Hey everyone. It’s Friday at Brainerd. Let’s get caught up on the past week. I got invited to my buddy Mike Black’s house last Friday. He’s part of the Black family that started all the casinos in Mesquite, Nevada; he and his three brothers. Mike has 10 children ranging from 3 to 26-years-old. I had a lot of fun. The adults were playing a drinking game called “Edward 40 Hands.” Since I’m not a big drinker, they let me slide.



The rest of the weekend I took it easy. I watched NASCAR on Sunday. It was a boring race with Kurt Busch dominating. It was just nice to have a weekend off. It had been a long time. I got a lot of chores down around the house.



Since PR Ted and I went on our shopping spree at Nordstrom in Seattle, I had no closet space. I cleaned out my closet and took a ton of clothes to the Goodwill store in Las Vegas. I couldn’t take any pants because I doubt anyone could fit in them with my short legs. It’s who I am. That’s what God gave me. All you can do is laugh about it.



I went to Mandalay Bay on Tuesday with my buddy Shawn. He's my best friend in Vegas. He’s the guy that started Scalp Med. You’ve all seen my infomercial. We went to lunch at Burger Bar, but ended up staying until like 9 p.m. There were hotties everywhere! It was a fun time.



Wednesday was get-ready day. I’m going to be on the road for almost three weeks with Brainerd, Reading and Indy testing, so I did laundry and packed that day. I was pretty excited to sign autographs at the Bullring at LVMS. That’s the paved oval for late models and sprint cars and legends. John Force also was there. I was blown away. I got there and there was a big line of folks waiting on us. I thought all these people were there to see John Force, but a lot said they were there to see me being I’m from Las Vegas. It was really cool to be there. I learned a lot by watching John and how he interacts with the fans. It just amazes me how someone so famous has no ego. He made me feel welcome and we very complimentary of me the entire time. He’s an awesome person. He’ll always be a hero of mine.



It’s always exciting to come to BIR The people are different here. What I mean is that they have really good time. They party hard and love their drag racing. They’re really hospitable folks. I’ve already gotten a ton of offers to come to “the Zoo.” I’ll make an appearance, but I stay focused on racing and don’t stay out late. My mom says I need to loosen up a little bit. Maybe this weekend I will. We had a strong race here last August and barley lost to Tony Schumacher in the semis. I don’t see any reason that we shouldn’t be able to continue what we’ve been doing. We want to seal the No. 1 spot in the Countdown. We need to leave here with a 139-point lead. That’s our plan.