Hey there NHRA Fans! It’s been a while, and I’ve had a lot of great things going on to tell you about.

I have been taking Jessie to ride her horse a lot lately, and she has really been doing well. She’ll be ready to go to a horse show soon. The horse she has been riding for the past couple months is named Dicy. A few weeks back, Ginger and I took a fun day trip to Boone, N.C., and visited Blowing Rock and Mystery Hill. That was a lot of fun! Something else cool that happened recently is that the city of Lincolnton gave me a Milestone Achievement Award. I moved my Doug Herbert Performance and race shop to Lincolnton in 1991 then went to Cherryville for 12 years before moving back to Lincolnton, so the city gave me an award for five years in our new location.

Two weekends ago, I was up in Bristol for the NASCAR races. The team took the car up on Friday and had it on display in the hospitality area for all of the fans to check it out. We also had a table set up for B.R.A.K.E.S. so we could talk with fans about the organization and the importance of safe driving. On Saturday, I was supposed to race in a late model car for a celebrity amateur race at the speedway. When we were practicing on Saturday afternoon, Greg Anderson hit the wall right in front of me, and when I swerved to miss him, I went into the wall. I think I was doing pretty good until then. So the late model car I was driving was messed up pretty bad, and I had to miss the heat race later in the day. I was looking forward to racing my buddy and land speed partner Ray Evernham, but we still had a lot of fun.

On Sunday morning, we took the dragster inside the track to the frontstretch, and during the pre-race ceremony, right before driver introductions, we started it up in front of 160,000 screaming NASCAR fans. I asked my buddy Michael Waltrip to sit in the car while we started it, and he thought that was pretty exciting. We hit the throttle a few times, and the crowd went crazy! They loved it. Many of them said they are now fans and will be at the Bristol NHRA race in May.

As usual, we have a lot of awesome stuff going on with B.R.A.K.E.S. right now. We held a driving school last Saturday at zMax Dragway. Even though it was raining, we still had a great turn out. What usually happens with our driving schools is that the parents drag their teen to the track in the morning, but by the end of the four-hour session, the teen doesn’t want to leave. We’ve had a lot of teens send us e-mails telling us how much the school helped them or send in stories about how they avoided an accident because of the school. That makes it all worthwhile. We definitely feel like we’re making a difference by putting these teens behind the wheel and giving them the hands-on experience they need. The seven Charlotte dates for the school are nearly sold out! We’re hoping to announce more locations soon, check out www.putonthebrakes.org for more information.

On Monday night we had a B.R.A.K.E.S. Comedy Night. It was a great night because we were able to raise a lot of money for B.R.A.K.E.S. NASCAR driver Ricky Rudd came out to support us, and my buddy Andre Bauer, the Lt. Gov. of South Carolina, was there. He is a good friend of B.R.A.K.E.S. Killer Beaz, who you may recognize from the John Boy and Billy Show, was the featured comedian, and he was hilarious. He lost both of his parents in a car accident in 2005. He is close to our cause and what we’re trying to achieve so he donated his time to be there Monday for the show. It was a great night, and all the proceeds will go straight towards our driving schools!

I have been working on trying to get back out to the races. I think we have found some support for Atlanta and possibly a few other races, but we still want to put together something for the rest of the season. It will be nice to be back at the dragstrip. I’ve been staying really busy with B.R.A.K.E.S., my parts business, and the land speed car, but I still love drag racing, and I can’t wait to get back out there.

Always a lot of stuff going on with us, so I’ll be back soon with another update!

Until then,
Doug