DAHA registration, skate with Bulldogs part of streamlining
While trying to avoid the annual crossfire of parents, who range from disinterested to overzealous, and coaches, who range from conscientious to contentious, the Duluth Amateur Hockey Association stickhandles into a new season determined to make things easier and better for those who matter most — the kids.
Using a motto “designing changes,” the DAHA board is starting with this weekend’s sign-up plan. Instead of having 15 rink associations holding their own sign-ups at various times and places, the registration for all hockey players will be Sunday and Tuesday at the DECC’s Pioneer Hall.
Today’s session will be held from 3-7 p.m., with games, prizes and the opportunity for all registrants to “skate with the Bulldogs,” a session with UMD players available to skate with youth registrants in open skating,from 3-6 p.m.
A second sign-up will be Tuesday from 6-9 p.m., also at Pioneer Hall, with open skating for registered families from 8-9 p.m. The north entrance to Pioneer Hall will serve as access for both sessions.
Streamlining the registration is just one of the changes for participants ranging for boys and girls from Mini-Mites, Mites, Squirts, Peewees, Bantams, Junior Gold, Rink-rats and recreational players. Another is the changing of rink boundaries to more closely coincide with high school boundaries.
“We’re working to set up a system of hockey mentors,” said Anita Stech, the new DAHA president. “We’re also making a big push for recreational hockey for kids that want to be involved in hockey at a lower-key level.”
The recreational level, which was offered last season, includes a Sunday night Hockey Club for grades 6-9 and a Rink-rats program for kindergarten-grade 5. Those players, who may not want to play in the more competitive association programs, will be charged $40 for a jersey to play a season that runs January through February at selected outdoor rinks with some indoor arena ice time, and will consist of one or two practices or games each week, as opposed to the organized rink teams that might have up to five sessions in a week.
Participants in the more competitive rink programs will have their boundary lines changed so that all conform. Anticipating that a boundary change perceived as necessary might meet with complaints, the board is allowing players the option of staying with last year’s team. The new boundaries have been used for the Peewee and Bantam levels in previous years, and now also will be used for the other, younger participants down through Mini-Mites.
At the Squirt level, organized rink teams will be divided into four areas. Gary, with Morgan Park, Irving, Merritt and Piedmont; Lower Chester-Duluth Heights; Glen Avon-Woodland; and Congdon-Portman-Lester Park. Within those four areas, rink directors will strive to keep kids in their proper rink areas.
In Squirt-and-older categories where tryouts are required, Stech said that independent evaluators are being sought in all cases. To evaluate, men or women must be at least 21, have a past involvement with hockey, and may not have a family relationship with any player trying out. At least three independent evaluators will be used for all sessions, and the coach of the team involved can run the drills and participate as an evaluator or to discuss evaluations. Also, evaluators will provide each player with information on perceived strengths and weaknesses.
The mentoring idea is an intriguing one. DAHA is seeking adults who enjoy hockey, or have enjoyed hockey in the past, to volunteer to be a Hockey Mentor. It is a one-year commitment to an assigned player, during which the mentor might transport the player to games and practices, and work with the player individually as time permits. The program will be conducted through the Mentor Duluth organization, which will screen applicants and pair them with youth players.
The plan could give support and encouragement to youngsters who might not otherwise get such adult guidance. Anyone interested in volunteering can contact DAHA president Anita Stech, at 724-5761, or executive director Clark Coole, at 728-8000.
Impatient UMD women open hockey practice eager for games
In just two weeks, the UMD women’s hockey team will open its second season, when St. Lawrence comes to Duluth to face the Bulldogs. If that means the season is coming up in a hurry, some of the players disagree.
“Last year, we had three days of practice and then we were off to Salt Lake City to start playing,” said defenseman Navada Russell. “This year, two weeks seems like such a long time until we play.”
Impatience was one of the trademarks of the Bulldogs in their first season, when they captivated national media outlets that was an amazing story. Here was a first-year team with players ranging from world-class international stars to area players who had never played beyond club-team level, then tore undefeated through its first 23 games (21-0-2), won the first-ever Women’s-WCHA championship with a 21-1-2 record, and also won the W-WCHA playoff title to gain a trip to the final four. Finishing fourth at nationals might have been a distasteful finish, but it also left some extra incentive for following up that stunning 25-5-3 debut.
