Hello from Mooresville, North Carolina! I know I said I would check in again this week so I’m keeping to my promise, but, I dropped my camera and broke it so I don’t have any good pictures right now. I’m trying to round some up from other people so I will add those when and if I get them. All I have right now is what I took from my pathetic camera phone.
Tuesday was a pretty busy day. One of our product sponsors, Mahle Clevite, who makes our engine bearings, asked me to come down here. They fly in a group of magazine editors so I spend some time with them. One of the things we did was tour Hendrick Motorsports. That was an amazing facility. We got to see all the dyno machines, the motor rooms, where they prepare the chassis. I believe they said they prepare motors for eight cup cars and three Nationwide cars.
On Tuesday night, we went to the Engine Builder Mahle Showdown at the NASCAR Technical Institute. It’s the second year in a row that I’ve gone. This year, Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Peggy Lewellyn and Top Fuel driver Doug Herbert went as well. We signed lots of autographs, gave out prizes, and mingled with everyone. It’s great to meet so many NASCAR people who are also big fans of NHRA drag racing.
It was also great to see Dennis Borem and Darrell Hoffman from Pro Motor Engines win for the second year in a row. For the showdown, they have to build, in the shortest time possible, a complete engine and successfully run it for one minute. Dennis and Darrell did that in the final in a record 15 minute 59 seconds to beat a duo from Roush-Yates Racing. Doug, Peggy and I presented the winners a check for $20,000. The showdown is fascinating to watch and I’m glad that Mahle Clevite invites me out to participate.
I’m in North Carolina for a lot of other reasons as well. The Coca-Cola 600 is this Sunday at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, so I will be going to that. I will also be participating in some autograph sessions in Charlotte’s Speed Street. I am doing what I can to help promote the inaugural race at the new Zmax Dragway which is right next door to the Lowe’s Speedway. Also, a big reason I am here is for networking which is definitely a necessity, especially in the sponsorship search for our KB Racing top fuel team. While I’m here, I went by to visit my KB Racing Pro Stock teammates at their shop in Mooresville. As always, Greg Anderson, Jason Line, and all the guys were busy working. I tried not to get in the way too much but I like stopping in to say hi.
I discovered this week that I have transferred my trouble with reacting to the lights at the starting line to trouble reacting to stop lights. Yesterday, I accidentally ran a red light and scared my passengers half to death. My passengers just happened to be John Siragusa, who is the senior director of sales and business development at NHRA. I also had Mike Adams of IMG with me. We were talking about finding and maintaining sponsors. I was rambling on and obviously I’m very passionate about that stuff so I completely wasn’t paying attention and ran right through the red light. My passengers panicked a bit and tried to stop me, but it was too late. Thankfully no one got hurt and neither did the car we were driving. I was a bit embarrassed. I want to work with them on getting sponsors for our team, not scare them to death. John and Mike wanted to visit the KB Pro Stock team at their shop and rather than explain how to get there, I just took them over. Then I ended up giving them a tour of the shop. It was kind of funny; a Top Fuel driver giving a tour of Pro Stock shop is not something that happens every day. I think it was cool for them to see the KB Racing shop and see the team in their everyday work environment, even though they had to risk their lives to get there. Maybe next time, they will probably opt out of driving with me.
Right now, I’m going to drive to downtown Charlotte. There are a lot of things going on. My cousin, Michelle, flew in and will be spending the weekend with me. I will probably have lots to talk about after the weekend is over.