Fireball Day Five – A Reception Awaits Us

Oklahoma City to Albuquerque

This morning after packing up the 540i “The Veil Guy” and I headed to the memorial site of the Farley Federal Building to pay our respects to the victims and the families of the Oklahoma City bombing. We parked just outside the memorial entrance and took time to read many of the hand held inscriptions that mourners have taped on the front fence, along with flowers and other tokens of respect.

We then drove back to yesterday’s finish line at Brick Yard Stadium, which today also served as the starting point. Lined up in front of the Fireballer vehicles were numerous motorcycle officers from the Oklahoma City Police Department and two local area news station remote trucks that were performing live interviews with other contestants.

After lining up our car, Bob and I walked up to the motorcycle officers and introduced ourselves. Being a retired officer and a Harley enthusiast myself, we quickly began swapping war stories. Mounted on each officer’s bike was the new Stalker 2 hand held radar gun. The officers also told me that they also use the Stalker laser guns, but because of the portability and small size of the Stalker 2, that this was their main weapon of choice.

The officers also confided with us to be careful heading into Elk City, as they heard that the Oklahoma State Patrol was setting up a large welcoming reception for us.

Oklahoma City’s Mayor gave led a morning prayer for the safe passage of the Fireballers, waved the green flag and we were off.

The motor officers provided a rolling escort for us to the on ramp of I-40, right smack into morning rush hour traffic.

Bob was the designated driver for this leg while I was the designated navigator. The detector selection today included the Bel STi and an Escort 8500 X50.

Once on the Highway I opened our sealed FedEx envelope for today’s clues.

Clue One: Get your lunch from the legendary “Big Texan” in Amarillo. Here you’ll need to kiss a cow, swim from Laredo to Amarillo, then convince Bobbie Lee to stamp your route book.

Clue Two: Built by the Swiss in 1966, it rises to 10,000 feet above Albuquerque and spans over 2.7 miles – it is the longest of it’s kind built anywhere in the world. Here we would be handed the location of the finish line.

Rules for this run were that we could not enter the town of Albuquerque prior to 5:00 pm (the start of rush hour)

Clue two was easy as I’ve been to Albuquerque many times before and immediately recognized this clue as being the Sandia Tramway. I fired up my iPhone for clue two and found Big Texan restaurant in Amarillo on Google.

After traveling about 30 minutes, we started receiving a solid hit of 35.5 on both the Bel STi radar detector and the Escort 8500 X50. About a mile later we saw three Oklahoma State Trooper cars setting up in the west bound lane.

One mile later we passed another trooper who was hidden, parked behind a bridge embankment. Our welcoming reception was forming….

An hour later, as we started entering into Elk City, both the Beltronics STi and the Escort 8500 indicated a 34.7 Ka alert, a half mile later we saw an Oklahoma Trooper parked in the median facing our direction. Then a few seconds later, the detectors began alarming 34.7 Ka. A mile further we observed an unmarked Dodge Charger parked in the median.

A mile after the Charger we then started receiving 34.7 alerts on both detectors and about a minute later we saw our third trooper in Elk City parked in the median.

Leon from team Blinder Xtreme then called us and said that an unmarked Crown Vic had just pulled out from ticketing another Fireballer and was ahead of us turning into the median. Just as we were getting the details, both detectors alerted again, this time to a 35.5 and we saw the Crown Vic ahead.

Leon also related that he had spotted a east bound trooper about three miles ahead of us that was not running radar and a silver Sheriff’s car running K band four miles ahead.

A couple of minutes later both detectors alerted 24.1 K band and then we observed an approaching Trooper eastbound on the horizon. A mile after this encounter the detectors lit up 24.7 and we saw the silver Sheriff’s car parked in the median.

Text messages were flying back and forth between Fireballers; five cars stopped at mp 109, Black BMW stopped at mp 38, white Audi stopped at mp 37. Bob and I thought at this point it was wise to pull off and get some gas and a cold soda. As we exited the interstate, we observed a white marked pick-up truck hidden on the side of the overpass.

After pulling into the station, the white marked pick-up pulled in behind us. We struck up a conversation as I peaked inside the car, I observed  a VASCAR unit on the transmission hump. I commented “You’re still using those old VASCAR units” and the officer replied “We use everything we can.” The pick-up left and we headed back to the den of Troopers.

We were receiving text messages that the black BMW that was ticketed in Elk City was closing the gap behind us, a few minutes later we received another message that they were again pulled over at mp 89.

As we approached mp 51, we saw the flashing overhead lights of a trooper. Passing, we saw that they had the blue vet with “We brake for Ka” sticker on the side of the road with a trooper.

At mp 50 we received a K alert at 24.7 and as we crested a hill, we spotted another trooper parked in the median facing our direction.

At 10:20 am, Bob and I crossed back into Texas and we found a new welcoming committee was forming. We were using a white Audi that ahead of us for our “rabbit.” At mp 165 the Escort and Beltronics unit alarmed 34.7 and almost immediately we saw a black and white Texas DPS trooper car pull out from behind a row of trees and giving chase to the Audi.

Team Blinder Xtreme called us again telling us that the Texas troopers had the Bentley and the SRT pulled over three miles ahead of us.

As we approached mp 0 in Texas both detectors alerted 34.7 and just ahead we saw a Texas trooper with a black car parked behind traffic cones.

Our first project after arriving into New Mexico was to find a New Mexico trooper for our photograph and a New Mexico newspaper for our state sign photograph.

Five miles into New Mexico we saw a trooper off the side of the road with a disabled motorist. We pulled safety off the road, parking a safe distance away from the officer and stepped out of our car showing my badge. I first asked if we could be of any assistance to him or the motorist and he thanked us saying that everything was under control. I then asked if he would allow me to photograph him and his patrol car, he gave he related that this was fine. Bob stood next to the officer and we got our shot.

We traveled another 25 miles until we came across our first gas station. We gassed up and got our New Mexico newspaper and headed back to the state line for our sign shot and then headed west for Albuquerque.

At mp 357 the detectors made their first alert in New Mexico on 24.1 K band. A mile ahead we observed a silver unmarked patrol car in the median.

As we entered the town limits of Albuquerque the Escort 8500 X50 alerted 38.8 while the Bel STi remained silent. Behind us was the Blinder Xtreme team using a STi and a Valentine One and reported a 38.8 alert.

A few seconds later we noticed an east bound Albuquerque Police Department vehicle.

A few months ago the Beltronics had a software revision that addressed this 33.8 issue when earlier models would sometimes block out alerts on 33.8 frequency based upon the threshold, filtering the alert as a false alert. The unit that we were using in our car did not have the 33.8 software revision, the Blinder Xtreme team had.

Being familiar with the layout of Albuquerque, we drove to the area of the Sandia Tram via county roads that were outside of the city limits. We then parked a few miles away from the check in location at 4:30 pm.

At 4:55 we drove to the lift area and took our photograph with the lift person and provided the location of the finish line, the Albuquerque Art Museum.

We snaked our way through rush hour traffic south on I-25 then west on I-40 to our exit and then processed to the finish line.

Today we ranked 14 out of the 65 cars running today’s leg, finishing 15th in overall points and 3rd in class.