Bob’s Big Brainerd Blog

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August 18th, 2016

Welcome to Brainerd week! I’ll be heading up there early on Saturday morning and coming back on Sunday night, and I’m really looking forward to it just like every time I’ve ever gone to Brainerd. It’s a great place, it’s totally unique on the NHRA Mello Yello tour, and it’s just plain fun.

Question 1: Will I be visiting The Zoo?

Answer: No. Been there, done that, don’t need to do it anymore. Heck, when I first started going to Brainerd, The Zoo was considered a fairly dangerous place. They still party hard in there, but it’s much more good clean fun than it used to be. During my initial Brainerd race I had no less than six racers or PR people tell me, “Whatever you do, don’t wear any racing apparel in there. You’ll come out without it.”

Now, famous drivers and notorious PR people head in there on golf carts totally decked out in their racing stuff. There’s plenty of beer consumed, but you no longer have to worry about being stripped of your starting line shirt. I think. I don’t plan to find out.

Anyway, no I won’t be doing that, but I always advise first-timers to take a few hours on Saturday night and experience the fun of The Zoo. It’s a box that needs to be checked.

Question 2: When was my first Brainerd race? Was it 1997 with Del Worsham?

Answer 2: No, believe it or not it was five years earlier than that. It was 1992 and I hadn’t even met Del Worsham yet.

Writing “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” brings all the stories back to life for me, and some of them are things I had forgotten. It’s almost as much fun doing the research on all of it as it is to write about it after I put it all back into order.

The first drag race I ever saw, period, was the 1991 Gatornationals in Gainesville. I was the GM of Heartland Park Topeka and my boss sent me and a few of my staff members to Gainesville to tag along with the staff there, to learn as much as we could. The first thing I learned, after watching a session of Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars from the top of the tower, during qualifying, was “Don’t wear a white polo shirt to the track.” That shirt went in the trash that night.

And, while my staff stayed for all three days of the event, I took off early Saturday morning and drove down to Sebring to watch the 12 Hours of Sebring IMSA race, because Heartland Park hosted an IMSA event as well. I found it all very fascinating. And I found it all a little over my head, in terms of what was going on. Up until the first day at Gainesville, I had not seen two cars go down a drag strip at all. Up until my rainy day at Sebring, I’d never seen any types of cars run for more than three hours. And those guys ran for 12! For the record, it was my second IMSA race, but the first had been just a few months earlier at Del Mar in California. I was about to interview for the Heartland Park job and the track president sent me there to watch the sports cars. Sebring was a whole different animal, though. I made it through six hours before sneaking out and heading back north to Gainesville.

Anyway, now I’m way off track (racing pun) because this is supposed to be about Brainerd and yet I ended up in Sebring, Fla.

Yes sir. The Nobody Beats The Wiz Funny Car
Yes sir. The Nobody Beats The Wiz Funny Car

So… My first NHRA National Event was Gainesville in 1991. Then I went to Bandimere that summer to see the Mile High Nationals. Then we hosted our own Heartland Nationals in the fall. In 1992, I took a job as the assistant to a guy in New Jersey who represented Chuck Etchells, and his Nobody Beats The Wiz Funny Car.

After joining that guy, the first race I went to was Brainerd. I flew into MSP, and drove on up there not really sure where I was going or what I was going to see. My boss would be joining me on Saturday, but for two days I’d be on my own, getting to know Chuck, his crew chief Maynard Yingst, and the crew. And I would be introduced to the Chaparral Bunkhouse Motel. Having flown there from Newark, it was a good bit of culture shock, even for a midwestern guy like me.

Being in Brainerd, and at Brainerd International Raceway, was both strange and fabulous, and that was the year so many people told me that if I was going in The Zoo, I should do it incognito. I steered clear altogether.

Question 3: Why was a Funny Car called “Nobody Beats The Wiz”?

Answer 3: If you’re from New York or New Jersey, you probably know this answer. Nobody Beats The Wiz was a chain of electronics stores in that part of the country. The guy I worked for in New Jersey did consulting work for them. He got them to sponsor Etchells. So, it wasn’t the “name” of the car. It was the sponsor.

I provide, for your viewing pleasure, the Mississippi River in Brainerd.
I provide, for your viewing pleasure, the Mississippi River in Brainerd.

