Without the fans, we would not get to do what we do. I’ve been pretty fortunate to have gained a very loyal following over the years, and being associated with Mopar has certainly helped, as Mopar fans are some of the most passionate in all of racing. With the technology that is available nowadays via email, Facebook and Twitter, we’re able to interact and stay connected with more fans than ever.
A fan that I’ve known since my early days in Pro Stock has been Sarah Blumhardt from the Dallas area. I recently received a photo of Sarah when I first met her in 1996 at her school, while she was in first grade. Sarah’s dad had gotten in touch with me and asked if I would come to the school for a “show and tell” day. Through the years, her family has come to the track in Dallas when we are there. They’ve cooked us dinner at the track and had us over at their house. Sarah raced a Jr. Dragster for a number of years and even has driven Super Gas and Super Comp cars. Right now she is in college and concentrating on that, so she doesn’t have a race car, but her dad said she is dying to get back in a car. It’s pretty neat to have fans that have been with you since the early days and still come out to the track and cheer for you.
We’ll have a chance to hopefully make some new fans this week, as there will be a Fan Fest in Topeka on Thursday night. The track organized a Fan Fest in the past, then it went away for a bit, and now it’s coming back. I’m glad it’s back, because that gives us a chance to meet and greet people and try to get them to come out to the race track and see what NHRA racing is all about.
Looking back since the last time I blogged, we raced at Atlanta and reached the semifinals, while turning the fastest speed and lowest elapsed time of the weekend in the first round. That was the second straight weekend we had the fastest speed. Every race we’re getting more consistent and learning a few more things that will make us even faster as the season goes on. I’m very happy with our Mopar Dodge Avenger right now and we have just a few small bugs we are trying to work out. We are third in points, which is great, and that’s a testament to my whole J&J Racing crew and how hard they work day in and day out.
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In Atlanta we stayed pretty close to the track and focused on the task at-hand. I did have a chance to go eat some very good prime rib though. Everyone knows how much I enjoy prime rib, so anytime I have a chance to visit somewhere that traditionally has good prime rib, I have to stop. Last weekend was Mother’s Day and we had an awesome time. My mom was over and my wife Pam’s mom and her grandmother as well. We took everyone to the lake in Newport, Tenn., which is right near our hometown of Greeneville. We were planning a boat ride, but it rained, so we couldn’t do that. It was great getting to have our families together and just being able to relax and enjoy the company.
We headed out early for this week’s event at Topeka and made a stop in St. Louis on the way to do some testing on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our main goal is to just keep honing in. We aren’t chasing anything big, just the little bitty glitches, trying to catch and fix what bit us at Atlanta. We want to make sure that next time we are in that situation we know what to do.
At Topeka this weekend, we have to be consistent and qualify in the top-two or three cars. Then it’s up to the driver to go out on Sunday and do his job. If we can do all of that, then we can pick up another win in our Mopar Dodge Avenger.
Golf is certainly my favorite hobby, but recently I had a chance to do a little fishing while down in Sanibel, Fla., and had a great time out on the water. My wife, Pam, and I took some of our friends from Greeneville, Tenn., down to Sanibel and spent five quality days there.
We caught a bunch of redfish and I even got a snook, though I had to throw that one back, because they’re not in season right now. I also hooked a 20-pound stingray, but we cut it loose before it got to the boat. At the end of the day, we cleaned the redfish, took them home and grilled and ate them. Nothing is better than eating fresh fish that you’ve just caught. It was a great time as always in Sanibel. We are really enjoying our vacation house down there.
I left Sanibel on Thursday morning to fly to Houston and played in the Darrell Russell Memorial Golf Tournament that afternoon with fellow Mopar driver Jeg Coughlin Jr. and his crew. That was a fun outing, as all of the charity golf tournaments usually are. Jeg is a pretty good golfer. He gave me a little competition, and we’ll have to play head-to-head sometime. I didn’t realize he was as good as he is. We both enjoyed it a lot. The Darrell Russell Tournament is for a really good cause, and everyone involved does a great job.
On Thursday night I had a chance to visit one of one of my best friends growing up, Brian Combs, who lives in Houston now. He took me to Chinatown there and we went to a restaurant where we ate using chop sticks. That was quite an experience and it was a lot of fun getting to see Brian and spend some time with him.
We had a pretty good weekend on the track in Houston. I would have liked to have been in the final against our teammate Vincent Nobile, but at least one of us was in the final and picked up a win for Mopar. Going rounds and having our Mopar HEMI engines in the final round is certainly a great accomplishment. It’s a really good feeling for Dad (Roy Johnson) and the engine guys, and it shows that all of their hard work and dedication is paying off. Our engines have the consistency and reliability to help us run at the front of the field. My Mopar Dodge Avenger has been very consistent as well. If we can keep it going, we’ll be someone to contend with week in and week out.
Following Houston, we brought everything home this week and worked on it. Vincent lost an engine in the semifinals and we had to swap in a new one in his Avenger before the final run, so we brought that engine home and had to rub on it a little bit. We have all the engines up to snuff and we’ll go into Atlanta on a high note. Every single run we’ll try to be consistent and get from point A to B and build on it every round. Hopefully on Sunday, we’ll be the fastest car there every single round, like we were last week. I’ve won at Atlanta before and that track is very special to me, as it used to be our home track before Bristol, so it would be great to pick up another win there in our Mopar Dodge Avenger this weekend.
