While my buddy Wilber may be freezing, now that the Winternationals are gone it's back to sunny and 75-85 degrees again ... just the way it should be. Phoenix didn't go quite as planned for our DHL Toyota. We did get three solid laps in, but they were a little on the slow side. Now that we have our clutch management issues figured out, it's going to take the guys a few laps to get it dialed in. One thing I can say is that nobody works harder and puts in more time than our Kalitta Motorsports crew and crew chiefs. As we speak, they are working hard on a lot of things to get our car to run better. Mark my words, in the next race or two, we are going to have a "bad" hot rod! I can't wait and neither can the rest of the team.
 
This time of the year between Phoenix and Gainesville can really drag on. We all want to be out racing, but I'm sure as we get into the three and (gasp) four in a rows we'll be looking for that week off! My wife and took the time this week to join a gym. There are some great deals out there, so the timing was right. I had been running a few times a week for the last year, but maybe now it's time to take it to the next level ... let's face it, I am not getting any younger. I also got to do a little golfing this week with "DHL" Ray. We always have a good time and I think we found a nice Nicklaus designed course to play that's right about halfway between where we live. I am sure that we will find some more time to play this year, incase of course Ray's boss is reading this, in which case we'll have to call it a four hour business meeting; yeah that's it!
 
I also received this note from Andre Jackson at Toyota:
 
Greetings Everyone!

As you know...Toyota will be co-sponsoring 8 Full Throttle events this
season. They include the following locations:
Gainesville
Houston
Seattle
Sonoma
Indianapolis
Concord, NC
Las Vegas 2
Pomona 2

At these locations, we will have our "Toyota Pit Pass" interactive display in Nitro Alley. This display will have life-size "standees" of each Toyota sponsored driver for fans to take pics with, etc. Also, we will have a caricature artist sketching the cars for fans.
 
 If you haven't seen this display, you are missing out. I first saw it at Charlotte last year and it is pretty trick. Two levels, spiral staircases, and last year, Kenny Youngblood, the famous motorsports artist, was the one doing the caricatures! If you are going to one of these races make sure and drop by the display and get a picture taken with "Cardboard Jeff!" Or you could always come by the DHL/Kalitta trailer for a real pic .. haha.
 
That's about it for now. Cya at the races