Question 4: Is this blog going to be all questions and answers?

Answer 4: No. I hadn’t planned on it but that’s how I wrote the first bit at the top and it took on a life of its own. I promise to stop with the questions now. I’ll just ramble on about Brainerd. I’m a highly trained professional rambler. Don’t try this at home!

I have so many fond and fun memories of Brainerd it’s hard to even consider them all. Over the years, one of the most consistent not-so-good memories of the place, though, was the string of lousy motels we stayed in during the Worsham/CSK days. We didn’t have any choice in the matter.

Brainerd is on a par with places like Gainesville and Commerce, Ga. when it comes to motel rates for race weekends. Run-down joints by the side of the road, where you could get a room for $39 the rest of the year, would charge $139 with a four-night minimum. When the new Holiday Inn Express was built, not too far from the track, their nightly rate was $1 million. No it wasn’t, but it was over $200, with a three or four night minimum.

Once I joined Team Wilkerson, I had to be on my own for a room because they stayed at the Chaparral Bunkhouse and that little place didn’t even have another room, for me. So, I made the decision to stay out at the resorts on Gull Lake. I’ve stayed at Cragun’s, Grandview, and Madden’s, and this year I’ll be at Madden’s again.

I was planning on staying there last year, but the major storm that rolled through Brainerd just a month before the race, doing a lot of damage to the track, also severely damaged the resort. They had to close major portions of it, and I lost my room in that shuffle. So, I adjusted and did the PR work from home on Friday and Saturday, then drove up to St. Cloud on Saturday night, to be 90 minutes closer to BIR. I went up to the track on Sunday morning and I drove back to the Twin Cities that night.

A no-brainer. Madden's.
A no-brainer. Madden’s.

When people would ask me why I’d spend so much to stay at one of the resorts on Gull Lake, my response was always the same. I’d say, “Well, I could stay in a noisy smelly place in town, with a view of the dumpster, and still have to pay $140 a night for four nights. Or I can stay at a beautiful resort, with a view of Gull Lake, for $200 a night. It’s a no-brainer, to me.”

And it’s a no-brainer this year.

Yesterday, in the middle of the afternoon, my phone buzzed to tell me I had a text message. It was from Krista Wilkerson. All it said was “I just waved.”

I called her, laughing, and said, “Did you just drive by the Woodbury exit on I-94?”

“Yes we did,” she said. “So I waved at you.”

Cracked me up.

And today, just an hour ago, my phone rang and the screen said “Del Worsham.” He said, “I’m on my way to the track in my motorhome. I’m past Minneapolis now, but I drove by Woodbury not too long ago.”  It can be a small world when the entire NHRA universe is descending on Minnesota.

People used to ask me all the time if Brainerd was really like it looked and sounded in the movie “Fargo.” Well, I haven’t been to Brainerd in the winter, but I’m sure it does typically look a lot like that. And the snow has a certain crunch under your feet when it’s 12-below.

But, the funny thing is, almost all of “Fargo” is set in Brainerd (not Fargo) and almost all of it was shot in the Twin Cities (not Brainerd.) The Coen brothers, who made the film along with a long list of other quirky but ingenious movies, were born and raised in the Twin Cities suburb of St. Louis Park. They, therefore, had no problem seeking out locations for the movie. And a lot of the memorable places shown in the flick are still around.

As for the second part of the question, the accent in “Fargo” is a bit over-the-top, but it’s based on the real thing and it’s pretty darn close to what you’ll hear when you do get up in the northern half of the state. The Twin Cities are so diverse it’s not as common here, but the Nordic lilt is still noticeable.

And remember, the word “Ya” is both a question and an answer. Ya? Ya! Oh you betcha.

And for the record, “Fargo” holds a position in the top 10 of all time, when it comes to Barbara and my favorite movies. We’ve probably watched it 45 times. Also on the list is another fine Minnesota movie, “Miracle” starring Kurt Russell, who absolutely channels Herb Brooks.

