It’s Saturday morning and I have finally sat down to write my blog. I am listening to the NHRA Summit Racing.com national event live audiocast as I type this.

The last blog I wrote, I was sitting in the airport on my way to the Houston event. I was full of excitement and positive energy. It sure didn’t go as we had planned, but I’ve had a week to sift through my thoughts on that race.

Being a two-time event winner, we received a lot of attention that weekend. I went to a press conference the Thursday before Houston to speak with the media, then during the event itself we had ESPN over in our pits a few times. I have attached a picture of one of the interviews we did that weekend.

One of our evenings out to dinner we discussed the media and the pressure to three-peat, but I felt it was the same pressure at each event for me to ride well and win races. Here is a picture of our Geico Team and half of the Mohegan Son team, Jessie and Sherry, enjoying some Mexican cuisine.

Friday evening I felt we had a good handle on the racing weekend, but Saturday came along and everything changed. We qualified 4th on Friday, but we all thought that Saturday morning was looking to have the more favorable weather conditions. We put a new tire on the Geico Suzuki and Gary had, what he thought, was a low seven-second tune-up in her. (Yes, the bike is considered a girl.)

The tire gave me an issue in the first pass Saturday, and then we had some electrical issues that caused problems. The short story is we did not make a good pass on Saturday, the fast day. It left us behind going into Sunday, and out in the first round. It was certainly a letdown, but, now it’s in the past and we are regrouping for Atlanta.

I left Houston and flew to Ohio where I spent the week there on General Electric business, my day job. It was cold and rainy there, but you don’t really notice it when you are in a manufacturing plant all day and in the hotel room in the evening. The hotel I stay at in Ohio has a gym, so I took advantage of that, late at night. It’s was not the best time for me to exercise, however, I really needed to do it. Gary had flown home from the race on Tuesday, so he was available to pick me up from the airport.

Looks as if we will both be home together for a few weeks, so upcoming blogs should have more updates on the shop and home life. Many of you have been e-mailing requests to see updates, so stay tuned.

Bye for now.