Randleman Water Main Bursts

What's worse than being in a moderate drought, having a dwindling water supply, being on mandatory water restrictions, and having a water treatment plant that is in dire need of replacement?



Ask Randleman(NC) city manager Tony Sears and I bet his answer would be, "Having all of that and then have a 10 inch water main break!"



It happened overnight on Sunday directly in front of of the town's city hall. Randleman Police spotted a bulge in the road and found flowing water during the 6 am shift change. The water forced the asphalt to rise and sent water, rocks and dirt downstream in the middle of Hillary Street.



As crews worked to dig up the earth around the 10 inch water main, an estimated 200,000 gallons of precious, clear, drinkable, water flowed into the streets only to be reclaimed by the sewage system.



The cause of the failure of the pipe is speculated to be the off and on cold weather over the past week or so. The city manager told us the ground moves alot during the initial stages of colder weather putting extra pressure on the underground pipes.



There was at least one related failure of a 6 inch water main about a mile away. The city manager says that air pockets in the pipes after the original burst formed before the auxillary water supply was turned on.

The city of Asheboro just to the south of Randleman provides a back up water supply in the case of emergencies like this.

Montgmery Gentry (leftover from Charlotte NASCAR)

((THIS IS ONE OF MULTIPLE POSTS TODAY....READ ON PAST THIS DISPATCH FOR MORE RECENT HAPPENINGS))
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If you look hard enough at each picture you can just about see the hard country sound of Montgomery Gentry coming out of each pixel.



It was so good Lugnut did his best Tony Stewart impression.



On the otherside of the fence (literally and figureativley speaking) the fans with frontstretch tickets jammed up againsts the crossed steel all wanting that perfect view.



Eddie Montgomery pounded out his vocals with his near drunken country style.



Fans of all types couldn't take their eyes off the stage.



All of this as T-roy wailed on his numerous 6-strings.



This concert was a big hit. It was part of the Rusty Wallace farewell tour.



Rusty came onstage and thanked the fans (not pictured) and recieved a huge ovation.



After an hour of all the greatest hits of Montgomery Gentry....



Eddie and Troy signed a bunch of autographs and then took off just in time for the start of the race.

New NASCAR Movie

Here are a few leftovers from NASCAR Race weekend at Charlote.

There is a new NASCAR based movie being made and although it sounds like it's going to be corny, a la 'Days of Thunder' and 'Stroker Ace', this one is supposed to be.



It is a Will Ferrell movie and it stars Ferrell and Michael Clark Duncan from 'The Green Mile'. They were set up in the last pit on pit road right across from my rooftop location.



While I was using my Radio Scanner to listen to the NASCAR Teams I happened upon the frequency of the movie crew. They were using the radios to deliver dialog in the scene that was being filmed in the pits during the race.

Some of the lines I overheard as follows:

Movie lines by Michael Clark Duncan:-
"Ricky(Will Ferrell), you're driving like a pissed off teenager."
"It's OK, he's seen this before."
"It's OK, he's a proffessional driver."
"Ricky, I smell a wreck. The track is wicked."
"I've never seen a driver with that kind of car control."

Other Lines overheard:
"Is Ricky in his underwear...Is he on fire"
"Yep"
"It's a fire of the heart."

More information on the movie can be found at Jayski dot com.

First Frost

It's that time of year and it happened literally overnight.



Yes, that's frost on the roof of my truck. I don't think it was even forecast but when I turned on the Fox 8 Morning News, Tom Britt said he was getting reports of scattered frost.



So when I went out to the truck to head in to work I popped off a couple of shots of the first frost-fall of the season.



This all kind of makes it hard to believe that Saturday I was in shorts and a T-Shirt.



I was at a Cub Scout campout with my son and spent Saturday night in a tent.



But waking up at sunrise on Sunday Morning it was a bit nippy and I was forced into long pants and a sweatshirt.



