Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409200050
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
How many alignment shops jack a car up, drop the differential on the shocks for support, check the camber, and tell the customer that he has a cambered differential? Not any legitimate ones!
I checked the car Sunday morning on a level floor, with same-size tires on both sides, as closely as I could without the proper equipment and found the right wheel to be 3/16-inch out from the bottom of the tire to the top of the left wheel, 1/16-inch from top to bottom of the tire. I then called Lynn Carrol about 7:30 a.m. Sunday, after the Saturday night race, and told Mr. Carrol what I had discovered about the car. He told me that he would call Jerry Cook (who is a NASCAR official) in Daytona and that they would make a final decision, which neither did.
I then took the car on Monday morning to a certified alignment shop in Salem. When the technician checked the car, he found the left wheel to be within 1/4 degree and the right wheel to be within 1/2 degree from zero camber, which is near perfect tolerance. Considering that the car in question is 3 years old, has been raced thousands of laps and has been involved in three recent wrecks, the camber is unbelievably accurate.
The pit crew works hard to keep our car up to NASCAR standards, which the officials pick apart very closely every race. We would be fools to take a car to New River Valley Speedway that was not legal for any reasonable inspector to check. I think that Jeff, Barry, myself and the whole crew were cheated out of a race that we needed so badly to keep our fourth-place standing in the Mid-Atlantic region points and our first-place standing at New River Valley Speedway, not to mention our $1,700 first-place money.
Bruce Sweeney
Floyd
The facts on HOSTS
In a recent editorial in another area newspaper, it was highlighted that New River Valley Hosts "dropped the ball" on tourism in the New River Valley and that no one was working on tourism for this area.
A response from Charles Whitescarver, 1994 president of HOSTS, covered the HOSTS side of the story. Both were wrong on several points.
HOSTS has had problems in the past with the program that was selected for that organization's development. Whitescarver advised that local Chambers of Commerce had given blessing to the current plan. This is not entirely true. The Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce board of directors has not endorsed the new proposed location for HOSTS nor their plan for tourism promotion in the New River Valley.
To say no one is working on tourism, or to say HOSTS is the only way to capitalize on tourism dollars, is an insult to those who have been busy working on our projects. Let's keep the facts straight.
David Thacker, 1994-95 president, Greater Blacksburg Chamber of Commerce
Blacksburg
Don't blame children
All we hear on the news and read in the newspapers are these terrible crimes children 11 years old and younger are committing and what is the problem. The answer is on the front page of the Roanoke Times & World-News, dated Saturday, Sept. 3. - "Ollie North uses guns, magnetism to attract voters."
When I first saw this picture of the Friday gun show in Hillsville I thought I was seeing a scene in Rwanda with the display of those guns. Then I read the headline. If this is the type of representation we want in government, then God help this Southwest Virginia district.
Can't you just imagine the problem with children who come from homes where there is nothing talked about but how great Oliver North is, guns in the homes and the National Rifle Association? A judge recently refused to let North even carry a gun.
I cannot understand why we all can't see where the problem is with the children. Grown-ups, parents supporting North, senators, congressman and the NRA are setting the example and children can only follow what they see and hear, so please, instead of blaming the children, get to the root of the problem - the groups I have just listed.
I have never seen people so nervous about a candidate in all of my years of voting.
Opal A. Price
Blacksburg
Fast is pro-gun rights
I could not believe it when I heard that Rep. Rick Boucher voted for the Brady Bill and the five-day waiting period as part of the crime bill in 1991. Steve Fast is a family man who is strong on gun rights.
Boucher supported Douglas Wilder, who brought us one [handgun] a month, and Charles Robb, who voted to ban semiautomatic shotguns. Rick Boucher is not pro-gun and does not represent himself correctly to the 9th District.
We need a congressman who will be consistent in his voting record. Steve Fast will be strong on gun rights here and in Washington, D.C.
Dorothy Eller
Salem
`Liberal' is no slur
The insidious Ollie North TV commercial in which Ollie appears bright-eyed and bushy-tailed like the proverbial rodent shows Charles Robb appearing as dour and downcast as possible in the worst picture the North people could find. This is a perfect example of the upright and fair campaigning we should expect from these self-appointed guardians of morals and traditional values.
In the next segment of this commercial, Ollie is a "conservative" (well, ain't I sweet) and Robb is a "liberal" (lower than a snake's belly). A slight correction is due here - Ollie a conservative? More a hyperconservative of the Falwell, Robinson, Limbaugh variety - an "illiberal" - a word not much used these days that ought to be revived.
If Ollie's folks realized that in calling Robb a "liberal" they are paying him a high compliment they would pull the ad in a flash, because "liberal" (and yes, conservative, too) is defined in all dictionaries in honorable, even noble terms. Don't take my word for it - look it up.
Now we know the illiberals mean "liberal" as a pejorative worse than any cuss word I could write here, but no lexicographer prints any such meaning for this perfectly good word. Do the Ollie people have a poverty of language? One would think the illiberals adept enough at character assassination to not need to bastardize the language, but who knows hyperconservatives?
As long as we are looking into dictionaries, see the word "demagogue" and see if it does not remind you of someone. Demagogues always come out from under the rocks in unsettled times because it is pay-off time for them.
Oily Ollie is a three-time convicted felon who escaped incarceration by a technicality. Ah yes, but he "was only following orders." What's the matter with these apologists for proven criminality? Most too young to remember the Nazi war criminals spouting the very same words at the Nuremburg trials? The Ninth Commandment does not say there are good lies and bad lies - just lies.
If "values" Guru Ollie tells only good lies, then maybe there are good felonies. Most of us have slipped up on the Ninth Commandment, but few of us have ever had to go to court for our "good" lies. Yet so many are willing to follow this Pied Piper with feverish devotion. His election would help the chief gag writers for late-night TV show hosts for the next six years, making Virginia the laughingstock of the nation.
North - is that True North or Magnetic North? Who can really tell? Whatever, it is the wrong direction for Virginia.
L.J. Uttal
Blacksburg
Time for change in 9th
It's election time. Does Rick Boucher deserve another term from the 9th District to the House of Representatives?
When Boucher was first elected 12 years ago, ours was Virginia's poorest district - we are still the poorest! The state's median per capita income is $15,713; it is $10,097 per person in the Ninth.
Boucher claims to protect our jobs. Last year he did not know that the Radford arsenal was facing an immediate closing until the media reported the impending loss of jobs.
Boucher supported FOCA and set high penalties for "nonviolent" demonstrators. He supports taxpayer-funded abortion.
Boucher allowed President Clinton to jeopardize the lives of men from our area by sending them to Somalia with U.N. forces sent without adequate equipment to insure their protection.
He supports health care reform and claims that neither quality, availability nor affordability will be hurt.
In a district hard-hit by economic problems, Boucher voted for the highest tax increase in the history of our country.
It's time for change - vote for Steve Fast!
Bobbie Steele
Narrows
Memo: ***CORRECTION***