It's been a while since I jumped right back into the blogging pool just two short days after a previous installment, but here I am. Why? Well, because no one said I couldn't and last night I was thinking about heading out to Topeka. As you know, my first job in racing was at Heartland Park, but for some reason last night the focus got narrower and the perspective came into focus.

Bill Kentling had been the commissioner of the Major Indoor Soccer League, and through my sports marketing exploits we got to know each other (I was working for my brother's agency and the MISL was one of our clients). At one point, prior to my first job in the game (with the St. Louis Storm) Bill wanted to hire me to be the Marketing Director for the league, and I was eager to do that, but each time we were about to pull the trigger on the offer, another franchise would fold or get into financial trouble and Bill never had the wherewithal to actually pay me. Details...

When the league office moved from New York City to Overland Park, Kan. (south-side suburb of Kansas City) I dropped by to see Bill and his staff, and they even showed me what they called "Bob's office" which was, of course, an empty room just waiting for me to move in. It never happened.

About a year later, though, St. Louis got a new franchise, I was hired as Vice President - Marketing, and my sports career took a new and very interesting turn. As detailed on this blog not too long ago, it only lasted one season but it was a great experience and I'm glad I did it. Late in 1990, I was working for Converse Shoes and sitting in my room at the Scottsdale Marriott when Kentling somehow tracked me down with his offer to join him at Heartland Park.

Last night, as I was watching TV, it struck me that if Bill had not called me that day, or hired me at all, I have no idea what I would be doing right now but I could pretty much guarantee I would not be in motorsports, would still probably have never seen a drag race, and most certainly would not be writing this blog. I guess you could say that was an important phone call.

I moved to Topeka in the dead of winter, right after the new year in 1991, and got to work with my staff, preparing for the full 1991 racing schedule. I had a great staff there, including Jade Gurss who was my PR guy. Jade was stellar, and I knew he would go far, but it was still cool to see him go on to spend many years as Dale Earnhardt Jr's representative. He was also a very good drummer.

Our offices then were actually located in a pair of houses in the development across Topeka Blvd. from the track, and my specific office was in what had to have been designed as the master bedroom. Yes, it was kinda weird, but what was stranger still was the fact my desk faced the closet, which had mirrors for doors. I got to sit at my desk and see myself all day.

With the drag strip being only part of what Heartland Park is all about, we had plenty of races on the docket and lots of things to sell advertising, signage, and tickets for. On the drag strip we had a series of bracket races scattered throughout the summer, along with one divisional points meet and our national event, in the fall. For the divisional, in mid-May, we brought in Lori Johns and Gary Ormsby to make some match-race runs, and that move increased our attendance from what was expected to be maybe a thousand odd folks (okay, I don't mean the people were odd, just the number of them) up to a nice sized gathering in the 10,000 - 12,000 range. It was a success, and everyone went home happy. Except, it was sadly the last time Gary ever drove a car, and a few months later he passed away after a battle with cancer. That's why the main road into the track is Gary Ormsby Drive.

On the road course, we had AMA Superbikes, the National Karting Championships (that was pretty cool), an ARCA stock car race that we livened up with Dale Earnhardt Sr., Darrell Waltrip, and Kenny Schrader, and an IMSA sports car race, which should've been our biggest road course event of the year. We learned a lesson on that one...

I know, now, that the best way to keep the weather out of the equation is to maximize your advance ticket sales, so that you're not relying on the walk-up. Our problem was that our capacity for the road course was enormous (I bet you could put 100,000 people in the place if you had space for them to park) so the impetus for ticket buyers to get their ducats in advance was very low. The race was in early May, and during Friday's practice sessions it was 75 and sunny. On race day, it was pouring rain in Kansas City and in Topeka it was windy, damp, and about 40 degrees. The wind-chill factor was well below freezing. In other words, it was brutal and our walk-up crowd vaporized. Ouch.

The racing was great, however, and I was really amazed by the skill those drivers exhibited on the full 2.5-mile road course at HPT. A few weeks before the race, we brought in Tommy Kendall, a really good American driver, for a press luncheon and it was a true pleasure to get to know him. He even joined us that evening in a full night of pick-up basketball, at a local gym.

Before we played hoops, though, I needed to take our sign maker over to the track to show him some spots on the barrier wall I needed signs for, so we hopped in one of the two Corvette pace cars we had and went over there. I unlocked the gate under the tower and drove through what is the drag strip water box to drive out onto the front straight, which you all think of as Heartland Park because it's where the drags happen. The track has been adjusted now, so that the road course and drag strip are separate, but back then the drag strip and the front straight were the same thing. Sonoma made the same adjustment a few years back, too, and it really helps the drag strip to keep the road course cars from laying down diagonal layers of rubber.

Anyway, just as I was about to drive out there, the other Corvette pace car came flying by, swooping out onto the strip from the final turn on the road course, with Tommy Kendall at the wheel and Jade Gurss holding on in the passenger seat. I turned to sign maker dude and said "Buckle up."

