Seattle was the first of our three-race West Coast swing and a solid weekend for us. We qualified third but on raceday our motor was still a little too powerful, which led to spinning the tires first and second round. We did manage to get a win over Tony, who is in the tenth spot (where we’re trying to get to). I’m still pleased with the team and progress we’re making.

Thursday before the race, I went on a ride along with franchisee Wes Rodgers in the Puyallup area. We made a lot of interesting stops and I heard neat stories about my dad when he used to race in the Northwest. It was nice to hear firsthand from the customers about watching him race back in those days. Wes is also a part-time photographer, so he pulled over to take some pics of Mt. Rainier for us. That area is probably one of the prettiest parts of the country. It’s neat to get away from the hustle and bustle of going from the airport to the hotel to the track. Doing these ridealongs, I’m getting to see some really neat places around the tracks that I’ve never visited before.

After the Seattle race, we stayed an extra day and toured the Boeing factory, which was really cool. We saw how they put all these gigantic airplanes together in one big building. We even looked down and saw a bunch of Snap-on tool boxes, so we know those planes were put together properly.

After that, we headed to California where we also toured Alcatraz. Not only is it a unique prison, a little over a mile from San Francisco bay, but it’s also the site of one of my favorite movies: Escape from Alcatraz. I was able to see firsthand the different areas where the movie scenes were shot. I went there about 15 years ago, but this time they had much more open to the public and a nice gift shop.

Moving on to the Sonoma race - one of my personal goals was to get the engine horsepower in sync with the clutch so we could increase our completed runs down the track (A to B).  Even if we slowed down too much, we were bound and determined to get on the other side of it and minimize the tire smoke. That’s exactly what we did, opening with a 4.18 (3rd quick) in Q1, a 4.11 (4th quick) in Q2, the night session where it dropped to 60 degrees. We wore a bunch of clutch and spun the tires out in the middle on Q3, but Q4 let us know we could face adversity and we ran a 4.17 (5th quick). We ended up in the top half of the field for the fifth race in a row, qualifying in the 4th spot.

Sunday morning, we started by racing 11th place Jeff Arend in the fst round. The tires broke loose about halftrack, but we held on for the win on that one. Second round, with the temperatures up, we still managed to run a 4.17 at 300 mph which was an awesome run and second-quick for the session. But there was one slight problem: The guy in the other lane ran a 4.15 (low ET) to edge us out for the win. This, by far, was our best performance of the year and verifies that what we’ve been doing is right.

The next ride along was in Napa where I rode with Snap-on franchisee Cliff Marden. Again, a whole other world and a very nice place on the east side of Sonoma where a lot of people use Snap-on tools. Cliff’s been with Snap-on for almost 30 years and had his killer dog (a Yorkie) with him. The dog wanted to tear my leg off in the beginning, but after a while he was just gnawing on my fingers between stops ... a fun little dog.

Denver is definitely one of my favorite tracks. It has the big three: I’ve performed well there in the past, it has a great fan base, and the race track itself  is unique. It’s carved out of the side of mountain and has a real smooth race surface. The Bandimeres do a great job promoting the race, do a lot of charity events, and know how to treat the racers and fans alike. It’s tough on “The Mountain” and it can be the most difficult place to perform on the circuit because you run a whole different set-up than normal. We think we’ll do well here and are on a min-roll. If there’s a chance for us to get in the top ten, we’ll do it here and are up for the challenge. Whoever wins this race will definitely earn it.
 

The week before Norwalk was a busy one! I did an appearance for Snap-on in Kansas City on Wednesday called Skills USA. I didn’t know much about Skills until that week, but it turned out to be a very cool event. This competition is a great opportunity for the kids to show what they can do – having all the businesses there definitely incentivizes and motivates them. The Glo-mad was there, my and Tony’s show cars were there and the No Compromise Tour made an appearance, as well. I signed a lot of autographs for students, parents and teachers at the event. It was hotter than heck out there in Kansas City but it was a great day overall.

