Pit Stop with Gauldy – Youngstown

Youngstown Ohio was the scene for the Toyota AMA Arenacross series this weekend for me and the T.V. crew. It was a weekend I will never forget. I will get right to it. Most of you won’t believe what happened to me, but it is all true.

It started out by getting the worst flights ever from Toronto to Pittsburgh. There was nothing direct so I had to fly to Detroit and then to Chicago and then to Pittsburgh and then get a rental car and drive an hour to Youngstown. It was going to be a little over 8 hrs when it was all said and done. Now for those who know where I live in Canada, it is only a 4 – 5 hr drive to Youngstown from my front door. It was going smooth till I made my way into O’Hare airport in Chicago. This is where the stuff hit the fan.

First thing was my flight being cancelled at 9:30pm and the next available flight was not until 6:30am the next day. I tried to get a hotel in the area but because of all the cancellation due to the bad weather there were no rooms in the immediate area. My bed for the night was going to be the airport. It actually started out not bad. I found a pillow and a nice bench seat and did my best homeless sleep. At like 2 am I got woken up by this little Spanish lady that was treating her vacuum cleaner like a punching bag. She was beating the machine with the handle like she was trying to kill it. I awoke and she did not realize I was there and was embarrassed and sort of just walked away nodding her head in apologies for going so crazy on the innocent vacuum. I managed to get back to sleep and woke back up at 4am and decided to go and check if my flight was still going at 6:30.

I saw on the T.V. that it was cancelled. I went over to the customer relations for United Airlines. The line was 200 people deep and they were all pissed off, yelling and screaming. I thought a riot was going to break out. People were so fired up about all the canceled flights. It was complete chaos. After trying to figure out what to do I was going to be on a flight at 6:30 am the next day which obviously would not have worked because I would have missed Friday’s race.

I called Glen and gave him the bad news and he managed to get me on a flight at another airport called Midway. It was about 45 minutes from O’Hare. Now I was trying to get my luggage back to take with me. I must have talked to 15 different people and walked 10 miles between terminal 1 and 2 to try to get my bag. In the end they finally just said they would not give it to me. I am starting to think that airport workers are all just jerks. They had no interest in helping me in the situation.  

I made my way into a cab and started the drive to Midway. My cab driver was absolutely the worst driver in the snow. I was trying to get a few more minutes of sleep in the back but he was constantly sliding all over the road and only driving 10 MPH. He managed to really get the car sideways and almost caused a huge accident. He slipped out of it by inches and managed not to get us hit by the transport truck that was on the brakes and sliding right towards us. We both had to check are shorts. So now he decides that he is too scared to finish the drive. He pulls to the side of the road and says he is going to call me another cab. I was like, buddy, the cab will take forever and I have to get to the airport in record time. We argued for 5 minutes or so and finally made an agreement. The cab driver got in the passenger seat and this Canadian snow driving expert got behind the wheel and did my best Ricky Bobby all the way to the Midway. I made it with a few minutes to spare. The cab driver and I were so pumped that we made it we were high fiving each other and both smiling from ere to ear. It was fricking hilarious. I still paid the $80 for the ride which I guess I should have tried to get for free since I drove but I was so excited that I was going to finally get on the plane I just paid.

So I made it to Pittsburgh and my luggage did not. I had no clothes, no bathroom entities, and no speed shirts for T.V. The bag was still in Chicago. What a nightmare. I got the rental car and drove to Youngstown and made it to the dollar store and got my self some fresh duds to wear. I borrowed and old speed shirt from Glen and we got the show off with out any more issues. My bag was delivered to the hotel at 5am Saturday. It was a wild few days.

It was the talk of the pits all weekend about the crazy Canadian cab driver. Ahahahahahah

To end this I would like to thank everyone at Arenacross and all the riders who signed the t-shirt that Ms. Willard got me for my b-day. I am 30 years old today. The kind gesture from Ms. Willard was so amazing. I really love my job down there and the people I work with are simply awesome. The next round for me is Sacramento. Till then AX fans. Keep the cabbies pinned. Haha

Gauldy