Four players from that team will not be with UMD this season — actually, three players and an asterisk. Winger Erin Nagurski from International Falls graduated, defenseman Breana Berry from Minnetonka transferred to St. Benedict’s, and goaltender Amanda Tapp from Calgary — who had a 16-0-1 record, a .928 save-percentage and a 1.33 goals-against mark — was scholastically ineligible and didn’t return to school. The fourth player that won’t be starting the season with the Bulldogs is Jenny Schmidgall, the All-American and national scoring leader with 41 goals-52 assists–93 points.
Schmidgall has skated briefly with the team but will not play because she is expecting a baby Jan. 1. She will miss the first semester and could take the full year off as a redshirt, or she could decide to play the second semester. But for now, filling the vacancy left by Shmiggy is the biggest challenge facing coach Shannon Miller, who has recruited five new players and anticipates all five will step in and contribute.
“We were new last year, and nobody knew what to expect,” said captain Brittny Ralph, the team’s lone senior. “Getting back to start practice this year felt really good, like we hadn’t missed a beat. Obviously, we are going to miss Shmiggy, but she’s still here and still part of the team. She’s always in great shape, so she probably could come back pretty quickly, and even if she comes back before she’s in perfect condition, her game is seeing the ice and making her teammates better.
“But we have five new players who seem to fit right in. There’s a little pressure on us this year to do as well as we did last year, but if we come out and play our best, everything will work out.”
The freshmen are forwards Sheena Podovinnikoff from Kamsack, Saskatchewan and Sanna Peura from Jyvaskyla, Finland, defensemen Tricia Guest of Estevan, Saskatchewan, and Satu Kiipeli from Oulu, Finland, and goalie Patricia Sautter from Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
That expands the team’s international flavor to 10 Minnesotans, seven Canadians, five from Finland, two from Sweden and one from Switzerland. One thing unchanged from last year is the team’s high-spirited attitude. When practice opened this week, and the players gathered in game jerseys for the annual team picture, freshman Podovinnikoff was standing in one group, while another group noticed that to be spelled out on her jersey, the 13 letters of her last name started on her left sleeve, moved across her back, and ended as it started down the right sleeve.
Michelle McAteer, the team’s primary dancer and sparkplug, said: “She’s either going to have to get wider, or we’re going to have to put ‘To be continued’ on her jersey.”
Blend into the team’s free-spirited attitude will be equally important to blending in on the ice, although Bulldog returnees don’t see any problem for the rookies. Shannon Mikel, a sophomore forward from Centennial, agreed. “I think the new players look good. They’re strong, and I think we’re going to have a lot more depth.”
Coach Miller’s obvious intent is to move upward, gradually approaching the 18-scholarship limit over the course of four seasons, while filling out the team’s depth as efficiently as possible. Assistant coach Shawna Davidson thinks this year is a large step in that direction. “I think the new players look good enough that we’ll have four solid lines,” said Davidson.
The team has 15 forwards and seven defensemen, with 12 forwards and five of the defenseman returning. The goaltending should be unexcelled in college hockey, with freshman Sautter coming from Switzerland’s national team to join Tuula Puputti, who came from Finland’s national team to attend UMD second semester, and backup Riana Burke. Puputti’s record (6-5-2) last season wasn’t as flashy as Tapp’s 16-0-1, but Puputti took over in all the tougher playoff games, and she still had a .925 save percentage with a stingy 1.98 goals-against mark.
The schedule is one of the biggest differences this year. Most established teams were reluctant to play a first-year unknown, and the Bulldogs could only play tough nonconference foes in six games, all during three trips out east. Their phenomenal first season changed all that, and St. Lawrence, New Hampshire, Harvard and Northeastern all are coming to Duluth for two-game sets, starting with St. Lawrence on Oct. 13-14.
That’s either two short weeks away, or a long time, depending on the Bulldogs’ impatience.
U.S. Grand Prix sets unique standard for Formula 1 and Indy
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—All the intricacies that make Formula 1 and racing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway independently unique were drawn together in perfect harmony when Michael Schumacher drove to victory in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix.
