New Series, New Track, New Season!

Last evening I put together a web site for a friend of mine who has created a brand new racing series. The Ozark Mountain Midget Series will be coming soon to a track in the midwest. This is a Sportsman Midget Series and is a spin-off of the Illini Racing Series. Check out the site, which is bare-bones at the moment, and watch for updates and changes. This should be a very exciting and groundbreaking series.

While working on line, I saw an email come in from our buddy Rich Edwards in Arnold, Mo. He got the chance to go for a plane ride and do some practice shooting with his new Pentax K100D of the construction going on at Tri-City Speedway in Pontoon Beach, IL. Nice guy that he is, Rich shared the photos with us and gave permission for us to share them with you. Enjoy!

Of all the lamb excuses...

We've all done it, right? We've been invited to do something or go somewhere, and we don't really want to go, so we make up some silly excuse to get out of it. No harm, no foul, nobody's feelings get hurt.

Well last Friday I called up Spring to see if I could take her out to lunch for her birthday. I couldn't get her at home or on her cell, so I left a message. A few minutes later, I got a text messaging asking, "What's up?"

When I responded, letting her know what I had in mind, she replied that she would love to, but the only way she could do lunch was if I brought it to her because she couldn't leave the house. Finally, we caught up with each other long enough to verbally communicate what was going on.

As it turns out, one of Spring's sheep had given birth to triplets Monday night. Of the two boys and one girl, the Momma really only wanted to take care of one, so the other two were getting shoved aside. One was bad enough that it had to be brought into the house to get warmed up and so they could attempt bottle feeding.

City girl that I am, this was something I just had to see, so I stopped at the Bread Company (where else would I go?), picked up soup and salads, and headed up the highway to Spring's house. When I got there, sweet Sadie greeted me at the door with lots of excitement, jumping up on me and passing out licks.

We had lunch and visited for a bit and then it was time to go see this little miracle of miracles.


I grew up in the suburbs, but I've been to Grant's Farm and fed the goats, ridden horses, seen cows up close and personal, but never before had I seen a less-than-a-week-old lamb. My goodness, how adorable he was! Little Cisco looked like a stuffed animal all curled up in his wicker laundry basket. He was laying on a heating pad in front of a space heater to try and get warm and didn't respond to us much when we stroked him or said his name. Even Sadie tried to help by licking the top of his head and nuzzling his ears.

It was feeding time for the little lamby-pie, so Spring went and heated up a special formula and put it in a small glass Coke bottle with a rubber nipple. She showed me how to hold it and get Cisco interested. He was interested all right! That little guy almost polished off the whole bottle in no time, and once he did, it was amazing how fast he got energized!

Before long, there was no keeping him in the basket or even in a big cardboard box. Instead, he followed me around the dining room (the song "Mary had a little lamb" kept going through my head the whole time) and exploring the house and the cat. His tiny hooves made the cutest little clopping sound on the hardwood floor! It was really something to see and I just couldn't stop taking pictures of the little guy. He finally settle down after quite a bit of wandering, and just nodded off in a corner of the room.

What a fun day it was for me as I got to make friends with Cisco!

Dirt Track Divas Dare to Dream

Things are starting to look up around here now that we've broken out of our Arctic freeze and shaken the ice off the thermometer. I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to get warm anywhere but under my electric blanket.

We spent last Sunday at Spring and Randy's watching the Daytona 500 and pigging out on all kinds of down home comfort food. Spring cooked up some fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans and slaw which we washed down with some kind of fabulous punch. We topped the whole calorie-fest off with hunks of a specialty cake that my daughter made to look like the finish line with Junior crossing in front. (Hence the "dream" part of this title.) That was for Spring, who is a Junior fan. I was, of course, cheering for Tony, who made a great showing and should have won the darned thing. Once he was out, I took to cheering for Mark Martin, and we all know how that turned out. Oh well, don't ever take me to Vegas!

So now I'm starting to think that racing season will eventually get here, and I'm really excited. We already have credentials in place for several events, and I am working on getting them for a few more. It will be a busy summer, which is fine with me. The more time I spend chasin' racin', the less time I will spend mourning the fact that my oldest will head off to college in the fall. Yikes!

For now, I am working on a web site for the newly formed Ozark Mountain Midget Series which is a Midget racing series for low-budget racers. Our buddy Dustin has been working his tail off for ages to put this thing together and it's looking really good. He also let me know that he will be racing a Sprint Car on Friday nights this season, and I know he is excited. Congrats, Dustin!

