It’s that time again. It’s qualifying night for the 53rd Annual Knoxville Nationals in Knoxville, Iowa. Four days of intense sprint car racing out among the corn fields. If you’re into racing, this is an event you should experience at least once.
Photo courtesy of the world wide web.
I had breakfast this morning in Knoxville with Tom and his sister and her husband. It’s been a few years, so it was great seeing them again, and I was glad that I didn’t depart earlier.
Since Knoxville Raceway had called off Saturday’s races, I had a lot of free time on Saturday. In the end I repacked The Rover, then went over all fluid levels. Everything looked good, nothing required a topping off. I’m still getting used to this new concept. Knock on aluminum.
After breakfast, I headed north up I-35 towards Minneapolis. The drive was uneventful other than the standard Rover Gawkers. I thought one kid was going to climb out of the back window of the car and onto The Rover’s wing.
The Rover purred along in the cool air and I found it easy to cruise at 63-65 the entire drive. Several times I looked down to see the speed above 70, and twice it hit 75. I dropped her down even though the engine didn’t feel like it was working hard at all. It was the substantial tailwind; it pushed us up the interstate like we had a large sail attached.
Home of the world famous Kone Korner!
A nice, easy drive today. After pushing the truck hard yesterday, I had only 158 miles to do today. I took it easy, keeping the speed at 60 or slightly less, and in the cool air The Rover purred along. In fact, my restraint allowed us to hit a new Turner record of 18.87 mpg.
The new display at the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum of the Big Al Murie modified stock car that ran in Kansas City in 1960-61.
Note the faux grain woodwork done with a standard 2″ brush. It’s an impressive display.
It was a fun night at Knoxville with some good racing. I always enjoy coming back to Knoxville to catch up with some very good friends and hopefully take in a race.
Sammy Swindell passed Brian Brown on lap 15 and held on for his 48th career win at Knoxville Raceway.
After doing the pre-run check on The Rover prior to leaving The Puddle in Kansas, the host paid me a visit. I guess the camping around “The Racetrack” was free, and the host encouraged me to stay 4-5 days to “enjoy the place”. He was genuinely disappointed to hear I would be driving off within minutes. Nice guy, somewhere in his 80’s, and I sort of felt bad dissing his park, but it went away as I tried to check the rear diff fluid level and not get stuck by broken glass.
When I started up again, it was still 88 degs and by the time I hit Stockton, KS it had dropped down to 77, but The Rover ran well.
I met up with two whitetails on Hwy 183 with a death wish. I should have nailed one with each wing, but the high beams allowed me to stop in time and the deer simply blinked at me in the bright lights. I kept going until I approached Kearney and I-80, where I pulled over for the rest of the night.
The trek across Nebraska & Iowa went easily in the drastically cooler air. I did hit a cross-headwind in NE that kept me from being able to use the overdrive which drove my mileage down to 11. In general however, it varied from 12-14, which is what it did the previous year. Still… Disappointing & not what I’m looking for.
West of Des Moines, I man came up to me while getting gas and asked where in Alaska I was from. When I told him, he said he had lived in Valdez. Then he went on to ask me if I knew several people up in Alaska, and was taken aback when I claimed to know none of them. I then confessed that “I was a bit misanthropic,” which only confused him further, but he continued to talk to me.
More Black & White from Iowa.
A few shots from the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum, and one of The Track.
