I’ve been waiting to write this blog for a long time; the blog where I get to talk about my first professional Top Fuel win. It is the 171st blog that I’ve written. I have so much I could say, I don’t even know where to begin. I really haven’t slowed down much since our win light came on at 4:12 p.m. on June 1st. I feel like I have been talking about it non-stop. I’ve had a lot of different interviews. It’s cool because I get to keep reliving Sunday over and over. I haven’t slept much and I’m running on adrenaline. After our win, we had to leave the hotel at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning to make our 6 a.m. flight out of Kansas City back to Detroit. Then we drove to Chicago Tuesday afternoon so we could have our dragster on Michigan Ave. downtown at the NBC studios for a 6 a.m. interview. I’m actually feeling kind of brain dead right now but I’m going to try and string together some words for a blog. I’m sure I won’t get everything that I want to say.

I finally got the picture of our KB team in the winner’s circle that I have been wanting. A few blogs back, I posted a picture of our team standing in our pits. I said how difficult it was to get that picture well needless to say, getting that winner’s circle was so much more difficult. Our team has been through so much together. I could go on and on about all that but I’m not going to dwell on the past. It was great to see everyone so happy. I can’t wait until things settle down a bit and I can give a framed photo of our trip to the winner’s circle to our team owners, Ken, Judy, and Kenny Black, our crew chief, Jim Oberhofer, and each of my other teammates. I can’t show enough appreciation to them or our sponsors like Summit, Red Line Oil, Technicoat, Findlay Automotive, and Mac Tools.

For the longest time, the whole experience didn’t seem real. In the final, I didn’t see my win light come on because I guess it wasn’t working. I thought we won but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. We don’t have radios so I had to wait until I turned off the track to find out for sure. It seemed like I couldn’t get stopped fast enough. As I turned the corner, I saw the NHRA safety safari pumping their fists at me so I knew. Then I saw Gary Gerould and a pack of photographers waiting for me. I sat in the car for a couple of seconds to pinch myself. It really felt like a huge relief. Obviously, I didn’t get to see the starting line celebrations from my KB Racing and Kalitta Motorsports teammates at the time, but I thought it was SO awesome that they were all up there. I have watched the replay of the celebrations over and over on the video that’s posted online.

I wish my family had been there but I’m hopeful that we will win races at places like Seattle, Sonoma, Las Vegas, and Pomona where I know my family will be able to attend. Heartland Park Topeka is not my home track but is for my teammate, Mac Savage. He did cylinder heads on our car in 2006 and 2007. This year he is in charge of the clutch department. Mac is from Kansas City and hasn’t missed the NHRA Summer Nationals in Topeka since the mid-nineties. His Dad was there all weekend so that was really cool. Mac made a comeback of his own when he broke his collar bone over the winter. He made a really speedy recovery and ended working on our car despite the pain. It’s so cool that we could win at his hometrack.

Another interesting fact is that on Sunday morning before first round, my very first fan, Ron Holter, came to our pit to say hello. He wrote me an email back in 2004 when I first started racing top alcohol dragster. He declared himself my #1 fan. I was so excited because I had never gotten fan mail before. I didn’t even know I had any fans. Then after we won our first race in 2005, he said he didn’t know if he could still be my fan because he likes to root for the underdog. I begged him to keep cheering for us and he did. I wanted to race our Top Alchohol Dragster at Topeka in 2005 but we couldn’t go so he bought one of my Girl Power t-shirts that I used to sell and he wore it to the race to represent. He also happened to be in Brainerd the weekend I was hired for this job. He has been to a few races since then. We have kept in touch somewhat but I hadn’t seen him in over a year. Then he and his wife showed up at our pit on Sunday morning at Heartland Park Topeka. Then we were able to make it to the winner’s circle and they were there too. It’s funny how things work like that. It’s so awesome to have dedicated fans.

I’m thankful for all the people that kept encouraging me through all our tough times. I’ve gotten some very nice emails from people and sometimes it’s really helped lift my spirits when I’m down.

I’m anything but down right now, just a little bit tired. I’ll be rested up and ready to race in Joliet this weekend where we can hopefully collect another win to go back-to-back. I know my team will have the car running great. There’s a lot more I want to say right so I’ll write back again soon.