No opinion today; I just want to share something with everyone, something that I found humorous, entertaining and above all, pretty cool.

As everyone knows by now, I spent 11 years racing through the deserts of Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado and Mexico with my best friend, Dan Beaver, of Parker, in a Ford Tough Truck in Class 8 in the SCORE Championship Series.

After we won our second race together, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Dan, not as friend to friend, but as sportswriter to driver, and conduct an interview about his racing career and stuff like that. And the other day, I found the notes from that interview.

During the course of that interview, when I was asking about Dan’s early days in the sport, and who had the most influence on him, and all that sort of thing, and he brought up the legendary Mickey Thompson.

I knew Dan and Mickey were friends because I’d see them greet one another and talk and carry on at several racing events early in the mid to late 1980s.

And I did know that Dan and another racing legend, Bill Stroppe, were friends and had spent a great deal of time together and that Stroppe had been Dan’s co-rider and mentor in his early years.

But but I never knew that Dan had spent time pre-running the Parker 400 with Mickey.

Anyway, Dan shared this memory of Mickey Thompson:

“I remember we were driving down the Bouse Road in my old prerunner, and I must have been doing about a hundred miles per hour, driving the living hell out of it, trying to impress him, if you know what I mean.

“Mickey never quit talking, and all at once he asks me, ‘Are you the greatest race car driver there ever was?’

“And I said, ‘No I don’t think so.’

“He said, ‘Bullshit!’

“Then he says, ‘You’re looking at the best there ever was, son. I don’t care if it’s an off-road car, an Indy car, a sprint car, a NASCAR.’

“He says, ‘Nobody, can drive a car better than I can, and I can beat anybody in the world.’

“And he looked at me, and he says, ‘When you get that attitude, and that frame of mind, you will win.’

“And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Me?’

“It took a while, but the story sunk in. Now, I honestly believe that when I strap that brain bucket on, I’ll tell you what, when I get that attitude, I don’t believe anybody can beat me. And it works.

“That year I lost to Walker (Evans) by about a minute and six seconds. When I started the last lap, I was nine minutes behind. And I got it all back but the last one minute and six seconds.

“Mickey had me sky high before that race. I was walking around feeling like Superman’s gorilla. And I drove the livin’ hell out of that truck.

“Bill Stroppe taught me a lot. Mickey taught me a lot. Stroppe taught me more about driving technique; and being smart.

“Mickey taught me more about how to use my head, psychologically so to speak, how to get my mind ready for a race. And he did teach me a lot too about different angles of attack on ditches and ruts and things like that, to actually save the car, so it didn’t work as hard. He would make me turn around and make me go back over something.

“But he worked on my mind really hard, Mickey did. He taught me a lot of the psychological part of driving, and I never forgot those lessons; they were very valuable.

“I used them a lot, I still do.”

I can attest to the fact that all those lessons must have sunk in, because, in this writer’s opinion, although Dan may not have a shelf full of trophies to show for his efforts, whenever he was behind the wheel of a race truck, he was one of the best there ever was; he could go wheel-to-wheel with Walker Evans, Ivan Stewart, Dave Shoppe, Larry Ragland, Scoop Vessels, all of the big boys back in the day, and give them all a run for their money.

Am I the only one who doesn’t know who Mindy McCready is? Or at least, three days ago I didn’t.

Apparently, she confirmed that she’s had an affair with Roger Clemens. And oh yeah, she’s known his since she was 15, but the affair started later.

McCready - or, given her affair with Clemens, should it be McKready? - has had some run ins with the law.  Just check out here Wikipedia page … that’s mostly fact based, isn’t it? So she’s had a troubled life.

But what does this have to do with Roger Clemens? Frankly, I have no idea. The ESPN legal talking heads say the McNamee team introduced this to show him as a less-than-stellar character; someone who would, I don’t know, lie about taking HGH. Even though McCready’s testimony will probably be inadmissible. I think.

