The small town of Knoxville swells to nearly 25,000 people on this weekend of the Knoxville Nationals, a famous Sprint car race series. The place is thick with campers, motor homes, and people in race car tee shirts. In spite of the human density here, Knoxville hospitality is superb. The owner of the retirement home in which we are staying dug into her mother's trunk to find her collection of crocheted bed spreads to spruce up the mattresses they had laid out for us in the empty rooms.

We have been treated like race car celebrities. Everyone loves the cars, and it's so inspiring to speak with these clever farmers who really seem to grasp the urgency of fuel efficiency and have clever solutions to deal with it. One fellow has developed a sweet sorgum harvester and processor to convert sorgum to ethanol at a fraction of the energy intensity it takes to convert corn to ethanol. Another guy has a company which captures methane gas from landfills to power on-site generators that pump electricity back into the grid. He told me that there are 1200 landfills in this country that simply burn off the methane. Makes you want to scream! He's attempting to develop a market for the gas in the transportation sector.

We were lined up for the parade with 150 others after a pancake breakfast that just couldn't be beat, complete with maple syrup freshly delivered from Maine. The parade wound through the center of town with sidewalks solid with people, waving and cheering. In front of the grand  courthouse the mayor introduced each float as they passed. I suspect that no one along the route had ever seen a three wheeled car, let alone three in a row.  Our wonderful handler, Bob Colbert, led us back to the race track for an afternoon of meet and greet in the midwestern sun. We generally had delightful conversations, but there was one guy with whom I knew I just shouldn't discuss politics. Some time these things happen in slow motion and you just see yourself sinking deeper and deeper until there is no easy way out. When he proudly boasted he'd never buy a communist car (because they both had accepted federal money), I assumed he meant GM and Chrysler. It was time to go for a drink of water.

But this is what we're here for: it's not *all* oohs and ahhs...

We came back to the retirement home where we're staying to get the cars ready for the first leg tomorrow. Jay had a loose drive belt to tighten, and I investigated a transmission oil leak. We'll try to find a new seal in Lincoln.

Jack McCornack has been delayed a few days and will meet up with us in Kansas.