I’m typing this as I watch the rain delay at the postponed Firecracker 400 (I refuse to refer to races by sponsor names, for the most part the races existed long before the sponsor even thought about “sports marketing”). So, watching nothing going on and listening to screaming children running around.
Going back to the race, the expected wrecks have led to unexpected drivers being in contention for the win today. The current leader during the rain delay is Aric Almirola in the Richard Petty Motorsports 43, the King’s number. And NASCAR just declared the race official making the 43 the winner. Yay King!
So I switched to the IndyCar race where they are dicing back and forth around the Tricky Triangle at Pocono. While there is dicing going on up front there is strategy taking place at the back with drivers running the full lean fuel map with as little throttle opening as possible to maintain position on the lead lap so that they will be in front when the leaders have to stop for more E-85. And it didn’t work, as the fuel warning light came on with 4 laps to go, putting Juan Pablo Montoya in the lead and winning the race in his first season back in IndyCar. The race was done way early because they only had a single caution period for what appears to be an engine failure for Graham Rahal. He was moving right along and then all of a sudden there was no engine noise and the car was going backwards with the back tires not turning. So with only the one caution they ran a record speed for a 500 mile IndyCar series race of just over 202 MPH. They have an extra hour of TV time to kill before the next show, so I get to see the Indy Lights race from Pocono several hours early. After this the rebroadcast of the British Grand Prix will be shown.
And I read in the paper that Mark Cavendish was involved in the pack wreck on the first stage of the Tour de France, separating his shoulder and probably ending his Tour. I haven’t seen any news from this morning’s stage yet because honestly, I’m just not interested enough in the Tour this year to turn the TV on that early. I probably won’t turn it on this evening either.
I have a new CAD program for this laptop that I’m trying to figure out so that I can make a drawing of the 20/20 crank forward bike with full suspension that will upload to the media center for this blog. I really want you guys to be able to see what I see in my mind’s eye when I write about things I want to build. To that I managed to grab a working USB 3 button mouse from a yard sale “take this free” box, which will prevent the spurious clicks I get with the touch pad on my laptop from causing false data points in the drawings. The touch pad is not that big of a problem when web browsing and blogging, or using the dice app playing RPG sessions, but it was a major pain in the butt trying to draw using the CAD app. The CAD app is based on AutoCAD, so after I learn the commands and shortcuts for the app I’ll have a leg up on installing the Linux version on my desktop computer. Now to show what the Sprint-T looks like in my mind’s eye I will need to figure out how to transfer the pictures I have of the Speedway T Bucket body to the program.
Most of my immediate family came up to celebrate my mother-in-law’s 80th natal anniversary, including the elder daughter all the way over from Scotland. We last saw her back when my Dad died back in 2012 when she came to share Thanksgiving and ended up going to a funeral. I’m very glad to have her with us.
And the hardest thing we have had to do this weekend is find vegan dishes that Elder Daughter can eat. This part of NY is not rife with vegan options, there are some sure, but not a lot. She’s rather militant about her diet, for good reasons. Her diet is about the only way she can fight global climate change and factory farming, so breaking it has political overtones that are not good in her eyes.
And I think it’s time to put this post to bed and get on with my vacation (and life). Y’all have fun tonight.
PSA, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 