I floored it and took off after Tommy, zinging through all six gears to get on his tail, figuring it would be a thrill to just try to stay with a pro like him. If I could stay close, I could learn a lot about how to get through those S-turns and the chicane. We were flying, and it was all I could do to hang in there with him, then we came back around onto the drag strip and I went for it, passing him on the inside to get in front. For two more laps around the circuit, I was so focused I saw nothing but the next turn, and I was totally into hitting my shifts and keeping it smooth. Coming down into the final three turns again, the three we called Lions, Tigers, and Bears (nod to the Wizard of Oz) I was amazed I was still in front of Tommy, and then I looked in the mirror. He was inches off my bumper, driving with one hand lazily placed on top of the wheel, in the middle of an animated conversation with Jade. He looked like he was out for a Sunday drive. Ego deflated...

About a month later, Tommy was in a horrible crash at Watkin's Glen, at the infamous and dangerous Turn 5. The wreck shattered his ankles into smithereens and sent him into a long and painful recovery and rehab. I suspect Jade and I might have played in Tommy's last full-court basketball game.

Our NHRA national event was a huge success, later that year, and the income from that weekend came close to covering the losses we suffered with all the road course races. It also turned me on to drag racing, and here I am today!

And if Bill Kentling had not called me... Who knows.

The road course, obviously, is what makes Heartland Park so unique but it's also what makes it a challenge for drag racing. The main grandstands are a bit far from the track, because of the road course and the pit lane, and the whole facility is simply massive. It's the one track on our circuit where, if you're pitted at the finish line, it's at least a half-mile walk to the starting line, because you have to go so far to get around the road course.

The stands on the other side of the track are great, and are very close to the action, but it's quite a hike to get around to the pits. Still, after the current ownership reinvested in the place and totally updated it a few years back, it's a fantastic venue and a great place to watch the races. I smile every time I turn onto Gary Ormsby Drive.

One of the best-known features of HPT is the giant flag pole right in the middle of the pits. That landmark is almost always included in directions given to guests. "Go to the flagpole and we're six trailers down on your left..."

I heard, in Atlanta, that after all these years of setting up the pro pits in pretty much the same manner, we're going to see a completely different set-up this time around, and I think that means some Top Fuel and/or Funny Car teams are going to be down on the lower pit area, right next to the main grandstand. That will be great for the fans, and fine for us, too. With that in mind, it remains to be seen if we'll have that enormous luxury of being able to park our rental cars right next to our pit, like we've been able to do the last couple of years. Once they built the enormous asphalt pit area for the sportsman, it opened up the rest of the main pit area for us and since then we've all had private parking lots! It's all good, no matter what. Like I said, I smile every time I turn onto Gary Ormsby Drive.

I also learned one other key thing when I worked at HPT, and that's the difference in perspective people have when considering exactly the same thing. It's absolutely nothing for a Topeka resident to make the 60-mile drive to downtown Kansas City, or make an even further drive to attend a Royals or Chiefs game on the east side of KC. It's just "right down the road" to someone from Topeka. Ask a KC resident to drive the exact same distance however, out to Topeka, and to that person it will seem like you're asking them to drive half-way to Denver. Same distance, different perspective.

On another topic, the weather forecasts look pretty good for this weekend, so let's hope we don't have a tornado pass by like we did last year. Photographer extraordinaire Mark Rebilas is still talking about that. I'm still amazed the hotel staff knocked on all of our doors and ordered everybody into the lobby, which was (of course) completely surrounded by giant plate-glass windows. Not a smart move.

Other nonsense...

I have a new Bob On Baseball blog posted at our website for The Perfect Game Foundation, and if you want to see how truth can be stranger than fiction, check it out. If you made a movie about my season with the Medford A's, with accurate portrayals of all the characters I played with, you'd think it was too off-the-wall to be true, but true it all is. 16-hour rides on the worst bus in existence, batting cages that couldn't stop a thrown bat from hitting somebody right square in the face (that would be me), and other farcical tales that now seem to be too fantastic to have ever happened. But, it's all true.

And, in the photo gallery, I'll tease you with a blurry old photo sent to me by former teammate and roomie Mike Altobelli. He sent it after he read the blog, so the grainy old pic isn't included, but I'll put it in today's gallery as a teaser.

Just go here, and click on the Bob On Baseball button: http://www.perfectgamefound.org

I've been heading out on bike rides almost every evening, and yesterday I decided to finally go east on the Centennial Trail, instead of west. It's a very different ride that way, with no tree cover at all. In places, the trail is actually right next to the interstate, and when I say "right next to" I mean the barrier wall and fence are right on the trail and the cars and trucks are whizzing by no more than five or six feet away. It's a little noisy. You're still riding right next to the Spokane River, but it's not at all the same experience.

What's cool, though, is that 4.5 miles down the trail you cross the river on a bike bridge and at that point you're already in Idaho! I am relatively certain that yesterday was the first time I ever crossed a state line on a bike. That's legal, right?

From now on, though, I think I'll stick with going east on the trail. I'll just try to push my rides out further each time. Aiming for 15 miles next trip. Can't go from couch potato to Whit Bazemore all at once!

