Sorry I have not written in awhile. I had to check myself into rehab. It seems like there is a rehabilitation center for everything now so for the last week and a half I have been in post-crash recovery after my 300-mph hour wreck in Las Vegas. Mostly I needed it to recover from the loss of my first dragster. Actually, that’s not true. It sounded good though, since the “in thing” to do right now seems to be to check into rehab. The best rehab I could have had was getting back in the car two days after the crash. Actually in all seriousness, my new dragster did speed up any recovery I needed by getting me a Valentine’s Day card apologizing for treating me so bad and promising to behave better.

If you ever want to know how many friends and how much support you have, just get in a accident going 300 mph. I appreciate the support from everyone so much. Like I said over the PA at Pomona in an interview with Alan Reinhart, I was over it 10 minutes after it happened. I know the risks involved with what I do. I have dedicated my life to racing, I love driving, and I’m thankful I get to do. Larry Dixon, a Top Fuel driver who has seen his share of crashes assured me that it’s better that I got that crash out of the way and now I should be good for about 500 runs.



Since you know I wasn’t in rehab, I do apologize for the lack of blog updates lately. I have no good excuse. We had the last week off since our grueling preseason testing schedule had us working every day from Jan. 3 until the Tuesday after Pomona. I flew back home to Michigan and I’ve managed to stay busy for the week since I’m not very good at sitting at home and relaxing. I was glad to be home even though we left sunny Southern California and flew into a blizzard and single digit temperatures. I took photos from the airplane to show the contrast in weather that a four hour flight will give. I will admit that I slept in until about 10 am. for two days in a row which is very rare for me. It’s easier to do when I get used to West Coast time and then you go back home to Michigan and am on East Coast time.

Last week, I wrote my “On the Run” column which will be printed in National DRAGSTER soon. I booked some plane tickets for upcoming races. I went to a U of M gymnastics meet with the Oberhofer girls, Ashley, Jessica, and Julia. I think I managed to hit the gym almost everyday, mostly for kickboxing classes. I approved the rendering of our KB Racing Dragster which will be on the new NHRA video game.

On Saturday, I drove four hours to Indianapolis in the middle of the snow storm. It was slow going and there were cars and trucks spun out all over the road, but I made it. My friend, Kelly Bustos, was having a birthday party. She is the team manager for Dexter Tuttle’s Top Fuel team. We have been friends for about a year now and she was with me in the ambulance after the crash. She ended up being sick on her birthday but I was glad I was able to make it. We went with some friends to dinner at Rick’s in Brownsburg.

Sunday was my dad’s birthday and I definitely didn’t make it to California for that. I intended to call him when I first woke up but thought since he was on PST, it was too early to call. Then I got distracted all day and didn’t call him. I fell asleep at one point in the day because I was watching the Daytona 500. It wasn’t until my little sister sent me a text message to remind me about my dad’s birthday that I called him. I felt terrible for waiting so long because he’s always calls me first thing in the morning on my birthday. I do have a cool present to give him that I ordered back in December that was handmade. I was going to give it to him in Phoenix but he has to skip the race this weekend because work has him pretty busy so maybe Gainesville.

I think we are going to have a good race this weekend at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to make very many runs at Pomona. We improved each time we went down the track during qualifying but didn’t even get a chance to go down the track first round. Unfortunately the clutch linkage came off when I did the burnout. I went to push in the clutch after the burnout, it was like the pedal wasn’t even there. It took all the strength I had just to stop the car after the burnout. We wanted that first round win really bad. Not just because of whom we were running but because we had been on the road for a long time and we made a lot of runs in testing. We have put all that behind us and our ready to win four rounds this weekend. We overcame a lot of adversity and we are more determined than ever.

I am actually in flight to Phoenix as I write this. I have a lot of media events and radio/TV interviews within the next couple of days to help promote the races. I can’t wait to get back in the car and start driving on Friday. Talk to you again soon.