April 23, 2007 holds very special meaning to me as this was the first time I had ever chased with Tim Samaras. Jon Van de Grift and I were in my van while Tim and Verne Carlson were in Tim’s van. We left Denver early that morning, Jon and I were animatedly talking about how nuts it was that we were chasing with Tim ‘Freakin’ Samaras. And there we were, hauling out I-70 to Kansas following behind the legend himself.
Tim had invited me to chase with him back in March, but due to prior commitments, I had to decline, but fortunately that chase trip was scrapped as the setup fell apart. It would take another month before we finally got connected, and it lead us here, where my career with Tim Samaras began.
As darkness fell, so did our only tornado. This slim rope kept my streak alive and broke my old April record of tornadoes as I now stand at 6 this month, all in the last three chases.
We didn’t see much else after that needle-nado near Protection. We routed ourselves back north to US-54 where we stopped in Pratt for dinner and bunked down for the night.
