Greetings, blog fans! LP here, with hardly any fingernails left at all. As I’m sure you all know, we are one round away from clinching the last spot in the Countdown to Four, and we are still waiting to get it in. And waiting. And then waiting. And it keeps raining. And raining. And then raining.

I have spent the last few hours trying to come up with a good analogy for how I feel about this rain delay and what this round means to us, and for some reason, I keep coming up blank. I cannot compare this feeling to anything. Standing at the edge of a cliff, getting ready to jump? No, not quite right. Waiting to open presents on Christmas morning? No, still isn’t quite right. I heard someone at the shop compare it to his wife going into labor, and then having to wait for three days before his daughter actually came into the world. Not having any kiddos of my own, I never would have thought of this one, but it seems much closer than the two lame ones I managed to come up with.



I had to come back to North Carolina on Sunday, but have been in contact with Doug and the team on a pretty regular basis. In fact, as I sit here in front of my laptop, they are bombarding me with text messages and picture messages. The whole crew is having dinner at Emily’s, a restaurant just down the road from the track. Brad, our team manager extraordinaire, took this shot with his phone. From the pictures, it looks like a really nice place. I sure am hungry…

I told Doug I would be writing a blog, and he had this to say, “I’m just excited. I have a good feeling about the race. We didn’t get this close to fail. Failure is not an option! Just like NASA!”

How true! Failure is just not an option for us at this point. We have had our share of struggles this season, and having the opportunity to make Countdown means the world to us. Thanks to everyone who has called or emailed to wish Doug and everyone on the team their best. All the kind thoughts are greatly appreciated!

I’m off to spend another restless evening waiting to wake up and check the radar. I don’t think I can handle another day of looking at nothing but green. Hopefully our next blog entry will be about the celebration we had for winning the race and making the Countdown….

Until then, be good,

LP