RYAN JOHNSON FROM THE ELMA, WASHINGTON AREA WHO PUSHES AT GRAYS HARBOR RACEWAY...HIS 4x4 TRUCK IS 1986 CHEVY 1/2 TON WITH A 350 MOTOR..
My name is John Krause and I am a member of the Cascade Push Truck Association..My truck is a '71 Chevy 3/4 ton 4/4 drop with a 350 engine backed by a 700R4 tranny, great for launching Sprint cars. The wheels are very old 16 inch aluminum spokes that are about 9 inches wide. The tires are BFG 275 50 16's. Some thing you may want to think about is where we have our fire extinguishers. If you can see just behind my board is a 2 1/2 gallon extinguisher with a water and Cold Fire mix. I also have a 5 lbs dry chem as well as a jug of track dry (we only push asphalt) and my back-down strap also. I hope you like what you see, let me know what you think. Keep on pushin!!!!
JOHN KRAUSE UPDATE---APRIL , 2002
Asfor me I'm doing pretty good. Every now and then a different part of my body will hurt and sometimes more then one spot. Right now I have pain in my ribs, neck and left foot. All parts that we pretty trashed in the accident. The worst part is the ribs, boy can those bring tears to my eyes when I sneeze. Other then that I'm back to pushing and staying out of the way of fast moving race cars...
JOHN KRAUSE STORY---8/19/01
by Rebecca Schaaf
Monroe, Wa.( Aug. 5, 2001) - Saturday night John Krause made an official 'come back' out here at Evergreen Speedway. He not only came out to the track, but he worked. He drove his truck with the Cascade Push Truck Association. What is ironic is this is the exact same line-up as the accident occurred during at the beginning of the season. He even pushed the same driver who accidentally hit him on that fateful night. It is my understanding that they have become pretty good friends through all this. I managed to catch up with John at the end of the evening with only 6 laps to go in the Raybestos Brakes tour race. I walked up to his truck and introduced myself and he made the comment, "You know it is exactly 4 months to the day since the accident." I had not idea. I told him he looked great, which he did. He immediately introduced me to his wife, Shelly and said, "She is the reason I made it and am here today to talk about it." He said he had over 100 broken bones in his body and through all the rehabilitation and his friends and family support, he is here today. I asked him how long he had been in the hospital and he said, "Five long weeks. I was so happy to get out have there and get home to start being a dad again". John and Shelly have 2 daughters, Kassidy who is 5 and Lindsey who is 8. He said, "Have been coming out to this track for 20 years and doing the Push Truck job for 12, I just had to come back, I love it." At the beginning of the evening just before the races began, speeches were given by the announcers and IPI President, Mickey Beadle, welcoming John back and he was presented with a #3 Dale Earnhardt blanket. There were pins I saw people wearing that were photos taken with Dale and John, arms around each other at a race where John had met Dale. It simply state, 'thanks for the support'. To say the least, it was an emotional night at Evergreen Speedway. WELCOME BACK JOHN ................................................ Seems that his trany broke that night in his push truck and he was helping the track crew with an oil spill...He got hit by a sprint car doing 80 mph during a caution while he was on the track...While he has been laid up his friends and the towing company that helps out at the track repaired his trany...
The Washington State club consists of 16-20 trucks who mainly work on pavement. We have pushed all over Washington, about 11 tracks and have sent trucks to Oregon and Idaho up to 800 miles away. We support our home track which is Evergreen Speedway in Monroe WA for nothing and try to get fuel expenses to the out of towners. The local open wheel groups appreciate our work and are very pleased when the guys in Orange are pushin the event. I must brag, a group of our members started invading the Copper Classic in Phoenix about 6 years ago and have sent open wheel pushing to a new level for that event. That is a quote from the speedway steward and management. We all wear uniforms and have radios (2 ways and scanners) Out the twelve trucks that Chevrolet supplies for that event we now get to drive about eight, what a thrill in February after not pushin for 4 months...
NOTES FROM THE 2003 COPPER CLASSIC-- John Krause has sent us a report about their road trip to Phoenix and the Copper World Classic...This was their 7th year and of the 10 trucks provided for pushing their club got 9...This year they only pushed Midgets and helped with the Silver Crowns when they asked...Before they also had the Supermodifies to work with and thought they would be board with out them... But they had as much fun as ever (when don't you at a race track)... Attached is a picture of the kind of transportation they got free of charge from their home track. It was pretty rough driving the 3500 miles in 10 days.
They also be having , for the first time in Washington area , the USAC Western States Sprints...USAC wants them to push at all the tracks in the NW that they will be stopping at...After working with these guys for 7 years you start to build some trust and get comfortable, so they hope to put on some good shows up there.
[ NOTES FOR 2002 COPPER CLASSIC-- We also did go to the Copper World this year and had a great time. Of the 10 trucks pushing out club got 7 of them and it looks like we may get more next year. I don't know if I ever said, but they give us brand new Chevy S10's to use so we just have to show up...The only problem we had was the drive home. I-5 was closed north of LA for snow so we went around towards the coast, so the part added 3-4 hours more, but shorter then waiting for the snow to melt. Then we made a wrong turn when we got back on I-5 and started to head to Oakland, that cost us another 3-4 hours. SO the trip home was 30 hours long. We've been talking since we got back and this is the third year we've drove down and each year the van rental is about $500. So we are going to look for a cheap van that we can fix up and use that to go down for the next few years. So, we're taking donations!!!]
We have association rules, bylaws, vehicle standards, and required equipment that we have developed over the years. We include strobes, rotating beacons, backdown straps, fire extinguishers, tow straps, minimum and maximum push board dimensions and vehicle appearance..
