Green Truck Tour

Our local telephone company is Windstream. If you're from a Windstream area you're probably aware of the Green Truck in their advertisements; if not, this probably won't mean much to you.

Anyway, Windstream is doing a promotional tour, and they decided to schedule the bank as one of their stops. You can check out their tour schedule at the Windstream Green Truck Tour.

I snapped a few shots of the truck, and you can see some of them on my Facebook. I uploaded more to my Picasa Web Album.

My experience didn't end with pictures though. I got to rip through town in it - and rip I did.

Here are some specs for you:

• Crate ZZ4 Engine; 8 cylinders, 350 c.i. with 380 h.p.
• Edelbrock carburetor and manifold.
• 700 R4 Transmission;
• 148-mph top speed; 0-60 in 5 seconds

It even had a built-in DVD player with dash-mounted flat screen; Garmin GPS; and a premium Pioneer stereo system.

Not bad for a '53 Chevy, eh? It was, to say the least, peppy. I can't attest to the 148 mph, but I can assure you that the 5 second 0-60 is accurate.

I hope you can catch the Green Truck Tour near you.

-=Jim

Pinewood Derby - District Race

If you read the previous posting you're aware of Samuel's winning performance in his Pack. That win allowed him to enter the District race.

District is always the best of the best, and we really had no idea how that was going to play out for us. We knew going in that it could turn out to be a last place day... or a first place day. We'd much rather be on the winning side, but it's all fun.

There were some awesome cars at the race. Some of the times were astonishi

ng, and by the time Samuel got to race his I knew what sort of times his car would have to get to be in the run

ning. His first race was pretty good, he won it. The next seven heats he placed 1st in one, 2nd in five, and came in 4th in the other.

His times were good, but I knew it wasn't going to be a 1st place day. His times were good enough to place him 5th overall. He wasn't so thrilled about 5th, but considering that we built the car here in the dining room over a couple days I'm thinking we did quite well considering that a lot of the kids had parents with a lot more tools, time and resources to put into their cars.

For me it proved that Samuel and I could build an awesome car with simple tools. It was a positive experience for us both.

I guess our next race will be the Awana Grand Prix. I think that's in May.

See you on the track!

-=Jim