Hello from warm and sunny Phoenix. It felt so good to get to Phoenix yesterday morning. Our new team manager, Tom Abbett, and I landed around 8 a.m. and it felt great to go from a beanie and bomber coat to short sleeves and a baseball cap. We stopped and grabbed breakfast at the Waffle House and went straight to the track. It was awesome to bond with our new team at Mike Ashley Racing with Brian and Mark and all the Matco boys. We spent most of the day getting the car together. The warmup went great and we went to the line for the first run of the ’09 for the new look Matco Tools dragster. We had a valve spring break on the burnout and we had to shut off, but we got a good feel for everything and it was a great work day for the Matco team.

Last night we got to hang out with Matco Tools regional manager Allen Plunk and district managers Kent Holladay and Jason Neil, along with a few Matco distributors Mike and Ed. I rode on Ed’s tool truck last February before the Phoenix race. Mike is a new distributor; he’s only been in the business for three months and he’s on a roll selling it up. Times are rough and tough and he’s making a good living as a Matco Tools distributor. If he can do it, you can do it too. It’s a great way to be your own boss and you can start by calling 888-MY-MATCO if you’re looking for a career change or a new job. We ate dinner at Rustler’s Rooster and it was great to hang out with my Phoenix Matco family for a few hours last night.

This morning on the second day of testing ‘09, I got the go-ahead to go to half track on our first run. With our baseline tune-up in the car, it felt really good and made it through the shake zone and it was a smooth, consistent pass. I nipped right at about 850 feet out and we coasted through at 3.88 at 306 mph. It was a really good pass that gave our team a lot of confidence and it gave Brian and Mark a good starting point. It was great to see all our guys with smiles on their faces after the run. We had an issue on the second run. We broke a fuel line and the car shook the tires. After that we gave the car a good look-over and waited for the final session of the day. Spencer Massey and Snake’s team ran in front of us and ran 3.89 and we ran 3.87 at 310 mph to finish our day. It was the quickest and fastest pass of the last session and that’s awesome for our team. Our Matco car has a lot of promise to it. I really feel by the end of the Phoenix test we’ll be up to par with all the top cars. We saw a lot of fans out here today and I took some pictures with a few Matco distributors who were out here with their Hayabusa and a Suzuki bracket bike. It’s always good to chill with my Matco family at the race track.

We’re going to make three to four runs on Sunday and go A to B and try to step it up a little bit. The track will be better, so we want to get up there with the Army car and A.J’s car in the low 3.80s. That’s all for now. As always, a little love, peace and hair grease, and I’m out like shout.

Antron