So... That's about it guys. I'd be honored if you checked out my new Bob On Baseball, and doubly-honored if you left a comment there.

We'll see you in Topeka! I smile every time I turn onto Gary Ormsby Drive.

Wilber, out!
 

Today's headline is about something specific, but it can also fit nicely as a motto to simply live by. When your time is up on this orbiting rock, make sure you've made the most of it.

Specifically, as I've mentioned on here before, Barbara and I are focused on doing just that in terms of our time here in Spokane and the Inland Northwest. There is so much to do, so many beautiful things to see, and great places to visit that we've never visited before, we have to make the most of it, and avoid the trap of work, travel, sleep.

So, with Topeka coming up this weekend (LOVE the Topeka race, by the way, and always look forward to getting there) I figured I'd veer off the racing path once again, to tell tales of our adventure to Walla Walla during the precious off-weekend we just had, as well as some other fun stuff. Well, it was fun for us!

First of all, this may seem obvious but we're liking it here more and more with each passing day, and coincidentally the weather has finally turned the corner and now it's sunny and spectacular everyday, instead of the gray, wet, chilly stuff that had blanketed the area since we moved here. With the weather coming around, everything looks better and that goes for our outlook and moods as well.

I just ran some errands, and on the way back it struck me that I haven't yet gotten tired of the fabulous scenery, even right on our own street. It's pretty neat to look outside or go for a drive and see the mountains, the pine trees, and the lakes. I'm diggin' it!

Anyway, back to the big Walla Walla Caper. On Friday, we were rolling south by mid-morning, driving the 200 miles or so from Liberty Lake to Walla Walla. The drive starts out very similar to what our area looks like, with big hills, distant mountains, river valleys, and lots of trees. But, before too long the topography shifts into a wide-open "wild west" look, with rolling hills, farms, and odd mountains, buttes, and mesa plateaus dominating the scene. The road winds in and out of those features, and it was actually a lot of fun to drive!

It's such an expansive and open area, the wind turbine industry is really in full production, and these windmills were HUGE! Barbara obviously hasn't been that close to such a massive wind farm, and she was fascinated by how many there were, and how gigantic they all are. We're guessing there must be more than a thousand of them in just that part of southeastern Washington alone.

As you get further south, it starts to "green up" a little more, and by the time you arrive in Walla Walla you can tell that you're back in fertile land. The climate there is very unique (very dry and not too harsh in the winter) and that's what's made the region such a successful place to grow grapes.

We didn't really have a plan when we got there, so we checked in at the Holiday Inn and grabbed a couple of Wine Region maps. With only a half-day to go tasting, we wanted to see if we could hit at least three wineries right away, so we concentrated on the west side of Walla Walla because that's where our hotel was.

First stop was just down the road, at the Grantwood Winery. It looked small on the outside, but interesting, and it seemed like a good place to get started. But, the parking lot was empty and the sign said "Closed" so we began to turn around to head to stop No. 2, when we saw a gentleman waving at us. He said "I was wondering why no one was stopping in today. I had my sign turned around backwards!" In other words, he was open but the sign said closed. Oops. That would put in a crimp in your business for sure. No comment on the porch light.

It was a great place to start, because it was the most unique and charming winery I've ever visited. Joe Grant, who owns the place, was the guy who waved us in and since we were the only ones there we had his full attention. Grantwood only produces about 225 cases a wine per year! That's really nothing, but they also only sell them right out of the winery, with no retail sales at all, and with such a small output they can really put their hearts and souls into every bottle. The entire place was smaller than most race-car shops, with just a few oak barrels in the fermentation room. They even have a manual crushing press (no, they don't use their bare feet!)

We tasted six different blends, and they were all fantastic, with deep flavors and lots of little nuances on various parts of the tongue. GREAT stuff. If Joe makes 225 cases of wine this year, he now only has 224 left to sell to other people. We bought a full case.

Next stop was a winery we were very excited to visit, called L'Ecole No. 41 (L'Ecole is French for "school"). On one of our Holland America cruises, we met and had long conversations with the ships wine expert, who happened to be a Grand Sommelier. That means he's like the best of the best, a Hall of Fame type wine expert. One wine he raved about was L'Ecole, especially two varieties named "Apogee" and "Perogee". L'Ecole is a large winery, so we had no problem finding those two back home in Minnesota, and we loved the complex flavors of both.

On the L'Ecole label is an old historic schoolhouse (No. 41) and the winery now inhabits the building (although it has been renovated). We were treated like royalty by the knowledgable staff, despite the fact they were very crowded, and walked out with four bottles. Like the Grantwood wines, these have all gone directly into our wine rack and coolers here at home, to let them age.

Our last stop was Woodward Canyon, and that was another small winery with a tiny little tasting room. Great stuff, though and we left there with a couple of bottles. We came home with two cases of great grape... Two years from now, I'll tell you how they taste!

And if you've never been wine tasting and are wondering how we could function after three wineries, it's because you only take tiny little sips, and if you want you can spit it back into your glass and dump it out in receptacles they have handy on the counter. It's not drinking, it's tasting!

