We left Dallas and headed straight home for the weeks that we had down between events. As you know the bikes didn’t race in Virginia, so we had time to regroup between Dallas and Las Vegas. Gary made a mad dash to California to work on the bike and then try to make it home to prepare for the E.T. Finals in Las Vegas. Yup, Gary raced his car enough this year to enable him to participate in the last showing for Los Angeles County Raceway’s E.T. Finals team race. I think I mentioned this in a past blog, but LACR closed this year and that is the track that Gary and I were raised at (in a racing sense). Gary and I had been attending and racing there since we were in our teens. It is also the place were I met my best friend Dee Dee. You have seen her many times in the blog. That track holds many memories for us and it was great that Gary, and as it turned out I, got to race in the last event representing it.

As it turned out I actually participated, too, and not on a bike. When we found out that the NHRA POWERade schedule did not pose a conflict for the Division 7 E.T. Finals, I put my name in as an alternate. Gary also called our LACR racing friends, that hadn’t been racing for a few years, and had them resurrect their toys and start gathering points to get on the team. It was like a reunion of sorts in Las Vegas as we all raced various vehicles. As an alternate, I was chosen to race when a LACR team member broke his car. I strapped into the GEICO team car, the Volkswagen, and raced the Sportsman class. I had one time trial before I had to race on Sunday. I realized pretty quickly that the car reacted much slower than my bike. Go figure! With that terrible light on Saturday, I decided to bring up the RPM and power brake for first round. Well, I went red on that one, so somewhere in between would have been perfect. Our friends Tom, Tony, and Bernie Longjohn, who were racing Dee Dee’s car, also went out first round. I put a picture of all of us by our racing vehicles for the weekend with Dee Dee in the middle. I also put in a picture of Gary leaving the starting line, who, also happened to go the furthest that weekend. We did not have a winner in our group, but we had a great time racing together with all our Division 7 friends.



While Gary was in California working on the race bike and getting ready for Las Vegas, I made a visit to the ‘Bikers for Tykes Hogtoberfest’ in Tucson, Ariz. During October GEICO sponsors and organizes many rides for charity. Select main GEICO locations across the United States participates/organizes a variety of different activities were all the proceeds are donated to Children’s hospitals. In the past, many of the NHRA race teams donated items for the cause. Attendance, participation and donations have grown year over year. This year they have, along with their normal Super Bowl tickets, NASCAR tickets and other great items donated, an awesome auction item. "Big Rick" Hoffman, GEICO’s nationally known custom bike builder, designed and built this GEICO Gecko custom, for the Bikes for Tykes charity. I have added a picture here, but it really doesn’t do it justice. To check it out further and get a better look, go to eBay Geico. "Big Rick" did an awesome job and I know it will bring in lots of money for the kids. We had it in Tucson and it was the talk of the event.

So, with all the traveling for appearances and going to Las Vegas for the E.T. race, I have this weekend left to do some things around the house. We are continually planting trees and designing our landscape. It looks like the weather may not cooperate with me for this weekend, so we may just have to go play in the sand. That’s what Gary really wants to do anyway.

Oh yeah! Need to say thanks to Sean Connor and Tom Medlin for the photo. It took awhile but we got it. Talk to you later!