Hi everyone! Rickie here. Well, as you all know, I have been in Bahrain for the last week and let me just say it was definitely a trip I will never forget. It all started a few months ago when Pat Musi called me up and said he had a business proposition for me. He said that one of my old Pro Mod cars had been sold to the King of Bahrain’s son and that he was interested in hiring me to come over and work out the kinks in it. I was a little hesitant at first, being that it was in the Middle East and all. However the more I thought about it the more I wanted to go. I took my wife, Nancy with me and we flew out the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Now I have flown a lot in my lifetime, but nothing was going to prepare me for this trip. We flew from Charlotte to Memphis, which was nothing. However then we boarded a plane in Memphis and flew to Amsterdam. It was around an eight-hour flight. After this flight I was pretty much over flying. But I had to suck it up and board another plane that took us to Bahrain, which was another eight hours. Finally about 24 hours after we had left Charlotte, we landed in Bahrain. We were eight hours ahead of N.C. time, so when we landed we were all messed up. When we were supposed to sleep, we were wide awake and vice versa.

I didn’t know what to expect when we landed. I mean they had sent us some pictures but up, close and personal was totally different. When we landed Khalid, the driver of the Pro Mod car picked us up and took us to our hotel. It was amazing. It was a medieval castle and everything was stone. It was like a fairy tale. When we opened our balcony doors, the Persian Gulf was right at our feet. They did warn us however that if we wanted to go swimming in it to be careful because there were lots of sharks. So, needless to say, Nancy nor I bothered to go swimming.

We tried to sleep as much as we could that night, but it was tough because of the time difference so we ordered some room service. The next day we were scheduled to go testing at their local dragstrip. Since it is so hot there during the day, they are only allowed to test and race at night time. Even though it was perfect weather when we were there, sometimes throughout the year they said it reached 150 degrees there. They showed us where people’s dashboards in their car would melt. It was wild.

Okay, so back to the racetrack. The racetrack in Bahrain is bar-none the nicest racetrack in the world. I have been to more race tracks than I can count in my life time and this one was in a class all by itself. It was unbelievable. It had the works. You name it, it had it. I have provide numerous pictures, but if you want to look at it in more detail you can go to www.bahraingp.com.

Like I said before we were only able to run at night. Even though at night time the track got below 70 degrees and sometimes it was hard to get up and down the track. We all hung in there and made it work. I do have to say though, as everyone knows I am an extremely hard worker and Khalid and his crew were definitely able to keep up. They were very dedicated to what they do. Khalid is not only a hard worker, but a very talented driver as well. He is very well respected in not only Bahrain but in America as well. Hopefully you will check him out and root for him if he is ever in your area. He is a great guy!

Each day the palace would bring us this huge spread of food. Four tables full to be exact. The food was delicious. It was like something you see on a movie. One night we were invited to dinner at Khalid’s house. We meet his wife Nazha and his two beautiful daughters, Reem and Rawan. We ate and ate and ate. Sometimes when you go to new places you are unsure of how the food might taste. This food however was extremely good and everyone there was very nice and friendly. I would definitely love to go back one day.

The only down side to all of it was the two days we were supposed to qualify and race it rained. They told us that these were the only two days the entire year that it had rained there. Therefore we did not get to race. I think they ended up rescheduling the race for the end of the month. Even though we are not going back then, we hopefully will soon.

I could write and write and write, but I have a ton of stuff I need to get ready for next week. I am testing my Pro Mod and Pro Stock car next week in Florida before heading out to the PRI show. So check back in when you get a chance.