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Saturday, March 21, 2009

(14) SCCA Inspection, Indianapolis Youth Hockey City Championship, and a retirement party...

Today was one heck of a busy day! The Indianapolis region of the 'Sports Car Club of America' (SCCA) is holding their annual Technical Inspection for members before the racing season begins. I had been spending quite some time in the garage preparing for this. I did some upgrading to the suspension, fixed my muffler issue from the last race, and fabricated a better method of securing my battery and battery box to the car. I had a lot of headaches with wheel clearance on the back of the car that had me working all the way into last night to get the car capable of driving to Indy. The hard work paid off, as I had the car ready by 8pm last night, and was able to take Amber to the VFW for a couple celebratory cold ones.

We got up around 6:30 this morning and got cleaned up and ready for the day's events. I did a final check on the Neon, and we set out for Performance Driven in Indianapolis for the tech inspection. We arrived a bit early around 8am, but I guess the activities were not going to be kicking off until 9am. Amber and I just milled about their showroom and looked at their inventory and munched on some donuts. The two fellas who run the shop, Brian and Dave, are both avid racers and very involved in the racing community. They are also both very knowledgeable about Dodge Neons, as they both race the Neons in SCCA and NASA autocross and road racing events. Brian was previously an engineer for Arvin Suspension, and was on the design team for the Neon's suspension and exhaust.

The tech inspection went wonderfully, as my car was found to be within the regulations for my class. They put the sticker in my windshield, and I parked the car on the lift. I'm leaving the car at Performance Driven so that they can align the suspension and perform corner weighting adjustments to balance the car's handling. It should be ready to bring home around Tuesday, and I'm looking forward to driving it with a good alignment, as the trip up today was a bit uneasy with the alignment out of whack.

Around 10:00 we headed to the Pepsi Coliseum for CW's hockey game. It was quite a hassle finding a parking spot since the 'Garden & Patio Show' and 'Gun and Knife Show' were at full swing. After winning a game on wednesday night in Carmel, CW's team went on to the final city championship game today. His team is the Perry Stars, and the opponent is the other Perry team. It was quite a thrilling game, as the Stars got a lead of 2-0 in the first period, but was tied up 2-2 at the end of the first period. The second period was quite shaky as the opponents scored 2 more goals, leaving the Stars behind 4-2. The Stars picked up the pace and were able to score 4 more goals, ending the game victorious with a score of 6-4. There was a scare in the 2nd period as one of the opposing players fell on the ice and slid head first into the wall, knocking him unconscious. Medical personnel on-site evaluated him on the ice, and he eventually was able to get up and skate off the ice. He should be OK for the most part, perhaps a minor concussion, as he did have on a helmet. I've had some experience in the head trauma field, as I sustained a very similar injury (only without a helmet).

After the game ended we waited for CW to come out of the locker room for pictures and a congratulations. We trekked back to the car and headed to Morristown, IN for the retirement party of Amber's Grandfather. It was held at the American Legion and had quite a good turnout. I had a big plate of veggies & dip, cheeseball & crackers, and a couple scoops of yummy crockpot meatballs. We stayed until 4pm and decided we should head home before our fully bellies got the best of our energy resources.

What will happen tomorrow? Who knows! It's going to be another surprise day!

Until next time...

3 comments:

  1. my team is the stars, sharks is the name of the perry hockey association and he wasn't unconscious or get a concussion, he injured his shoulder

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  2. Changes made to fix your team name. From the looks of the impact, and his immedate reaction, I'd say he was unconscious for a short while. He went completely limp and motionless for a good 10-15 seconds before anyone made it over to help him. He seemed quite shaken up as they had to push him off the ice. If only were a shoulder injury, he'd have been more apt to skate on his own. He definately got his bell rung, no doubt about it.

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  3. if he was unconscious then he shouldn't have been yelling for the 3 minutes it took the refs to notice him, i was right there I heard him and his coaches talking

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