Good morning. It's 8:45 here at zMax Dragway, as we prepare for a 12:00 noon start today. Normally, we'd be neck-deep in pre-race prep and nervousness right now, but before we left the track last night we all shared the newfound news that this race starts at 12:00. It's been published that way forever, but it was news to us because we never noticed before... So, rather than leave the hotel at 7:00, we left at 8:00 and I want to take this opportunity to post a real quick one with just a few items. I know I've been remiss the last couple of days, but it's been pretty non-stop here, so this is my chance... I'll just ramble and add the pics at the bottom...

The weather forecast for this whole weekend was bleak, and it's been raining all over the southeastern part of the country the whole time we've been here. It's been raining in Charlotte and Concord the whole time we've been here too (Sheila Cunningham drove to the track yesterday, incredulous that we could be running, because she had the wipers on until a few blocks away from here) but we never missed a session. Talk about luck!

One of the first things we did on Friday was honor the Countdown drivers. To start that, we had them all gather in the staging lanes to pose with the championship trophy, and I immediately noticed that a lot of them touched it, moved it around, and otherwise made contact with it, and I thought that was interesting. Maybe it's only a "hockey thing" but there's not a hockey player in the world who would ever touch the Stanley Cup if he hadn't actually won it. That's an unwritten rule, but every hockey player knows it. Come to think of it, I believe it is pretty much just a hockey thing...

After that, it got interesting. To coin a phrase from a classic movie, the next step was where you could say "What we got here, is a failure to communicate..."

After the pose in the staging lanes, we went out to the track and they began to introduce each driver to the crowd. One by one, starting with Robert Hight who is 10th, they came out, walked about 40 yards down the track, waved to the crowd, and line up as a group. We noticed that the first two Funny Cars (Bob Gilbertson and Andy Kelley) had pulled up to the water boxes, but that didn't concern us at the time. Notice I said "at the time."

Once they got down to the 4th place driver, our perception of order in the universe took a tumble, as the starting line official signaled the two teams to fire 'em up! With seven of the greatest Funny Car drivers on the planet standing in the middle of the track! No one really knew what to do, and the event marketing guys were frantically trying to have the cars shut off, but by then it was too late. With famous drivers running for cover, and a lot of people looking very confused, they let them run and do their burnouts. It was crazy, and the crowd never did get to cheer for Ron Capps, Ashley Force Hood, or Tony Pedregon. Oops. The left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, and apparently also the left hand didn't notice a gaggle of drivers lined up in the middle of the left lane.

Bob Tasca's team has a wonderful body on their car for one race, in support of research for Juvenile Diabetes. It's a cool body, designed by an 8-year-old boy named Liam (who is here) but our teammates are still having gremlins in their camp when it comes to things being damaged. They broke a strut on the first Friday run and that cracked the body for the third time in the last few races, so they had to run the standard red one in Q2. They got it fixed overnight, and replaced the vinyl where needed, only to have a wheel hub come apart on their last run. Bob did a FANTASTIC job controlling what was truly an "out of control" race car, and it didn't look like that issue hurt the body, but it surely gave the guys more to work on, over there. They've been putting in some long nights lately.

Yesterday, we had a really fun moment in our pit, and we were all in cahoots on it. I got an email from a guy named Mark, who is a big backer of ours and a longtime follower, and he asked me to do a huge favor for him, since he'd be one our VIP guests for the day along with his girlfriend Laura. I filled in Tim and the guys, and when it got to be time to warm up the car, I got on our P.A. system and gave my standard "We're about to warm up and it's going to get pretty smoky and smelly in here, so be prepared..." speech, but then all the guys on the team stopped, looked at us, and I said "But first, Mark has something to say." I handed him the mic, and as he got down on one knee to propose, Tim held up a sign he'd made that said "Just Say No!" on it.

Laura was shaking, Mark was nervous, the guys were all clapping, and she did say yes... It was a great moment, and a lot of fun.

As mentioned in a couple of earlier blogs, we also have Buck Hujabre with us here, and he got in yesterday. I guess enough people out here read the blog, because I hardly had to introduce him to anyone. Tons of racers, crew guys, NHRA officials, and fans spotted him and said "You're the guy from Jersey Boys!" and Buck had a great time. Basically, he had (and continues to have) the time of his life.

The ESPN cameras followed us to the starting line, Bob Frey introduced him over the P.A. and then came over to our pit to spend a solid 20 minutes talking with Buck (Bob is a big fan of the show and has seen it multiple times) and basically we just had a great time. Buck is a huge drag racing fan, and he's been following the sport for so long, and so intently, there's not much going on out here that he's not aware of.

The wonderful news in the Hujabre family is that Buck's wonderful wife, Mary, is expecting their first baby on December 1. We wish Mary could've been here, but we're all excited for them. Next time we see Buck and Mary, they might just have a little bundle of joy with them. And by the way, Buck finally gave me a way to remember how to pronounce his last name correctly. Everyone has heard of Zsa Zsa Gabor, and can make that half-Z and half-S pronunciation, and that's what you use to pronounce his name. Basically, it's "hoo-ZSA- bear"... So there you have it.

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The pose in the staging lanes, before we tried to get everyone run over

 

9:15 now, and the nerves are starting to build. We ran great in all four qualifying laps here, getting better and better until we ripped off a huge 4.100 on the last run to move back up the ladder and land 5th. We have my buddy Jeff Arend in round one, and that always makes me nervous... And how come a 4.099 seems so much better than a 4.100? One little thousandth, but an .09 would've been a bit cooler.

Today, all that matters is the win light.

The guys are all pretty quiet, and they look very focused. It's all business around here...

Let's go racin'.....!!!!

Wilber, out!