Happy New Year! Before I get started on what we’ve been doing over the holidays, I need to set the record straight. I am sitting in Bob Panella’s shop in Stockton as we dyno Gary’s Pontiac motor, along with a couple of others here, and I have been harassed the entire time. You see, it seems that when I submitted my last blog, I had Hewes Performance Machine incorrectly spelled as Hughes. Considering his name is in the picture that I submitted with the blog, and it’s plastered on the side of his racecar it’s really embarrassing that I still managed to submit it with the wrong spelling. For setting the record straight; I know, and knew, how to spell his name and it was correct when I wrote it. I’m not sure what happened from the time I typed it to the time it was posted but, I apologize and, believe me, I have checked the spelling of Panella, about 15 times!

Bob Sr. and Jr. are both here today and it seems to be work as usual for the New Year! Gary and I headed west about 4:30 this morning and arrived here by 8:00. It’s been go go go pretty much since the holidays began. Gary has been spending much of his time in the shop and with his motor. We still have a few things left to build in the shop; like the clean room and bathroom, therefore the scaffolding is still up. Gary spent yesterday arranging everything so when we come home he could quickly put his motor in the car, before flying out to Indy later this week. We don’t know when he’ll be able to go out and race it, but at least it will be ready when he is.

It hasn’t been as cold as normal here this winter, however, it’s still freezing to me. We took the quads out to Sand Mountain on New Year’s Eve day and I think it reached about 30 degrees. I know many of you may think that this is warm, but I’ll tell you, it took me a good half hour to put on the helmet and go for a ride. It was actually a few short trips up and down competition hill, because the faster and farther we rode, the colder I became. When we arrived, we both commented on how desolate it appeared, and then we went riding and figured out why. I really wanted to test Gary’s quad since he lowered it to determine if I wanted mine lowered as well. In the short couple hours there, I made my decision and we headed back home.

I’m one of those people that ring in the New Year with a fresh start, so I spent most of New Year’s Day arranging my garage. I also arranged my closet, and my pantry. Gary would say, “That’s the LEAN training coming out again”. It’s really that fact that I am home long enough to realize where I want to place things. So, I change it to meet the newest needs. He cringes when I start talking about ‘Lean’ and the race transporter. He quickly reminds me that my job is to “race the bike”.



I provided a couple of pictures with Gary and Tony HEWES in the control room of the dyno at Panella’s Racing shop. I didn’t provide any pictures of Sand Mountain because it was way too cold for me to take my gloves off to handle a camera. Boy, I can’t wait for Mexico.