Hello again all my Nitrohaulics. It’s almost the time for us to start to shine. It’s been a great and amazing season for our MAR Matco Tools team so far, but now we need to step our game up. The Countdown to 1 begins on Friday at Charlotte, and our team is jacked up to get going. It doesn’t matter how many wins or final rounds or poles we have, because we’re all back at zero.

Indy was another good race for us until race day. We ran great in qualifying and Mark and Brian continue to do an awesome job, along with our flawless crew, of making this Matco Tools dragster haul the mail. We ran great in qualifying and nipped “the Sarge” for the pole with that run of 3.835 seconds on Sunday afternoon. That was an awesome lap and how about it with that 319.22-mph speed. Brian and Mark continue to make big speeds just like they did with Mike Ashley’s Funny Car back in 2007. The new points system is going to take some getting used to, but I sure wished they awarded points for speed records and top speed of each session.

On race day, we were matched up against Spencer Massey and Snake’s team. We qualified No. 1 two races in a row and got Brandon Bernstein and Spencer in the first round. Those are not the type of races you expect when you qualify first, but it just shows how deep and strong this Top Fuel class really is. You have to be perfect for four rounds to win races. The Budweiser and U.S. Smokeless cars are cars you expect to race in the final round, not round one. Spencer and Donnie and Todd did a great job, as always, and the beat us. Spencer is second to none on the Tree and those guys almost always get down the track, and they got us.

What that round did was make our Matco Tools team that much hungrier. I know my guys have been working their tails off at the shop to gear up for the next four races, which we’re calling the “BBQ Swing.” If you like BBQ, you can’t go wrong in North Carolina, Dallas, and Memphis. I’m ready for some Corky’s dry rub ribs in a few weeks in Memphis. We know we have a great car and now we’re more mentally focused to win this 2009 Top Fuel championship. We have the talent and the ability to get it done, and that’s what we aim to do.

Indy is always a busy, busy race. We all have lots of friends and family at the race and the media and sponsor functions keep us plenty busy. On Aug. 27, I was invited by Indianapolis Motor Speedway to do the MotoGP presser in downtown Indy. I got to ride on the back of a two-seat Ducati. It was awesome. They had full leathers and everything for the brothaman. It was a great experience and a great way to expose our sport of NHRA Drag Racing to a whole new audience. I have to thank Ron Greene at IMS for hooking it up.

Indy week started early and went often. On Monday, Aug. 31, we did an appearance at McDonald’s to promote the race. WIBC, a local radio station, was broadcasting live and this was a really cool deal to build momentum and promote the U.S. Nationals. All the McDonald’s in the area had cups with Ashley Force on them to promote our biggest race of the year and Ashley, Cory Mac, and Eddie Krawiec all did McDonald’s appearances. I hope Coke and NHRA does more of these next season. It’s a great way to promote our races and sport.

Tuesday night we had a Matco Tools customer dinner at our shop in Brownsburg. Normally, we do these at the shop, but it was really cool to bring everyone to our shop. We had like 150 Matco Tools distributors and customers. This was a really cool event. Eddie and Andrew Hines, along with Cory Mac, and my hero, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits all hung out with us for the night. “Big” is still a rock star. Everyone marvels at him. My boy, Chef Joe, cooked up a great meal with strip steaks, and we all had an awesome time before the U.S. Nationals. Chef Joe does an awesome job and anyone who’s been to the Iron Eagle Club this year can attest to the awesome food we all get to eat at the track in our hospitality.

If you missed the ESPN2 TV broadcast on Sunday, we had “Big Daddy” warm our Matco Tools dragster. That was awesome. I felt so honored to give up my seat and see Don back in the seat of a rear-engine Top Fuel dragster. Our pit area was just packed, and I know the fans really loved it. It’s so cool to see “Big” back at the track racing his Dodge Challenger in Stock. “Big” still has it because he cut a .007 light at Indy.

I’m heading off to Charlotte on Wednesday afternoon, and we’re going to have a rematch of our basketball game with the ESPN boys. I’m fired up to play some ball, and I know my boys Trevor and Eric of ESPN are hungry to beat us. My boy T.Y. and I have our big man, Cameron Beer, on our squad this time, so we’re ready. I’ll keep ya’ll posted to the results.

As always, it’s time to sign off with some love, peace and hair grease, and I’m out like shout.

God bless,

Antron