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This is my third trip to the Topeka track as the bikes don’t compete here and I’m hoping the third time’s the charm for our DSR Matco Tools team. We’re overdue for our first win of 2010 and even though Larry Dixon and those Al-Anabi boys have built a pretty big lead, there’s no reason we can’t go on a run like we did earlier this year at Gainesville, Charlotte and Houston and get back to second place heading into the Coundtown to 1. With seven races in eight weeks coming up in June and July, we’re poised to make a big run. I’m very confident in out team.

It’s been a busy week for the brothaman. We flew home from Atlanta on Monday and after a quick night’s sleep in my own bed TY and I were back on the road Tuesday afternoon for a quick trip Oklahoma. We hit up our Southwest flight from Indy to Chicago Midway then to Tulsa, but old Southwest pulled one of those SWA okie-dokes and had us stop in St. Louis on the way to Tulsa. We love SWA, but they got us on that one. I know our Monday morning flight is a direct flight back to Indy, so we’re good to go.

We drove from Tulsa to Okmulgee, Okla. for a Matco Tools TechEd visit at OSU Institute of Technology on Wednesday morning. This was our second straight year visiting OSUIT and I have to give it up to my boys Steve and Bill at the school, they’re on it. We met with five groups of students in the Toyota Technology building. Mother Nature rained on our Matco TechEd parade, but we were able to move our Matco/Army dragster inside. They even had a PortaTree practice tree and I got to go against the students and they had a reaction time competition with Matco Tools hats going to the winners. We finished up about noon, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then TY played Hoke (from Driving Miss Daisy) and drove the brothaman 345 miles north to Topeka. Like our car chief says, TY is my “fluffer.” LOL Of course, we had to make a quick pit stop at Dairy Queen in some small little Kansas town so I could get my Pecan Cluster Blizzard with extra pecans. Oh, and we had to make a quick pit stop to check out the Brown Mansion. We saw the sign and I had TY make a quick u-turn so we could snap a photo of the Brown Mansion. We got a good chuckle out of that.

I have to give a shout out to a racing legend I got to meet at OSUIT, Bennie Osborn. They call him “the Wizard.” He was a drag racing pioneer way back in the day. We had an old Hot Rod magazine from the 60s and Bennie was all over that thing endorsing products. He was the man and it’s always great to get to meet and know the guys who helped build our great sport.

Thursday was a busy day for us. After a slow morning we did the Topeka press conference at the Bank of America building in downtown Topeka with my DSR Funny car teammate Jack Beckman and Robert Hight and John Force. John was crazy, as always. He was talking about being depressed and Ron Capps saying he had body odor in Atlanta last weekend. Typical John stealing the show. Then my boy Zak Elcock of NHRA drove me over to Kansas City to help promote the race. I took a nap on the way over and we hit up three KC TV stations and then it was back to Topeka in time to meet my Matco Tools boys for dinner at the Cracker Barrel by our hotel. Then we went to see Iron Man 2 before getting some shut eye. I liked the first Iron Man and part 2 doesn’t let you down, that’s for sure.

We don’t run until 5 and 8 p.m. today, so we don’t need to be at Heartland Park until like 1 p.m. for an interview. Then we have autographs at 3 and then it’s throw down time. I know Brian and Mark have been working hard to get us back on point and I think you’ll see the Matco Tools/U.S. Army dragster running strong again.

Before I sign off, I need to give a plug to Matco Tools distributor Joe Shay. We rode on Joe’s tool truck last Thursday before the Atlanta race and let me tell you, Joe is on it. We hit up four stops and he had all four locations full of Matco tool boxes and carts. You can just tell what a great asset to Matco that Joe is.

And in the last blog, I said I was going to talk about Tuesday hoops. We’ll Tuesday hoops is running down, since school is out for the summer, so we have to find a new location to run on Tuesday evenings. The past few weeks we’ve played 5-on-5 full court for like two hours. It’s an awesome workout and we have a lot of fun. TY snapped a few photos, one of me, sportsmen standout Brad Plourd and “Mr. Reaction Time” Shawn Langdon. Both of those former Super Comp stars have some game. They’re not as quick as the brothaman, but they can still ball. My best competition, like I said last week, is Kevin Knock or KK. He’s neighbors with Tommy Johnson in Avon, Ind. and Kevin is an ultra-competitor. He can shoot the lights out from downtown even if his form is funky. He also plays physical and likes to body up the brothaman. We have a lot of fun every Tuesday night and that’s what it’s all about.

TY just started doing P90X and I think I may have to start as well. He says it’s intense and the Yoga was crazy hard. The brothaman needs a good workout program to take on the road and do in the hotel rooms and I already have some workout DVDs with Tony Horton and he’s a great trainer.

Well, that’s about it. As always, it’s time for some love, peace and hair grease, and I’m out like shout.

God bless