We hustled back to the hotel, put on some nicer clothes, and headed downtown for dinner, at CrossRoads, a nice restaurant located in an ancient old hotel. Our mutual first thought: This place has got to be haunted. It may well be, but it's also a dandy restaurant and the service was terrific. For the record, I had the flat iron steak, prepared "Oscar" style (steak topped with crab, asparagus, and béarnaise sauce). Two thumbs up.

After a filling meal, we wanted to take a walk and see more of downtown, so we strolled around Walla Walla and really dug the place. Good vibe, as I tend to say. Just as we were about to turn around to go back to the car, I spotted a little wine tasting room across the street, with a sign out front that said "Live Music" so we headed that way. For the next two hours, we relaxed with about a dozen other people and reveled in the songs and guitar playing of a solo artist, who was really quite talented. He played a little "Name That Tune" and, I'm not afraid to admit it, I ruled the room. This started when he played and sang a jazzy version of the old hit "Brandy" and then said, "That was a song by another one of those one-hit wonders who litter the music landscape. Anyone know the band?" I said "Looking Glass" before he could finish the sentence.

We had a great time at an unexpected spot, and this time we actually drank some wine instead of just tasting it.

Then, it was back to the hotel for some shut-eye, because we had to get up at 5:00 to attend the Walla Walla Balloon Stampede!

Oh, and a quick thanks and shout-out to blog reader Ryan Deccio, who wrote to tell me all about the big balloon event. It would've been hard to miss once we got there, but it was good to have that tip in hand when we arrived.

5:00 came very early. It has a tendency to do that. It took a few minutes, but Barb and I finally got up the will power to jump out of bed and get ready, and just as the sun was starting to enlighten things we were rolling toward the fairgrounds. This was not the first time I've been near a hot-air balloon, but it was the first time I've been around dozens of them at once, and it was really cool. They filled the sky, one by one, and I just found it fascinating to watch them inflate and "come to life" from what looks like a big old bag of material just laying on the ground. To be standing next to one as the hot air gives it lift, and to watch the basket rise so slowly off the ground, with people actually in it, was really a neat experience. And like NHRA races, the "pit area" is totally open, so the only restrictions on us were staying out of the pilot's way and not making an unexpected trip into the air. We were both mesmerized, and very happy we got up to see that. Thanks Ryan!

We went back to the hotel, trying to avoid the temptation of laying on the bed again, since it was all of about 8:45 by then. We muscled up, got packed, and checked out. To make it more interesting, we chose a different and longer route back, going east to Lewiston, Idaho and then north to Coeur D'Alene (which is only 20 minutes from home). Lots of elevation changes and more fun roads to drive on!

By 12:45, we were back home and the day was still young. We'd really packed a huge amount into 26 hours, if you ask me. So, still feeling chipper we decided to go for a bike ride before dinner (grilled chicken, thanks to Master Chef Robert) and instead of our normal loop through Liberty Lake, we headed for the Centennial Trail. Adventure!!!

The Centennial Trail is 37 miles long, paved, and very scenic. It runs, for the most part, alongside the Spokane River, which is a wild and wooly waterway (wow, it weally, weally is wild, wooly, and wonderful). It's also two miles from home, including a steep bike bridge over I-90, but that seemed easy enough. Once at the trail, we headed west and decided a nice six mile trip would be just right, so we'd go out three and then back the same three. It was.... FABULOUS. I was hooked within the first half-mile, and it was so hard to stop and turn around...

The river is roaring right next to you most of the time, the trail is wide, the trees are huge, and there were a lot of folks out walking and riding, at a variety of speeds. The old "on your left" announcement is the correct protocol as you approach someone from the rear, so we shouted that a lot and heard it a few times ourselves, from the fully decked-out super biker types who whooshed by looking like Lance Armstrong.

The ride back across the interstate and through town to get back home was a drag, but we loved the experience. On Saturday night, we ate well, watched the DVR recording of "Mad Men" then took a 15 steam in the steam room here (and it still amazes me that I live in a house with a steam room) and slept like boulders.

Barb had to be in Houston tonight, so instead of just connecting at MSP today, she booked her flight on Sunday afternoon and then created a 24-hour layover for herself. She met up with Nichol and when they were at the Jacobsens' house, the new residents next door were outside. Barb wasn't really sure if she should introduce herself (you never know what new buyers are going to say about the house you sold them) but she did, and she's glad that she did. In her words "They are so over the moon excited about the house, and they love everything about it. They said they've been actually looking for anything bad or anything to complain about, but haven't found a thing." That made my day... It's so good, on so many levels, that we sold the house to people who love it, and appreciate everything we did to make it like it is. Yay.

Anyway, once I dropped Barb at GEG for her flight on Sunday, I made the call to ride the trail again, but this time I put the rack on Barb's car so that I could concentrate on just riding the trail and not have to deal with the 2-mile ride to get there (and back, ugh). Good call on my part. I rode about 10 miles, saw fascinating stuff, got a great workout, and still felt like I was a million miles from home. There are parts of the trail that truly feel like you're riding your bike through Yellowstone. And, with the trail being right by the river, it's uncommonly flat, which makes you feel like you can go forever. Someday, maybe, we'll do all 37 miles...

