Well, it's been a while since I last blogged so let's get back up to speed. Before the Brainerd race our DHL Toyota Funny Car team had a display to do at Goodson Tools. I had never been there before but was familiar with their vast supply of engine building supplies. Once I was there I was very impressed with the whole operation, the friendliness of the employees and the incredible amount of inventory on hand. If you are building an engine or just want to check out the cool picture of one of our fuel motors on the cover of their catalogue, just go to http://www.goodson.com/.
The display that we did also featured a lot of show and race cars as well as an Eliminator boat and Tim Wilkerson’s car. After the display, Dave from Goodson tools was nice enough to take us out on the Mississippi River in his little 30-foot boat (sarcasm). I had no idea that Minnesota was so beautiful and from a couple of the pics I took from the boat you can see why. We also visited this little floating bar. It was located right next to the dam and set of locks that they have there, hence the cool name: The Dam Bar and Grille. I even got the T shirt.
Next was the event in lovely Brainerd, Minn. We struggled again on our first two qualifiers but then managed to make a nice 4.24 run on Saturday. That set us up with Tony P. in the first round. I managed to get a little jump on him at the starting line but then he began to just pull by us at the finish line. The good news was that our DHL Toyota made a respectable lap and had Tony had any type of problem, we would have been right there.
I got a little surprise on Sunday after the race when my buddy Del called asking if I wanted to ride back with him and A.J. Anytime you get the chance to fly private that is a good thing. We got back late Sunday night and made the drive from Santa Maria back home. Wednesday, I drove back up to Santa Maria for a little golf match with Alan. I ended up playing in a fivesome with Alan, his buddy Steve and me taking on the other two. I had a great start birdying the first two holes. On the back nine, A.J. and I both shot one over par, and we both ended up carding mid-70 rounds and collecting some well-earned money from the other players. Thursday we made the flight to Reading, Pa.
Our luck changing weekend started on Friday. With doom and gloom weather reports, the weather actually held off long enough to get a run in. We smoked the tires almost instantly and ran a 12-second run. While that doesn't sound too lucky, there were actually 17 cars there and Ron Capps only managed a 15-second run. With the threat of rain all day Saturday at least we were in the field. The second bit of luck came on Saturday. Our DHL Toyota was the first car to make a run. We were just trying to go A-B and it left the starting line fine. However at about 250’ it blew the tires off. It caught me by surprise and I ended pedaling the car to a 5.01. I was pretty worried as there were a few cars behind us that could bump us out. The first couple did and then Gary Densham, who was driving Terry Haddock’s Funny Car got shut off after the burnout. This meant that if it rained out the last session, we were in for sure. Of course as you all know it did rain out and we ended up in the 16th spot with a date with the No. 1 qualifier, Ashley Force Hood.
Now for those of you that don’t know this little piece of trivia, I was actually the person that Ashley Force got her first ever professional win driving a Funny Car against. I was driving the blue CSK car at the Gatornationals in 2007. We had qualified third I believe and had to run her first round. I got about a four- or five-hundredths advantage on her out of the gate, but then just past the Tree it smoked the tires for no apparent reason. She made a nice lap and there you go, Jeff Arend, now forever the answer to the trivia question, “Who did Ashley Force get her first ever round win against?”
So anyway, I am looking forward to racing her as I feel there is a little redemption coming my way and hey, so far the luck has been good, at least in my eyes. First round is here and at the Tree Ashley has a great .070 light to my .078. As we race down the track I see her put about a car length on me but then after half track we start pulling on her. Then our car starts spinning hard and putting out cylinders. It was close, but on the radio Andy tells me that we just lost another close one. Now I don’t know if the NHRA Stats Guy keeps any stats on who has lost the most number of close races but if he does, I know my name is at the top of the list!
I get back to the lounge and start putting my stuff away and sulking a bit ‘cause we lost first round again. About 10 minutes later I hear all this hooting and hollering. Everybody is high fiving and they are thrashing on the car. I am like, 'What’s going on?" They then tell me that we won. I said “Really, was I imagining her beating me to the finish line?”, and that’s when they told me that she got DQ’d for being too light at the scales. I couldn't believe it, the luck continued and we now had our first round-win for Connie and our DHL team. The guys got the car turned around in record time and we were ready. Unfortunately the track was not, as some water was seeping up through the track just past the finish line. I guess the luck gods wanted me to enjoy that round-win for a little longer! Next we had to race John Force and I knew he would be looking for a little revenge against me. I took a little starting line advantage on John, but his 4.29 was a little too quick for our 4.39. All in all it was a good weekend for us.
Later that day Connie came in and said he wanted to test in Indy on Wednesday. So the guys loaded everything up to go back to the shop, service the car and then drive over to Indy. I hung around with Del and we watched A.J. and Larry win again in Top Fuel. Alan told us a couple of weeks ago that he has about got a handle on the Top Fuel car and to watch out at Brainerd. He was right and I think everybody better watch out for the rest of the year! We flew back to Indy, and now I am sitting in the hotel downtown writing this blog.
The Indy race is coming up in a week and a half. Hopefully our test session goes well and we can kick some butt and win some more rounds at Indy!
Cya there.