Even though Tuesday night was my third night of sleep after winning the race, the constant "on the go" travel and socializing didn't allow me to fully recharge any batteries so I was still bushed when I got up on Wednesday morning, but I had still had to get from southwest Florida up to the northeastern corner of that very long and skinny state, back to JAX to fly home on a 6:00 flight. Sounded easy, and I did have plenty of time, so I chose to veer off on some alternate routes rather than join the NASCAR-style "rubbin' is racin'" event that is I-75, and in the end I think that was a lot more enjoyable and probably just as quick. I even got up through Waldo, Starke, and Lawtey again without coming close to getting a ticket!

Once I got up to I-10, though, I came ever so close to having a real problem. I had just stopped to top off the gas in Baldwin, where Route 301 intersects with I-10 just west of Jacksonville, and from there it's usually only about 20 minutes or so to the airport. I was way early, and I considered running into the Subway that was next door to get a sandwich but decided to plow on ahead and just get up there, get checked-in, and get through security. I figured, if I was still starving there would be options at the airport, and even though I was still listed in coach the Upgrade Status web page showed me as No. 1 out of 8, with five seats still open up front, so I'd probably get something to eat on the flight as well. Let's just say it was a very good thing I didn't go into that Subway for a tuna on wheat...

As I approached the off-ramp to go from I-10 to I-295 (the loop that goes around Jacksonville and takes you to the airport) I saw a lot of people swerving up ahead, and a lot of brake lights. I was already over in the exit lane, but then saw people running toward the ramp and I knew something big was happening. Rolling the dice, I pulled out of line and got over to the far left lane where I was just barely able to get around the mess, which included an overturned tanker truck that had blown right through the exit sign and now was laying across the exit ramp leaking its cargo... The big interstate exit sign was spread across much of I-10, there was gravel everywhere, and people were busting out the windows on the cab of the truck, to get the driver out. Just as I inched by, the first of dozens of emergency vehicles arrived behind me, shutting down the interstate.

I went up one more exit on 10, where I was able to turn around and head back to the northbound ramp for 295 coming from the other direction, and by that time the scene was nothing but sirens, flashing lights, and parked cars. I got online this morning to check the Jacksonville newspapers, and it turned out the driver was okay, but he was booked for reckless driving (duh!). The tanker was carrying oil, but by the time I inched by and the fire department was showing up, you could tell there was great concern about how flammable the cargo was, and the whole area was, indeed, shut down for quite some time while they cleaned it up and removed the truck. Had I been just a few minutes later, I probably would've gotten caught in one of those scenarios where they shut the highway but the people up near the wreck have nowhere to go, until the authorities can block off the freeway at the previous exit and then begin the tedious job of turning cars around, one by one, to send them back there. Whew. Missed it by that much...

Anyway, I did get upgraded, I did get home, and I did stand up at the end of the flight to discover my right ankle had decided to seize up and become dysfunctional at some point during the trip. Sweet! Even in the front cabin, the seats on the Embraer 175 are situated a little funny and I never found a comfortable way to put both of my feet out in front of me. With my lousy ankles, I had gotten through the weekend with a lot of Advil and some preventative care, but there on the final leg of the week-long journey, almost home, it finally all added up and by the time I got back to the ranch here in Woodbury it was swollen and sore. Better today, I'm happy to report, and those two Advils I took this morning seem to be having a positive effect. It's lousy getting old...

This morning I awoke to the sights of real spring, all around me. Not a speck of snow, a rapidly receding ice pack on the ponds, and real-live ducks and geese in the area. When I left for Gainesville, I posted a pic of the first tiny corner of the pond that had melted, and now we have water all around the edges on our side. There's even enough of an ice-free zone for the mallards to come in on final approach and make a smooth water landing.

I have the door to the porch open, letting Da Boyce go in and out as they please, and we'll be back up around 60 today. Then, because this is Minnesota and because it's March, we get a little snap of cruddy stuff tomorrow, with a chance of snow or sleet and gray skies. What I'm looking forward to is Sunday, when we have our Open House at Target Field, and right now most of the forecasts are calling for sunny and 45. I'll take the 45 if the sun is out...

In today's photo gallery, I'll include some additional pics from Gainesville, including the new "head shot" of Tim I managed to get after he put on his new Simpson fire suit for the first time. Trust me, any fire suit never looks quite the same after even one lap in the car, so I was lucky to get him looking all cleaned up and nice. A moment frozen in time, just before four big round-wins on Sunday!

An enormous "V" of Canada Geese just flew over, with at least 35-40 honking members in the group. Ain't no stoppin' 'em now...

Upstairs, here at home, the master bathroom renovation is well underway and making great progress. Cory, the expert tile guy we have on the job, is about finished with the shower and will probably have the floor done today, as well. The concept for the shower design is Barb's, and seeing it now in "real life" as opposed to rough sketches that demanded a healthy amount of imagination, I have to say it's terrific and she could probably do this for a living.

Barb is outstanding at her real job, but I've always said she should hire herself out to people who are buying cars, too, because I've never seen anyone go through that process so expertly and thoroughly. I'll never forget the Saab 9-5 we bought when we lived in Austin, Texas. The whole sales process took two or three days, and in the end the general manager of the dealership (who had taken over negotiations after Day One) just threw up his hands and said "Okay, we'll take your offer. Now just go out on the lot and pick any car you want, with any options you want. Take whatever one you want. Seriously. Just take one and we'll say this is over..." She had brought the poor guy to his knees. She had planned it out to buy the car on the last day of the month (always a good idea), but she had been unaware it was also the last day of the dealership's fiscal year! Once she figured that out, all bets were off... We basically stole that car, and it was a privilege to watch her work the deal. Poor guys never stood a chance...

Well, after seeing this bathroom design come together, I'd say she could also moonlight as one of those renovation project hosts on TV. This thing is going to look NICE! And very original.

Boofus and Buster were pretty happy to see me last night, although they had to go through the whole dance that includes being standoffish at first, then a little inquisitive, then maybe happen to walk by my leg and give it a glancing "Oh, did I bump up against you?" rub. By this morning, all was back to normal, and they were playing with their toys at a frantic pace. Blog readers Keith and Kelly, who have two Bombay kitties just like ours, were kind enough to bring some new toys to the race over the weekend, and throughout the year I probably bring home a couple of dozen new things for our boyz to play with, thanks to kind people who bring little stuffed mice or other objects to the races. I can assure you that Boof and the Big Fella appreciate that very much, at least for a few minutes, although I've also gotten the double evil-eye from the TSA agents at the airport, when I forget to pack catnip items in my checked bag and instead have them in my briefcase. I'm surprised I haven't yet been surrounded by German Shepherds and taken to a back room yet...

Well, this is a bit short but now I'm off my routine a bit so I wanted to get this posted. Next week, we'll start grappling with the bizarre reality of what's to come in Charlotte. Four-wide, all weekend! It's going to be very strange, and probably a little overwhelming... I'll be wearing ear plugs under my ear muffs, I can tell you that! Just that one exhibition deal we did last year was one of the loudest and most impactful experiences I've ever had the privilege to be a part of...

See you in a couple of days, I'm sure. Until then...

Wilber, out!

When I last left you, I was hustling to write a quick installment on Monday morning, trying to wade through the pea-soup fog in my head to come up with some sort of coherent replay of how Sunday happened. Like any writer, I looked back on it later and wished I'd had more time, more wide-awake brain cells, or more talent (actually, all three) but at least I got it out there and a lot of people seemed to like the rushed and furious pace of it. That would be appropriate, in the end, because Sunday's pace did go from sleepy and leisurely in the wee early hours of the morning, to fast, furious, and unrelenting for the rest of the day.

And here's one thing I'm proud of... As many people have noted via email, my decal work looked good on TV. I can't tell you how much I hate it when I see the car in either photographs or on the tube and I immediately spot either a crooked one or something that just doesn't look right to me. When I finished this car, I stood back and was happy with how it looked and now I'm even happier, because it did turn out rather nicely, and I really appreciated the comments so many people sent my way. And, I suspect, decal placement and application was probably not something many of those who emailed had ever thought much of, before.

Most of those pesky decals also stayed pretty much in place throughout the weekend, which is also a good thing. Flames, vibrations, and 300 mph all conspire to do unbelievable things to little sticky decals, and it's impossible for all of them to survive all those elements, but I only had to get the razor blade out and trim a few flapping edges by the end of the day. I give credit to the Ford Shelby Mustang, for being so swoopy and sleek it doesn't put as much strain on the decals!

And speaking of people who have emailed me, I once again have to offer up a very sincere apology. I've never been so upside down and swamped as I am right now, in terms of even attempting to reply to people who have taken the time to drop me a note, and that eats at me like a headache. Since the first time I wrote one of these blogs I've done all I can to respond to as many people as possible, but the Gatornationals win obviously touched a lot of people because my in-box is overloaded, but at the same time my days are busy and my brain is mush, so it's all gotten me far behind. It may take a week, but I'm still going to give it a shot to respond to every note...

Anyway, once I finished the Monday blog I headed over to meet my sister Mary at the assisted living center where my mom lives, and we headed in to see her. I will say this: I am SO GLAD I went there and did this. Frankly, I was prepared for the worst and yet I walked out of there feeling so happy to be my mother's son and to have lived such a rich life because of what she and my dad provided for all of us. This is normally private stuff, but I've always been pretty open on this blog so I might as well be candid and let you know she has been moved to the hospice side of the facility and won't be with us for very long. That's why I went to Sarasota after the Gainesville race.

When we found her in the public area of her floor, she was napping in a big chair. Mary gently touched her on the shoulder and she woke up, said hello to both of us, and then looked me right in the eye. I haven't seen my mom for a while, but I thought that was remarkable and in my gut I felt that somewhere deep within her she knew it was me, her youngest boy. Perhaps, though, it was just my willingness to submit to my imagination... Mary lives close by and sees her all the time, and later, after we left, the first thing Mary said was "My gosh, she sure locked right on to you, didn't she?" So I hadn't imagined it. That's why I'm so glad I did this and saw her. Rather than the visit being as I had feared, wherein I'd be left with the image of a shell of my former mother, I feel like we briefly got to connect, and she smiled a very happy smile.

I got a post-race email from Sergeant Jim Olson, who works for the Cypress, Calif. Police Department, and Jim (whom I do not know) kindly wrote "Enjoy your time in Florida with your mother and sister. After reading what you wrote about your mother, might I suggest sharing in your blog what type of mother she was and what she means to you? All the NHRA stuff is cool; however nothing is more important than family."

Well Jim, I am a product of two of the most amazing people anyone could have for parents, and I'm equal parts both of them. Most people know my dad was a life-long baseball man, and I obviously got some of those genes (not quite enough to follow him to the big leagues, but a good enough amount to get a college education and a short pro career out of it). My mom, though, gave me what's between my ears. She was, over the years, a radio personality on KMOX in St. Louis, a writer, a PR expert with her own agency, a deep thinker, and a barrier buster in terms of gender equality in the workplace.

Beyond that, she not only gave me the communications skills I possess, she also instilled in me the fairness, tolerance, and appreciation for diversity that I am proud carry on as a Wilber. It was my mom who raised me to be color blind, to be tolerant of other people's differences and their own agendas, and open to ideas that might not specifically help only me. I cannot recall a day in my life, even as a very small child, when I was not firmly aware of how lucky I was to be born into this family, and how clear my mother made it that others might not be so lucky, and that we should all be willing to help, willing to understand, and willing to share.

She also raised me and kept me alive. My dad was gone so much with his baseball career that most of us were raised more by Mom than by Dad. For me, as the fifth and final kid, I just happened to also be born with horrible asthma, very bad allergies, and just an overall lousy bill of health, and it was my mom who gave me the shots (sometimes daily, always weekly), hauled me off to the wide variety of doctor's offices I had to visit every week, and made sure I had my medicine and could breathe. It's not fun to be five years old and gasping for every breath while all the other kids are outside playing "kick the can" in the street, but she was always calm and there's no doubt that helped me. When I got through each bout and started feeling better, she would always take me to Steak 'N Shake, so perhaps it's now more clear why I love those delicious steakburgers to this day.

In a nutshell, that's my mom.

Mary and I both left her feeling really good about our brief visit, and for the rest of the day I was in the hands of my near-twin sister. We were born only 11 months apart, so all the years before college consisted of the two of us helping each other grow up, and we only wished we'd have been born in the opposite order. That would've made it so much easier in terms of finding dates for each other during high school... LOL. As it was, none of her friends wanted to date her "little brother" and all of my friends were intimidated by older girls. So, during those times when we both were "between dates" we'd basically just hang out with each other. I probably went to more concerts and movies with Mary than I did with any other girl in high school... That's why it's always so easy to see her, and her family.

She drove me all around the area, along the beaches and through some wonderful neighborhoods (both she and her husband Lonnie are in real estate, so she knows all the cool places) and then we had "Grouper Fingers" at a place called The White Elephant (where we watched dolphins playing just a few yards out in the open water) followed by dinner at wonderful little waterside restaurant called Pop's, where we were joined by my niece Kim and her boyfriend Brad, who have just recently moved down here from St. Louis. For the record, Grouper Fingers, just like Walleye Fingers at Shorty's place in Minnesota, are delectable. And no, Grouper fish don't actually have fingers either...

Today, I got up at the crack of 9:00 (still recharging after the race) and headed down to Fort Myers to meet up with the Finkster and attend the Twins game at Hammond Stadium. You know, when Barb and I moved to Minnesota in 2002 the Twins were one of the teams MLB was considering for elimination. They weren't drawing well and they weren't playing well, so the commissioner picked them (along with the Expos) as teams to be "contracted" and sent off to baseball heaven as nothing more than a memory. Fortunately, some Minnesotans in high places kept that from happening and what has occurred since is nothing short of remarkable. Since 2002, they've always been contenders, they've developed an incredibly loyal fan base, and now we're getting ready to move into Target Field with the prospect of the Twins actually selling-out the entire season before the first pitch is thrown! Who'da thunk...

That same wonderfully loyal and devoted fan base is also on display in Fort Myers, and I discovered that when it took me 40 minutes to get from the freeway exit to the ballpark, which is all of five or six miles away. They fill Hammond Stadium for every game, and gosh it was fun to be surrounded by Minnesotans, all decked out in their Twins garb, down here in Florida. The PA announcer also takes great joy in announcing the current weather conditions, for both Fort Meyers and the Twin Cities, just so everyone feels just a bit more comfortable down in sunny Florida.

The game wasn't all that good, but it was great to be wearing sandals at a ballgame in March, and John actually won a bobble head doll during the game. There's just nothing like spring training...

Tomorrow, back up to Jacksonville and then I'll get to fly home... It will be great to hug my wife, pet Da Boyce, and see how the bathroom project is coming along. Barb has been sending me pics of the new tile in the shower and the other parts of the job, so I'm really looking forward to getting back home.

Then, next week I'm off to Charlotte to see if Mr. Wilkerson can stay hot and win some more rounds. It's great to have gotten that first win under our belts so early, and now we want more! Somehow, I'll find room for more Wally trophies in my office... Even if we have to build an extension.

Back in a few days, gang. Thanks for the support, the great emails, and for letting me write about my mom.

