Hey everyone. I’m excited to join the NHRA.com bloggers. I read them a lot, so it’s cool to have my own blog.

I can’t believe how fast the off season went and that the first race of the 2007 season is over with. It seems like we were just standing on the stage at the award’s banquet in Palm Springs. In my first blog entry, I’ll touch on my off season and then dig into testing and the Winternationals.

Some of you know I had surgery in the off season. When I was boxing and fighting in mixed martial arts, I had my nose broken many times and needed to fix my sinuses. It wasn’t cosmetic; I needed to improve my breathing passages. So I had that done on December 5 and it put me out for two weeks. The worst part about it was that it messed up my equilibrium for awhile. Before, I was sneezing and coughing a lot and now I have more energy and feel great. No more sneezing and I sleep great. So, I’m glad I had the surgery.

My main focus during the off season was to change my body. I had stocky build and lifted weights a lot. I needed to become leaner and faster. At 5-foot-4, 187 pounds is a lot of weight to carry. I felt like it was dragging me down. I wasn’t fat, but I had to lose some muscle mass, which is hard to do because muscle weighs more than fat. I changed my diet and increased my cardio. I cut my protein intake in half and ate more carbs. I was eating eight times a day to keep my metabolism going all the time. The main thing was the cardio. Between cardio and weight lifting, I was doing three hours of exercising a day. I had to change my entire weight lifting routine from the norm. I used to lift with heavy weights and low reps, but now I’m lifting lighter weights and higher reps and doing a lot of cardio. I feel so much better and I’ve lost 15 pounds. I think it will help make me a better driver.

My mom and dad came to Las Vegas over the holidays to spend some time with me and my brother Tony. It was nice to have them with us for nearly six weeks. I don’t get back to Arkansas as often as I should, so I really enjoyed seeing the parents. It was good to spend the holidays with them. In fact, it was the best Christmas and holiday season I’ve had in a long time. Tony and I showered them with gifts. It was like they were the little kids and we were Santa.

So, back to racing.

We went to testing at Phoenix and were there for six days. My goal was to get to know my new crew guys, and to work out the monostrut rear wing. I took my guys to Rosa’s for Mexican dinner the first night we were there. We got to bond and cut up with each other. I wanted them to get to know me. I’m a light, fun guy and I want to include them in what I do.

The monostrut was really exciting because being the first at anything is neat. The mono has been run in the past, but not in this configuration. Until you get it on the car, you don’t know what to expect. I always wanted to be a fighter pilot and it’s sort of the same thing. The first pass, I went to half track. David Powers and the team were excited. On our last run at testing, we ran 4.490. It felt very stable. I was impressed how well the car ran even with the extra weight. I was excited to run it at Pomona, but it wasn’t OK’d for the Winternationals. It got painted after testing and we’re ready to put it on the car. It will look really cool on the Valvoline dragster.

I was really excited going into Pomona until we found out about the mono and that put our backs against the wall. Almost our entire testing was with the monostrut. On Wednesday, Ashley, Judy, and Justine Jeffrey of Western Stabilization took our team to La Paloma for dinner. That was fun. They are a longtime sponsor of mine, so it’s great to spend time with them.

Rob Flynn was confident we could run a 4.4 and he was right. I would have been happy for a low 4.5, but it ran 4.49 on Thursday and that set the tone for the weekend. I got out of the car on Saturday after our first 4.48 and the ESPN guys came to me. I didn’t know what it ran and they said we were No. 1, at least for awhile. The crew guys got to the top end and were all excited. It was great. To do it at Pomona is awesome. It’s not only the first race, but one of our biggest on the schedule. We’re trying to impress some sponsors and I think we did a pretty good job of that all weekend long.

I woke up on Sunday and was excited, but it was raining. That makes you nervous when you might not get to run. Then, you have to get back into race mode after waiting around. I was excited to get on the track. I watched Whit win a pedal-fest and Tony Schumacher smoke the tires, so that’s in your head. The track changed after the rain. Our car was about to spin the tires, but I pedaled it and Doug Herbert was way ahead. You can’t give up and he had problems and we won the round. Then it got really exciting because we were racing our teammate, and that put a David Powers Motorsports car into the semifinals no matter what. It was a great start for us. I’m third and Whit is sixth. If we can win at Phoenix again, like we did last year, we can takeover that top spot. Things are good!