Did you know they cast “Miracle” in the opposite way they cast most sports movies? Yep, they looked for really good hockey players first, then found the ones who had some natural acting chops. The director said he felt it would be far easier to teach a hockey player to act than it would be to teach an actor to play hockey. It was a genius move, and it’s what makes the film one of the best sports movies ever made. “You were born to be hockey players…”

This bear has been part of the family for more than a decade
This bear has been part of the family for more than a decade

On another Brainerd note, we have a charming wood carving of a sleepy bear sitting under a pine tree, and we’ve had it for many years. It hung on a post by our hot tub at our old Woodbury house, and it made the move with us here. We bought it in Brainerd, after the race one year, at a roadside place called “Come See What I Saw” but that guy has been out of business for years.

Barbara was planning to come to the race with me this weekend, but about a week ago her nephew Todd’s wife, Angie, gave birth to twins, so instead I dropped her at MSP around 7:45 this morning and she flew to Orlando. I sent along hugs for everyone, including Todd, Angie, Kitty, and our two newest family members, Anastasia and Arabella.

So, it appears I’m totally failing at the “being retired” part of my NHRA career. That was pointed out to me, on Facebook, by one of my favorite-ever colleagues, Lachelle Seymour, who used to do Ford’s PR on the tour.

I’ve already been to Gainesville, Chicago, and Sonoma. This weekend, I’ll be in Brainerd. Then I’ll be at the St. Louis race. Today I booked my flights and a hotel room for Las Vegas. And, while I had said I had no plans to go to Pomona, it didn’t take much for Barbara to talk me into it. Susan Worsham recently gave birth to her first, and we can’t wait to meet little Lily Elaine. So, we’ll go to Pomona for a couple of days, and then we’ve made a commitment to get away somewhere for a few days after the race. Santa Catalina Island, perhaps? Possibly. Neither one of us have ever been there. I’ve seen it from the coast, but have never taken the boat ride to get there.

Because I can
Because I can

To cap off this Brainerd blog, I give to you the comedy stylings of Dave Rieff, in a photo taken a few years back in the pits at BIR.

Because Dave Rieff.

And now, before I go, it’s time for another snippet from “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts:

In the last two weeks, I’ve strapped in and stayed after it for another two chapters and another 30 or so pages. We’ve entered the Worsham years now, with our Checker, Schuck’s, Kragen sponsorship, and the stories are nearly limitless.

In Chapter 27, I cover a lot of ground from 1999 and 2000, and part of that was our race win in Seattle in ’99. Del hadn’t won a race since 1991. As Team CSK we’d been to one final round, at Route 66 in 1998. We lost to Whit Bazemore there.

In Seattle, during the ’99 race, the track was hot and tricky. Del and Chuck simply mastered a track most teams couldn’t get down cleanly. It was the first time I’d ever been a direct part of a race win, and I shot the video of it with the camera Del had just purchased, second-hand, a week earlier. We won, beating Bazemore. We went nuts, we did the Winner’s Circle stuff, and then Joe Spica from CSK took us all out to dinner. After that, I still had to go back to my room and write my Post-Event Report. It was the first one I’d ever done after a win.

We were just at the dawn of the internet and email era then, and I had a nice little mailing list of media, sponsors, family, and friends. I wrote the story as midnight approached, and then fired it off. Here’s how it goes in Chapter 27…

_______________________

I sat at the desk and composed myself for a minute, there in the room, and then I began to write. I wasn’t the polished writer I am today, and I wrote most of my stuff in a very personal “insider’s view” sort of way. I didn’t know much about PR yet, and I most certainly didn’t know much about AP style and the correct format for such things. I just wrote from the heart.

The next morning, I pinched myself to make sure it had really happened. Then I checked my email. I’d never before logged on for email and seen more than 10 or 12 new notes. On this morning, I had nearly 100. It was the dawn of a new social-media internet age, and it introduced itself to me that morning. Every note seemed to be as “from the heart” as the story I’d written.

_______________________

Those memories are as fresh as if 1999 was yesterday. And the research, to drill back down and get as many specific details as possible, really has been a blast. When I post this blog, my next assignment is to go back through every race of 2002 and 2003, to get all those details organized.

So, that’s about it for this Thursday Blog Day. I’ll be back next week, with photos and tales from Brainerd.

“So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money? There’s more to life than a little money. Don’tcha know that? And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well, I just don’t understand it.”  – Marge Gunderson

Bob Wilber, at your service don’tcha know. Ya? Ya!

 

 

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