Happy sneaks to victory again

By Shaun Burke

The most well-known streak in NASCAR almost came to an end in the 2011 Coke 600. Instead, NASCAR’s most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was silently coasting to pit road while Kevin Harvick celebrated his third win of the season.

After exciting finishes in the Grand Prix of Monaco and the Indianapolis 500, NASCAR had big shoes to fill with their version of the Memorial Day Classic. Luckily for fans, the race didn’t disappoint.

There were 38 lead changes amongst 21 drivers in a race that actually ran 603 miles.

Harvick won after leading just two laps. He was followed by David Ragan, Joey Logano, Kurt Busch and A.J. Allmendinger. Junior, who led until the end of turn four of the final lap finished seventh.

Junior made his final pit stop with about 55 laps to go and was told by his crew chief Steve Letarte that he was good to the end. Over the final 55 laps, Junior ran third about one second behind leaders Greg Biffle and Kasey Kahne. With just four laps to go, Junior’s team mate Jimmie Johnson’s engine blew up brought out the caution setting up a Green-White-Checker.

Unfortunately for several drivers, Johnson oiled down the track resulting in a lengthy cleanup. Leader Greg Biffle pitted when the field got the one to go to green due to running out of gas. When the field got the green on lap 200, Kasey Kahne’s car sputtered and Brad Keselowski smashed into the back of him. In the aftermath, the car of Jeff Burton was spinning and debris was all over the track. NASCAR did not to throw the caution and the field continued to race towards the checkers. Junior took the white flag and appeared to be well on his way to cruising to his first victory since 2008.

As Junior was headed down the backstretch for the final time his car visibly began to slow. Coming off turn four Junior’s car was silent. Harvick and several other cars passed Junior.

A favorite coming into the race, Kyle Busch had a week he would soon like to forget. After dealing with controversy involving his excessive speeding violation, Busch spun twice on his own and did not finish the race. His finish standing in the race was 32nd.

Points leader Carl Edwards had a disappointing finish of 16th after leading early in the race. Fortunately for Edwards, five time champion Johnson finished 28th after a blown engine. Edwards actually expanded his points lead to 36 over new second place running Kevin Harvick. Johnson, Junior and Kyle Busch round out the top 5.

What Is Expected for the Top Gear 300

By Nathan Butler

The NASCAR Nationwide series is coming off a huge momentum swing, after first time NNS winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr. proved he has what it takes to be a winner. Every fan who follows the NASCAR Nationwide Series knows that Ricky has the pure talent to be a great racer, but does every fan know he has what it takes to finish the Top Gear 300 from Charlotte on top?

The Top Gear 300 holds 200 grueling laps around this 1.5mile track, something drivers know they must face. As one driver will end up in Victory Lane, they will receive a purse of $1,013,918, which just adds to a more intense and exciting race.

With Trevor Bayne sitting out of today’s NNS race, Roush Fenway Racing was forced to make a decision on who would replace him in the 16 car, they looked to no other than Matt Kenseth. Matt has won 25 races in the NNS, 2 of which came from the Charlotte Motor Speedway. With Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finishing the 2^nd practice P1, and Kenseth finishing P3, I believe RFR will once again be tough to beat.

Driver Kimi Raikkonen is making his NNS debut today, something that will have fans glued to their TV sets. Kimi made his debut in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series last week in the NC Education Lottery 200, and finished P15. It will be interesting to see where Kimi will end up, as he has no prior experience in a stock car.

Some fast facts heading into the Top Gear 300:

Location: Charlotte Motor Speedway, Concord, N.C.

Length: 200 laps, 300 miles

Purse: $1,013, 918

2010 Winner: Kyle Busch, NOS Energy Drink Toyota- Time of Race: 2hrs 18mins and 11sec’s. Average Speed: 132.216mph- Margin of victory: 0.112sec’s over Brad Keselowski

2010 Pole Sitter: Carl Edwards, Fastenal Ford- 28.889sec’s. 186.922mph

Radio/Television: Performance Racing Network (PRN) will broadcast the Top Gear 300. ABC will televise the race live. Coverage begins with a pre-race show at 2:00pm (EDT).

