I usually write about our day to day goings on, but I thought I would write today about some of the perks and nice things people do for us. Driving the cars is the thing I love the most, but meeting great fans and people along the way are also one of my favorite things about racing.

On Thursday of Houston we got to do one of the neatest things so far. Paul Page had invited us to go along with him and a few people from the ESPN crew for a tour of NASA in Houston. I love space travel, but not near as much as Melanie does. She actually wanted to be an astronaut as she was growing up and I think she would still jump at the chance if she had one.

We got to Johnson Space Center just in time for the tour after an all-night drive to Houston from Indy. We met the head flight controller for the shuttle missions and he started our tour. This was a behind the scenes tour, not just your normal NASA tour. Our first visit was to the old command center where all the original space missions where monitored. I couldn’t believe how antiquated the control panels looked and wondered how we ever made it to the moon and communicated with them while they where up there. It is amazing what technology we have gained since those first missions. After that we got to go to the one of the current mission control rooms. It was live and active as the mission crew where monitoring the Space Station. It had live camera feed from inside the space station and all kinds of data on three big screens with several people sitting in front of multiple computers monitoring everything going on up there. Did you know the space station makes a complete circle of the globe every 90 minutes? It is traveling above us at 17,500 mph.

We moved on to the Space Shuttle Mission Control Room where our guide worked during Shuttle missions. He explained all the things that go on during a Shuttle mission and how each team of people is in charge of a certain part of the mission. Much like how our crews work on the car. Everyone has their specialty and has to communicate to the leader of the mission.

After that we moved on to the part of the tour that I was looking forward to. We got to go in the Space Shuttle simulator. We met up with Ed Lu who had flown on the shuttle and also had spent time in the Space Station. We got strapped in and prepared for a shuttle launch into space. It was very cool to think you where sitting where all the astronauts train to go into space. We both where very surprised by how calm the launch was inside the shuttle. Eight minutes after launch we where in orbit up above the earth. Well sort to speak. You can pretend and besides this is how they train for the real thing.

After our launch they let us fly the simulator as we brought it back to earth. Now let me just say this first. I wasn’t told everything as I was the first to fly the shuttle. Now after I have said that, I crashed it into the runway as we made our approach. Melanie went after me and she made a perfect touchdown. I have received a lot of ribbing from everyone since. I guess she would make a better astronaut than me.

Our last stop on the tour was in the training center where they train astronauts for their time on the shuttle and space station. You can’t believe what they go through to go up into space. They have back up systems for back up systems and every day they go through practice on what to do if this or that fails. You can’t be too careful when you are that far away from home.

I can’t thank Paul enough and everyone at NASA for a once in a lifetime opportunity that we got to do that day. It is something that I will never forget.

It always seems to amaze me how great our fans are. At Houston a great guy, Jr. Dunn, and his wife told me they had something for me and my guys. He pulled out a semi that he had made for us. It was great; he had spent two months building it to commemorate our quickest e.t. to date. Jr. told me to not worry about going quicker because he has already made extra numbers so we can change the e.t. any time we go quicker. He said he hopes someday to build a five to take the place of the six. I hope so too and hopefully it won’t be to long. I can’t thank him enough for being so kind to me and my team.

I also can’t thank all the fans enough for the nice things they bring us at the races. Thanks Kendra for the nice birthday presents. All the fans that bring me peanut M&Ms at every race. That was a joke that PR Ted played on me last year by putting it in the blog that fans should bring me peanut M&Ms because they are my favorite. It has been great to see how many people read the blog and let me tell you, none of them have gone to waist. I have a jar in my locker that gets refilled every week when people bring me some. Only problem is now half of my guys have found my stash and it goes down much quicker than it used to.

Friday is my birthday so we are just spending a quite weekend at home. The weather here in Indy has decided that it wasn’t done with winter yet and it is freezing cold. So much for coming home this weekend and spending it on the patio. I also want to wish Snake and Mike Green a happy birthday. Snake and I have the same birthday and Mike’s is the day after. I’m sure we will all be eating cake this weekend.

Check in with you in a few days. I’ll fill you in on what I got. Now days I just want stuff that will make me look younger instead of neat gadgets.

TJ