Latest news with #Kennett
Chicago Tribune
06-07-2025
- Automotive
- Chicago Tribune
Behind the scenes, crew members keep NASCAR Chicago Street Race running smoothly
At the door of the DGM Racing trailer, Janice Kennett sat peacefully in the double shade of a tent and her Chevrolet baseball cap. She took advantage of a quiet moment between her caretaker duties for the racing team: Kennett washes all the drivers' suits and ensures the team is stocked with cold drinks and snacks. She and her husband, Gary — who drives the truck for the team — have been with DGM Racing for four years. They drive to all 33 race weekends from their home in Lake Wales, Florida, where Kennett uses her own washing machine to do the team's laundry. 'People work better when they're taken care of,' Kennett said. Behind the many wire fences surrounding NASCAR's fan area, dozens of trailers and hauling trucks are lined up like oversized dominoes. Back here, everyone wears long black pants or heavy suits, protecting themselves from the gasoline and asphalt that makes racing dangerous for the large crews that come with every driver. This is the sweaty world of NASCAR, where mechanics lie belly-up beneath racecars, their hands covered in grime. It's not glamorous or easy, but this work is the lifeblood of American racing. Late Saturday morning, water poured out from under the hood of Joey Gase Motorsports' No. 53 car, driven by Sage Karam. Five team members, in green and black racing shirts, crowded around the vehicle. Sweat ran down everyone's foreheads as one mechanic crawled under the car, and two others set up a tent to shield them from the sun as they worked. Mechanics often perform this kind of maintenance. When drivers do their practice loops at the beginning of a race weekend, their cars accrue all sorts of damage. The JR Motorsports team had at least 12 people working on one of its cars, while the Joey Gase group did its repairs just a few trailers away. Behind another fence, Sunoco employees distributed dozens of gas tanks. To their right, technicians from Goodyear Racing carefully studied piles of tires, which were stacked up all over the NASCAR area. Getting tires to cars is one of the more complex aspects of a race. , the Goodyear Racing product manager for NASCAR, said that his company provides roughly 3,000 tires to cars every NASCAR race weekend. Cup Series vehicles get a maximum of seven pairs of tires for each race. XFinity Series cars get a maximum of six pairs. Most teams hold onto a pair or two of 'scuffs' — used tires — as backups. Almost all the tires used in a race weekend are immediately recycled into rubber dust. Heinrich and his team are usually the first to arrive at a race site. They have to unload and organize thousands of tires, and then collect data on every tire so that small manufacturing discrepancies can be accounted for and explained to teams, which receive tires at random. 'You really can't help but to have an appreciation, or be somewhat of a fan of racing, when you work for Goodyear,' Heinrich said, 'because, really, the core of the automotive business is racing.' If it rains, all those numbers change, and teams are allotted an additional four sets of wet-weather tires. They're necessary to prevent slippage when it rains, but will slow down a driver once the track dries up again. The Chicago Street Race, with its imperfect asphalt and lines of yellow and white paint for average city drivers, offers an unusual track for Goodyear tires. That aspect, however, is out of Heinrich's hands. 'That's why this place is so special,' Heinrich said. 'It's just different. It's not a purpose-built racetrack.' The five-person crew at Cope Family Racing would agree that this weekend is different. Usually, the team has a trailer with all of its tools right behind the pit box. But because the pit road area is so limited, in the middle of downtown Chicago, the crew had to park elsewhere and lug all the tools to the pit road. Bradley Carson is one of three mechanics on the Cope team, which is the smallest as well as one of the newest in the series, not that it has limited XFinity driver Thomas Annunziata, who qualified in the middle of the pack for the Chicago Street Race. Saturday afternoon, as the temperature climbed into the mid-80s, an oil-caked Carson was sitting on a tire in the shade of his team's pit box. 'I'm exhausted,' he said. He had every right to be. Carson, 62, who lives in Morrisville, North Carolina, and the two other mechanics on the team, rebuild Annunziata's car nearly every week and after a racing weekend, it requires a complete renewal. For Carson, a 19-hour day, four times a week, is nothing unusual. He admitted that the job takes a lot. But he wouldn't give it up. 'People are doing this because they want to do this,' Carson said. He got into motorsports as a 16-year-old not-always-legal drag racer in Los Angeles. Carson fell in love with 'the thrill' of being around cars and stuck with it. 'You build something and it comes to life,' he said. 'It's a calling, in a sense … something that drives inside of you.'
