We are off and running, one down and 16 to go. The Gatornationals took forever to get here but was over in a flash. Unfortunately, it did not go as we expected. George Bryce sent me an e-mail after we left the race reiterating to me that Matt Gudiera and Andrew Hines did a good job of setting the bar for where we expect our team to be for each race. You can almost always expect to see the Pro Stock Motorcycles running exactly three-tenths slower than the Pro Stock cars. For example, if the No. 1 qualifier in Pro Stock car runs a 6.65 then the top qualifier for Pro Stock Motorcycle should run a 6.95. No matter if it is a V-twin or a Suzuki, this is the case nearly 100-percent of the time. If you look back at the Gatornationals qualifying results you will see that Matt Gudiera was right where more of us should have been. I am guessing that the rain delay which resulted in only two qualifying runs hurt more of us than we expected. I know that in our case, we had a hurt engine and were unaware of it until Saturday night. We did change engines for eliminations but missed the tune up and I must admit that I did not do a good job of driving in round one. I did tune myself up for second round as I cut a .006 light against Matt Smith, but couldn’t run the number to maintain my headstart on him.

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend considering that everyone stayed safe and we did have a really good time. My team worked very well together and everything looked great, especially the hospitality area. Karl Klement, my team owner, has truly picked up on the bling idea that I have going this year with my Swarovski Crystal-decorated leathers. He bought us a beautiful crystal chandelier for our hospitality tent. It is AWESOME! My team has nicknamed me “Queen Bling” and Karl’s wife, Kim, is my “Princess Bling.” Speaking of Kim, she and Karl gave me the most beautiful and precious gift in Gainesville. They gave me a diamond Journey necklace that has the prettiest diamonds in it that I have ever seen. I was so surprised because I feel like I am the one who should be showering them with gifts for the opportunity they have given me.

Our sponsors from Rush Racing Products and Cyclespot.com were with us all weekend and we really enjoyed spending time with them and having them cheer us on. They were a big help in lifting our spirits after the second round loss and getting us all pumped up to learn from it and move on to Houston for redemption which is exactly what we are all planning on doing. There has been a new rules revision in which NHRA decided to take five more pounds off of the Suzukis and add another five pounds to the V-twins. My understanding is that the Harleys were not included in the revision. This change will make my motorcycle 20 pounds heavier than the world record holder Suzuki that I raced last year. Hopefully, this revision will get us closer to the parity that so many are hoping for.

After we finished testing in Valdosta before I headed to the Gators, I got to go to Nashville to film PowerBlock with Courtney Hansen on Spike TV. I had a blast and even got to meet Dana White again. For those who don’t know, Dana is the president of Ultimate Fighting Championships. I met him once before at UFC 79 in Las Vegas. He is a really sweet guy and is very good to the fans. He invited me to attend the fights in Canada this April and promised me the best seats in the house. I was so excited that I was shaking. I am not sure Seth and I are going to make it to that fight but the invite still made my year!

Filming PowerBlock was really cool. My motorcycle was very pretty on the set and so was Courtney, hopefully I didn’t look too bad between the two of them. George and Garrett were there with me because George was finishing up the last segment of a really cool give away that I want to tell you all about. He and a few Wyotech students together with G2 Motorsports have built a custom motorcycle called the Wyotech Warbird. It is sponsored by Rush Racing Products and has a Rush exhaust along with a limited edition high performance S&S engine that has 160-horsepower. It was custom painted by Wyotech students and really looks and sounds awesome. The best part is that Courtney will give this motorcycle away in a sweepstakes airing on Horsepower TV’s PowerBlock. The sweepstakes ends in November. I’ll give you guys more info as I get it along with when my episode will air which I think will be sometime in April.

That concludes my blog for now, with, of course, the exception of a little Cajun humor. What has good ol' Boudreaux been up to lately?

Well, Boudreaux and Thibodaux went fishing the other day and on their way back in to the boat launch they hit a log in the water and the motor flew off of the boat and sunk to the bottom. Boudreaux told Thibodaux to stay in the boat while he swam to the bottom to get the motor. Thibodaux watched as Boudreaux got to the bottom and grabbed the motor and began to try and crank it over and over. He thought to himself, “Look at dat fool Bourdreaux down there trying to crank dat motor like dat! What dah heck is he tinking?” So Thibodaux sticks his head in the water and yells “Boudreaux, you gotta choke it fool, CHOKE IT!”