Girls Gone Racin' is the official photographer of the OMMS, and we look forward to this new venture.

In other news, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. who drives Brent's Midget won two USAC events, both Sprint and Silver Crown, while out west. Way to go, Ricky! We have asked Brent if we can ride along sometime this season to see just what goes into a race weekend, and we're going to try and figure out when we can do it.


Saturday is Spring's birthday so drop her a note when you get the chance. We'll be going out with a bunch of other gals for a true "girls's night out" which should be a lot of fun. I'll be sure to bring my camera...

Wake me up when the engines start!

Yes, I know it must seem as if this blog has been in hibernation mode, and I guess maybe it has, but that does not mean that I've been sleeping for the past two weeks. Not by a long shot!

In all actuality, work has been keeping me busy. Usually this time of year, we can kind of kick back and coast for a while, but there has actually been a lot going on in the racing world. Of course, none of it is anywhere near me, so I've had to settle for watching some of the NASCAR hype and wondering why in the world anyone still gets caught up in it. Maybe this time of year it's a bit more understandable because there is no real racing going on, but in two months, NASCAR will definitely be on the back burner as we head into dirt track season.

With that in mind, you just never know where you might find interesting motorsports stuff this time of year. Thanks to my friend Ron, I learned about the Shifting Gears exhibit at the Missouri History Museum. Yestereday my Dad and I headed off to see it, and we had a good time.

The exhibit features cars that were manufactured in St. Louis. It is amazing how many automobile manufacturers were here over the years and how diverse the styles of cars. We saw cars made by Dorris, Moon and many others on display. Most of the cars had been painstakingly restored and were absolutely beautiful. I was surprised by how big some of them were too. The 1924 Dorris (pictured above) on display had to be at least as long as the modern Suburban! The front bumper on this car reminded me of Lizzie's smile in the move Cars.

There was also an area devoted to auto racing, which I found to be particularly intriguing. The trophy on display was intricately detailed and I can only imagine the pride of the driver to whom it was presented. One of the descriptions of a race, which started at night, described the track as being lit by hundreds of gas-powered torches. Can you imagine? No Musco lighting in those days, that's for sure!

I also enjoyed the display of "motoring togs" that were popular in the early 1900s. The first photo in the blog is an example of one of those styles. Her goggles are lined in purple fur! I think she is quite elegant, but I can't imagine having to get into all that gear just to run to the mall.

There was another section with information about motoring safety and how new laws had to be enacted as automobiles evolved. At one point, the speed limit in St. Louis was 8 mph. This left us with an intriguing question: How did the cops know if someone was speeding? They certainly didn't have radar guns, in the driver's defense, there were no speedometers! Sounds like a slick way of padding the coffers of city government to me.

All in all, this is a small but interesting display. There are only about a dozen or so cars on display, but the exhibit is open to the public, and free, so the price is right. It runs through March 31, 2007.

The Motorsports Zone Radio Show Returns for 5th Season

Our friends at The Motorsports Zone are gearing up for their fifth season on the air. Here's what's in store for 2007:

Courtesy: Chuck Licata

AUSTIN, Texas -- The Motorsports Zone radio show (KVET-AM 1300, Austin, TX) will return Saturday, Feb. 10, 2007 at 10 a.m. for a fifth season of broadcast.

Chuck Licata, who started the show with former co-host Ric Clark, will return to host the show. Licata, co-owner of K-MAC Sports Productions of Austin (an online broadcast company), will be joined by a “rotation” of co-hosts for this season.

KVET-AM 1300, known as “The Zone,” is the flagship station for University of Texas athletics. Steaming of all Zone programming can be found at the station’s web site, www.am1300thezone.com.

“This is going to be a great season for the show,” Licata said. “We’re going to continue to grow the show. This season, we’re going to bring in different co-hosts in anticipation of different racing events. The co-hosts all have different ‘strengths’ that cover the wide variety of racing topics.”

The rotating co-hosts will include “BA” otherwise known as Brian in Austin; Bobby Chaffee, Ric Clark and Dawn Murphy, all of San Antonio; and “Zippy,” also from Austin.

Licata will be joined by Chaffee March 2-3 at the Pro-Cuts Dirt Track Championships at Texas Motor Speedway, where the duo will broadcast the show live from the TMS Dirt Track.

The Motorsports Zone is also available for replay, 24/7, on www.kmacsports.com. Listeners just need to click on “The MZone” logo on the web site.

Listerners can call into the radio show to share their thoughts and opinions at 512.390.LIVE (5483).