December 16, 2006
The inaugural Palo Verde Hot Rods race is in the books! It all started with a couple of guys who work at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. We added some friends and a drag strip and the result was a fun Saturday that raised some money for charity. The original idea for a meet at the race track had two goals. First, there are a lot of people that work at the plant that are interested in cars as a hobby. Why not get them together and see who they are? We had guys from Maintenance, Fuels, Radiation Protection, Water Reclamation, Security, Operations and more. There were front line technicians racing along side Management. So we had a good time getting to know other co-workers who you'd normally not see at work during a normal week.
Second, we wanted try and raise some money for some co-workers who are supporting a great cause. Team Burns & Trauma will be participating in a bicycle race this summer that goes from Oceanside, CA to Atlantic City, NJ, that’s 3000 miles of pedaling! The Foundation for Burns & Trauma provides funds to the Arizona Burn Center which runs Camp Courage. They are hoping to raise $100,000 by collecting sponsors for their ride. Our initial contributions are helping cover their expenses to make the ride a reality.
So with the
help of the great folks at Speedworld Raceway Park in Surprise, AZ. We set up a
meet. The track personnel provided us with 2 dedicated lanes in the staging
lanes. We made times runs down the ¼ mile in the morning. About noon, we
provided all of our racers and friends some hot dogs, chips and drinks. A short
drivers meeting was conducted and anyone that wanted to try their hand at
bracket racing kicked in $20. We used random pairings, and had 5 rounds of
eliminations. When all was said and done, we split the pot and gave half of the
money to Team Burns & Trauma. We then split the remaining half 60/40 to the
winner and runner up.
We also had some folks make contributions who didn’t even race, thanks to all of you as well!
Well we had 23 cars and crew show
up to see what they could do in the quarter mile. We also had about 20 friends
just show up to watch. Below is all of the race participants, with the exception
of Dave Prine's silver Z06 Corvette.
Tonna was shooting
pictures of all the cars and was using Dave's video camera when he ran. If
anyone has a picture of Dave's car running down the track or at the staging
lanes, let me know and we'll get it added to the page!
Click on any thumbnail for a larger view
For some more 1/4 mile photo's