So, looking up at all the paragraphs I just wrote, you can see we packed a lot into one little off-weekend. And now, it's time to prepare for Topeka and Heartland Park. I mentioned to Barbara yesterday that I usually feel some stress before a race, just worrying about flights and hotels and everything going right, not to mention traffic and just getting in and out of the track. When Topeka comes up, though, I just look forward to it. It's such an "easy" event, from start to finish. Can't wait to get there!

My flight on Thursday isn't until 4:30, through Salt Lake, and then I land in Kansas City at about midnight. Rather than drive over to Topeka and not get there until around 1:30 a.m., I'm just going to stay at the airport Hilton and drive over in the morning on Friday. I better really hurry, because our first qualifying run is at 5:00...

I left the rack and the bike on Barb's car (it won't fit on my new ride) so tonight, before dinner, I'm hitting the trail again, but this time I'm going to head east at the Liberty Lake trailhead. We'll see what that part of it looks like... Five miles out and five miles back, in about an hour, ought to give me a taste of it...

So there you have the great Walla Walla Caper, followed by an introduction to the Centennial Trail. Now, let's get ready for T-Town and a big race weekend for Wilk. Ya in?

Wilber, out!
 

I think it's safe to say that every member of the Levi, Ray & Shoup team is tired of thinking "Well, that didn't go according to plan." This is such a humbling sport, and it's pretty obvious that there are very few ways to make it all go right, but a million ways for it to go wrong. Right now, we seem to be beset (haven't used that word in a while) by a lot of those million things.

It's not a lot unlike baseball, when I think about it. When you're on a hot streak, everything slows down, the ball looks huge, and the most difficult act in sports, hitting a round ball with a cylindrical bat while the pitcher is doing everything in his power to throw off your timing by changing speeds and making the ball move in strange directions, seems illogically easy. When you're in a slump, just making contact seems as impossible as reciting theories of quantum physics in a foreign language, with a mouthful of peanut butter.

It's the same way with a Funny Car. When you're running well, it all just seems OBVIOUS that you'll find that delicate balance between power and traction, and your car will go right down the track faster and quicker than anyone else, and when that happens and the other teams are aware of how consistent you are, they begin to roll the dice and take chances, which only creates more success for you. When things aren't going well, you scratch your head and think "How does anyone do this?"

After winning a round in Houston, and then putting three really good qualifying laps on the board in Atlanta, it was easy to think "Okay, here we go. Wilk dominates, as per usual, on a hot track." We were running right at the front of the pack on a surface that was tipping the thermometer at around 130 degrees, so that feeling of quiet confidence was starting to invade our psyches. We even earned four bonus points, which was fun.

Next door was the Daniel Wilkerson pit area. Our two rigs were creatively pitted nose-to-nose by pit guru Barry Feldner, and that worked out great for us. With Dan's rig being a left-side trailer, and Tim's having a right-side door, by putting us nose-to-nose we were lined up just right, and could come and go between pits seamlessly.

Dan and his guys struggled for the first three qualifying runs, and I was really beginning to think that his noteworthy and interesting streak of making the show at every race he's ever entered as a pro would end, at six. But, they found an issue with the clutch, took it out there for Q4, and the kid drove it right down there liked a seasoned veteran. Bang, in the field in the 14th spot and now he's seven-for-seven as a pro. They were, of course, three runs behind and they had to face Ron Capps in round one, so the mindset there was to just make another nice A-to-B lap and make sure Capps earned it. If the track was super hot, maybe the NAPA team would stumble or haze the hoops and Dan could squeak one out.

In the LRS camp, the mindset before facing Jim Head was that we'd simply go out there and put it on "Repeat" from the way it was running in qualifying. If anything, the track was probably going to be a little better just before noon, so there wasn't a lot of thought about backing it down. We just planned to make a nice lap, force Jim to stay with us, and go from there. In other words, race the track and try to run the best lap you can with what the racing surface gives you.

Dan and Capps were second pair, and Tim was part of the sixth pair, so he got to be up there to watch Dan's run before he had to strap in. We were all a little stunned to see the gorgeous Summit Racing Equipment car smoke the tires, and all of a sudden I felt that first tinge of doubt creep into my pea-brain, like swinging and missing at a slider in the dirt and hearing that voice whisper "How does anybody do this?"

If you would've asked Jim Head what his chances of winning would be if he ran a 4.70 against Wilkerson in round one, I don't think he would've expected to do much. His car dropped a cylinder early and labored the full 1,000 feet. Our car went out there and smoked the tires early, fishtailing and sashaying wildly when it did that. Game over. Race over. Atlanta over. Grrrr...

It was hot, and had been for all three days. The work had to get done, both by the crew guys and by the PR guy, but I bet my teammates felt about like I did. It's easy to overcome the heat and do the work when it's all going well, but when you're mad or disappointed, the motivation level sinks. I did manage to get my stuff written and all my stats and other PR stuff done, then put on a fresh t-shirt and got to work tearing down the circus. I left the track just as the teams in the final round were towing up to the line, and about two hours later, I was pulling up in front of the Sheraton hotel right by the Atlanta airport.

