Charlotte? In the books. Dallas? In the rearview. Memphis? Coming up next. Richmond? Just down the road. More than any other multi- race swing in recent memory, this one seems like it's really a bear for me, and I think it's just because the travel is so constant, then the work all has to get done on the days in-between, and with our schedules so crazy I'm hardly getting to see my wife. Not to mention I'm also tired... And old... And who knows what else...

Tonight is Barbara’s earnings call, at work, so whenever she’s finally done with that we’re going to try to meet somewhere for a glass of wine. Just so we can actually spend some time together outside the house and enjoy ourselves for a few minutes...

Meanwhile, I was just going through all my Dallas photos and it finally hit me that there’s one common thread running through a lot of them. If the subject in any photo is a member of our team, the looks on the faces are all very serious. I didn’t notice it at first, but then I was scrolling through shot after shot and everyone looks very intense, in every shot.

I’m going to call it focus, and it’s not like nobody smiled all weekend. We had a normal amount of laughs and excitement, but for some reason I kept taking pictures of people looking stoic. You’ll see a few of them in the gallery below...

Getting home on Monday was a nice thing, although a bit too exciting right at the end. They’re rebuilding one of the main runways at MSP right now, so in-bound delays are kind of common, but when we circled over southern Minnesota about five times the pilot finally came on and said it was a combination of the runway being out of service and the “high surface winds” in the area, and we’d probably be holding for another 20 minutes.

When they cleared us to land, we made a long slow descent in over the southern suburbs, and as we got closer to the ground the jet was starting to bounce, swivel, drop, and pivot pretty much all at once. You could tell they had their hands full as we neared the ground, making constant corrections and pulling it back in line as the wind (which was a sort of semi-crosswind) kept knocking us off.

As much as I fly, and as much as I’ve flown all my life, there really aren’t that many moments when you have an adrenalin-filled flash of “Whoa, is this it?” I’ve only had a few of those, but this time we were about 30 feet off the ground, the pilots were still really working it, and just as we were about to make that final flare-out and touch down, we hit a gust of wind that about tipped us sideways. In that micro-second, I wondered just what would happen if the wings tipped down about 15 feet when you’re only about 10 feet off the ground. They got us straightened out, and slammed her on the runway pretty hard, but it was a little thrilling there for a minute.

The next thing I noticed, when I stepped off the plane, was that summer apparently ended, up here, while I was in Dallas. I was beginning to wonder if this outrageously warm late-summer and fall would ever come to a close, and now that it’s almost October, it appears we’re done with it.

It was about 55 degrees when I got off the plane, and with the 35 mph winds it felt a tad chillier than that. The one very good thing about the wind was that it finally cleared the back pond of duckweed, at least for a while. I can’t remember the last time I looked out the back windows and saw actual water instead of a pool table of green gunk, so I revived the old Pond Cam theme by taking a pic. The duckweed is back today, but one of these nights we’ll get a hard frost and that will be the end of that... It was in the 30s last night.

Yesterday, I got ready to do my pre-race press release and it finally hit me that I had to do two. I knew, of course, that Daniel Wilkerson was racing in Memphis this weekend, but for some reason I never thought ahead and planned to write a second story. Badda boom, badda bing, both stories were done in short order and the Dan story even grabbed the headline at NHRA.com this morning. How cool is that!

Another massive project has been the hockey pool we all get in. I think last year was the first time I kind of ended up being “the guy” when it comes to putting this all together, and the whole Dallas weekend was a non-stop hockey pool thing, with guys from all sorts of teams handing in their sheets. A certain percentage will do something wrong, no matter how clear the instructions are, so then you’re running around getting that straightened out, and basically it all just came to an end a few minutes ago.

For the record, Susie Worsham beat Jimmy Prock by about a minute, getting her roster to me, so Jimmy is the official “last man in” this year. Your attention please... The pool is closed. I repeat, the pool is closed.

