Where has all the time gone? It's hard to believe that our season is over already, but I can already tell the off-season is going to fly by and before you know it, we will be testing. We have a lot of cool things going on at Kalitta Motorsports and when the time is right, I will let you know.

The NHRA Las Vegas Nationals started off with the NHRA Fan Fest Autograph session on Thursday night. This is the second year that I have done it and it is one of the best that we do all year. We all signed autographs for over two hours and the place was packed! It's nice to see the support from all the fans, and the "Freemont St. Experience" light show is awesome.
 
Friday did not go all that well for us as we smoked the tires on both runs. We came in Saturday bound and determined to make a nice, safe run. Unfortunately our car was still throwing us some curve balls and on Q3 it smoked the tires just before half track. Now we were going into the last qualifier not in the field for the second time in three races. Now to be fair, we did win one of those races, but as a team it's nice to be in earlier. Anyway, Jon O and Nicky got it right on the last lap and we laid down a great 4.16 to get into the show!
 
Sunday we had a meeting with Tony P and he was hungry to keep in the points battle. As a driver, you always get a little more pumped up when you race Tony because he is usually not going to give anything to you. Well, I was ready for him as I got almost a four-hundredths headstart on him. Unfortunately for our DHL Funny Car we hurt a piston and shot a spark plug out early in the run. Even with all those problems we still almost beat Tony as we ran a 4.33 to his 4.27 to lose by a lousy one hundredths of a second.

In between Vegas and Pomona, we decided to visit one of our friends for a little wine party. A couple of years ago, a couple of fans came up to me and said they had a nice bottle of wine for my wife Windy. I talked to them for a bit and said thanks and put the bottle of wine up in the lounge. A couple of weeks later I remembered the wine was still up there and told my wife about it. She asked what kind it was so I opened the wrapping paper and told her it said "Opus One." Well, she about freaked out... I guess a 1998 Opus 20th Anniversary wine is like a $300 bottle of wine. Don't blame me, I just drink Coors Light. And then of course like a typical male, I never even got their names! Luckily they did email me after I got the job at Kalitta's to congratulate me so thanks again to Mary Ann and Mario Bertolo!

Anyway, we had planned to drink that wine with some friends that are real wine connoisseurs and the day was finally here. We met Paula Baldwin back in the late '90s when I worked for Frank Hawley. Paula was married to the late Bobby Baldwin who not only did a lot of work around the Pomona Fairplex but also drove a Top Fuel car, and for that matter, also liked Coors Light. Paula is also the daughter of the "Golden Greek," Chris Karamesines. Paula and her friend Gary cooked us a great dinner to go along with the great wine. The Greek and I spent a lot of time "bench racing" and then later in the evening we watched the "Barbecuing the Bounty Hunter" DVD. It was nice to watch because my wife wasn't at Indy for the BBQ so she kind of got to relive it. The real funny part was that "the Greek" was there and actually on the stage but I think because of some fine Scotch didn't really remember any of it! He kept saying, "I can't believe I just said that." If you ever get a chance to see the DVD or just buy it, you'll know what I mean ... funny stuff!!
 
 

On to Pomona…I was really looking forward to this race as it is right around the corner from where we live. We started with a party for the Funny Car crew at my house on Wednesday night. I barbequed up about 10 pounds of seasoned tri tip and we had a great dinner and just shot the breeze till later on that night. It was nice to do something for the guys and let them relax and unwind a bit. I know how hard a job they have and the countless hours that go into preparing the car for a four-second run. I know every driver says this, but I firmly believe that my crew guys are the best in the sport.

The World Finals are a little weird as we only make one run on both Thursday and Friday afternoon. Our Thursday didn't go so well as after the car left, it was trying to drive all over the place. That, along with some tire shake caused us to lose that run. The next day, the track was great and we ran a little later. The track was too good though as we shook the tires about a hundred feet out. Now we were back to the old Saturday deal, not in the show yet. On Q3 we were probably on a 4.16 run when it just smoked the tires just before half track. I am pretty sure there was something wrong with that lane as only 2 cars out of 20 made a run good enough to qualify. Now we were back to the old "not in with one session left" deal again. The track looked great but with no real baseline runs to look at, we gave it our best shot. Unfortunately it was not quite good enough and we ended up missing the field by less than two hundredths of a second. Not quite the way we wanted to end the season but only our second DNQ in a year and a half.
 
On Sunday, even though we didn't qualify we got to celebrate two things. First of all it was mine and Windy’s 12th wedding anniversary (Sorry, I didn't win the Wally for you at Pomona!) and Lexi’s (daughter of one of my crew guys James Riola) birthday. We got a big cake for her and made the best of a not so fun day. We did get to root on my team mate Doug Kalitta who had a pretty good weekend narrowly losing to Larry Dixon in the second round. Later that night, Morgan Lucas had a little year end party in his pit complete with a live band and the infamous In N Out truck.
 
Monday, Windy and I drove down for the NHRA Awards banquet. This year it was hosted at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in West L.A. I would say that it had to be one of the best banquets that I had ever been to. There were hundreds of people and the awards part of the ceremony went smoothly and was over in just over two hours. If you have ever been to the ceremony, you know that some driver’s acceptance speeches can get close to that long! Like I said it was a great time, and we got to say "see you next year in Pomona" to a lot of good friends.
 
Next year is going to be here fast and we have a lot of new goals for our DHL Funny Car in 2010. And if you know what the name "Kalitta" is all about, you know we are going to do everything possible to achieve them!