Next Race: Chicago- June 4th

More Than One Story Heading into the 52nd Coca-Cola 600

By Nathan Butler

The 52^nd running of the Coca-Cola 600 (formerly World 600), gives fans a sense of NASCAR’s past. NASCAR fans think of this race as one of its own. Most fans who can remember the World 600 are fans of Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, the late, great Dale Earnhardt and many others who are considered “veterans” of this sport. Granted, many of those fans have either changed their loyalty to Dale Earnhardt Jr., or to another Ford, Chevy or Dodge driver.

The Coca-Cola 600, which happens to fall on Memorial Day weekend every year, is a dedication to some of our Country’s bravest. Whether it is the pre-race military helicopters flying over the stands, or the “blowing up” of the enemies huts in the front tri-oval, there is a strong military presence at the Coca-Cola 600. What is amazing this year is that speedway officials have given some of their own seats to honor the NAVY seals for their capturing and killing of Osama Bin Laden. If you are a proud American, this is where you need to be!

One major storyline going into the Coca-Cola 600 is, “When will Trevor Bayne make his return to NASCAR?” Trevor had a press conference Friday and was asked many questions that pertain just to that. Trevor put it best when he opened with this statement; “I missed you guys. It has been bad being away. It has been incredible to me and a real eye opener of how supportive everyone in our sport is.” NASCAR is a community where drivers feel connected with their fans. It is almost like a democracy, drivers know they need the fans and the fans know they need the drivers. One might add, a NASCAR fan may not be a fan of Trevor Bayne, but one can respect what he has done in the racing world. Everyone was concerned about why he has been out of racing, and to our amazement, not many people know why. Trevor announced to the media on Friday that there has not been a diagnosis, not even the doctors in the Mayo Clinic know what was wrong with him. As traumatic as that incident was for a young driver like Trevor, he concluded on a positive note, “I plan on making my return to the Nationwide Series in Chicagoland.” Racing needs Trevor, and Trevor needs racing.

Another big story heading into the 52^nd annual Coca-Cola 600 was not necessarily about the race, but of Kyle Busch’s run in with the law. It seemed like the media had a field day when Kyle Busch had his weekly meeting with the press. It started off with Kyle apologizing first thing, “I’m certainly sorry for my actions and for my lack of judgment. This is something that I can take and learn from hopefully move forward and not let happen again.” Kyle was then asked about his incident in more detail, when it was the media’s turn to ask questions.

-Have you personally spoken with your team owner, your sponsors, and your neighbors about the speeding incident?

“I have certainly had discussions with Mr. Coach Gibbs (team owner) as well as Joe Gibbs Racing and my sponsors as well too. It’s just a matter of showing your utmost respect for them and what they do for you. They believe in you to do what you can in order to represent them well and obviously I had a lack in judgment and just made a mistake. I’m sorry for making that mistake, but as far as any of the people that may have made comments or anything like that, I don’t have a relationship with any of those people. Unfortunately, I don’t go door-to-door knocking on the door and commenting to them. All I can do is say my piece here and let it be.”

-What did you mean when you said the Lexus was, ‘just a toy?’

“Well it was a car that was on loan to me from Lexus and it wasn’t that it was a toy, it’s a high performance vehicle and that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Should be driven with caution. Obviously, I didn’t have a caution and I had a lack in judgment and there’s probably a reason why on TV commercials and such they always show at the bottom, professional driver, closed course. Mine was not that. Again, I apologize sincerely to all those affected and that all I can do is try to make sure it doesn’t happen again and that I make sure that lack of judgment doesn’t overcome me.”

One great story line heading into the Memorial Day race is the debut of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Ricky will take Trevor Bayne’s driver seat this week, for the #21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford. Ricky only ran 12 laps in practice, which he felt was not enough time to get used to a Cup car. Ricky only has experience in the Nationwide series car, where he won his first career race last week in Iowa. On his first lap of qualifying he turned a lap of 28.309sec, only 0.197sec off the pole which put him P9 on the speed charts. It would really be something for Ricky to have a good enough finish this week that would him secure him a NSCS ride next season.

