and having to sit in the blazing sun soon after they called it, lol

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I cant help myself so I'm gonna say this about the water problems we sometimes see, and like Lynn said, its not just at LVD...I've raced at LVD for about 30 years, so I have some experiences to look back at...I've raced on Saturdays and Sundays after a rain the night before and have never seen the problems we seem to experience at the Divisionals and Opens there...

I was out early looking at the track Friday am...

All of the Div 1 Big Cheeses were out walking the track, along with the track operator...

All of the Div 1 Big Cheeses said the track was safe and ready to race on...

It obviously wasnt...

So why is it the tracks fault ? Yes there is sometimes a water issue with the track...
But if there is an issue (and its not the first time) why did the Big Cheeses says it was ok to race on it ?
Are they not the Team we look to, to run a safe event ? I seriously doubt that the track operator has the power to over ride a safety decision made by the Team...
Whose decision was it to go and spray and prep the track with water still rising out of it ?

All of you can bash the track and its operator all you want, but I'll remind us of a similar situation a few year back at Cecil County, where it rained at night and the Team sent us (S/G) out the next morning, and after a few pairs of cars slipped, spun and slid down the track , a well known racer parked his car on the track and refused to go down...only then did the Team stop the race and decide the track had water coming up and stopped the race...I'm thinking it was the same Big Cheeses that sent us down the track at LVD....

Just my .02......


AND by the way, ICE CREAM was fantastic Gary, you da man....thanks again !!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Dave , you raced there for 30 years, DAMN YOUR OLD !!!!!.

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yea yea...i feel old too...

Actually my first time down the track there was I think 1974...so maybe a little more than 30 !!!

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:confused:WOW Dave..I was just learning to ride me skate board around the neighborhood....:confused:

Derek

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Couple things to say. Thanks so much for the great ice cream Gary, I have to agree that you are the man. Second, Derek, how long did it take you to chisel those stone wheels for your prehistoric skateboard? HAHAHAHA!!!!!!