Only a couple of races left now in the season. It is hard to believe that the year has gone by so quickly! After our win in Memphis, we traveled over to Richmond for the NHRA Virginia Nationals. On our first qualifier we did just what we wanted to and made a nice, safe A to B, 4.22 run, which gave the boys something to tune from. On the second qualifier we let everybody know that we could run with the best as Jon “O” and Nicky tuned our DHL Toyota to a stunning 4.10. Only Ashley Force Hood managed to beat us, but we did end up in the No. 2 spot after Friday qualifying ended. Usually this means that you will stay in the top of the sheet after Saturday is done but some cool weather and great track conditions changed all that! We never managed to make it down the track on Saturday. Our car was running better than our 4.10 run but then it would just blow the tires off around 300 feet. Other teams were ripping off 4.0's like they were giving them away and we dropped down to the number 11 spot by the time qualifying ended Saturday night. That meant we had to run Ashley in the first round. She and her team were red hot as they had run a 4.14, 2- 4.09's and a 4.06 in qualifying.

Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you make your own luck is what I always say. On paper Ashley had the best car but because of our win the week before and our 4.10 on Friday night, they couldn't take us for granted like in the past. We both left the starting line about together but by about 300 feet both our cars started to smoke the tires. I was probably ready for it more than in the past because on Saturday it smoked the tires right about the same spot both times. As soon as our DHL Toyota started to spin, I lifted for bit and then stepped back on it. A bit is only a few tenths of a second but that's all you need when the track is as good as Richmond was. It hooked right back up and went straight to the finish line. Again I saw that now seemingly familiar win light come on and now we had won 5 rounds in a row! Not bad considering I didn't see one for almost 23 straight races earlier this year.

Second round, we had to race my buddy Del. My crew got the car turned around fast like always and we tuned the car up to run around a 4.10. We both staged and at the flash of yellow we were off. Unfortunately, our car didn't go too far before the engine just quit and Del sped off to a nice 4.12 for the win. Our guys poured over the car after that run to see if they could figure out went wrong. In the end it looks like they figured it out and hopefully it won't happen again. I stayed for the final and watched Del take out Timmy. It was a great race and I was more nervous watching the final than I was being in it the week before! It was great to see Del win and we even took a picture later of us celebrating. It's a bit blurry but we both are holding up our Wallys.

Last Tuesday I dropped by the Worsham's shop to do a little bowling with Chuck and his buddies. It had been a couple of months since I was last there and it is always a fun time. I found out that the Storm bowling ball sales manager, Jim Callahan, was bringing with him one of the best women bowlers in the world, Liz Johnson, to bowl with us. Now to me that was pretty exciting because when you get the chance to play any sport with one of the best in the world, that's a pretty special privilege. We all got warmed up before she got there and I actually bowled over 180 the first game, which was good for me but a little off the 210-plus games Chuck and a few of his friends bowled. Liz showed up and you could tell right away how good she was. As the game went on she got better and almost never missed getting strikes in the latter frames. We bowled for a few hours and finally Chuck Worsham beat her by a pin, 258 to 257. She probably averaged 240 and we all had a great time. We even got her into NHRA drag racing a bit and she had Jim take a picture of her and I together. Oh yeah, I let Eddie win a few times to stop him from complaining about what I wrote in my blog the last time we bowled…haha.

Yesterday Del and I played in a golf tournament together with a couple of his buddies. It is pretty nice to live in SoCal where it is almost always sunny and warm. It must have been over 80 yesterday and beautiful. We didn't win the tournament or win any prizes but it was a nice, relaxing way to spend the day. Vegas is in a few days and after racing four weekends in a row these last two and a half weeks off have seemed like an eternity. Our entire Kalitta/DHL team is ready to get back at it and in my opinion we have as good a chance as any to win in Vegas.

Don't forget to check those odds!