With all of these story lines, it is finally time for my NASCAR fantasy picks for this week. I must remind you that these are amateur picks, so please use them at your own discretion. My 52^nd annual Coca-Cola 600 picks:

Target: Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, and Matt Kenseth

Avoid: Kevin Harvick, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Denny Hamlin

Analysis: Kyle Busch has never won here but he’s come close many times. Kurt Busch swept the May 2010 races, but doesn’t seem to be as productive as he was this point last year. Jimmie Johnson has had trouble recently but he’s led laps in 18 straight Charlotte races.

Bargain: David Ragan finished 10^th last October. Paul Menard finished P8 in the Coca-Cola 600 last May.

Expect this Coca-Cola 600 to be full of excitement and thrill, and will definitely leave your adrenalin pumping. Next up is Kansas, should be another great race…

Until next time~ “Let’s go racin’ boys!”- DW

Looking at the Sprint All-Star Race through the Rear View Mirror

BY Nathan Butler

The 2011 Sprint All-Star race started off with a bang, in the 2011 Sprint Cup Showdown. The race was dominated by driver David Ragan, who held on to win his first Showdown victory. Jack Roush said, “David has one of the fastest Ford’s this weekend”, and it definitely showed! After starting on the pole, David knew he had to execute, and not allow his opportunity to go to waste. David finished P1, and Brad Keselowski finished P2, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the fan vote.

The big show, aka the Sprint Cup All-Star race, left us with much mixed emotions. With a weekend that was greatly dominated by Ford’s, a Ford was in Victory Lane. The first segment was a constant back and forth fight between Kyle Busch and Greg Biffle. Greg would eventually pull out to a big lead and not look back heading into the end of the first segment. One driver that I was paying close attention to heading into the end of the segment was Carl Edwards. Between him and Matt Kenseth, they were running faster times than Greg Biffle, but couldn’t seem to get ahead of the majority of the traffic.

By the start of the 2^nd segment, Carl jumped out front and did not look back, as he would hold on to win the 2^nd segment. Once again, Kyle Busch was right there in P2, but just couldn’t manage to get ahead. Several times Kyle had his car where he wanted it on the restarts, but by the time they finished a lap or two, Carl was able to stretch the lead about 1-2sec’s.

Nothing changed much heading into the end of the 3^rd segment where Carl would hold off Kyle Busch. It was almost comical to see the 2^nd and 3^rd segments being so close. I thought Matt Kenseth would be the “dark horse” as we ended the 3^rd segment. The “Killer Bees” had a really great pit stop, putting them from P7 to P3, setting him up for the potential finish he had wanted.

NASCAR has done a great job preparing the Sprint All-Star Race with a 10 lap shootout towards the end. In most cases we see 1-2 cautions within that “10 lap shootout”, this was not the case tonight. Cars began to spread out, which in return, did not leave such an exciting finish most fans were hoping for. Carl jumped out to about a 1.5sec lead, but saw it dwindle fast in the last 2 laps. Kyle was coming fast, interesting enough, it was almost like Kyle waited too long in deciding to make a charge toward the front.

There wasn’t a car all night that could stick to the bottom of the track like Carl’s with that much power! I was really impressed with the Ford package for this weekend, and wouldn’t be surprised if we saw something similar to next week.

Some driver quotes:

Greg Biffle – “I was really good in the beginning and then I was a little too loose and we tightened it up a little bit. I guess the track tightened up. I thought the track was gonna free up the cooler it got and the faster it go, but it didn’t. It tightened up, so on the last 10-lap deal I didn’t free it up enough. We had a really, really fast car, but I just wish I would have made a few more adjustments.”

David Ragan—“A top 10 and it was certainly a fun race. I felt like we had a car that could have contended for the win, it’s just all about the track position but everybody is trying to get that track position throughout the race. Our UPS We Love Logistics car did a nice job. We can’t complain.”

Final Running Order for the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series All-Star Race—

Car #’s-- 99, 18, 00, 14, 16, 17, 11, 6, 29, 39, 5, 42, 22, 88, 24, 33, 1, 2, 25, 78, and 4

Next Up: Coca~Cola 600 (Sunday 6pm est.)

N.C. Education Lottery 200

By Nathan Butler

Going into the N.C. Education Lottery 200, I knew there were going to be cautions, but did anyone seriously think there would be one every ten laps? This race was merely dominated by our pole sitter, Timothy Peters, in the beginning of the race, but the luck turned bad pretty quick. Todd Bodine brought out the first caution of the day (lap 9), spun out all by himself, and from then on, we were doomed!

