Okay, so I haven’t blogged in six days. For that I apologize. I got an e-mail this morning saying I can’t catch the CSK guys if I don’t update. I realize this, but it’s been a rather hectic week. You’ll see why I think we’ve earned a few vacation days.

We tested on Monday at Joliet. We wanted to make a few runs on our new chassis, so we made two quick hits. After that, we loaded up and headed back to Indy. The guys went straight to E-town. We got home to Indy around 8 p.m. The yard was looking lousy, so I gave it a quick mow while Mel did laundry. We didn’t have much food and weren’t in the mood to cook, so we called Papa John’s.

We were on the road around 8 a.m. Tuesday, so we had a 12-hour pit stop at home in Avon. By the time we stopped for fuel at to get groceries in East Brunswick, N.J., it was 10 p.m. when we pulled in line at Raceway Park.

I got up on Wednesday morning and parked the motorhome. PR Ted picked us up and drove us into New York City via the Lincoln Tunnel. We spent a few hours at the Alan Taylor Comm. offices on 34th St. We did an interview with the New York Times and ESPN the Magazine. We were in a conference room at ATC. In fact, the only conference room with windows, so I took this picture from my cell phone. I love people watching and there’s no better place to do it than New York. When we tried to leave, we couldn’t. We looked outside and 34th St. was completely vacant. Now, if you’ve never been to the city, 34 St. is a pretty busy place. That’s where Penn Station and Madison Square Garden is located. The famous Macy’s department store from the Thanksgiving Day Parade is on 34th. The Empire State Building is on 34th, so it’s odd for there to be no cars or people in sight. There was a bomb scare at the building across the street. That’s right a bomb scare shut down 34th St. Thankfully, it didn’t last long and everything was okay. I guess we got the “real” New York experience.

We did our interviews and had a slight change in our plans, so PR Ted drove us back to the track and we did a quick packing for the night. Then it was off to Connecticut to have dinner with the folks from Skoal and UST. The directions said that Raceway Park is 77 miles from UST’s corporate headquarters in Greenwich. We left the track right after 5 p.m. and we didn’t get to dinner until about 7:45 p.m. It took forever to get across the George Washington Bridge on I-95. I don’t know how you people that live in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut do that every day. We had a nice dinner at Southport Brewing Co. in Stamford, Conn. When we got to the restaurant, we just missed seeing Ron Howard, the famous actor/director. Snake talked to him. Ron grew up in So Cal, so he knew about Snake and the Road Kings Car Club, so Snake was all excited. He’s been telling the story to pretty much everyone this weekend. Ron went to a movie across the street to see The Divinci Code, that why we didn’t see him. We finally got to the Westin in Stamford around 10:30. Needless to say, it was time for bed.

It felt nice to sleep in Thursday morning. We ate breakfast at the hotel then headed over to Greenwich. There was a car waiting to take Mel to ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn. NHRA set up an ESPN visit for her to promote, so that was a really neat experience for her. Snake and I did a meet-and-greet with all employees at UST. We visit corporate about once a year and it’s always nice to see our friends who don’t get out to the track except maybe twice a year at E-Town and Reading.

During lunch, we met a gentleman who works for the local Aston Martin/Bentley dealership. So, on our way back to New Jersey we stopped at the dealership to see a rare Bugatti. There are only two of these EBs in the country, and they’re not cheap. How about $1.3 million? Yes, I said $1.3 million. It’s hand-built, has 16 cylinders, four turbochargers, and produces 1,000 horsepower. It has a top speed of 252 mph. It was very impressive. Bugatti will make only 300 over the next four years. The first one in the States is going to Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger has one on the way.

Walking around the showroom, I noticed a Bentley with a sticker price of just $258,000. The Rolls Royce was $339,000. If I was a Cup driver, maybe, but that’s a bit out of my price range. I’m still looking for that Mini Cooper. I got to sit in the Bugatti. It’s not everyday that you get to sit in a car that costs that much money, so I jumped at the opportunity. Oh, right across the street is the Ferrari/Maserati dealership. We didn’t stop there. Perhaps next time we’re in town.

By the time we left, it was 3 p.m. We got back to the track around 6:30 p.m. There was a ton of traffic getting on the GW Bridge, so we tried I-278. It was okay for awhile, but then we ran into the Verazanno Narrows Bridge and its $9 toll. PR Ted told me he had $38.60 worth of tolls in two days. It certainly ain’t cheap getting around. When we finally got back to Raceway Park, Spike was pretty excited to see me. Mel didn’t get back until 8:40. I grilled some sausages for dinner, we watched a little TV and went to bed.

I didn’t make it up to ride bikes this morning. When the alarm went off at 8, I went right back to sleep. I was worn out. I didn’t feel so bad when Baze told me he didn’t ride either. We’re going to try to do a short ride Sunday morning.

Okay, now you see why I took nearly a week off from the blog. This week has been sort of a whirlwind. Now, that things have finally calmed down, I’m ready to go racing. Talk to you all later. Wish us luck.