I took a ride with a Snap-on franchisee Jeff Hall on Friday morning. He’s a part-time car restoration guy and has rebuilt or restored a few cars. Jeff does a lot of give away cruise events during the year and does a great job with his customers for Snap-on. We had a couple of really neat stops: there was one place not far from the track in Sandusky, called Griffs, that was neat because the guys there build engines for people I’ve known through midget cars, sprint cars and late models. It was interesting to see all the tooling and stuff he does, so we spent a lot of time there. Then Jeff said, “We’re gonna stop at this Engler’s place.” Jim Engler is a friend of mine, actually – I know him through racing and he’s a Goodyear dealer and car care business owner, so it was pretty cool to take a walk around his shop and see how he does business.

As for the weekend, we’ve got a fast car, we just need some consistency to close the deal. We missed the setup on the first one, and then I made an error on the second run. At wide open throttle, there’s a micro switch that activates the timers and my foot slipped off for just a second. The car was set up to go fast, but when my foot slipped it deactivated the timers, the clutch, the fuel system – the whole management system. I told the team afterwards that that’s on me right there. That was probably a $20,000 mistake on my part. To prevent this from happening again, we decided to remount the switch and adjust the springs on the throttle.

On our third run, the car spins the tires at half track. On the last run the track temp was over 120 degrees and we went out there and made what was probably our best run of the year – a 4.12 at 302, which shot us all the way to the eighth spot! Given the track conditions and the weekend to that point, we were really excited. We went out for our first run Sunday morning and pulled it back a bit, just not enough, bottom line.

I started my career up in the northwest and it’s something I always look forward to. The Western Swing is my favorite time of year – Seattle is usually the second stop, but this year it’s the first, so that changes it up a little. There are a lot of trees and it’s a really unique track location, just nestled in the forest like that. I almost expect Bigfoot to come out at any moment when I’m up there! Anyway, I’ve run at that track since the ‘80s and I’ve never quite punched it through for a win. Before I hang up the helmet I’d like to conquer that track and check it off the list, and I’m looking forward to trying to do that this weekend.
 

Our Bristol weekend started out very good – we qualified second and just missed first by eight thousandths of a second! I have to give the team credit, hard work and staying focused has been the key – I keep telling them to hang in there, do their jobs and good things will come, which happened this weekend with some great runs.

Going in to Saturday, we had another great run, second-quick in Q3. The track was pretty crazy, as temps were pushing 140 degrees! It was 118 the day before so to be fast under those conditions is pretty good. On to Sunday’s race where we raced Tony in the first round; the conditions changed slightly, our plan was to leave the set up the same and just go out there and repeat.  After a small lead at the start, our car dropped a cylinder at one second into the run, that’s about 1,000 horsepower, and we got beat. Dropping that cylinder was extremely disappointing to all of us and a real surprise because it hadn’t done that in a while, tough way to end our day, especially after the great runs all weekend.

We’re definitely on the right track though for sure. We qualified eighth the week before and climbed to second this week in Bristol. The key for us at the end of each weekend is to look at the runs and figure out where we went right, and where we went wrong, and adjust.

Other than racing, the highlight of last weekend was going on the ride along with Snap-on franchisee Ken Sager.  One stop was at a junk yard (one of Ken’s best customers) where we hung out and had lunch. As I’m leaving they hand me a box with – of all things – moonshine! One jar is clear and the other is sort of dark. This guy was like a walking warning label, telling me the dark one will taste really innocent, but I might not be able to find the door after drinking some of that! Then he said that if I don’t like it, I can always pour it in the car to make it run faster! I took the cap off and it smelled really sweet. Now, I’m no expert, but I’d have to say this place might be Moonshine Alley – LOL!