The Advertiser
03-06-2025
- Politics
- The Advertiser
'Sheer hell': elder pleads for Liberals to save Pesutto
A senior Liberal figure has piled pressure on the party to come to the rescue of former state leader John Pesutto over his unpaid multimillion-dollar legal bill. Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million in legal costs to first-term Victorian MP Moira Deeming after their high-stakes defamation battle. The Federal Court found he defamed Mrs Deeming by implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a controversial Melbourne rally she attended in 2023. Her lawyers issued a bankruptcy notice to the court on Monday, leaving Mr Pesutto 21 days to pay the debt, sign up to a payment arrangement or face bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would force his exit from Victorian parliament, setting up an expensive by-election in his marginal state seat of Hawthorn in Melbourne's east. With a final deadline approaching, former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett has written to the party's administrative committee to encourage it to foot the bill rather than offering a loan. In the letter, seen by AAP, Mr Kennett said he believed the committee was about to meet to discuss the issue and listed 10 points for its consideration. He labelled Mr Pesutto's situation "sheer hell" and stressed the matter could be quickly resolved if the party pays the outstanding claims against him. "Regardless of what you think of John personally, what he said, the judgement, the consequences are much greater than an individual," he wrote. "In principle and in practice. It is wrong to ask him to foot the bills, to bankrupt him and his family. "Wrong to ask him to borrow money from the capital funds we might have at our disposal." A GoFundMe campaign for Mr Pesutto's cause has raised more than $210,000. Mr Kennett acknowledged the court decided some of Mr Pesutto's words were "inappropriate" and "defamatory", but argued the party should be meeting all of his costs as he was acting as its "agent" at the time. He called for the administrative committee to act decisively, declaring it was not the "Liberal way" to leave Mr Pesutto to fend for himself. "Remember money can always be replaced, a change of government cannot," Mr Kennett said. "Please put personalities to one side and put the Party's interest front and centre." Mrs Deeming, who was expelled from the Liberals' parliamentary ranks before returning in December after Mr Pesutto lost the leadership, declined to comment on Mr Kennett's intervention. The upper house MP has previously foreshadowed she may pursue cost recovery through Mr Kennett and Mr Pesutto's other defamation defence donors if the Hawthorn MP declares bankruptcy. Mr Pesutto said he was doing "everything possible" over the next weeks to repay what he owes Mrs Deeming. A senior Liberal figure has piled pressure on the party to come to the rescue of former state leader John Pesutto over his unpaid multimillion-dollar legal bill. Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million in legal costs to first-term Victorian MP Moira Deeming after their high-stakes defamation battle. The Federal Court found he defamed Mrs Deeming by implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a controversial Melbourne rally she attended in 2023. Her lawyers issued a bankruptcy notice to the court on Monday, leaving Mr Pesutto 21 days to pay the debt, sign up to a payment arrangement or face bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would force his exit from Victorian parliament, setting up an expensive by-election in his marginal state seat of Hawthorn in Melbourne's east. With a final deadline approaching, former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett has written to the party's administrative committee to encourage it to foot the bill rather than offering a loan. In the letter, seen by AAP, Mr Kennett said he believed the committee was about to meet to discuss the issue and listed 10 points for its consideration. He labelled Mr Pesutto's situation "sheer hell" and stressed the matter could be quickly resolved if the party pays the outstanding claims against him. "Regardless of what you think of John personally, what he said, the judgement, the consequences are much greater than an individual," he wrote. "In principle and in practice. It is wrong to ask him to foot the bills, to bankrupt him and his family. "Wrong to ask him to borrow money from the capital funds we might have at our disposal." A GoFundMe campaign for Mr Pesutto's cause has raised more than $210,000. Mr Kennett acknowledged the court decided some of Mr Pesutto's words were "inappropriate" and "defamatory", but argued the party should be meeting all of his costs as he was acting as its "agent" at the time. He called for the administrative committee to act decisively, declaring it was not the "Liberal way" to leave Mr Pesutto to fend for himself. "Remember money can always be replaced, a change of government cannot," Mr Kennett said. "Please put personalities to one side and put the Party's interest front and centre." Mrs Deeming, who was expelled from the Liberals' parliamentary ranks before returning in December after Mr Pesutto lost the leadership, declined to comment on Mr Kennett's intervention. The upper house MP has previously foreshadowed she may pursue cost recovery through Mr Kennett and Mr Pesutto's other defamation defence donors if the Hawthorn MP declares bankruptcy. Mr Pesutto said he was doing "everything possible" over the next weeks to repay what he owes Mrs Deeming. A senior Liberal figure has piled pressure on the party to come to the rescue of former state leader John Pesutto over his unpaid multimillion-dollar legal bill. Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million in legal costs to first-term Victorian MP Moira Deeming after their high-stakes defamation battle. The Federal Court found he defamed Mrs Deeming by implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a controversial Melbourne rally she attended in 2023. Her lawyers issued a bankruptcy notice to the court on Monday, leaving Mr Pesutto 21 days to pay the debt, sign up to a payment arrangement or face bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would force his exit from Victorian parliament, setting up an expensive by-election in his marginal state seat of Hawthorn in Melbourne's east. With a final deadline approaching, former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett has written to the party's administrative committee to encourage it to foot the bill rather than offering a loan. In the letter, seen by AAP, Mr Kennett said he believed the committee was about to meet to discuss the issue and listed 10 points for its consideration. He labelled Mr Pesutto's situation "sheer hell" and stressed the matter could be quickly resolved if the party pays the outstanding claims against him. "Regardless of what you think of John personally, what he said, the judgement, the consequences are much greater than an individual," he wrote. "In principle and in practice. It is wrong to ask him to foot the bills, to bankrupt him and his family. "Wrong to ask him to borrow money from the capital funds we might have at our disposal." A GoFundMe campaign for Mr Pesutto's cause has raised more than $210,000. Mr Kennett acknowledged the court decided some of Mr Pesutto's words were "inappropriate" and "defamatory", but argued the party should be meeting all of his costs as he was acting as its "agent" at the time. He called for the administrative committee to act decisively, declaring it was not the "Liberal way" to leave Mr Pesutto to fend for himself. "Remember money can always be replaced, a change of government cannot," Mr Kennett said. "Please put personalities to one side and put the Party's interest front and centre." Mrs Deeming, who was expelled from the Liberals' parliamentary ranks before returning in December after Mr Pesutto lost the leadership, declined to comment on Mr Kennett's intervention. The upper house MP has previously foreshadowed she may pursue cost recovery through Mr Kennett and Mr Pesutto's other defamation defence donors if the Hawthorn MP declares bankruptcy. Mr Pesutto said he was doing "everything possible" over the next weeks to repay what he owes Mrs Deeming. A senior Liberal figure has piled pressure on the party to come to the rescue of former state leader John Pesutto over his unpaid multimillion-dollar legal bill. Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million in legal costs to first-term Victorian MP Moira Deeming after their high-stakes defamation battle. The Federal Court found he defamed Mrs Deeming by implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a controversial Melbourne rally she attended in 2023. Her lawyers issued a bankruptcy notice to the court on Monday, leaving Mr Pesutto 21 days to pay the debt, sign up to a payment arrangement or face bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would force his exit from Victorian parliament, setting up an expensive by-election in his marginal state seat of Hawthorn in Melbourne's east. With a final deadline approaching, former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett has written to the party's administrative committee to encourage it to foot the bill rather than offering a loan. In the letter, seen by AAP, Mr Kennett said he believed the committee was about to meet to discuss the issue and listed 10 points for its consideration. He labelled Mr Pesutto's situation "sheer hell" and stressed the matter could be quickly resolved if the party pays the outstanding claims against him. "Regardless of what you think of John personally, what he said, the judgement, the consequences are much greater than an individual," he wrote. "In principle and in practice. It is wrong to ask him to foot the bills, to bankrupt him and his family. "Wrong to ask him to borrow money from the capital funds we might have at our disposal." A GoFundMe campaign for Mr Pesutto's cause has raised more than $210,000. Mr Kennett acknowledged the court decided some of Mr Pesutto's words were "inappropriate" and "defamatory", but argued the party should be meeting all of his costs as he was acting as its "agent" at the time. He called for the administrative committee to act decisively, declaring it was not the "Liberal way" to leave Mr Pesutto to fend for himself. "Remember money can always be replaced, a change of government cannot," Mr Kennett said. "Please put personalities to one side and put the Party's interest front and centre." Mrs Deeming, who was expelled from the Liberals' parliamentary ranks before returning in December after Mr Pesutto lost the leadership, declined to comment on Mr Kennett's intervention. The upper house MP has previously foreshadowed she may pursue cost recovery through Mr Kennett and Mr Pesutto's other defamation defence donors if the Hawthorn MP declares bankruptcy. Mr Pesutto said he was doing "everything possible" over the next weeks to repay what he owes Mrs Deeming.