I learned the hard way, many years back, not to automatically send my post-event reports out right after our day has ended, because a lot of people on the mailing list don't want to know how it came out. Even if they never opened my email or read it, they'd know we were done by the very fact the post-event report showed up in the in-box at 1:00, and in today's vernacular that's call a "spoiler". So, now I hold the reports and don't send them out until the finals are over. That's the first thing I did after getting checked in and to my room, and then I figured it was time for dinner...

This next part is really odd, because I basically never do this. I was tired, and it had been three hot days, so I remember thinking "I'm just going to lay down for a bit, and then I'll either go downstairs or order room service." I even perused the room service menu, and had decided I was going to have the Cobb Salad. And then I laid down on the bed for just a minute.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up at 2:15 a.m., still laying on top of the covers fully clothed in the apparel I was wearing when I left the track. I was also WIDE AWAKE. I suspect I probably fell asleep no later than 6:30 or thereabouts, and since I was stunned to be waking up in the middle of the night, I clearly slept like a rock. A big heavy rock. I guess I was pretty tired (ya think?) I was very hungry, too, but I'd slept right through any chance at dinner. I also didn't know how I was going to fall back asleep...

I finally did, around 4:30 or 5:00, but I might have been better off staying up because when 7:00 a.m. rolled around, and I had to get up to catch my flight, I was really foggy and way out of sorts. It's strange to get about 8 hours of unintended sleep, then be up for two or three hours, and then sleep another two hours. Frankly, I'm surprised I was able to get packed, drive over to the new Rental Car Center at ATL, get on the train, find the check-in desk, get through TSA, and get to my gate without getting lost, losing something, or discovering I wasn't wearing shoes (or worse). As soon as I hit my seat (once again back in coach) I was nodding off again. Three and a half hours later, I was in Salt Lake and starting to feel human (note I didn't say "normal" because I rarely feel that way).

I had a long layover in SLC (my original ticket had me going all the way to Portland and then back up to Spokane, but I found a more direct flight during the weekend) so I spent that on Facebook and Twitter, in the Sky Club, and then got on my little regional jet up to GEG. I was home by 4:30 and it never felt so good...

Barb's been so busy at work lately, but this week is pretty quiet for her so the plan is for both of us to take Friday off and go "do something" outside of the Liberty Lake bubble. Right now, we're thinking of heading down to the Washington wine region, maybe to Walla Walla, to tour some wineries and have a nice dinner on Friday, then do some more exploring and come back home on Saturday. As I think I've said on here before, we're making a concerted effort to actually get out and experience life in this part of the country, because we don't want to watch two or three years fly by and then realize all we did was work or stay home. So far, I haven't been able to find just the right hotel for us yet, but we're having dinner at a wonderful bistro here in Liberty Lake tonight, and the owner is all dialed in when it comes to Washington wines, so we're going to pepper him for advice. Should be fun!

The weather has finally turned (for the better) here, and it's supposed to be wonderful all week. Possibly it's going to be wonderful all summer. From what the locals tell us, once the gloom of late winter finally lifts and the sun starts to come out, it tends to stay that way all the way until autumn arrives. Here's hoping.

Man, I'm still tired though. Is this in English? Hope so...

Any more Atlanta ramblings? Let's see... My hotel in Athens was nice, and I really dig that town. It's got a great vibe, being a college town, and it reminds me of Chapel Hill.

Nice to have Daniel and his crew with us. They're all great guys. Kevin Wilkerson was back in the house, as well, and considering it appears as though he has not gotten a haircut in two years, I suspect he must actually have gotten it trimmed a little, or it would be down to the middle of his back by now. To keep it out of his face while working on the car, he tied a bandanna around his head and that caused him to look very much like a pirate. There were a lot of "Argh" sounds being made in his presence.

With almost no air card signal, I had no choice but to move my computer into the Media Center in the tower, at Atlanta Dragway. It is worth noting that it is a refreshing thing for me to share a room with the likes of Elon Werner, Dave Densmore, Todd Myers, Leah Vaughn, Jon and Joanne Knapp, Mark Rebilas, and all the rest of the cast of characters, including the National DRAGSTER staff. I only work that way a couple of times a year, so it's fun to feel that camaraderie among my colleagues. Normally, I'm your standard recluse, which is slightly better than being a troll.

Barb has also decided that she can come to both the Sonoma and Seattle races, so that's awesome news. Our team stays over on the Vallejo side of the bay for Sonoma, so I normally reserve a room at a different hotel on the San Rafael side, but the Sheraton there has been going downhill the last few years. With Barb coming, I wanted to find something unique, and I was thrilled to see there was a room available at The Inn Marin, a fantastic little boutique hotel just a few minutes from the track on 101. It's an old 1950s style motel, with one level and rooms that open to the outdoor courtyard, but they've really made it into a very chic place with fantastic rooms and amenities. It's a tad on the expensive side, but I know she's going to love it.