We also stopped at the Elizabethton Snap-on Manufacturing Plant. Our team members Bill, Rick, Stacy and I were greeted by some great employees, who gave us a tour of the facility and showed us the furnace where they do all the heat treatments. It was cool to see how they take raw steel and turn it into the Snap-on tools that we use every day. I was there last year, too, pretty awesome stuff! 

I’m looking forward to heading out to Norwalk, our newest track. There are a lot of great fans there.  The Bader family, who owns the track, really loves the show aspect of the race. Every year they host an invitation-only night race, “Night Under Fire,” where all the track workers get dressed up in red tuxedos, they light fireworks and the whole thing is just spectacular. They really are the showmen of the NHRA with a love for the fans, the families they bring and just the entertainment factor.
 
We plan to come out strong like we did to start last weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing some Snap-on customers at the track, cheering us on like they always do. On Thursday I’ll make a stop at Skills USA in Kansas City, where I get to meet some auto tech high school students and watch them compete.  I’ll sign some autographs and then it’s back to Norwalk to race.
 

Last week’s race started off good. Our first run was excellent at 4.17 and, for the first time in a while, the car did what it was supposed to do. It was a gratifying run for the weekend and we thought it set the stage for the next one, but we broke a clutch lever, which caused us to smoke the tires.  We ran a 4.12 on the third run & finished qualifying in the eighth spot. 

When first round on Sunday started, a lot of the Top Fuel guys were smoking the tires, in fact, it sounded like a shooting gallery out there. You have to believe that hurts the confidence level!  It was really muggy and in the low 80s but we had the same conditions the day before, so we just went out there and made our best guess on the setup.

We thought we backed the setup off enough but went out there and spun the tires and that was it, we were out. The track just wasn’t what we thought it was going to be, but hats off to those guys who guessed right.

Sometimes I might sound like a broken record, but there isn’t a team out there that goes through the week flawlessly. Our team did well, qualified eight and that’s good – we earned it.

I went on another ride along with a franchisee, Larry. Larry was very cool – he’s a Snap-on vet and he has a great relationship with his customers. They like him and I can definitely tell why. He reminds me of Rodney Dangerfield – his business manager said the same thing! He’s got that demeanor and voice. You can tell he is a northeastern guy.  We had some pizza at one of Larry’s last stops and did a drawing for tickets. There’s a lot of pressure there, when you have to draw and some guy who really, really wants it is just standing there, waiting. One time, though, that guy won it and that was pretty cool to see his excitement over winning.

We passed by Rahway Prison as we were driving around. It was pretty cool. Not because of what was inside – lol – but because the outside is really old school castle looking prison and, back in the 80s there were actually boxing matches there. I’m a big boxing fan, so knowing that there were sanctioned, legitimate matches there back then by James Scott (read a cool article about him at http://www.doghouseboxing.com/Ken/Hissner0621c09.htm) and Dwight Braxton or Dwight Muhammad Qawi  (another good article: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1125116/index.htm ), who became a world champ. 

Bristol feels good. Back to back races keep you ready to get right out and do it again, but faster. When people ask me about my favorite track, there are a lot of meanings for that. If I was trying to impress someone – a sponsor or something – I would definitely bring him or her to Bristol. It’s a “supertrack” built not too long ago – it’s state-of-the-art and carved right out of a mountain. It used to be called Thunder Valley because, when the nitro cars were running, the echoes would bounce off the sides of the mountain and it would sound like, well, thunder. There’s the latest and the greatest at this track – the surface is fairly new and they’ve done all the upgrades. The lanes are even, which certainly helps things!

Bristol brings a lot of fans. It’s at the same compound as the NASCAR track, so it’s NASCAR country out that way. I’ve got to say, we’ve been able to turn a lot of NASCAR fans into NHRA fans when we’ve come to town, though! Lol

Unfortunately, I’ve never won at Bristol before, so it would be a tremendous honor to do so this weekend. We are gonna have a breakthrough. We’re close and we’re just getting better every day. Hey, always the optimistic Cruzer! See you at the track!