Schumacher’s Ferrari had come into the 15th of 17 Formula 1 races trailing Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren 82-80 in season points, but after leading teammate Rubens Barrichello to a 1-2 Ferrari finish on a day when Hakkinen went out with a blown engine on the 26th of 73 laps, Schumacher vaulted into an 88-80 lead with only the Oct. 8 race in Japan and the Oct. 22 finale in Malaysia remaining.
The return of Formula 1 to the U.S. drew a crowd of over 200,000, the largest to ever watch Formula 1, which currently visits 15 countries, with two each in Germany and Italy. The last time F1 ran in the U.S. was 1991 in Phoenix, when the late Ayrton Senna, a brilliant Brazilian, won his fifth U.S. Grand Prix in six years. Schumacher’s seventh victory this season was the 42nd of his career, one more than the late Senna and second only to Alain Prost’s record 51.
The fans, an interesting blend of Formula 1 sophisticates and Indianapolis oval devotees, watched the world’s most exotic race cars christen the new 2.606-mile road course that traces the two south-end turns of the 91-year-old Indy oval, moving clockwise up the main straightaway before swinging off to follow 11 more turns carved out of the infield. All but two of the other Formula 1 circuits are longer than the Indy layout, but the banked turns and long straightaway make Indy unique.
“Looking at the reaction of the spectators, it was magnificent up on the podium, where you see people just everywhere out in front of you,” said Schumacher. “And they seemed to be pretty satisfied.”
Schumacher won by surviving, a wild start when McLaren driver David Coulthard jumped ahead of him; a wheel-banging pass of Coulthard; the speed of the onrushing Hakkinen; and ultimately his own spinout with five laps remaining, which cut his 30-second lead over Barrichello’s matching red Ferrari in half. He took the checkered flag 12.1 seconds ahead.
Formula 1 awards points on a 10-6-4-3-2-1 basis, and Schumacher, a German, and his Brazilian teammate Barrichello, were followed by Germany’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen in a Jordan, Canada’s Jacques Villeneuve in a BAR/Honda, Scotland’s Coulthard fifth in a West McLaren/Mercedes, and Brazil’s Ricardo Zonta sixth in the second BAR/Honda in a race where the
“I’ve never seen, from inside the car, so many people around a track,” said Frentzen, who had spirited duels with Barrichello and Villeneuve before bringing his Jordan home third. “It is quite an incredible view when you’re going onto the bank here and see all the people. And not only on the left hand side, but the right hand side.”
The race belonged to Schumacher, but the start was wrenched away by Coulthard. In road-racing, the fastest line through Turn 1 is best approached from the outside, so the fastest qualifier starts outside in Formula 1, a car-length ahead of the second car on the staggered grid. The standing start is initiated when a row of red lights blinks off.
Schumacher inched ahead too soon but then stopped, legally, just prior to the starting signal. Coulthard moved ahead similarly, and kept going, jumping the start and flying past Schumacher to take the lead as the cars roared up the straightaway, their exotic V10 engines emitting a shrill harmony of screams as they revved up to 18,000 RPMs — almost twice as high as the rev-limited Indy Racing League V8s at the 500.
Coulthard led through the first six laps, but lost it to Schumacher before being summoned for a 10-second, stop-and-go penalty for his over-anxious start. “I knew I jumped the start,” said Coulthard. “It’s unfortunate. I planned to get the better start and be leading out of the first corner, but not with a jump-start. I moved, then tried to stop, but then the lights changed so I went.”
Schumacher took the lead away on the outside at the end of the straightaway, starting Lap 7, circling around Coulthard going through Turn 1. Coulthard’s left front tire struck Schumacher’s right rear as the two hurtled toward the sharp left Turn 2. Schumacher’s red Ferrari was in front to stay, but he admonished Coulthard afterward.
“David did hold me up in the infield, to let Mika catch up,” said Schumacher. “Obviously, the two are teammates, and that’s perfectly legal. On the overtaking side, I think he really tried a little bit too much. Slowing down, fine; driving into someone, I don’t think that should be the case. I passed him on the outside of Turn 1, and I went really, really wide to make sure he could not touch me at all, and I would say he didn’t take the tightest line to avoid any touching. I just want to make sure we don’t see teammates helping drivers fighting for the championship in a way which is not appropriate.”