Wilber, out!
 

First of all, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who posted notes on my Facebook page, or sent emails and text messages. By the time I got to this hotel room late last night, I had well over 250 emails in my in-box, and then a similar amount of new ones this morning when I finally got up, so I'm going to have to apologize right up front if I'm not able to send a personal note back to everyone. I'd love to, but the next couple of days are going to be a bit nuts, too, so I'm not sure what I'm going to be able to do in that regard. Right now, my main focus (if you could call my foggy brain focused at all) is this blog, since it reaches the greatest amount of people all at once.

As I type, I'm in my room at the Holiday Inn by the Sarasota Airport at noon at Monday. I could've slept until Tuesday. Somehow, when I plotted out this whole trip and this visit to other parts of Florida after the Gatornationals, I actually didn't factor in winning the race and then going to dinner with the team afterward, nor did I speculate that with a 6:00 a.m. departure from the hotel on race day and the loss of an hour's sleep due to the start of Daylight Saving Time, I'd be operating on fumes by the end of Sunday. I got here at 12:30 last night, still amped up from the win and too many Diet Cokes, but it was probably around 3:00 a.m. when I fell asleep, and my brain still hasn't fully engaged yet on this beautiful Monday.

My plan today is to meet up with my sister Mary and her husband Lonnie, and the first mission is to go see my mom. Emotions are emotions, whether they're incredibly positive or tougher to take, so like the last 24 hours this day will continue to be emotional for me, in all ways. We know my mom will not be with us much longer, and with her Alzheimer's we've lost real contact with the mother we all knew and loved for the vast majority of our lives, so I'm here to make a visit and perhaps say goodbye. On the positive side, Mary is my closest sibling (both in terms of age and attachment, since we grew up together) and it will be great to spend a day with her and Lonnie, along with my niece Kim. There will be laughs, for sure, and valuable time spent with people who mean the world to me.

Heading back to yesterday, however, let's just go back through a Sunday to remember. I'll never forget it, and I hope I have the writing capabilities to put it into some sort of coherent story for you. Maybe I need another cup of coffee before I try this...

In the photo gallery, I'll start with the shot I took of our pit area right after I arrived at the track. I think it was about 6:40 on Sunday morning, and I know I took a similar photo last year but the chance to catch a glimpse of a professional Funny Car pit area before sunrise is too good to pass up. I'm also amazed at my Nikon's ability to give me photos like that, with no flash in a darkened world. Pretty neat stuff, and you can just see the first pinkish glow in the eastern sky as dawn nears on race day. No wonder I was so tired when I got here last night!

After a long and slow morning, the first round finally happened and we were all pretty excited about the day. We ran so darn well in qualifying, making successive laps of 4.13, 4.12, and then 4.11 with our new car, we surely hoped we'd have a shot at getting our first round win in the bank, but with my old buddy Jeff Arend as the opponent we knew we'd have our work cut out for us, and after we slipped to the 9th spot on Saturday, we also knew we wouldn't have lane choice.

Before we ran, I walked over to the far side of the starting line and found a golf cart sitting there, in the area where crew members are allowed to stand. I took a seat on the golf cart and watched all of Top Fuel and most of the Funny Car class, since we were going to be the 8th and final pair in round one. All of us prefer to go early in the round, even first if possible, and going last drives us a little nuts in a lot of ways. By that time, you just want to get out there and race, to see how it's all going to turn out, but you have to watch seven other pairs go ahead of you. Then, if you do win, you have the shortest turn-around time in the class... As the 8th and 9th qualifiers, though, you can only take what's left after the top seven have picked their slots, and it's almost always the last pair.

Finally, we got up there and ran Jeff and although it wasn't a perfect lap, we went A-to-B and got our first win light of the year. As I said in my post-event report, at least we knew we weren't going to finish the 2010 season 0-23! From that point forward, the day now seems like a blur. It was a mad dash back to the pit, lots of updating, writing, and internet posting, a madhouse of power tools, frantic crew work, and cheering fans, and then a blast of nitro from the warm up. Before you knew it, we were pushing the car out of the pit and heading back up there again, trying to even our season record at 2-2 against Matt Hagan, who had qualified No. 1 by running enormously fast. Tim, however, had that devilish look in his eye, because he was falling quite madly in love with his race car and he knew we had a chance to win some rounds.

For me, it was all about routines. Back to the same golf cart, following the same procedures. This time, we really ran great and the 4.09 we put on the board was not only enough to advance another round, it was our best lap of the year so far. Back to the pit, same updates, same routines, everything the same. Before the day started, we knew we were on opposite sides of the ladder with Bob Tasca and our teammates next door, and we all had hope, but by the time we had each advanced to the semifinals it all began to seem possible. Could we actually meet up in the final round for the first time? It wasn't going to be easy... We had to beat Tony Pedregon and they had to take out Ron Capps.

Back to the line, back to the same golf cart, and back to the all the routines we all follow. Jeff Jacobs, our talented and illustrious Car Chief, and I do a double-slap and fist bump behind the car, right after we've pushed it to the water box, then Nick Shaff and I do a fist bump before we push the car forward to get it rolling for the burnout. Krista Wilkerson then hands me the video camera, Finkster and I then do our fist bump, and then Cole Nance finds me after he's moved the starter cart off to the side of the track, and when he does we bang shoulders so hard I think I've jammed a few vertebrae... Then, I stand behind the car to shoot the video.

We beat Tony, to advance to the final (from 0-2 we were now 3-2) and I stayed up there to watch the Tasca boys take on Capps. They won too, with a huge lap, and we all shook hands and headed back to the pit for our all-Ford final.

Same routines, same everything. Update our stats, update the dry- erase board, update Twitter, update Facebook, update everything. Back to the line, back to the same golf cart, back to the fist bumps, the shoulder bangs, and everything else. As I stood behind the car, watching Tim stage through the viewfinder, I actually thought "Well, here we are. In about four seconds we're all either going to be going nuts, or we'll be shaking hands with the Tasca team and congratulating them. Isn't it odd I can stand here and think this, not knowing how it will turn out but knowing it's about to all happen in one huge moment?" Bizarre to be standing there thinking that, as the yellow bulbs came on. True though. I actually thought all of that, while watching through the camera.

Tim took off, I held the camera as still as possible to keep him in the frame, and then the world went crazy. Holy cow, we won the Gatornationals!!! Amazing... Absolutely amazing.

We all went certifiably crazy for a bit, then headed to the top end to get the boss. After that, a whirlwind of interviews, hugs, handshakes, laughs, and hats. Lots of hats! We got back to the Winner's Circle, Tim did some interviews there, then up to the Media Center to do more press work, then finally back to the Winner's Circle to take photos and do the "hat dance" for all our wonderful sponsors. We had event hats, we had Full Throttle hats, we had Tire Kingdom hats, Ford hats, Summit hats, Valvoline hats, and Goodyear hats. We had a lot of hats. And we loved wearing them and cheering for the cameras. There's really nothing like it... Again, absolutely amazing.

After that, we finally headed back to the pit and while the guys put the car away I tucked myself into my little corner of the hospitality area to write my report. Just as I finished, the guys finished and we were off to the Gainesville Ale House for a dinner and celebration with all our teammates on the Tasca side. We ate, we laughed, we looked at Marc Denner's iPhone and his seven pages of apps. Wings, burgers, salads, fish, steak, you name it... A good time was had by all, including most of the Force team who were also there.

The coolest part was the fact the race was on ESPN2, and it was on most of the screens in the Ale House so we got to watch it and re-live it again. When we won, the Force team applauded for us, and that caused the rest of the restaurant to look over in our direction, then up at the screens, then back at us, and before long the whole place was clapping. How cool is that! One more time, the whole thing was absolutely amazing.

At 9:00, I got in my car and headed south. At 12:30, I was in this room. Now, 12 hours later, I need to wrap this up and go see my sister and my mom. Tomorrow, down to Fort Myers to see the Twins play with the Finkster. Wednesday, back up to Jacksonville to fly home. Hello Florida!

Thanks again, everyone! You know what? It was absolutely amazing!

Wilber, out!
 

I got up at the crack of dawn today, just to peer outside (I'd show you the view from my window, but shots of the parking lot are so last year) and the much-predicted rain was coming down steady. Not hard, not torrential, but "you need a rain coat or an umbrella" steady. Around 8:30 or thereabouts, I left here and swung through Mickey D's to grab a sausage and egg McMuffin and a large coffee, and then off I went. It was still coming down pretty hard when I got to the track, but as I pulled up to the pit area (it's not impossible for us to drive right to the pit on Wednesday or Thursday) I could see Annette and all the guys hard at work, still putting up the transporter awning and the hospitality area. Ouch... Everyone was soaked.

I got involved immediately, although I have to admit that the main awning for the hospitality area was up by then so I wasn't standing out in the pouring rain like they had been, and a few hours later we had the whole circus put together, zipped up, and ready to go. Do I feel bad that they all got soaked and I just got inconveniently damp? Yes. I owe them all something, I'm just not sure what. Dinner is always a good option. Or candlesticks...

Once all that fun stuff was done, the guys got the new car out out of the trailer and I, therefore, got my decal file out as well. Time to get to work, stickin' them vinyl bits on a shiny new body! I went through my collection and discovered I was only missing three sponsor decals, and two of them will be available at the track tomorrow while the third is being shipped to us, so I knew I could proceed.

The car has to pass tech inspection before it can race, of course, and at first the guys were assuming they'd be heading down to get that done pretty quickly, so I figured I could at least get a head start and stick a few of the big ones on before they left for what could be many hours. Then, Tim returned from where they do the inspections to report that a long line of cars, motorcycles, and other race vehicles were all in line and the whole process wasn't moving very quickly, so the guys might as well keep working on the car for a while. He had the bright idea to send one of our other vehicles down there to get in line, to effectively "hold our place," and since that spot was right behind the NAPA team, those guys promised they'd give us a heads-up when our spot was getting close. What this did for me, selfishly speaking, was give me the opportunity to nearly finish the car, in terms of associate sponsor and contingency sponsor decals. No argument from me on that one, I can promise you that.

I plowed through nearly the whole thing, and starting with a blank canvas like this gave me a shot to fix some of the things that had been bugging me about how I did the '09 cars. In the end today, I was happy with the placements and the look of it all, and nothing jumped right out at me as be horribly crooked, so I'm good with it. After one lap, we'll see how good with it I remain. There are simply a few spots on the car that are not good places to stick decals, due to either a proximity to the flame-spewing headers or due to the fact they have to be folded over various lips, ledges, or curves. None of those things are friends to decals that have to ride along at 300 mph... I still have more decals than space, though, so I have to put stuff there and hope for the best. Like I said, we'll see how bad it looks after its maiden voyage...

Right now, I'm missing my Autolite, Aeroquip, and T-Shirts Unlimited decals, as well as a big Ford logo for the back window, but all that will be available tomorrow so I'm calling it a 90 percent victory on a very sloppy and rainy Thursday. Good work, me. To mark the Autolite and Aeroquip spots, along the bottom edge of the car, I put small strips of masking tape with each sponsor's name written in Sharpie, and that reminded me of a funny story from the CSK days...

One year, I was doing this exact same routine when it came time to do super hi-res photos of the car for the huge vinyl wrap that would go on the transporter. Since the car has to be seen as going "forward" on both sides of the trailer, it has to be shot from both sides as well, and I totally forgot I only had one Clevite sticker in my file that day. The photographer did his thing, and a week later the the trailer was wrapped and everything looked perfect, until I noticed that the enormous photo of the race car on the right side of the rig showed a small piece of blue masking tape, with the word "Clevite" written on it in my handwriting, right where the real Clevite sticker would end up. We left it like that and didn't fix it. Just our little inside joke...

The Finkster arrived this afternoon, in his motorhome coming up from Fort Myers, and he was quick to report how absolutely awful the rain had been on his drive up here. It was the sort of deluge that caused everyone but John to pull over and sit it out, but he says the motorhome does just fine and his visibility was good, so he kept going. All of that really heavy stuff missed us, which brings to mind the all-time classic Carl Spackler line "I'd keep playin'. I don't think the heavy stuff is going to come down for quite some time..." I guess Assistant Greenskeeper actually DOES mean something...

Throughout the last few days and into the actual rain event here on Thursday, the Friday forecast has really looked bleak, but once I got back here to the hotel I checked on it again because all those same forecasts got this afternoon all wrong. While it was raining this morning, just about all the forecasters were showing a break for a few hours and then heavy downpours late in the afternoon and into the evening. That never happened, so I chose to have hope that things were improving, and according to some websites (the ones I prefer to believe) we now have a pretty good shot at racing on Friday, and the rest of the weekend still looks good. Let's go with that and get ready to rumble...

Oh, BTW, the car did pass tech inspection, so we're all good to go.

One of the last decals to go on the car went, actually, inside the side windows. There's a Ford Mustang owners club near where Tim lives called the Central Illinois Mustangers and they sent us a few decals. Our team is from Central Illinois, and we race a Mustang, so now we're honorary members of the club! I wonder if we have to pay dues?

Okay, it's almost 7:00 p.m. now and I'm getting hungry. Being an anti- social sort, I think I'll have room service...

But, before I go, a couple of words about the final two photos in today's gallery... The first one shows a momentous and important moment in Woodbury, Minn., and I got the shot just before I left for the airport on Wednesday. Yes, say it with me, the first spot of open water along the edge of the pond! Ain't no stoppin' spring now, brother. It's on, it's coming, and it's happenin' fast. It was 48 and drizzly up there today, so I'm sure much more has melted by now. Heck, the daffodils are probably shooting up out of the ground.

The final shot was sent to me by longtime blog reader Richard S., who works for DHL and is currently based in the Philippines. He's an airplane fanatic just like me, and we often get involved in email threads about old airlines, our favorite old aircraft (I do miss the old TWA version of the L-1011), and other "airplane stuff" so this time he sent me a shot of a specific plane at the Manila airport, with the caption "No matter how much you fly this year, I bet you won't be flying on this bird."

I think he is right. It's a Mongolian Airlines jet, and I have to say that I didn't know there was a Mongolian Airlines. Too bad for that, too, because I might have been able to reach Genghis Khan Platinum Elite status by now...

So that's it for tonight, which for most of you is probably tomorrow. I doubt I'll be able to write anything on Friday, and with Dick Levi and a huge throng of LRS guests joining us on Saturday I'd assume a blog is not in the cards for that day either. Hopefully Sunday will be a long and productive day, and then I have to drive down to Sarasota once we're done at the track, so I'll do my best to get something written and posted by Monday morning, before my sister and I go see my mom... Deal? Deal.

Wilber, out!
 

In all my years, I really don't remember a season quite like this one, when it comes to scheduling. The weirdness factor of having Pomona and Phoenix back-to-back and then following that with two weekends off set the table, and now you can look ahead and see more strange things. June, for instance. It was just the other day that Barbara finally took a look at the schedule and said "Do you realize you're racing every weekend in June?" To be honest, I hadn't realized it, but it's true. And then you flip ahead two pages on the calendar and see that we're only racing one weekend in August, and that's Brainerd so I'll be driving to that one. I might need to get on an airplane and fly somewhere in August, just to stay in practice.

