It’s 5:55 in the a.m. It’s a crisp and clear 27 degrees Fahrenheit in Ypsilanti, and there is a PR guy that can’t sleep. Yep, I’ve been up since 3:41. I woke up, rolled over and looked at that green and ominous glow from the corner of the room, and my eyelids have refused to cooperate with me ever since. I tried to count sheep. That led to counting various and probably all types of woodland creatures, large and small, but I knew it was all in vain as both the left and right hemispheres of my brain were in total and utter agreement that I was going to be awake.

So, as I sat up in bed wondering what I should do with this extra daily allotment of minutes, it dawned (pun intended) on me that I could get up and get over to the shop to see the guys and the trucks leave for Gainesville. And then, the greatest epiphany of the morning so far occurred – I can write a blog about it! Yes!

I got to the shop just in time. I scurried into my office and grabbed the camera and went outside to snap a few pics. Now, the first thing I met when I got out there was the hemming and hawing of the assembled rig wranglers who were certain that their weary eyes were deceiving them. “Could this be?!”, a couple of the gallery queried. Could it be that the PR guy was up this early…they wondered aloud and in jest. Then I heard form slightly off in the distance beneath the hum of generators and snickering – “Weasel, is that you? What are you doing here?” My buddy John Newton, who is the bottom-end specialist on the DHL Funny Car and who I also call “weasel” (neither one of us are sure why…we just started calling each other that one day and it stuck), was slightly taken aback by my mysterious presence but John, being ever astute, noticed the camera right away and said, “Ah ha, good time to get some different shots and write a blog, huh weasel?”. John doesn’t have a degree in marine engineering for nothing, folks! I affirmed his suspicions and went about the business of trying to take pictures in the dark.

As you can tell, it didn’t turn out to be a stellar display of shutterbugging, but I did want to make a point about the dedication of the crew guys at Kalitta Motorsports and throughout the world of NHRA professional drag racing. The drivers do interviews, but it’s the crew guys, and gals, that do the work. Think about it like this. These men and women diligently travel all over this great country of ours in often cramped vans, semis, and other support vehicles to hopefully, if their lucky, get a grand total of about 36 SECONDS per weekend of enjoyment watching what they built go blasting down the quarter-mile. That’s roughly 14.5 minutes PER YEAR that they get to see the fruits of their labor disappear very quickly from their starting line view. It takes a special kind of person to be that devoted to something that seems so fleeting.

So, the next time you’re at an event, take a second to say “thank you” to one of these fine men and women that make everything go and go very fast. Without them, you would not see race cars rolling down the highways and byways, and you most definitely would not see the exciting spectacle that is our sport on the drag strips across this land.

Alas, the nitro nest is temporarily empty again, but there’s racin’ to be done in G-ville! See you at the drags!

Todd has left the building.