It has been a fast week. I can’t believe it’s Friday already and now the day is nearly over and I’m just now starting my blog. I’ve been really good about keeping my promise of seven blogs in seven days, so I couldn’t flake because it’s Friday. I had the chance to read some of the fan mail from my blog. I appreciate everyone writing to me. I sometimes feel like I’m boring you all, but someone assured me that just writing about what I do everyday is interesting. I actually read some of the other NHRA.com driver blogs for the first time in a long time and found them very interesting.

It’s funny how the day goes by and I managed to stay busy all day but I don’t even know what I did. This morning, I met with Matt Ilas, the photographer and producer for Summer Nights Film and Video. I’m sure a lot of you have seen him at the races. He does a lot of the filming for ESPN2 at the NHRA races. He is going to put together a DVD for the KB Racing top fuel team. Today, we talked about what kinds of things we want to include on the DVD. It will be a fast-paced video intended to hook the viewer and show what NHRA drag racing and KB Racing are all about. It is also aimed at showing a potential sponsor the value of investing in our team. We brainstormed ideas about what to include. Ben Marshall, the Kalitta Motorsports marketing manager, and our new marketing guru, Rachael Brunner, helped out as well. It’s just one of the projects we’re working on.

After the meeting, I went through all our team hotel lists. We generally reserve 25 rooms at each race for our four teams. Each crew member is paired with another crewmember and they stay the same for the whole race season, so I made sure everyone was content with the way the list ended up. I matched certain rooms with certain credit cards and faxed it to Racing Circuit Travel.

Then I bought some plane tickets online for myself and other team members for our January traveling. We will be going to the Mac Tools Fair in Nashville, TN as well as the three test sessions out West. Some guys will travel back and forth and others will stay on the road. This takes me way longer than it should because I have to look at multiple websites and find the best deals. There are some good January deals right now.

Then my computer just blacked out. It has this annoying little problem where it decides to shut off whenever it feels like it. Maybe it’s been through too many airport screenings. When it does this, I move to the phone. I talked with Bob Frey today. He is always good for offering different types of advice from writing and delivering speeches to marketing and finding sponsors.

I had an interview with Phil Burgess, the editor of National DRAGSTER. He was asking for my comments about finishing in the top ten in 2006 and my goals for next year. He asked some of the questions that appear in the Out of the Groove section of the magazine. I always enjoy reading about what the other drivers have to say on that page. He asked things like what my most embarrassing moment at the track was, what my pet peeves are, and if I could pick someone to play me in a movie, who would it be? I couldn’t answer that one. I’ll have to think about it and get back to you all.

I tried to get in touch with the Simpson people. I need to find out when our chutes, packs and seatbelts will be here. I need to order my 2007 firesuit and I’ve been playing phone tag with them all week. I love my old suit though, so if I have to use that one, I won’t be that disappointed. I know it’s ugly but it’s very comfortable. I’ve been told that I can’t get a firesuit made like that anymore because that material isn’t available so that’s a bummer. I also ordered the No. 10 decal from ProCal. Instead of having 763 on the back wing, we will have the 10 since that’s where we placed.

Those are the kind of things that occupy my time during the day. I do most of it from my office. I must also admit, I email and/or text message with friends here and there between all this. I took a photo of it for you to see where I spend my days. I’m thankful to have a good working space. It’s in the new office area that was added at Kalitta Motorsports last spring.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I should tell you that when I said seven days of blogging, I meant seven “week” days. My next blog will be on Monday and I will fill you in on how my weekend was spent…maybe. ;-)