Boy Scout Crew 35 Off Road Race Truck Blog: 3/1/09

Well, a third Speedway Expo has come and gone, and as usual we had a blast. The turnout was excellent and our booth was better than ever, thanks to the elimination of the annoying wooden box. We managed to also get a few NASCAR touring series drivers to stop by and sign autographs, which helped increase foot traffic at our booth.

This time around we got the truck up to the show the day before, which allowed us to prep the truck and booth well in advance, eliminating the last second "we're not gonna be ready" freakout we had last year. We were set up more than an hour in advance, with the exception of the rented TVs, which ended up arriving about a half hour late. Fortunately, buy setting up all the other electronics and having everything ready, this wasn't a major setback. When the TVs did arrive, all we needed to do was plug them in and we were ready.

Nate was my booth co-dawg for Friday. Things were easy and quiet, so he spent most of the day playing around on the computer. Our simulator game this time around was Forza Motorsports 2, because unlike DiRT, it's actually playable by people without experience on the terrain. On Friday we got our three fastest drivers of the weekend, which included a seven year old girl who was too short to see over the wheel and therefore needed to look through it to drive.

Just like every year, Saturday was the busiest day. Chris and Rory were with me at various times during the day, Chris in the morning and Rory in the afternoon. Breakfast was some tasty jerky from Heidi Jo's Jerky, located across the aisle. I then got in a debate with a lady from Quabog Rider's Motorcycle Club and Hillclimb. She believed a trophy truck would be unable to scale the 300 foot climbing hill over in Monson, MA. I tried explaining that these are 900 HP machines, can do 0-60 faster than some Ferraris, and can do 150 mph over the roughest terrain out there. Simply put a trophy truck would not only clear the hill, but would launch off the top and come down two or three hundred feet away. Despite all this, she insisted a trophy truck could never stand up against the modified Jeeps and Chevy S-10s that frequent the hill. Eventually I gave up. Unless I can talk Ragland into letting me borrow their truck, I'll never be able to convince her. Oh well.

During the day Saturday, our celebrity racing guests arrived. Matt Kobyluck was first, showing up around 2:30. Unfortunately, as the Camping World Series 2008 champ he was in high demand and wasn't able to stay long. A little later Whelen Modified Tour driver Ryan Preece and WMT '08 rookie of the year Glen Reen stopped by, taking their turns at the booth. They stuck around for about an hour, chatting with fans and basically causing trouble.

Meanwhile, we'd brought back the raffle idea from last year's show. I had a couple signed Supermoto jerseys left over from last year's race, so we decided to go ahead and raffle them off. Winner had his choice; Steve Drew or Daryl Atkins. We sold about 60 tickets for the jerseys, which was a decent take. Congrats to Liam O'Connor of Southampton, MA. For those wondering, he picked Steve Drew.

Sunday was a disappointment in the grand scheme of things. Not because the turnout was bad or because we couldn't sell raffle tickets. It wasn't and we could (and did). The problem was the weather. A rumor went around that the approaching snow storm, instead of arriving around 8PM as originally stated, was going to instead arrive at 5PM, the scheduled show end time. One or two booth owners decided they didn't want to take down their booths and try to get out of there in the middle of a snow storm, so they started tearing down early. The concept snowballed, so to speak, and suddenly everyone was tearing down two hours early. The Speedway Expo staff tried to keep the show going and keep people from bailing out, but eventually all they could do was throw up their hands and watch. My Crew and I (which on Sunday consisted of Nate, Ron, and Rory) opted to hold out for about an hour, by which time the building was just about completely empty. Despite sitting around and watching everyone else tear down, even we ended up out of there before 5 PM. The snow, meanwhile, didn't arrive until 10PM.

The big developments at this show was the acquisition of a few new sponsors and a new technology (well new for us). We picked up Schroth Racing/HMS Motorsport, two partner companies that manufacture and sell race safety equipment. Already we have Schroth harnesses and window nets from them, both of which are top quality. We also picked up Longacre, which is sponsoring us with a steering wheel and quick disconnect, and Frozen Rotors, makers of cryogenically treated brake rotors (guess what they're giving us).

As for the new technology, thanks to a Verizon USB Mobile Broadband device, we can now broadcast live video from our shows, meetings, build sessions, and hopefully even the race itself. We first tried this out at Expo, broadcasting live throughout the show. During the weekend we had 55 different viewers. Not bad for our first try. We plan to use this in the future so people who can't attend meetings can watch them. We'll also be broadcasting our build sessions so friends, family, crew members, and sponsors/potential sponsors can see what progress we're making on the truck. Meetings are private, but everything else will be coming from http://www.ustream.tv/channel/venture-crew-35-off-road-race-team-feed . We'll also be recording video segments, which people will be able to watch at that site's archives. Right now there's nothing, but we'll hopefully have something for you soon.

Well, back to the shop. As always, thanks for reading, dudes!

Pictures are back!!!!