IHRA Rocky Mountain NATIONALS Budweiser Motorsport Park - Edmonton, AB July 2 - 4, 2004 Thursday Report 1:00 PM When it works..... technology is truly cool. As I type out this report, Dean Murdoch and I are navigating our way through Edmonton traffic, which is surprisingly busy for our national holiday. On the other hand, with the urban sprawl of this growing metropolis, getting anywhere here takes a lot of driving. At least for tourists like us. We've been on the road since midnight last night (when we left Dean's home in Mission), we're both completely bagged, and while I'm trying to type this, I'm simultaneously playing navigatgor for Dean the driver. Except for a mandatory pitstop at Valemount (waited 90 minutes for a gas station to open at 6am), we've made amazing time coming up here. Believe it or not, we averaged 78 mph for the trip. No lie. The rental van gets up to 160 kmh so quickly that it's almost too easy. Anyways, we're here in one piece and we've just arrived at the Alberta warehouse of Jet Tools where we're trying to coerce a free lunch out of Bill Jeffery and Bill Marsh. 4:00 PM Here at last! It's been a long drive, under threatening, and occasionally, rainy skies but not a drop has fallen at Edmonton's BudPark. The clouds are hanging low, the humidity's high and conventional wisdom is predicting thunderstorms for tonight. But we've come a long way to see this event, and damnit, we're not going home without seeing some drag racing action. As we expected, our media credentials aren't available because "today is racers move-in day; you can come back tomorrow". Dean (Murdoch) isn't in the mood to hassle IHRA's President, Bill Bader, who's barely a dozen steps away, and prefers to wait until the appointed time tomorrow morning to fire a howitzer blast of complaint at the party responsible for the media-photo credentials, if we don't receive what he feels is our due share. Stay tuned; this could be quite a memorable encounter. 5:00 PM My, my, how things can change so quickly. Another trip to the credentials trailer - on a totally unrelated matter - brought the admission that the credentials were available after all, and in a short period of time, Dean, myself, and Bill Jeffery are issued the appropriate "necklaces" and wristbands. As the track activities start to wind down, we find ourselves winding down as fast as a $3 watch and realize that we've both been awake for nearly 36 hours.... and still counting.... barely. It's time to beat a quick retreat (while we're still able) to the motel, check in and find some dinner before unconsciousness takes firm hold until tomorrow. 9:00 PM After a frustrating and ultimately fruitless expedition in search of an Outback restaurant (which took nearly an hour) and witnessing the expected lightning and rain start to come down in force, we finally found an adequate (but just barely) eatery that satisfied our hunger pangs sufficiently until the continental breakfast in the morning. As stated on the previous page, the rest of the gang is imbibing in the lounge while I slave away on this hot laptop. All that's left to do for the day, other than drop some names from our travels through the pits, and links to the stories that have been put out by the IHRA media machine today, is try to get some photos downloaded from the camera, tweaked and posted. Wish me luck. Next update is scheduled for 9:00 am Friday; and we hope to report