On Monday after E-Town, I put my trucking shoes back on. I have to give a special thanks to Jeff and Ted at RPM. They really took care of me on loaning me and the family a Freightliner showhauler RV. I had the family on the road for E-Town and Norwalk, and the RPM crew gave us nice digs to call home. RPM is out of North Carolina, so I really want to give them props for taking care of my family.

We drove from the racetrack and headed to Jamestown, N.Y., to stop by the Matco toolbox plant. We made the trip in about seven hours being the trucker that I am. I had the pedal to the medal with the jake brake off. On the ride up, there was some real beautiful scenery in the Poconos.

Once we got there, it was an amazing sight. Everyone that works with tools wants a superior box, and Matco Tools makes the best boxes. They can build 100 toolboxes in one day with the 80 employees at the plant. It such a cool process on how they make everything from start to finish. I’m into building and fabricating, so it was fascinating me. ‘Hot Rod’ and I got to walk around with Tony Kramer, the plant manager. We got to do a little bit of product inspection on the powdercoating line. There wasn’t much to inspect because they all looked flawless. We’re were hitting Tony up to work on some stuff, so one day there will be an Antron Brown limited edition box for all our hard working fans and mechanics. I’m gonna give it some AB style like our race car. I just want to thank all the hardworking Matco toolbox plant employees. The toolbox team does a very fine job and thanks for accommodating us.

Then it was back trucking from Jamestown to Stow, Ohio, where Matco is headquartered. I was chewing on some sunflower seeds. It’s a habit of mine to keep myself occupied because it’s hard for me to sit still for that long of time. Once we got to Stow, we pulled our RPM RV into the parking at Matco. I busted out the door, and my boy John Torok was there to meet and greet us. Then we sat down with Matco president Tom Willis and VP Ernie Lauber for a couple of minutes. After that, Tom and a few other Matco employees grilled up burgers and hot dogs for a lunch that benefited the United Way. ‘Hot Rod’ and I signed autographs while the employees ate lunch.

That Wednesday night, we went to our boy John Torok’s house. He had a cookout for a few of us. John was manning the grill, and the kids were having fun in the pool. It was a relaxing evening to chill out with John, his wife Tammy, and oldest son, John. Lil’ John is a future pilot, and hopefully one day, he’ll be flying my Lear Jet. LOL Lil’ John also got manual driving lessons on how to work the stick shift from PR Ted in the S2000 that night, too.

The next morning I did my truck ride with Dale Chrest in Akron. We visited this awesome hot rod shop. We hung out with some of his buddies, and they make some of the best street rods I’ve ever seen. After the ride, we loaded up in the motor home and made the hour-long drive to the track at Norwalk. That night, we attended Scott Kalitta’s memorial service. It was a wonderful tribute to a great champion by Larry Smiley of RFC and Jim O., John O., and John Force as speakers. They all told great stories of Scott’s racing career, which were both very funny and inspiring.

At the Norwalk race, we only got two qualifying runs due to water on the racetrack on Friday. We qualified sixth on Saturday and lost to Brandon Bernstein in the second round. We pared that hole and remained second in the points. The coolest deal about Norwalk is that my kids love that one-pound of ice cream for $1. My son, Anson, ate one pound a day, and every time he came back to the pit, he had a big white smile on his face from the vanilla ice cream.

We’re getting caught up. In the next blog, we’ll talk about our off weekend and Anson’s 4th birthday party.