(And yes, that is Dean Cain in that last link, photo No. 7)

I don’t know where this go will next. All I know, Clemens made a mistake by pursuing this defamation trial. Even if he was innocent.  If he thought McNamee was such a scumbag, he’d know that they’d trot all all type of lies to defame him.

But it looks like he did have something to hide. And that makes the lawsuit an even worse idea.

I knew it wouldn’t last.

Back before the current NASCAR Sprint Cup 2008 season, began, I was talking about all the changes that were coming, among them Joe Gibbs Racing switch from Chevrolets to Toyotas.

That meant seeing Tony Stewart behind the wheel of a Toyota, and, hey, that just ain’t right. I mean, this cat pretty much bleeds whatever color blood you want to associate with GM. And I wondered then if changes might be on the horizon, despite Tony’s professed allegiance to JGR.

And, what do you know? This week the buzz around Talladega is all about Tony looking at other contract offers, looking for another ride.

Call me crazy, or silly, or whacked, or whatever, but I believe it has to do with brand association. Sure, it’s also about money, but don’t forget that Tony has a garage full of of Chevrolets at home, not to mention the fact that he just did an Amorall commercial in which he drives up to a convenience store in a sweet, black Corvette.

On top of that, check out the sprint cars he owns. They aren’t powered by rice burners. Nope, big-horsepower Chevrolets, bow tie power all the way.

Those in the know say this episode is all about Tony wanting to use leverage to get more dinero out of JGR. That’s what went down in 2003, when he was flirting with a contract offer from Chip Ganassi before re-signing with JGR.

But I want to also point out that Tony is, or was, one of Chevrolet’s biggest names, one of their high profile drivers, second only to Dale Earnhardt Jr., I suspect. And don’t you think for a second that losing Tony to Toyota went over too well in Detroit.

And don’t you think Chevrolet wants him back? Don’t fool yourself if you think not.

That being said, consider this final tidbit. When it was time to start re-negotiating his contract with JGR, Tony said he was looking forward to signing an extension. That was before it was revealed that JGR would be switching from Chevrolet to Toyota.

Since then, or to be more concise, in January, Tony said he was in no rush to sign a new deal with JGR.

Coincidence? I think not.

Face it, Tony looks so much better in a bow tie.

I caught some of the NASCAR Nationwide series race from Mexico City on Sunday, and the whole going south of the border to race thing got me to thinking … no so much about the age-old “don’t drink the water” thing, but the proper documentation thing, as in what it takes to get there and get home again.

The reason this crossed my mind is because my good friend, who I rode with for 11 years in SCORE, HDRA and Best in the Desert races in Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado and Mexico, is facing that exact dilemma as we speak.

Here’s the deal. He’s still got two desert racing trucks in his stable, with his sons now doing the driving. And he has all but written off ever again racing in Mexico. Ever.

The reason is, getting back and forth cross the border has become too much of a hassle.

I know, I know, all that’s needed, currently, is a birth certificate and a driver’s license, or a passport.

The trouble is, pretty much all of the members of his crew don’t want to put up with the hassle of having to produce two forms of identification at the border, and I’m guessing hardly anyone of them has a passport. They are not the, um, how should I put it, “worldly traveler” type, of you know what I mean.

That being said, they’d just as soon stay home and help out only on the THIS side of the border.

And that’s a shame. I’m not blaming them, or saying anything about them, but rather it’s a shame that this is where we’ve arrived, in reference to the hoops we have to jump through to, well, in my case, zip across the border to Algodones, for example, to get a couple of tacos for lunch.

What’s sad is, the SCORE Baja 500 is, or was, my favorite race on the whole schedule of everything we did. Absolutely. It’s a great race because it challenges the racer from a variety of angles, ranging from high altitude racing to racing on the desert floor, and everything in between. And, perhaps what I love the most, was the fact that you never saw the same real estate twice.

And whenever we went to Ensenada, getting there was rarely a problem. I mean, there were no holdups or hassles at the border. The Mexican officials pretty much waved us through when they saw we were racers. Oh, on occasion they’d ask to check the back of the hauler, but not very often. And when they did, hey, a handful of racing stickers did a lot to get you back on your way.

