Well, I don’t know where to start so I’m just gonna start.  My buddy LaVern Johnson has passed away after a valiant battle with pancreatic cancer.  Many of you knew LaVern, from his days racing at Dunn Hill and the Old Shangri La, to now, with his son Paul at Shang II and Chemung.  He’d been diagnosed early this year and only a few people knew, and we were sworn to secrecy.  I’ve been searching for days for the proper wording of this but still don’t have the words to describe him.   Passionate I guess is the word I’ll use.  Passionate about EVERYTHING, racing, his family, politics, the carpenters union, hunting, I guess just about everything he came in contact with.  The neat part about someone this passionate, he was easy to derail!  Just yesterday Junior Falk and I were talking about LaVern and he told a story where LaVern was madder than hell about a call Jr. had made and he’s all red-faced and hollering and Jr. says to him “How about that Obama” and off he’d go in another direction!  Wayne Lent and I often kidded each other about taking a call from LaVern…..  ya didn’t dare unless you had an hour to spare!  About every week or two he’d call and we’d discuss everything under the sun.   My thoughts and prayers are now with his wife Pat and their three kids.  In typical LaVern fashion, there are no calling hours or funeral service.  RIP

Sad night, for sure.  His memory lives on most everywhere, but especially in our shop.   Oren McIntosh gets all the pizzas delivered to our shop!

Its unfortunate threads get removed.  I liked the way Morgan wrote it and his reasoning.

Well Buck, how'd that "independent tech team" deal go.  Send me to the races with a full point of compression more than the second place guy and I'd be a happy guy!!  (That's if I were to get the same FREE PASS).  Sorry guys, appreciate the effort but have you ever tried to push chain?  You'd have more luck!!  All I hear is how good it will be, there is no more BS, gonna be great!    Then the exact same BS all over again.  Good luck to the rest of the field taking a knife to a gun fight.

You are exactly right, Dale, we decided to go the lake before Ray made the tech announcement.  We committed to going to the lake early this week and we're STILL here!!   We'll be back Friday.  See you all then. 

Don't need more rules, just need to enforce the ones we've got.   It appears they are heading in the right direction.   Tech isn't just a "one night" thing, it's a conscience decision to enforce the rules.   Scott Bloomquist got dqd for 25# in a $100,000 to win race.... Did that 25 win it for him ?   I doubt it but rules are rules.  I think that the zero- tolerance is a great thing, keep up th good work. 

It was merely a suggestion.  I don't want to be that guy that gets to look at everyone's stuff,  I was merely stating that I was impressed that they came to me to look at their stuff without ever having to ask.   I do believe you should do the same.  I feel that if you have an interest in someone that is racing (as in Bobby with his cousin or You with the Big10) you need to take the high road, you need to be above reproach.  You should set an example of how it should be.  That's all there is to it, it was just refreshing to see them go out of there way to assure nothing was going on.

Can only take so much.......  Not sure what we're gonna do.   I said we'd race as long as it was fun and while 'fun' does  begin with "F", it doesn't seem to be the "F" word I use the most regarding racing!!  We'll see what happens next.