BEGIN the 2003 LOG!

03.22   Saturday  March 22, 2003:
First day of the Racing Season.  Beautiful weather here in Hopewell Township.  The campers
began arriving Friday afternoon.  Mostly very large expensive rigs.  Not many pickup trucks. There was not a lot of earth moving equipment working on the track before race day.  It must have held up very well over the winter.  The races began at 11:30 am, and ended at about 5:45 pm.  There was a long break from about 2:00 pm to about 3:00 pm.   Only a few of the campers moved out at the end of the races, most of them stayed over.

03.23   Sunday  March 23, 2003:
Second day of this session.  A lot more large mobile homes came in this morning.  A couple of them had difficulty making the turn off 696 Northbound.   It appeared that the hill was populated with more mobile homes and campers than ever before.   They were using the loud speaker to "call" the races.  That was very disturbing.  Racing started at 11:30 am, and ended  about 6:30 pm.  The last of the motor homes were out by 8:00 pm.   As yesterday, there was a long break between races in the middle of the afternoon.   An EMT helicopter visited the landing field behind the Fire House, but it may not have had anything to do with the race track.

04.05   Saturday  April 5, 2003:
Very nice racing weather.  There were many vehicles there today, and almost all of them were very large expensive motor homes which arrived Friday evening.  Not many came in on Saturday morning.  There were almost no small vehicles and pick-up trucks.  Their parking and camping facilities appeared to be full.  The races were run very leisurely, and there was a long break between 2:00 and 3:00 pm.  Most of the motor homes camped over after the races ended.

04.06   Sunday  April 6, 2003:
More motor homes arrived Sunday morning, this may have been the greatest population they've had over there.  The weather was good, but the races were laid back same as yesterday.  The loudspeaker began at 10:00 am, but the races began at 11:30 am as usual. There were a few big bike races, but mostly average size machines.  When there are a lot of large motor homes they usually leave late.  Perhaps the owner wants to get a shower and have dinner before hitting the road.   This event set some kind of a record for attendance.

04.13   Sunday  April 13, 2003:
Today was pick-up truck day.  Not so many motor homes, and the ones that did arrive were kind of scroungy looking.  No class.  Good showing of the not-so-well-off crowd.  Racing was mixed, very loud bikes and some not so loud.  The damm loudspeaker tried to call every race.
The place was cleared out by 7:00 pm.   Almost all of the pick-up size vehicles entered onto Route 696 by making a right turn.  First, there's a traffic control sign that says that a no-no, and the driver of a vehicle that does that can't see down Route 696 South before he crosses into and uses the North bound lane in order to swing his vehicle around.   The smart money would say, "Yea, someone going to get killed there."

05.11   Sunday  May 11, 2003:
This Sunday is Mother's Day in most places, but it's a highly-touted motocross race day here in Newburg, Pennsylvania.   Anyway, as a race day it didn't prove to much of a winner.  First,  it was rain and mud from the kind of weather we've been having around here, and Second, there wasn't much of an attendance.  What vehicles that did arrive came Sunday morning, and they were all very large expensive motor homes.  Racing began late, and there was long delays, ( up 45 minutes), between some races.  The vehicles began leaving early, and were all gone by five o'clock, which never happened before.  (NOTE:  Lately we've been hearing a couple of bikes over there during the week.  Monday and Thursday are popular.  It looks like some locals in their pickup trucks.)

06.28   Saturday  June 28, 2003:
Not a very large crowd there today, but some of the loudest noise ever heard from there.  It appears that the races were allocated around very large bikes, and some were running with little or no muffler.  There was a lot of power displayed there today.  It could have been training or practice activities because there were some smaller bikes running with the big bikes. (?)

06.29   Sunday   June 29, 2003:
An observer noticed that the race results for the day showed Kawasaki, Honda and Yamaha bikes being the winners of all the races, so she asked why there was no Harley-Davidson's listed.  Someone told here that H-D's didn't stoop to that level.  "Nuff sed?"  This was a typical race day.  Most if not all the motor homes stayed over Saturday night, and everything was cleared out by 7:30 PM Sunday.  

07.20   Sunday   July 20, 2003:
This was a pick-up truck day.  It seems that a whole bunch of small trucks and trailers began arriving after nine in the morning.  No one was over there at eight.  Anyway, the noise was heavy.  They had some very big bikes in most of the races, but there were a few races where the bikes were very small.  The damm loudspeaker was the main distraction.  It was turned way up.  They were calling the race in real time, so they turned up the loudspeaker to try to be heard over the noise the bikes were making.  It didn't work, but they kept trying.  The place was cleared out by 7:00 PM.   The owners had heavy earth moving equipment working over there on Thursday and Saturday so a "big" event was expected, but it didn't turn out that way.

08.10   Sunday   August 10, 2003:
Nice racing weather today, but hardly anyone came to race.  It was pick-up truck day again. The usual number of races, but not many machines in each race.  No really big bikes, hardly any mobile homes.  They were working on the track until late Saturday night.  Vehicles began arriving about 10:00 am Sunday and were all gone by 6:00 pm.  Racing ended at 5:20 which is unusually early.

08.31   Sunday   August 31, 2003
Not much racing today.  And, again, it was pick-up day.  No real big expensive rigs.  Not many in each race.  Everyone was out of there by six-thirty.  They still try to turn right toward Shippensburg when they exit Reasoner Road.  I was on my way back from "Diffy's"and encountered a pick-up and house trailer trying to do that.  He changed his mind and made a turn toward Newburg, and I had to stop to keep from hitting him.  I don't think he ever looked my way.  (I don't think any of his mirrors could see me, and he didn't even try to put someone out there to watch for north-bound traffic.)  Some one's going to get hurt there, or did I say that before...