I haven't done an update in quite some time. In my last blog I mentioned voice recognition software I was going to try. I thought it might make my blog writing much easier. Little did I know how hard the voice recognition software would be to learn.

My first problem started when it didn't work on my laptop computer. After buying two microphones, I figured out it wasn't a microphone problem. It was my computer. It seems to work okay on my home computer, though. I have to admit it's a little weird sitting at your computer talking instead of typing. The dogs are looking at me like I've gone nuts. Let's get started and see how this works.

Our team hasn't had the success that we would hope for, but we are making some progress. In Gainesville, everyone had two runs in qualifying due to rain. We had a clutch system problem on the first run, and then missed the tune-up on her second run. So we didn't qualify. About the only good thing coming from Gainesville, was I got to see my parents and nephew Gage. Melanie didn't qualify either at that race and that was tough with both of us not making the field. At least the first two races, one of us made the show. We both tested on Monday and had a little better success; figures Monday would go great.

The off weeks seem to go by so fast especially when you don’t get home from the race until Tuesday evening. I was looking forward to a weekend off and it was a fun time. We spent Friday night at the Procks' house with some neighbors and the Dixons’. Johnny from the Force team made dinner for everyone and we had a wine-tasting contest also. Melanie and I spent Easter Sunday just hanging out around the house and relaxing. The only racing I could find to watch was the F-1 race so we ended up watching a few movies. Michael Clayton and Fractured are two good movies in my opinion.

It was sad to hear about the passing of Al Hoffman during that week. I drove for Al and Helen for half a season in 2000 and got to know them a little better. Al was a very hard-nosed racer and about as tough as they came. Even though he was driving for Jim Dunn at the time, you should have seen how happy he was when we put their car No. 1 at Indy that year. As tough and hard-nosed as he was I never thought he would go that quickly.

We normally drive the motorhome to all the races but as diesel fuel price keep climbing Melanie and I are starting to reconsider. I checked into last-minute plane tickets for Houston but they had also got pretty pricey, so, we decided to drive to Houston. We left Wednesday morning and drove all day arriving at the track about 12:30 the next morning. After stopping three times to fuel up, I wish I would have bought the higher-priced plane tickets. We still had to drive home from there and fuel up on the way home.

The Houston race was interesting to say the least. With the “difficult” track conditions and changing weather it was tough to make a good run. We are still fighting problems (like everyone else in the class) with the added weight NHRA put on the Funny Cars this year. It has the crew chiefs about to pull their hair out trying to figure out how to make these cars run. It took an already hard car to tune and made it even more difficult. The window for error is pretty small these days. We weren’t able to get down the track until the last qualifying run and luckily it was good enough to get us in the show. We won first round on a pedal contest and didn’t fare as well second round when I had to pedal it again. If we could have switched the tune-up from round one to round two and vice versa we might have been okay. After the race I got to looking at the points and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. We have two DNQs and are 11th in points. The class as a whole is struggling so we are still right in the mix and only 147 points from number one. I can honestly say that lifted my spirits a little to see we aren’t out of it by any means.

Melanie didn’t make it again this weekend. I’ve been trying to keep her spirits up and help her with anything that might help. It’s hard when I don’t get to see a lot of her runs and she has questions about what she is feeling in the car or questions about driving techniques. She tested on Monday so I made a point to watch and see if I can help in any way. The only problem is they got one run in each car they were testing and then it rained. I think they figured a few things out so her team should do better in Vegas.

We didn’t get home from Houston until 6:30 Tuesday night and $1.800 later in fuel. Thankfully we are flying to Vegas. I couldn’t handle that fuel bill. I feel for the teams fueling up the rigs and especially when you have two or three rigs going down the road.

The voice deal didn’t go so well so I have been typing since about the second paragraph. It’s going to take a little time to figure that deal out. I can’t believe it is already Friday. Seems like we just got home last night. At least we got our taxes finished up this week and mailed off. The last few times we have been home that is all I have done is get paperwork together for that. Man, I don’t know about you, but that is a big headache.

We are going to dinner tonight, just the two of us and then we are having a birthday party for our neighbor Kevin on Saturday night. Hope he doesn’t read the blog because it is a surprise party. Have a good weekend.