Getting to Las Vegas from Indianapolis takes a lot of time and even more patience, but we made the trip in two days. We drove all day Monday and stopped in western Kansas and stayed the night. It was an uneventful trip so that was good. We took off Tuesday morning and got to Vegas at 7 p.m. that night. It was such a long trip.

We went straight to the rental car place and then went out to have sushi for dinner that night before we parked the motor home outside the track. You wouldn't think sitting and driving a motor home would be so exhausting, but it is and we didn't do much after dinner.

On Wednesday we messed around with the motor home a bit. We're thinking of trading it in, but we'll see. That night we went to the Speedway Children's Charity poker tournament and had some fun while raising money for a great cause. The evening basically confirmed why I don't gamble in Las Vegas.

We started with 81 players and there were still 60 people left when I was out. Mel did very well. She was the last driver standing, with only about 10 people left. I learned something about her that night. It's amazing how well she can bluff.

On Thursday we hung out at the trailer all day. The team tricked me big time. The team said Mike Green wanted to have a team meeting and I had to stay a little longer. Once Mike got here, I found out that the team meeting was for me. The guys got me a gift, a really great gift.

I always get my crew a present at the end of the season to thank them for their hard work. This year they beat me to the punch. They had a helmet painted up with all the pictures of the crew, they each autographed it and it says "Thanks for a great 2006 season" on the back. It is amazing. They totally blew me away with that and it shows just how close this group is.

Winning is great but winning with a great group of guys makes it even more fun.

Every year the big challenge of racing in Las Vegas is all of the social engagements that go along with the race weekend. On Thursday night Mel had to do the Treasure Island autograph session, while I went to the Hard Rock Hotel for the Fan Fest autograph session. The she came over to the Hard Rock for the Budweiser Shootout Draw Party.

Then we went back to Treasure Island for her team party at Tangerine. We stayed there for a while because the Kalitta team had their team party for the Von Dutch group. We didn't leave until midnight but we had a great time.

Vegas is also tricky to deal with because of the time change. I'm still not on the West Coast sleeping pattern yet and no matter how hard I try, I keep waking up too early.



It was good that I got up early on Friday because we had so much going on at the track. We had 7-time bull riding champion Ty Murray, his wife Jewel, Cody Lambert and Mike Gaffney all out from the PBR event. The PBR Finals started Friday night, so they couldn't stay to watch the qualifying session, but they came out long enough to say hello and see what we were all up to.

We also made them stay long enough to start the car and give them all a taste of nitro. It was great to see them and we're all going to try and get out of the track early enough on Saturday night to go see the best bull riding around.

We smoked the tires in the first session for what appeared to be no reason at all. We have all of the corporate UST people in town, so we wanted to make a great run in the second session and get qualified for the show.

All Mike did was change the tires and send the car down with the same setup. It worked and I went right down the track with a good pass. With all the sponsors in attendance, it made us feel a lot better.

We're ready to race again. Hopefully Mel will do well in the Bud Shootout, but she is racing my teammate, so it's a tough battle today.

Our guys are ready to work on the car today and make sure we've got the best setup for Sunday. Hopefully it will all come together and we can race all day long Sunday.