Wassup everybody?! We’ve been getting back to the basics and that includes the NHRA.com blog. I wanna say hello since we’ve been gone for the past few weeks. I want to get you all caught up on the last few races at Houston and Las Vegas.

It’s always good to go back down South to Houston. We had a lot of fun, as always, at Houston. The race weekend was good for our MAR team. We qualified on the pole at 3.819 and we lost to Cory Mac in the second round. It was a great drag race. Cory did a little “Russian Roulette” and we ended up taking the bullet, but that’s just the way racing goes. The FRAM guys made a good run that was better than that 3.90 that come up on the board. Houston is always fun because I always get to eat some good Cajun food and crawfish. My boys Kevin and Carlo hooked it up at the campground area. I felt like I was back living in Louisiana with the catfish and shrimp. It also was good to see family, like my mother-in-law, Linda, back at the track smiling and lighting us all up after the battle she had with cancer. After the race, my wife, Billie Jo, and my mom, Judy, back went to Louisiana to help out with a benefit dinner for Linda that went over very well. I just want to thank all the racers who contributed items to be auctioned off. The turnout was fantastic. We thank everybody for the great support.

I also need to tip my hat to Matco Tools distributor Bryan Robinson who is doing an awesome job for Matco, not just pushing the tools and tool boxes, but being a great supporter for our MAR Top Fuel team. It really impressed me to see my name in lights on a big board going down I-10 at all the motorcycle shops. We had an awesome truck ride with Bryan and saw so much great support for NHRA drag racing. Our dinner at Outback was great with 28 people supporting us for the weekend. Bryan also sold 68 hospitality tickets to the race, so we have to give Bryan a big shout out. Here’s a photo of Bryan and some of his loyal Matco customers at the track.

The Monday after Houston, I got to ride in the big rig from Houston to El Paso with my MAR teammates Brad and Red. Even though my CDL license is still current, my boy Brad wouldn’t let me get behind the wheel of the big truck, so I spent my time between the passenger seat and the bunk to get some rest after a busy weekend at Houston. We got to El Paso on Monday night and on Tuesday we did our first of seven votech school visits for Matco. The visit was at Western Technical College and they had an awesome book/tool store for all the votech students. Matco offers a great discount for all the Western Tech students involved in the votech program. This is one part of the job that I really enjoy. To be able to speak with young adults about their futures and their career is awesome. It’s great to talk to the kids and tell them about what we do and all the different career opportunities available in NHRA drag racing. Before we flew out from El Paso to Vegas, we stopped over at MSD to see our boys Joe and Ray. They gave us a full tour of the MSD facility, including the engineering department, which was very fascinating to see how they develop and troubleshoot our high-tech ignition systems.

My boy Tom Abbett, our MAR team manager, and I got into Vegas on Tuesday night and we checked into one of our favorite hotels, the Golden Nugget, down on Fremont Street. The Nugget is a great hotel with an awesome pool and restaurants and it’s only 20 minutes from the Vegas track. Vic & Anthony’s steakhouse is one of the best in the nation. I ate there twice. Wednesday was a nice kickback, relaxing day for the brothaman to just relax and knock back some e-mails and bills online. Thursday night, we did the autograph signing session at The Palms. It was nice to see all the fan support and to interact with the fans without being busy at the race track.

The weekend at The Strip was pretty good. Friday we had some really high winds, so we didn’t get to do much other than wait around. Saturday we were No. 3 after the first session and we ended up No. 2 and we had a good race. I have to give it up to rookie Shawn Langdon for edging us with a 3.874 and getting his first career pole. We lost to Brandon in the semis, but we went rounds and got some more points on the board. We left Vegas with some good feelings, even though we were worn out (see the photo of me sleeping in my chair at McCarran airport), and it was good time go home and regroup over Easter weekend and gear up for Atlanta. We have to tip our hats off to Tony and the Army team for winning again and taking that top spot from us. But we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. We’re in it for the long haul.

I’ve been doing some honey-do’s for the wife and momma Judy cooked up an awesome Easter dinner with some ham, string beans, mac and cheese, roasted chicken, cornbread, and a whole bunch of other sweets and treats. Of course, we went to church on Easter morning. Then we had a big Easter egg hunt with 108 eggs in the lawn and the kids found all the eggs. Arianna and Anson were very happy and Adler is starting to walk around the house my little man is starting to warm up and be less shy around strangers.

I’ve got to throw this in for my boy Angelo back at Lend America in New York. MAR is on Facebook and Twitter. You can find both me and Mike Ashley Racing on Facebook and if you want to get Twitter updates on MAR, click this link and we’ll hook you up with the latest news from MAR: http://twitter.com/MARnews.

I just want to again thank everyone for their ongoing support for our MAR team. We really wouldn’t be who we are without the support. With that, I must draw it to an end and say a little love, peace and hair grease, and I’m out like shout until next time. We’ll see you at the ATL this weekend.

Antron