Legend of Clay Earle Lives On at Martinsville

According to the legend, Clay Earle built the Martinsville Speedway a long time ago out in the middle of a cowpasture.  He became dissatisfied with his profits because he only had the two races each year.  To increase his cash flow, he opened a gambling parlor right on the property.  Remember, this was so long ago that there was no Atlantic City and probably no Las Vegas.  And, it was very illegal.

Somewhere along the line, old Clay got busted, but that isn’t the meat of the legend.  Seems the weather Gods were enraged at illegal activities and swore to forever doom the Speedway to rain or snow for the spring race.  And, once more, the Gods got their revenge.

Martinsville and the weather Gods tried to get the best of me, but I prevailed.

I couldn’t have picked a better spot for our set up.  We were right on the main straight near the start/finish line under the grandstands.  But, due to some miscommunication, my spot was only 12×12 and I had planned for the same 15×15 like at other races.  You’d be suprised how much a difference that makes and it took us all weekend to finally get everything set for maximum productivity.

Tank and I opened on Friday for practice and qualifying but there was almost noone there and of course, the Cup qualifying was rained out.  We did $86 for the day.  And, everything got soaked and dirty.

Peggy, Chuck and Ryan got in during the afternoon, and Jean and Laura (the future Mrs. Tank) arrived early Friday evening traveling after Laura finished her teaching for the day.  Because you can’t find a motel room during race weeks at Martinsville, I had rented a mobile home out in the middle of nowhere where we all stayed.  No television nor radio and very limited phone signal.  Almost felt like I was living in the days of Clay Earle.

Just to complicate matters, while I was brushing my teeth Saturday morning, I threw my back out.  So I spent the rest of the time in Martinsville crooked and in pain.

Saturday was the truck race and after cleaning up from the rain, replacing wet and dirty table cloths on all of my tables.  Remember, we’re under the grandstands so rain just washes all of the dirt and debris from above down on us.  And, I can’t move very well.

Because we were expecting high volume, we fired up the Big Boy along with the other two fryers we’d used on Friday, only it kept shutting down.  We think it was some kind of switch failure but I had no way of fixing it on site. Finally, after about an hour of starting, shutting down and restarting, we  got it up to temperature and it stayed that way so we could use it.  But every morning, it took an hour to get the Big Boy going.  That will be corrected before my next race.

Despite some more rain, the truck race was run.  While we were busy, it was nowhere near the volume of sales we should have had with our location.

Sunday started off fine.  A little on the cold side, but the crowds started  coming and we got up to driver introductions, and the weather Gods hurled more revenge at us.  And, the race finally was postponed until Monday.

That presented a whole new bunch of problems. Mainly, Tank and Laura had to be back in Lynchburg for work on Monday so I was two people short.  And, we had to clean up and resetup everything  after it finally quit raining.  My back was still hurting but not as bad as on Saturday and Sunday.  And, we got hammered.  To make matters worse, I guess I was worried about the Big Boy staying at temperature and stuck two fingers on my left hand in the oil.  Big Boy was at temperature and the oil was at 380 degrees.  Just ask my fingers.  Oh, yes. I’m left handed.

In the end, we had a really big day.  Our service wasn’t as good as I’d liked mostly from using only one cash register instead of two we use with a full staff. Taking the orders and money was actually our slowest point.  I handled the Big Boy and Chuck cooked from the other two doing both funnel cakes and corn dogs.  And, we were able to stay ahead of the front all day.

Chuck also handled the batter so he was doing two full jobs all day.  He was fabulous. Jean, Peggy and Ryan each split up the extra work of our other short person and we got through it.

Monday night, after tearing down and packing up, I drove back to the farm, tired, dirty, beaten, sore and two fingers unusable.  And, of course, it rained going home.

This weekend, Tank and I are doing the Washington and Lee Relay for Life for the American Cancer Society in Lexington.  We’ll be cooking full menu from 4 pm Friday until 8 am Saturday.  That’s right folks.  An all nighter.

Should I try to negotiate with the weather Gods before my next trip to Martinsville?