This past weekend, while the rest of Team Kalitta were testing in Las Vegas, Doug Kalitta and the Mac Tools Top Fuel team made their annual pilgrimage to Mac Tools Tool Fair. This year the event was held at the lovely Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tenn. Ben Marshall, Bill Hochadel, Rachel Brunner (the newest addition at Kalitta Motorsports helping out with marketing and PR), Rahn Tobler, and I all joined Doug and the race crew in the capital of the Volunteer State for some fun, food, and lots and lots of Mac Tools.

I’ve been to a few tool fairs in my tenure here at Kalitta Motorsports, but this one in the Music City was probably the best and most fun. The highlight for our team came Saturday morning as Doug, Rahn, and the Mac crew were honored with a standing ovation of more than 3,000 Mac Tools Distributors as part of that morning’s kick-off meeting. It was really quite something to see and be part of. The Mac Distributors always go out of their way to make the race team feel special, but this was an exceptional poignant moment.

Now, my second favorite moment came that evening at the ‘70s-themed party and dinner. For those of you out there that have the misconception that Doug is a bit uptight, the accompanying photo of leisurely Doug and Mac Tools president John Aden speaks more than a 1,000 groovy words. Right on!

Doug was joined in the costume madness of the far out festivities by Phil “Buford T. Justice” Gutierrez, Jason “Snowman” Tirb, Clayton “Bandit” Musser, and Jennipher “Frog” Skaggs as the cast of that 1977 reel classic Smokey and the Bandit. Keep on truckin’, good buddies!

As you can see, a great time was had by all again this year. Special thanks to Tony and Roger and everyone at Mac Tools for all of your continuing support and another funky fair!