Downtown Re-enactment Recommended.

The City Council Public Safety Committee voted last Monday to recommend that a Civil War Re-enactment could take place in the area around Central Park in 2011. The event is to mark the Sesquicentennial of the Battle of Carthage.

Carthage Convention and Visitor’s Bureau Director Wendy Douglas told the Committee that the re-enactors would set up camp at Municipal Park and then march down Oak Street to the Central Park area. During the march and at designated locations, skirmishes would take place, according to Gordon Billheimer, also attending the meeting.

The Committee had several questions concerning the safety of spectators along the route and were assured that all possible precautions would be taken to protect both participants and spectators.

The project is being proposed by the Ad Hoc Sesquicentennial Committee that is advancing several projects to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Carthage.

The recommendation will have to be approved by the City Council and several streets will be closed for the event.

NASCAR THIS WEEK

By Monte Dutton

Sponsored by Curry Automotive

Kurt in Command

At least for now, Kurt Busch has the upper hand in the family.

Kurt and his younger brother, Kyle, are both legitimate stars in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series. Kurt won the 2004 Nextel (now Sprint) Cup championship, and his second consecutive victory in Atlanta Motor Speedway’s Kobalt Tools 500 was the 21st of his career. Kyle, nearly seven years younger, has won 16 times in the sport’s premier level.

There’s another notable connection. Kurt Busch’s crew chief, Steve Addington, was Kyle Busch’s crew chief until this season. After Kyle fell short of making the Chase in 2009, Dave Rogers replaced Addington ... and Kurt hired him.

Kurt Busch made the Chase last year, finishing fourth in the final point standings. Crew chief Pat Tryson moved to Team Red Bull and driver Martin Truex Jr. at season’s end.

"I’ll tell one thing that changed, and it changed for the better," said Kurt. "Steve Addington has taught me how to drive cars differently, how to look at them differently. ... When you get ‘up on the wheel’ for somebody like Steve, good things happen."

"I’m still great friends with Kyle," said Addington, "but it’s a good feeling. It’s a relief in a certain way."

Kurt Busch said his latest victory was particularly satisfying.

"I feel like we won the race outright," he said. "No doubt we did our job on pit road. No doubt we did our job on long runs, and I think we hit the right combination for restarts. That’s what I’m proudest of."

Thanks to NASCAR’s new overtime policies and several late crashes, the race ran 16 extra laps. Addington said there was no strategy capable of preparing for such a scenario.

"We tried to keep the balance on our car," he said. "We were good on fuel for all three green-white-checkered restarts, even if we went to (the limit of) three.

"We just stuck with what we’d been doing all day."

But Kurt Busch said this was no time to relax.

"We need to have some more consistency," he said. "We’ve been competitive in three out of the four races so far, and the race we weren’t as competitive as the others was our best finish (before Atlanta).

I guess I gave the wrong answer.

I was called to the phone over the weekend as the "youngest registered voter" residing in the household. I was asked if I would participate in some survey and I said I would. I replied to the first question that I lived in Jasper County. I was then asked if I thought things in the US were goin’ the way they should or if I thought they had gotten off track.

I gave my answer and then the caller asked if I had said "Jasper County." I said yes, and he said he just found out the "quota" had already been reached for Jasper County and hung up.

I don’t know what survey I was a part of, but I doubt that it will reveal anything of value. I’m guessin’ I gave the wrong answer and they just keep movin’ on ‘till they find those who respond the way they want.

This is some fact, but mostly,

Just Jake Talkin’.

---

Dear Tom and Ray:

I am trying to jump-start my husband’s 2008 Honda Accord. It’s been sitting for a few months since he was deployed to Iraq, and I need to move the car ASAP before the street sweepers come. However, when I connect the last jumper-cable clamp, the horn starts blowing. How do I make it stop so I can jump the car and not have the whole neighborhood staring at me? Lisa

Ray: Jump-start in the middle of the night, Lisa. No one’s out staring at that hour.

Tom: Actually, it’s your alarm system that’s going off. When the battery died, the car’s factory-installed alarm system assumed that someone was tampering with the battery or had disconnected it in order to break into the car.

Ray" So when you hook up the jumper cables, it’s like you’re replacing the battery. Since the alarm’s memory is intact, it picks up right where it left off, and starts honking the horn and flashing the lights. It also immobilizes the engine so you can’t start the car.

Tom: So here’s what you need to do. Sometime in the middle of the day (don’t listen to my brother), hook up the jumper cables. The horn will start to blow. As soon as it does, using the key fob, lock and then unlock the doors. You also can do this with the original Honda key in the driver’s door.

Ray: Once the car is locked and then unlocked with a legitimate key or key fob, the alarm will reset and you’ll be good to go.

Tom: And from then on, just try to start it (or better yet, drive it) every few weeks to prevent the battery from dying.