Began the day picking the target as Mount Vernon, Illinois. The hope was to have isolated supercells forming in front of the line that would become tornadic. We picked up my son's friend Brian Wiley and headed out. We made good time and sat watching the radar and looking at data waiting for something to form. Nothing ever did as all of the storm action was developing back near St. Louis where we started. Many tornado warnings were coming out of eastern Missouri, so we headed back. As we got to the east side of St. Louis, we could see a tornado warned storm to our west. We shot up I-255 north to keep up with the storm. The storm rolled over us just north of Wood River as we got a little too far under the cell. We got blasted with 1 inch hail and had the car shaken by 70 mile per hour wind that was changing directions rapidly. Somewhere very close, the circulation passed giving us quite the scare.  No tornado was seen.  Brian got quite the show for his first chase encounter.