By The Journal Times Editorial Board | Posted: Thursday, June 4, 2009 12:00 am
Those hot wax jobs might have to fend off some showers, but Downtown Racine is all ready and revved up to greet a few thousand high-end performance vehicles as it hosts the Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour on Sunday. An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 cars will line Main Street and Pershing Drive from noon to 7 p.m. Gawking is free, but don't kick the tires. The cars will roll in from Madison, leaving there at 9 a.m., along Highway 12 through Whitewater, follow Highway 20 into Waterford, turning left on Highway 45 into Union Grove, KR to the Interstate and then following Highway 20 again as they rumble into Racine.
Burlington, Case, Park, Horlick, Prairie, Union Grove, St. Catherine's, Waterford, Catholic Central, Racine Lutheran - we'll be rooting for them all today and Saturday as area athletes hit the road for La Crosse to try to churn up a few championship medals in the WIAA State Track and Field Meet. Racine County qualified 53 boys and girls in three divisions for the state meet. We hope they write some storybook endings to their seasons.
We checked the calendar and it's still there; June 21 is the first day of summer. We thought perhaps it had been postponed given the less than summery weather of the past few weeks, including temperatures that have dipped down into the 30s. Optimists will doubtlessly point to the bug-free spring as a pleasant experience. We'll grumble until more beach-like temperatures arrive, but we're thankful to be here and not in Peshtigo. We noticed a column in the Peshtigo Times this week that there were frost warnings out this week for Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota and Maine. "Don't know about you, but I'm way more than ready to turn the furnace off and put the winter wraps away," the column said. Right, you don't want to be wearing that parka to the beach.
Nine days ago, we excoriated the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee and Gov. Doyle for the changes in state liability laws that were tucked into the state budget and suggested it was a plum for state trial lawyers. The Wisconsin Civil Justice Council Inc., which represents a coalition of diverse business groups ranging from manufacturers and independent businesses to hospital groups and restaurants, this week turned up the heat on the issue, calling it an unjust law that poses debilitating legal costs that would hurt "all our businesses, local units of government, farming communities, charities, tourism destinations, hospitals and doctors, homeowners and neighbors." The council's case analysis on how the deep-pocket mining scheme would work makes for some scary reading. It's on their Web site,
http://www.wisciviljusticecouncil.org/ under "Why the Joint Finance Changes are a Sham."
Pluggers. Wisconsin is famous for them - people who grind along doing their best to get the job done. We like to see it when pluggers rise to the top - especially Wisconsin pluggers. So we cheered last weekend when one of the state's professional golfing pros, Steve Stricker, from Edgerton, plugged his way home in a three-way sudden death playoff to win the Colonial Crowne Plaza Invitational. Things looked dark when Stricker blew a four-foot putt on the 16th hole and hit over the 17th green, but he plugged away and chipped in for birdie to join the playoff. He won on the second hole after hitting his approach shot three feet from the pin - and didn't miss this time. "I feel fortunate," he said, "I've been on the other end a couple of times this year …" No doubt the $1.1 million purse will help him keep on plugging.