And speaking of airplanes and miles, is the correct spelling "frequent flier" or "frequent flyer"? According to various on-line dictionaries, both are acceptable and technically correct, but "flier" is the preferred spelling.

I've got a feature story to write (just waiting on that ever-elusive inspiration) and a lot of little tasks to complete before I even think about packing, but I am flying down a day earlier than normal so I have to reset my routines a bit. I don't land in Jacksonville until 5:30 on Wednesday evening, and then the agenda will include: A) Get bag from baggage claim. B) Inspect bag to see if all four roller wheels are still attached and functioning. C) Pick up rental car. D) Return to rental desk and ask for a car that doesn't smell like a dead rodent. E) Get in second car and rationalize that dealing with the uncomfortable seat and the oddly sticky steering wheel is still a better option than the first vehicle F) Drive away from airport and be very VERY careful. Why? It's the infamous Florida speed trap, on US Highway 301, running down through Lawtey, Starke, and Waldo on the way to Gainesville. The question isn't "Will someone affiliated with a race team get a ticket?" it's simply a matter of who it will be. I will do everything within my powers to make sure it's not me.

Hey, isn't it cool that Kurt Busch is going to be racing in Gainesville! I think it's pretty neat that he's racing, and even cooler that he's running in Super Gas and is going to just immerse himself in the sportsman world without all the perks and pampering he gets over in the NASCAR arena. Well, my guess is he'll have his motorhome with him, but a LOT of Sportsman racers stay at the track so that's not out of the ordinary. I bet his appearance will be the incentive for a ton of fans to make the walk down to the sportsman pits, too.

And every time I get ready to head to Gainesville I think back to my first trip there, in 1991. I was in my first few months as the GM at Heartland Park Topeka, so my PR guy, a couple of my sales people, our accountant, and I all headed down south to warm up and see how these national events looked, felt, and sounded. I spent the pro sessions standing atop the old tower at the track, right behind the starting line, and within an hour I learned my first key lesson about the drag races: Do not wear a white shirt! I had "Goodyear freckles" all over me...

My main mission that year, in addition to watching how the event was operated, was to come back to Topeka with Lori Johns signed, sealed, and delivered as a contestant in the Top Fuel match race we were putting together to spice up our divisional event in May. Bill Kentling, who was the President of the track, said "Get me Lori Johns or come back on your shield." I did not come back on my shield. We hammered out a deal, booked her and her Jolly Rancher team into the gig, and a couple of months later she lined up and made three passes next to Gary Ormsby. We had more than 10,000 fans in the stands instead of the 1,500 we might have had for a standard divisional meet, so everyone came out ahead, but those were the last laps Gary Ormsby ever made in a race car. He died only a couple of months later, and that's why the main road into Heartland Park is named Gary Ormsby Drive.

There are a few other unique things to look forward to this weekend, and one of them is the fact my buddy Fred Turner plans to be there. You know Fred, right? As in Bachman Turner Overdrive? They've been recording down in Florida, so he and Donna are planning to come up for a day, and it sounds like they're bringing their sound engineer with them. It's always great to see Fred, and I know how much he loves the races so that makes it even better!

My other famous show biz friend who loves drag racing is Buck Hujabre, from the "Jersey Boys" touring show. The show has been in Fort Myers for a few weeks, and Buck and a bunch of other cast members all got a VIP tour of the Twins spring training camp the other day. I knew he was going, but I didn't know that it was the Twins' bullpen coach, Rick Stelmaszek, who got the whole visit going because he's a huge fan of the show. Had I known that, I would've had Buck introduce himself to Stelly and connect the dots between all three of us. You see, Stelly played quite a bit for my dad and knew him very well, and I'm sure he would've enjoyed hearing that Buck and I are friends. He wouldn't be able to picture me, I'm sure, because I was probably 12 or 13 the last time we saw each other. Ever since we moved here I've been thinking I really need to find a way to reach out and say hello, and now I'll make a point of it.

Looking ahead at the weather forecasts, I've been keeping an eye on things for the last couple of days even though the forecasters are still making it up this far in advance. Between Accuweather.com and Weather.com they've been all over the place with regards to rain, and each of them have had one day of the race covered in it at some point, but now both of them are getting better. It's funny how they don't agree very often, though... Right now, the consensus is for partly cloudy to sunny skies, and weekend highs right around 70 degrees. Fingers crossed...

Then, what's going to happen on Sunday morning is the ultimate double- whammy! That is the day we get up the earliest all year, to beat the traffic into the track well before dawn. It's rough enough to be rolling out of the hotel around 5:30, peering into the abyss of a town still asleep, but this year we have the distinct privilege of having Gainesville's race day happen on the same day Daylight Saving Time kicks in. That means we lose an hour of sleep on the one night we get the least of it anyway. Whammy + whammy = Double whammy! Maybe I'll just sleep in my car in the parking lot on Saturday night...

Here at the ranch, the big melt continues although it's going very slowly. Here's one little weather-related tidbit we learned from good old Sven Sundgaard, on KARE-11 News. The dirty snow melts faster, which is why the piles by the curb are receding fast but the clean stuff out in our yard melts much more slowly. Why? Because dark colors absorb heat and white reflects it. We went for a walk on the trail through the woods on Saturday, and immediately noticed that anywhere a leaf or a stick had fallen to the ground, they were melted an inch or two down into the snow. Even a brown leaf heats up enough to melt its way down through the frozen white stuff. Feel free to amaze your friends with that bit of trivia...

Water on the pond... To be followed soon by geese and ducks.

After a stressful week of construction noise in his house, this is how Boofus spent the weekend

Daytime hockey...  Very strange.

Out back, we're finally starting to see the impact of a week's worth of temps in the 40s, as there is standing liquid water on the rink for the first time. It's all just a matter of waiting it out, now... The good news last week was that we had a string of about six straight beautiful sunny days, but now we're stuck in a "cut-off low pressure" situation, and those deals bring clouds with them. Since it's "cut off" from the jet stream, the low also doesn't move out very quickly, but mostly just sits here spinning around until some sort of front comes along... So, we get gloomy days and foggy nights for a while now. If anyone out to our west has a high pressure front they can spare, feel free to send it our way.

I was sitting at my desk on Friday when I heard the first honk of a flight of geese. I sent Dave an email saying "They're here!" and he wrote back and said "Yeah, I heard them too...." We're going to put our heads together this year, to see if we can come up with a joint plan of attack to keep them off our yards... You gotta draw the line early, and effectively, or the battle is lost. It's man versus geese...

Spring also means the hockey season is nearing its conclusion, and we went to the Wild game yesterday afternoon. The result was, sadly, not what the Team of 18,000 was looking for, but it was the Wild's 400th consecutive sell-out at the Xcel Arena. It's really remarkable that they have sold-out every home game they have ever played, including preseason exhibition games, but that's why we call this The State of Hockey. It was really weird to be there for a day game, though. It doesn't seem right to be walking over to the arena wearing nothing more than a windbreaker, and it's doubly odd to be strolling into the building in the middle of the afternoon. When we were walking on the concourse, heading to our seats, it struck us how strange it looked to see blue skies and bright sunlight through the big windows. And for the record, it might have been the worst officiated game I've ever seen. If the Wild play poorly, I'm the first to admit it that they deserve to lose, but the arena organist should've been playing "Three Blind Mice" after a couple of the ridiculous calls the guys in the striped shirts made. Nobody can be that bad... Well, actually, I guess they can be that bad. Usually, the home team doesn't show replays of controversial calls, but you could tell the replay director was getting fed up too because they'd not only show the botched calls made against the Wild, they'd show them two or three times just to make a point and get the crowd riled up. "Hey ref, you're missing a good game..."

Well, time to close my eyes and get some inspiration started, because this feature story isn't going to write itself. Do I use a play on words, like "There's much to be gained in Gainesville" or do I just stick to the important facts. Brain don't fail me now....

See you in Gainesville! And watch your speed on Highway 301!!!

Wilber, out!

The real problem is, even when I know I'm going to head off in random directions with an installment, I can almost always start out with something racing related, as my anchor and jumping-off point. Today... I got nuthin'... Okay, maybe not. Let's see... Here's all the big news at the end of the second consecutive week off after a manic start to the season... Ummm... There's gotta be somethin'... Well, Annette emailed me the other day about my return flight from Houston. I gave her that info and now she and Rich will be on the same flight, and I'll give them a lift from our hotel in La Porte up to IAH (Intercontinental Airport) on the Monday after the Houston race. That's big news!

And... I'm already upgraded for my flight down to Jacksonville next Wednesday. That's good news! Both of those items are only racing related because we have to travel to get to the races, but hey...

As far as I know, the new 2010 Shelby will be on the car in Gainesville! I don't bug Tim or the guys with constant pestering, but that was the plan and I've heard of no changes to it. With that in mind, I booked my flight to JAX on Wednesday evening, so that I'll have the full day on Thursday to do the decal thing...

We were out of Mr. Gasket decals, and they're one of the few support sponsors who don't have a presence at the track, which means I can't just hop on a scooter and go get more like I can from Fram, Autolite, Valvoline, Summit, Hedman, ARP, Goodyear, and most of the rest. The last two Mr. Gasket stickers that were on the '09 car were in sad shape, but they made it through Phoenix (sort of) and now I have no choice but to round up some new ones. Knowing I'd need more, but not knowing anyone at Mr. Gasket, I just got on-line and found their site, which had their phone number on it, and I then gave them a call. Now I have a stack of them coming to me in the mail. The wonder of those internets...

And that just reminded me that we always have QRS decals on the car, too. That's Rich and Annette's company in Southern Minnesota, so I better drop Annette another line right away to make sure she brings a few of those...

Oh, yeah... I saw the release the other day about Gabrielle Stevenson being named the new General Manager at the Texas Motorplex! I've known Gabrielle for quite a while, and she's done a great job everywhere she's gone. She's bright, energetic, and she gets things done, so this is a great addition for a great race track. She's also funny, and you can't have too many funny people around you in this world. That's my view, anyway. Welcome back to the NHRA world, Gabrielle!

So there you have it. I've just squeezed the last drop of orange juice from the orange. That's it for racing-related stuff. I think... "Bob to brain... Anything else up there? Hellooooo? Anybody home?"

Guess not. Well, let's tackle all the nonsense I have on my note pad, in no particular order... And yes, cat lovers, I have some new pics of Da Boyce to share at the end. Just for you... Now, let the random nonsense commence!

The demolition in the master bathroom is nearly complete, with just the old vanity top and the big wall-to-wall mirror still in place. We're going with a granite top for the vanity and Barbara had the truly visionary idea of taking out the mega-mirror and replacing it with two individual ones, over each sink, and we'll "frame" those in cherry wood. She must take notes when she's watching the home improvement shows on HGTV. It's going to look really cool...

As for the rest of the room, the shower is gone, all the tile is out, and the nearly-useless triangular tub is history. See ya! We're down to bare walls and floors, and the framing for the new tub and shower will begin very soon, with our tile guy beginning to reconstruct the shower, the floor, and the wall around the tub next week. I'm not sure when the old white vanity top comes out, but I have to go measure it carefully when I finish this blog, because Barb and I are heading over to a granite showroom tomorrow morning to pick a piece from the lot.

Getting the big triangular tub out of there, and replacing it with the rectangular soaker/bubble massage tub, will make the room look a lot bigger and with the new floor and vanity top, it's going to look a lot nicer, too. Can't wait!

I've been following Cincinnati Bengals' receiver Chad Ochocinco on Twitter for quite a while, mostly because he's so hilarious and such a character, but also because you begin to realize he's not just an athlete and a bit of a goofball, he's also a pretty interesting individual who does a lot of really good things. He loves Twitter, and if you want to know what Ochocinco is doing at any given time, he's more than happy to tweet about it and keep you in the loop.

The cool news he's been tweeting about this week is that he'll be on the new season of "Dancing With The Stars" and, as I told Barb, that's going to give me a good reason to keep up with it this time around. He had incentive bonuses in his football contract that would've paid him a LOT of money to attend off-season camps and drills, but he gave that up to go on the show and he's already tweeting about how much energy goes into his daily four-hour dance lessons. He said four hours of dancing was way more work than they put in at mini-camp. My call is that he'll go very far in the competition, and I wouldn't rule him out as a potential winner.

Moving from football to my beloved baseball, the little digital "Countdown to Opening Day" clock that's been ticking away on my desk for well over a year, now shows 31 days until the Twins' 2010 season kicks off. It's actually 38 days until the home opener, at Target Field, but when they sent these little countdown clocks to season ticket holders they didn't know how the 2010 schedule would look. The Twins begin the season on the road, playing four against the Angels and three against the White Sox, then open the new ballpark with three games against the Red Sox. We're not going to the opener, but have our new seats all secure and ready to go for home game number two, on April 14. I hope Barb can get off work, because it's a 12:10 start in the middle of the afternoon. And how's that for a start to your season? Seven road games against the Angels and White Sox, then come home to host the Red Sox! I guess we'll see what the Twins are made of in a hurry, with that competition on tap to start the year.

The other day, the front page of the paper was dominated by an amusing photo of a new Twins pitching prospect. He is 7-foot-1, which makes him the tallest pitcher in professional baseball, but that's not the most interesting thing about him. His name is Loek Van Mil (first name pronounced "Luke") and he was not only born in The Netherlands, he was raised there, learned baseball there, and was signed by the Twins there. He's a pitcher, and he's really had to polish his game since he got to the USA, but the Twins think he has a ton of potential. When he got here, he was throwing in the high 80s, and now his fastball is in the low to mid-90s, so he can bring the heat. Being 7' 1" he might just be a bit of a physical presence out on the mound, too.

The Twins obviously pay a lot of attention to Europe these days, because they also recently signed an outfielder from Germany, by the name of Max Kepler, who was only 16 when he signed his contract late last year. The Twins actually outbid the big budget teams to get him, and I think the $800,000 bonus they gave him is a record for a European player. Someday, perhaps, a big tall Dutch guy will throw a pitch that will be hit and then caught by the German kid, at Target Field.

I checked the webcam for Target Field today, and they're making progress getting all the snow off the field. They put a breathable membrane down before winter hit, so that it would be easier to scrape the snow off without damaging the grass, and they've been doing that (very carefully) for the last few days. Only 15 days until we have our Open House at the new ball yard, and get to see it all up close!

I had a couple of other nonsensical things scribbled on the pad, but I think I'll let those go. Sometimes in life, you don't make the cut. Just like me on the freshman basketball team at St. Louis U. High... "All the guys who have made the team, take a step forward. Not so fast, Wilber..."

I leave you with tales of feline fun, in photos and verse. The guys have been stressed out by the demolition all week, but then when it gets quiet around here they come to life and tear around the house at a million miles per hour. One night earlier this week, I heard Boofus doing his "I'm about to totally spaz-out and doing something insane" cry, and from the living room sofa I looked up to the upper level walkway and saw him... Walking on TOP of the hand rail, a good 15- feet above the living room floor. All you can do is hold your breath. After that, he strutted around like a regal lion in the jungle, all proud of his little self. He might be the funniest cat I've ever known...

