"Storm Chasin" by Kris Tilford

I've always wanted to see a tornado. I lived very close to the path of Topeka's 1966 tornado, and remember the sound very well, but never had seen a 'real' tornado. I knew Thursday would be good, but didn't want to waste the whole day 'chasing' a tornado when it was easy enough to be lazy and let one come to me.
Steve & Trudi were leaving for Joe Martin that afternoon, and I asked about their video camera, which I'd never used. Trudi had filmed Steve at Cyclocross National's in Napa during a downpour, and the thing got drenched and was broken. They handed me the camcorder and left. The large 3" LCD was shorted out and had nothing but static. The tiny eyepiece had an image, but it was obscured with dirt. I determined it would still record, so I'd have to make due with what I had. The storm was coming fast, they said 50 mph. I could see on the most recent radar that it was going to split around Topeka going both north & south of Topeka. My experience had taught me that storms moving on a diagonal were almost impossible to chase from behind when they're moving fast as this one was. I decided I couldn't 'catch' the north storm, but the south storm looked like it would hit Lawrence, and I could go fast enough to intercept it using I-70, K-10, and US 59. As I left my house in Topeka, the storm was NNW of Topeka just S of Lyndon. As I drove on I-70, the radio had reports of a "mile wide" tornado near Pomona. Driving along K-10 near the softball complex that's far SW of Lawrence I was lucky to just beat the traffic because they canceled the games and hundreds of cars were just beginning to exit. It was a great call by whomever was in charge since these people were definitely in the line of fire and had 20-30 minutes to leave.
    I drove south on US 59 to the Zarco station and turned backwards along the Wordin TT course. With my tendency to arrive late for races, I'd driven this exact route much faster in the past. Today I was definitely crawling. As I headed west I was in a really dangerous situation. I was driving toward the storm, and I was scared. I called on my cell to get a radar update, I didn't want to drive into any "mile wide" things. I was probably only going about 10 mph, ready to 'ditch' the car or 'turn and run' at any second. It was hairy. As I past the last corner of the Wordin TT headed west, the road turns gravel. I was down to about 5 mph. I couldn't see anything even though it wasn't raining, just so humid, like driving into a wispy cloud. Then I could see faint orange sunlight through the dark cloudcover. I was relieved because any 'major' tornado would be silhouetted against the light. There was no tornado, and I forged ahead at 30mph. I came through into sunlight, and past an intersection. I drove about 200 meters past, and saw the tornado forming directly in front of me about 200 meters. Luckily I knew I was safe since the storm was moving NW. I did a quick U-turn. I was in direct sunlight now, and looking straight up a 60,000 ft. wall of pure white cloud. I headed back to the intersection and turned north. The tornado was still slightly to my west, and would be passing directly in front of me as it crossed the road. I stopped the car and was going to attempt some video, but I was so excited that I didn't get the car in park and I had to chase the car. No video. The tornado was dipping in & out of the clouds, and moving very fast. I stopped twice to shoot video, but both times the tornado was puny compared to times a was driving. I had to drive 50-70 mph on waterlogged gravel to keep pace, and it was dangerous. I came off the gravel near the small church just short of Lone Star. At the stop sign was a National Severe Storm Center Van with custom Oklahoma "STRMCHSR" license plate and it's own radar & satellite uplink. So cool, and I was ahead of it, and I was solo before that. I decided to let them pass me and 'do the pulling,' but these 'pro's' didn't know the roads and were losing ground to the 'brake'; I had to attack and drop them. I knew that Lawrence was right in the path, and my friend Hudson Luce lives right off Clinton Parkway on the 2nd floor of one of those big apt. complexes. This is where things got really crazy. I was driving about 70 mph, listening to the radio, watching the tornado out the window, trying to figure out if I could shoot video while driving without any viewfinder, and call Hudson on the phone to say "watch out, you've got about a minute." The phone wouldn't work, I think they may have implemented the "emergency only" procedure whereby only police & fire cell phones work. My Sprint phone was dead for over an hour. I got a tiny 42 second piece of video while driving. I was going east on 458 near the Model Plane Airfield at the South end of Clinton dam. The picture is captured from the video and is looking north toward Clinton Pkwy. Most of the video is chaotic shots of nothing since I had no viewfinder. That evening when I saw my paltry poor video, I sat down and disassembled the camcorder and fixed it. Now it's ready to go for the next "race." Kris