Hello again. It’s been awhile, a long while. It’s been crazy busy, and we’ll go back to Memorial Day weekend. I was invited by the folks at Coca-Cola and my good friend Chris Lopez to the Coke 600. My wife and I headed to Charlotte on Saturday morning to visit NASCAR country.

We got there and headed to check out the brand new, state-of-the-art drag racing facility that Bruton Smith is building. In all of my life, I have never seen such a facility that will bring NHRA Drag Racing to the level it deserves. We have some nice tracks, but the Charlotte dragstrip will be like a Taj Mahal. While we were there, we had a lot of fun. I was the flag man at the finish line for the first race at the Charlotte track between John Force and Mike Neff, who were racing in dump trucks. I thought John would have the advantage being an old truck driver, but he was no match for his latest protégé as Zippy put the spank down.

After that, the wife and I went back to the hotel to get freshened up for the night to check out the Coca-Cola festivities. To my surprise, we went to the block party at downtown Charlotte for a Travis Tritt concert. I could not believe my eyes to see all these people standing in the street, and they were rocking out to Travis Tritt with their hands in the air. I thought you rocked out at a rock concert, not a country concert. I had never been to a country concert, but it was real cool. Before you knew it, I was wearin’ a cowboy hat, rocking to the beats of Travis Tritt. LOL I glanced to my right, and I saw my wife singing word for word, and Matt Smith and Jeggie were rocking out too. They showed this old city kid from Jersey what country music is all about, and I ain’t mad at ’em. That night, I saw a lot of love and peace, but I brought the hair grease.

The next day was race day for the Coke 600. I wondered why we were leaving the hotel at 10:45 a.m. for a night NASCAR race. We watched the movie Cars on the shuttle bus to the track, and I wondered why we were watching a movie, but we sat for over two hours to get to a race track that was only 15 minutes away. It was like watching an ant farm going into the track, and the race didn’t start until 6 p.m. It was incredible to see how far NASCAR has grown in a decade. To know that the folks from IMG, who helped NASCAR reach the level it has, are now working with NHRA puts a gleam in my eye to know where our sport is headed.

The NASCAR race live and in person was pretty cool to watch. It put one more notch on my belt for one of those things to do, and that’s to get in and drive a NASCAR. I don’t know if I can race one though. Driving a car for four hours with my attention span might not work out so well. During our downtime before the race started, we got to meet different celebrities and drivers, and I would have to say the coolest person we met was NBA star Yao Ming. He was very personable and real nice and the tallest guy I ever met in my life. This man is a giant. When I stood next to him, I know he was intimidated by my stature. LOL He was the pit bull, and I was the chihuahua, but I think my bark would have scared him away. It was definitely a good getaway for me and the wife to spend some one-on-one time, and we can’t thank Coca-Cola enough for the weekend.

Then it was off to my maiden voyage at Topeka. Did I click my red heels three times to get there? No, I think I’ll just take Southwest. We arrived in Kansas City and drove to Topeka and headed to my first duty, as always, my tool truck ride. This time I rode with Matco’s Trevor Yost. I rode with Trevor and his wonderful daughter, Adrienne. I was joking with her like Rocky. We visited some shops, and one guy even had his drag racing car at his shop. Here’s a picture of me and Adrienne next to the purple Duster.

After our tool truck ride, we get primped up for our race weekend. Heartland Park is a nice facility. It’s spacious and well maintained. It’s cool to drive in on Gary Ormsby Drive to get into the track. He and Lee had a lot of history at there. We went out there and Lee and the guys were working on a new combination. It showed some great promise. We ran a 4.58 and qualified No. 4 at just 294 mph, and it had good early numbers. We went into race day with good confidence. We ran a 4.61 the first lap and 4.61 again in round two, which was low e.t. of the round. In the semi’s, we hazed the tires and lost a close race to Larry Dixon. We had a good outing and want to tip our hats to Hillary Will for winning her first Top Fuel race. They put on a really good performance. I got to hang with her in Charlotte during the NASCAR race, and she’s cool people. Overall, Topeka was a really good race for us. But major props to Hill Will!

Sunday night after the race, a group of us headed to the Brick Oven Grille in Topeka to celebrate my boy TY’s birthday. We played a little joke that was funny. We had the waiter give my boy a b-day lap dance, and Ted playing along with the joke and slapped the guy on his buttocks while the waiter saved his horse and rode a cowboy. LOL I had pictures on my cell phone, but they didn’t turn out well. It was a fun time with my brother from another mother. Of course, I had to order him a birthday cognac to sip on.

That’s all for now. I’ll have part two of this belated blog in a few days. For now, love peace and hair grease, and I’m out like shout!