Good morning from my room on the 11th floor of the Hyatt at DFW Airport. Frankly, I'd had enough of counting the crickets in my room down in Ennis, so like most of the team I got up on Sunday morning (very early) and checked out. We often like to "tempt fate" that way, figuring it will be a wonderful problem to have if we need to scramble to check back in after a long winner's circle celebration, but this time it was not to be for a few different razor-thin reasons.

As you probably saw, heard, or read about, the track in Dallas, as great as it is, was a bit "out of balance" or something to that effect. It wasn't completely a one-lane track, but the right side was really having far more problems than the left and let's just put it this way: Nobody with lane choice was taking the right lane. That's just how it was...

In the first round, we were lined up against Ron Capps but our 4.204 in qualifying gave us lane choice over his 4.207. For 3-thousandths, we got 8th and he got 9th and that, right there, pretty much settled our match-up as long as we could go from A-to-B without messing up. We did, running a really nice 4.212, to pick up our first "W" in the playoffs. It was nice to hoot and holler (Texas terminology) again, and I'm not sure who patted me on the back really hard right after the win-light came on, but I watched the video I shot and just after the
4.212 popped up on the scoreboard, the whole scoreboard gets knocked right out of the frame! I loved it. But, there was only one problem...

As the 8 vs. 9 matchup, we were the final pair to run in the first round, so we had already seen No. 1 qualifier Robert Hight beat Leif Helander, from Sweden, in his first-round race. The winner of the 8 vs. 9 match-up faces the winner of the 1 vs. 16 race in the second round, so that was kind of important for us to watch. Robert won with a 4.202, so he had lane choice by a hundredth. I knew that as soon as I saw our time on the board, and I knew we really had our work cut out for us.

We were second pair in the next round, and as I wrote in my post-event report, the pair ahead of us brightened everyone's outlook. It was Jack Beckman against John Force, and Beckman won with a great lap, but Force made it down the right lane to give him a real battle, putting a
4.271 on the board. Literally, that was the first time any of us got a glimpse that it might even be possible for a Funny Car to run well enough to win over there. You still couldn't run as quickly as a car that made a good lap in the left, but it was indeed possible to get to the finish line under power. Until then, every Funny Car had smoked the tires over there...

I had talked to Tim before the run, and he had a wry smile on his face, saying "I know I can get down that lane, so this ain't over yet..." He did his part with the tune-up, and we did get down the lane. He did more than his part at the tree, grabbing a huge, gigantic, enormous 6-hundredths advantage in reaction time. The LRS car led almost the whole way and Tim later told us that he never saw Hight out the window at all. But, Robert had the steam to drive around us, and we lost by 26-thousandths. We got down it, and gave him a grand battle, but you had to tip-toe a little over there and therefore you had to hope they weren't totally on their game in the left. Close, but no cigar...

A couple of thousandths in qualifying earned us that lane choice in round one. A hundredth in the first round cost us lane choice for round two. And, 26-thousandths in round two ended our day against the guy who got into the Countdown last, by the tiniest hairs on his chinny chin chin, and now leads the points with back-to-back playoff wins. Did anyone really think Robert Hight wasn't going to be a factor in this deal? We knew it...

We just went back to the pits, collected ourselves for a bit, and then got to work. The crew guys did their jobs on the race car, while us other "non-crew" types began tearing the circus down in the hospitality area. Did I mention it was hot on Sunday? Hoo boy, it was hot... All of us pretty much just wanted to get it done, so we kept cranking on it, taking down walls, the big backdrop, and poles.
Once we got the big awning down, we were out in the sun, which made it ever so much more enjoyable, but by then Jeff and Rich had come overfrom the race car to help, and we had it all pretty much torn down and
ready to pack up before the finals ran. The trailer we haul the hospitality stuff in was parked out on the outskirts of the pit, and since you can't move a trailer until an hour after the finals, and I hadn't done my actual No. 1 job of writing all of my reports and highlights, I cleaned up as best as I could, put on a clean shirt, jumped in my steaming hot rental car still sweating profusely, and drove up here. The shower I took when I arrived in my room felt just a little nicer than usual... And no crickets at the Hyatt! Imagine that.

