It’s Friday morning before heading out to the track in Denver. I’ve got some free time relaxing a bit before the weekend begins. I’ll try to fill you in on what’s been going on in our household for the past few weeks.

Englishtown was definitely a bummer with the death of Scott Kalitta. You always know that those things can happen, but you really never expect it. I knew Scott, but not really well. I have a few memories of him, especially him and my dad having a beer together. I remember when Scott was driving with a cast on and we were in Houston while it was raining Scott came over to our buddy Steve Call’s motorhome. They past the time drinking some beers and we watched Scott hobble away with his cast on. They cancelled the race and came back the next weekend and Scott drove with his cast. I always remembered that just in case I ever had to drive with a cast or something. A real racer will do whatever he has to when it comes to racing. My thoughts are with his boys and family with their loss.

We, or I should say I, had the bright of catching a flight home from Englishtown Sunday night after the race. We got to the airport only to find our plane delayed. We finally got out of Newark about 11:30 and were to connect in Atlanta. When we got to Atlanta we had missed our connection so we ended up spending the night in Atlanta and getting home Monday around noon. So much for my bright idea of getting home Sunday night after the race.

We spent a couple of days at home before heading out to Norwalk in the motorhome. We drove over Thursday morning for Norwalk since it is only about five hours from Indy. Rick Cassel has come on board as our new crew chief and is doing a nice job of getting our car turned around. We had found a few things we didn’t like at Englishtown so I had high hopes coming into Norwalk. He has a really tough job ahead of him right now with implementing his tune up into our car without any testing available and being a single car team. Then we lose two qualifying runs on Friday, so we are down to just two runs to get qualified with a totally new clutch setup. We just wanted to go down the track and get in on the first run and we did. Right in the middle of the pack. We knew we would have to step up racing Wilkerson first round because he would run well and he did with low ET of first round. We smoked the tires just trying a little too hard, but it was a good weekend for our team overall. I’m happy with the progress we are making with all the things that are against our team right now. I think the Western Swing will be good for our team as we give Rick more runs to deal with and work things out.

On Monday after Norwalk Melanie talked me into staying and going to Cedar Point with our neighbors, the Knocks, who where on a family vacation and had stopped at Norwalk to watch the races and then go to Cedar Point before heading onto N.Y. I rode the rollercoasters that didn’t go that high in the air and Blake their son and I would hang out together when the rest of them wanted to ride the big ones. I don’t dig things I have no control over and go way up in the air hanging me out over the edge and up and down. At least in the F/C I can still steer and hopefully it doesn’t grow wings and decide to take off up in the air. We headed home Monday night and finally got back to Indy about two in the morning.

The rest of the week Melanie and I spent working around the house getting some things done before we head out for a three in a row swing. We had the outside of our house painted while we were in Norwalk and we started working on sealing our patio. The Knocks have got the two of us playing some tennis with them in the evening so we decided we would go practice while they were out of town to try and get a little better. We didn’t get much better but it is a pretty good workout chasing each others ball around when we hit it all over the place.

We spent a quite Fourth of July hanging out around the house and doing some odd jobs. It was pretty cool in Indy on the fourth. Actually the coolest fourth on record for Indy so it wasn’t a great day to go to the lake or anything like a cookout. That night we decide to head down to our shops and sit in the parking lot so we could watch the fireworks in Brownsburg. They were okay, but there has been so many shops built around there lately that the view isn’t as good as it was a few years ago. Speaking of that, our team moved into our new shop last week in Brownsburg. We had been renting a stall off of the Pedregons while ours was getting built. It is a fabulous place and it will be nice to have a permanent place for the guys to work in now. If you know Kenny Bernstein I don’t have to tell you how nice of a place he provided for us to work in.

We played more tennis with the neighbors after they got home from vacation on Sunday, (no we weren’t any better) and had a cookout with them on Monday night. Mel is a great cook and loves trying new recipes all the time. I like to cook, too, but usually stick to the basics. She’s likes the healthier stuff so at least she makes me eat well.

We flew out to Denver on Wednesday and will fly the whole Western Swing. I left our motorhome with the folks at Monaco to get some service work done while we are gone for three weeks. Denver is Melanie’s hometown so she has been busy with a lot of press stuff and we have been visiting her favorite restaurants this week. We had dinner Wednesday night with a friend of mine from Ottumwa who is in Denver this week on business after Melanie and her mom went and played golf. We hit our favorite mall in Denver yesterday morning before heading out to the track for more media stuff. I did an appearance last night at a convenience store before meeting up with Mel at the Mopar street party in downtown Golden. After that we went to dinner with her mom and sister and brother in law.

Now we are getting ready to head out to the track for an interesting weekend of 1000-foot racing this weekend. I’m glad to see that we are doing something to try and make us safer right away. The 1000-foot decision is the easiest and quickest thing we could do to give us more room to stop the cars if something goes wrong. In testing we never go past a 1000 feet and that is because if something is going to happen it most likely will happen in that last 320 feet. I’m really old school and my heart tells me I don’t like racing to 1000 feet but my mind tells me it is the smart thing to do. Hopefully from Scott’s death we will find new and better ways to make our cars and tracks safer so we can go back to our sports history of racing a quarter of a mile in the future. I spent a lot of time yesterday out on the track trying to familiarize myself with what things look like at a 1000 feet so I have a better feel of where the new finish line is. In Denver the shutdown area is uphill and long enough, but the chutes just don’t work that well in the thin air. I know in the past here I have questioned whether or not they have even come out as I go up the hill since they just don’t hit that hard.

It will be an interesting and new experience for everyone this weekend. Especially with the new chassis requirement, the new tire and racing to a 1000 feet all up in the thin air. For most teams the outcome after the Denver race will be let’s get back to sea level racing. Denver has always been one of my better tracks so I am looking forward to maybe winning the first 1000-foot drag race. The Bandimere’s have a first class facility and always put on a great race.  I’ve been in the final round in Denver in every class I have raced here in the past except f/c so let’s hope this year I can add a final round in funny car to that list.

Talk to you again soon,

TJ