I guess that's about it. Five cups of coffee this morning and I'm still bleary-eyed... I'll be back here soon, so take care everyone. Hopefully, I'll be more alert for the next one. LOL. As you all know, it's good to be alert, because the world needs more lerts.

Wilber, out!

 

Wow, what a flood of great emails I got after Monday's blog installment! That was impressive, if not a little overwhelming on my end, so I hope anyone who didn't get an in-depth reply understands I can only type so fast, and for so long. Many of the emails contained really interesting and cogent thoughts/ideas about marketing in general, and sports marketing specifically, and since I rarely address this sort of thing here (I'm always too busy writing about cats) I though I'd dash off a little essay on the subject, today. Basically, so many people asked about my background I thought I'd give you the 75-cent quick tour. I know I've touched on most of this stuff, in bits and pieces over the years, but the email flood over the past two days included a lot of requests for more details, so I thought I should oblige. I had actually begun writing back to a few people, and as the emails got longer I realized it was probably going to be easier just to write it all once, with more depth. So here goes...

My resume is kind of odd. For the last 15 years, it only contains two entries, since that's how long I've been specifically doing this job, first for Del and now for Tim. Before that, it looks more like a roller coaster ride all around the sports world, as I hopped from adventure to adventure, trying to accomplish two missions. 1) I wanted to try a lot of different things, once it became painfully obvious that I wasn't going to play in the big leagues for 10 years like my dad did, and...  2) I wanted to find that one pursuit that most felt like passion and least like work. I actually succeeded a couple of times in that regard, but it's pretty obvious that this drag racing management / PR gig is the perfect fit. This blog, for the last six years, has been a big part of why this job is the best ever.

Once the Oakland A's told me to please go away and stop cluttering up their minor league system, I was lucky enough to avoid "real world" work for another four years when the Toronto Blue Jays brought me onboard as a Scouting Supervisor. After those four seasons, I realized I wasn't utilizing enough of my brain just holding a radar gun and a stopwatch, and I wanted to stretch out and try something other than baseball for a living. First stop was Converse Shoes (as was my fourth stop, when I went back to work for them again a couple of years after the first go-round), where it was my job to both sell shoes to sporting goods stores in my region, and also handle all the promotions with pro and college teams in my area, which was all of Illinois but not Chicago. The second time around with Converse, I was a Promotions Supervisor for the entire southwestern United States, and it was my responsibility to make sure I had the most NFL, NBA, MLB and NCAA players wearing the "star and chevron" logo on their feet. That gig was eye-opening, in both good and bad ways.

After the initial job with Converse, I went to work for my brother Del, who had opened his own sports marketing agency in Washington D.C., called DelWilber + Associates. For three years there, I worked "both sides of the aisle" and I learned more in those three years than I even thought I could handle. I managed existing sponsorships for clients, and I represented properties that were looking for sponsors. While I was at DW+A, I helped manage IBM's sponsorship of Major League Baseball, Chrysler's sponsorship of the Big East Conference, Black & Decker's sponsorship of some specific MLB teams (I actually came up with the idea of having home plate cleaned off with a Dust Buster during the 7th inning stretch), and a bunch of other accounts, while I represented USA Baseball, the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL), and US Rowing in the pursuit of new sponsorship revenue streams. It was like three years of very intense college, or maybe more like a Master's Degree (I don't have one, so I don't know...) Long hours, tons of travel, and a need to be at full speed all the time. Thankfully, I was young and full of energy at the time, because it was a serious grind.

I left DW+A when the MISL granted St. Louis a new franchise, and I was the first employee hired by the Yugoslavian owner, coming in as Vice President - Marketing. The General Manager they hired "didn't work out" so I ended up pretty much in charge of everything but the players. The day I got there, we had no nickname, no players, no soccer balls, and no tickets sold. Opening Night was no more than two months away. It was a great challenge, but it was invigorating, and I'd find myself going to bed at night too excited to sleep, and eager to get back to the arena in the morning. I hired a staff, we got to work, and somehow we not only put a team together, designed a logo, and got our uniforms produced, we also sold 14,750 tickets and packed the old St. Louis Arena for our opener.

Sadly, on the morning after the final game of the season our owner decided we were all failures and fired most of us. I learned right then that failure is subjective (two years later they called me again and asked me to come back, but I politely declined). While I was with the Storm, I learned on the fly, and we all collectively ingested and processed a lot of lessons about what works, what sells tickets, and what doesn't work. You have to find that out naturally, I think, by trying things. Things that work: Good give-aways, good advertising, fun promotions, and most of all a good team that's playing on a good night. It became obvious to me that we were wasting our sales team's time trying to push tickets for those Tuesday night games in January, and that we could better benefit the team by focusing on the weekend dates, when our core audience (kids) could actually come to the game. You could bust your butt for a month trying to sell tickets to that Tuesday night game, and your effort would raise the attendance from 2,900 all the way up to 3,200. Or you could focus your efforts on whatever weekend dates the St. Louis Blues would allow us to have, and jump your crowd from 4,500 up to 9,500.

