First, Seth Hammond is in the hospital but in relatively good condition
after his 314 mph "incident" today. Tanis flew in from Santa Barbara and
arrived at the airport in SLC as the crew came in from the salt. They
brought Seth in by air ambulance. My take is that he is in good shape, much
like Tom Burkland after his troubles but without Tom's broken wrist. The
folks at the hospital were more interested in giving him something for pain
than anything else. I'm sure you all join with me in wishing him a speedy
recovery. Indications were that his stay in the hospital would be three to
four days.
The pits were active today while the line o run was not very long at any one
time. Turbo Rick now has two records from the meet. Jon Wennerberg had a
216 mph run if I heard correctly. Joe Amo was running on a back up run this
morning Nish is on the trailer after a disappointing turn out on a record
return run yesterday. The Ohio State University "Buckeye Bullet" electric
car missed a record by about a mile an hour in the E3 category when they
couldn't quite back up their 261 plus run yesterday. There's starting to be
some attrition as people break and go home. One exception was an unfinished
diesel pickup that Art Dick had brought in from Oregon with a big flatbed
trailer behind a heavy hauler tractor. The car is very well done so far.
It's to the stage where they have to run the wiring and start the final
installation of all the lines. It should be running next August.
The SoCal Speed Shop had their racing Saturn (it sounded very strong), a
pickup truck, a wild new lakester concept car that you will see in the
magazines very soon and the original SoCal Speed Shop lakester in pristine
restored condition. Look for a big display at SEMA next month for that
stable. Alex Xydias was cruising the pits at low speed while Pete Chapouris
and the rest of the crew made like Secret Service guards around the car. I
didn't stay to see how winded they were after circling the pits.
It was good to see Dave Newby looking so well as we left the salt. He's
upbeat about his treatments but they really take a lot out of him. We
wished him well and his handshake was firm. Just hope for the best for
Dave.Wes
|