Dirt trackin - yeah man!!!!!!

I would have thought that with the availability of this blog, I would have by now done a post concerning one of the biggest loves of my life. It should come as no surprise to anyone that remotely knows me that that love is the local dirt track racing scene!

Sometime in the future, I may sit down and do a lengthy post on my history in the sport. I have done lots of things and had quite a blast doing all of them. Television and radio work, public relations work, some minor publishing as well as announcing and of course, the writing for the newspapers and magazines and other things have been my experiences in the sport that I have loved since the age of five way back in the early sixties.

I've been wanting to at least post something about the sport for a while now and just have not had the time to get around to it. I guess this is as good a time as any.

Since the closing of the Flemington Speedway ( a place that has always and will always be near and dear to my heart) I have made the New Egypt Speedway my "home" track. New Egypt was a true Phoenix in the local racing scene in a sense since it was purchased as a rundown ramshackle track and rose from the ashes into what is one of the damned nicest facilities that I have ever been to.

The crowds that make the weekly trek to watch the races at New Egypt is a testimony to the racing that is presented there. The picture below is a typical Saturday night at the central New Jersey racing arena.

I have been a Billy Pauch fan since his earliest rookie days back in the mid seventies. There is a story behind my being his fan and when I ever get around to posting my history in the sport, I"ll include that. After two seasons (2003 - 2004) of crappy luck with what turned out to be subpar equipment, Billy has teamed up with a new car owner for the 2005 season and has come out of the gate in style this season. He did hit a rough patch a month or so ago when the team experienced some trouble in the motor department, but that seems all behind them now and the wins are coming back strong.

The biggest win thus far this season was the night of the Garden State Gunfight in which the touring DIRT Tour stars came into town looking for a fight. They surely got one as Billy led the New Egypt brigade to a convincing thrashing of the tour regulars, placing one-two-three at the checkered with Ryan Godown and Frank Cozze securing the top three spots. Billy is seen below exiting the car in victory lane and also posing with the black and white silks with the Kevin Bifulco owned K&A Excavating backed Bicknell chassied machine.

Last night's (7/9/05) win came after a hard fought battle with Jimmy Horton and Bucky Kell to get to the front. The track had received some heavy rain the day before and it showed with the track coming up a bit rough for the feature events. A number of times, I saw cars being thrown off of their intended grooves and needing to recover before moving on in their quest for the front. Kudos to young division rookie Brian Godown on his great performance up at the head of the pack and his calm under pressure while battling the big dogs.

Once Billy was in front though, it was all over but the celebration. Win number seven on the season and career feature event win #617!!!

If you are interested in seeing some video clips of the racing action at New Egypt, and you have high speed internet connections, you can see them at the address which follows. Just click on the address and it will take you to a page that has numerous clips from this season.

http://www.jerseyracing.com/bigjim/nes.html

Hey - I'm on Norms site!!!

Well, to be honest, I had forgotten that I had submitted a photo of some of the furniture that I had built in the past to the Norm Abram New Yankee Workshop website. I was reminded about that possibility when I was checking out a woodworking site that I normally log onto and read about someone else posting a picture of something they had done. Well, there it was as big as life and pretty neat. The picture details two pieces of the six piece bedroom suit that I built for our home. I used red oak and a natural finish and the two pieces in the picture are my armoir style dresser, which was the last piece to be built and cooincidentally, the bedroom hutch that was the first piece in the set.

Some Fishin' pics

  A number of posts down, I put up a picture of the boat that I bought last Fall.  Since then, I have used it a handful of times to fish with either my Brother Dave and our Cousin's Husband Kenny or my Brother Mark - or with some friends.  It's all good!

  For the most part, the boat has been used for bass fishing floats down the Deleware River on Sunday mornings.  There isn't much that tops the relaxation that an early morning float on the Deleware in search of some fiesty little bass.  There is something irresistably attractive about being on the river, with its quietness of the early morning and the mist is still coming off of the surface of the water - being one with nature.

   This past July 4th weekend however, I towed my boat down to the Cape May area, where both my Brother and my Mother live and Mark and I got to check out a lake or two that had previously been unfishable to us from shore.  The first number of pictues below are from the East Creek Pond.  It's called a pond, but damn, the thing is actually a lake.  It's big.  Through a NJ bass fishing web site, Mark and I learned that this particular pond, in the Dennisville area, held some pickerel and neither one of us had ever attempted to catch them.  Pickerel, like bass, are predatory fish - meaning they seek their food often by ambush.  That means they are a great game fish to catch since they hit properly presented lures with abandone.

   We hit the lake on Saturday morning and found, as we had been told on the bass fishing site, that the lake was getting clogged up with heavy underwater vegetation.  The North side of the lake was much better than the South side and that is where we found the most action.  Now, as it turns out, the Pickerel in the lake were for the most part small, as you can see by the pictures below.  Don't let that fool you though, for their size, their fight is pretty decent. 

   Mark was kickin' my butt on Saturday morning.  He was "boating" a few "picks" here and there and while I WAS hooking some, I was not getting them to the boat.  I had a beautiful opportunity to make up all of the lost ground though when I finally got hooked into a very huge pickerel.  Got it up to the boat and - my god - the things must have been three or four pounds!  No crap, it was that big.  I could have easily put my fist into its mouth, though with the teeth these things have, that would have been crazy.  Now, there are a number of factors that came into play in the next few seconds after getting the fish to the boat. (1) I was brand spanking new to pickerel fishing and didn't know exactly how to handle them.  (2) THOSE TEETH! (3) After being skunked by Mark all morning, it was simply still a shock that I actually got a fish to the boat (4) I didn't have a landing net on board (5) and finally the thing was thrashing all around like a banshee and was making it impossible to get some kind of hold onto it to actually get it into the boat.  Oh yeah - and (6) I was using an ultra-lite poll so I couldn't just simply hoist him into the boat with the poll.  All of these facts came into play and balled up into the unfortunate circumstance the led me to lose the fish to a broken line.  I'm not sure if the line frayed against the side of the boat while the fish was thrashing about or if it maybe came into contact with its very sharp teeth or what, but in the end, does it matter?  I lost one hell of a beautiful fish.  Damn it!  I'll admit it - I lost the fish because the damned thing intimidated me.  Shoot!

   Well, we hit the lake the next morning and you can beleive that I had a net with me this time.  I was going to somehow redeem myself.  And I finally did catch my first ever pickerel, but it was nowhere near the size of that monster that I let get away.  It's a fishing memory, but not one of the more pleasant ones!

   One of the nicest things about going to a new lake is taking in the scenery and this lake was a beautiful place!  Just look at the pictures below!  Truly gorgeous!  God does do some things right!

  On my previous visit to Marks, we hit this really tiny pond in the middle of this trailer park and it proved to be a great little place to fish for bass.  It is strictly catch and release, but that has never bothered me because that is all I practice.  Look at the PIG that Mark caught on this particular day!  It is an absolute hog!  I'm figuring maybe around four pounds or so.

Here I am with my biggest one of the day.

Do You Know???

Yeah, there are certain people who may know what this sign means. To them, well, I suggest you let those who don't know take a stab. So anyone out there care to take a stab at the story behind this sign? For bonus points, care to tell me where it is in the state of NJ? If you think you have the answer, leave it in the comments section by clicking on the link below.