I will actually start with Friday first. NHRA had contacted our PR guy, Todd, to see if I was interested in being the keynote speaker at a local school called Shull Elementary for their annual walk a thon. It sounded like fun so I said yes. I ended up taking my wife, Windy, and daughter, Jenna, and while you can’t really tell from the picture, there were over 550 school kids there. The main focus was how important an education is and to be drug free. I talked for about 10 minutes and the kids were great. When I asked them what they were going to say if somebody ever offered them drugs, they yelled back “NO!” It was almost louder than a Grubby warm up! I left them signed handout cards for all the classrooms that said “Do your homework, and say NO to drugs!” The teachers thought that was pretty cool. I think it was cool that all the teachers and parents took the time to put this on and I was glad to be a part of it.

Well, I still had to work on Saturday. I have worked for a company called Gale Banks Engineering or Banks Power on and off since 2001. We sell aftermarket gas and diesel performance and mileage upgrades for anything from pick up trucks to motor homes. Anyways, every time I get a good "ride" I leave, but when things don't pan out or come to an end, Gale and Colin Banks have always been there to let me have my old job back! So when they ask you to work on a weekend, it's hard to say no. I worked at the RVIA show at the Pomona Fairgrounds. It is one of the biggest RV, trailer, motor home shows and all the new stuff is there. A company called Country Coach, who are one of the high end motor home manufacturer's, had a great display there. The newest deal they had was a patio, complete with Astroturf that folds down from one of the slides. I wish I had taken a picture of it, but it was probably 12 feet wide and came out a good 4-5 feet, enough to sit quite a few people on about 3 feet off the ground. There were glass sliding doors to get back into the coach. And when it all folded up back into the side of the coach, you couldn't even tell. Looked like a nice place to enjoy a good cigar and a frosty beverage. At least that's what I envisioned myself doing anyways!

After the show we hung out with our neighbors, the Tiddles, and had a great dinner. They have a daughter that is about the same age as ours and they play really well together. That enables the wives to have a little red wine and talk, while Greg and I retire outside to, big surprise, enjoy a good cigar and a few frosty beverages. "Good times" as we always like to say. Here's a pic of their daughter Megan and our daughter Jenna hamming it up.

Sunday morning, as I often do on an off weekend, I was up just after 6 a.m. and on the way to South Hills Country Club to play golf with the boys. We are usually the first group to tee off on the weekends and we can usually play all 18 holes in well under 3 hours. Walking! It's not much fun to get up that early, but it's great to play a round of golf on the weekend that quickly. There is never anybody in front of us so the pace of play is great. As a matter of fact, it is a pretty good workout as well as our course is pretty hilly, we carry our clubs and we walk really fast. I had only played a couple of times in the last six weeks, so my score wasn't the greatest, but I did have three birdies. After golf, I went back home and watched a little TV and practiced my poker skills online. I am playing in a Texas Hold’ em tournament with some other drivers on the Wednesday night of Vegas, so I want to have at least a clue of what I am doing. I only lost $10 grand in about 3 hours! I am sure that Windy was glad that it was only play money!!

Later Sunday we had plans to go out for dinner at one of my favorite steak houses. It is called Trabuco Oaks Steakhouse and it is in the middle of nowhere, which is hard to do in Southern California. It islocated in Trabuco Canyon, but it there is nothing around it but trees and hills. There are actually a few trees that grow inside the restaurant and up through the roof! Imagine Ruth's Chris quality steaks in an old log cabin atmosphere. There were 10 of us that all went out for dinner.

In the pic of the "boys" from left to right is Matthew who is Todd Paton's son. Todd Paton is a fellow Canadian who I have known for probably over 20 years. The Patons used to help me out quite a bit when I had my mid 6-second bracket car in Canada. It was basically an Alcohol Funny Car with a 48 Fiat Topolino body. Todd has driven and been successful in everything from Alcohol Funny Cars to Nitro Top Fuel and Funny Cars. As a matter of fact, his Dad Barry and their Paton family Top Fuel car had just won the IHRA national event in Rockingham a few hours earlier! Todd is now one of the big guys at Racepak and can be seen at many NHRA national events working with the teams to troubleshoot and repair any problems that they may have. Next to me is Mike Walters. If he looks familiar, you must watch the TMZ TV show. Mike has been with TMZ since it basically started as a website. With the imagination of Harvey Levin, they were able to turn it from a very successful website into a very successful TV show. Mike is involved with getting and writing a lot of the news stories that you see on the show. He is pretty "hooked up" with all the celebs so he is fun to hang out with. Anybody who gets calls from Paris Hilton is okay with me. If you haven't watched that show before it is worth a look. Next is my good buddy Tony Reding. Tony and I have known each other for over 12 years and our families have become very good friends. His daughter, Kristina, just got married to TMZ Mike a few weeks ago. I was pretty bummed that I had to miss the wedding but we were racing in Memphis that weekend. That's probably one of the few things that suck about racing. You miss out on a lot of family and friend functions, but that's the way it is when you race. Anyways, Tony is a real go getter. As well as being a major real estate agent for Tarbell, he has helped me put a few sponsorship deals together. We are currently working on some pretty big associate stuff, so we'll just have to wait and see how that plays out. One thing for sure, Tony never gives up! We had a great dinner and lots of fun and ended up back at Tony's place. Guess where he and I ended up, and what we did? If a good cigar and frosty beverage came to mind than you have been reading pretty well so far!

Oh well, Monday morning and I am back at my "day job" at Banks Power. I am really looking forward to racing in Vegas. Our car is running good and some round wins are right around the corner. I want to finish off by thanking everybody at Kalitta Motorsports for giving me the opportunity to honor Scott's legacy. To all the guys on the Funny Car team, Glenn, Andy, Rob, Chris, Rick, Chauncey, Steve, Jarred and George, thanks for all your hard work so far. I am looking forward to us playing spoiler at the last two races!

Jeff