KANSASVILLE, Wisconsin USA — September 24th marked the grand re-opening of Wildman Rocketry, two months after a devastating roadside fire totally destroyed Tim Lehr's business. Lehr's trailer burned in its entirety along side a busy interstate highway in July.

Still "naked," Lehr's trailer was a welcomed site.

 Wildman's new home away from home.

Photos: Scott Goebel

Lehr has been working diligently to get things back together to return to his passion, his business of spreading the joy of hobby rocketry to fellow rocketeers around the Midwest.  Lehr and his daughter Heather were on hand at this weekend's Tripoli Wisconsin launch at the Richard Bong State Recreation Area in southeastern Wisconsin.

Driving his new recreational vehicle and pulling an as-yet unpainted trailer, Lehr was a welcomed site at the event.  The trailer was stocked with a pretty good selection of motors and rocket kits, in spite of everything he endured prior to LDRS this past July.

In preparation for LDRS, Lehr had loaded his old recreational vehicle and trailer that contained the Wildman store, and left town on July 5th, destined for Jean Dry Lake, Nevada.  Expecting record attendance at this year's event, Lehr had stocked the trailer with hundreds of pounds of rocket motors, hundreds of kits and an array of other items, all to sell at the launch.

Approximately 30 minutes into the trip, Lehr got the surprise of his life when he looked in his rear-view mirror: the sight of a blaze trailing his vehicle — his trailer was on fire. Lehr pulled over and moved away from the fire, concerned about the hundreds of pounds of ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP) rocket motors on board. The trailer was a complete loss and the RV suffered enough damage to be a total loss as well.

The blaze ended up shutting down I-80 for half an hour and caused a back-up of traffic 10 miles long. Fortunately nobody was hurt. Commenting on the flammable nature of the rocket motors he was hauling, Lehr stated, "if APCP truly was an explosive, I wouldn't be here right now!"

Andy Woerner of Polecat Aerospace and What's Up Hobbies sponsored a raffle at LDRS to help Lehr out. Combining donations from other vendors together with several of his own kits for the raffle, Woerner presented Lehr with a check for $3,000 at LDRS.

Website: http://www.wildmanrocketry.com/

09-30-2007 03:09 PM  #1
H_rocket Village Idiot   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 635	That is great news for the community as a whole. Tim is one of our mainstream suppliers and seeing him back up and running indicates that there is a positive spin.

09-30-2007 09:27 PM  #2
QuickBurst Certified Level Three TRA   Joined: Aug 2006 Posts: 57	Glad to see you are on the road to recovery. Fine rig too.