Hey, blog fans! LP here….What a day!! We won, and now we are on our way to fighting for the championship!

Let me back up just a little, and tell you about our day. First things first, bright and early this morning, Doug sent a message to all of us not lucky enough to still be at Maple Grove Raceway that the rain had finally stopped, and it looked like he would finally be racing!! I had already checked the radar for the dreaded green, and was pleasantly surprised to see little of it on my computer screen. His message confirmed what I had seen, and my nerves started to tingle.

As I made my way to the shop, the text messages and phone calls started rolling in. Is it today? Are we going? Tell Doug good luck. Set to start at 9:45. No, wait, they are going to run Sportsman first. Still working on the track. Whew…by the time I made the 45-minute drive, I was on pins and needles.

Allison and Donna had to come back to North Carolina yesterday, so they were at the shop, too. Allison’s husband Larry works for the Worsham camp, and he was still at the track. He called us when it was time to go. Now, picture this in your mind. There were about 15 of us gathered around Allison and her phone. She put Larry on speaker, and he was giving us the play by play. “Okay…he just rolled through the water box. There goes Fuller. Looks like it might be a side by side burnout. Okay…Doug is backing up first. Now Fuller. They are pulling into the lights…………”

And the call was dropped. I am not kidding you. As everyone in the entire building let out a giant “AAAHHH.!!!!!!” Allison tried to call him back. Of course, she got his voicemail because he was trying to call her back. Apparently, it took about 4.52 seconds for them to finally get it figured out, because all of sudden we heard Larry over the speaker: “DOUG WON!!!!”

As you can probably imagine, there were lots of hugs and jumping up and down, a tear or two (gosh, Donna…I love ya!), lots of woo-hoos, and I’m surprised the cops didn’t show up we were making so much noise! Brad, our team manager, called, screaming and shouting and letting us hear all the guys doing the same. We called Doug to leave him a message, and would you believe he answered? We told him congratulations and let him get back to posing for the cameras in winner’s circle.

Doug has already made it back home, and even came by the shop to see everyone and thank them for all their help. The guys packed everything up, and will be back in Lincolnton sometime tonight. We are planning a little get together tomorrow evening to celebrate our first win of the season and making the Countdown. I will finally get to see all the guys, and get their reactions to winning. I’ll be sure to pass along to everyone what they have to say.

Then it will be back to work. Now that we have our first Wally, I’m certain we want to keep them coming. I am convinced one from “The Big Go” would look pretty good right next to the one from the Toyo Tires NHRA Nationals….

Until next time, be good,

LP