Edition 29, September 10th - 2008

R.I.P. Sparky Preface to:
“Booty Barker Blume”or “Bono Blume”

For those readers that do not already know it, Mark Blume is the new president of Hankscraft and my boss, so I must carefully choose my words when writing about him. This then is my chicken’s version of the story of the untimely demise of “sparky” and the rise of Mark Blume to be honorary crew chief for Berge Racing.

Those readers that follow this site may recall that “sparky” was a cracked spark plug that came out of the race car from the Kaukauna red race. Mark ceremoniously placed it on my desk upon his return from said race, and told me the story of how James Swan found the bad plug and after replacing it, the car obviously ran better, but handling never improved that night, which by the way has been the complaint all season.

I left the plug sitting there all day, and upon leaving decided to put in my pocket to show my friends (my wife was not impressed, but was able to identify it as a spark plug). So I began to carry the plug with me, after all it is a gift from my boss. “Sparky” and I went to work together, went out for a few beers together, went to the race track, and even went to Church together. While shaking hands with our Priest at the end of the service one week, I briefly considered having Father bless the plug, but knew I would be in trouble at home, and possibly be the topic of the following weeks Mass. Can you hear it now? “Spark up your spiritual life” or “Repent or you will be running on seven cylinders”.

I vowed to carry said plug until the team won, but a demand was made to surrender it as we continued to struggle with set up, and James threatened to throw it in the weeds at Slinger. And we have actually been doing better without my good luck plug. I am not certain if Mark has actually destroyed the good luck piece or he is holding it back for another day, but I rather miss the my friend ; “Miss Champion”.

And now we move on to the second half of this story. Mark Blume has decided that he can be more of an integral part of the team by actually working on the car at races. At Slinger and Madison he helped spot the car, change springs, and even suggested changes to stagger and wedge. Wow, this guy is really becoming a hands on sponsor! Obviously he only helps perform these services when needed due to shortage of man power.

So we need a new race day name for our beloved leader. As suggested in the title, I adapted a couple from Sprint Cup that may apply, Robert “Booty” Barker works for Haas Motorsports and Kevin “ Bono” Manion is crew chief for the #1 Bass Pro Shop team. I think rather highly of these two crew chiefs, so I took license and I borrowed their monikers and placed them with the Blume family name, therefore at this writing, Mark may be hailed as “Booty Blume” or “ Bono Blume”.

The Mid American season is fast approaching its yearly conclusion with several cars within easy reach of the season championship. We move from Marshfield (where we had good luck last year) then on to Madison, Rockford, and La Crosse. The team is committed to make a push for first win (s) of the season. Hopefully we have solved our handling issues and we will win with help from our regular crew chief Don, and our honorary chief “Booty”.

Racing to the Checkers,
Jim