I have a couple of other pics of Da Boyce in the gallery, including one of Boof on the top perch of the kitty condo out on the screened porch. The boyz practically live out on the porch all spring, summer, and fall, and they love to sit out on the condo and just soak in the nature. During the winter, all you have to say is "Wanna go outside?" and they come sprinting for the door, but when they get that first sniff of the frigid air, they stop and think about it. They will usually go out there for a while, no matter how snowy or cold it is, and they've both learned how to push the door open to get back in, if we leave it just barely shut. These last few days, though, as it got up to 40 degrees, they've been hanging around out there more and more. Pretty soon, we'll put the cushions back on the chairs and they'll be camped out for hours on end... Good for them, and good for us.

Have a great weekend, everyone. In just a couple more blogs, we'll be reporting live from Gainesville!!! Here's hoping there are many fine stories to tell...

Now I need to email Annette about those QRS decals.

Wilber, out!

I'd say about half the demo got finished yesterday, so we're certainly hoping the guys make more headway today. Before they do that, they have to haul out the trash, in large plastic trash cans, to get rid of the mess they created yesterday. Once they get it all stripped down to the basics, the resurrection can begin and then the fun will really start. Until then, everything's a noisy mess, but what are you gonna do? Perhaps once this entire thing is over, I'll be able to show some "before, during, and after" photos...

A few minutes ago, as I began this blog by typing the date, I looked at my watch to verify exactly what day this is and at that time realized I'd forgotten the previous month only had 28 days. My watch thought it was the 31st of February. Changing that required spinning the hands around for three days, and I got to thinking about the monumental step my lovely wife helped me make a couple of years ago, when I acquired my first "luxury" watch.

Throughout my adult life I went through dozens of basic time-keepers, many of which still sit idly by in dusty drawers somewhere, and throughout most of those adult years I viewed watches as nothing more than utilitarian devices, with my idea of a really nice watch being something that might cost as much as $100. As a matter of actual detail, I probably only ever owned one or two of those, and I clearly remember breaking out in a cold sweat the first time I bought a Wittnauer watch that cost 85 hard-earned dollars. I was working for my brother's sports marketing agency back then, and when you walked into the offices of a Fortune 500 sponsor, or the headquarters of the NHL or MLB, you needed to look the part. Wool suits, pressed shirts, nice shoes, and a nice watch. And try not to have a mustard stain on your tie!

I'm not a "heavy metal" watch guy, so the giant Rolex behemoths with the jangling bands made of plutonium or some other magic metal never appealed to me, and neither did the price tag. You could buy a car for what those things cost. Perhaps not a really nice car, but some sort of car. And I bet the car would have a clock in it, too, to help you tell time.

After one of our Budweiser Shootout appearances in the Team CSK days, I received a phenomenal Oakley watch, with the Budweiser Shootout logo on it, and that was absolutely luxurious for me, since it would've cost me a pretty penny but I got it for free! That immediately became my first-string starting watch, and it stayed in that lofty position until Barbara and I took a Caribbean cruise aboard the lovely sailing ship the Wind Surf; part of the Wind Star line of magnificent cruise ships that are about a third or even a quarter of the size of the ships the other cruise lines sail. You take that intimate setting and add the beautiful white sails they can deploy when the wind is blowing, then cruise the Caribbean visiting exotic ports, and it all becomes wonderfully unique. Anyway, St. Thomas was our port of departure so we felt compelled to take a walk though the famous jewelry district there, and it was at that point I discovered the luxury watch I would immediately begin to wish for and aspire to own. Unlike all the other heavy metal monsters, this Tag Heuer "Monza" was a contemporary and sleek time piece, with a leather band! I was in love.

It actually took a couple of years for Barb to help get me off the mark, but eventually she found the same watch here in the Twin Cities, got the price down to something close to what we'd seen in St. Thomas, and I took the plunge. I might have had buyer's remorse for a day or two, but I got over it. I love this watch. No diamonds, no 12-pound band made of titanium, uranium, or any other substance found on the Periodic Table. No gimmicks, no stop watch, and no weird dial around the dial. Just a beautiful watch that keeps time and gives me a smile every time I look at it. There's something to be said for that.

The Oakley remains with me, never leaving my proximity whether at home or on the road, because it's my "track watch" for the races, and it's also the one I put on for any athletic or labor-related endeavors. It's a little beat up, it's got permanent specks of rubber on it, and it looks well-worn, but that all adds to its toughness (and coolness) factor. Oakleys are good at that.

I actually have my pre-blog note pad next to me, where I jot down different ideas I plan to address each day, and the word "watch" is nowhere to be seen amid my scribbles... I guess everything I just wrote is what we call an ad-lib segment... Had February been March, with 31 days, I never would've considered it.

Heading back to my scribbles, the first thing I jotted down this morning was the name Dick Levi. We recently learned that Dick will be dropping in at the Gatornationals on Saturday, and he's bringing his wife, his son, his son's girlfriend, and some other friends with him. There is never better news about what's about to happen at a race than the word "Dick will be there" so we're all thrilled and looking forward to sharing our pit area with the man who makes it all possible. He's a terrific guy, a passionate sponsor, and a sharp business man who could teach some other teams and sponsors a thing or two about how to maximize the benefits of one of these partnerships. LRS doesn't do this because they like us (although I think they do like us), they do it because they've made the race team a key part of their marketing model. It works, for both the sponsor and the team, and you can't ask for more than that.

My next scribble was the word "hotel" and that has to do with the fact we'll be inhabiting a different place in Gainesville. None of us have stayed there before, and I doubt any of us have even driven by it, so we're a little anxious but a little excited to try something new. Instead of being out near I-75, the interstate that runs along the western edge of town, this place is in the middle of Gainesville, and just south of the University of Florida, putting it a solid five or six miles closer to the track. Being off the interstate makes it less of a tourist hotel and more of a convention and business center, so hopefully the rooms are nice, there's food nearby, and we can all find a quick route to the track from this central location. I checked out the hotel's website, and it looks really nice, but you'd never expect a hotel to put ugly photos on their website, so you take that with a grain of salt. Or perhaps a whole shaker. We shall see.

The next scribble on my note pad says "Olympic pics" and that's a reference to a great email I received from blog reader Lance M., who is actually from Philadelphia but was able to attend the Winter Games with his wife Paula. After they planned their trip to the games in Vancouver, Lance had emailed me about any tips I had for negotiating MSP, since they had to change planes there. I filled him full of useless knowledge, and off they went. They got to see quite a bit, but the one pic that stood out was the one he took at the bottom of the Bobsled run, right after the USA-1 team took the gold. Needless to say, that's in today's photo gallery. Thanks Lance!

The next note on my list says "more grass" and that refers to an update on "The Big Melt" going on around here. Where just a few days ago we saw the first few square inches of lawn peeking out from beneath the snow banks, we now have a full strip of something approaching green, all the way down the side of the driveway. The marker sticks are even visible now, from top to bottom, and just a few weeks back the uppermost tips of those markers were not only just barely sticking up above the snow pack, they were also a solid 12- inches back from the edge of the snow, as the continuous shoveling, scraping, and snow-blowing had been incapable of keeping the creeping mass of white from taking over part of our driveway real estate. It's happening now. The change is coming...

Finally, I leave you with the reference to my "garage wall" note on the pad. Out in Phoenix, I bought one of our Wilk's Warriors metal "garage art" signs, and I've now attached it to the garage wall exactly as prescribed, right below a collection of license plates I've accumulated from a few of the various states I've lived in. Guys usually get to claim the garage walls, right, and I do have pretty much free and clear control out there. Whether it's racing posters, a life-size cardboard cut-out of Del Worsham and Jim Head, from 2000 when we were teammates, or my license plates and now my garage art. Guy stuff!

I might have told this story years ago (it's hard to keep track as we close in on five years of writing this blog), but if you're wondering about the British license plate, that one dates back to about 1984 and it was indeed on a car of mine. I had just left the world of professional baseball to head into the sports marketing realm, and the move from Scouting Supervisor for the Blue Jays to Regional Promotions Rep. for Converse Shoes brought with it a company car! Getting a free car gave me the idea to sell both of the vehicles I owned at the time, so that I could also step up to my dream vehicle from back in those days. I'd been lusting over a Saab 900 Turbo for a few years, and this seemed like the perfect confluence of coincidental circumstances to allow me the chance to get one. I might have a "gunmetal gray" minivan for a company car, which I used for business, but now I could have a Saab Turbo in the garage for my own personal pleasure. The things that make a 28-year-old's heart skip a beat... Yeah baby!!!

Having been a baseball scout for four years, which kept me on the road for upwards of 225 nights a year, I also had earned enough Holiday Inn Priority Club points to nab their grand prize at the time, which was a free week at any Holiday Inn in the world and airplane tickets to get there. I combined that free vacation with the nifty "European delivery plan" Saab offered, where you got about a $3,000 discount off the sales price in exchange for taking delivery of your car over there and then they'd ship it to the USA for free, and badda boom, badda bing, I owned a brand spanking new Saab 900 Turbo (black, of course) with British license plates on it, since I had actually taken delivery in London. I drove it down to Dover, put it on a ferry to cross the English Channel, then headed to Paris and Brussels, before dropping it at the dock in Antwerp and flying home.

A couple of weeks later, I flew down to Houston to pick it up at the docks near Galveston, and drove it back to St. Louis with these same plates on it. I'm not sure it was actually legal, but it got me there! And I still have the tags to prove it...

So that's all my scribbles for today. Watches, Dick Levi, a new hotel, Olympic pics, more green grass, my garage sign, and license plates from the U.K. I think we covered it.

Back later, but until then...

Wilber, out!

With two weekends off now, between Phoenix and Gainesville, after just having run Pomona and Phoenix back-to-back at a breakneck pace that seemed like one big thrash of a doubleheader, we have this odd mini- vacation to get through before we crank it back up in Gator Country. It's not a vacation in the "go somewhere" Chevy Chase vacation sense, because we still have plenty of "desk work" to do (as well as a third- grade art project I'll tell you about) but having two free weekends in a row is quite a bonus, so Barbara and I decided to have a big old "date" on Saturday, and we ended up having a ton of fun. Plus, we need to enjoy these weekends while we have them. By my count, we are racing on 15 out of the next 20 weekends...

More on our "date" in a bit, as I try to take this chronologically through "Free Weekend No. 1" by picking up where I left off on Friday. On the media front, we've booked Tim onto a couple of radio shows for next week, leading up to the Gatornationals. He'll be on an internet radio show called "Radio Nitro" on Monday, March 8, at 8:00 p.m. (EST). You can find that at racefanradio.com. Then, on Thursday morning he'll be doing a local radio call-in with a station down there in Florida, but I'm not sure of the call letters for that station yet.

In addition, I've been trading emails with Brandon Mudd, who does the PR for Gateway International Raceway down in St. Louis, and they've requested a one-hour autograph session for Saturday March 20 (the weekend between Gainesville and Charlotte). That's the day their season ticket holders come out to pick up their packets for the 2010 season, but it's also a day on which Tim has a commitment in Springfield, so we're working on getting Daniel down there for that. D Wilk is going to sign his share of autographs in the coming years, so we might as well give him a jump start on 2010...

As I showed on Friday's blog, the massive snow pack is really starting to melt now, but what we had going on then is nothing compared to what we have in the works right now. Despite the fact we'll most likely have another snow storm or two before things finally turn green, we are now officially in the throes of "The Big Melt" and it's kind of cool to watch it happen. We hit the mid 30s on Friday, then got a degree or two warmer on Saturday, and by Sunday we were tickling the 38-degree mark, under bright sunny skies. It's going to stay mostly sunny all week, and the low 40s are in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday! We haven't been above 40 degrees since December 1.

All that sunshine and the above-freezing temps led to what looked like a rain shower, as snow on the roof melted and dripped down all day yesterday. The huge icicles that were clinging to the eaves and the slats of our pergola were becoming dangerously big, so I had some fun knocking them down, with both a shovel and a hammer, which left a pile of broken icicle dreams laying on the ground next to the hot tub. We've got a long way to go until it's really spring (for instance, as warm as it feels it's actually 26 right now) but you have to start somewhere, and this is the start.

On Saturday, Barb had some appointments in the morning but by just after 12:00 noon we were ready to head out for a full day and night of activities. The "date" part didn't officially begin until after the first stop, unless you consider a visit to a granite countertop showroom to be potential "date" material, and for some couples I suspect that might be the case. Unfortunately, we arrived at the showroom at 2:07, only to find out they close on Saturday's at 2:00!

Now, I'll admit we probably should've checked with the store to see what their hours are, but what sort of retail business closes at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon? Doesn't that seem like an arbitrary and illogical time to close, just when homeowners have the time to be out and about looking at stuff? I'm not sure when we're going to have time to head back over there, so here's hoping that 2:00 closing time didn't create a big delay in the bathroom project.

 From there, we headed straight to MOA to begin our fantastically fun afternoon and evening; just a couple of kids out with the family car and no curfew. We started to get an idea that we weren't the only ones going to Mall of America, though, when we were about a mile from the exit off I-494 and traffic seemed oddly heavy for a Saturday. From the stop light at the top of the exit ramp (it took us four cycles to get through) to actually finding a parking spot and stepping out of the car. took a solid 30 minutes. All to go a half-mile... The place, as we say, was packed!

I don't usually make it over to MOA more than once a year, and typically it's for one specific purpose on a weekday, to minimize the whole immensity of the experience, but this time we were going to do some shopping, have a wonderful dinner at the fabulous Napa Valley Grille restaurant, and then we had tickets to The House of Comedy, where Bryan Callen was the headliner. More about that after a few fun facts about MOA. Feel free to use these to impress your friends and neighbors.

1. Mall of America is the largest shopping mall in the United States, and only the mall in Edmonton, Alberta is bigger

2. With two massive parking structures, as well as surface parking lots, MOA has about 20,000 parking spaces

3. It is not an urban myth that MOA has no central heating system. It has none at all, and the main public areas are warmed by the lights, the huge skylight above the amusement park, and the people. As a matter of fact, even during the coldest parts of the winter the air conditioning system often has to run non-stop, just to keep it comfortable. Individual stores do have their own heating and cooling systems, which they can control, but there is no gigantic furnace hidden anywhere, for the common areas

4. There are more than 500 stores and 50 restaurants at MOA

5. If a shopper spent 10 short minutes in each store, it would take 86 hours to finish a complete visit

6. Laid out in a square, with the anchor stores in each corner and the amusement park in the center, each lap around a level of the mall is . 59 miles

7. MOA has its own zip code, and on any given day it is, effectively, the third-largest city in Minnesota

8. A full 30 percent of the shoppers at MOA have come from more than 150 miles away, making it (by far) the biggest tourist attraction in the upper midwest

Considering how long it took us to park, and how hard it was to find a spot, we're guessing there were at least 70,000 people there when we arrived. I'm not sure what the "capacity" is for MOA, but considering the mall attracts upwards of 40 million people per year, it has to be common for it to host more than 100,000 on a given day. Imagine that!

We hit a few stores on our way to our shopping destination, Discount Shoe Warehouse. DSW is the one store I am always willing to accompany my wife to, when she wants to go shopping. I'm not even opposed to going to our local Woodbury DSW on my own, to be honest. You never know what you'll find, but you know you'll get some killer deals, and in the end I walked out with a pair of black shoes that might become my new track footwear, and a new pair of Adidas running shoes for the gym. That's a very short list of purchases for a big trip to DSW, but sometimes you just don't see anything that deserves to be purchased.