We’ve got drivers, crew chiefs, crew guys, media people, neighbors, actors (well, one actor anyway, since Buck is in the league), wives, and friends. We don’t have a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker, but we have just about everything else covered.

It remains to be seen who will win the coveted “Guido Antonelli Award” this year, for coming in dead last. His sterling accomplishment from last year has earned him the title rights to the prize for finishing last. Atta boy Guido!

One other thing I noticed when I got home is that the chill in the air changes the way Boofus and Buster act toward each other. They still love each other and play like raving maniacs (you can tell when you walk in the door and all the rugs on the floor are out of place...) but during the summer they don’t hang out as much together when they’re sleeping. The hot sun and black fur probably combine to make them a little more independent.

Now, though, with a few windows cracked open and the fall air in the house (it’s 60 in here, right now) they’ve instinctively started snuggling again. Two good boys, they are...

And now to Memphis... What are my most distinct Memphis memories? Well, there was 1996 when it was so brutally hot a young driver named Worsham came over to see me in Whit Bazemore’s pit area, asking if I could get his grandmother into the Winston suite so she could cool off. That’s really the first time we ever spoke.

And 2001, when Memphis was the first race we ran after 9/11. Reading had been postponed, so we went on to Memphis a week or so later and it was all pretty emotional. The drivers went out on the track and unfurled a huge American flag, and all of us were connecting with each other and trading “what were you doing when you heard?” stories.

Other than that, throughout the years I mostly remember lots of rain, muddy parking lots, and a near-flood in the pro pits that had Pro Stock teams scrambling to back up their transporters, with the awnings still out and attached, to keep the cabs from going under water. No rain in the forecast this weekend, though, so hopefully we won’t have to deal with that.

Oh, and one other Memphis memory, that is blog related. Way back in the beginning of the blog, I took a moment to snap a photo of the Steak ‘N Shake that was next door to our hotel. I think that, and maybe the first time I showed our cat Shasta, were pretty much what started the off-beat nature of this blog. I got comments from around the world about the Steak ‘N Shake pic, and it helped me have the confidence to just write about whatever was going on, rather than have to try to force this to be about any particular things or people. Before you knew it, this thing had evolved into the rambling mess it is today. You can all thank Steakburgers for that... With onion, pickles, and relish.

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See what I mean? So serious...

 

I wonder if Fernando Vina, Jeromy Burnitz, Bret Boone, Dan Wilson, and the other guys on that team that all went on to play in the big leagues still remember the night the Sauget Wizards beat them 6-5 and the right fielder hit a bomb over the centerfield wall? Probably not, but I bet they might if you reminded them.

I remember all three of my at-bats in that game. I felt very comfortable in the box my first time up, and not really all that nervous, facing Dan Smith from Creighton. I think it was a 1-1 count when I lined a fastball up the middle and drove in our DH, Jimmy Donohue, with the game’s first run. I actually remember being more nervous after I got to first base, because that was the first moment any of us wondered, for real, if we could possibly, just maybe, actually beat the national team.

I walked my next time up, which was pretty amazing considering I usually struck out about twice as much as I walked, then I came up again in the top of the 6th, and by then we were down 2-1. Erik Schullstrom, a hard thrower from Fresno State, was on the mound and I vividly remember not feeling comfortable in the box. My spikes weren’t digging in right, I wasn’t really where I wanted to be, and it was all distracting. I remember thinking “My feet feel weird, hey stop thinking about your feet!” to myself.

Then, he left a 90 mph fastball up in the zone and right down the middle and I hit a long fly to center, with two men on. As I ran to first I was hoping it might move the runners up, or maybe get over the centerfielder’s head for a hit of some sort. Much to my amazement, as I rounded first I looked out there and saw the USA centerfielder looking up just as the ball went out of the park. I tried to act as cool as I could running the bases, but needless to say I was out of my mind. Coolest home run I ever hit, I think...

So on that run-producing note, I bit you adieu... See you when I get to Memphis.

Wilber, out!