Well, I now have to get out of here and head downstairs to the lobby. I'll catch the Hyatt's shuttle and have the friendly driver take me over to terminal E, where my flight will leave around 12:00. I'm going over there with a couple of hours to spare, so my plan is to finish this at the gate and fire it off before we board... In a few hours, I'll be home. Barb told Boofus and Buster I would be home this afternoon, so I hope they're waiting for me. Sometimes, when I come home after a trip, they act like they're not excited to see me, but I can see through that act!

Back in a bit...

(30 minutes later...)

Well, that was easy. I arrived in the lobby at 9:55, got on the shuttle at 10:00, got off at Terminal E at 10:10, and now I'm in the Sky Club about 60 yards from my gate at 10:25. Can't beat that...

Anyway, I'm including a fairly large photo gallery, with various images from the Dallas weekend. I'll be home in a few, and Barbara is home this week, but with her company (Lawson Software) making its quarterly earnings announcement on Wednesday afternoon, I'm not going to be seeing her much. As Vice President - Investor Relations, my wife is the quarterback for these announcements, and the weeks leading up to each one are hectic, stressful, and LONG. I'm "on my own" for dinner each night, and she'll be burning the midnight oil at her office in downtown St. Paul right up until Wednesday. Then, of course, I leave for Memphis on Thursday. Such is the life we lead...

There will be some potentially interesting TV to watch each night. As bad as our Minnesota Twins have been all year, they are now only two games behind the Tigers with a four-game series beginning tonight in Detroit. I shouldn't necessarily say they've been bad, because what they've really been is just overwhelmingly average. But, for a team that was supposed to win the division, they've been a disappointment. If they just would've played decent all year, they would have run away with the AL Central, and about two weeks ago they were dead and buried in third place. Somehow, though, they've begun to click and have played great for the last two weeks, narrowing the gap between them and the Motor City Kitties... They really need to win three out of the four to have a chance, and a sweep would be the more realistic way to win the division, but I don't see that happening.

But, as Barb and I agreed last night on the phone, we can't get too emotionally invested in this, because the Tigers play far too well at home and what the heck, even if the Twins were to pull off a miracle and make it, they still would have to play some team called the Yankees in the first round, and that wouldn't end well anyway... But, it will be interesting to see if they have anything left in the tank beginning tonight at Comerica Park...
 

One other side project I coordinated all weekend was the collection of entry forms for our NHRA hockey pool. This is the "pool for dummies" operation, which draws the most participants. All you do is pick your team and that's it, no fuss no muss, but a lot of people like being involved so I was the point of focus for all sorts of guys from various teams, who were all tracking me down to hand in their forms. We've got Bob Vandergriff, Jeff Arend, Brandon Bernstein, Dave Rieff, Rob Flynn, Chris Cunningham, Dean Antonelli, Ron Douglas, Dan Hood, and lots of others already in the fold... Now, I have to organize all the hand-written notes into one email, to help Greg Ozubko get the teams uploaded to the site that runs the league...

Just like last year, I'm also in the "hands-on" league that Phil Burgess organizes. We'll have just eight or ten teams, but it gets very intense throughout the season and you have to pick your lineup every night, bench certain guys, release guys who aren't playing well for you, and add new players where you have weaknesses. It gets pretty addicting, and my team ("Da Boyce" of course) is ready to go... Neighbor Dave joined the league this year, so we'll have an intra-Woodbury rivalry going on...

My mind is kinda blank right now, for some reason, so I guess I'll wrap this up and find a bite to eat. Then, in an hour, I'll be boarding my flight for home... Can't wait to get there!

Wilber, out!