In early April I was fortunate to be able to attend one of our driver visits to the St. Paul Children’s Hospital in the company of Tonneau editor Lynn Anderson, organizer Alan Murray, Cat Wallace, Justice Brothers honcho Barry Abblett, and local oval track racers D’Arcy Lee and David Goldman. This was only my second visit, but I would highly recommend the experience to anyone who has a couple of hours to spare during the week. The kids are great, their enthusiasm is wonderful (I hesitate to use the word "infectious") and the staff is most grateful for our efforts. It’s also a great boost to the ego as most of the youngsters wouldn’t know our female drivers from that famous shoe Mary O. N. Dretty. Your autograph may be as treasured as that of any professional, and the smiles light up the rooms. The "local" racing season opened the last weekend in April with the jointly sponsored Driver School/Regional at Blackhawk Farms. Try as I might, as of this writing I have yet to talk to anyone who was there either as driver, student or instructor. I was unable to participate in any category due to work, and the only person I know who was there was Jeff Gadbois			who bought Mike Vrchota’s old FV, but was put out of the program early due to strange sounds coming from the engine compartment. The following weekend marked the first National at Blackhawk, and my motor was there after being loaded into Steve Thomson’s trailer following a rebuild by Tom Andresen, but my car was still in the garage, and I was out east for the Saturday night NASCAR race at Richmond. Thomson didn’t have to use my engine, as his Knapp powerplant did just fine, putting him on the pole and off to a flag-to-flag win in FC. Jerry Szykulski was out for his second race in a brand new Van Diemen, and moved up from third on the grid to a fine second place. Gerry Kraut had a tough weekend, culminating with a stripped third gear resulting in a race DNF. In FF Jim Nash was our only local participant, and he qualified 3rd in a 13 car field. Former National Champ John LaRue had the pole in his venerable Citation, with Chicago driver Joe Tovo second in the ex-Horgas Van Diemen. Jim said he got off to a terrible start and dropped several slots before getting in the groove. His situation wasn’t helped much when his left front tire began to give up the fight about 5 laps from the finish, but he managed 5th place. LaRue was pulling away until a mechanical problem put him in the pits, and although he returned for a few laps, he was not running at the finish. Tovo inherited the lead and notched his first National win followed by Chuck Brewer and Ray Lecuyer. FF shared the track with F500, and Steve Jondal qualified 4th and finished third. One other notable name in the FF race was former champ car driver Steve Krisilof’s son in a brand new Van  Fubar, continued on page 3		LOL Board of Directors Regional Exceutive Greg Youngdahl Home (507) 332-0297 gregy@deskmedia.com Assistant Regional Executive Rob Woolston Home:(651) 739-7837 Robert.Woolston@Unisys.com Secretary Shannon Murphy Home: (612) 798-3575 blueflagger@yahoo.com Treasurer Mark LaBarre Home: (651) 407-7293 mlabarre@usfamily.net Members at Large John Daniels Home: (612) 377-8403 j.danielsjr@all.net Doug Dill Home: (612) 925-1731 dougd@edsonline.com Chad Lemmons Home: (651) 688-7976 John Niemi Home: (651) 766-8027 captmayday@aol.com Randy Van De Loo Home: (612) 729-1949 randy@winning.com LOL Web Page: http://www.scca-lol.org LOL Hotline: 612-885-6888

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Tonneau On-Line	June 2001	Page 2
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