Welcome to Maple Grove. As I sit in our hospitality area, wiping the condensation from my reading glasses, from the lens of my camera, and from just about everything else moisture can collect on, I contemplate our many years of coming here. This is not a slam on Reading, or a dig on eastern Pennsylvania, or even a complaint about this historic and picturesque track hidden in the hills outside of town. Maybe, just maybe, it's absolutely gorgeous and beautiful here for the other 360 days out of the year, but boy are we cursed. I'm just sayin'...

I'm trying to remember the last time we came to Reading and were high and dry. I'm trying, but I'm drawing a blank. Year after year, race after race, whether we come here in September or August, the weather finds us, and the combination of these hills, the jet stream, and what's going on out in the Atlantic Ocean seems to conspire to make things difficult to predict (well maybe not that difficult, because if you bet on rain you have a good chance at being right) and it seems that whatever bad stuff comes in is very difficult to get rid of. Whereas, in most parts of the country, storms tend to move in lines that go from west to east, every time we come here we seem to attract a spinning and rotating mass of rain-producing clouds that never leave. This time, I hear we have a guy named Bill to blame, because Hurricane Bill is out in the Atlantic and its presence is blocking our weather. If the weather can't leave, we can't stay dry...

Anyway, we managed to dodge a couple of hairy moments yesterday, when most teams hurried to put their cars away after dark black clouds came over the hill from the south, the temperature dropped 15 degrees, the wind began to gust, and you could smell a storm coming, but a few hours later we were getting the cars out again and we did manage to get one session in. That's a good thing, and I'll get back to that in due time...

Working backwards since the last time I logged-off, Thursday was another in the long list of adventures. My rebooked flight to Atlanta was delayed an hour, and my scheduled layover at ATL was 50 minutes, so I was expecting the worst when we finally pulled up to gate A-30. As soon as I got off the plane (after sitting cramped in a coach seat next to a guy who was determined to use all of his space, half of the guy on the window's space, and two-thirds of mine) I saw that my connecting flight to Harrisburg was delayed 30 minutes, so if I got out to D-35 in a flash, I could make it. If you've been to ATL, you know that getting from A-30 to D-35 in a flash is a laughable idea.

I did make it, thanks to a perfectly timed underground train arrival followed by a sprint down the D concourse, only to arrive (soaking wet) to see that the regional jet to Harrisburg was delayed another 20 minutes. I did my best to stand very still and dry out in an airport that seemed like a sauna, and we finally boarded the flight. I did get a seat assignment, and I think my elite status was the reason I actually got the bulkhead seat on the aisle, so I wasn't nearly as cramped and with the guy next to me leaning against the window, it almost felt expansive. We pushed back, then rolled down the taxiway for a few yards before we stopped. The pilot came on and said "Uh folks, welcome aboard Delta Connection flight blah-blah-blah up to Harrisburg. As you can see there's a little bad weather here in Atlanta, so we're pretty stacked up for departure. Make yourselves comfortable back there, because we're number 40 for take-off." FORTY!!!! Never in my 45-some years of flying have I been number 40 for take-off.

They must have opened another runway after a while, because it ONLY took an hour and 15 minutes to depart, and finally, at around 9:30 or so, we landed in Harrisburg. I got my bag (nicely done Delta, and thanks for not losing it) and grabbed my rental car, then hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike for the one-hour drive over to Reading... I'd love to say that was relaxing, but it was a very dark night and if you've ever been in this part of the country, you know you have to be on "Full Deer Alert" at times like those. There was no "one hand on the wheel while text messaging" going on in my car... Thankfully, there were no deer, no delays, and I finally got to the hotel and in my room just before midnight. My dinner? A pack of peanut butter crackers from the vending machine.

We came out here yesterday knowing all about the forecast... There were some peeks of sunshine from time to time, but we weren't scheduled to run until about 4:00 and every on-line weather service showed the storms arriving around 1:00. They were all correct.

After the thrill of putting our cars away quickly, then getting them back out, we did get that one session in and we had a problem on our lap. With all of his invaluable and vast experience, Tim could feel something wrong with the car at the hit of the throttle so he shut it off almost immediately and coasted down the track. Knowing we probably were only going to get that one lap in yesterday, and also knowing there's a great chance of rain today, we all figured it was possible that the one Friday session might be the only one we'd get here, so most of the drivers were pedaling like mad to get whatever e.t. they could grab out of a bad run, but Tim just idled it down there. Until we got back to the pit, none of us knew why...

