Running for the Roses and chasing down spring storms
This weekend is the annual running of one my favorite sporting events. The Run for the Roses. The Kentucky Derby used to be a very big event back in its day. It’s still a big event, but it doesn’t hold the same luster as it once did.
A few years back, in 2015, the Triple Crown races received some positive publicity as American Pharaoh gave Thoroughbred Racing its first Triple Crown winner in 37 years.
But it still didn’t seem to be to the level of the 70’s. Horse racing, the Sport of Kings, was still big back then. Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Affirmed all won Triple Crowns during that decade. I remember all of them.
The Affirmed and Alydar races were classic battles. Two titans going head-to-head with Affirmed winning the final race – the Belmont Stakes – by a nose. Affirmed won those three races by less than a combined two lengths.
But my favorite of all-time is Secretariat. I will still pull up his Triple Crown races and watch them. His performance in the Belmont Stakes is still the most unbelieve horse race of all-time. And it’s not even close.
Chic Anderson’s call ‘Secretariat is moving like a tremendous machine’ is, to this day, one of my favorite calls in all of sports.
Prep Thoughts
Perhaps Mother Nature just isn’t going to allow for many good playing dates this spring. It seems like just about every time out it’s either cold or windy and now rains has moved into the equation.
At least swimming doesn’t have to worry about it. The Great Bend High swimmers have enjoyed another great season in the pool, dominating the WAC competition as seems to be the case pretty much every year.
Kudos to Joe Bliven and his being named the WAC tennis Coach of the Year following the conference championships at Shannon Schartz courts here in Great Bend. Of course, that event took place through winds of 35-40 mph.
Hopefully, there are more pleasant days ahead for the spring sports.
And Finally
It looks like the severe weather season is finally upon us. A little later than normal, but that’s okay.
On the way home from the college Tuesday I saw a couple of the storm chaser vehicles heading north out of Great Bend. That is when you know severe weather season is here.
A few hailstones ago, I spent some time out chasing storms. Actually, riding along. A couple of good friends, Steve Webster and Todd Nelson, worked for Eagle Radio in Hays when they would actually send live chasers out to give storm reports on the radio.
Many a time they gave me a call and I rode along. Remember, this was back when cell phones as we now know them now, did not exist. It was in the days of the old bag phone.
That meant you couldn’t pick up your phone and take a look at the radar like you can now. And you didn’t always have good cell service everywhere, either.
If it was dark out, you just watched the sky, waited for lightning and judged from that where you needed to go.
I was much younger, obviously, and enjoyed giving chase to the storms.
Fortunately for me, I wasn’t with either when Steve and Todd, on separate occasions, where ‘chased’ from the chasing business.
For Todd, his scary moment came when he got on the front side of a storm that was spinning out tornadoes. If I remember right, he even got out and got in the ditch at least once as his car was spun by the storm. The storm chased him all the way from Hays to my hometown of Glen Elder.
When he reached Glen Elder, he went to my house and knocked on the door. My parents were, of course, somewhat surprised to see him. He headed straight to the restroom. Nature, I guess, had been calling for some time.
The storms passed, he ate a little snack and headed back to Hays.
For Steve, he was caught south of Ellis. Seven miles south. He will tell you this because Gerard Wellbrock, back in the studio, was reporting a tornado seven miles south of Ellis just as Steve was driving under it.
That is when he immediately lost his windshield. It was also when he said he saw the ‘jack rabbits in the wheat field’. Only it wasn’t jack rabbits jumping around. It was grapefruit sized hail bouncing around.
If I am not mistaken, that was the end of Eagle Radio’s live storm chasing days.
