I had two days at home before heading to Memphis. There's a lot of things going on at home. We are adding on to our house, and the walls just went up. We’re hoping to have it completed by October. In the next couple of weeks we will be building a 2,500-suqare-foot garage. Gary needs room for his toys; not that he has much time to play with them, during the season.

I checked on the progress of the construction, and spent two and a half days on my regular job, before heading off to Memphis.

Qualifying hasn’t been going well for us here in Memphis. We thought we had all our gremlins figured out, but NO, we had a couple more on Friday. Okay, so now we think we have it all figured out, and Saturday we landed in the No. 9 spot on the ladder.

Continuing to keep things interesting for the Geico team, many fans came up to me on Saturday and asked when they would see me in gecko racing leathers. Not sure where this was coming from, I asked a couple of fans what they knew that I didn’t know. Finally one fan confessed, that well-known NHRA colorful commentator Alan Reinhardt solicited the Memphis fans’ opinion on attiring me in leathers that replicate the Geico Gecko. Alan’s idea was initiated by the attached artist rendition that was created in 2002.

We nixed the idea based on the ability to realistically replicate the Gecko; he is a one of a kind, you know.

So with that … I will say … the idea is out there, and you never know, I may show up in reptilian-looking gear one day.

Back to the race; we are the first pair out on Sunday, and the driver introduction is one hour away, so I have to go.

I’ll be back in a couple of days.