 From there, it was up to Level 2 and the Napa Valley Grille, a fine dining establishment that would rate highly wherever it was located. The fun part there was the fact we got to meet two of Barbara's former IBM colleagues, from way back in the day when she first started at Big Blue, fresh out of Penn State. One of the guys actually hired Barb at IBM, to get her career started and both of them still work for the company, all these many years later. I was "out of the loop" for most of the reminiscing and old stories, but I just enjoyed watching how much they enjoyed it, and we all had a fabulous dinner. For the record, I had the Walleye.

After dinner, it was up to Level 4 and The House of Comedy. We took our seats, and were just relaxing at our table waiting for the show to start, when a nice young man came up to us and started chatting. His name is Sean Phillips and now that I have his business card I can tell you that all it says is "Sean Phillips. Professional Magician." He sat with us for a while, just the three of us, and he explained that he's far more of a psychological magician than a "tricks" guy who might pull a rabbit out of a hat or wave the "abra cadabra" wand or saw a lady in half. In the next 10 minutes, he proceeded to completely blow our minds.

His first thing was to have each of us hold our right hands out, and then he had Barbara close her eyes while I was allowed to keep mine open. As I watched, he held my right wrist with his right hand, then gently ran a finger from his left hand down the outside of my forearm, and as he did that he asked Barb "Did you feel that?" She said "Oh yeah, you just touched my arm." Gulp. I was watching, and the guy never touched her at all, but Barbara insisted she felt it. Okay then...

Next, we each interlocked our fingers and held our two hands out in front of us, then pointed our two index fingers straight out, parallel to each other and aimed right at Sean. As he squeezed my two fingers back together, Barb's fingers came together too, even though she was doing all she could to keep them apart! Just to show me there was no collusion there, he then did the same thing with Barb and I looked in amazement as my fingers involuntarily came together. Let me tell you, it's a weird deal when you watch your own digits do something you're not controlling. Wow...

His final "trick" did involve a prop (a quarter from his pocket) and it was really neat, but the those first two, where I sat there and watched it "magically" happen beyond any of my comprehension, were over-the-top. Great work, Sean! We exchanged business cards, and I got an email from Sean yesterday. We now officially have one more name on the Team Wilk blog reader list, and we'll have to get the guy out to a race, I'm thinking... Talk about entertaining your guests in the hospitality area!

Once the show started, we got a look at the surreal but fun backdrop on the stage. It's a bendy/curvy cartoonish illustration of both the Minneapolis and St. Paul skylines, and it looks like it's part Dr. Seuss and part Salvidor Dali. Pretty cool, actually.

The first comedian was a really funny guy named Andy Woodhull. His act was mostly "bit oriented" but he was quick enough to ad lib quite a bit with the folks at the front tables, and frankly both Barbara and I were laughing so hard I needed to keep a napkin nearby to wipe away the tears. He's a very talented stand-up guy, and if you ever have a chance to see him you should.

Now, for Bryan Callen. His credits are enormous, as he was an original cast member on "Mad TV" and was on that show for quite a while, but most of you will probably know him from the role he played as Eddie Palermo, the owner of the Las Vegas wedding chapel in the movie "The Hangover." As soon as he took the stage I recognized him, and about an hour later, when he left the stage to thunderous applause, I was exhausted. His act has some obvious "bits" in it, but a lot of it was very much improv, and once he got going it was uproariously funny. I'm talking very high-energy "never stop laughing, can't believe what I'm seeing, who thinks this stuff up?" hilarity.

All in all, it was a heck of a date for two old fogies who don't get a chance to do that sort of stuff very often. We'll have to do it again!

Last night, after I made dinner on the grill for the first time since 2009, we watched one of the greatest and most exciting hockey games ever. We would've loved to have seen the USA pull that out, but you can't ask for better action or a more hard-fought game, and once you get to overtime it only takes one shot to end it. Sadly, someone has to lose. GREAT stuff, by both teams, and although it was obvious the USA guys were crushed when they lost, they should stand tall with those silver medals. Those may be the most well-earned silvers in Olympic history.

Also, I'll join in with the rest of the NHRA contingent by congratulating the USA-1 bobsled team for winning the gold! A lot of people in our sport feel a connection to the bobsled team now, thanks to guys like Jeg Coughlin and Morgan Lucas, who have been so instrumental in making the annual Lake Placid competition a part of the NHRA fabric. I hope someone can get the guys from USA-1 out to a race, so we can all meet them and congratulate them for their amazing gold-medal performance. Well done!

Finally, major kudos to Canada in general and Vancouver in specific, for putting on such a memorable Winter Olympics! Fabulous. Now we go back to regular TV... Rats.

Okay, time to finish my third-grade level art project. It involved printing out some pics I took with the Nikon, cutting them down to size with scissors (which I did not run with), making and printing a little text piece on the laptop, and then using a glue stick to lay it all out on a piece of poster board. Next step: Get it laminated and then take it with me to Gainesville in a protective tube.

Hey, we needed an updated sign for our pit area, to direct fans to the Motorcraft/Quick Lane souvenir trailer where our stuff is sold, so I might as well do it myself. Six years of college and a 30-year sports career haven't all gone for nothing, and I'm proud to say I'm still able to ace my "arts and crafts" class...

Next up, building cylinder heads out of popsicle sticks!!!

Have a good one, gang.

Wilber, out!
 

Here in Woodbury, we've had a busy morning already, meeting with our friend and general contractor, Jeff Russell, to finalize the plans for what's going to be a big old wingding of a project. Hopefully, we'll get started next week and within a month we'll have a whole new master bathroom! New tile, shower, air-tub, counter top, fixtures, and mirrors are all part of the plan and it really should be a huge upgrade by the time we're finished. There's nothing horribly wrong with the master bath we have, but there were some specific things we wanted to change and once we tipped over that first domino, and started thinking about fixing one thing or changing another, it all added up to just tearing it all out and starting over.

Jeff is the guy who handled our major project with the screened porch, the pergola, and the fire pit on the patio out back, and over the years we've come to know him and trust him, while he's come to know our tastes and our budget parameters. He's also the guy we buy our Minnesota Wild tickets from (those 2nd-row seats are his, we just buy 10 of his games each year) and he came to Brainerd last year for his first NHRA experience, so it's more than just a standard business relationship. He follows Team Wilk now, and always knows what's going on with our season. What all that adds up to is our great comfort level for his work, as well as the work of the guys he brings in. When you're remodeling your home, you want the craftsmanship to be outstanding but you also want to know you're working with good people who have your best interests in mind, and that's why we always work with Jeff.

The starting point for the whole project was the tub. The current tub is one of those triangular corner units, with jets, that looks really impressive when you first walk in. I know that because we were very impressed by the master bath when we saw this house for the first time, but it didn't take long to realize the current tub breaks a famous rule, coined by legendary architect Louis Sullivan (I always thought it was coined by another legendary architect, Mies van der Rohe, but I looked it up and it was Sullivan). That rule states that "form follows function." In other words, something may look visually appealing, but if it doesn't function as it should, it's a failure. The triangular tub looks neat, but what you get is a bathing vessel that human people don't actually fit in, no matter which way you turn. So, we're going with a long/deep regular rectangular tub, with a warm-air system that bubbles through a bunch of little pin holes (as opposed to spa-type jets that run water through hoses) and that got us going on all sorts of other ideas and necessary upgrades (not a bad thing, in terms of home value, because bathrooms are so important to buyers). When we're done, we'll have what we would've wanted had we started with a clean sheet of paper, and we'll have a much better bath tub!

That project should get underway next week and, since I'll be home all next week I'll be able to keep an eye on things as they demo the current bath to get down to the bare subfloor and plumbing. Everything but the cabinets will go, so it's going to be a mess for a while. With that in mind, Barbara and I will actually "move" this weekend, down to the mother-in-law suite in the lower level. It's a good thing my mother-in-law isn't here right now, or it would be crowded down there! Seriously, though, it only makes sense for us to pack up what we need and move down there while all the mess is happening upstairs.

I can think of two little fuzzy guys who are going to wonder what in the world is going on, but they really like sleeping downstairs so it will be all good with them. We use that bedroom as the "quarantine room" if one of us gets a bad cold and we don't want to pass it back and forth, and whenever one of us sleeps down there Boofus and Buster love it. They're going to think this is all a big adventure...

Some other things that are happening around here are the first precursors to the actual arrival of spring. Once you get to late February and early March, the angle of the sun is finally getting strong enough (and the days are getting long enough) to have a real impact on the weather each day. We're just finishing up a late-winter cold snap, and have had lows in the single digits the last few nights, but on sunny days like today the big bright light in the sky has a real impact on the snow and the temps. Right now, we have icicles crashing down all over the place, and for the first time since about Christmas our little solar lights along the front walk are visible again, as the piles of snow have retreated around them to expose them to the sun once again. Now there's a sign of spring for you!

The little solar lights had a rough winter, and now they're all leaning in odd directions after being buried with snow and ice for months, but after their first day of exposure to the sun they lit right up, much to my amazement. Solar power, baby!

And... Right at the corner of the front walk and the driveway, where the first solar light is stuck in the ground, we actually have our first view of grass since winter started. It's just a few square inches of yard showing, but both of these things were such momentous landmarks on the 2010 calendar I felt obligated to photograph them for posterity. Of course, the snow pack is still as much as a foot deep in most places, the ponds are all still very much frozen with ice thick enough to drive on, and March is our snowiest month of the year, so winter is far from over. Still, we know spring is out there and it's just a matter of time...

Why is March the snowiest month here? Because it's warmer! People in southern climates almost always equate snow with bitter cold, and yes it does have to be winter for it to snow, but the colder it gets the lighter and smaller the snow flakes become. These big blizzards that have been swamping the east coast lately wouldn't have been so bad if it had been 10 degrees colder there, but when it's just below freezing the snow is big, thick, wet, and heavy. A typical January storm here is powdery, and it can be scraped off the driveway pretty easily, but March snowfalls tend to be the big, bad, back-breaking type that have to be shoveled, scoop by scoop. Not my favorite...

We'll get back down to about 7 degrees tonight, with the clear skies, but most of the forecasts are calling for highs in the 30s all next week. That is officially "springlike" around here, and I guarantee we will see kids running around outside in T-shirts once it gets that warm. No doubt about it...

On a totally different subject, I did say that I'd give credit where credit is due when it comes to my new regular airline, and Delta has scored a couple of big points in the last few days. Barbara and I each got our new Platinum Elite ID cards and bag tags, and with that we also got four system-wide upgrade certificates that we can use to make sure we're in the front cabin for particularly long or popular flights. These things are like your "ace in the hole" when you're playing the whole poker game to see if you get upgraded or not, so they're enormously valuable in that regard and you don't want to use them foolishly. At any point, as you wait to see if you'll be upgraded, you can pull one of these out to make sure it happens, even on the day of the flight itself. Cool! Wish I would've had one of these for the flight home from John Wayne Airport!

We also both got $100 credit vouchers for the whole deal out of John Wayne, when our seats were changed and I ended up in the back of the plane, so kudos to Delta for that, too!

And finally, I actually got an e-mail from a blog reader who is a Delta pilot, expressing his own apologies for any bad experiences we've had and making sure I knew that he and his colleagues take it very seriously when anyone is unhappy with the airline. Thank you Captain Heiden! That sort of personal contact is terrific and was really unexpected. Delta just might make a believer out of me yet...

Okay, now let's get on to the most important part of this blog... Scooter's Tale!

Scooter originally envisioned this to look like something I had written, but I've taken the liberty of doing a rewrite to make it an anonymous third person story, relating the bizarre goings-on within the Levi, Ray & Shoup pit area in Phoenix, although my new piece of fiction still follows the concept he came up with as we shot the individual photos. Rather than attempt to situate the pics next to appropriate paragraphs, they'll simply be added to the photo gallery with captions. Are you ready for the tale of a lifetime? Well, hold onto your hats (and your loved ones) and away we go...

It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, it was a warm and weird weekend in the desert, but Firebird Raceway is always a welcomed sight for anyone escaping the cold dark nights of winter in the northland. From the postcard beauty of the Sonoran desert landscape to the azure blue skies on a warm day, one can't help but appreciate the wonder of this southwestern territory, but one also has to ponder the mysterious happenings that seem to occur there.

If you read Team Wilk's "Notes & Quotes" after Friday qualifying, you know that Tim Wilkerson was less than pleased with his car's reaction to the tune-up he'd installed. He had meticulously done all the work on his computer, analyzed the graphs and charts, and thought it to be all correct and in place, but later, upon inspection, he discovered that all the data had been altered! Were spirits at work? Were there powerful entities within the LRS pit, bent upon destroying the team's best dreams? Who could've gotten into Tim's computer and made these outlandish alterations? The mystery was beginning to grow... Like a fungus.

As the crew prepped the LRS car for the second round of qualifying, more bizarre and unnatural things began to take place. Nick Shaff, the team's perfectionist cylinder head expert, began to second-guess his own work when he discovered some loose nuts holding on the headers. Nick never would make a mistake like that, but there they were! Just like Tim, wondering about the tune-up data in his computer, Nick began to wonder about the supernatural as well... An icy chill ran down the spines of all involved.

Things seemed to revert to normal for a short while, until Annette Schendel began to ready the team's lunch in the hospitality area. Many of the grocery items, purchased that very morning by Krista Wilkerson, were now missing! What on earth was happening in the Team LRS pit area? Or better yet, what unearthly stuff was happening???

Without buns and snacks, the team was forced to overspend on concession-stand food, which only added to the nervous disgruntlement of the now-spooked crew. As the team returned to the pit, located next to the luxurious green expanse of the corporate hospitality village (an area known as "the grassy knoll" to many team members) and hard along the shoreline of majestic Firebird Lake, they spotted a huge crowd of fans encircling one person. Whoever this individual happened to be, he was clearly popular and no doubt famous. Was it Mike Dunn? Bob Frey? John Force? People were clamoring for autographs and straining to get close... Was it the ghost of Elvis? Was this man or beast, and was he famous or infamous?

As the crew members wedged their way through the throng they made a most gristly discovery. It was Scooter! Or was it? He had somehow managed to clone Bob Wilber completely, right down to the black slacks and the LRS shirt, but his Frankenstein-like work was left incomplete, and the telltale sign of his skullduggery was still exposed, as his own head remained on Bob's body. The horror!!!

With a puff of smoke and whoosh of foul-smelling wind, Scooter transformed himself back into his normal hideous form of existence, and with an evil laugh that seemed to emanate from the deepest bowels of Hades, he was off.

Of course, it would only be appropriate for Scooter to escape on... Say it with me... The team's scooter! It's a price they had to pay to rid themselves of this nefarious entity... The End.

So there you have it! Well done Scooter.

Have a great weekend everyone!!!

Wilber, out!

I wasn't sure how to start this thing today, and I'm still searching for a way to accept and understand everything that happened in Phoenix, but I figured I'd simply start writing and let it go from there. And then I typed the date...

