Don't Know if anyone....

[Blu]

heard this, but, I have a guy that I talk with on another web site that drives the NBC Sports/Featherlite Transporter to the NASCAR races. Man...Id LOVE that job!!

He works for Featherlite ,and takes care of any probs with any Featherlite transporters. Anyways..he posted this last night and I hadnt heard anything about it.


"Here's some news most of you might not here about. Someone robbed the cash box at the speedway(Kansas) tonight while we were stricking down the network camp. This was about 500 feet from our fenced in area. The news said a cop was shot and in critical condition and that they had 2 suspects in costody.

Thoughts and prayers go out to the officer and his family. Shame that something like this can take place.

Also, I don't know how many of you might have seen this but they had a fairly serious grass fire behind the track right at the start of the race from the pirotechnics. The fire department did a great job containing things but I'm not sure if there was any damage done to any real property.

A few tidbits from the race behind the scene."

[Blu]

Also..if anyone was watching Speed they might have heard that Bill Elliot could not unload his car Friday and this is in response to that.

"There was a lift gate on a competeter's trailer close to me that fell off the rear of the truck yesturday. Thier reputation is slightly stained in the cup garage now.lol That wasn't a pretty site.

I've been spending more time in the garage area lately and getting to meet some of the more "serious" members of Nascar that I'll be dealing with next year."

"OK guyt's heres the scoop. It was the team that Bill E was driveing for. It was more or less an exibition thing designed to get the team some exposer from BIG E's name. But it was the car Bill was going to drive haul by one of me copanies competeters.

Shanon, I could show you with a pic much better but there is a steel sqaure rod across the rear of the lift assebly that acts as a hinge for the aluminium gate. I'm not sure how they attached thier gate to this but it came appart. They backed this trailer rear to rear of another trailer and unloaded the car, then made the repair. Hope all that made sence. But I didn't have to mess with it. The next day they had all kinds of people from thier company out here makeing a repair.lol Had it been a featherlite trailer they would have had factory service on site and not had to call in someone. But we've never had a lift gate come appart like that either.lol(obvious shot here)"


Ive included here a couple of pics of Dave and his rig thought you all might enjoy it.
If anyone  is at the track look Dave up and tell him "Blu from the site" says HI!

Heres an explanation of sorts of what he does exactly...he's only had this job for about 2 months now, but MAN, am I envious!!

 That trailer houses the offices and some of the monitors for the TV production crew. It also carries most of the hand held cameras that are used in the pits during the race. It is a shared broadcast system for TNT and NBC, since they are sharing the broadcasting in the latter part of the NASCAR season. Early in the season when FOX was doing the broadcasting, this same trailer was used, but it had different decals on it. This trailer is one of, I think he said, 6 trailers that get set up together to produce the TV broadcast from the track back to the network. Dave can explain it better than I can.

This is only a temporary job for Dave, he will be driving a different rig and have a different job next year after one of the other drivers retires. Right now, this trailer gets set up outside the track, and Dave is in charge of taking care of the Featherlite trailers outside the track, such as all of the vendor units that sell the T-shirts, etc. Next year he is supposed to be driving the Featherlite display trailer and servicing all of the trailers inside the pits. Yes, that means the car haulers used by the race teams. He says the main job is keeping the AC units running properly in those rigs. He said at the Fontana race with a 110 degree air temperature, they kept him pretty busy. Not too many problems at Richmond with the 70-80 degree temperatures.
This has since changed a bit as he has been on the trailer servicing the NASCAR haulers for the past few weeks. Thats the job he will do full time next year. Whatta job!!


If youall  enjoy this behind the scenes kinda stuff Ill keep on posting it as he sends stuff.

[Busch Babe 899]

Here's the article about the police officer shot in that robbery...my prayers to her and her family.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/15657442.htm

And I heard Bill Elliot talking about that problem with the tailgate sometime this weekend...maybe qualifying??? That's problem solving at it's best.

[Racergiant]

A couple years ago @ Sonoma the Cup race had to be delayed about 15 laps to let firefighters get a grassfire under control from the pre-race fireworks show...

Speaking of liftgates....

The team I crewed for was parked next to another featherlite trailer.  You might not know this but those liftgates are powered by big batteries that drive electrc motors.  The electric motors spin a big screw on each side of the liftgate.  The spinning screw is what actually raises and lowers the liftgate. While one team was running thier gate down the battery shorted out internally and literally grenaded.  Luckily it was inside the compartment and the compartment door was closed.

Another little known item...  Those liftgates can also be handcranked.  Talk about torture...   Whew - glad it wasn't me.

[Plove24]

Whos spotter was it that seen the fire and said it to the driver? I wanna say Kyle

[Chris]

A couple years ago @ Sonoma the Cup race had to be delayed about 15 laps to let firefighters get a grassfire under control from the pre-race fireworks show...

Speaking of fires
We were at the Fall race at Dega (this has been some years ago).  It had been REAL dry for some time... and the grass was REAL dry, and brown.  The track didn't get the grass cut and it was kinda high.
Someone came in a parked just before the race started (kinda in the middle of a group of cars) and the heat from the cars motor (with the grass so high) sitting right up against the motor set the grass on fire.  IT make this huge fire, and I don't know HOW MANY cars it burned up before they finally got it put out.
The race just kept right on going because it was way out in the parking lot, and had nothing to do with the race.
I think it burned up 12 or 15 cars.... and don't know how many got damage.
Wouldn't that be a fine thing to come back to after the race got over...

[Righty817]

He// we where on Parallel Parkway at 6:35 thats to close for me. I'm glad we where out of there by then WHOOOOO!!!!!!!

[KurtBuschFan]

I hadn't heard about that...thanks for sharing!