June 27th 2008
I pulled the Kart out and took a look at the kill switch and the metal plate that attached it to the engine had broken off. I pulled out my junk pile of stuff and found a metal bracket that after some "precise" hack saw finesse seemed to work rather well - Hey, we're trying to keep this as cheap as possible! Friday morning I checked the forecast and it looked like some afternoon storms for us around 3pm but the track was looking good. Joy is on vacation next week and I finished up my work so we could all just relax next week. I went ahead and changed the oil in the Kart with 16oz of Q Horse Power Full Synthetic 10w-30. I managed to move the seat just a bit back and drilled out the stripped bolt so now it is much more secure. I went ahead and lined up the new quick release hub with the new steering wheel but it was used and one of the bolts stripped out, I just put the old steering wheel back on and will repair the new one this week. Filled the van with gas and hooked up the trailer and was all set to go but the sky was getting a bit dark. Checked the website and racing was still on. Checked the weather radar and it looked like we would just catch the tail end of the storm out of Omaha but then it would miss us. We looked up at the sky and took a family vote. Jaz wasn't feeling well earlier but said she was OK and in the mood for a first place trophy! Joy checked the weather radar and thought we would be fine. It's Friday, and what do we do on Friday? We race! So off we went...
Stormy Friday
Driving thru Omaha the clouds up ahead were looking really dark. Joy checked the track's website and racing was still on so we kept going. Around 50th street Jaz said she wasn't feeling very good and Joy checked on her and she was just burning up. I decided to turn around and head for home. We got off on the 60th street exit and headed for L street to return home. I was in the turning lane to get onto L street when the storm approached, longest darn red light in my life. We kept looking for some shelter to pull into but everything was already full with other cars. I'm trying to make as much time as possible but I kept hitting all these red lights! I looked behind me and there was this huge white cloud with all these dark clouds above it and soon the white cloud was directly over us, really freaky! We approached an intersection and a bolt of lightning struck very near us and all the lights went out. With no traffic lights it got harder to navigate home. About 24th street it started getting really bad with the wind just swirling the rain around us. I got on the South Omaha bridge (now called Veteran's Memorial bridge) thinking this is not the best place to be during this storm but I had to keep going. South Omaha bridge road had construction and I could barely see which way to go because all the orange cones were blowing around and signs were laying down on the ground, at one point I saw one of those portable powered light signs actually blowing across the road, this was not good! I wasn't sure how much of a shoulder I had or even if I was on the right side of the road because the visibility was zero. I just stopped and put my hazards on and prayed the no one would rear-end us. The wind was so bad that I thought it would take the trailer or that the hail would break one of our windows. At one point we heard something hit the trailer and the van was rocking pretty good that I was starting to worry about it rolling over. I just kept looking out trying to get my bearings in case we had to flee the vehicle. Then as quickly as it hit it was gone, we still had the rain but at least I could now see. The road was flooded over in parts but at least the sky was getting brighter. We almost made it to Google when the traffic in front of us was just stopped, some cars were turning around in the road but with the trailer that was not an option for us. A police car went by us and we could see a bunch of red lights ahead but had no idea what was going on. Not much we could do except just sit there in traffic and wait. We finally started moving and not sure what had happened but we did see a pickup truck with the front end all banged up. We still had the rain although it was slowing down and the sky was still bright. There were a ton of branches and leaves all over the road and we saw an awful lot of downed trees. Power was hit and miss, some intersections had lights others did not. Woodbury Ave had trees down that I had to drive around and that sharp corner was flooded over with just one lane open for cars to pass. I wasn't sure what I was going to find at our house. I was relieved when I saw that our trees were still standing and it appeared that there was no damage to the house. Our back patio chair was across the street and we found two more on the side road. The table never moved! I backed the trailer in and checked it out and I couldn't see any damage on the outside. I opened the back door and it was dry on the inside! Even the cargo box on the front was dry, unbelievable for what we had just gone thru.
Checked the track's website and racing was still on! There was no time for us to drive there and we all decided we had enough excitement for the night. We unloaded and turned on the T.V. and couldn't believe all the damage around town. Now as we were driving earlier Jaz suddenly felt ill, as soon as the storm passed she was fine. Jaz has added storm forecasting to her senses!