Jefferson Highway Rediscovered.

The Powers Museum will be the location of a rest stop for Mike Conlin of New Orleans this afternoon.

Conlin is traveling the old Jefferson Highway. The Jefferson was an early auto trail (1916-1929) that was the first trans-continental highway that went north/south. It connected Winnipeg, Canada, and all points in between to New Orleans. For many years it was managed by James Douglas Clarkson of Carthage, Missouri. Carthage will be the only stop in SW Missouri for Conlin.

New Orleans, Friday, February 5, 1926 "The "Pine-to-Palm" motorcade from Winnipeg, led by Mayor Ralph H. Webb of the Canadian city, and W. McCurd, business manager of the Winnipeg Tribune, with 132 residents of Winnipeg traveling in Thirty-two automobiles, completed their tour of the complete length of the Jefferson Highway at 8 o’clock last night The toughest part of the trip was a 100 mile stretch through Iowa over a highway covered with three inches of ice from a sleet storm. Two of the automobiles turned over but no one was injured."

NASCAR THIS WEEK

By Monte Dutton

Sponsored by Curry Automotive

Robby Gordon Charts Own Course

When Robby Gordon was asked if he had any advice to give Tony Stewart about being both a driver and owner, Gordon said, "Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it."

Gordon, however, was kidding.

"You know, it’s a chore to be the driver and the owner," he says. "At the same time, provided you hire the right people and they do their job, and follow through with it and take ownership, it’s not that big a deal. It’s just a case where you have to get involved in certain situations."

It sometimes seems as if Robby Gordon has an unwieldy nickname because his name is so often followed by parentheses: "(no relation to Jeff)." But the other Gordon, who has won three times in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series himself, is one of America’s more versatile and talented drivers.

Like the "other" Gordon, Robby was born in California. Like Tony Stewart, he has twice competed in the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day. Unlike Jeff Gordon and Stewart, Robby has won the Baja 1000 three times, and he has competed in recent years in the Dakar Rally. He has won in Indy cars, stock cars and off-road vehicles. Desert racing also provided a foundation in the careers of Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears.

Unlike Johnson and Mears, though, Gordon still competes in off-road racing’s major events.

In 2005, Gordon became the first American to win a stage in the Dakar Rally, and in 1999, he would’ve won the Indy 500 had his car had enough fuel to complete the final lap.

In NASCAR, Robby Gordon follows a fiercely independent path, with more in common with the sport’s pioneers than most of his modern-day colleagues. No driver-owner has won the championship of NASCAR’s premier series since the late Alan Kulwicki in 1992, and no representative of a single-car team has won it all since the late Dale Earnhardt in 1994.

As thoroughly modern as Gordon is, an argument can be made that he shares much with the fierce individualists who built NASCAR, men like Junior Johnson, Bud Moore, Dave Marcis and Junie Donlavey, who owned the first Cup car Gordon ever drove.

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Monte Dutton has covered motorsports for The Gaston (N.C.) Gazette since 1993. He was named writer of the year by the National Motorsports Press Association in 2008.

I’ve heard that turkey has some chemical in it that makes ya sleepy. I suppose I’m not one to argue with experts, but I’ve never noticed it bein’ any different than a good helpin’ of roast beef. Eatin’ a good portion of anything seems ta make most folks wanna take a little nap.

Learned that in the first grade (they didn’t have kindergarten where I went to school). We all brought our nap mats and laid ‘em out on the floor. Mostly we just made faces at other kids under the desks, but on occasion I’d actually snooze a little.

It’s amazin’ how few first graders snore. Must be a learned at a higher grade level.They say us Americans don’t get enough sleep. Nappin’ still sounds good.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

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CLICK and CLACK

TALK CARS

by Tom & Ray Magliozzi

Dear Tom and Ray:

My husband inherited a 1974 Ford F-100 from his dad, and I would like to use it to pick up a load of rocks for landscaping. My husband says it can’t handle this, and so I ask the question: Can the truck handle it? The drive is about 19 miles from the house, and I’m only talking about a scoop of rocks from a cement company. They basically scoop the rocks and dump them on the truck. I’m not sure about the weight of the rocks. Hope you can help...I have an acre and would like to landscape part of my yard. My husband could just be making an excuse. -

Tom: It can’t handle it, Judy. First we’ll give you the technical explanation, then we’ll give you the marital explanation.

Ray: We haven’t seen a ‘74 F-100 in ages. But the "100" designation meant that it was designed to carry up to half a ton, or 1,000 pounds.

Tom: or two and a half mothers-in-law.

Ray: So the question is, What does a pickup-truck-bed full of rocks weigh? According to our rock insiders, dry gravel weighs around 100 pounds a cubic foot. That’s heavy.

Tom: I don’t know if your F100 has a 6-foot bed or an 8-foot bed, but let’s say it has an 8-foot bed. That means the bed is approximately 4 feet by 8 feet, or 32 square feet. And if you pile the gravel 1 foot high, you have 32 cubic feet. That’s 3,200 pounds.

Ray: Or four broken springs and two broken axles. Now the marital reason. If you do, every time the slightest squeak or groan comes from the truck, your husband will forever blame it on "that time you hauled the rocks in it." So it’s just not worth it Judy.