I had a few minutes after driver introductions today, so I took the opportunity to get you caught up on what’s been going on since we left Sonoma. We had some shifting issues in Sonoma that plagued us for the weekend. We thought we had it addressed for Sunday, but as it turned out we did not. We took the time off between races to regroup. We had really wanted to test before Brainerd, however prior commitments had not allowed us to. So we studied the race, regrouped, and arrived at our strategy for Brainerd.

I had planned to spend a couple of days in Minneapolis with my friend Dee Dee and her daughter Kristen. I had never been to the Mall of America so we spent a couple days there before the race. I found out pretty quick that a couple of days are not enough for all the activities. I did manage to make a good dent in my Christmas shopping though.



We dined at places like “Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Factory” and the “Rainforest Café”. In the evenings, we rode some of the roller coasters. Here is a picture that we bought when we got off the ride. Kristen and Dee Dee are in front of me. Scott, my nephew and crewmember, was also there, but because of his height (6’7”) he required his own car for the ride.

We arrived here at the track Thursday and met up with the rest of the team. Here in Brainerd, the Zoo is always a big part of this race. Dee Dee had never been to this race before, so we had to be sure we planned some time to parade in the Zoo. If you watched the ESPN2 coverage of the race this weekend, you saw a variety of different vehicles driving around. We loaded up our team and paraded around on Friday night. We didn’t take the camera, because, really, ‘ What happens in the Zoo stays in the Zoo’. No, actually, there are so many pictures on NHRA that I thought you would probably see it all there.

Saturday night one of the Pro Stock Bike racers, Buddy Robinson had a fish fry for his friends family and fellow racers (that takes place quite a bit in the Pro Stock Bike pits) Most of us hung out there Saturday night, under his awning, while we watched the rain.

Qualifying went well for us and we ended up in third. Now we are just waiting for Mother Nature to cooperate.

That pretty much gets you all caught up to today, where I am sitting in the transporter waiting to hear what is going to happen to the race today.