The guy is amazing... When we took the motor apart, there was the exhaust valve from cylinder number two, bent and hung open. How many drivers would've tried to leg that thing to the finish line and ended up looking at a lot of broken parts afterward? Probably a bunch, but not our guy.

We were 15th best in the session, and usually that would just mean that we have no official time on the board, since only the top 12 times are recorded on Friday. However, and it's a honest "however", if we don't get to run today they can set the field off that one run and we would be 15th. If they do that, it's going to be a bad weekend for Ron Capps, because he's the 17th car on the grid (there are 17 here). I know we want another shot at it, and I guarantee Ronny does too...

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the old "Top 10" rule (wherein any driver who is in the Top 10 but is not in the field when we only get to make one lap, gets inserted into the field at the expense of the lowest ranked non-Top 10 driver) we have been officially told that rule is no longer in effect. I got that straight from my boy Todd Myers, who had a specific interest in that information since Jeff Arend is sitting 16th right now.

Who knows, maybe Hurricane Bill will move on up to Nova Scotia, this weather system will get out of here, and we'll make one or two laps today. It could happen!

It was so foggy when we left last night, the drive back to the hotel was a total white-knuckle deal. It was raining, it was pitch-black, the humidity was so high it was impossible to keep the windows clear, and we were driving on the winding treacherous (also slick) roads near Reading. On top of that, the local gendarmes were directing traffic however they pleased, forcing cars to go directions they didn't want to go just to get them off the property. It was a sort of "Get out of here so I can leave, and I really don't care if you're totally lost going that direction..." sort of thing.

Dave was following me in his rental car, and we had to leave in the totally wrong direction, stuck in a gridlocked line of cars that certainly had to be driven by a sizable percentage of people who had no idea where they were headed. I mean, it's not like being detoured in New York City where all the roads run in basic squares and you can simply work your way around it. If you have no local knowledge and are forced to leave Maple Grove in the wrong direction, and you can end up in Lancaster, Allentown, or Philly before you figure it out.

We waited until we were out of the line of sight from the guys directing traffic with the flashlights, then each pulled in a driveway and turned around, attacking the exiting traffic from the opposite direction. They still forced us to go a way we didn't want to go, but we ended up (about an hour later) headed in the general correct direction, and then we battled the fog and the misty windows to pick our way back to the Days Inn as if on instruments. I've driven in London in the fog, and in San Francisco when you can't see 100 feet, and even though this wasn't nearly that bad the winding nature of the incredibly roads made it just as difficult. Miss a turn here, and you'll end up in someone's living room. It felt good pull into the hotel and put the whole thing behind us.

This morning, we met in the lobby at 7:30, just as the overnight rain came to an end, and headed back out here. The sun is burning the fog off now, and that's a good thing, but it's been gloomy and not-so- positive looking since we got here. We'll just have to see how this goes... Think positive!

I spent most of yesterday as the "guy to see" in our pit area, in terms of weather forecasting. We had a couple of websites and radar images on the screen, and it was pretty impressive how accurate they are. As a matter of fact, Tim specifically joked to me "Go on the blog tomorrow and tell them all you made a tuning call for us" because he asked me if I thought we'd get two sessions in last night. When I said "No way, unless we get a miracle" he switched from scuffed tires to new ones. He was laughing about it, but hey... I gave him my recommendation and he went with it.

Anyway, I've attached a bunch of general Maple Grove pics to give you a flavor for what this is all about. We've had a ton of fans here, supporting us and standing near our pit, and that's aided by the fact we have a terrific pit spot that you can't miss as soon as you walk into the place. The blog readers have been plentiful, including a bunch I correspond with regularly and some other old friends from the sport, like Bob Weickgenannt (former nitro FC driver), and Jim Tomek (current PBA pro bowler) not to mention my blog buddy Skal Loret, who spent most of his life as a real live honest-to-goodness rock 'n roll roadie. He worked with a plethora of bands, though he also spent the longest time with Bob Seger. Oh the stories he can tell...

Yesterday, Skal brought us a zip-lock bag full of various hot peppers from his garden, and Dave tried a tiny slice of one of the orange ones (he said it was the size of a pencil eraser after he chopped it up) and put it on some Mexican food leftovers he had, last night back at the hotel. At around 11:30, my phone rang and it was Dave saying "Oh my gosh. I can't feel my lips!!!" I'm ever so happy to have passed those along to Dave and The Finkster...

Well... We wait. And we hope. And we really really want to get back on the track here. Major props to these amazing Maple Grove fans, who came out in droves yesterday but hung in there, waited out the weather, and stayed until the end. I hope they stay dry today!

Wilber, out!