I made a decision, not a resolution, but a decision, that this is the year of change and organization. The change has already begun, and all good, and I have now focused on the organization.

We moved into our house in 2004, and I have yet to really organize the inside. I’ve been focusing on the landscape and outdoor activities so really the inside has very little personality. The first thing on my agenda is to build a closet organizer. I know, that sounds like a girl to need to organize a closet, but I will tell you that there is much more than clothes in my closet. I have bags of old Levis; boxes of old and new dress hats, photos by the truckload, Christmas gifts (I buy early), and clothes. I could go out and hire one of those closet design companies, but I really like to do those things myself. I guess you could say I am a “journey” person rather than a destination person. I will then move on the laundry room for organization. (Get my plan here?) I really don’t have a timeline or schedule, just a plan to move from area to area and arrange it and give it some paint, design, and personality.

When it comes to our living and great room, I would love to participate in one of those home design shows like Color Splash or Divine Design. Not to do the work so much but to give me the ideas. I often tell Gary that I am going to get the Garage Mahal team here to organize my garage before he completes his shop. You may not know the shows, but if you go to DIY or the HGTV channel, you will see what I mean. For you guys, you should watch Garage Mahal, just once. I bet it will make you want to go out and re-arrange your garage. OF course, all these plans have to fit into my race and work schedule, that’s why I have not set a timeline.

Work has been exciting as I have a new role and it’s great. I am still working with GE and the operating system of our business (SAP), but what’s really nice is the group of people I work with. They’re the best, and it’s going to be a productive and exciting time at work. I really can’t say too much more, but my new title is now Manufacturing Programs Manager. It wouldn’t surprise me to see my new team show up at a few races in 2010. My new boss has already asked for a 2010 season schedule.

The 2010 racing program for our GEICO Powersports PSM team will also undergo some subtle changes, probably not too noticeable to the public. I have a new PR agent in Rob Geiger, the same as Morgan Lucas. I’ve known Rob for a long time, and it will be fun working with him. The entire team has been working hard on our program over the winter, and I know we will definitely reap the benefits this season (I am so excited and can’t wait to start).

I have also decided this year the blog will change. I actually thought I might have to give it up on it because there is so much of my current life that I can’t write about (GE) that I’m finding myself struggling for topics of interest. Well, this whole plan of change and organization has moved its way into the blog. Remember the boxes of pictures in the closet that need to be scanned in and organized in order to build my closet organizer? Well, by the end of the year, you will probably know things about my past that you really never wanted to know. Scanning the photos I am able to group them and so that will be my plan for blogs for 2010. I will start with “Me and Dee.”

Everyone has that special friend that has been there with them through thick and thin, ups and downs, tears and happiness, well for me that friend is Dee Dee. As I look through the past blogs you see her all over the place. Dee Dee and I met through a mutual friend Tom at Los Angeles County Raceway (LACR). Dee Dee’s dad owned the racetrack and she worked, well, everywhere at the racetrack. We hit it off and clicked right away. I’ve mentioned this before in an earlier blog, but she moved in with us (Gary and I) and lived with us until we moved to Nevada in 1993.

Living together, she taught me everything about the racetrack, in fact many times you would see Dee Dee on the computer and me running the staging lanes. Sometimes, during special events, we would work the concession stand or even the starting line. Whatever her dad needed, Dee Dee and I were usually always there.

I remember when Dee Dee’s dad managed Famoso, then Bakersfield Raceway, for a few years. Managing two racetracks, he left a large part of the responsibilities to Dee Dee. That’s when she talked Gary into helping too. Yup, Gary actually worked the water box for a divisional event, as did I, at Bakersfield. It was short lived though because Division 7 introduced bikes the following year and we began competing in divisionals.

Racing on the weekends at LACR, we would often go home after the race and have an ‘unwind’ session at the house. During one of those times, we started a conversation about how there was really no progression for the motorcycle racers to move to Pro. Meaning, the West Coast really only had the divisional series for motorcycles, and that was bracket or dial-in racing. Dee Dee and her dad wanted to provide the opportunity to develop Pro Stock Motorcycle skills at the sportsman level. So that night, at the table, probably over some beverages J NMRA was reborn. National Motorcycle Racing Association was the place where motorcycle racers could bracket, index, and open race. Creating the classes, rulebooks, finding sponsors, marketing, all of it was Dee Dee. I guess you would call me her “Girl Friday” during the 10-plus years that she ran the organization. Gary, Tom, Tony, and I were her sounding boards and support network. It’s also the place where she met her husband. NMRA finally closed down after Dee Dee started raising her family. I think I still have some video footage of NMRA, which, if I can get it digitized, I will post.