Perth Now
03-06-2025
- Politics
- Perth Now
'Sheer hell': elder pleads for Liberals to save Pesutto
A senior Liberal figure has piled pressure on the party to come to the rescue of former state leader John Pesutto over his unpaid multimillion-dollar legal bill. Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million in legal costs to first-term Victorian MP Moira Deeming after their high-stakes defamation battle. The Federal Court found he defamed Mrs Deeming by implying she was associated with neo-Nazis who gatecrashed a controversial Melbourne rally she attended in 2023. Her lawyers issued a bankruptcy notice to the court on Monday, leaving Mr Pesutto 21 days to pay the debt, sign up to a payment arrangement or face bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would force his exit from Victorian parliament, setting up an expensive by-election in his marginal state seat of Hawthorn in Melbourne's east. With a final deadline approaching, former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett has written to the party's administrative committee to encourage it to foot the bill rather than offering a loan. In the letter, seen by AAP, Mr Kennett said he believed the committee was about to meet to discuss the issue and listed 10 points for its consideration. He labelled Mr Pesutto's situation "sheer hell" and stressed the matter could be quickly resolved if the party pays the outstanding claims against him. "Regardless of what you think of John personally, what he said, the judgement, the consequences are much greater than an individual," he wrote. "In principle and in practice. It is wrong to ask him to foot the bills, to bankrupt him and his family. "Wrong to ask him to borrow money from the capital funds we might have at our disposal." A GoFundMe campaign for Mr Pesutto's cause has raised more than $210,000. Mr Kennett acknowledged the court decided some of Mr Pesutto's words were "inappropriate" and "defamatory", but argued the party should be meeting all of his costs as he was acting as its "agent" at the time. He called for the administrative committee to act decisively, declaring it was not the "Liberal way" to leave Mr Pesutto to fend for himself. "Remember money can always be replaced, a change of government cannot," Mr Kennett said. "Please put personalities to one side and put the Party's interest front and centre." Mrs Deeming, who was expelled from the Liberals' parliamentary ranks before returning in December after Mr Pesutto lost the leadership, declined to comment on Mr Kennett's intervention. The upper house MP has previously foreshadowed she may pursue cost recovery through Mr Kennett and Mr Pesutto's other defamation defence donors if the Hawthorn MP declares bankruptcy. Mr Pesutto said he was doing "everything possible" over the next weeks to repay what he owes Mrs Deeming.
Sky News AU
02-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett intervenes to 'implore' Liberal Party pay failed ex Leader John Pesutto's $2.3 million debt
Former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett has issued a desperate plea for the Liberal Party to bail out failed opposition leader John Pesutto. Mr Kennett wrote to the Victorian Liberal Party's Administrative Committee on Monday, imploring them to 'act decisively' by paying the entire $2.3 million debt Mr Pesutto owes Liberal MP Moira Deeming. Lawyers for Ms Deeming lodged a creditors' petition on Monday, meaning Mr Pesutto has just 21 days to debt or agree a payment plan in order to avoid being declared bankrupt. Parliamentary rules mean that if he is declared bankrupt, Mr Pesutto would lose his seat, forcing a by-election in the once-safe Liberal electorate. In a two-page letter seen by Mr Kennett told senior party officials the issue had already been a 'massive distraction' for months, and if 'JP is not fully supported' it would put the party's chance of winning next year's state election 'seriously… at risk'. "Remember money can always be replaced, a change of government cannot," he said. Mr Pesutto was ordered to pay $2.3 million of Ms Deeming's legal costs after a Federal Court found the former Liberal leader had defamed the first term MP as someone who 'associates with Nazis'. The origin of the dispute has caused division among Liberals about whether the party should bail out the former leader. However, Mr Kennett defended Mr Pesutto, claiming he made the comments in his role as opposition leader and not for 'personal reward, benefit or gain', and that if he was premier or a government minister, his legal costs would be covered by the taxpayer. 'The point I am making is John Pesutto was acting as our agent. In short, the party should be meeting all his costs,' Mr Kennett wrote. 