Put Another Dime in the Jukebox…

 

August 12, 2021

Put Another Dime in the Jukebox…

It must have been 1980 or so that I first became a fan of Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, I was in high school and while I had been vaguely aware of her previous band, the groundbreaking all-female group, the Runaways, it wasn’t until her solo work that I really gravitated to her music. I recall going to see her at the Vogue in Indianapolis, in probably 1983 and just loving the raw energy and ferocity of her performance.  I recall meeting Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler who just happened to be at the show – when rock stars come to another’s show when they aren’t touring together, you know there must be something special about it.

That was years ago, when Jett was at the height of her “I Love Rock n Roll” fame and while I have seen her a couple of times since then, it has been many years ago. When I saw that she was playing at the historic Ryman Theater in Nashville while I was there, I immediately bought a ticket. Even if Jett was somewhat diminished, I would still be seeing a member of the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in a truly historic venue.

The thing is that she wasn’t much diminished, in fact she was pretty damn awesome as she ripped through a long set heavy of recognizable hits as well as awesome covers. It was a great, great show and Jett was in fine form. She is just as much of a badass as ever and her voice is still on point.  One of the coolest things about the show was when Jett invited country music legend Wanda Jackson out on stage.

The next morning, I was back on the road again, first stop was the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere. The Zoo and historical plantation farmhouse that occupies 188 acres and has over 6,000 animals representing 339 different species. Since opening its doors in 1991, Nashville Zoo has grown from a small, private operation located 30 minutes northwest of Nashville to an AZA-accredited facility that welcomes more than one million visitors each year, while being involved with international conservation and research efforts to save threatened species. 

After spending the morning checking out the zoo, I drove up to Cincinnati to visit my friend Henk and his family. Most specifically I wanted to see and meet his newest granddaughter, Joy. Henk’s daughter Brooke has visited Key West on a number of occasions and I was excited to get to meet her new baby as well as to see the rest of Henk’s family including his wife, Julie. I have been friends with Henk for almost 50 years and it was so nice to visit his home in Morrow, Ohio just north of Cincinnati.

He and Julie prepared a wonderful meal and we had a great opportunity to catch up for a wonderful evening with his family. I spent the night in Cincinnati and the next morning I headed to my second zoo visit in as many days, visiting the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. I have been a fairly regular visitor to this zoo since I was a child and it remains one of my favorites.

This is the second oldest zoo in the United States, opening in 1875. The zoo houses over 500 animals and 3,000 plant species. In addition, the zoo also has conducted several breeding programs in its history, and was the first to successfully breed California Sea Lions. In 1986, the Lindner Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) was created to further the zoo's goal of conservation

My favorite part of the zoo is the World of the Insect building. The largest exhibit in North America dedicated specifically to insects, the exhibit has an awesome array of bugs on display from the massive walking sticks to the word’s largest live ant exhibit, the World of the Insect is incredible. To me this building in itself is worth the price of admission for the zoo.

It was a great day that I capped off by stopping at a nearby Skyline Chili restaurant for a late lunch before driving over to Indianapolis to attend the Indy Car/ NASCAR weekend at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

https://www.nashvillezoo.org/

https://cincinnatizoo.org/

Music City Grand Prix

 August 11, 2021

Music City Grand Prix

Race day dawned in Nashville pretty much hot and steamy from the get go. The inaugural Music City Grand Prix was on tap for the afternoon, but I headed over early in the day so that I could hang around in the paddock and the pits, watch the support races featuring the Trans Am series and the Stadium Super Trucks and basically enjoy the race day atmosphere.

I always run into a bunch of friends while attending races and this race was no exception, my buddy Jake Query is part of the radio broadcast network and is at every race, my friend Kate is married to the chief engineer at Dale Coyne Racing, Olivier Boisson who calls the shots for driver Romain Grosjean, and I ran into my friend Darren who I see every year in May in the Suite at the Indy 500.

There are often well-known people hanging about on the grid before the start of the race and this race was no exception, I was able to meet Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil again, he is a racing fan and a good friend of Chip Ganassi’s who I have seen at races before. I got to converse with broadcaster Marty Snyder for the first time and also got to meet Country Music singer Danielle Bradbery who was pegged this race to ride along with Mario Andretti in the two-seater.

But racing was the real reason I was there and it was fun watching the Trans Am series which featured a number of well-known drivers for this race including NASCAR veterans Daniel Suarez and Boris Said, former Indy Car driver Rafa Matos and Sports Car specialist Joey Hand. The race was long with a lot of wrecks and was certainly a good foreshadowing of the chaos that was to come during the Indy Car race.

The Indy Car race got off to a hectic start on lap 4 when Marcus Ericcsson ran into the rear of Sebastian Bourdais and launched his car six feet in the air causing him to pit under yellow for a new front wing and then serve a penalty which dropped him to the very back of the field at the start. Thankfully for him there were a spate of yellow (and red) flags that enabled him to remarkably be in the lead a mere twenty-five laps later and from there he would drive on for the win, his second of the season.

Teammate Scott Dixon finished second in the first new IndyCar street race in 10 years. It was the fourth consecutive IndyCar victory in the Nashville area for Chip Ganassi Racing (which won the most recent three races at Nashville Superspeedway from 2006-08) and the fifth win this season for Ganassi.

Dixon also closed within 42 points of teammate and championship leader Alex Palou in the standings with five races remaining. James Hinchcliffe finished a season-best third in his first podium finish since Iowa Speedway in 2019 and his best road or street course finish since Barber in 2018. Erricsson’s win was a stunning result in the inaugural Music City Grand Prix, which will be remembered for airborne cars, massive traffic jams and controversial penalties. Colton Herta was charging toward the end but put it into the fence with an barely over-ambitious move trying to close the gap.

Through the smoke and into the enveloping darkness, nearly three hours after the start of a race that featured two red flags and nine cautions (for 33 of 80 laps), Ericsson emerged victorious for the second time Sunday in IndyCar by leading 37 laps in total and coming back from near disaster. 

The race itself came under a bit of criticism for the many wrecks, red flags and general mayhem, but I think the crowd was pretty enthusiastic and I know that I enjoyed myself immensely. We will see how this format will work going forward and I am sure that some of the kinks of a first time event will be worked out and the racing itself will improve.