I believe they made a song about that didn’t they? I’m currently westbound on Interstate 70 heading to Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis to do a couple of days of testing before going to Indy. You notice that I wait until I’m driving the rig to update my blog. That way, Toni can do the typing and I can do the talking and it is way faster than when I do the typing. See, there is a method in my madness.

Anyway, there really haven’t been a lot of exciting things happening since I drove home from Reading. Jamie has spent the last week completely disassembling our GXP, sending parts out to get checked, replacing parts and then reassembling everything back together. Richard, and everyone at Dart has been busy working on some new engines and just like everyone else in NHRA, we are all getting ready for Indy.

Indy is like a marathon, the longest race of the year, but it is a piece of cake compared to trying to keep up with Toni’s honey-do list! Since we are gone all the time we have to rely on our sprinkler system to keep our lawn green. Well, while visiting my house this weekend, I noticed that half of my back yard was turning a pretty shade of brown. Further investigation revealed a sinkhole in my yard. After 30 minutes of digging and prodding with a shovel I discovered the problem; a broken pipe in the system. Now, how in the world could that be?

Well, it seems that when my good neighbor, Chip had his sprinkler system installed; they managed to dissect one of my pipes. Chip’s solution was to call the sprinkler guy first thing Monday morning. Me, I’m a more hands-on guy. A quick trip to Home Depot and I’ll have this thing back in shape in no time. Well, four trips to Home Depot (gotta support Tony Stewart, especially since he is coming back to GM next year) more shoveling, and a half a day later, the system was back in working order. I had sprinkler heads popping up all over the place.

Of course, fixing the sprinkler system was just an extra item on my list. I had already spent two trips to Home Depot trying to pick out paint colors for my front door and then another trip to pick up some replacement tiles for my side entryway. By Sunday evening I thought I was just about done when Toni looked at me and said, “I can’t stand looking at those weeds behind the house any longer.” Oh boy, this wasn’t going to be any fun. “What weeds?” I asked innocently. Maybe if I pretended that I didn’t notice the five-foot bunch of vegetation that had taken over the back of the deck we could just leave it until they died naturally. Anyway, shouldn’t we be having a good frost sometime soon? Winter can’t be that far away can it? Not!

Okay, this can’t take that long. Well, three hours and six full trash cans later not to mention one very sore back and the ground was bare. I thanked my lucky stars that it was finally dark as I hobbled to the house. Now it was finally time to sit in front of the TV and relax for a couple of hours.

That was about the time that Toni happened to notice that I was still using my five trusty remotes to control all of my electronic empire. She then asked, “Didn’t my Dad get you a cool universal remote for Christmas that is suppose to take the place of all those?” Uh, well, yeah, it was sitting right on top of the TV on its handy little charging station, fully charged and ready to go. There was just one problem; I hadn’t had time to program it yet. Hey, it’s only been eight months, but who is counting?

Well, three hours later, I had my cool little remote running everything but the dishwasher with a touch of a button. Let me tell you, Einstein and Thomas Edison would have been proud of this invention. You almost have to have a degree in electrical engineering to program this thing. Well, I suppose a fifth grader would have worked, too!

So, here I sit in the driver’s seat resting my weary muscles eagerly anticipated the fun-filled week of testing/racing that we have ahead of us. Surely it can’t be any harder than my past weekend of chores and yard work. I know one thing; I don’t get this sore racing my Pontiac GXP.

Speaking of Pontiac, our friends Fred Simmonds and Jeff Romack of GM Motorsports have been putting the final touches on our annual visit to the Reilly Children’s Hospital in Indy scheduled for this Thursday. I can’t wait. There will be several other drivers joining me for a meet and greet, and autograph session with a bunch of smiling little faces. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Thursday afternoon.

Also this weekend we will be hosting 50 Wiley X customers from all over world who are so excited about NHRA drag racing and our Sunglass Machine that they can’t wait to spend their Labor Day weekend watching us kick butt. Yeah! (I hope that they really aren’t just trying to get out of yard work! Just kidding! LOL)

Well, Toni is calling it quits on the typing. The good old PA turnpike is becoming bumpier and bumpier. Kinda makes you wonder what they do with all that toll money that they collect, doesn’t it? Make sure to check back as I will be sharing the results of our test session and some cool pictures of my visit to the children’s hospital. Have a great week and thanks for checking in!