Through her busy career, kids, and life in general, we still can pick up the phone at any time and have a conversation like we just spoke five minutes ago. So I have attached a few pictures of Dee and me!

I hope you enjoy this year’s blast from the past from me.

Wow! It’s been pretty busy for the last few months: Interior walls painted, solar added to the house, appeared on Pass Time, trip to Glamis, two snowstorms, a new quad, a new Mac, a new TV, Wii tournaments, race season ended, and the holidays. That doesn’t include my GE career and seeking a new position.

I’m not sure I can get this all in order, but I think the first thing was the addition of our solar on the house. I commented before that the panels were here and up. Now, the new meter box is on the house. I find myself walking out and reading the meter box every day so I can see how much I am saving. It will show you how much each energy source is proving to the overall total. During fall, about 60% of our energy was being provided by the sun. Now, in the cold of winter it seems to be running at around 35 to 40% is coming from the sun. Once we see our consistent use, we can add more panels as we need them. The nice thing is when you get to a point where you are receiving more kilowatts from the sun than you’re using, your meter runs backwards, and the power company owes you. ? I can’t wait for that to start happening.

Most of my spring and summer months are spent outside on the landscape, while the fall and winter months are spent inside. The walls in my house were all painted flat off-white when we moved in. My plan is to slowly paint and decorate my way across the house until all the walls and areas are painted and decorated. The color alone is not the issue. The flat is. My very textured walls and flat paint make cleaning any marks impossible.

I have two rooms done and six more areas to go. The last room I painted was the guest room, which will probably become my “at home” office.

We painted and may convert our guest room because our friend and roommate moved back to Ohio — closer to his family. We’ll miss him and Maggie, his dog.

His leaving also triggered us to buy the TV and Wii game. We hooked everything up and now find ourselves having bowling and boxing matches after dinner. I have to say, Gary and my dad are the ones to beat for bowling in this house, but they can’t touch my boxing.

It hasn’t all been about the house and the indoors. Gary usually gets to race his Super Gas car in Las Vegas during the Lucas Oil Series event the weekend after the Full Throttle Series. This year, the show Pass Time was there filming some episodes during the week between events. Gary was picked with another friend of ours to be in the combo round of the show. It will be shown some time in January or February, so look for the Black Stealth ’68 Pontiac. (It was on the camera side.)

We squeezed in some time at the SEMA show, where I spent time signing autographs at the Speed Dawg Racing and Hot Rod Gear booth. I was honored to appear with both Ron Capps and Cory Mac. Pretty cool. That was the first time Chris and Speed Dawg had a booth at SEMA, and I think he was very successful based on the time I was there and the crowd that was around his shift knobs. As I walked around checking out all the vendors I had another very cool moment. I bumped into Shirley Muldowney and her best friend. We were able to chat for a few minutes and share a little girl talk. It’s not very often that you get to have small talk with such and icon and truly inspiring person. A very special memory for my book.

After the SEMA show and the finals, we made our usual trip to Glamis, the little Sahara desert in the United States. Located in Imperial Valley in southern California, it has the pristine riding weather and sand conditions that riders across the states dream of. In fact, there was a group of four semis that came in from Massachusetts, loaded with every sand toy and camping convenience you could think of. I’m not sure how many people were in that party, but they needed those four semis for something. We had a wonderful time in the beautiful weather.

In between all that ‘busy-ness,’ I was able to stay in touch with all the latest NHRA news with the NHRA Mobile App. Actually, I think Hank was the first to download the new App in our group. He, Lillie, Debbie, and Doug all have iPhones, and in Concord, at the zMax racetrack, they all downloaded the NHRA Mobile App. It works great. I don’t have an iPhone, I have a RAZR, and it works great on that, too. I recommend that you try it.

It was on the new NHRA Mobile App that I read for the first time that Peggy Llewellyn was coming back in 2010. That’s great news. I just keep hoping a few more could make that announcement for next year.

I will keep my phone and NHRA App close as I also hope to see some rule changes for the bikes this year. It’s also great when I have to quickly look at the schedule to see where I am going to be next year since it changed so much. I am sure you will find many uses for the NHRA App until racing starts again and you get the real-time racing data, right on your phone. Now I can double check Bob Frey’s commentating and information on the Live Broadcast with the real data on the NHRA Mobile App. ?

Bye for now!

A lot has been happening over the last few months in the Stoffer camp. On the home front, we finally have our Solar being installed. If you remember, I wanted to run our outdoor living and landscape elements with renewable energy. We have a natural landscape but we’ve added outdoor living.