Kyle Busch overcame much adversity in this race, to win back to back N.C. Education Lottery 200 races. Kyle spun out about half way through the race, and battled his way through the field. Kyle passed race leader Clint Bowyer with 7 laps left. Clint battled back after being passed, but nudging the wall on the front stretch was not enough to clinch that P1 spot. While the difference was only 0.317sec, it was sure interesting!

It was an eventful day to say the least for the 18 machines, all led by no other than Kyle “Rowdy” Busch. Kyle won the pole for the Sprint All Star race Saturday night, and clinched the win during the NCWTS Race.

Besides the top 2 cup series drivers in today’s race, one can’t argue the impressive performance Cole Whitt had. Cole finished P3, in one of his best finishes thus far in the 2011 NCWTS Season. James Buscher also had an impressive run finishing P4.

Next Up: Kansas June 4th

Edwards wins in a wild finish

By Gary Buchanan

On the second and final green-white-checkers restart, Carl Edwards driver of the #60 Fastenal Ford was the leader and Joey Logano restarted in the high line in second.

Exiting turn four, both driver got loose and it appeared that Edwards touched the rear of Logano’s #20 GameStop Toyota sending him hard into the outside wall, triggering a multi-car crash on the final lap.

The race finished under caution flag conditions with Edwards winning Saturday's 5-Hour Energy 200 at Dover International Speedway. This was Edwards’ third of the season and the 32nd of his career.

Edwards refrained from performing his traditional winning backflip off of his car because he thought he had wrecked Logano.

“I saw him wiggle and I wasn’t sure if I touched him or not. Not the way we wanted to finish the race.” Edwards said after exiting his car in victory lane.

After seeing the replay, Edwards was glad that he didn’t touch Logano.

“They just showed the replay and I didn’t touch them, so I am happy for that. What a wild finish. I apologize for not doing the back flip there guys. I thought that I wrecked them and I didn’t want to be celebrating over that but it looks like we didn’t hit them, we won the race in our fast Ford Mustang and that is good. My guys did a great job on pit road.” Edwards said.

“It just seemed like I either got tagged or I think just Carl coming up took the air off me enough to make me loose. I just think (watching a replay of the accident), see I think he’s coming up the track. Those shark fins they got them. You get a car underneath you right about that point you feel the car starting to get loose. It’s unfortunate man.” Logano said.

Clint Bowyer ran up Logano’s car on the drivers side, sending him airborne. Bowyer flipped onto his side and slid down the track into the inside wall. Mike Bliss and Steve Wallace also slammed hard into the inside wall and into Bowyer.

Brad Keselowski clipped the back of Logano’s spinning car, sending him into in inside wall.

“We had a decent day going, just didn’t finish it off. That’s unfortunate for our Ruby Tuesday Dodge team. I think the 60 ran over the 20 and then all hell kind of broke loose from there.” twelfth place finisher Keselowski said.

Everyone involved was check out a released from the infield care center. Also a crew member was reputably injured from debris.

Kyle Busch failed on his attempt to tie Mark Martin for the career Nationwide wins lead at 49. Busch was also caught up in the final lap crash but managed to finish second with a heavily damaged car.

“I didn’t really want that kind of view. It’s going to take an awful lot of MAC Tools and Stanley Tools to beat the front end out of this thing. Luckily, we just cut it off and start over. It was a long day for us. We didn’t quite have the car we needed today, unfortunately this weekend. We kept working on it, trying to make it the best we could. The nose damage we had from earlier in the race coming to pit road just killed it.”

Reed Sorenson finished third, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fourth and David Reutimann finished fifth.

“It is really frustrating. We are fast every run, every practice, every first run of the race and all of a sudden our Mustang gets really, really loose. I don’t know if it is something we are doing every week that might get it free but that first run I didn’t want to have any too big of complaints but our Mississippi Flood Relief Ford was really loose. We made big changes on pit stops that seemed to make it better, but I guess not as good as it needs to be.” Stenhouse Jr. said.

Elliott Sadler finished sixth and now holds a 10 point lead over Reed Sorenson in the series standings.

