I was beginning to think I was totally snake-biten. On Friday night, after picking up Justin and Erin in Woodbridge to work the weekend at Martinsville, I hit a deer on Rte 29 doing about 60MPH. Thankfully, we weren't hurt, but my truck is trashed. Drivable, but the whole front end needs to be replaced.

Then, on Saturday, our first day at Martinsville Speedway for the modified weekend, we had a horrible day. There was only about 75 people in the stands for practice and qualifying and we didn't even take in enough to cover the motel bill for Saturday night.

Meanwhile at JMU, Peggy, Chuck and Ryan were having a pretty good game only to have a fryer fire that caused them to be shut down early in the 3rd quarter. Since I have been unable to find a service person in Harrisonburg, I had to pull Big Red out and bring her back to the farm where my technician will attack it tomorrow to find out what happened and correct the problem. I am hopefull somehow everything will be fixed for this weekend's game.

On Sunday, we were there early and ready to go for the Virginia is For Lovers 300, the Super Bowl of modified racing. Tank was cooking funnel cakes and making batter, Erin working lemonade, Sister Jean handled drinks and sugaring, Gene took care of corn dogs and helped Erin squeezing lemons. Justin hawked lemonade and drinks in the stands. Because of my hip, I sat most of the day and worked the cash register.

It was a great crowd, my guess up about 10% from last year. And we had a nice increase in sales over the past two years. It was a very good drinks and lemonade day and again, our hawking is paying terrific dividends. Plus, we had a line most of the day for funnel cakes. Our location for this race is perfect--under the main grandstands right up from the start-finish line and right in the middle of all of the action.

Nice to have something go right this week.

After the race, and packing up everything but the fryers and their hot oil, I started driving. From Martinsville to Dale City to take the kids home, then to Peggy's in Harrisonburg to retrieve Big Red and her damaged fryer. I got to Peggy's about 4AM. I picked up Red and drove back to the farm, then back to Martinsville to pick up the fryers and tent and back home again. 700 miles in 24 hours, with some 5 hours of it pulling one or the other of my trailers.

I imagine I'll sleep well tonight.

If all goes well tomorrow and I can get Big Red back in operation and safe, we have two games this weekend. Liberty's homecoming and Parents Day at JMU. It should be a good football weekend as long as that damn snake doesn't raise it's ugly head again.