Time is running out on our off season in a hurry. Our rig is leaving the shop heading to Las Vegas next Monday, so time is of essence. Everyone in the shop can’t wait to hit the road again and get our ‘07 NHRA POWERade series season started.

I’ll start by filling you in on what has been going on this past week and where I have been. I mentioned in my last blog that we got our new body for this season and I started decaling it. Little did I know what a job that would turn into. Our painter applies a few of the decals before it leaves his shop. Some are critical to placement and how the paint scheme comes out. Well, we are moving one of the decals that he has put on in the past and I don’t think anyone told him. When we got the body I thought it would just be a simple removal. He had applied the decal shortly after the body had been cleared so the decal had really adhered itself to the new paint. We are always trying to make the bodies lighter with less coats of paint and clear so the clear is very thin on this new body. I was unable to use any kind of adhesive remover or chemicals to remove the decals and glue without removing the clear or damaging the paint. I had to use my fingernail and only solvent. It took me some very sore fingers and two full days to remove just two decals from the body. On my third day I was able to complete the decaling process fairly easy until I ran out of decals. I made a list of what I was missing and got some computer files of a couple new logos that you will see on our car for this season. I ordered the decals to arrive this week.

We spent a quiet night at home on Friday just watching TV and playing with the puppies. It has been a lot of fun watching them grow so quickly. It is nice to see them get excited when we come home. They have become man’s best friend and always welcome you no matter how long you where away.

Saturday, we went to the Colts playoff game here in Indy. Melanie is now on the Lucas Oil team so it was very nice of them when they offered the four of us seats in there suite at the stadium. Let me tell you that is the only way to watch a football game. The Colts defense played their best game of the season and we left the stadium happy with a Colts win and another week in the post season. To bad they don’t have home field advantage because I would love to watch them play at home again this weekend. It’s going to be a tough game in Baltimore this week, but I think they can do it if their defense plays that good again. Now they just need to get their offense firing on all eight cylinders. With a win this weekend and hopefully New England will beat San Diego, they can play the championship game back here in Indy. Too bad we’ll be in Vegas testing. Oh, well that’s really where I want to be anyway.

On Sunday, I flew to Orlando for the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco’s annual sales meeting. We had a great dinner Sunday night and it was nice to catch up with everyone from the company that I get to see in different areas of the country we race at each year. On Monday, we where able to join them as they lay out their plans for 2007 and really get a good idea of how they use our race program as part of their marketing program. They had another great dinner Monday night and we all sat around visiting and watching the BCS Championship game on two big screens. I’ll bet the town of Gainesville will be a happy place when we make our trip there in March.

I did a media training session with UST’s rodeo cowboys on Tuesday. I really enjoy this opportunity every year to learn what I can do better to get our sport of NHRA drag racing across better to the media. I’ve retained a lot of their techniques and put have put them to good use over the past few years.

This afternoon I got a ride back to the airport and now I’m sitting here typing my blog at 30,000 feet on my way back to Indy. The past couple of days have been long ones. I hope Melanie doesn’t have much on our schedule for tonight because I’m ready to catch up on some sleep. I’ve got a lot of work to do the rest of the week because as I mentioned our rig is leaving Monday. Overall, our team is really prepared to go testing, and I feel really confident that our team has what it takes this year to make a run at the championship. Hopefully my decals are waiting on me tomorrow when I get to the shop and I can get the car finished. I’ve just got to get the new firesuit artwork approved and I think we’ll be set to hit the track for 2007.

I’ll check in later and let you know when to watch for the rigs heading out west.