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SANDUSKY, Ohio -- With smoke so thick they couldnt see in front of them and knowing a raging fire roared in the walls about five truck-lengths away, firefighters couldnt immediately work to save the heart of a NASCAR race team.In the wee hours of June 13, firefighters wanted to salvage the ThorSport Racing trucks -- everyone in town knew they had won NASCAR Camping World Truck Series titles -- but the firefighters couldnt do anything at the moment.We came in through the lobby, you couldnt see your hand in front of your face -- the whole building was heavily charred with smoke, Perkins Township Fire Department lieutenant Mike Pflieger said about entering the building at about 12:30 a.m. We were working our way toward the back, and I knew the power was going to be shut off soon and we didnt want to get any farther and have the power shut off and not be able to find our way back out.So we turned around and came back. The power was shut off. We tied a little search line [to get back in].Now the firefighters could start pushing 10-15 trucks out of the shop. Or at least they thought they had enough time.There was water running through here like a river, Pflieger said. At one point, we knew there was a collapse in the back [of the building]. We looked down and saw chunks of burned wood floating past us.Pushing the trucks wasnt going to be as easy as it looked. Some trucks were up on jack stands. Others had steering locks on them.We felt like we were part of the pit crew, said firefighter Bryan Brace about attempting to get the trucks out. We were changing tires and looking for steering wheels. That was their lives [along with] the toolboxes and the one-of-a-kind tools that they make.Nearly three hours after the fire in the suspension and fab shop was discovered, firefighters finally could push the trucks to the team members in the loading bay, who then pushed them outside the building. Only a few of the teams 18 trucks were destroyed.ThorSport went to Iowa later in the week, and Cameron Hayley finished third with a truck that Brace had pushed out of the shop.It took a little bit for us to explain how to get the steering lock off of it and working in pitch black, it was a little hard to do, ThorSport Racing general manager David Pepper said. In full fire gear, it couldnt have been easy -- its hard for us to get them off in T-shirts and work shirts. I cant imagine what it was like.The saving of those trucks was just the start of how a community helped ThorSport rise above the ashes and continue to race. Two-time series champion Matt Crafton is solidly in the Chase, while the teams other three drivers -- Hayley (ninth in points), Ben Rhodes (12th) and Rico Abreu (13) likely need a win.They know the fire set the team back, having to concentrate on building trucks and not making them better. But the fact they continued to race remains an inspiration.At first it appeared they were the victims of bad luck. More than a quarter of the shop had been destroyed, possibly from a cigarette butt that caused a fire that ran up the side of the building and then in the area between the ceiling and the roof, rendering the sprinklers and fire alarm sensors useless. Pumps, which would have gotten water out of the building quicker, sat idle because power was shut off once firefighters arrived.It took 47 firefighters from four departments, including 25 from the Perkins Township Fire Department, using 500,000 gallons of water in 18 hours to fight the blaze. They lost a 25,000-square-foot section of the shop; damage was estimated at $10 million.There were times where I thought we were going to lose the entire building, fire captain Jim Johnson said. Once it gets up in that roof area, its hard to put out.But bad luck depends on your view. In one big way, ThorSport was lucky. Mike Choiniere, who was working late in the shop doing some wiring on a truck, needed to charge his phone. He went to the suspension room to find a charger and he could smell the smoke. He went into the basement, where he saw the fire in the holes of the basement wall.Unable to make a phone call with a dead phone and wanting to get out of the building, he set off a fire alarm, emptied two fire extinguishers into the wall and had to run about a quarter-mile around a couple of other buildings to find the main security guard of the complex to report the fire.Thank God for the iPhone he needed to use, Pepper said looking at the area where the suspension room is now filled with just dirt and rubble. Somewhere in there is his phone charger.Team owner Duke Thorson could barely watch the building burn. His pride-and-joy, 100,000-square-foot shop opened in 2011 in what was once a meatpacking facility.You put so much heart and soul into that place and youre sitting there watching it die, watching it burn into the ground, and wondering are they going to save it and you cant do a damn thing about it, Crafton said about Thorsons likely view. You can watch it, but its just gruesome.Thorson told maintenance head George Sharp he wanted the shop back to functional in four weeks. A