Hey everyone. Sorry for the delay on the blog. It’s been very busy between racing and doing a lot of Caterpillar appearances and that’s a great thing for me and our race team. A year ago we were racing “The Great White” and had no sponsor appearances, so it’s good to be busy for the yellow and black.

The week after Topeka was probably the busiest of my life. I flew to Chicago on Monday after the Topeka race and drove to Peoria, Ill. CAT is headquartered in Peoria. I had three days of appearances and meetings at different Caterpillar facilities. It started early on Tuesday morning around 7 a.m. at the Mossville engine plant. Our show car was on display thanks to my buddy Tommy Douglas. Early that morning we toured the facility at Mossville. I have toured a lot of Caterpillar facilities, but I wanted to focus on my favorite part of the plant and that was the robotics. I was mesmerized watching these machines. It was like watching a Sci-Fi movie. It was like Terminator becomes a reality.

The rest of the day we spent signing autographs and meeting all the employees that work at the Mossville plant. It also was the debut of the Caterpillar die cast. They only had 45 of them and they want fast. The die cast of the 2008 car is now for sale at the Nitro Mall at the NHRA races. We also went through an entire box of hand out cards and someone asked if my hand gets tired. It’s not my hand, but more mentally tiring. Towards the end of the day, I sometimes forget how to spell people’s names. Later that night, we had our team dinner at Pat Lavery’s house. Pat’s department has the responsibility for the technician recruiting and heads-up the NHRA sponsorship team for Caterpillar. Stan Deatherage and Todd “the master bass fishermen” Goins are our other contacts at Caterpillar that we deal with on a regular basis.

It was great that Pat and his family opened there doors to our race team. It shows the importance of the relationship between Caterpillar and the David Powers race team. We had a great barbeque and we all played various games from basketball to football to ladderball to Wii. Pat’s son, Matthew, has a very cool drawing of our dragster on the wall in his bedroom. The entire team took a picture in Matthew’s room. His other son, Brandon, has a heighth chart in his room. He’s like 14-years-old and had me mark my height on the wall. He’s not as tall as me yet, but in a year or so, he’ll blow by me, which isn’t saying much. LOL I like being short!

Oops, timeout on the blog. Our assistant crew chief Mike Guger just said I need to come adjust the throttle pedal and start the car. It’s Friday afternoon at Englishtown, so let me take care of some racing duties and I’ll be back. I do love racing at E-Town. It’s such a historic track and one of our major events. We were lucky enough to win here two years ago and that’s the plan this weekend. You want to win at tracks like Pomona, Englishtown and Gainesville.

Wednesday was another early start. Todd Goins had me up early and I had to give a speech to the employees at CAT’s Tech Center about our NHRA racing program and how I got started in racing. It ended up being a 45-minute speech. I felt like a politician. Later that day, we had our race car on display and we did a start-up for all the folks at the Tech Center. Starting the car is always a big hit. That got everyone energized for the big weekend at Joliet. After that, my guys headed North to Joliet for the race at Route 66 Raceway.

I stayed in Peoria for another tour and meetings on Thursday. Caterpillar was entertaining the big brass from NHRA like Tom Compton and his team. David Powers flew into town early and we toured the foundry and SS where they make the big D6 to D11 tractors. We had lunch with Caterpillar’s executive team in Peoria. We had lunch with Doug Oberhelman and Jim Parker and after that I left and drove to Joliet to meet my guys for our traditional Thursday team dinner. We think its good karma to eat together on Thursday nights before the race. We ate at a Mexican joint since that worked out well for us in St. Louis.

Finally it was time to race. It felt like the Finals at Pomona last November with the pressure. We knew there would be more than 3,000 CAT employees along with Jim Parker and a group of CAT execs at the track during the weekend. Just like the Finals, we struggled in qualifying. Up to the last session we were on the verge of not making the show and when the rain was closing in on Saturday evening it was making us nervous. I think the one thing that we need to improve on is doing well under pressure. We need to relax and just have fun. On our final qualifying pass, Luigi Novelli left before the tree was activated and guaranteed that we’d make the show. I was 16th at the time and then it started to rain. To be honest with you, I was hoping that it would continue to rain so I would stay 16th because the Army team was No. 1. We ran 4.60 and finished 10th in the field. It was a long day with the rain and the waiting and tornado warnings. Growing up in tornado alley, I’m used to that kind of weather, but it was wild to see how people reacted. We want to thank all the 3,000 Caterpillar employees who came out to Route 66 Raceway to cheer us on. The support is not only amazing, but overwhelming. Thanks again!

I was confident about race day, but the first round is always the toughest. We were matched up against Doug Kalitta and I consider him the best. We both had the same lights and ran nearly identical. Doug ran third quick of the round and lost. It shows you how good and lucky you need to be to win races. The second round we ran T.J. Zizzo and he’s the local favorite. I’m glad we didn’t take him lightly. T.J. made a great run, but the CAT car won 4.60 to 4.64. Next it was Morgan Lucas, who beat us at the last race at Topeka a week earlier and J.R. beat us at Bristol, so we were due to beat them. After we won, it was cool because all the fans want to see us ran the Army car. Like I said on TV, we had nothing for them. That .49 run was awesome and Tony won his 45th race. Of those 45, 38 have come with Alan Johnson calling the shots. A.J. is the best Top Fuel tuner ever. He told Rob Flynn he had to make up for St. Louis. We couldn’t complain though. It was our third final round in five races at Joliet and we moved to fifth in the points.

They’re calling me back to the car, but I’ll update the blog in a few days. I have a long drive on Monday, so we’ll do something on the way to the Matco Toolbox plant in New York. Have a good weekend and thanks to all the fans for brining me the light sabers.