Well, technically I think we ARE in Kansas, as I look out the window seat, row 8, left side, of one of Southwest Airlines fine 737-300 aircraft. Tommy Nitro here with you as co-pilot on our cross country journey today sports fans. From my 39,000-foot vantage point high above the circular patterned wheat fields below, I can’t help but wonder in amazement at the various topography of these beautiful United States.

This year starts a new chapter in my professional career that is NHRA Drag Racing. For the past 10 years, my contribution to the sport of drag racing and my employer’s, have consisted primarily of the physical working, Eisenhower Interstate System exploring and gypsy lifestyle variety. This year, with Mike Ashley Racing’s acquirement of the Matco Tools Iron Eagle Top Fuel dragster, it seems I get to do a little more “aerial” exploration of our great land. So far on today’s trip, which is following the TUESDSAY finish of the season-opening Winternationals, our aerial reconnaissance mission has given me the Ontario, CA area, with a fly-over of the Auto Club Raceway in Fontana, the high desert area of California, Death Valley, and a touchdown landing in Las Vegas. I am assuming that was all below us because due to our early 6:40 a.m. departure, I was asleep the entire time we were in the air.

I am NOT a morning person by any stretch of the imagination and I was getting a little ribbing from the guys the night before if I needed them to make courtesy “wake up” calls for me. For some reason I had not switched my body clock over to West Coast time yet, even though I have been in Cali for ten days at this point, and was awake at around 3:45, long before my 4:30 alarm I have set on my cell phone. I had a pretty rough morning schlepping my overweight luggage to the rental car, onto the rental car shuttle, into the airport and finally on to the check- in stand at the Southwest counter. Ted Yerzyk, Antron and “Mighty” Mike Domagala and I were all flying together and they, being experienced “FIG’s”( that’s Fly In Guy’s) all were laughing at me for traveling so heavy and carrying armloads of newspapers, coats, hats, etc. I really do know how to fly efficiently but this was one of those times that was not going to go smoothly.

What I really need to do is sit my old buddy Bob Wilber, of Team Wilkerson fame, down for a little tutorial on how to smooth this procedure out a little. And by “old” friend, I mean he has been a friend for a long time, not that he is old, old. Now HE puts the “O’s” in smooth when it comes to traveling. He knows all the perks, the schedules, the pilots, the clubs, the shuttle’s and the shortcuts. I can only aspire to gain half of his worldly knowledge.

Anyway, after a change of planes in “Sin City” we were airborne again within an hour and got to see some beautiful sights on the climb to cruising altitude. Taking off in a Northerly direction, parallel to “the Strip” and banking in plenty of time to miss the Stratosphere’s 1,100-foot-tall spire, we climbed up and out of the valley with a great view of Nellis AFB, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and its companion drag strip in plain view. Lake Mead followed below us and then the Grand Canyon was off to the South and Lake Powell and the Glen Canyon Dam were off to the North. The beautiful snow-capped Rocky Mountains rose part way up to meet our flight and Pikes Peak waved as we passed by. It is such a drastic contrast leaving the southwest area of the United States and entering the Great Plains of the Midwest. The sharp jagged edges of the mountains and the craggily rivulets of erosion that are so majestic from this vantage point give way to the perfectly square farmers fields and 90-degree intersecting county roads that make up rural America. The afore-mentioned “crop circles” are multiplying the farther East we fly. Created by monstrous irrigation systems that help keep the grain healthy in the brutal summer sun, the wheat fields appear as large golden pieces on the world's largest Checkers board. King me!

It appears that the rest of our flight is going to be obscured by white puffy things that are diminishing my view of the ground. We are starting to descend so I am assuming we are somewhere over central Illinois at this point and it won’t be too long before our flight staff issues the warning to turn off and stow all portable electronic devices. This will conclude our field trip at 39,000 feet. Trays tables up, seat backs forward and come back and see us again soon. You’re now free to move about the Country.

Flaps down, landing gear down, put it on the numbers.