Hello again all my NHRA.com nitrohaulics. It’s a beautiful holiday weekend here in Indy and I’m relaxing at the house with my family for the week. My brother, Carlos, and cousin, Andrea, and their families are staying at the Brown household for the week. The boys are about to head off to Fast Times indoor go-kart track so I can whoop up on them and show them how the brothaman does it.

We left off before Bristol when Rip, TY and I were on our way cruising in our new 2010 black Toyota Tundra to Thunder Valley. We made our pit stop at Buffalo Trace distillery and had an awesome time thanks to my boy Freddie. He gave us an awesome tour and I learned a lot. It’s a good thing I don’t really drink alcohol because I could have spent some ching, ching there. Here’s a tip. If you ever hit up the Buffalo Trace gift shop, check out the bourbon candles. They smell amazing.

Bristol was another good event for our DSR Matco Tools team. We got into town on Wednesday night and hit up dinner at Cootie Brown’s in Johnson City. It’s a cool local joint we like to eat at. The next morning we drove over to Bristol, Va., to meet up with Matco Tools distributor Wendle Capps. I spent the morning on Wendle’s tool truck and had a great time meeting with his customers. That afternoon we hit the links. I met up with my crew chief Brian Corradi and a bunch of NHRA drivers for the annual Speedway Children’s Charity golf outing at Country Club of Bristol. The brothaman’s game was pretty rusty early on, but I got it going. It’s a good thing it was a best ball event.

It was hot at Bristol. Let me tell you all, summer is here. It was nearly 90 every day and it made the race conditions challenging, but Brian and Mark Oswald were on it all weekend long. We ran that great 3.85 at 314 mph on Friday evening under the lights at Bristol Dragway to earn our fourth No. 1 qualifying award of the season. It was the 25th pole of my career, so that’s pretty cool. We ran well on race day until our car spun the tires down track in the semifinals against Brandon and the Copart team. After the race TY and loaded back up in the Tundra and made the 7.5-hour drive home to Indy. TY got us home all safe and sound. We were catching up on some old school taking us back to our high school days. I’m 34 and he’s 33, so we have a lot in common. We got home around 1:30 a.m. and it was great to sleep in my own bed.

A few more things from Bristol, here’s a photo of me and Tommy Johnson’s nephew, Gage, sporting one of our Matco Tools replica crew shirts at Bristol. You too can be like Gage by going to AntronBrown.com and ordering your replica crew shirt to be part of our DSR Matco race team. And this is a funny story. So, it’s Friday afternoon and I’m signing autographs at the ropes and a fan brings me what he calls, “a hillbilly necklace.” I’m not kidding you. He gives me this thing, says it’ll bring me good luck. He then tells me it has a raccoon penis on it. I’m not making this up. Only in Tennessee I guess.

We had a day at home before we had to head over to Stow, Ohio, the home of Matco Tools. We spent a few days in Stow before we went over to Norwalk. Tuesday night on June 22, we participated in the inaugural Matco Tools Charity Car Show at Matco’s headquarters in Stow. This was one of the best events I’ve been a part of with Matco. We had 131 muscle and show cars alongside our Matco Tools dragster. We raised more than $4,500 and 1,000 pounds of food for Haven of Rest Ministries in Akron, Ohio. Haven of Rest is a faith-based homeless shelter and an awesome program. I have to give it up to Matco’s district managers Bruce Barber and Don Welch for making this such a great event. There were plenty of hot rods that would look good at home in the brothaman’s garage. Like the best in show winner, this military-themed Studebaker.

The next day we were up early to visit the students at Ohio Technical College. It was the second straight year we visited OTC and let me tell you, we hit some traffic in Cleveland on I-80. I thought we were in Chicago or Pomona. Our Matco Tools dragster was on display and we got to meet with five groups of students. My boy Anthony Kruczek at Matco does an awesome job at OTC. He runs the Matco Tools store at OTC and knows all the students. Anthony hooked up lunch at Slyman’s deli. The corned beef sandwich was awesome. After OTC, the brothaman got a quick nap before we went to John Torok’s house for a bbq. John is the man at Matco. He’s our main contact at Matco and has been a friend to NHRA racing for many years. John has a pool in his backyard and my kids love that pool. Those little jokers would stay in there all night if we let them. I think TY was worn out from tossing the kids around. We may have found a new babysitter though.

The next morning we kept it rolling along. Norwalk was a busy, busy race for us. TY and I drove to the track and we met up with Tony Gioglio from ATA and my girl Courtney Hansen. Many of you know Court from Spike TV’s Power Block. Courtney is a favorite and Matco, and we shoot new product DVDs called Torque for Matco four times a year. We decided to change things up and shoot our third 2010 DVD at the racetrack with the Matco Tools dragster and pit area. It was a great change of pace and I think the distributors will really like the finished product. We finished up and checked into our hotel at the Kalahari in Sandusky, Ohio, and watched the kids at the water park. My kids liked that water park so much they pretty much stayed there all weekend long. Only my daughter, Arianna, came to the track on Sunday. The rest of the family stayed at Kalahari. No love for the brothaman.

Norwalk was another strong race for us. We ended up being the bridesmaid again. If it wasn’t for that Al-Anabi car, we might be in the points lead. LOL It was the second time this season (Houston) that Larry (Dixon) and the Al-Anabi boys beat us out for the pole and in the final round. We ran 3.79 on Friday night and Larry ran 3.78. We made it back to the final round against them and lost by two thousandths of a second. Two-thou! If I would have cut a .063 light instead of .066, we would have won. Maybe I should have drunk a Full Throttle before that round. LOL It’s all good though. We moved to fourth place in the standings and our Matco Tools car is running great.

I want to wish everyone a great Fourth of July weekend, and with that, a little love, peace and Valvoline grease, and I’m out like shout.

God bless.