Today, February 24, would've been my father's 91st birthday. He lost his battles with various age-related ailments in 2002, of course, but I see him in my dreams all the time and he's always the same jovial "bigger than life" guy he was when he was healthy. I'm thankful for that, and even more thankful that he stops in to say hi to me in my mind at night.

My brother Del Jr. and my sister Mary both sent out some e-mails to mark the day, and I joined in with a few of the classic lines my dad always used, including my personal favorite, a sentence he uttered during his scouting days... "That kid can't throw a ball from here to the street."

My college roommate Lance was with me, at the Wilber family home in Kirkwood, Mo., that night, sitting around the dining room as my dad regaled us with baseball story after baseball story. We were sponges, soaking it all in... The comment above, as Lance could instantly tell you today (33 years later), was my dad's succinct description of Cardinals' rookie Hector Cruz, who was also often called Heity Cruz and is now more known in obscure trivia circles for having been the younger brother of Jose Cruz, who played well in the big leagues for many years. The Cardinals were hoping Hector would follow his brother's act and help the team, but my dad knew better after having seen the kid play.

Most other scouts would say "Decent range, average hands, good power, above average speed, but below average arm." My dad said "That kid can't throw a ball from here to the street..." and Lance and I knew, immediately, what Del Wilber's overall scouting report was for poor old Hector Cruz.

We all called my dad "Skip" more than "Dad" because just about every minor league or major league baseball team will refer to their manager as Skip, since he's the Skipper of the crew. All trainers are also known as "Doc" and all clubhouse attendants are known as "Clubby" in baseball circles. In addition, all team bus drivers are known as "Bussie." (I'm guessing at the spelling because that's not a real word.) Some baseball traditions, happily, never die.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Skip!

Click here for larger image

Here's a copy of a newspaper article my brother Del passed along today, which none of us had seen before. In it, my dad describes a bizarre afternoon of baseball in 1953 with the Red Sox and his former teammate and friend Jimmy Piersall. The interview was likely done in 1956, since it references the fact my dad was by then a coach for the White Sox, and 1956 would be the year I was born, so it's all interconnected on this day. Hopefully, if you click on the link to the larger version of the image, it will be legible even in this small format.

As for the rest of this blog, I'm still not quite ready to toss around a non-stop string of funny stuff, but I do have some other things to share and the whole "Adventures of Scooter" story is in the can and ready to go. I'll mess with that a little and save it for later in the week, once I figure out how to position it with the photos.

Sunday in Phoenix will have to rank as one of those days I'll never forget, and the whole thing seemed to be a sort of out-of-body experience. I was standing there watching it, but it was as if it was all a mirage.

The weather, just like on Saturday, had gone downhill and we had no idea if we'd even get to race. The Pro Stock guys were having serious problems at the top end of the track all weekend, and nobody was sure if they'd be able to safely compete on Sunday. It was all very strange.

After more rain, and an endless amount of radar watching, the opening round finally began on Sunday afternoon, and all of the delays added to the feeling it wasn't real. We get so used to a standard Sunday, when the emotions and the nerves ramp up for a few hours until we sing the anthem and fire the first pair, a day like Sunday in Phoenix seems "off" and out of sync from the get-go. Like I said, it was all just very strange.

We were set to be the sixth pair in the FC class, so we were all near the starting line when Antron had his crash, and as soon as I saw it happen I felt the odd surreal sense that this wasn't good. I figured Antron was okay, because we've all seen enough mishaps and crashes to know a bad one and this one never did look like it hit too hard around the cockpit, but when I saw that wheel and tire assembly flying, I cringed. It took a while for word to filter back, and then be confirmed, but now we know the sad truth and we send our prayers and thoughts to the family, as we grapple for ways to understand this and make sure we take the appropriate actions to help minimize the chances for another version of it in the future.

This is a dangerous sport, and every man and woman who straps into these beasts knows that fact and accepts it. That's a conscious decision made by sane people, to accept the risk in order to reach for the reward. This tragedy was something none of us could control, though, and that makes it harder to deal with.

Sometimes, bad things happen to innocent people. You understand how dangerous race cars are, but most people probably don't consider something as pastoral as a baseball game to be a life-threatening activity. Truth is, through all my years in baseball I couldn't possibly count all of the serious injuries and potentially fatal things I've seen happen in the stands, as screaming foul balls and jagged broken bats fly into the crowd. It can be gruesome, and frankly you will never find me sitting in those first few rows behind the dugouts, with no screen in front of me. You have no time to react there, and nowhere to go, and I don't even like to recall some of the things I've seen happen to people sitting there. This situation felt exactly like one of those baseball things. One second, it's all just a good time at the ballpark and then, in the blink of an eye, everything is different in a very bad way. It's all very sad, and it creates a very helpless feeling.

Once we got back to racing, we finally lost to Robert Hight in round one but no one on the LRS team was that down about it. Tim had made some wholesale changes on Saturday, then took some big steps with the tune-up on Sunday morning, and basically he hit a home run. The car ran great, we could've beaten a lot of other first-round winners (there we go again, always racing the wrong guy), and we felt like we had a winning car again, even though we had lost. I had the theme for my post-event report in my head before we even got back to the pit, because it was obvious we had just taken a loss that could easily turn into a big win for us, in the near future. I know we're all eager to get back on the track in Gainesville, to grab this season by the reins and get back to winning again.

After I finished up my PR stuff, we all pitched in and began to take the circus down, while also keeping a wary eye on the sky. I was enlisted to be the taxi driver for Jeff Jacobs and Jon Gimmy, getting them to the airport in time for their Sunday night flight, so I had to drop out of the tear-down project at about the midway point in order to get them back to the hotel and then to Sky Harbor Airport for their 6:45 departure. I'm happy to report we got them there on time...

After then watching the stunning and thrilling USA hockey victory over Canada on TV in my hotel room, I hit the sack and got up in the morning ready to come home. Pro Stock had, in the end, been mostly postponed until Gainesville, and both Top Fuel and Funny Car needed to run their final rounds, but as I drove through the pouring rain over to Sky Harbor, the racetrack seemed a million miles away. Once I had dealt with the mass of humanity in the terminal, and finally got through security and out to the gate, the rain was coming down in buckets and I couldn't imagine how they were ever going to get those last two runs in out at a race I'd left behind.

By then, what I was mostly thinking as I gazed at the downpour through the window at the gate, watching bag after bag move slowly up the conveyor belt to be stored in the baggage compartment, was that I was glad I was going home and not just starting a trip. It wouldn't be any fun to open your suitcase in your hotel room, on Day One of a long trip, only to find all of your clothing completely soaked.

Once on the plane, I listened to music, played Trivial Pursuit on my iPhone, and relaxed as well as I could on the three-hour trip home, trying to ready myself for a return to winter after having spent most of the last two weeks in the warmth. As we began our approach into MSP, I looked out the window and saw the blanket of white. Snow, as far as the eye could see... Right now, it's 8-degrees here, but the sun is out and it's supposed to warm up to the low 30s by the weekend.

No matter what, the warm weather will get here. That's the bottom line, really. Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training, our "Open House" at Target Field, which will give all of us season ticket holders a chance to explore our new ballpark and find our seats, is scheduled for the Saturday after Gainesville, so it's all just around the corner. But, waiting for the tulips in Minnesota is a test of patience... My guess is we'll have at least of foot of new snow before the end of March. You heard it here first.

I'll be back before the week is over, but for now I think I'll close with this gallery of additional Phoenix photos. Phantastically phun Phoenix photos!

Take care everyone. And don't be afraid to give your dad a hug.

Wilber, out!

We came out here this morning, under mostly cloudy skies, and by then most of the websites were toning down the hysteria and had it more in the 60 percent range, and if we were lucky it might only last for a couple of hours. At this point, at 11:15 on Saturday, we're hoping they have it right and it's looking like we might be good for the rest of this deal.

As the storm approached from the west, the first indication that it was getting close was the huge dust cloud that was kicking up across Maricopa Road, over by the casino. Once we saw that, we started strapping things down and moving carts and parts under the awning.

The next indication that it was about to rain came in the form of a phone call from Krista Wilkerson, who dialed me from her car as she pulled into the parking lot here. It wasn't raining in the pit area then, but Krista let me know it was raining out there, so we figured we had another minute or two before we got wet. Turned out to be about 45 seconds...

Now, according to every radar site I've looked at, I think we're good. You know rain as well as I do, though, so there's really no telling if this thing will swing around and hit us again, or if some new green blobs will appear out of nowhere. Fingers crossed...

Many of you surely recall my good buddy and official "gopher" Scooter, who lives out here. Scoots was here at the track yesterday, with a camera and a plan. Let's just say that we took a series of very specific (and funny) photos, and right now Scoots is working on the narrative as well as some key Photo Shop work, to create a story that will no doubt keep hoards of people entertained early next week. Check your local listings and make sure to tune in again in the next few days, because as soon as he's done with the photos we'll have a story of international intrigue to tell. The guy is a hoot...

What's really unfortunate about this weather is the fact today is one of our larger single days of the year, in terms of the LRS guest list. Luckily, most of them seem to have come on out here despite the dust clouds and rain drops, so we're all hanging out together here in the pit, and in a little bit I'll try to keep them entertained with some giveaways and trivia questions. Or maybe I'll do my stand-up routine. "Take this weather... Please!" Hey-oooo. I gotta million of 'em. I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing...

With this large guest list, we are lucky enough to have Ryan Howerter with us, from LRS headquarters. Ryan is a great guy, and it's always good when he's here. Plus, his attendance increases the comedy level a bit, as well...

Matt Ilas, videographer extraordinaire for the ESPN2 telecasts, just came to the pit and did a neat segment with Tim, about how certain things in the drag racing world also equate to your street car. The message was about proper tire inflation, and how that not only impacts the ride your car gives you, but also how it more directly impacts the mileage you get. At his service center in Springfield, Tim says he gets car after car, every week, coming in with tires that are under- inflated. You can save yourself a lot of money making sure you've got the recommended air pressure in your hoops, and if you drive a standard passenger car it's probably okay to over-inflate a few pounds.

I know this is short, but the real motivation for writing this blog on a rainy Saturday was to tell this next amazing (impossible) story. Check this out...

Last week, I got an email from an LRS employee who has been on my publicity mailing list since the beginning of last year. I knew her name as soon as I saw it in my in-box, but the subject matter of the note about set my head spinning. Dawn is her name, and she had just been down to Springfield for an LRS function, where Tim had also been in attendance to sign autographs. She got one of our handout cards signed, and then noticed all of our crew head-shots on the back. She took particular interest in my photo and Neighbor Dave's, because both of them include the fact we live in Woodbury, Minn.

Dawn thought that was amazing, because she and her husband Chris live in Woodbury too! Think it's a small world? She's based in the Twin Cities to take care of her job for LRS, and lives right in Woodbury! But wait... She then took the odd chance to look through her neighborhood directory, just to see if there was any chance in the universe that one of us might live in the same area of Woodbury as they do... No way, right?

Well, it turns out Dawn and Chris, and their three young girls, live about eight doors down from us, on the same street in the same subdivisions. The truly hard-to-believe part is that we've never met... We know a ton of neighbors in common, and now that we've figured all this out she knows exactly where our houses are, so I'm sure we'll be seeing much more of each other in the future. Too crazy. And she swears they're not stalkers. Seriously. She really means it. LOL.

She had also never seen the blog before (obviously, or this issue would've been settled a long time ago), and had never been to a race. We have, officially, checked both of those boxes off as well. Dawn and Chris are here today, and now we're not just neighbors, but friends and business associates. The planet isn't small, it's microscopic...

Okay, the guys are getting back to work on the car, and whether we're just suffering from foolish optimism or not, we're at least acting like this is going to happen today. Let's go racing!!!!

Wilber, out!

Just like last week, I've decided to use this quiet time on the night before the race to do a little blogging, so even though it's 6:00 on Thursday night as I'm putting fingers to keyboard, there's no telling when this will actually be posted. One would hope that it would show up on the blog site no later than Friday, but I'm still relatively sure that Phil Burgess and Candida Benson (who share the duty of doing the actual posting after we bloggers send them raw stuff in an email) aren't dialed-in to looking for submissions at night. No worries...

Here's one thing I like about Phoenix: Radio station KUPD. It's a really good hard rock station, and as soon as I got in the rental car I heard a string of songs by Tool, Disturbed, and Offspring. Can't beat that, if you like you music with some "guts" to it. Sometimes I can't believe I'm 53, and I'm pretty sure my wife would agree with that comment.

That's not the only thing I like about Phoenix, but it was the first one to come to mind and this is one of only three races where I actually look forward to hearing a specific radio station when I get there. I got to hear one of the other two just last week, as I dialed in KLOS as soon as I got to So Cal. The other comes up in May, when I'll get in my Hertzmobile and immediately hit 94.7 to grab KSHE in St. Louis. For the rest of the tour, I either hope to get satellite in my car or I hit "SCAN" a lot. And I've noticed that you can request satellite radio when you're making your Hertz reservation and that will automatically cost you a few extra dollars, or you can just roll the dice and about half the time you get it for free. The good half of "about half the time" did not apply here, but that's okay because I have KUPD to fall back on. All is good.

Other things I like about Phoenix...

1) The weather, on days like this. Now, let's be honest here local residents, in a month or two it's going to get just a tad "warm" around here. Like "blister your skin off" hot. Like "don't even think about getting in the car with shorts on unless you have cloth seats" hot. And people think Minnesotans are nuts! At least we can put on some layers and stay warm all winter. There's not much you can do when it's 115 in the shade...

2) The Hampton Inn & Suites, where we're staying in Tempe. Bill Spresser is the Managing Partner who runs this place, and he absolutely rolls out the red carpet for us. When I checked in, they had their banner hanging over the door, welcoming us just like they did last year, and when I got to my ultra-nice room, I had a fruit basket that would feed a family of six for a week waiting for me. You can't beat this...

3) The ballpark the Diamondbacks play in, now known as Chase Field. When I got in my rental car at the absolutely efficient "Rental Car Center" at Sky Harbor Airport, the first thing I saw was the D-Backs' stadium, with the roof open to let in that precious sunshine. I've never been to a game there, but everything about the place is good.

4) The large number of priceless friends and colleagues I have who live here, especially the former CSK people. Joe Spica, Jim Schoenberger, Don Watson, Ron Chisler, and a list of others that would run right off this page... It struck me, as soon as I got in my car, that this is the first time I've ever come to the Phoenix race when I haven't been here for a full year. It's that way at almost all the other races, but for all those 12 years with CSK, we'd typically end up here anywhere from three to five times throughout each calendar year, so it was usually never more than a few months between visits.

Okay, there's lots of stuff to like about Phoenix.... Including our lakeside pit spot. And Alice Cooper. And cactus. Lots of cactus.

Hey, credit where credit is due. Customer service is a dying art these days, so I don't have any problem calling out those companies that take large amounts of your hard-earned money and then treat you poorly (and my email in-box sure filled up with a ton of similar thoughts and sympathetic stories about airline nightmares), but I'll also give credit when it's earned. Today, I was in my seat in coach, ready to settle in for a three-hour flight, when another passenger arrived with a boarding pass for 16-C, the seat I was already in. I asked him if the gate agent had just given him that boarding pass, and he confirmed that was the case, so that gave me cause for hope rather than consternation. I optimistically figured if they had just given him 16-C, I might be targeted for another seat, in another part of the plane (hopefully not the baggage compartment).