The rain that persisted all Sunday morning stopped before race time but prompted all but one team to start on rain tires, with Jaguar splitting Eddie Irvine on rain tires and Johnny Herbert on dry tires. As the circuit dried, Hakkinen pitted on Lap 7 to change to dry tires, then started turning laps almost two seconds faster than Schumacher’s best. Schumacher was about the last to change, on the 16th lap, taking on dry tires and a full fuel load in 7 seconds flat. His lead over Hakkinen was reduced from 43.5 seconds to 16.3 by the stop, and Hakkinen cut the deficit to 10 seconds, then 9, then 7, and finally down to 4.1 seconds as the two-time defending series champion from Finland ran a sizzling 1:15.773 lap on his 25th tour of the circuit, fastest to that point.
Indy’s layout allowed F1 cars to run flat out for over 20 seconds, longer than on any other F1 circuit, which also meant more strain than usual, and one lap after his fastest lap, Hakkinen’s Mercedes engine blew and he coasted to the pit entrance in a stream of fire. “What caused the failure, I do not know,” said Hakkinen, who had finished every race since failing to finish the first two of the season. “I think I could have won it. I was gaining on every segment of the course. We have two races to go now. It’s very, very difficult indeed and getting tougher.”
Schumacher started pulling away to a commanding lead with a best lap of 1:15.042, and after the second round of pit stops, Coulthard was the only one who could run at Schumacher’s pace. Coulthard, in fact, lowered the race’s quickest lap to 1:14.711 on the 40th lap, but he was not in contention, merely making his way into the points from 15th after his early penalty stop.
The only remaining drama was up to Schumacher, on the 69th of the 73 laps, when he cut an infield corner too casually, hooked his front tire over the edge of the asphalt and caught the still-wet grass. He spun around 1 ½ times, but never lost his composure, straightening out with a burst of acceleration to resume his pace to the finish.
“The team mentioned that I should keep my concentration, and I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m awake now,’ ” Schumacher said. “Honestly, I wasn’t concentrating. I was enjoying the race, just cruising, hoping nothing goes wrong, and you lose a bit of concentration. I was too far inside, and I touched the grass. Some people asked me to make a bit of a show this weekend. I hope that was good enough.”
Tradition of Olympics overcome by some ugly U.S. antics
Minnesota gymnast John Roethlisberger was among those who displayed true Olympic spirit, when he followed up a disappointing medal-free performance by the U.S. gymnasts with a smile that showed he was satisfied he had done his best, and a following pep-talk to his teammates. Unfortunately, other American Olympic athletes fell short of such standards.
NBA basketball stars were throwing taunts, elbows and the occasional basketball at outmanned foes who got in the way of their showboating; a U.S. wrestler lost a match but forced the referee’s hand up as if in victory during the post-match ceremony; U.S. women’s basketball “pros” ran through, and over, weaker opponents; and a U.S. track guy sprinted toward victory in his hurdles heat and reached back in a taunting wave to his opponents to catch up. Olympic spirit? What Olympic spirit? And why do folks from other countries call us “Ugly Americans?”
Consider two specific performances last week. The U.S. women played Australia in an amazing softball contest of strikeouts and matching zeroes through 12 innings. Extra innings start with a base-runner at second, and in the top of the 13th Christie Ambrosi singled home that runner for a 1-0 U.S. lead, which seemed substantial with ace Lisa Fernandez having struck out an Olympic record 25 hitters on a one-hitter to that point. But with two out in the last of the 13th, Peta Edebone guessed right on a Fernandez drop and socked a home run over the left-field fence, giving Australia a stunning 2-1 victory.
Crushed by their third straight loss after a 112-game Olympic softball winning streak, the U.S. women waited patiently for the Aussies’ pile of genuine celebration, then they congratulated their conquerors.