The series heads to Iowa Speedway next Sunday at 2 pm for the John Deere Dealers 250 presented by Pioneer.

Unofficial Race Results

5-Hour Energy 200, Dover International Speedway

May 14, 2011 – Race 11 of 35

====================================

Pos. Driver

====================================

1 Carl Edwards

2 Kyle Busch

3 Reed Sorenson

4 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

5 David Reutimann

6 Elliott Sadler

7 Kenny Wallace

8 James Buescher

9 Aric Almirola

10 Mike Wallace

11 Jason Leffler

12 Brad Keselowski

13 Joey Logano

14 Clint Bowyer

15 Mike Bliss

16 Steve Wallace

17 Josh Wise

18 Ryan Truex *

19 Joe Nemechek

20 Michael Annett

21 J.R. Fitzpatrick

22 Timmy Hill *

23 Danny Efland

24 Jeremy Clements

25 Eric McClure

26 Morgan Shepherd

27 Derrike Cope

28 Dennis Setzer

29 Justin Allgaier

30 Brian Scott

31 Tim George Jr.

32 Alex Kennedy

33 Donnie Neuenberger

34 Carl Long

35 Scott Wimmer

36 Tim Andrews

37 Jennifer Jo Cobb *

38 Kevin Lepage

39 Brad Teague

40 Brett Rowe

41 Jeff Green

42 Charles Lewandoski *

43 Blake Koch *

Redemption for Reagan Smith

By Shaun Burke

The Southern 500 is one of the longest and most grueling races of the year but this year it was absolutely worth it!

Regan Smith stayed out on old tires and held off Carl Edwards on a green white checker to pick up his first career win (second if you ask some). Unfortunately for Smith, the television cameras were focused on action occurring between a couple of driver who finished outside of the top ten.

On lap 365, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch got tangled together and played bumper cars for half a lap. After taking out an innocent bystander in Clint Bowyer, Busch hooked the right rear of Harvick’s car and sent him to the outside wall. The resulting incident put Busch and Harvick at the end of the pack (and out of harm’s way). After the race was over, Harvick and Busch changed games and played a little dodge-car before pulling the car on pit road. As Harvick unbuckled and approached Busch’s car, Busch quickly sped away but not before Harvick got a bunch through the window squarely landing on Busch’s helmet.

This incident caused great controversy on twitter not because Harvick punched Busch but because when Busch sped off, he pushed the vacant 29 car sending the car hard into the inside wall while several crew members were on pit road. After the race, both drivers were called to the NASCAR hauler and neither would give comments about what was discussed. One thing is for certain, we haven’t heard the last about this incident for sure!

Contrary to the incident on pit road between Busch and Harvick, there was actually a NASCAR race that occurred! Regan Smith’s first career win came in his 105th career start. It was also his first ever top five and just his second career top ten!

Smith owes part of his win to Brad Keselowski as well. After staying out on old tires, Keselowski raced Carl for about half a lap. This allowed Smith to pull away and hold Carl off on the last lap. Keselowski held on to finish third, his best finish since his upset win at Talladega in 2009. Kasey Kahne finished fourth after leading the most laps. Rounding out the top five was Ryan Newman who despite dropping deep in the field, charged back late in the race.

Unofficially, Carl Edwards now leads Jimmie Johnson by 23 points in the chase for the Sprint Cup. The rest of the top five are Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Kevin Harvick. Matt Kenseth sits tenth just eight points ahead of AJ Allmendinger for the final chase spot.

Next week the Cup Series heads to Dover where Kyle Busch will attempt to defend his victory on the track and his honor off.

The Matriarch

By Terri Ketterman

We all have a mother. Some of us have a few; a step-mom, a mother-in-law, an adoring aunt. Hopefully, at least one of them has had a profound positive influence on us. She's taught you wrong from right; made sure you behaved, and played nicely with others. She's helped you understand how to share your space with the world. When you were wrong, or pushed the limit, or stepped too far out of line, Mom brought you back down to earth with a hard cold dose of reality. She did the dirty work Dad somehow didn't have the guts to do.