I’m pretty excited about the solar and the fact that we can use what we need and sell the unused energy back to the power company. We plan to expand in the near future to cover more and more of our power needs.

Things seem to be coming to a conclusion at work for GE, too. I am on a short-term assignment as the Business Leader responsible for upgrading our business SAP system from version 4.6 to 6.0. It is similar to going from Windows XP to Windows Vista. It is a large global upgrade and I have been up at all hours of the night having collaborative meetings across the globe.

We are now in the process of ‘cutting’ the business over, so the project will end in November. At this time, I am not sure what my next position will be.

Racing too, is in the final stages of wrapping up. We made it into the Countdown and have been able to move up a few positions thanks to a decent race in Charlotte. That was a fun race. We had a great representation from many of our partners. The facility is close KYMCO scooters and GEICO so we had hospitality full of scooters, employee’s friends and family. My brother and his family showed up as well as Debbie and Doug’s family.

One of the highlights of our weekend was when David Pearson, “The Silver Fox,” and his son Eddie toured our pits and sat on our bike. They are good friends of Chris Figdore, owner of Speed Dawg shift knobs, accessories and apparel.

Many of you may think that David is strictly a hero and legend in the oval and turning style of racing. Yes, he is, but he also enjoyed a very competitive and successful era in drag racing, winning 17 of the 17 drag races that he raced in the early ‘70s. Really, a cool guy to meet and have hanging out in your pits.

I will definitely add that to my memories and events of 2009.

Talk to you later.

Yesterday Karen and I had some free time just before going to the track in Maple Grove. So one of the places that has always been on a to do list while we travel has been Hershey, PA. We left in the early afternoon from Carlisle, Pa., where we had spent the night and arrived very easily in Hershey.

As you can see from the pictures the streetlights are shaped like Hershey Kisses! That was just the beginning of our adventure. We headed to the Hershey Gardens. Even though we are toward the end of the growing season it was a beautiful place. Mrs. Hershey loved flowers and especially roses. There were a whole section of just roses. The workers at the gardens have developed some and others are great old standards. That was just a small part of the entire gardens. There are several types of gardens in addition to the rose gardens. They focus on type of plants and methods of planting. There were herbs, special trees, decorative grasses and a special memorial garden.

As you walked the garden you can see the amusement park with some awesome looking rides and one that rotates around and elevates us in a spaceship looking elevator style ride that has kiss shaped windows. This allows you to see all of the city of Hershey.

At the back of the gardens is the Butterfly house. The butterflies were everywhere! There were also very nice volunteers that explained all about the life cycles of butterflies. We also got to watch as they laid eggs, saw caterpillars, and the cases in which they are incubated before hatching. Karen was real special because one landed on her foot for a ride around the house.

We then stopped at the “sun dial” garden and tried it out. As you can see we were there right at 1:30 p.m. in the month of August.

Our next stop was the Hershey Museum. Mr. Hershey was truly one of the great men of his time. He came from a very simple beginning and only had a 4th grade education. He had a dream and even though he failed multiple times he remained focused on his goal which was to make chocolate affordable to all. His life story can be found on the Hershey web site (attach it) and is truly remarkable. He was a very successful man who gave back to his community and the world. He and his wife, Catherine, established a school for orphans and children who were disadvantaged which is still in existence today.

Our final stop for the day was at the “Chocolate Lab.” There we learned that chocolate has been around for many years. It is found in the warmer areas of the world and will only grow below the 20-degree line. The pods form on the trunk of the trees. These pods are harvested and then opened where the chocolate seeds are found in a pulp inside of the pod. These are then sundried, crushed and the nibs from inside the seeds are then crushed to extract the coca butter which is the beginning ingredient for chocolate. We were given sample of white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate which were smelled and then allowed each to melt in out mouth. We then had to describe the taste and texture. We learned that white chocolate is truly chocolate, it is just mostly coca butter. It is smooth and creamy with a strong vanilla taste, then the milk chocolate which is sweet and creamy with a definite chocolate taste and finally the dark chocolate which is more waxy and bitter. All very different but still chocolate.

Then we got to make our own chocolate bar, only after preparing to cook by placing hats on our heads, washing our hands, and putting on an apron. You can see how beautiful we look and what our chocolate bars looked like.

We had a great day and I would highly recommend a stop in Hershey, Pa., if you are in the area. If that isn’t possible take a look at Mr. Hershey’s life, a truly determined man who never let today failure stop him from tomorrow’s success. Thanks for letting me share our day.