Meanwhile, the U.S. men’s baseball team, a collection of top minor-league professionals coached by Tommy Lasorda, faced Cuba, the top baseball players in the world outside of the major leagues. Cuba whipped the U.S. 6-1, and the U.S. behavior probably precluded any hope of the U.S. ever importing good Cuban cigars. Cuba jumped ahead 4-0 in the first, and Jose Ibar, Cuba’s big, immensely-skilled righthanded pitcher, took over, with a tailing 94-mile-per-hour fastball, plus a pitch that drops a foot as if part curve, part slider, part changeup, maybe part voodoo. Ibar certainly is the best pitcher in the world that George Steinbrenner hasn’t tried to sign for the New York Yankees.
Ibar struck out six before he faced power-hitting Ernie Young in the top of the fourth. Young crowded the plate, and Ibar whistled that fastball high and inside. Young didn’t bail out, but sort of twisted his upper body to the right as the pitch sailed in — Whack! — plunking Smith’s left shoulder. Catcher Miguel Pesanto jumped up and took a couple of steps toward the mound, as if to make sure Ibar wasn’t disturbed, just as Smith started toward first base, clearing his route with a forearm shiver to knock Pesanto out of the way. A few hostile words, then both benches emptied, but order was soon restored.
Yes, Ibar had excellent control; yes, he threw a high, hard one “up and in” as they say; and yes, strangely, Smith didn’t fall away but made an odd little pivot that left him in harm’s way against Ibar’s tailing-in horsehide missile. Still, it seems incomprehensible Ibar hit Smith intentionally, despite the U.S. players insistence.
In the last of the fourth, Cuba’s Miguel Caldez swung hard but hit only a soft dribbler toward third. Sean Burroughs charged and grabbed the ball, but, realizing he had no play on the speedy Caldez, he didn’t throw. The U.S. first baseman, Doug Mientkiewicz, is a Twins farmhand at Salt Lake City, and he was obviously aware no throw was coming. As Caldez raced to the bag, Mientkiewicz suddenly lunged across the base line in front of him, landing on all fours in a perfectly-timed move that sent Caldez cartwheeling over the cross-body block.
For some reason, Mientkiewicz was not thrown out of the game, out of the stadium, and banished to a rubber raft for the return trip from Sydney to his beloved Salt Lake City. The rest of the game deteriorated into an ugly battle of wills, to say nothing of a battle of slashing spikes and “purpose” pitches.
If the gold medal games work out right, and the U.S. were to face Australia in softball, and the U.S. met Cuba in baseball, don’t miss ’em. Both would be tense and dramatic — one because of the matching skill level and sheer exuberance of competition within the confines of Olympic spirit; the other in apprehension of the carryover when ugly emotions replace honorable, sporting effort.
Schumacher wins U.S. Grand Prix, takes over Formula 1 lead
INDIANAPOLIS, IND.—Michael Schumacher overcame David Coulthard’s strong start with a wheel-banging pass, then took such command of Sunday’s United States Grand Prix that even his own late spinout couldn’t prevent him from a decisive victory that was also worth the overall Formula 1 points lead.
“Some people asked me to make a bit of a show this weekend,” said Schumacher. “I hope that was good enough.”
It was, enthralling a huge crowd estimated at 200,000 to watch the return of Formula 1 racing to the U.S. after a nine-year absence, and to watch the first race conducted at the 13-turn, 2.606-mile road course the has been constructed along two turns of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and twists through the infield of the legendary oval.
Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, Schumacher’s teammate, finished second to give Ferrari its third 1-2 finish of the season. Germany’s Heinz-Harald Frentzen was third in a Jordan/Mugen-Honda, with Canada’s Jacques Villeneuve fourth in a BAR/Honda, Coulthard fifth in a West McLaren/Mercedes, and Ricardo Zonta sixth in the second BAR/Honda.
But the show belonged to Schumacher, who is much thinner and more diminutive than he might appear on television. He said he was overwhelmed by the support shown by the fans, many of whom waved gigantic Ferrari flags or German flags — both of which were in support of Schumacher. He came into the race two points behind twice-defending champion Mika Hakkinen, and left Indianapolis eight points ahead, 88-80, with two races remaining in the globe-hopping series.
Asked if he could feel that this race, at this place, was historic, Schumacher, always gracious, said: “I don’t think it’s up to me to judge that.”
He can, however, judge what the victory means to himself and Ferrari in the individual and manufacturers’ competition for world championships, but he wasn’t about to celebrate anything prematurely. “It’s very important, because now I can finish twice second and still win the championship. But I still have to finish twice second. I’ll start to think about the championship once it’s over, not before. You can see what can happen.”
