Well, how about that. How about me! I’m actually posting this week’s blog on the correct day. Gosh, maybe I shouldn’t have typed that. I mean, I’m just now starting this blog and all sorts of nefarious things could still happen, including but not limited to falling space debris, a super-rare Minnesota earthquake, a swarm of locusts, or me winning the lottery. Actually, that final option is not possible, because I haven’t been playing the lottery. And I’m not saying that if I won $250 million I’d drop this blog in a split second. We don’t know that. I’ve never won $250 million, so I’m out of my area of expertise.

Anyway, moving forward assuming none of the things listed above will happen, I shall wrap up last week and look forward to this weekend.

Sonoma was a massive amount of fun. Period.

Oh, you want more details? Well, after arriving in Sacramento right on time I picked out a car at National and hit the road for Sonoma. The last time I tried that, with Barbara Doyle last year, I-80 was a mess. It went from packed and moving slowly to not moving at all, for no apparent reason, either. So, took I-5 down to 80 in a hopeful state of mind, with fingers crossed. And, badda boom badda bing, no problem at all. I shouldn’t say “no problem” but there were no backups. What you get then, on a California freeway, is the awful mix of rates of speed that can be extremely dangerous.

About 35% of the drivers are within 5 mph of the limit. About 40% are 10-15 mph over. Then there’s the Darwin Award Winners who are attempting to do 85 to 95 mph while weaving in and out of traffic. I saw one guy coming in my rearview (I was in the middle lane) and he was closing fast. He swerved hard to pass me on the right then determined he needed to be over in the far left lane despite the fact there were multiple cars, trucks, and semis in his way. He missed clipping the left rear of one car by inches. So close, I cringed and had my foot ready to hit the brakes. When he avoided that catastrophe, he missed the front right of a big rig by the same inches, causing the truck driver to hit the brakes hard, and no doubt make a one-finger gesture and use some salty language. It’s a madhouse when people are doing stuff like that.

After my arrival at the hotel, a fine and quaint place just a block from historic Sonoma Plaza, the phenomenal square in the heart of town where so many great restaurants and retail establishments ring the park, I had a quick bite to eat and was off to bed soon thereafter. After a good night’s sleep, my buddy and former Paintsville teammate Vince picked me up right at 10:00 and we headed to the track.

Vince and his wife Mary are real estate agents in Sonoma, and she had to cover some showings or maybe an open house, so it was just us guys. Barbara and I took Vince and Mary to the race for a day last year, and Vince was really excited to be back and experience NHRA one more time. Plus, this time I’m actually an author and he instantly got a kick out of the first fan who stopped me and asked me to sign their book.

With a few hours to kill before the first Saturday session, I took Vince on a tour of the pits and the midway area. The first stop we made was the stage outside the Worsham pit area, where Alan Reinhart and Del were holding “Nitro School” for a bevy of fans. This thing has really gotten popular, and I very much enjoyed listening to the two of them talk about very technical scientific things, but in a way that made everyone feel like they “got it” and understood how a 10,000 hp Nitro Funny Car gets from the starting line to the finish line successfully, as well as the myriad ways the attempt can be unsuccessful. Vince and I were standing in the rear of the crowd, and during the Q&A segment I was tempted to raise my hand and ask a smart-aleck question, but I figured the answer might have a worse bite than the query. Great fun, though, and Alan really does a terrific job being the host of it.

Vince and I then cruised over to where the Army, Harley-Davidson, Traxxas, Toyota, Mello Yello, and other sponsors have their displays and he was really intrigued about how “hands-on” a drag race is, in marketing terms, as opposed to other forms of motorsports and the stick-and-ball sports. It’s totally unique, in that way, and it blew him away.

We wandered back to the Team Wilkerson pit in time for the warm up. Then, once the team pushed out from the pit to make their run, we headed up to the reserved seats I got us. Great seats at about the 330 mark, halfway up the enormous grandstand. We watched the motorcycles and Pro Stock cars, then the Top Fuel session, and finally Funny Car. It was hot and loose out there on the track (surface temp in the 125 to 130 range) and the fuel cars were really having a hard time getting down the track, so when the first pair of Funny Cars successfully made it, Vince was all smiles. It’s loud even when they smoke the tires. It’s overwhelmingly awesome when they don’t, and the entire massive Sonoma grandstand shakes.

During the session, Alan mentioned “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” at length, and once Vince and I got back to the pit after the run the number of folks who stopped by with books in hand was pretty steady. Many of them brought previously purchased copies with them, but we sold a few as well.

We’re down to less than 10 copies left, of the 42 I originally took to Joliet, but I think we have enough to easily get through Seattle, and then I can load a few more boxes in my car for the trip to Brainerd. Hopefully the interest level remains solid and we keep having some fun when I’m at the track meeting people, catching up on old friendships, and staying in touch. As I told Vince, when he asked me if trips like this were money-makers for me, “Oh heck no. This costs me a lot of money, but it’s more about spreading the word, staying in touch, and staying relevant in the NHRA community. I can’t really put a price on that, but I think it’s pretty priceless.”

