Posted by: Doug Herbert, Herbert Performance/BRAKES
Hey NHRA fans! I’m glad to be back to catch you guys up on what I’ve been up to lately. We just got through racing at Memphis and it was a great weekend! I was really glad that we made it to the finals but of course the weekend would have been much better if we had beat Tony in the final round. Tony is tough. He is a good driver and he has a great team behind him with everyone over at Don Schumacher Racing.
Every time I have the opportunity to go to a final round it reminds me how much all of the teams respect each other. I had a lot of fellow drivers and team owners come up to me in the staging lanes and wish me good luck and we had a lot of other crew guys come over to our pit to congratulate us on going to the finals. It’s always the same with other teams, when you’re on the line against them it is serious business, but if they aren’t racing against you they’ll come out to support you and that’s something that is really neat about the NHRA.
Another neat thing about the race at Memphis is that Snap-on did a raffle to raise money for BRAKES. They donated a really nice tool box and fans were asked to donate $2 to BRAKES for each entry they made. At the end of the weekend I helped pull the winner and the Snap-on guys are going to deliver the box to the winner this week. They raised over $1,200 and that’s awesome. I really appreciate that Snap-on has helped us out so much with BRAKES; it means a lot to me. Snap-on has been with me for a long time, about 16 years, and I can’t thank them enough for being with me through all these years.
This weekend is an off-weekend and we’re having the first BRAKES Teen Pro-Active Driving School at zMax Dragway here in Charlotte. My buddy, Bob Lutz, is the President of the Mario Andretti and Jeff Gordon Racing School and he agreed to help us put on these driving schools. This first event is for members of the media and public officials but on Nov. 8th we’re having two more sessions and those are open to the public. There are 100 spots for each session and those will be at zMAX Dragway too. You can register on the BRAKES site at www.putonthebrakes.com.
These schools are really cool because the goal is to teach teenagers things that they wouldn’t typically learn in a driver’s ed class. There are three different courses – a wet skid pad, a brake and turn course and a distraction course. Each teenager gets in a car with an instructor and drives on the courses to learn how to handle a car if they get into a potentially dangerous situation. I’m really excited about this because we’re finally at a point with BRAKES where we can start giving back. We’ve raised a lot of money but now its time for us to start teaching teens about safer driving. We are planning on taking the schools nationwide next year so if you have an interest in having a BRAKES school in your town, let us know.
So after this weekend we’ll head to Richmond. Right now we’re seventh in the points. I think most of us Top Fuel drivers in the top 10 are realizing that we probably aren’t fighting for the championship but we’re fighting to be number two. The Snap-on team definitely has the potential to move up a few more positions over these last three races. I would really like to finish the season better than we ever have. I’m sure we can finish fifth or better this year. I think we can do it. I’m excited to see what happens and I hope you are too! Stay tuned!!