We ended up staying 3 nights at the Jerome Walmart. This is a nice, quiet store, staffed by really friendly people. On Wednesday morning we moved out, stopping in to Twin Falls to dump and fill tanks, then to the liquor store for necessary supplies, as well as to the bank to deposit our pay. Then it was westward bound to Pocatello. We followed the GPS to the area, but still had a hard time finding the track. They have no signs out. Oh-oh, not a good sign (no pun intended).
We met the husband of the owner at the track gates, and he led us to a spot in the pits with power for us. Bonus! We settled in, then checked out the track. A good track surface, and everything else was bad. The stands haven't been painted in years, the weeds under the stands are waist high, there's no electronic timing system, there are no restrooms, only smelly old porta-potty's, the concessions didn't have fresh cooked food, just packaged. The whole place looked like an abandoned race track.
The location is great, at the airport just outside the city, with a potential market of 120,000 people. I went online and found out the track operator, Claudia, only pays $3000 a year to lease the place from the city. The property is 18 acres, and nice and level. Too bad Claudia doesn't have a clue that she's in the entertainment business. We sat at the track, and on Thursday afternoon she called and said we were to display the car the local Toyota dealership, a track sponsor. When the fellow from the dealership called me, we laughed at how Claudia had made it sound the we were doing the dealership a favor, and the dealership thought they were doing us a favor! After dealing with the dealership, I next heard from the local newspaper sports reporter. He wanted to interview us and take some pics, so we told him to come out and see us. He got lost trying to find the track too. He wrote a nice piece, but he is prone to embellishing quotes. Here is a link to the article: http://www.journalnet.com/
Friday morning and of course Claudia had arranged nothing. No signs, no shelter, no handouts, no publicizing the fact that we were going to be at the dealership showing the car and signing autographs. Nothing. We sat there for a couple of hours, then packed up and went back to the track. And waited. We expected to hear from Claudia, or see some sign of preparation for the "biggest race of the season". All we saw were the snakes and the rabbits, and we watched the activity at the airport, including a large autocross club having a race meet. Lots of people there. We saw not a soul on Friday afternoon. We eventually gave up hope and had a nice Shabbat dinner of BBQ steaks, potato salad, green salad and mushrooms, complemented by our favourite red wine.
Saturday morning Marlene cooked up a great breakfast of huevos rancheros, with bacon, and we showered and prepped for race day. We had been told that the gates opened at 1pm, but no one showed up until 4pm. Nobody cleaned the track, or anything, and we didn't hear from a single person. At around 6 a couple of race cars showed up, and the drivers stood around talking. At 6:45 we'd had enough, and I walked around to the office and met Claudia in person. She weighs over 400 pounds, and can only walk 10 steps at time. I introduced myself, and told her we were wondering what was going on. She shrugged and said no other race cars were coming, so she was canceling the event. I told her I understood the problem, as I looked around her cluttered office. Claudia told me that she had had a lot of phone calls asking when the jet car was going to run. Some fans also were turning up at the gate. We met one family who we had spoken with at the Toyota dealership when they were buying a car.
Claudia pumped me for information about how poorly the other 2 local tracks were doing. I burst her bubble when I described their prosperous operations. She was especially proud of her big marketing gimmick this year: she hands out strips of condoms imprinted with the name of the track! Marlene went ballistic when I told her about it. I mean this is a family sport, and a large number of the young families here are Hispanic Catholics. Not condom users.
Anyway, we were canceled. I told Claudia we would pack up and be off in about half an hour. I walked back and explained to Marlene, and she was not surprised. We gave some cards to the forlorn looking fans, and hit the road. We went 5 miles to a dumping station, then another 5 miles to the Walmart, where we had a light supper of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, served accompanied by a Manhattan and a Martini.
Sunday morning we rose early and packed up to hit the road. Tonight we are in Springville, Utah. We're going to move slowly, taking a couple of days to reach Las Vegas where we will stay a week and lick our wounds. The pic above is the view from our living room towards the airport.
Stay tuned...
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