Vince and I had dinner reservations, at Swiss Hotel on the Plaza, at 7:00, and Mary would be joining us for that. So, when the team finished their warm-up and headed for the line again, as it closed in on 6:00, we knew we’d have to make a move to the parking area. The “Red Key” parking lot in Sonoma is close to the pit area, but atop a very steep hill. As we were leaving the pits, Mike Adams spotted us from his golf cart. Mike is the tall guy who leads the activation efforts for Mello Yello. If you’ve seen the ad on the big screen, of the tall guy inside the Mello Yello display, pointing out all the things you can do in there, that’s Mike.

What’s funny is that when Vince and I parked in the dusty lot that morning, Mike and one of his associates were just getting out of their car, right next to us. Then, as Vince and I were leaving, Mike was about to take a colleague up to the same lot. He yelled at us to get on the backseat of the golf cart, and we were quite happy to do that. Great guy, that Mike.

We got back to Sonoma in time to both clean up a bit after a day at the track, and then Vince and Mary arrived a mere minute after I did, outside the restaurant (which also is, indeed, a very small boutique hotel). Let me say for the record that Mary Bienek seems to have defied age. Vince and I haven’t, but she looks so much like she did when we all were in Paintsville back in 1978, out there in the coal mining hills of eastern Kentucky, that it’s startling. And she’s the same sweet and intelligent person as well.

Mary also brought a nice bottle of wine with her, so we enjoyed fabulous food and fine libations for a solid couple of hours. The conversation was rollicking, as well. They live just down the street from the hotel I was in, so we all walked back there together. Just as we arrived, another chance meeting took place that made Vince and Mary shake their heads in disbelief.

We were just saying our goodbyes when we heard, “Is that Bob Wilber’s voice I hear?” from behind us. It was Bobby and Alex Medina, with their two impossibly cute kids. Let me connect those dots. Bobby Medina is the brother of Connie Worsham (she was Connie Medina when Del met her.) Alex is the former Alex Baca, and she is the daughter of former Top Fuel driver David Baca. Small world, huh. And what are the odds we’d be walking down the same dimly lit sidewalk in Sonoma, Calif. at exactly the same time? Hey, it’s drag racing. It’s a very small planet of interconnected people.

I was on the road around 9:00 a.m. the next morning, and at the Sacramento airport with two hours to kill before my flight. Then, a nice smooth ride and I was back home around 8:00 p.m. in Woodbury. That’s a good thing, because Barbara had to fly out to Spokane early the next morning.

And now it’s Thursday and she is due back here later tonight. What does tomorrow bring for us? A morning flight to Denver to be out there for the wedding of niece Erin and her fiancé Eric. Lots of Doyles coming in for the wedding and the weekend, so I’m really looking forward to it. I’ll be back on Monday night.

And now back to Barb’s great idea about including some fun parts of the book that didn’t make the final cut. In the original manuscript, a guy by the name of Dennis Werth was mentioned numerous times, in the chapters about my college years. In the final version, he is mentioned just once, in the part where Lance and I are chatting with Oakland A’s catcher Mike Heath and the first “one degree of separation” dot we could connect was the fact Mike had played with Dennis in the Yankees organization.

Dennis, who we all called “Herbie” for reasons I never knew, was a few years ahead of us at SIUE, but he was around for a few years after his playing days there, to finish up his degree. He signed with the Yankees out of school, and made it all the way to the big leagues with them. When he originally made their 40-man roster, but hadn’t played in the big leagues yet, he was continuing to be a star player on our dominant flag football team, as our nose guard on defense. In the flag football playoffs that year, we were playing on a cold and icy day. As the other team came to the line of scrimmage to start a play, Herbie got down in a four-point stance so that his frozen breath would visibly blow on the football like all those classic NFL Films shots from the “frozen tundra” of Lambeau Field. He was growling while he did it.

I turned to Steve Novak and said, “I wonder what George Steinbrenner would think if he saw this…”

And if you’re thinking, “Is Dennis Werth any relation to Jayson Werth, of the Washington Nationals?” there’s a funny story there, too. He is, but Dennis is Jayson’s stepdad, not his biological father. Jayson’s mom is the former Kim Schofield, of the Springfield, Ill. Schofield family that produced Dick “Ducky” Schofield (St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s) and Dick Schofield (Angels, Mets, Blue Jays, and Dodgers in the 80s and 90s). Now that’s some “small world” stuff right there. And yes, the Wilkersons know the Schofields and went to school with a few of them. Kim Schofield was also an Olympic athlete, and Jayson’s biological dad set football records at Illinois State, so there was lots of good athletic DNA in the mix.

So that was fun to write, and every time I think about the Werths, the Schofields, and the Wilkersons all being part of the same sphere in Springfield it boggles my mind a little. Oh, and if you read the book and remember when I was the Southwest Regional Promotions guy for Converse, Dick Schofield was one of my guys who wore Converse spikes on the Angels.

I guess I’ll wrap this installment up with the same line as always. If you read this blog and liked what you read, please “Like” it by clicking on the button at the top.

Thanks everyone. See you next week!

Bob Wilber, at your service in a very small world.