Greetings everyone! I made a Yates family decision to go ahead and write a blog instead of waiting for Jim to get home and write one. It could be a while. LOL I guess I should have done that a week or so ago – right? Unfortunately, since arriving home from Seattle Jim has only been in town about 14 days and with lots of racing and testing in the schedule it doesn't look like he is going to get home any time soon.

We had an awesome weekend in Brainerd where we had a runner-up finish to Erica, the team then tested in Martin, Mich., in preparation for Indy and of course most of you can imagine what a trying several days it was for everyone this past weekend in Indy. Can you say rain, rain go away? Though NHRA did everything they could do to complete the event, Mother Nature had some very different ideas and ultimately the Indy race was reschedule for this upcoming weekend.

As soon as NHRA called the race, AJ, Jim, Mark and the team decided to pack up and head to Charlotte to do some more testing. They left Indy on Monday afternoon, drove to Charlotte and have been testing at zMax Raceway all week. When they finish up their test session today they will drive back to Indy to get things ready for the Saturday, Sunday rescheduled race. This is one week that I am glad that I came home. Of course Jim loves testing in Charlotte because he gets to stay and visit with Melissa and Joey while he is in town – now I'm jealous!

Speaking of Melissa and Joey, they have some very exciting news to share with everyone – they will be welcoming "Baby Girl Civali" into the world at the end of January next year! Yeah!!! How awesome is that? We are all so very excited for them and we can not wait for the big day to arrive. I will be sure to keep everyone posted as the big day gets closer!

Though Jim has been traveling a lot we have been able to fit in some quality time with Ryan and Maia. Sleepovers, cookouts, and a weekly babysitting day keep us very busy with two very active grandkids and we love every minute. We are definitely blessed to have them living close by so that we can see them every week. It will be a little different when Baby Civali arrives as they live about 6 hours away; however, I am really close to three airports and have lots of frequent flier miles. I am definitely up for the challenge of being a very busy Granma!

The Charlotte national event is only a week away and this year Jamie, Cynthy and the kids are going to make the trip. We will all stay with Melissa and Joey and everyone will get to come to the track on Saturday to cheer on AJ and the Mopar Team in the first race of the Countdown. Ryan remembers his trip to Reading last year and is very excited to be going back to the race track where Poppop and Daddy raced. (Aren't kids great?!) This will be Maia's first NHRA event and I have no doubt that she will love every minute of it. I mean how can you not love NHRA drag racing – right?

This time of the season is probably the most demanding and most exciting and I hope that everyone will keep track of our progress along the way. Jim and the team will be testing quite a bit in between NHRA events so I may be filling in for him with the blog again in the future. Hopefully next week I will have some great pictures of an Indy win to share with you. Be sure to follow us this weekend – the weather is looking like it will be sunny and cooler so with two qualifying sessions left there should be some shuffling in the qualifying order! Oh boy! Have a great weekend everyone!

 

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