It was a while in coming, but I've reached a peace with the loss of Labor Day as a NASCAR tradition. I tend to be a bit philosophical anyway, and after a few years, I've realized that Darlington on Mother's Day is really quite appropriate. I have to admit, it really hit home for me just yesterday, watching Kurt Busch smack the wall during practice. I chuckled to myself, and although it may be too late to have a profound affect on him, I couldn't help but wonder if the Lady In Black wasn't doing her part to put him in line, to send him a message on behalf of those of us with maternal instincts.

No matter what, you love your Mom. She brought you into the world, nurtured you, protected you, doled out tough love when you didn't think you need it. She can't stay young forever, and at some point, you start taking care of her more than she takes care of you. Darlington certainly helped to bring NASCAR into the world and nurtured it with thrilling events and wonderful traditions. I'm glad we're taking care of her now, and we need to keep it up. With a little love, a lot of respect, and some undying devotion, she will be a NASCAR matriarch forever.

The Case for Kasey

By Terri Ketterman

"I'll take that Coors Light pole with a slice of Redemption Pie, please." You have to believe that's what Kasey Kahne fans are thinking after a long couple of years that have seen their driver in some odd situations that have pushed his Kenny Francis led teams into the hinterlands of mediocrity.

Kahne's 2010 season was successful by some teams' standards, with four poles, and seven top 5 finishes. One might say it was remarkable given the turmoil that Richard Petty Motorsports was undergoing, but it certainly fell far below fans' and observers' expectations for the Enumclaw, Washington driver who set the Cup series on fire in 2004 as a rookie. Although we think of Kahne as a superstar in the sport, the numbers belie that, with only eleven wins across seven full Cup seasons.

At first blush, it seemed bizarre for Kahne to step into a stop-gap seat with Red Bull Racing for just one year while he waits off-stage, so to speak, for a co-star role on the Hendrick A-list. Careful consideration, however, will lead one to believe that given his ability to bring along Francis, and to have available solid resources and relatively stable structure at Red Bull, it was a genius move. Even moderate success at Red Bull will serve to solidify the already powerful Kahne/Francis chemistry and ensure confidence levels for the not-so-young-anymore driver stay high going into a very Earnhardt, Jr-esque "do or die" scenario at HMS.

Darlington seems like the perfect track for Kasey to start his climb back to the top. Although he's got no Cup wins at the tempestuous Lady In Black, he's led 171 laps and snagged two top fives in that series, and is 2-0 in the truck series here. His dominating run in a Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota came just a short two months ago.

With Red Bull behind him, and a Hendrick light pulling him to the end of a long painful tunnel, the Case for Kasey winning his first Southern 500 is very compelling.

A Writer's Day of Terror

By Shaun Burke

One of my favorite times of the week is sitting back with a cold Miller Lite and watching a NASCAR race. Once the race is over, I write about what I saw and hope a few people read it and enjoy what they just read. I even had the pleasure of attending the races at Talladega and Nashville each of the last two weekends. I hardly call myself a “professional writer”; however, it’s a hobby I enjoy doing.

This past week, I experienced one of the most heart wrenching situations of my life as I witnessed my hometown of Cullman, Alabama being ripped to shreds by an EF4 Tornado. Instead of going back and attempting to recap a race I didn’t even get to watch, I am going to try to convey my thoughts and emotions from the past week of my life. I just hope you read this and understand the magnitude of a tornado. When you hear the sirens, seek shelter! Also, even though my emotions are primarily tried to Cullman due to it being my hometown, many communities were devastated due to the tornado outbreak. Please keep all of Alabama, Mississippi and any other state that had deadly tornados in your thoughts and prayers. It will take time, but these communities will rebuild.

I have never been more scared than I was on Wednesday, April 27, 2011. I watched helplessly as a tornado ripped apart the town of Cullman, Alabama. Meanwhile, my mother, father and brother were in Cullman and typically considered the tornado siren as nothing more than a loud distraction to their routine activities.

Early in the morning, a small tornado tore through the town of Hanceville, Alabama; a town significantly smaller than Cullman and about 10 miles south. You could say it was a suburb of Cullman if towns of 15,000 had suburbs! During this small tornado, the power infrastructure was destroyed and several trees were downed. This left Hanceville in the dark and unaware of the approaching afternoon storms.

