On Thursday before the race in Dallas, we visited JRB Carswell, a military base in the Ft. Worth area. This was a dream come true for me! I’ve always been a huge fan of fighter jets because they’re like race cars with wings! I spent the first part of the day flying the F-18 simulator which was absolutely exhilarating and made me want to join the Air Force.  I was flying in Southern California where I was familiar although the instructor said I was flying to low and busting out some windows, going 600-plus mph. Sorry San Clemente neighborhood. LOL! I saw some of the military weapons, tried out night vision goggles, and toured their all-terrain vehicles, which was very interesting. Terry McMillen’s team was also there with their car on display, so it was cool to hang out with them.

Later in the day, we had the first part of our “Crew Swap” where my crew came out to the base. We started off by hanging out with the Crew Chiefs and pilots of the F-16 planes in their hangar and then we went out to the flight line. I wore headsets along with the Crew Chief and listened to him and the pilot review the pre-flight check lists. After that, they took us all out to the runway to watch them take off with the after burners on. Our mouths were wide open and it sent chills up my spine to see them thundering by us…talk about a front row seat! It was great for me to see all my guys taking interest in everything and they even got to sit in a real F-16 plane. They had a pilot, named Hollywood, who explained all the functions to the guys and even took them into the Pilot’s lounge afterwards to hang out. Everyone at the base was extremely nice and took time to answer all of our questions.

Of all the people we met, one of the most unique was Lt. Col. Max Stitzer who gave me a Commander’s Award coin, which I carried in my pocket all weekend and I think it gave us some luck That was very neat and I will always cherish it.

One of the other gifts they gave me was a “Remove before flight” banner right off one of the
F-16s. I had some of the guys sign it and we hung it on the car during the warm-up.

The technology they had at that base, which was like a city, was amazing and I just can’t say enough about what these guys do for our country.

On Friday, for the second part of the “Crew Swap”, a group of the men and women from the base came out to the track to hang out with us. Overall, the whole team had an incredible time and we returned the favor by showing them a good time at the track. Not only did they enjoy seeing our operation and sitting in a funny car, it didn’t hurt that we qualified #1 with them there.

The race was great, one of those weekends we’ve been looking for all year. We were able to finish our job and bring home our first WIN of the year! I can’t say enough about the team and how hard they’ve worked to get here. I would say we were flawless in the pit area as well as on the race track. Except for the semi’s, we were one of the quickest cars every session. The Snap-on Toyota team was on it!

It was an incredible feeling to hoist the trophy in the Winners Circle and I even got a Stetson cowboy hat that fit my big old head. LOL! We had a lot of fans in Dallas along with a great group of Snap-on, Toyota, and Herzog folks all weekend. Even some of our team’s family members were at the race, so it was nice to win the Wally for all of them!

We did move up a spot in the points but we’ve still got a long way to go. It’s definitely nice to be sitting near the top and we hope to keep our momentum up going into the next event. Reading is a race we won last year. I love the race track and the team is ready to go back. It's in a neat part of the country with a great northeast crowd to root us on and we're looking forward to seeing everyone out there.

Over and out.