First I want to say that I was so excited with the performance of our Wiley X GXP this weekend as it made its way to a semifinal finish. Something told us that qualifying in the 13th position had to be a sign of good things to come and we were not disappointed. The weekend was, however, still filled with a lot of drama.

As you know, we have been leasing engines from Ron Krisher and, as luck would have it, we had to race him first round. As was the case with many of the Pro Stock cars, Ron shook the tires first round and we took the advantage for a round win. By second round the track surface was averaging about 130 degrees and once again we scored a round win against Allen Johnson when he also shook the tires. This is when it got crazy.

While running AJ I thought that the transmission had jumped out of gear as it felt like our GXP just shut off. After further review, however, we realized that it wasn’t the transmission, but the engine. Oh boy, we only had about 45 minutes to turn the car around and have it in the lanes for the semifinals and now we had to change engines. To make it even more interesting, we had never run the back-up engine in the car so we were praying that all of the water lines, fuel lines, headers, etc., would fit.

This is when real teamwork came into play. Ron Krisher's entire Valvoline team jumped into action and came to our rescue. I couldn’t believe how hard everyone worked and how fast we got the engines changed. By the time Craig and Brian got our race engine out of the framerails, Kenny, Tommy and Doug had wheeled the back up engine into the pits. Jon Krisher was also a great help. While Jamie was drilling the mid-plate, Jon was putting on headers and taking off carburetors and assisting everyone else in anything that was needed. I was amazed at what a good mechanic Jon has become. It seems like just yesterday that Jon Krisher and my son Jon were just two kids hanging out with each other at the track and now they are working on Pro Stock engines! Boy, do I feel old.

Believe it or not, in less than an hour we fired the engine and headed for the scales. Karen Krisher had come over in the middle of the chaos and given us the weight differences in the engines so we were a perfect 2,355 pounds when we rolled across the scales. Unfortunately, there was no time to do any carburetor adjustments so we had to hope that we had the tune up close.

We rushed to the starting line, filled with fuel, and pulled into line. This time, it wasn’t meant to be as we got beat by Greg Stanfield in the semi’s but I could not have been prouder of the effort of everyone involved with our team. Thanks guys for all of your hard work.

Okay, now to explain why I am typing this blog instead of driving the rig. Well, for the first time in about three years, I am having someone else drive my rig home so that I could take a flight to Florida to pick up our boat from Sea Ray in Merritt Island. Toni also flew home by way of Baltimore where she is meeting her Dad and then they are flying into Orlando this afternoon. I have been here all day working with the Sea Ray technicians finalizing some of the maintenance issues that they have been working on since I left the boat after Gainesville and our Sea Ray boat is finally ready to go.

We will leave sometime tomorrow and start our journey north on the ICW (Intercoastal Waterway) where we will wind our way through some of the most beautiful coastal seascapes imaginable. Our trip should take about five days, which will put us back at home on Saturday or Sunday. I hope to be able to blog during our week and share with you some of the sights of our trip.

By the time we get our boat home Jamie should have everything ready to go testing before the next race in Atlanta. We are hoping to be able to test a couple of new engines that they have been working on so I am excited about that.

Well, time to get my stuff together and go pick up Toni and her Dad from the airport. I am really excited about our trip and will try really hard to share some of our experiences and pictures with you as our week progresses. Thanks for checking in with me.