We’re back from a long weekend and a nice off weekend after the U.S. Nationals. Our big weekend at the U.S. Nationals kicked off on Thursday morning with a tool truck ride with my local boy Randy Harris. We met at the MacAllister CAT rental store and had a lot of fun with the CAT employees here in Indy. It felt good to be over at the Caterpillar shop and visit the other side of DPM family. We like when those CAT folks use those Matco Tools. LOL

I know this is the blog, but I just wanna thank our newest DPM sponsor, DataDots. It’s a really cool new product that’s headed your way from automotive to household. DataDots are the coolest way that I’ve ever seen to identify what’s yours. It’s like CSI technology. You gotta check it out.

After that, we got geared up for the Avon Woods block party. There’s a group of our teammate that live in the same area in Avon. Our gal Diva Diana, Ripper, G-Funk Gary from the CAT car, and PR Ted all are neighbors. Those folks are my family. We had a good time chilling and eating. We gotta thank Stan from CAT for throwing down the meat and chicken on the grill. He made some awesome fajitas.

The U.S. Nationals has got to be the marathon of all drag races. It’s a hard, demanding race that brings out the best in every team. It really shows you what your team is made of. Although we struggled on the night sessions and we didn’t qualify in the top five, we got our Matco Tools car running strong for the last two sessions in the heat on Sunday. I was really confident and looking to race day. We had a great race day by running low E.T. of the second round. Going into the semifinals against Doug K, the track just bit us a little bit. It’s ok, it sure feels good going into the Countdown knowing we have a car that’s capable of giving that U.S. Army dragster a run for its money. Indy was a good end to the regular season for the Matco team. I had a blast interacting with all the fans and I lost my voice twice during the weekend. Now it’s on to the playoffs.

The day after the race was a wind-down day. I must have slept all day Tuesday and I was good as new on Wednesday. It felt good to wake up on Wednesday and drop my little girl off at school. Then I stopped at the shop and helped clean up and organize, talk to my crew chief Lee about the strategy for the Countdown, and then we had a nice big team meeting with our entire Matco Tools team to discuss plans for next season. It’s great to get the group together and just have a chat session. I couldn’t be happier with all the positive feedback from my crew guys. We really feel we can win the championship this year and we’re going to enjoy these good times. I know that I’m in a special place here at DPM. The bone structure is there, the teamwork is there, we have everything we need to win, but the difference is that we have true teamwork. It really is two cars, one team. From all the teams I’ve been at in the past, the true sign of a team is not when you’re doing well, but how you handle the times when you don’t do so well. I’ve been through all that on the bikes, and it gives you the strength to keep pushing forward for when those good times come back.

I’m at the airport sitting back at TGI Friday’s grabbing some lunch before we fly to Charlotte. We already hit some flight delays and we hope we can make it for our 7 p.m. engagement at the new zMax Dragway tonight. We’ll fill you in next week, so stay tuned and I’ll give you all an up-close look at the Charlotte track and race. Until next week, love, peace and hair grease. I’m gonna break wind like a chicken wing.