Sarah Palin's Alaska, Episode #7 : Humongous Logs and Race Dogs

The part about race dogs? Okay, I lied. It rhymed, all right? There are race cars in this episode, though--stock cars, to be exact. And the humongous logs? Those are every bit as real as can be.

First stop: A hardcore, year-'round logging camp. Willow gets dragged along, her teenaged self rolling her eyes at her Mom on a regular basis--but when it comes time to actually trek on out to where fallers are dropping tall timber, she can't go. Too dangerous for kids. She has to stay back in camp, though Sarah does eventually badger her into helping out the camp chef.

Not that the old boy needs a lot of help, though there's no doubt he appreciated the youngster's company. No, the main point of that exercise was to get Willow some hands-on work experience.

When it comes to grabbing a chainsaw and dropping a tree, Todd looks justifiably cautious. Not that the danger is any more extreme than logging always is (as I know from experience, having been a logger for a time). Sarah, true to her nature, takes a turn with a chainsaw...and finds that even though the veteran faller has already made the initial cut which will determine the direction the tree falls, just wrestling the saw is a whole new thing.

Wanna bet the political pundits are missing a point here? By dabbling in so many things while filming Sarah Palin's Alaska, the former Governor is broadening her understanding of workers and the challenges they face. As President, would this knowledge not stand her in good stead? I vote Yes.

 We want to get to the stock car racing part...so will merely mention other activities in passing:

1.  Sarah asks Willow to take a walk on the beach with her for a mother-daughter "chat".

2.  The Palins join a reforestation crew to help plant saplings--which, along with tree seeds sown via plane-drop, help the renewable timber source, uh...renew. Down the road a number of years, this same area will yield another crop of saleable timber.

3.  Sarah takes a crack at running a huge log loader which uses pincers to pick up logs, one by one, to load them on trucks.  Miss a beat on this one, and a log could come through the window of your cab and just plain kill you outright.

4.  Both Todd and Sarah try driving bum boats.  These are watercraft that nudge groupings of water-floating logs into position to be loaded aboard ships for delivery wherever they're needed.

Next up:  The race!

If there were ever an event designed to warm the cockles of a teenager's heart, it would be the opportunity to climb into a stock car, take three laps, and see if you were good enough to beat your famous father's time around the track.  Yep.  Willow got to do that.  Scared the dickens out of her--she hadn't even been to the DMV to test for her driver's license!  (Helps to be a Palin, most likely--few tracks, at least in the lower 48, are going to let an unlicensed kid loose behind the wheel of a race car.)

Trying to beat her Dad had to be intimidating.  After all, novice to stock cars or not, he's been the Iron Dog, winner of the world's toughest snow machine race, four times.  Todd Palin went first, naturally--gotta give the kid a mark to shoot at, doncha?  Consistent as ever, his 3 laps clocked 25, 23, and 24 seconds respectively.

Since the rule was that only the fastest lap counted, Willow had to shoot for something under 23 seconds.  She was both scared and--in her race togs--claustrophobic, as she freely admitted.  She screamed the entire time she was racing, half of the time vowing she couldn't do this!  Nor was her first lap any screaming eagle, a somewhat anemic 30 seconds and change. 

But she picked up the pace on her second lap...and went hammer-down on the third and final round. 

The competitive urge runs deep in those Palins.

Blasting down the home stretch, she took the checkered flag (waved deliriously by Sarah as Mama Palin yelled encouragement)...and then promptly lost control of the car, slamming nose-first into the infield embankment.  The car rebounded onto the track and came to a shuddering stop.  Folks were running out there, yelling, "Are you okay, Willow?!"

Okay?  She was more than okay.  Grinning ear to ear, high as a kite on adrenalin, her confidence light years beyond where it'd been a couple of minutes earlier.  That, she opined, was awesome!

Especially when the announcer let everybody know that she'd just run a 20 second lap, beating Mr. Iron Dog Daddy Todd by a thumping three seconds!

YEEE-HAAAA!!!

Not much to add after that!

 Apparently racing stock cars wasn't enough after all.  They had to go bear watching, see--and yes they found some. 

Then they went home; end of episode.