It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged. Where to start? I guess with last weekend.

Seattle was another hot race. We just never got a handle of the tune-up and were disappointed with the first-round exit. It was the first time we didn’t get to the semi’s since Joliet in June. But, that’ll happen. That’s part of drag racing.

I woke up to a 7 a.m. phone call from Mike Green on Monday morning. He told me that we were going to test. Luckily, we hadn’t booked anything to do. I went to the track and tested while Mel hung out at the hotel. We made three runs and learned some stuff that we might try in Sonoma. Being a single-car team, we have to test. This was probably the only time that we tested and Force’s teams weren’t testing. Five or so teams made runs on Monday at Pacific Raceways.

While I was testing, Mel booked a dinner cruise on a train in Seattle. She picked me up and we did the train ride that evening. It stopped at Columbia winery north of Seattle and then went back to Renton, Wash. That was a fun trip. We had a good time.

We flew to San Francisco Tuesday and landed around noon and headed straight to the local ABC affiliate. Navigating the streets in S.F. can be tough, so we wanted to be early. Once we got parked, we had lunch at a little pub. We changed clothes in the “green room” and did the View From The Bay show on KGO-TV. It was a good show. We were on for about 10 minutes to promote the race at Infineon. We were the lead guests. Kevin and Gretchen Knock flew out for the race and vacation, so we met up with them on the pier and walked around Pier 39. We had dinner at Scoma’s and saw Joe Scoma. He’s a big drag racing fan. We had a great meal. If you’re in San Francisco, you’ve got to eat at Scoma’s. The seafood is great. It was the best salmon I’ve ever eaten. They went back to their hotel in the city and we made our way to the Silverado Resort with the Fram folks. We’re doing a dinner with them on Saturday night, so they put us up for the weekend. It’s a beautiful place.

We slept in this morning and did a call-in with a local radio station around 10 a.m. We made our way over to Sonoma and did lunch at a Thai restaurant. Mel has been on me about trying Thai food. I’ve been a little hesitant, but it was great. I’m glad we went. Now, we’re walking around the streets of Sonoma and going to have a nice, relaxing afternoon. Mel booked a limo for Thursday afternoon and with the Knocks we are going winery-hopping tomorrow. We’ll hit a bunch of wineries in Sonoma and Napa.

It’s supposed to cool off this weekend. The temperatures should be in the mid-80s rather than mid-90s and 100s. Hopefully, we can get back on track and get our top five points ranking back heading into Brainerd. We also want to qualify well and secure our position in the Skoal Showdown. Talk at ya in a few days.