'Yes, the court decided some of his words were inappropriate, in fact defamatory. But that does not change the principle (or) the Party's need to back our own.' Mr Pesutto has reportedly raised more than $700,000 to cover his debt, and last week the former opposition leader said he was 'hopeful' he would be able to come up with the money. However, the threat of a by-election in Mr Pesutto's seat of Hawthorn – which could result in a Teal victory – has renewed calls for the party to resolve the issue. One proposal reportedly on the table is for the Liberal Party's independent trust, the Cormack Foundation, to loan the former party leader the money. Mr Kennett, though, said even this would be 'wrong'. 'Regardless of what you think of John personally, what he said, the judgment, the consequences are much greater than an individual. In principle and in practice,' he said. 'It is wrong to ask him to foot the bills, to bankrupt him and his family. Wrong to ask him to borrow money from the capital funds we might have at our disposal. 'I implore you to act decisively. We must put this issue to bed quickly.' Mr Kennett even attempted to tie giving Mr Pesutto a bailout with the Liberal Party's core values, stating that since Menzies, the Liberal Party had been a party which supports the individual and the family. 'Not supporting the Pesutto family now denies the fundamental values the Party was founded upon,' he said. Mr Kennett did not address the impact Ms Deeming's family experienced when she was defamed as a someone who 'associates with Nazis'. Lawyers for Ms Deeming have flagged potential legal action against at least nine Liberal figures – including Mr Kennett - who helped fund Mr Pesutto's legal battle. The former premier denied this had any role in his decision to appeal for the party to support Mr Pesutto. 'Do not think I am suggesting this course of action because of the threat from Ms Deeming's solicitors to sue me and others should this account not be settled,' he said in a post script to the letter. 'Such a threat has no basis for success at all and worries me not.' In a social media post published on March 25, Ms Deeming said her lawyers were simply attempting to recoup costs so she could repay the loan she had taken in order to clear her name. 'My goal is not to bankrupt anyone, but rather to repay the $2.4m debt I incurred fighting to clear my name of heinous, false accusations that Mr Pesutto refused to retract or apologise for,' Ms Deeming said. 'My understanding is that Mr Pesutto's millionaire backers have more than enough means between them to pay the sum and that they fully intend to do so.' Ms Deeming has also previously told the Herald Sun that if there is a by-election in Hawthorn, the fault should be placed at the feet of the Liberal Party's former leadership team. 'Ultimately, any brand damage and negative impact on the election chances of the Victorian Liberal Party from this saga were weighed, decided and set in motion on March 19, 2023, by Pesutto, and his former leadership team David Southwick, Georgie Crozier and Matt Bach," she said. 'Blaming any of the negative political consequences from that decision on myself or Brad is clearly done in bad faith as well as being patently absurd.'
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Veteran reunited with cadet 50 years on
When Neil Newman turned on the television on VE Day, he was shocked to see his former Air Training Cadet (ATC) warrant officer giving permission for the parade to start in London. He and other members of the 495 (Sutton Coldfield) Squadron had no idea that the man, Alan Kennett, who inspired many of them to go into the military as a career, was still alive. On Thursday, the men, both from Sutton Coldfield, were reunited for RAF veteran Mr Kennett's 101st birthday at his daughter's house in Lichfield, alongside an RAF cadets band who performed to mark the occasion. "We didn't know you were still alive… we wanted to get in touch with you, that's how much of an impact you had on us," Mr Newman told Mr Kennett. "As soon as he was on the TV, the phone didn't stop, it was a WhatsApp group that we were all in," he told the BBC. "We just couldn't believe that Alan was starting this parade, it's been 45 years since we last saw him." The men were aged between 12 and 14 when Mr Kennett oversaw them. "We had total respect for Alan because as long as we walked the straight path it was okay… I think that's why we're all still in touch now, because he gelled us as a team," said Mr Newman. "He came on the camps with us, took us flying, took us shooting." Looking back, Mr Kennett said: "I think the lads all knew that as long as they behaved themselves they were all right, but if they didn't, they were in trouble." "I must have done something right." Mr Kennett was in the RAF during WW2 and worked as a mechanic on Spitfires. Reflecting on his own contribution, he told the BBC earlier this month that it was a "job" he was doing, whereas those who died deserved the most recognition. He formally started the military procession of 1,300 members of the armed forces in London as part of events marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Follow BBC Birmingham on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. 'I'm no hero, they're still out there' Red Arrows, royals, veterans and tea: VE Day at 80 in pictures Royal Air Force
