It’s been a few weeks and nothing’s really changed. I’m still Cold Rod Fuller. Maybe even colder. LOL. Like that song says: What’s hotter than hot? Ice cold. Richmond was a tough weekend. The Virginia race didn’t go as planned; another difficult weekend for us. We ran our best 1,000-foot time on Saturday during qualifying, 3.823. We found out that Rob Flynn and Mike Guger were leaving our team and losing on a holeshot made things even tougher. We haven’t lost on a holeshot since July ’06 or 52 races. That just makes me better and hungrier to go out and win at Vegas. I’m a believer that when it rains it pours, but you also can take a rainy day and make it a brighter, sunny day. Our team is fine and we’re moving forward with our plans for the 2009 season.

Rob and I had a great run. I won all seven of my Top Fuel races with him. We almost won the championship last season. I got to know him very well and his family. He’s a great husband, father and crew chief. This business can be tough sometimes and people move on. Whoever our next crew chief will be, we’ll work well together too. I wish Rob and Mike all the best at Bernstein’s expect when they’re racing the CAT car. LOL They don’t have to travel to far because the KBR race shop is right next door to our David Powers shop in Brownsburg.

After Richmond, I flew to Gulfport, Miss., for an appearance with Puckett Machinery. When I got to Gulfport, the put me up in the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino right on the water. That area was devastated by Katrina and it’s amazing how it’s bounced back. I got in Tuesday night and checked into my room and they had me on the 12th floor in a suite. The place was huge. I’ve never seen a hotel room like it. It was amazing. It has six flat screen TVs and even a TV in the bathroom. It had a cool patio and I sat on the patio and had a glass of wine and watch the sunset. It was very cool. Here is a picture of the shower with six shower heads that overlooked the Gulf of Mexico.

Later that night I met some of the folks from Puckett and their customers at Ruth’s Chris for dinner. We had a private room and enjoyed a great dinner. They wanted to hear racing/Hot Rod stories and the top two stories were about my troll in the dragster and about the Lamborghini fire. John Chesney from Puckett took great care of us. After dinner, I want to the room and watched the Red Sox lose to the Rays. I was cheering for the Sox since we sat next to Theo Epstein at the game in Seattle in July. They’ve come back from 3-1 and 3-0 deficits before and I think they can come back. Game 5 is tonight, so we’ll see.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up to see the sunrise over the Gulf and then had a quick workout and went to Puckett’s Gulfport Rental Store for a customer appreciate event. Tommy Douglass was there with our CAT show car on display. There were more than 500 people there and it was a great event. I want to thank John and everyone at Puckett for the great hospitality.

I’m going to do my next blog on a cool story about my burned down Lamborghini. I hope you all have a good weekend. I’m going to kick back and relax. This is a nice time of year in Vegas so I’m going to do some stuff outside around the house, watch football and pump some iron. I have to get ready for the softball game before Pomona. We’re going to practice on Oct. 30 before the Vegas race and I’m excited to hit the ball again. Take care.