Highlands Hammock State Park, Sebring, Florida
What is the average salary for a United States Department of Agriculture firefighter? What would you guess? Think on it while you finish this post then see how close you were! I was waaay over! So was Blaine. Actually, we both guessed roughly the same amount. Sad! I find it disheartening that our country believes professional athletes or movie stars should make millions of dollars, while people like firefighters, police and teachers make so little.
Blaine made two new friends today. They were both dressed in fur coats despite the extraordinary heat. And no, they weren’t the racoon coats that were trending in the 20’s. These friends had four feet, long tails and are quite skittish. Except when they’re expecting handouts.
Some of you know I used to feed the cute little rodents from my kitchen door, but they were never as friendly or relaxed around people as these little guys are.
We rode down a dirt road today, back to the primitive camping area, but there wasn’t much to see here either. We were surprised to discover that the camping area was in view and earshot of Route 17, a fairly busy road. All this emptiness in the Park and they pick here for a primitive camping spot? Not very primitive to our way of thinking – except they had no amenities whatsoever.
Red dirt! Or is it red sand?
Whatever it was, it was easy to bike on!
Back home, we sat around and relaxed a bit – i.e., Blaine relaxed. I worked on the never-ending blog updates. Some day I’ll actually get caught up! Blaine says, “Just put in the pictures and say, ‘this is what we did today’.” I can’t do that since it’s also a journal. I just need to stop being such a blabber-mouth and spending so much time on research. Oh! Wait! I can’t do that either! I’ve always been a talker. My study hall teacher once tried putting me in the corner of the cafeteria (that’s where our study hall was) away from everyone else, and still, I found a way. And I love the research and learning new things! Even if I don’t always remember them. 😊
Blaine discovered that we could visit a race track close by and that it was free on Mon/Tues this week. Practice for IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) cars preparing for a 12 hour race. They take the green flag at 10am and finish at 10pm in the dark. There’s very little track lighting. The cars have headlights.
Sebring International Raceway is a road course auto racing facility located near Sebring, Florida. Sebring Raceway is one of the oldest continuously-operating race tracks in the United States, its first race being run in 1950.
They have signs up for 1952-2017 “12 Hours of Sebring” racing seasons, but 1974 is missing for some reason. Be curious no more! In 1973, one of the bridges was lying in ruins on the track, the result of a bad storm. It was only one example of the updates that were desperately needed.
Here’s what else I found about the missing year:
The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), sanctioning body for the Sebring Race, had given Alec Ulmann (the owner) an extension on required safety and track improvements for the 1971 race and then charitably extended it for 1972. But when these much-needed improvements were not made, the FIA felt that they had no choice but to drop Sebring from the World Sportscar Championship calendar for 1973.
Additionally, the Auto Racing Club of Florida withdrew their sanction of the event, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed stricter regulations on the use of the airport, insurance costs accelerated, sponsors dropped out and Alec was now getting up in years and just could not justify it health or business wise. Thus, Alec reluctantly decided to give it up at the end of 1972. It had been a long hard battle and Alec had fought it with passion and zest but the Ulmann era was over and it appeared so was the Sebring Race.
Just when it seemed that Sebring was lost in 1973, John Bishop, with the help of Bill France of NASCAR, saw an opportunity and engineered a business deal that saved it once again. Bishop, ex-head of SCCA and then founder of the new International Motor Sports Association (IMSA), knew full well that Sebring was the crown jewel of American sports car racing and thus the importance and value of the event.
Once again the Sebring race would be threatened in 1974, this time by strong geopolitical forces, namely the Arab OPEC oil embargo and the fuel crisis that followed. Politically savvy Bill France canceled the 24 Hour sports car race at Daytona in February and did not want nor need the extra heat of public opinion associated with running a gas-guzzling twelve hour race at Sebring. Plus, he had his plate full just trying to save NASCAR. This left Bishop out in the cold without his important ally for the 1974 Sebring race.
Reluctantly, Bishop withdrew IMSA sanction and support of the race much to the disappointment and dismay of a number of manufacturers and the sports car racing community.
For a number of entities, this represented a large financial loss if the race did not run. It was a Catch 22 – lose what you already invested or go forward and see if you could save the program. A number of players were not ready to give up.
Tampa businessmen and race enthusiasts Charles Mendez and Dave Cowart stepped up to the plate to have a go at it. Mendez would later form Sebring Motorsports Inc. to promote the 1978 Sebring Race and would also win that race with co-drivers Brian Redman and Bob Garretson. That drive was the first race Redman drove after his recovery from his career threatening Can-Am accident at St. Jovite.
