Vrooooooom

Hi, everyone. This is Jerry Hinnen, your friendly neighborhood award-winning sports writer. This is my first post on our new Internet digs, so I wanted to give you an example of what you can expect from my end on our little project.

In our paper (papers, rather) you're going to get the sports news. It's going to be good sports news, too, plus --have I mentioned this? -- award-winning design and column-writing.

But there's not going to be, for a lack of a better word, a lot of flair in the sports news. The paper (as it should be) is facts first and flair second. (Aside from, of course, any award-winning columns it might include.) For example, in my June 21 article about the NMRA Nationals at Milan Dragway, I wrote this: "Visitors to the dragway Sunday were able to see more than 100 customized Mustangs and other vehicles battle for titles in 12 different classes, but there was plenty of other attractions as well, including a Ford car show, activities on the midway, and an appearance by 'Thriller,' a 300 mile-per-hour jet-powered dragster."

What that doesn't tell you is that "Thriller" was the closest thing I've ever seen in person to an actual Batmobile. Remember those huge flames pouring out of its rear end in the movies? "Jet-powered" in this case means what it says -- "Thriller" used an honest-to-God blue-fire-spewing jet engine. Oh, it was loud, and let's just say if they had asked for volunteers from the audience to take a ride in the thing, I wasn't raising my hand. But watching that dragster blaze down the dragway at 260+ miles-per-hour with flames trailing behind it ... well, I'm not the world's biggest car guy or racing enthusiast, but it was more than enough to get the blood pumping. You can see for yourself here, though you'll have to be patient and I promise you it's even more impressive in person.

So that's what you'll get here at the blog -- the same sports, just with a little more flair, a little more of the feel of the event and some of that (stop me if I've told you this already) award-winning "Fun and Games" personality. Hope you'll check back. It might not be jet-powered, but it's going to be a fun ride.