I just noticed the note at the bottom of the weight ticket, saying you haul "Freight, all kinds." Funny they put that on your weight tickets. My weight tickets never say that, they always put "B. S., all kinds." at the bottom of mine.

Must be me.

Pete.

I look forward to the drag race. To be fair there should be a number of events with the winner of the most events taking the bragging rights.
To suggest a few.
1. Biggest black smoke cloud in sky on acceleration.
2. Fastest lap on a road course.
3. Fastest lap on a pit course.
4. Best dressed driver.
5. Best looking driver.
6. Longest burnout.
7. Coolest power slide.
8. Highest wheelie.
9. Quickest dump off the high wall.
10. Most friends at one time in the beds hot tub.

I'm sure others can come up with more.

I like how you think, old-iron-habit. The only problem is, with the list you gave, it wouldn't be fair to 7upuller.

The biggest black smoke cloud, best dressed and best looking driver would all go to me, hands down.

Bring it on!

Pete.

that looks like me in my videos i put out. i get comments about lack of appropriate attire all the time. luvit:usa2:

GP---how did you get my shorts?? I put them in the goodwill bin!!

Pete, here is one that may be easier to haul around www.ebay.com/itm/142308813204?_trksid=p2...e=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Thanks, chriscokid. That's pretty cool. I wonder where I can find a 1:50 scale seven axle and truck tractor to carry it around?

Always problems, problems.

dpendzic - I don't know where you shop, but those Goodwill bins have lots of good stuff in them. Prices are cheap, too. Much better than my Wife's and Daughter's outlet mall buys.

Pete.

Garlic Mom and I delivered the load of Warne Auction stuff Saturday around Noon. She couldn't resist the chance to play with 7upuller's D6B one more time.

After unloading, we headed north up Highway 101. We went up the peninsula, across the Golden Gate bridge and spent the night in Petaluma. We only took out a couple dozen cones navigating the streets in San Francisco itself.

Sunday morning, we met 7upuller, Pat and Steve for breakfast at the world famous Henny Penny. The parking area across the street from Henny Penny is almost as much fun as breakfast itself.

If you're ever in the Petaluma area and hungry, you can't beat Henny Penny.

After a nice breakfast, we went over to Glen's buddy Aaron's where Aaron and his son Pete had a very sharp Link Belt Speeder crane. Aaron's grandpa bought this crane new and it has been in and out of the family several times. It is now joining the permanent Santa Margarita fleet and will be working at the show. It is a very nice example with 2-71 Jimmy power and everything on it works really well. The crane came with drag bucket, clam bucket and reel.

Since we hadn't run a crane before, it was really lucky that Crane Matt was there to give instructions and load it for us. Actually, we would have been O. K. because Aaron's son Pete had been practicing and could probably operate that crane better than any of us.

Here's a video of the loading.

Here are some pictures of the load ready to hit the road.

Before we finished tying down, 7upuller came over in his fancy hotrod with Wyocat's load on it, just to check up on us.

Crane Matt, Aaron, Pete and Steve were all a great help in loading everything up, getting the right dunnage arranged and advising about routes and chaining down. We were on the road about Noon. We chose to take highway 37 over to Vallejo, I-80 south to 780, 780 east to 680, 680 south to 580, 580 east to I-5, then I-5 down to 41 south to 46, finally to 101 south at Paso Robles. It was a little convoluted, but allowed us to miss the City, peninsula and a couple of scales.

We arrived at Santa Margarita about 6:00 pm, got untied and unloaded and everything packed away by 8:00 pm.

Here's a video of the unload. Not too bad for having never run a crane before, if I do say so myself!

Garlic Mom got to play with her favorite 966, helping with the unloading.

Several of us have been talking about the fact that one thing missing from Santa Margarita was a forest of booms to watch. 7upuller is bringing his Brother's favorite crane and it'll be fun to see that. It was nice to see the first boom arrive, though.

More good stuff is coming, the show is really starting to shape up.

Pete.

Hi, Neil,
That 'dangly bit' that you are asking about is the tagline reel for holding the clamshell bucket straight and stopping in from spinning uncontrollably. A clamshell has two ropes to work it, one to carry the bucket when empty and the other to close it and carry when it is loaded. Being as these 2 ropes both come off the mast head and pretty close together at that, it needs that tagline to stop the bucket from spinning and twisting the ropes.

There is a spring inside that tube that acts very much like a roll-up window blind that doesn't have a catch and it keeps pressure on a cable that is connected to the near corner of the clamshell.

Just my 0.02. Hope it helps.