A couple of months ago we decided to add another member to our family. We had been talking about getting a dog for my daughter Jenna to play with. Now, I have never had a dog before so we did a lot of research into getting one that would fit our lifestyle. We ended up getting a Labradoodle. They are not too small nor too big, are hypoallergenic and best of all do not shed. My wife ended up flying up to Northern California to pick her up right after the Vegas race. I have to admit that she is really cute and Roxy definitely provides us with lots of entertainment. Here is a pic of her with my wife and daughter.

This offseason has been really flying by and the guys are hard at work back at the shop getting ready for next year. I can say that in all my years of driving that I have never been this excited to get the year started. We have made some big changes to our car that should put us right where we belong ... in the hunt for the championship. It’s been a while since a Kalitta Funny Car has done this, but Connie wants it to happen and he is giving us every part and resource necessary for our team to accomplish this goal. I just got back from the race shop back in Michigan and what I see going on is giving me and our team a lot of confidence. We had a nice Christmas party complete with a catered lunch in the race shop for everybody involved with Kalitta Motorsports and as you can see in the picture, there a lot of people that are involved in the day to day operations that make the Kalitta team so successful. In the next pic you can see the banner that our friends at Pro Cal sent us to commemorate our win from Memphis. It is a big honor for me and our team to have it hanging in the shop next to the ones that Scott won, and I hope to have quite a few more hanging there by the end of the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle season.

Of course for those of you that know me, I have been getting my fair share of golf in recently as well as going to the gym pretty well every day. I want to be in tip top shape come the beginning of the season because I know it is going to be a long one. I even got the old PS2 out with my NHRA Drag Racing game. It is a fun way to keep the competitive juices flowing, practice your reaction times and generally just have a good time. I even managed to run a 3.98 to the 1,000-foot mark. Hopefully our guys can duplicate that this year ... if they can, it going to be a lot of fun!

Take care, and if I don’t blog again before Christmas, I wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and a great New Year!