Hello again all my fellow nitrohaulics. The brothaman is back on the blog. We got back to Indy on Monday afternoon, and let me tell you, it’s so nice to be home after having four straight races. That was a grind, but we finished on a high-note with our MAR Matco Tools team going to the final at Richmond and resetting the NHRA speed record. It is nice to be home and sleep in your own bed and spend some time with the family. I’ve been playing Mr. Mom to some sick kids this week, but thankfully everyone is getting better and back to school.

Richmond was a good race for us. It was very important for our team to rebound and end the four races on a high. We ran well at all four races, as we have all season long, but had a few bumps in the road on race day at Charlotte and Memphis. It was cool to fly the Toyota colors at Memphis and hang with our boys Andre and Don and Ed. I wish we had better results in the red and white, but that’s behind us and we’re only four rounds behind that U.S. Army team with two races to go. With the bonus points in qualifying, there’s a lot of racing left. We smoked the tires in the final round at Richmond, but if we have to lose, I’m glad we lost to Brandon and the Budweiser team. Those guys have been close all season long and Rob Flynn and Mike Guger are former teammates of ours and we’re happy for them.

Our Matco Tools car continues to run those big speeds. Brian and Mark make some big horsepower. Cory Mac and the Fram car are catching us though. They ran 319.60 like we did, but we got the record because we ran it first. I can tell you that Brian and Mark want to run 320 mph at 1,000 feet. Hopefully we have some good weather at Vegas and Pomona so we have a shot to put 320 on the scoreboard.

Speaking of Vegas, our MAR Matco Tools team is laying it all on the line. We have nothing to lose and have a few test sessions left, so we’re going out West next week to test at The Strip at LVMS. Let me tell you something, with this cold 40-degree weather here in Indy, the brothaman can use some warm weather; 80 degrees sounds mighty fine right about now.

I forgot to talk about our hot air balloon ride at the Dallas race. I’m sure many of you saw the footage on ESPN2 during the race and the Lucas Oil Sportsman race. They got us up early on Saturday morning at Dallas. We were up before the sun was out, I’ll tell you that. My boy, RJ Smith, hooked up the hot air balloon ride, and Matt from ESPN was in the basket and up-and-away we went. We just floated along and landed pretty far from the track. It was an awesome experience, and I know the next time I go in a hot air balloon, I better have my wife lovely with me or I’m in trouble.

On that note, it’s time for a little love, peace and hair grease, and I’m out like shout.

God bless,

Antron