I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about weather and take it very serious. Many Meteorologists in Huntsville and Birmingham warned that Wednesday would be a “red letter day” and that it was important to stay weather aware. There would be several lines of weather coming through all day.

As I sat at work Wednesday in Huntsville, the sirens sounded early and often. So often in fact, that my company made the decision to let all the employees go home at 12:30. The National Weather Service cleared a warning for my town at 12:15 and employees made a mad rush to the exits in an attempt to get home before the next line approached.

One unfortunate problem with Cullman is that it lies exactly halfway between two major television markets: Huntsville and Birmingham. Typically, Cullman severe weather coverage is spotty as each market sort of assumes the other market will cover. Just after 2:00, Cullman County was put under a Tornado Warning. Since my father lived in Hanceville and he did not have power, I decided to find a Birmingham station online that was covering the storm approaching Cullman in order to warn him if needed. I began watching James Spann from ABC 33/40 online. Spann began showing a live feed of a tornado forming over Cullman, Alabama.

As I watched the tornado begin to form, I called my mother who works in downtown Cullman. I warned her of the approaching storm to which she usually shrugs and says “oh, ok”. She said she could sense the fear in my voice and knew this time was different. I had her turn to the same video that I had been watching and told her it was imperative she get into her shelter immediately. After getting off the phone with me, she called my step-dad and told him to take his elderly mother to the basement. My step-dad then called my step-brother and warned him of the approaching tornado.

After speaking to my mom, I called my father who had been working on repairing buildings and removing trees all day in Hanceville. I assumed he was in Hanceville and was calling him to inform him of the approaching storm. When I called him and asked him where he was, he informed me he was driving in downtown Cullman! For the rest of my life, I will not forget the immediate fear that overtook me. I frantically told him that I was watching a tornado on the ground approaching Cullman and that he needed to get the hell out of there immediately! He calmly said “Oh, I don’t see anything…..OH MY GOD, I SEE IT!” and he quickly hung up.

Here I was, sitting in my house 40 miles away watching a tornado rip through Cullman and not knowing the wellbeing of my parents. For the next few minutes, I watched the live stream, attempting to hold back tears. My five year old daughter didn’t understand why her Daddy was so upset. I picked her up, hugged her tight and just prayed like I never have before.

After a few minutes, I began calling my parents and other family in Cullman. Due to the power failure, circuits were extremely busy and I was not able to get through. After several failed attempts at getting ahold of anyone, I called my brother who lived in Auburn. He had been in class and did not know what was happening. I told him to begin calling everyone and we would let each other know who we got in contact with.

The first person I was able to get ahold of was my mother. When I heard her voice and she told me she was ok, I absolutely lost it. She told me that she was fine and her store was fine; however just one block to the south of her, the tornado had ripped apart the historic business district. One of my mother’s businesses is a Budget truck franchise. They park all the trucks in a large parking lot between two buildings in the historic district. They were tossed around and on their side. In fact, one of her trucks was missing!

Next, I got ahold of my dad. After heeding my warning, he drove about 3 miles north of town where he was clearly out of danger’s way. He then took an amazing video of the tornado as it tore through Cullman. He told me he was OK and that he was about to go downtown and participate in the initial search & rescue.

After about two hours, I was able to get ahold of everyone I was trying to call and was able to call them all back and let them know everyone else was safe. I sat back and again, prayed. I prayed for the way everything worked out. If the tornado hadn’t hit Hanceville in the morning, I would not have been watching that Birmingham station. If I had not been watching that Birmingham station, I would not have seen the live feed. If I had not seen the live feed, I would not have had the fear in my voice that convinced my mother how serious the situation was this time.

I later learned that while my mother’s office building was spared (despite losing the inventory of trucks) and her house was spared, my step-brother was not so lucky. After my step-dad called him to inform him of the storms, he began watching the weather closely at his home. He saw the tornado approaching and got into the bathtub along with a friend who was at the house with him. As the tornado passed, it threw a tree down on top of the historic farmhouse and knocked it off the foundation. Had he just gotten into the bathroom instead of the tub, he would have been crushed. The only part of the house with enough space for two adults was the bathtub. Again, I count my blessings that the series of events went like it did and may have saved my step-brother from injury or worse.