Hey there, blog fans! LP here, coming at you from the motor home. This time, I’m riding shotgun with Big Brad behind the wheel. It has been a busy week for the Snap-on team, and there are lots of things to blog about.

First off, let me fill you in on the goings on in Brainerd. On the racing front, the weekend was less than stellar. We had really hoped to make a good jump in the points, but things didn’t turn out our way. It wasn’t all bad, though, and we managed to make quite a few new friends. One of them was a fine lady named Brandy. Miss Brandy befriended a few of the guys one evening, and came by to meet the rest of the crew on Sunday.

Before I continue with the story, let me fill you in on a little tidbit about most of us on the Snap-on team. We love dogs. Most of us even have them, but we don’t get to see them as much as we like. My own little Bandit lives with her Granny back in Kentucky, Shannon’s girl Diamond stays with a babysitter while he is on the road, and the other Snap-on puppies are scattered across the country.

Now back to the story. Brandy, pictured here with Brissette, the Kid and Big Ed, is quite the dog. She jumped into the golf cart like she belonged there, and even did a few tricks for us. Her owner would put a dog biscuit on her nose, and she would just sit there with it balancing on her nose until he gave her the sign. Then she’d move real fast, catch the biscuit, and proceed to eat every single crumb. How cool is that! She also has her very own hat and pair of glasses that she likes to wear (or at least she will do it for a treat!), and we added a Dougzilla hat to her collection. I took several pictures, one with her shaking hands (paws?), a few of the hat collection, and even a cool one of her with the dog biscuit on her nose. They won’t all fit on the blog, so check out www.dougherbertracing.com to see the rest of Brandy’s pictures. They will be up very soon. She is without a doubt one of the coolest canines out there, and we already can’t wait to see her again out there next year!

Bright and early Monday morning (5 a.m. to be exact), we pulled out of Brainerd and headed for Kenosha, Wis., the home of Snap-on Tools. Snap-on had a big shindig for all their employees on Tuesday afternoon, and invited us and Steve Johnson to be a part of the festivities. What a great time! We fired up the dragster a couple times, once with Alicia Smales (pictured) and once with Nick Pinchuk (pictured with Doug and Marty Ellen) taking a turn in Doug’s seat. We got to see our buddy Carl, and spend time with Alicia, Nick, Marty and Tom Ward. The guys got to answer questions about the car for people, and I’m pretty sure they even got to ask a question or two about tools.

Snap-on also had several different activities going on to raise money for Junior Achievement, and we all participated in one called Wheel of Fortune. For this one, you bought a ticket, got to spin a wheel, and win a prize. Different colors on the wheel equated to different types of prizes! We spun that wheel so many times, we might have to get another truck just to carry all of our Snap-on goodies back to North Carolina. They had everything, from Snap-on glasses and poker sets to brand new screwdriver sets. If you are related to a member of the Snap-on team, I might have ruined either your birthday or your Christmas. Either way, the stuff is really cool, and all the money raised went to a great cause!

Shannon and Mike got into a bit of a bidding war in the silent auction. Some really nice miniature tool boxes were up for bid, and every time I turned around, one of them was walking down there to see if the other one had upped the ante. Shannon ended up wining the war….or maybe he is planning on giving one of them to Mike for his birthday? Well, we’ll see.

It was a great way to spend a Tuesday, and we would like to thank everyone at Snap-on for letting us be a part of their event. It’s always fun to do this sort of thing. It gave the guys a chance to talk to everyone, and gave us the chance to meet lots of people that are out there rooting for us every weekend. We appreciate it!

With Reading coming up this weekend, we have one last chance to make the Countdown. All we need is a bunch of hard work and a little luck. After spending the week with these guys, I know they and Doug are going to do everything they can to make sure it happens.

I’ll have more for you from Pennsylvania. Until then, be good,

LP