I checked with the flight attendant who called up to the gate and then gave me the good news that I had been reassigned to 2-D. My last- second reprieve from the governor came through just in time, the flight attendants on this flight were absolutely terrific, the pilots were informative, they actually showed a movie, we were 25 minutes early into the gate, and my bag hit the carousel only about five minutes after we all got there. Good job, Delta! Fair is fair and you all did a fine job today.

I headed out to the track after arriving, and it was really kind of weird out there. With Pomona and Phoenix now back-to-back, all of the pro teams came straight over here after the race last week. That means they all got here, got parked, and got set up by Wednesday at the latest, so by the time I got to Firebird at 3:00 on Thursday, the whole circus was in place but the joint was eerily quiet. Most teams had gotten their work done and had taken off, and I'm sure more than a few were on golf courses somewhere. I'm told there are a few those golfing locations around here...

Our guys even got out of there by 4:00, and they're pretty much known to be the first to arrive and the last to leave on most days. I hung out with Annette, John, Jeff, and our buddies Eric and Brad Buttermore for a while, took care of some credential issues, and then came back here to my massive fruit basket and spectacular room.

And do you know why Pomona and Phoenix are back-to-back this year? Well, the Phoenix race was originally set for next weekend, but that's the same time the Phoenix Open golf tournament is scheduled to happen, and if you've ever seen that circus on TV you'd be able to understand why the track and NHRA would want to avoid that conflict. It's an enormously popular tournament, and compared to other events on the PGA tour it more resembles Mardi Gras or Spring Break than it does a golf tournament. It's kind of wild, but it also soaks up a ton of hotel rooms and rental cars, not to mention discretionary dollars, so they moved our race up a week. Smart move, I'd say.

And regarding this weather, let me say one more thing... No one deserves this fine weather we've been enjoying more than NHRA. I doubt most fans have any idea just how much of a hit they take, and how difficult it is for all their people, when it rains, even for one day of an event. Last year was a very tough year, in terms of weather, and so far this year is starting out perfect. We know it won't be a clean sweep, and there will almost certainly be a few bad days in 2010, but the hardworking people at NHRA truly deserve this.

Guess that's about it for tonight. We have a large group of LRS guests coming on Saturday, and qualifying will begin in the middle of the afternoon on Friday, so let's get it on and let's go racin'....! Now it's time to tear into this fruit basket. Should I start with the whole pineapple or just get going with the kiwi...?

It's great to be in Phoenix!

Wilber, out!

Although that title fits well with the whole concept of flying home from Pomona and then turning around again to head back to Phoenix, putting that first race behind us so we can "turn the page" and move on with the second one, it's actually the pace of the song that strikes a chord. "Turn The Page" is a song that always makes me feel like I just took a big swig of Mountain Dew right after pounding two cups of coffee. It has a caffeinated pace that makes me feel like I'm spinning around and I'm a bit lightheaded, even though it's actually not a super-fast or overly aggressive song. It's just about one and a half beats quicker than you think it should be and that pace always makes me edgy. I think that was the object when they recorded it.

I'm writing press releases, getting my dry cleaning done (can't forget to go back up to Woodbury Cleaners after 5:00, to pick it all up), doing my laundry (so much fun), and getting all the updates finished just in time to pack again tonight. Then I'm off the ground in the morning and back at it, out in the desert.

We all know air travel is really no fun these days, but I try not to be the sort who constantly complains about it. Still, the well- documented loss of our old regular airline is not exactly going over all that smoothly with the large group of us downtrodden ex-NWA folks. Our new airline's name rhymes with Delta, which is also a term for a triangular shape and a place where rivers meet the open water.  This particular triangle might be made up of three sides labeled "Welcome aboard, sit down and shut up, and we don't care." Northwest was far from being the best airline in the world, but these guys are pretty incredible...

On top of that, the entire upgrade process seems to be as muddy and random as one of those rivers spreading its dirty discharge into the gulf. I get frustrated by it, but I can say without reservation that my wife is simply stupefied by the whole thing. She's been Platinum elite (which has always been as good as it gets, until Delta just introduced a new "Diamond" level) for about six years, and almost always would be bumped up to the front cabin. Considering how many hours she's spent on NWA and now Delta airplanes, and how many tens of thousands of dollars she and her company have spent to put her in those seats (probably more than a hundred thousand, actually), you'd think the airline might have her flagged in their system as someone they might want to keep happy. You'd think...

In the last month, she's not only been left in the cattle car a majority of the time, they've also unilaterally moved her to less desirable seats than the one she actually reserved, and they don't spring that news on you until you board. I know this, because it happened to both of us on the way home from John Wayne. We booked seats 5-D and 5-F when we made our flights (that's the first row of coach, where there's a little extra leg room in case you don't get upgraded), and looked on as we somehow slid further and further down the upgrade list in the days leading up to our flight home. I'm a Platinum for the first time, so I guess I can understand where I rank, but Barb is about as "elite" a passenger as you'll ever meet, and in the last 24 hours before our flight on Monday she was leapfrogged by a dozen other people. That was discouraging enough, but when we began the boarding process and she had her boarding pass scanned, the little unit beeped and spit out another piece of paper. She was now in 7-F. Why did they move her? Because they could, I guess. Tough luck. Sit down and shut up.

I was next, and my boarding pass also caused the machine to spit out a new one... 7-D perhaps? Still next to my wife? Oh no... How about 21-D, the second-to-last row on the airplane! Thanks a ton. Really.  I mean it. This is going to be such a wonderful flying relationship, and I can't tell you how happy I am to be traveling on these red, white, and blue planes instead of those old red and gray ones, where I got to sit up-front almost all of the time. Traveling is so much fun. And now I know why the totally dysfunctional fraternity in the movie "Animal House" was known as Delta House.

Anyway, I'm including a few extra Pomona pics in today's photo gallery, mostly just because they seemed to scream out for inclusion when I was browsing through my pics today. It's always interesting to shoot our guys warming up the car because Tim does the crew chief routine then, and has Brandon sit in the car. It was the first race of the year, of course, and Brandon needed a day or two to get his throttle "blips" just right, which I can relate to because it also takes me a few laps to get my steady video-shooting act together, as well. When 8,000 hp is right there (beneath you, in Brandon's case, or in front of you in my case) it's just not that easy to relax and do it instinctively. I know I had to actually take a deep breath and tell myself to settle down while I was shooting the first qualifying run. My neck was starting to tense up, and that can make it impossible to hold the camera totally still. After a couple of days, I was back in game shape, and so was Brandon.

I've also included a pic of my boy Cale Hood, who worked for us on the CSK team and then shifted over to the Tasca camp with Chris and Marc.  Cale, as you might recall, has had some long locks of red hair for the last few years, but this season he's gone with the buzz cut. He's still a handsome devil...

If you saw my Phoenix preview story, you know that this weekend should be the last time we run the 2009 Shelby body on our car. Our first 2010 is at the paint shop in Springfield, and the next one is not far behind it, so by Gainesville we plan to have the '10 cars on the track. Tim also ordered a new chassis, so you might as well make those changes all at once and we'll be doing that in Gainesville as well...

The 2010 Mustang doesn't look a lot different, at first glance, but it has been tweaked in the wind tunnel and the word we're getting from the other Ford teams is that it's a very nice piece. I guess so, considering the Tasca gang went to the semifinals with it and some guy named John Force won the race in Pomona, with his 2010 Ford. I guess it works just fine...

Here at the ranch, today has officially been dubbed a "gorgeous day" by the local weather experts and the populous. It's 30 degrees and the sky is blue. Had I not just spent five nearly-perfect days in Southern California, I would enjoy this a lot more, but it's still pretty nice...

A few minutes ago, Justin from next door was out on the pond, skating around and shooting a few pucks into the net. I got one good sequence of him skating in, stick-handling the puck, and then burying one in the top of the net. That's going "top shelf" and putting one "into the roof"...

Guess we'll watch some more of the Winter Olympics tonight, and then it will be time to hit the sack so I can head to the airport in the morning, just so I can be underwhelmed once again by my new airline... To heck with Northwest, I wish I could turn back time and go back to flying TWA again! Oh where have you gone TWA, Eastern, Pan Am, PSA, Ozark, Republic, Braniff, and all the rest? Today we just sit down and shut up.

Wilber, out!

Right now, it's 9:15 on Monday morning and I'm sitting in a hotel room at the Hyatt in Irvine, Calif., as Barbara and I prepare to head over to John Wayne Airport to fly home. I only have a few minutes here, so I can't guarantee any great length (or depth) to this installment, but after shaking so many hands and meeting so many people this weekend, I do feel a strong responsibility to get something written before I spend the rest of the day traveling, so here we go...

I'm sure you've all seen the stats, stories, and/or the TV show, so you know how things went on the track. We went 2-for-4 in terms of making full passes during qualifying, ended up 11th, and had to face Ashley Force Hood in round one on Sunday. At least we didn't pull off one of our patented "good enough to beat anyone else on the property except the car we were running" deals, as the LRS Shelby surprisingly smoked the tires just short of half-track and Ashley went on to run low e.t. of the round, officially kicking our collective butt.

Jeff Arend, on the other hand, earned the hard-luck loser tag for the first round, as he came up no more than a couple of inches short in his race with Del. Frankly, on the big screen it looked like either a tie or a that Jeff got there first, but upon further review it was clear that Del barely edged him. Had this been an NFL game, I bet Jeff's "coach" would've thrown the red flag and asked for a replay...They would've lost a time-out in the process.

Off the track, the guys did a great job all weekend, getting the car serviced perfectly and working as a tight unit, just like they always do. It was as if we'd just raced the week before, instead of three months ago. Now, of course, we'll head straight to Phoenix and when we get there they will have raced the week before.

Heading all the way back to Thursday, John Fink and I attended Del's 40th birthday party in Chino Hills, and that was a great time. They rented out a full restaurant for the private party, and the best part of the whole thing was seeing so many members of Del's family and so many good friends of the Worshams, along with a lot of my former teammates from the CSK days. The food was fantastic (good Mexican food in So Cal? Who'da thunk...) and the company was terrific.

Barbara flew in on Friday night, and I had plenty of time to drive down to John Wayne to pick her up. It was only about a 45-minute trip down the freeways for me to get there, and I actually had to make three laps around the airport before Barb came out to the curb so we could head back up to Ontario. That trip, of course, was the exact same one I had just made, only in reverse. And, it was a lot slower. Like close to two hours instead of 45 minutes... Stop. Go. Stop. Go...

On Sunday, we left the hotel around 7:30 and when I got to the pit area I set up my computer and checked my e-mail, and I was pleasantly surprised to see a note from Jeff Finger in my inbox. If you're a hockey fan, you'll probably recognize the name, as Jeff is a strong defenseman for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and if you have a very good memory you might recall how we met....

It was a couple of years ago, when I was returning from the Denver race, and when Dave and I got to baggage claim at MSP Jeff approached us after seeing our Team CSK shirts. Turns out, he's a huge drag racing fan and had been at the race all day with his dad. We talked about racing for a bit and then found out what he does for a living and that he'd just signed a new contract with the Leafs after having played for the Colorado Avalanche.

We traded info, and have stayed in touch for the last couple of years, but I was still pretty surprised to get his note on Sunday morning and to learn that he and his dad were not only in So Cal, but were actually heading for the track. They'd planned this trip a long time ago, to coincide with the Olympic break, but it wasn't until Jeff got out here that he discovered the Winternationals were going on at the same time.

We ended up text messaging for the next hour, to coordinate things, and then Jeff and his dad spent quite a bit of time with us in the pit area after the round. It was great to see Jeff, meet his dad, and it was a pleasure to have both of them with us.

My man Shorty, who has the bar & grill just down the road from our home in Woodbury, was also there and he dropped off a special "good luck" gift on Sunday morning. It was little miniature guitar he found, and it's really cool. Sadly, its ability to provide any good luck was sorely lacking, but it has a magnet on the back so it will probably find its way to our refrigerator at home!

Barb and I left the track just minutes before the final round yesterday, and headed down here last night. It was Valentine's Day, of course, so I wanted to give us a little one-night vacation and we couldn't have picked a better place. After we checked in, we went downstairs and had a beverage in the outdoor courtyard, where a fire pit lit the evening and the palm trees gave us every reason to feel like we were far away in some tropical place. It really was great, and gave us both a chance to recharge and relax after the first crazy weekend of the year...

Looking back over the weekend, I can't even count all the people who came by to say hello, but I want everyone to know how great it is to get to meet you and chat for a bit. I always use the words "honor" and "privilege" when I describe how I feel about writing this blog, and those words are never more appropriate than now. It was a great weekend, in that regard.

And now, it's time to get ready to check out of here. In a few hours we'll be home, and in a few days I'll be getting on another plane and heading to Phoenix. I will, however, make sure I get back here to update things at least once before I leave. And hopefully, one week from today, I'll be writing about how great we did at Firebird Raceway.

See you then...

Wilber, out!

In the four-plus years I've been writing this blog, I sure can't recall writing many at night, but I just got to the hotel here in Ontario and I know tomorrow is going to be nuts, so as long as I'm sitting here I might as well be productive. Not sure how long this will be, but I had the motivation to get it written and sent off. Of course, I also don't know if any of the NHRA.com magicians, who take my missives and make them appear (abra cadabra!) on the website, are even paying attention to email at this hour, so it may well be Thursday before this "sees the light of day" if you can pardon the pun.

It's also apparent that many of you noticed the new "shuffle" that will be happening on the main blog page, so that the newest installments will move to the top of the heap after they've been posted. Hopefully that's not too confusing, and I figure the Team Wilk blog banner will still sit atop the column a lot of the time. We're just keeping you on your toes! And, if this system motivates some other people to write a bit more often, then that's good too.

Okay, the other truly important note I need to make mention of is that I have kept up my end of the promise and did swing through the In-N- Out that's right at our exit, off the 10-freeway. Double-Double (with onions), Diet Coke, and I got my fries off the "secret menu" by ordering them well-done. I did my best to savor every bite when I got to my room, but it's awfully hard not to just wolf it down... It tastes too good to eat slowly!

To backtrack a bit, I went to bed early last night, in anticipation of the first day of school, and set my mental alarm clock to wake me up at 6:45. I missed by 15 minutes, because I woke up at 6:30, but those are delicious minutes to reclaim when you know you can grab a cat, pull up the blanket, and enjoy another bit of blissful sleep. Da Boyce, however, thought I was certifiably insane when I got up and started turning on lights, before that bright thing in the sky had even made its appearance over the horizon. When I turned on the bathroom lights, they were looking at me from the bed, just barely holding their heads up (with a total cat-version of "bed head" going, hair sticking out in all directions), and blinking at me. Sorry guys...

It was 4 degrees (at least it was above zero) when I left the house, and after checking in, getting to the gate, moving to another gate when they changed aircraft on us, sitting in seat 2-D for close to four hours, and then deplaning in another place, it was approximately 64 degrees warmer. From single digits and an ever deepening snowpack, to So Cal in all its glory. Not a bad deal, really...