more realistic vision would be eight weeks to Sharp, and Pepper thought that estimate was unlikely.But this is a place where people are fiercely loyal to Thorson, whose businesses include SealMaster paving materials, horse farms and other ventures.I got out of bed and flew over here, Sharp said when he heard about the fire and his concern for his employers building. I was here for 16 hours. I had to go home [once] and put my teeth in.Sharp has a passion for Thorson and his companies. He had started working in a plant at 14 or 15, and wired a plant in Colorado at age 18. Over 30 years working on and off for Thorson, he has hired so many contractors in the past, he knew the calls to make. Contracts would get done, if needed, quickly, with those doing the work knowing a favor now means counting on another project in the future.Everyone except the cleanup crew was local.Everybody dropped what they were doing when they came here, Sharp said.For a few days after the fire, the race team moved across the street and worked in a Kroger parking lot near the shop. Hayley remembers throwing away his smoky clothes after spending an entire day cleaning parts and pieces -- some likely saved when team members used floating tires as rafts, placing parts and pieces on them to flow outside.The Kroger parking lot would work for a couple of days, but the race teams needed a new place to set up shop for at least a month or six weeks.Local sprint-car racer Chris Andrews, who has begged ThorSport to put him in a truck, had just purchased a 6,000-square-foot building at a former junkyard three days earlier to expand his hauler refurbishing company. He offered ThorSport the facility and later worked out a business trade deal with Thorson.I know quite a few guys, Andrews said. Pretty much everyone around the city knows each other. ... Ive been trying to do something with them for 10 years. Being local and driving past that shop every day is tough to stomach.Ive always admired trucks. It is the real racing. Maybe one day. Well see. Having those guys here for a racer like me was unreal.It was unreal for the team, too.We got really lucky, Pepper said.Some would consider whether it was really lucky. They had a place where they wouldnt have sun beating down on them -- or rain -- but not a bunch of other comforts for a typical elite race team.ThorSport had to bring in portable rest rooms (and on such late notice, they werent even the cleanest port-a-johns). As they slashed on the trucks in the non-air-conditioned building, Andrews was having work done on the grounds outside the building, creating a mini-Eldora type dusty atmosphere for the crews even inside the building. One morning, the team discovered a raccoon in the hauler.It would take the team twice as long to do anything because they couldnt find certain parts. They had no surface setup plates but did take over a pull-down to test suspension.It was real bad, Crafton crew chief Carl Joiner said. But we were really thankful he let us have it. ... It just happened to be the worse time of year for humidity.About a 10-minute drive away from that shop was Pegasus Trailers. The official trailer builder of the NHRA, they lent ThorSport about 12,000 square feet so it could do fab work. With working rest rooms and air conditioning, it was much better to be a ThorSport fab shop worker than a mechanic for the month of July.Again, no contract was needed and ThorSport employees even got keys to the building. Enough business moves between Thorson and Pegasus -- which also builds trailers for Thorsons horses -- that they had a deep trust.We are big race fans, said Larry McGee, Pegasus general manager. Those guys arent only customers. Theyre also friends. ... it was a no-brainer to give them some space to work out of.As the team toiled, walls were stripped at the ThorSport shop. They rewired, installed new plumbing and sprinklers. In a little more than five weeks, the ThorSport crews could return. A week later, they got some air conditioning.Its hard to build new and bring to the race track what youve been running each and every week when you dont have a surface plate to set the thing up on, Crafton said. This is a game of hundredths of seconds and crew chiefs are so meticulous in everything they do ... and they dont have the work atmosphere theyre used to, its tough on them.The shop, now 11 weeks after the fire, appears as a normal race shop. Except for the fact that there is part of a building missing. The plans to rebuild are being worked on and they hope it is ready in six to eight months, and one thing will be added: Windows. If anyone had a complaint about that area, it was that they would go to work in the winter in the dark and leave in the dark.No more. They will have natural light. Theyll be able to see outside. If theres a fire, they might not need to knock a wall down.They still might leave the ThorSport Racing shop with clothes that reek of smoke -- the stench remains and possibly will never go away. Who knows when they will have to stop putting air fresheners in trucks to help with the smell.Maybe someday Andrews will parlay his generosity into a ride. And there are contractors knowing they are in good graces with someone they can do business with in the future.Mostly, the ThorSport employees knows they will persevere.The first day when I showed up there, it was a total disaster, Crafton said. It was Oh, s---. Unbelievable. What are we going to do? How are we going to get to the race track?... It was amazing the whole crew Duke had there with a lot of hours and so did our guys in s----- circumstances. It was ugly. It was really cool what the community did, what Duke did for everybody. Wholesale Jerseys From China . JOHNS, N. Cheap MLB Jerseys . 