What can happen, did, to Hakkinen, who was a strong second and gaining on Schumacher after 25 of the race’s 73 laps, cutting into the lead with several of the race’s fastest trips around the circuit. But his Mercedes engine blew on the 26th lap, and he coasted to a stop with flames trailing from his engine compartment.
“What caused the failure, I do not know,” said Hakkinen, who now must rally from behind to bring the third straight title back home to Finland. “I think I could have won it. I was gaining every segment. We have two races to go now. It’s very, very difficult indeed and getting tougher.”
At the start, Schumacher’s concerns were with Coulthard, Hakkinen’s teammate. Rain that lasted until nearly the 1 p.m. race time had left much of the track wet and the teams all mounted rain tires. On the standing start, Schumacher, having won the pole, had a slight advantage on the staggered-start grid. When the starting lights were about to go out, Schumacher seemed to inch forward ever so slightly, then stopped again. Coulthard, also anticipating the start, lurched forward similarly, and just kept on going — zooming past Schumacher on the inside to take the lead as the field hit the brakes and cut sharply right into Turn 1.
He led Schumacher for the first six laps, while race officials determined that Coulthard must make a stop-and-go pit stop for 10 seconds as a penalty for jumping the start. “I knew I jumped the start. It’s unfortunate. I planned to get the better start and be leading out of the first corner, but not with a jump-start. I moved, then tried to stop, but then the lights changed so I went.”
Before Coulthard went in for his penalty stop, however, Schumacher wrenched the lead away on Lap 7. He came up hard on the outside as the two streaked down the main straightaway — running clockwise on the normally clockwise portion of the Indy oval — and circled on the outside as he cut into Turn 1. The two were side-by-side, with Schumacher inching ahead, when they bumped going into the sharp left Turn 2. Coulthard’s left front struck Schumacher’s right rear. Both cars continued, but Schumacher’s red Ferrari was in front to stay.
“David did hold me up in the infield, to let Mika catch up,” said Schumacher. “Obviously, the two are teammates, and that’s perfectly legal. On the overtaking side, I think he really tried a little bit too much. I passed him on the outside of Turn 1, and I went really, really wide to leave him as much room as possible. But when we were going into Turn 2, I don’t think he took a line to avoid contact.”
On the start of that seventh lap, Hakkinen had ducked into the McLaren pits to change from wet tires to dry, as the course was drying sufficiently. After Coulthard made his stop-and-go pit stop on Lap 8, he came right back in on Lap 9 to also put on dry tires. That left Schumacher in the lead by 14.4 seconds over Frentzen, and he stretched out that lead as the other cars stopped for tires. By the 16th lap, Schumacher had a 43.5-second lead over Hakkinen, and he made a pit stop for fuel and dry tires — all in 7 seconds flat — and he got back out still leading by 16 seconds.
Hakkinen then clicked off some very impressive laps, cutting the lead all the way down to 5 seconds by the 24th lap, while turning several consecutive quickest laps, including a 1:15.773 on the 25th trip. But the long straightaway means the F1 engines are run flat-out for over 20 seconds — the longest of any F1 circuit — and the strain showed when Hakkinen’s engine blew one lap later.
While various other interesting duels came about back in the field, particularly between Villeneuve and Barrichello, and then Villeneuve and Frentzen, Schumacher’s only challenge thereafter came from himself. On Lap 69, with only four laps remaining, Schumacher rounded a curve too casually, hooked the right front tire over the edge of the asphalt, and spun around a time and a half. He caught it, straightened out, and kept going, while the only damage was to his pride, and to cut his lead in half, to 16 seconds, over Barrichello.
“I wasn’t concentrating any more because I was just cruising,” Schumacher confessed. “I caught the tire on a bit of grass, which was still slippery, and it spun. The team mentioned that I should keep my concentration, and I said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m awake now.’
“All I was thinking about was to bring the car home. These cars are built to take being driven hard, but you want to make sure you don’t stress it. You take it easy, and you start to talk to your car.”
Someone asked Schumacher what he said to his car. “Luckily, it didn’t talk back to me,” he said.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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