Tennessee will always be home, but Florida is quickly becoming a home away from home for my wife Pam and I. Last time I blogged, we were down in Sanibel, Fla., and we are getting ready to head back this weekend. It’s such a beautiful place and we really enjoy our new house. After Las Vegas, we were able to spend a full week in Sanibel and had a great time. We went out on the boat for a day, went to a birthday party and had some company as well. It was just an awesome time. The weather was perfect and we were able to celebrate my Las Vegas win a little as well.
The week in Florida went by fast and it was time to head home to Greeneville on Saturday night for Easter. We got up early to go to church on Sunday and then had our family over for the whole day. It was great to have everyone in the same place and get to spend time together.
Following Easter, it was time to climb back in my Mopar Dodge Avenger for the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte. That is a very challenging event in a number of ways. As a driver, you have to really get focused and change how you’re used to doing things, especially at the starting line. The level of concentration that it takes is amazing. Every single driver screws up at least once during the weekend. Whether it’s looking at the wrong bulb on the tree or having something crazy happen, everyone gets bitten at least once. Several of those instances happened in all three classes over the weekend. Fortunately, nothing like that happened to us on Sunday.
We started the weekend very strong and came pretty close to topping the charts in qualifying and ended up second on Saturday. Dad and the engine guys are making great power with these Mopar HEMI engines that we run. My crew chief, Mark Ingersoll and our team engineer, Jim Yates, have our Mopar sorted out and it’s very fast right now. We have a great package right now. We had one of the two cars to beat at Charlotte and just didn’t get the job done. We made a boo-boo in the second round and shook the tires.
We stayed over in Charlotte on Monday to test and worked through a few of the issues we were having. We had a little blip in the car that we wanted to figure out and what we learned testing will benefit us when we go back to Charlotte in the fall, as well as at all the tracks we are going to the rest of the season. Everyone on the crew is working so hard right now and doing such an amazing job.
After a couple of days home this week, we’ll head back down to Sanibel on Friday. We will be taking some of our friends from Greeneville with us, and it will be their first time down there, so we’ll do our best to help them get the full Sanibel experience. I think they’ll have a great time and will want to go back again for sure.
I’ll fly from Florida to Houston next Thursday, as I’ll be playing in the Darrell Russell Memorial Golf Tournament with the Mopar/JEGS team later that day. I’m really looking forward to that. I’ve golfed a couple of times since the surgery on my right bicep last fall and I’m getting the hang of it back, but my swing and game are still not quite where they need to be. I’ll get to play a little more now, so I’ll get back to where I was in time.
Speaking of my surgery, it’s been a while since I’ve given an update on my arm. The doctors say it will probably take a year to fully heal, so it’s probably 80 percent right now. I can work out with it and do just about anything I did before. I just have to make sure to not fall on it or yank any super heavy weights or anything like that, which could tear it back loose.
After some R&R this weekend, we’ll put our game face back on and head to Houston, as we look for our second win of the season in our Mopar Dodge Avenger.
It always feels great to write a blog after a win, and words can’t describe how happy we were to have an all-Mopar final against Vincent Nobile in Las Vegas. Our Mopar Dodge Avenger has felt amazing this year and we’ve been fast every single race and were able to put a complete weekend together at Las Vegas.
To win early in the season shows that our consistency is coming together and we are hitting our marks. It meant a lot to Dad and the engine guys to have both cars in the final. They can stick their chests out a little bit. It’s great they are able to do that and it’s fun to see, because that means we were able to beat up on the competition. We feel like we are on top of our game right now and I can’t wait to get back in the car at Charlotte. I wish it was tomorrow to be honest.
When I am in Las Vegas, I always have to make a trip or two to Lawry’s. That is my favorite place in the entire world to eat. They have the best rare prime rib and that’s what I ordered as always. While we were pretty focused on the task at hand at the race track, we were able to get out a little bit and play a few games while in Las Vegas.
We had to put our victory celebration on hold for a day, since we all had 6 a.m. flights on Monday morning after the race. Pam and I headed from Las Vegas to our new house in Florida, and were able to get out with some of our friends on Monday night and enjoy the win.
The week before Las Vegas, Pam and I went on a cruise in the Caribbean which was absolutely awesome. The ship we were on was amazing and all the places we went and saw were just incredible. We stopped three times and were able to get off the ship, in Nassau, St. Martin and St. Thomas. We went to the beach in St. Martin. In St. Thomas and Nassau we cruised around the streets and checked out the shops and everything. The food on the whole trip was great. In St. Martin, we found a place at the marina called the Tropicana Restaurant that we had been told about it and it was awesome. The food on the ship was amazing as well. We had a lot of lobster and crab legs. I just loved every bit of it. It was a relaxing and really fun cruise.
Just before that trip, I went up to Illinois for Buddy Ingersoll’s funeral. I’m glad I was able to make it there to remember and honor him, as well as spend time with Mark and their whole family. Buddy had been sick for a long time, so it was more a blessing than you’d think. He was a great man and did so much for the sport and will be truly missed.
We are going to stay down here in Florida though Saturday this week and then head back to Tennessee on Saturday night to spend Easter with the family, which will be nice. Then it will be time to get ready for Charlotte and like I said, I can’t wait to climb back in my Mopar Dodge Avenger and see if we if we can get our second straight win.