Joel and Richard Hartman campaigned a Top Fuel car a few years ago under the name of Colhart Motorsports. Sponsored by Wix Filters they had moderate success with Starcher driving and later on Joel himself got behind the wheel for a few races until economics forced them to park the car.

Joel has been a friend of ours for many years and since he quit drag racing he went out and got himself an auctioneers license and now travels all over the southeast auctioning off everything from cars, livestock, machine parts and bankruptcy liquidations. Joel graciously offered to help us out at Rockin' for a cure and with his help we raised over $60,000.

Now let's get to answering some of the questions that you faithful blog readers have sent me.

A lot of you want to know what our plans are for the rest of the year and for 2009. Basically we probably won't be running Vegas or Pomona this year unless a miracle happens and a big check arrives soon. We do have some deals in the works for '09 and I'd give it a 75-25 chance that one of them will come through so that we can run the 24-race NHRA schedule next year. Since the IHRA has announced that they won't be running nitro Funny Cars next year we'll be able to devote our full attention to the NHRA circuit.

As you all know the economy is in the toilet, companies not only in drag racing, but all other forms of motorsports, are cutting back and sponsor money is hard to find. I've always said that if getting a sponsor was easy everyone would have one. I also know that if you're looking for a marketing partner you have to know somebody in the company that you're pitching that can write a check or someone who can get your proposal to the person that makes the decision. In our case we've got two friends of ours who work for companies that are in that position so hopefully something will happed for us soon, we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Another question we get a lot is how many crew guys does it take to race a nitro Funny Car?

Good question. Besides the driver and a crew chief (or co-crew chiefs) you need a bottom end guy, two guys, one on each side of the engine to pull the heads, a clutch guy with a helper, a tire and body guy, someone to service the blower and ignition and a utility guy to clean parts. Throw in a PR guy and in some cases a chef to cook for the team you're talking a minimum of eight and a maximum of 12 crew members that have to be on the road a lot. Most of the guys drive to the races and at least two or three members of the team have to have a Commercial Drivers License (CDL) so they can drive the transporter. We run two rigs down the road, the transporter and our crew van with a parts trailer to all the races and for the east coast races we also have one or two motorhomes tag along for hospitality and Gilby likes to stay at the track so he stays in our Concept Hauler that's built on a Freightliner (TEMCO'S biggest customer) chassis and we use our Monaco with a tent for hospitality.

One of my duties around here is to answer all the fan mail and autograph requests that Gilby gets and today was autograph day. Our deal is that Gilby will sign anything you send him; all you have to do is send along a stamped, self-addressed envelope to get it back to you. If you want one of our new handouts, not a problem, again just send us an SSAE and we'll get it right out to you. Our address is: Terminator Motorsports, 2250 Toomey Ave, Charlotte, NC 28203.

Anyway, Gilby spent some time this morning signing anything and everything that I put in front of him including one of those drag racing trading cards from 1991 that misidentified him as "Tom" Gilbertson. It's a collector item and Gilby always gets a kick out of seeing one of them.

Last but not least I've got to tell you guys a quick story about introducing a "newbie" to drag racing. The girl I'm dating now has never been to a drag race in her life. I told her that I worked for a race team and she thought that we went to the track with a car on an open trailer hauled around by a pickup truck. Well, she showed up at the track over the weekend and freaked out seeing our set-up. I gave her a set of ear plugs and had her stand in the front of our pit when we warmed the car up. I stood behind her and when Gilby whacked the throttle I gave her a little jab in the ribs and she jumped out of her skin and ran for her life with tears coming out of her eyes from the nitro fumes. It was pretty funny, we all got a big kick out of her reaction but she is now a drag racing fan for life and can't wait to get back to the track. I've created a monster and she now wants to ride the wheelie bar like Dani talked about in our last blog. The Cindy Lauper song is now running through my mind "Girls just want to have fun."

Type at you soon...

BB