Hey again all my NHRA.com Nitroholics. The brothaman is back on the blog after a busy few weeks. Let’s get to it.

We left off on Sept. 29, which is the day before I traveled to St. Joseph, Mo., for the fifth annual Path 2 Victory event at Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church. I was invited to attend by Dan Samford of Herzog, and it was a great event. It’s a faith-based event, and I was one of the keynote speakers with Norm Miller of Interstate Batteries. I got back from Kansas City on Friday and spent the weekend at home with the family.

I flew back out on Oct. 4, this time to Ontario, Calif., for an event with Toyota. TRD put a V8 Tundra motor in a Tacoma pickup truck and had the brothaman come to Pomona Raceway to make the first laps on the Tacoma X-Runner. We had some weather issues with a little drizzle, but we got to make five laps with a best of 12.01 at 117 mph. The track wasn’t prepped, so there’s no doubt we could get way into the 11s with the X-Runner. It was a really cool time, and we’ll get to see the Tacoma X-Runner again at SEMA in early November.

I got home late Tuesday night and flew out to Reading on Thursday. My momma, Judy, went with me as we had a 60th birthday party for her with the family back in New Jersey on Saturday after qualifying. It was an early b-day party as she doesn’t turn 60 until next month, but it was great to get the family all together again. We got into Philly and my brother picked up my mom and she spent a few days with his family. TY and I sped over to Tony Luke’s to grab a real Philly cheesesteak before driving up to Reading. We hosted our last Matco Tools customer appreciation dinner at Maple Grove Raceway on Oct. 7 and had 140 Matco distributors and customers. We want to thank Matco district managers Ernie Parent and Derick Turner for making the dinner a success.

Reading was another roller coaster race for our DSR Matco Tools team. We struggled on Friday with a fuel system issue and then got it right on Saturday. We made two good laps on Saturday and qualified sixth. On race day we made it back to the semi's for the first time since Seattle way back in July. It felt good to go rounds again. The brothaman was on his game and had some good reaction times. We just got nipped by Cory Mac and that FRAM team in the semi's. I think we found what we’ve been missing with a consistent tune-up and now we just need to improve our 60-foot times and we’ll be right there.

After Reading, we were back on the road again. I had to fly to Phoenix to meet up with my buddy Clay Millican. It was great to see Clay back racing at Reading with Mark Pickens. They’re great guys and an asset to our sport. I met up with Clay to help film a few episodes of Burnout. It’s a new reality TV show for MTV2. The show is scheduled to air in the spring of 2011, so we’ll keep you posted. I was back on the camera again last Friday at the shop as we were filming some video segments for Matco’s 2011 Tool Expo in Orlando next year after the Winternationals. I’m getting used to all this TV time.

I had a nice, relaxing weekend at home with the family and we’ll all be heading off to Louisiana on Wednesday for my brother-in-law Jordy’s wedding. We get to hang out with all my wife’s fam in our old stomping grounds in LA for a few days before Las Vegas.

That’s about it for now, so it’s time for a little love, peace and hair grease, and I’m out like shout.

God bless