Hey everyone, lots to blog about today, so let's get started.

As you probably know by now, we're going to be racing at the Carolinas Nationals next month. Rinnai Tankless Water Heaters will once again sponsor us for this race; they got their feet wet in drag racing with us last year and the response was overwhelming, so they made the decision to do it again. We've got just a little over a month to get ready, so the guys are really busy down at the race shop. I know what you're going to ask, who's going to work on the car, and who will be the crew chief?

Good questions. Most of our crew guys will be returning as Dan, Jep, Nick are all available. They'll join our car chief Kevin Fenstermaker, while the crew chief will be Ta Da! The one and only Paul Smith. Paul was Gilby's crew chief in 2000 when Gilby won his only NHRA national event in Houston that year from the 16th spot and maybe, just maybe, lightning will strike again.

We'll be at the test session at zMax on Sept. 9-10, then return the following weekend for the race, and Gilby is really excited about getting back on track. I'll keep you up to speed on the progress in upcoming blogs, stay tuned.

In other news, the Little League baseball team from the suburb of Charlotte named Coulwood where I live just won the state championships, and they're now going to the regional championship with a shot of going to the Little League World Series. The team is sponsored by the Sports Page, a local bar/restaurant in town, and they decided to have a car show Tuesday evening to raise some money for travel expenses for the team. They asked me if I could come up with a race car for display, so I called my buddy Bobby Baucom, who dragged out his brand new Pro Mod Camaro, and it was a big hit with all the attendees. Between a 50/50 raffle and a bunch of donated items for a silent auction, we raised over $3,500 for the kids. Let's just hope they get through the regional and get to go to Williamsport.

Now yesterday the folks from Lowes Motor Speedway and zMax Dragway had an event/press conference called "The Parade Of Power" right smack dab in the middle of downtown Charlotte. It included one of every type of vehicle that race at both the circle track and the dragway.

Drag racing was represented by Doug Herbert's Top Fuel dragster, Ron Capps' NAPA Funny Car, the Jegs Pro Stocker, and Matt Smith's Pro Stock Motorcycle, who all paraded their cars down the main drag ending up at the corner of Trade and Tryon, the epicenter of Charlotte.

Now here's where it gets crazy. After the press conference at about 12:30 p.m., when most of the office workers that work in the four skyscrapers that surround the square, were on the streets for lunch, Doug fired up his Top Fuel dragster. Now NASCAR driver Jeff Burton was offered the opportunity to sit in the seat but chickened out at the last minute, sissy...

So there's a big crowd around the car, Doug and his guys cackle it and the aroma of nitro starts drifting through the air, and I notice quite a few people backing up. Then Doug wacks the throttle. Now this is right in between two big office buildings, and the sound reverberates all over town. I saw one woman in high heels running for her life, so he wacks the throttle again, and I turn around and most everyone was heading for the hills. After he shut it down, the remaining brave souls gave Doug and his team a big cheer and the crowd returned to get a close up look what makes so much noise. It was a lot of fun, got a lot of ink for the upcoming races, and I'm so happy that City of Charlotte goes all-out for racing.

Well that's it for now, type at you soon.

BB