Carthage Voted

Best of Rural SW Missouri

Most Beautiful Town

Carthage has once again received the honor of being the winner of Best of Rural Missouri’s Most Beautiful Town. Rural Missouri is a publication of Missouri’s Rural Electric Cooperatives with around half a million rural electric cooperative members voting for their favorite foods and places throughout the Show-Me State. The full article appears in the April 2010 edition of Rural Missouri.

According to the article, "Carthage has a stunningly beautiful courthouse, a bustling square, picture-perfect Victorian houses on tree-lined streets and historic old buildings..." Rural Missouri divided the state into five regions with a dozen categories. Carthage was announced the winner of the Best Beautiful in the Southwest Region.

According to Wendi Douglas, Executive Director of the Carthage Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, the magazine has been holding the contest for nine years and Carthage has won the most beautiful town three of those years.

NASCAR THIS WEEK

By Monte Dutton

Sponsored by Curry Automotive

Newman Makes All the Right Moves

Ryan Newman, who hadn’t won since the 2008 Daytona 500, put his No. 39 Chevrolet in victory lane for the first time by winning at Phoenix International Raceway.

Newman’s first 13 Sprint Cup victories occurred at Penske Racing. He moved to Stewart Haas Racing in 2009 and made the Chase in his first year as Tony Stewart’s teammate, but the Subway Fresh Fit 600 marked his first victory with the team.

In 2002, Newman was named Raybestos Rookie of the Year ... over Jimmie Johnson, who has won the past four championships. But the Phoenix victory came at the expense of Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Jeff Gordon. Gordon spun the wheels on his No. 24 on the final restart, enabling Newman to pull away.

"It was a long time coming for me," said Newman. "The emotional part, when I first started in the series, it just came easy. I was with a great team, had a great crew chief, great pit stops, all those things just kind of came easy to me, and then, as it got toward 2005, we got to struggling a little bit. I got a win here or there, but it was not dominant like we were back in 2002 and 2003.

"I wanted to get that first victory for our team and for No. 39 and these guys at Stewart Haas Racing who had never been to any victory in any series."

To add a bit of historical trivia, Newman’s was the first victory in NASCAR history by a car numbered 39.

Late-race strategy led to the win. On the final pit stop, Newman’s crew chief, Tony Gibson, elected to change only two tires on Newman’s Impala, thus gaining track position.

"It’s racing, man. It’s racing all the way up until the checkered flag falls," said Newman. "You never know what happens. That’s why fans love the sport, and the strategy and the drama and what’s going to happen and how teams play it out.

"Four tires, two tires, no tires. I’m surprised that there wasn’t a guy who went out there with no tires just to see. There was 24 cars in the lead lap, it’s, like, why wouldn’t you? Some guys just don’t take that risk, and I was glad that they didn’t."

I’m sure its just a matter of dumb luck, but I haven’t gotten really ticked off in a traffic situation yet this spring. Usually I’ll (figuratively) run into some idiot with the windows rolled up and the radio blastin’ who doesn’t think there is anyone else usin’ their road. Then I get ta thinkin’, maybe its my turn to be the idiot and I just don’t have the sense to realize it.

I know that lady that followed me for eight or ten blocks with her hood under my taillights was prob’ly gettin’ a little nervous ‘cause I was goin’ a couple a miles under the 30 mph speed limit the other day. ‘Course if I sped up a little, she was right there with me. I decided not to rush myself. It didn’t really tick me off that she was tailgatin’, but she may have another story.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

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CLICK and CLACK

TALK CARS

Dear Tom and Ray:

I bought a ‘72 Porsche 914 a few weeks ago. It was running great for about 10 days. Then I took it through a car wash. When it came out, it ran terribly. It was underpowered, and sputtered whenever I hit the gas. Hoping to clear up the problem, I took it on a long trip (100+ miles), which brought its performance back to normal. Can you explain what happened? And can you tell me how I can prevent it from happening again? - Jonathan

Tom: Sure. Hand-wash it.

Ray: What happened was that you got something wet, and then you dried it out.

Tom: Right. That "something" is some part of the secondary ignition system.

Ray: Electricity is supposed to travel from the coil to the distributor, and then through the spark-plug wires to the spark plugs.

Tom: If the insulation on one of those parts has been compromised, and moisture diverts the electricity from its intended destination, one or more of your spark plugs won’t fire.

Ray: And that’ll make the car sputter and seemed uderpowered, because it IS underpowered. It’s running on three (or fewer) cylinders.

Tom: Eventually, this problem will plague you in the rain, too, Jonathan. So you’d be wise to fix it now.

Ray: Take a spray bottle and fill it with water. Then on a dry night, open up the engine compartment, start the engine and begin spraying one suspect at a time.

Tom: Or if you want to save time, just skip the diagnosis and replace the coil and plug wires and distributor cap. Chances are a car this age needs all that stuff anyway.