I’ve taken a longer break from the blog than I thought. Since it’s raining Friday afternoon at Phoenix, it’s a perfect time to update for the NHRA.com readers.

Pomona was the usual Pomona for us. I can’t figure that place out. I need to find some sort of a lucky mojo for that track. After Pomona, I spent the week in Vegas with not a lot going on. The highlight was going to my usual hangout at The Palms. I took some friends from Arkansas, Justin Acri and his group, to The Playboy Club. Justin is a radio host on 103.7 The Buzz in Little Rock. It went great because there were 10 of us and a lot of them had never been to Las Vegas. Two of them were from Australia. They were blown away and had a great time. From there, we went to Moon, a nightclub on top of The Palms. The roof opens up and you looking at the sky some 70 stories high.

Some of you may know, but I’m a big NASCAR fan. Watching NASCAR is one of my favorite pastimes cause I can lay on the couch, watch the race and take naps. I was cheering for Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch. I like those guys. I like Stewart’s personality and I like Busch’s driving style and he’s from Vegas. I like the CoT and it was a good race, especially at the end. The strategy was fun to watch. I was supposed to go to WWE at Thomas & Mack, but I ended up missing out.

I traveled to Phoenix on Monday. I had to get here early. We had a big CAT appearance at the Tinaja Hills Training facility near Tucson. The majority of the CAT dealers had a training session going on there. We brought our truck, trailer and race car to the event for a display. Dick and Neal from my crew came in early and Stan Deatherage from CAT corporate came to Tinaja. A lot of the people with the dealers never followed drag racing, but do now that CAT is a major sponsor. We had to answer a lot of questions about our sport and what we drag racers do.

When we went to Peoria in December, we got to meet the trainers and they gave us the opportunity to drive some of the mining equipment while at Tinaja Hills. I got to use a 994, CAT’s largest wheel loader, and drive the 793, which is one of the biggest dump trucks that CAT makes. It’s actually the second largest behind the 797. The tires are 13 feet high. You can see Neal and Dick next to the tires. It’s like driving from the second story of your house. I could run over Tony Schumacher’s dragster and not even know it. LOL! I have attached some cool photos from our Tinaja Hills event.

Two funny things happened on Tuesday at Tinaja. The trainers gave Neal a new nickname, Snuggles. Then, Dick dropped his cell phone and we couldn’t find the phone and later on we found out that Neal, or Snuggles, drove over the phone in the 994.

Wednesday, we went to the press conference downtown. I was bummed because Kobe and Phil came into Morton’s where the presser was happening, but I didn’t get to see them. The NBA stole our thunder or should we say Shaq did. The local TV guys felt Shaq’s Suns debut was more important that our drag race. Oh well. Last night, I signed autographs at Gila River Casino and I got to sit next to my favorite Top Fuel driver, Hillary Will. Melanie and Alan Bradshaw also were there. It was a private setup for the casino VIPs.

Now it’s raining and I’m talking to my good friend Eileen in the lounge. There’s a lot of pressure on us here because we’ve done so well here. We want to continue to do well and win and make it four straight wins at Phoenix. Nothing less than a win will satisfy us at Phoenix. 19 straight round wins would be pretty cool. Wish us good luck!

That’s all for now.