Our favorite Mopar fans

Happy birthday Melissa!

Me and Dean

Hey everyone! I’m sitting here in the lounge of the tractor-trailer anxiously awaiting the start of the race here in St. Louis. It is so exciting to be back here again racing – what an awesome facility this is and I have some great memories from my years of racing here at Gateway.

Right now NHRA is trying to dry up some liquid sunshine that fell during the early morning hours and after they get the track nice and dry it looks like we have cool temperatures and plenty of sunshine in store for us this weekend. Just the kind of weather that this Mopar Dodge Avenger loves to play in. LOL

As AJ said in his blog it has been a crazy and amazing few weeks for this Mopar team. With the Indy rain out we are now entering our 5th consecutive weekend of racing (kinda like the Western Swing on steroids) and I can honestly say that this team is having a blast. There is still lots of racing left in this Countdown and you never know what may lie ahead for us so we are all just enjoying every minute of this incredible ride!

Even though we are racing every week, I have had a few days at home to work on my real estate projects and enjoy my grandkids. I really enjoyed having Jamie, Cynthy and the kids at the Charlotte race where we all stayed with Melissa and Joey and had some great fun. We even got to have a small belated birthday party for Melissa after Saturday’s qualifying sessions. Of course Ryan and Maia love anything that includes cake and ice cream!

Being home even a few days a week still affords me the time to see my grandkids. Toni and I get to babysit them every Wednesday so even if I have to go to work I still have a great excuse to stay home and go to work in the afternoon. With the nice weather we spend a lot of time playing baseball, taking walks, working in the yard and playing at the playground. Now doesn’t that sound like a great way to spend a day at home? I know all of you grandparents out there agree with me 100 percent!

I finally hear cars running down the track which means that we are officially underway here in St. Louis. We will have two qualifying runs today and if the weather stays cool and the track stays as good as it usually is here, there should be some pretty fast e.t.s. Make sure that you keep track of us as we go through the weekend!

Well, I better wrap up this blog and get back to work. Mark and I have lots information to sort through before coming up with a combination for this afternoon’s run. We haven’t had weather and track conditions like this since the race in Sonoma so we have a lot of things to change on our Dodge Avenger. I will try to check in again soon and let you know how things are going.

After this race we head to Reading which happens to be another one of my favorite races. Not only is it a fast racetrack but also it is only a couple of hours from home. That makes it even better!

Enjoy your weekend and I will touch base soon!