And on the return trip, it was almost as smooth, except for the occasional trip to secondary so the U.S. Customs folks could peek inside the same hauler.

Any way you cut it, except for the distance, it was an easy trip.

And I’m sure it still is, for teams like those from NASCAR, who have the means to make sure everyone in their entourage is properly documented, etc.

But for much, much smaller operations, like my friend’s, the proper documentation has become a major roadblock, that isn’t considered worth the effort to get around.

I’m sitting here with six pages of brackets I’ve printed out of both the girls and boys 5A Division II state doubles tournament for a preview of two Gila Valley doubles teams playing in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Here is the article

Looking through all the names from teams of all the schools that were eliminated last weekend, gives me an appreciation of Cibola’s Albert Castro and Jacob Nino and San Luis’ Julissa Dominguez and Ariana Huerta accomplishments to get this far.

To start off, Cibola tennis coach Duncan Phillips feels his doubles team was railroaded when they didn’t get seeded. He said the committee just didn’t recieve the paperwork on their 15-3 regular season. Still Castro and Nino - who played one and two singles throughout the season - proved they belonged as they are the only unseeded team still alive.

The Raiders even looked impressive in their preliminary rounds. The first round was their hardest as they beat eight seeded Rawlins and Estes from Phoenix North in three sets: 6-2, 5-7, 6-0. Cibola then eliminated fellow Gila Valley competitors when they beat Rodriguez and Vazquez from San Luis 6-0, 6-1. Castro and Nino improved on that second round win with a straight games victory over Johnson and Clarke from Pinnacle.

Castro and Nino deserve this success. They were the two best players on a solid Cibola team that was overshadowed in regular season competition by eventual Gila Valley champion San Luis and runner up Kofa. As the top ranked singles player, Castro - a freshman - won often, but the other deeper teams would rack up more wins and eventually come out on top. Castro is the first freshman Phillips has ever started at number one all year long.

As for others in the Gila Valley, Kofa’s Alex Hazen and Ryan Thornburg beat Mountain View and Westview teams before falling to fifth seeded Centennial one round shy of the quarterfinals. If Castro is the area freshman that shows the most promise, Thornburg is right behind. He started the year as a junior varsity player then week by week moved up to sixth varsity, then fifth varsity, then fourth varsity… beating his opponents all the while.

I hope Saturday’s Yuma Sun brings news of another Raider success, but they’ve drawn the toughest quarterfinal opponent. Phillips said Ironwood Ridge’s Timothy Holten and Dillon Kennedy are undefeated on the year and have even earned United States Tennis Association (USTA) ranking outside of prep competition. Ironwood got a first round bye and won its next two round convincingly, dropping only three games so far.

As Phillips put it, “Nobody expects us to win, but we aren’t going to go up there to roll over.”

As for Dominguez and Huerta representing San Luis in the girls bracket, they haven’t exactly shocked the world like the Cibola boys. They were 10-5 as a doubles team and were given a four seed in the tourney that meant a first round bye.

The Sidewinders first beat Kingman’s Jacobson and McMillon 6-1, 6-2 in the second round then were challenged by Skylines Cazares and Ahmen in the third round, but still pulled out a straight set victory, 6-4, 6-2.

San Luis’ quarterfinal match-up is where it gets interesting. They face Deer Valleys second best doubles team of Ayson Fix and Brittan y Brewer. San Luis is the four seed and Deer Valley is the five seed so they are statistically favored to move on.

But…

Much earlier in the season Deer Valley beat San Luis 9-0. Dominguez and Huerta are the Sidewinders best doubles team and they barely lost to Deer Valley’s top doubles team of Amy Liebertz and Katie Lively - who are the second seed and also in the quarterfinals - 8-5.

Now that just made things a little more interesting.

Both teams face unique challenges on Friday and both have a reasonable chance of winning. Hopefully the reward of being ranked in the top four in the state can be enough to pull them through.