Back to the 1974 race, Mendez and Cowart recruited their high school friend Peter Pheil to help save Sebring once again.
Peter Pheil, a Tampa-area native and now president of Pheil Industries, an international conglomerate based in Zurich, Switzerland, stepped up with sponsorship for the race. The money was coming from the agrochemical division of Pheil Industries and the product promotion budget of a new fertilizer named “Black Bull.” PAC, Pheil Agro-Chemical, was about to introduce “Black Bull” for the fast emerging Florida organic farming industry that was being driven by the new health food craze that swept the country.
Now with a big dollar sponsor in place, the Tampa Gang, as they would be known, proceeded ahead at full speed but now running late on the schedule. With time needed to get everything back on track – mainly insurance and media – the Tampa Gang would miss the Sebring traditional date of the third weekend of March even though 2,000+ fans showed up that weekend anyway. The race was moved to the first weekend in April, which meant that they would lose most of the spring break crowd. Even so, with PAC money and the support and encouragement of the motorsports community, the Tampa Gang soldiered forward.
This makes it sound like they held the race in 1974, just later. I never discovered why 1974 wasn’t put up.
It wasn’t as exciting as a race of course, but it was still interesting, and dare I say, fun?, to walk around and see the cars. It’s a huge place, and they just let us wander almost every where we wanted to go. No luck getting into the staging area where the fastest straight-away was. But we tried. 😊
This is a hotel.
The rooms you see face the track near the hairpin turn.
Who lives in that??
It’s right in the middle of the course.
If you look really close, you can just make out a hawk’s nest on top of one of the power poles to the left of the house.
We saw the hawk swoop down past us and land there!
They just let you drive around and park wherever!
These are a different kind.
I don’t know what, and Blaine wasn’t helpful.
Here’s an aerial view of the Speedway I found online
And a drawing of the course so you can “over lay” it if you’re so inclined.
After 1 ½ hours in the blazing sun, we left to walk around the traffic circle in historic Sebring. They put a small park in the middle and it had speakers that played music! That part was pretty cool! Not much ‘historic’ to our way of thinking. Spoiled again!
I give up.
What’s that supposed to mean?
Here’s a video of the chimes, and a very quick tour around the circle. You may develope motion-sickness . . . .
We had decided on Vincent’s Pizza – correction! Original Vincent’s New York Style Pizza Shop and Restaurant. Boy is that a mouthful!! So was their pizza! There’s only one size. Super size! An 18-incher that came displayed on a pedestal because it was too big to fit on the table! It was super good too! Plus! They gave us free ‘garlic knots’ and dessert. The dessert was a slim slice of cake. My vanilla one was good, Blaine’s cinnamon was a bit dry. But still – – all that for $16!
The outside of the building
Half the garlic knots
Not much in the way of size or ambience, but they’ve been here for 21 years, so they have to be good, right?
And there it is!
This was taken from the other side of the street.
The restaurant is in the middle.
Tiny place.
Time to walk to help digest some of our over-indulgence. We chose Dollar Tree and Publix. We needed ingredients for tomorrow’s pot luck at the campground.
We wanted to check out the sunset, so we hopped on our bikes. It was a beauty!
When we first spotted this cloud bank, we thought it looked just like a rabbit on it’s back.
Poor thing started losing his head even before Blaine could get his phone out, but you can see see it.
After seeing the ‘rabbit cloud’, before we left, we saw a real rabbit run across the road in front of us. 😊
Once we were finished, there was still enough light to scope out a different place to watch the sunset and ran smack dab into a prescribed burn!
Not the best pictures, but remember, there wasn’t much in the way of daylight left.
Talked with Jennifer (from Wisconsin). She’s a full-time firefighter for the Department of Agriculture. They travel from all over the country to do what needs done. She says it’s very organized. There are various reasons for a burn – today’s was to get rid of some hurricane debris the Park had piled up for them. She noted it’s best to do it now before a wildfire because then it has a greater possibility of getting out of control. They just burned about 320 (? Not sure of the amount, but something like that.) acres earlier today. She mentioned the pines and some animals and birds, etc. need the occasional burns. It also gets rid of the hardwoods like oak that aren’t supposed to be here and will take over if given the chance.
$30,701 per year. Disgraceful. Obviously, they do it because they love their job!
TOTAL HIKING MILES: 2
Year To Date: 152.5
Daily Average: 2.99