After being on the road for almost a month, there is no better feeling than parking the rig safely in the shop, realizing that I actually remember the way home, recognizing the house that I live in and finally getting to sleep in my own bed. Life is good. Now, I will finally have a week off to get the racecar and race shop organized and give Richard and the guys at Dart time to complete some of their engine projects.

But wait a minute; what about all of the projects that I wanted to get completed before the weather gets cold and before I have to head west for my last trip of this year? Also, Toni has had a cookout/baby shower planned for Jamie and Cynthy for months and it was scheduled for this past Saturday. Since our first grandbaby is due in about three weeks, (how awesome is that?!) we were really excited to finally have an open weekend to be able to get everyone together before the baby is born.

Being the great guy that I am, I asked Toni to give me a list of things that she needed done before the weekend and I would see if I could help her out. Of course, the first thing she put on the list was, “lawn, gardens, weeds, mulch” followed by painting our new front door and cleaning up the deck. Well, after a quick call to my friend Cathleen at Design Scapes and a promise to have my yard perfect by the weekend, I smugly checked that item off the list. Next! Okay, now it was time to tackle the front door. A few months ago we finally had our front doors replaced and they look awesome, except for the fact that I haven’t been home to pick out the paint so the contractor could finish the job. Really now, how hard can this be?

Well, let me tell you, a few gallons of paint, a sore back, and many, many hours later I finally got to check that item off of the list. This time, I wasn’t so smug about it. Wow! What a job that was. Of course, while waiting to put a second coat of paint on the door, I decided to scrape some paint off of the front window; oh boy, another miscalculation on my part. Now guess what I had to do? Yep, finish scraping the rest of the window, get some primer and put that on and then finally repaint the entire thing. The good thing was, this time while I was waiting for the first coat to dry on the window, I spent my time making phone calls and getting some work done instead of getting myself into another project.

Well, after completing my first two items, the deck was a breeze and I finally had the satisfaction of checking everything off of my list. Not a minute too soon, I might add. Before I knew it, Saturday was here and all of our family and friends were arriving to share in our highly anticipated event.

You have to understand one thing; in our family (as well as Cynthy’s family) a baby shower is not meant for just the women of the family. Oh no! Everyone in the family is invited and believe me, all had a great time. Cynthy’s parents flew in from New Hampshire to join us, and all of our family and friends were there. Now that my nieces have babies our house is once again filled with the excitement of another generation of Yates! Now that is really cool! Toni, Melissa and my sister-in-law Loren had decorated the house from top to bottom and it looked so awesome – they even decorated our front trees with baby diapers hanging from colored ribbons! They made me promise, however, to turn off the sprinkler system that night or those newborn Huggies were going to get a real test of “moisture control”. LOL

Well, the baby shower was a great success. I mean, really, how can a baby shower for my first grandbaby be anything but a success! There were lots of presents to open, lots of great food to eat and most importantly, a lot of time to share with family and friends. Jamie and Cynthy got a lot of baby items that they needed to complete their nursery so I guess all we have left to do now is wait for the big day!

So, as you can see, there are a lot of exciting things going on in our life other than the excitement of racing. However, speaking of racing, we are presently here at Maryland International Raceway along with 12 other Pro Stock cars testing before the Richmond race. We just finished running today and will test tomorrow and then run in the US Pro Stock Open tomorrow night. I am going to tell you that the track is absolutely awesome! We made three full passes today and happened to be the fastest car. Believe it or not we ran a 6.56 and a 6.57 at 209.48 mph which is actually a new personal record for me! I know that it is just testing, but it made me feel good that Jamie and I can adapt this GXP Sunglass Machine to these really great track conditions.

Well, Jamie has just finished putting the clutch back in the car and we almost have this fast hot rod ready for tomorrow so I will get this sent and help load up. I will try to share some more test results and a baby update in the next blog!