I guess it's time to put away the shorts and break out the long johns.(which I did wear today:))

The American Flag

I was appalled this week watching Hurricane Wilma coverage seeing that people left their American Flags on their staffs to be destroyed in the wind.



I didn't just see this on one network or in one location. I saw several different versions of tattered flags flapping in the wind. I don't understand why people can't have respect for the American Flag.




Here is a short excerpt of the US Flag code that deals with bad weather....

Title 4, Chapter 1: The Flag

Sec. 6. — Time and occasions for display

The flag should not be displayed on days when the weather is inclement, except when an all-weather flag is displayed.

Sec. 8. — Respect for flag
The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.

I don't care if people want to ruin their corporate flags or decorator flags but please people, take down your American Flags if a Hurricane is coming!

NASCAR - Pictures

In the hours preceding a NASCAR Nextel Cup Event there are tons of fans with their garage passes around their necks and cameras in hand, wandering through the pits and the garage area looking for that one picture that says, "I was there!"



or "Look who I got my picture taken with!".



But mostly it's "Check out the picture I got of this car,"



"or this one,"



"or this one!"



Obviously some cars are more photographed than others.



Popular in the Garage area this weekend the 24 car of Jeff Gordon and the 8 ride of Dale Jr.



Everyone was taking pictures too.



From the ladies dressed down and baited to trying to land a million dollar catch, from the quasi-exectutives that run around the garage pretending to be busy.



I even saw a TV Soundman taking a picture or two. I missed the shot of that, and then lost track of him.



All in all life in the pits before an event is quite the event itself.

NASCAR-lition Derby

I'm usually all for an action packed crash fest. Hell, that's why I love Daytona and Talledega. There's nothing better than close racing. Not knowing when the slightest mistake, driver error, or an unexpected mechanical malfunction is going to cause the next melee is part of the thrill.



But when it get's predictable, well that's just silly.



It wasn't anyone's fault really. Track President Humpy Wheeler levigated for the May Race and it caused a crash fest when the drivers couldn't negotiate the newfound speed via the new found grip.



So Humpy re-levigated the track hoping to smooth it out a bit for the drivers and take the racing back to pre-levigated levels.



Somewhere in all of of Humpy's hard work, Goodyear decided to bring in a harder, less sticky tire to hopefully slow the cars down a little bit by giving them less grip. One problem. The track was so smooth from the levigating that even these tires stuck to the track and harder tires don't dissipate heat as well when they do get really hot and that causes blisters, which blows tires. Combine that with extreme camber setups(leaning the tire to gain grip in cornering) and low tire pressures (to adust the car's handling characteristics) and you will see tires start to pop.



So Saturday night, every 20 laps or so it became predictable someone was going to blow a tire and the caution would come out.



Every driver that I have any notion of pulling for either blew tires or had other problems. At one point when Kasey Kahne was leading my wife said to me that I could pull for him now. I said, "Why he's gonna wreck anyway." 20 laps later....well you know.(he blew a right front tire for you non NASCAR types)



I certainly didn't want Jimmy Johnson to win at Lowe's for the 4th time in a row(5 of 6)(No Offense Jimmy). I just don't really like him a lot.



I was pulling for (in no particular order), Dale Earnhardt Jr., Michael Waltrip, Dale Jarrett, Elliott Sadler, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Scott Wimmer, Dave Blaney.



With all the mayhem now two days past, Humpy Wheeler is setting out on another project to get the racing at Jimmy Johnson Motor Speedway back to racing condition. He's starting from scratch and RE-PAVING it.

NASCAR in Charlotte

The NASCAR boys are revving up to put on a record breaking show tonight at Lowes Motor Speedway....and I am here.

Pre-Race in the Garage is a sea of people taking pictures and all decked out hoping to get a picture with their favorite driver.



They always have an awesome pre-race show before all the NASCAR races here. Today was no exception. Montgomery Gentry put on an awesome concert before the race.



I will get more pictures up as time allows. I have to shoot my story for TV.

Check back for updates.