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CHASKA, Minn. -- Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin were a big part of the Ryder Cups opening ceremony on Thursday, each of them serving as a reminder that while this competition may be fierce, it should be conducted with both honor and integrity. There are some things, they pointed out, that are bigger than golf. Nicklaus conceding a 2-foot putt to Jacklin at Royal Birkdale in 1969 -- ending the match in a tie when a miss would have given the United States the Ryder Cup outright -- is now considered one of the most important moments in the history of the event.While this is a nice reminder, and perhaps an important lesson we should always keep in the back of our minds, let us now offer a few words in praise of Ryder Cup trash talk.Just because the two teams agree to be friends afterward does not mean they cant exchange some friendly barbs in the buildup to the event. It has become increasingly absurd when people try to shame the players into acting like boring robots. The Ryder Cup is one of the best events in sports specifically because it can get a little heated, specifically because its not just a clash of personalities but also a clash of cultures.Englands Danny Willett found himself on the business end of some of that shaming this week after his brother, Peter, penned an article for National Club Golfer that mocked American fans as fat, stupid, greedy, classless bastards. Willett and European captain Darren Clarke repeatedly mentioned how disappointed they were with the column and that it did not represent the views of Team Europe. They didnt want to give American fans the wrong idea and apologized repeatedly. The controversy, silly as it was, even appeared to play a role in Clarkes decision to sit Willett for the Friday morning session of foursomes.Frankly, I wish Willett hadnt apologized. I wish hed fully embraced the role of Ryder Cup villain. Ian Poulter wouldnt have apologized. Patrick Reed wouldnt have apologized. I dont think, for a second, that Seve Ballesteros would have apologized either. They would have soaked up the negative energy and produced some amazing golf. Willett certainly wasnt shy about taking a little dig at Jordan Spieth in April, retweeting a photo of Spieth looking shell-shocked during the greenn jacket ceremony in Butler Cabin after the Masters, so I wish hed just own it.ddddddddddddory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson have learned to own it over the years. Mickelson got in a clever dig at McIlroy and Graham McDowell in 2014 when he mentioned before the start of competition that one of Team USAs strengths was we dont litigate against one another, an obvious reference to a legal dispute between McIlroy and McDowell after their management company dissolved. And McIlroy couldnt resist throwing a barb at Team USA this time around after he was asked about captain Davis Love IIIs comment this was the best American team ever assembled. Definitely assembled the best task force ever, thats for sure, he said.No one blinks an eye in football or basketball when teams goad one another or try to get under one anothers skin. It has become part of the buildup to every NBA Finals and every Super Bowl, but when it comes to golf, its often seen as an ungentlemanly act, an affront to the gracious spirit of the game.Thats nonsense. The Ryder Cup has always been at its best when the competition has gotten a little heated, the celebrations a little too rowdy, like when the United States went bonkers and ran on the green after Justin Leonards putt in 1999, or when the Europeans were dancing in a conga line around the 18th green after they won the Ryder Cup on U.S. soil for the first time in 1987 at Muirfield Village.Weve talked a lot this week about how gracious Arnold Palmer was, how he made everyone feel loved when in his presence, but there is another side to Palmer that was an important part of his legacy too: He was a relentless competitor who wasnt afraid of anyone in his prime. In 1963, Palmer was both the captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team and a participant, and he was so confident in his squad, he told the press before the tournament: This team would beat the rest of the world combined. He was probably right. The United States went on and won 23-9.So bring on the trash talk. Dial up the intensity. That too can be a tribute to Palmer.Shake hands when its over, and then start crafting a few barbs for 2018. ' ' '