We left off on Tuesday, so let’s pick up there. Our local sushi place, Tegry Bistro, had a customer appreciation night, so we met the Dixons and Chad and Michelle for dinner. The Dixon kids, Donovan and Alanna, made some congratulations art as you can see in the photo. Thanks guys! We had all-you-can eat sushi and it was great. We’re lucky to have such a good sushi place so close to home.

Wednesday morning we took care of odds and ends before we left. Melanie got her hair cut and I went to the shop to pick up the motor home. We took off just after noon. I wanted to get parked on Wednesday night because we had some press work scheduled on Thursday in Memphis. I did a phoner with Sirius Speedway on the drive to Memphis. Dave Moody and Marty Hough are great. If you have Sirius Satellite Radio, make sure you tune into Sirius Speedway each afternoon because they put NHRA drag racers on all the time. We got to the track around 7:30 and I grilled Italian Sausages for dinner.

We got up early on Thursday morning because we had a TV interview with WREG channel 3 in Memphis. The TV station is located at Peabody Place in downtown Memphis. The anchor, Mary Beth Conley, was great. We went on at the top of the show at 9 a.m. and had a nice five- to seven-minute interview. She asked great questions and we had a lot of fun. After that, we headed back to the track for about an hour and then took off for the NHRA press conference at Folk’s Folly Steakhouse. Folk’s Folly is probably the best steakhouse in Memphis, so it’s worth it just for the lunch. We did a bunch of TV interviews and then went back the track. We did a TV interview with Jaime Griffin of the local ABC affiliate at that track that afternoon. The world’s fastest couple got a lot of TV exposure in Memphis. Thanks to the NHRA media dept. for taking good care of us! Later that night, Melanie had a sponsor dinner with Matco Tools and I had a Skoal Racing appearance at Silky O’Sullivan’s on Beale St.

I woke up on Friday morning and did a phoner with a radio station in Louisiana. Winning is great! It’s really neat to have the press seek you out, which always happens following a win. Then, I met Baze, Mike Dunn and Doug Foxworth, who works on Rod Fuller’s dragster, and we rode 40 miles. It wasn’t that hot when we rode because there was a constant breeze, but when we stopped it was like a sauna. We got back to the track around 11:30 a.m. and I took a nap before cleaning up and heading over to the pit around 2 p.m. just before the skies opened. Boy did Mother Nature rain on our parade. It poured on Friday afternoon. We finally hit the track sometime around 10 p.m. It was good to get one pass in, and we kept our momentum going. It was sort of a crap shoot because the rain pulled all the rubber of the track, but the Safety Safari did a great job of making the track race-ready. I sure wish the NHRA would put a tarp on the first 60 feet of the track like they do on the infield of a baseball diamond when it rains.

The rain makes it tough on everybody. You just have to pace yourself, which is tough in this heat. This is, by far, the toughest race of the year because it’s so hot. You sweat just standing around. Fortunately, we made a solid run at 4.907-second, placing us fourth. We won’t improve on today’s first pass around 3 p.m. (CT), but hopefully it will cool off enough so we can improve tonight and hopefully make a nice mid-4.80. We still have a great race car. We just have to keep the momentum going forward into the U.S. Nationals. We’re only 47 points for third place, so we need to keep our Skoal Racing Chevy going strong.



Oh, one last thing. I want to say thanks to my longtime fan Steve Brody. I've known Steve for many years. He used to buy diecast cars from me when I ran my diecast store in Iowa in the 1990s. Steve is a fireman and a safety worker at Watkins Glen in New York. He always attends our NHRA race at Englishtown. He sent along this photo of him at the Nextel Cup race at The Glen last weekend. It's nice to have support at a Cup event, so thanks Steve.