Of course, you also had to hear the owner scream and cry when he'd see all those empty seats on Tuesday, but that was just the way it was. What you couldn't do, if you wanted to stay in business, was give all those tickets away. That is franchise suicide, and the list of defunct sports franchises that have gone down that path is too large to list. First of all, the redemption rate for free tickets is rarely over 30 percent. If you didn't pay for the ticket, it's just way too easy to say "It's too far" or "It's too cold" or "I'm too tired" and not go. Secondly, the fans who do use their tickets then immediately have it in their minds that they should always be free. The connection between "I'll give them a ticket to get them out here" and "After this, they'll buy tickets" is a broken dream that doesn't work.

So, after the Storm adventure it was back to Converse for a while, living in Dana Point, Calif. giving shoes away to very rich athletes. Less than a year later, the former commissioner of the MISL tracked me down in a hotel room in Scottsdale and said "Son, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, we're going racing. The bad news is, we're going to do it in Topeka." After I stopped laughing, I said "Topeka is fine. I'm a midwestern boy who feels out of place in So Cal. But, I don't know anything about racing." Turns out, that's why he called me. One lesson I learned in soccer was that you shouldn't hire people who are already huge fans of the sport, because they don't really want to work, they just want to be on the inside and get to know the players.

In my year at Heartland Park, as General Manager, we went from having basically no track sponsors to having six figures worth of sponsor income, while we also sold tons of tickets and made the track a real part of the community. It was fun, but the key thing for me was that I discovered I loved NHRA Drag Racing, and I wanted to be involved at the team level. Working for the track, you can't win or lose at the end of the day. You can only hope it doesn't rain.

It took a while, but I finally landed a gig working for the guy who represented Chuck Etchells and Mike Dunn, and the toughest part of that deal was that I had to pack up and move to New Jersey, where he lived. Still, as the number two guy there, I learned about press releases, media relations, and how to improve and build sponsorships. I also learned my laid-back midwestern style did not mesh well with classic New Jersey "attitude" stuff, which wore me out. My life seemed like a scene in a mob movie, so I went back to St. Louis after a year and tried to make it work on my own, as RJW Marketing (which is still my actual business name). Between my two actual clients, Norman Wilding and Lewis Worden, however, I succeeded only in going broke, but I got into the NHRA PR world and at least established a toe hold.

Then, the Kansas City Attack came calling, and I took off for a couple of years to be their GM, back in the indoor soccer world, playing our games in Kemper Arena. That was as invigorating and exciting as the job with the Storm, but this time I really was in charge and we did some great stuff there, tripling the season ticket base, bringing in new sponsors, and jazzing up the game production. I don't really like the stress of selling tickets, but I have to admit that there's nothing cooler than walking out into the arena as the game starts, and seeing all those fans having such a good time. You know you put them there, and that's a satisfaction that makes your heart race a little.

It was with the Attack when I really got into Jon Spoelstra's marketing work in the NBA, and I followed his edicts carefully, not giving tickets away, establishing a solid price and sticking to it, while also making sure you have real value attached to each ticket. It can be painful, on those lousy Tuesday nights in January, but on the good nights it can be spectacular.

I was in the middle of my second season, and getting a little burned out but still loving it, when my receptionist said "Someone named Whit Bazemore is on the phone..." A few weeks later I resigned from the Attack and joined Whit's team. A year later, I called Del Worsham and moved over to work with him. The rest is history.

All the things those prior adventures taught me, the good and the bad, are what brought me here. I still watch the crowd, because it's in my DNA to do that, and I still get a charge out of seeing the stands full. I also cringe when I hear people even reference the thought of giving tickets away or cutting the prices. In reality, a $50 ticket to the drags is a GREAT value in today's sports world. You can spend a lot more going to an NHL, NBA, NFL, or MLB game and all you get to do is sit in a seat for a couple of hours. And, in reality, if $50 is too steep for a possible fan, he's probably not coming at $25 either.

Something good is happening with our sport right now, and although I can't put my finger on how much of it is the economy rebounding and how much of it is based on new approaches, I like what I see. I think we can increase our group sales (other sports live and die on groups) but we're clearly selling more tickets and people are smiling. Even though I didn't sell the tickets, it still awakens those feelings of satisfaction I used to get inside the arena, when I see crowds like we've had in Charlotte and Houston.

Okay, this story has gone on far too long. I have other stuff I need to get done before I get up in the middle of the night to catch my 6:15 flight tomorrow, so I'll wrap this up.

In the gallery today, I'm including some more pics I took in Houston. I thought the Midway stuff there was really impressive, especially the big display Aaron's brought in and the ongoing popularity of the Traxxis interactive area, where fans can race the remote-control cars. It's a big hit with the paying customers.

I'm also including one non-racing pic of one of the greatest gifts I've ever seen. When Barb was back in Woodbury, her friends Nichol and Mary Beth presented her with a hardcover book they had made, full of photos of the three of them taken over the years. Somehow, wine and martini glasses are in a lot of the pics. LOL. What a cool gesture. I'm blown away by it.

See you in Hotlanta!

Wilber, out!