About an hour later, I was at the race track living that "Groundhog's Day" scene again, wherein it seems like I just saw everyone, in this exact same location, a few days ago. It's always a bit disorienting, because it's hard to get a mental grip on it all...

We're not hosting any hospitality here this weekend, so we're pitted right next to the Tasca team with only a few feet between our awning and the side of their rig. I figured I might move over there and grab a seat in their hospitality area, for me and my computer, but they just found out they're not doing any hospitality either, so we're both downsized for this event. Annette and I dug through our support trailer and pulled out four folding chairs and one hi-rise round table, and we set that up at the forward end of our narrow little pit. At least I can work standing up and we'll have a small spot to take a load off, if we need to...

I finally left the track around 5:00, battled the freeway traffic out to the hotel, and enjoyed my Double-Double. Now, it's time to get this finished, wind down a bit, and then hit the sack...

Before I do that, though, here are a few notes about what you'll see in the photo gallery. We start with a snowpack shot, after the last scraping of the driveway and a quick pass through by Dave and his snow blower. As you can see, it's close to two feet deep right now, and it's packed solid. A lot of it is more precisely ice, rather than snow. After the storms we just had both Minneapolis and St. Paul instituted the special on-street parking rules that have to be followed when we eventually get this much snow. As it piles up on the curbs, people can't park anywhere near where they're supposed to, so from now until the spring melt, you can only park on one side of the street. And it's going to take a long time to melt all of this...

I also got a great gift in the mail, from blog reader buddy Kim up in Vancouver, where a little get-together called the Winter Olympics is about underway. He sent down two pairs of official Winter Olympics mittens for us, and I can report that they were terrific during my multiple trips outside to scrape off more of the white stuff, this week. I'd always heard that mittens were far warmer than gloves, but I haven't owned a pair since I was small enough to have them clipped onto the ends of my coat sleeves, so I wouldn't lose them on my way to kindergarten. They're amazing! With gloves, my finger tips get cold out there, but with the mittens my hands and digits were actually hot! Even when it was seriously cold. Plus, with the Olympic rings and a Canadian maple leaf, I'm the coolest guy in the neighborhood...

The Olympic torch passed right by Kim's house the other night, as well, and he was kind enough to send me a shot of it being carried by. Pretty neat deal...

I also figured you might enjoy a few shots of some of the new stuff in the pits, so I walked up to Brandon Bernstein's pit area and got a shot of their all-new blue motif. Right across from them was Melanie Troxel's car, and their big In-N-Out transporter. Finally, I took a shot of the very cool (and very enormous) sign they attached to the backside of the main grandstand. It's hard to get a grasp on just how big it is, but just check out the doors to the suites, on either side of the Auto Club Raceway sign... This thing is large!

Well, that's it boys and berries. Time to turn my brain off and get a good night's sleep. When I get to the track tomorrow, it will all be for real...

Wilber, out!

It's finally here, and in 48 hours I'll be landing at John Wayne Airport to officially begin the 2010 season. How about that!

We wrapped up the '09 season on November 15. The next day, we dressed up all nice and pretty and attended the banquet in L.A. On the 17th, I flew home to officially start the off-season, and now here we are. 83 days after I got home from Pomona, I'm finally heading back out there again.

I have to say that NHRA has done a terrific job building the excitement for this year's opener, and everyone is excited about kicking off the year in a big way. With it being the 50th anniversary of the Winternationals, there's plenty to get excited about, but all the neat "stuff" in the world wouldn't have anyone chomping at the bit if the word wasn't effectively spread, and from feature stories to Twitter tweets, everyone involved has pitched in to make sure the racing world knows that this weekend will be special.

And (fingers crossed, wood being knocked upon, breath being held) right now it looks like Mother Nature is going to play nice for us. We all know weather forecasts and how they can change, so I grabbed a screen shot of this one to lock it in place, and I'll opt to stick with it as the official version, which cannot be changed or altered in any way. It's going to be a little cool, but the cars are going to love it, and if the cars love it I imagine the fans will love it, too.

I successfully avoided even looking at any weather predictions until today, because the reality of meteorology suggests anything beyond a couple of days, maybe three at the most, is mostly conjecture. But, like I said, I'm digging this forecast so it's the one I'm sticking with.

In preparation for the race, we had Tim on a conference call with the media today, which was orchestrated by Ford Racing and my esteemed colleague Susan Pollack, who handles the PR for the Tasca team and Ford. Susan carried the ball on this deal, so my job was to make sure Tim knew when to call in and what number to dial. It's a good thing I have years of experience. Just to be on the safe side, I emailed him all the info last week, then sent him a text this morning, followed by a phone call about 20 minutes before the call. Piece of cake... Six years of college didn't go to waste.

My other must-do morning project was to put out the first of what will be 23 different pre-race press releases this season. I've been doing this a long time, and I'd need a calculator to figure out how many of these preview stories I've written in my career, but I'm also not afraid to admit it's still fun to send them out and then see them pop up on various websites, like little flowers growing from the seeds I've planted. If you ever stop enjoying the sight of your work in print, you probably don't need to be in PR or journalism, I'd say...

Of course, it's only when I see my stories published that I tend to spot sentences I wish I could change or, even worse, the always- dreaded typos. I've recently taken to printing out my press releases to proof them in hard-copy form, because the mistakes are just far too invisible on the computer screen. Your brain simply sees the words and letters as it wants to see them... Then, when you click on NHRA.com and see your story in the Team Reports section, the mistakes jump out at you like they're backlit with neon. How did I miss that??? Of course, many years ago Phil Burgess got accustomed to receiving notes from me with the subject line "Mr. Typo Strikes Again" as I forward the fixes for the mistakes I'd earlier created.

Tomorrow, I'll actually start to think about packing and organizing my brief case, which has sat mostly undisturbed behind my desk for a grand majority of the winter. This will also be the first time I'll get to use my suitcase with one of the new embroidered bag tags that were sent to me by Scott The Pilot, so thanks again STP! Hope all is well with you, flying the big jets for Korean Air...

My day started in a less-than-fun manner, to say the least, because the first thing I had to do when I got out of bed was bundle up to go outside, in order to scrape the driveway for the third time since this snowstorm started. Talk about a rude awakening... Since it's supposed to keep snowing until tomorrow afternoon, I'm guessing I might be out there pushing snow around a few more times, as well. It's been coming down non-stop since yesterday afternoon, but it's such a light and fluffy snow it's easy to move out of the way, so the best way to attack this is to just keep knocking it down, every inch or so.

This morning, the goal was to quickly clear the drive so that I could drive Barbara to the airport, for a business trip to Fort Myers, Fla. Hey, she has to deal with New York, Boston, Chicago, and other cold- weather cities too much, so good for her to get a chance to go warm up for a few days. It may be work, but just being in Florida (even indoors most of the day) is still enough to help you recharge your batteries a little. The roads were a bit of a mess as we drove to MSP during rush hour, but everyone was being careful and we got her there in time. The most surprising part of the deal is that her flight wasn't delayed too badly, and she should be on the ground down there by now...

Despite all the snow, I had a bunch of errands to run today and as I was driving home I purposefully drove a little out of my way to pass through a Woodbury neighborhood called Pinehurst, just to admire the beautiful winter scenery. My guess is that Pinehurst was probably developed in the mid or late 80s, but what's obvious is that the builders did a great job of erecting the homes within the trees, because the area is an absolute forest of pines. Too often, developers will come in and simply level everything, then plant maples or pines again after the construction is done, leaving the neighborhood looking pretty barren until those trees grow up and fill out. From what I can tell, this neighborhood was built far more carefully, and the mature pines still have a forest feel when you drive through...

Oh hey... If you're coming to the Winternationals this weekend, and you're bringing your spouse or significant other on Sunday, don't forget it's Valentine's Day. One of my errands today involved a stop at the local Hallmark store...

Did you watch the Super Bowl last night? My guess would be you did, considering I just saw the news flash that this year's game was viewed by as many as 114 million people, which made it the most-watched show in the history of American television, just edging the final episode of "Joanie Loves Chachi." Or maybe it was "M*A*S*H." It was one of those two...

Not having a horse in this race, I was more intrigued by the possibility of the score matching a certain set of numbers Barbara and I both had in a little (perfectly legal) pool put together by Chris Cunningham, who is also perfectly legal, as far as I know. It was one of those totally random deals, where all you do is put your name in a few boxes and after all the boxes are filled in, random numbers are assigned to each row, both horizontally and vertically. Bing bang boom, one of my boxes was 0 for the Colts and 0 for the Saints, and since it's simply the final number in each team's score that counts, the 10-0 score at the end of the first quarter was profitable for me, in a totally legal way. Barbara then had a box that had a 7 for the Colts and a 6 for the Saints, and when the third quarter ended 17-16, she also grabbed a prize (donation). Between the two of us, we did okay but the really big (totally legal) prizes were for halftime and the final score, not the first and third quarters. We weren't that far off at the half, and for a moment or two there I actually thought I was going to get that one too, but there's no greed in this house because I think that's the first time I've ever won anything in one of these pools. Way to go, us!

Finally, today, I will leave you with a tale that simply elevates the level of fame enjoyed by a couple of feline characters here in our house...

I was on-line yesterday afternoon, reading some news at USA Today's website, when I spotted a blog about pets. The writer was snowed in by the east coast blizzard, so she asked her readers to contribute photos of how they were spending their Super Bowl weekend with their pets. She also promised to post the first 24 photos and stories that came in.

I grabbed the camera, caught Da Boyce in what is their standard sunny Sunday pose, all snuggled up together in a patch of sunshine on the living room floor, and fired it off. Minutes later, I got a quick note in reply, from the USA Today blogger, and moments after that Buster and Boofus were on the Web, proudly representing the cat world and Woodbury, Minn., in front of millions of USA Today on-line readers.

I'm waiting to hear from their agent soon, and I suspect we'll shortly be in negotiations for better treats and more of them. I know they want Dasani in their water dish, too, and they've made it clear that tap water is a total non-starter and not open for discussion.

My flight on Wednesday is first thing in the morning, so I doubt I'll be able to get anything done before late in the day, or perhaps Thursday morning, but I'll do my best.

Are you ready? Let's go racing!!!

Wilber, out!

One thing I clearly remember about my nine years at Mary Queen of Peace grade school in beautiful Webster Groves, Mo. was the way the first day of school smelled! Everyone had on brand new clothes, so even though we wore uniforms and all looked alike, that smell of all-new clothes permeated the school. I think it started to fade sometime after lunch and recess...

I probably ought to get out and buy a few new pairs of black slacks for the year, both because I need them and because maybe, just maybe, I'll get a whiff of that new apparel smell again. To be detected, the aroma from the slacks will have its work cut out for it, because we've decided to "recycle" our starting line shirts from last year and wear them again in 2010. With all the same sponsors returning, and with the grand majority of our shirts in perfectly fine condition, it didn't make much sense to produce new shirts just for the sake of doing it...

As I prepare for the start of the 2010 season I'm ahead of the game a little bit, with my Pomona preview press release already done and "in the can" (a movie reference, but I'm not sure where press releases go when they're done and "developed") so I'll put that out on Monday after I let it stew and sit there in my "Drafts" folder all weekend. I learned many years ago not to put out a preview press release any earlier than the Monday of race week, even if the week before is clear and there is no racing. The couple of times I thought I was getting a headstart by putting a story out on the previous Friday, I quickly discovered that many people don't actually, technically, carefully read every word I write (the horror!)

I might have specifically written that my driver is "really looking forward to the XYZ Nationals" on a date that was still very clearly a week away, in english words that were right there in black & white in the first paragraph, but by simply receiving a preview story near the end of a week, some people would just assume the race was that weekend. After I got a dozen emails wishing us luck on the wrong weekend, another batch saying "Oh wow, I didn't realize there was a race this week..." and a third large group of notes in which the writers attempted to correct my mistake by telling me I was obviously on crack because the race was actually the next week, I stopped putting anything out early.

So, other than maybe heading out to Macy's this weekend to check out some new slacks, or maybe up to DSW to see if I can find a new pair of black track shoes, I'm ready to go... That only tells me that I will, almost for sure, arrive in Pomona to discover I've forgotten something so elementary and necessary I won't be able to believe my own oversight. Nothing like checking into your hotel room, unpacking, and realizing you didn't bring any socks...

Had a great time last night, meeting up with Michael Karp for dinner and a hockey game. He arrived at Kincaid's just after Barbara and I took possession of our 5:15 reservation, and we dined on filet mignon while sharing a million laughs and some great stories. The first thing I wanted to hear, however, was everything Michael is up to, and it's fascinating what he does. When we met, he was working for the management group at Staples Center (where the L.A. Lakers and Kings play) and was basically the guy in charge of food and beverage. Since then, he went to work for Live Nation, then spent a little time with a private company that had plans to open a number of restaurants, but now he is acting as a consultant and working his tail off helping a client open a string of Toby Keith restaurants around the country.  One of them will be in a Minneapolis suburb called St. Louis Park, and he was in town to continue the supervision of that place, which should be opening this spring.

We did also talk about some of the "good old days" way back in 2003 when Michael put the Artisan deal together and his dad Arnie drove the car. Of course, later that year Arnie hurt his knee and couldn't drive, so we put Phil Burkart in the Artisan car for all of two races. Right after that race (which was in Brainerd), Johnny Gray drove the blue CSK car to a runner-up finish in Indy, but then decided to step down as the blue team driver. Like a baseball or hockey team calling up guys from the minor leagues and promoting guys into new starting positions, we moved Burkart over to the blue car and brought in Cory Lee to drive the Artisan car for us.

The best part of this story revolves around the Finals in Pomona that year... If you look up Cory Lee's career stats, you'll see that he has no NHRA national event victories. While that's technically true, he actually did have one, right in his hands, for about three seconds. It was Del against Cory, in the final round at Pomona, under the lights on a November Sunday, in the first and only match-up of two Worsham-owned cars in a final round. Del inexplicably fouled at the start, and that bright red light about blinded us when it came on. Cory's guys were already jumping around, and all of us were heading over to congratulate our teammates on a huge win for Mr. Lee and the Artisan team, when.... You got it. Cory crossed the center line. Ouch...

We took both cars to the Winner's Circle that night, to at least allow Cory and his guys the chance to enjoy the celebration despite the fact the trophy got away from them.

LOL, I got a funny note from blog reader Rich Venza, who noticed I had somehow work Karp, walleye, cats, and birds into the last blog... Help me doctor, I've got a terrible haddock...  Rim shot.

Hey, did you know that this weekend's Super Bowl will be the first ever to feature two teams that come from cities that have never had a Major League Baseball team?  I saw that on Twitter earlier, and it seemed correct to me, so I Googled that theme and validated it. Don't be confused, I realize the 1997 Super Bowl featured the Green Bay Packers (and Green Bay has obviously never had a big league team) and the New England Patriots, who play in Foxboro, Mass. (also never home to a big league team). But, the key there is that Foxboro is clearly part of the Boston metropolitan area. Plus, when the Patriots were formed, as part of the old AFL, they were the Boston Patriots. Just ask Geno Cappelletti and Babe Parilli.

Speaking of Twitter, it's become one of my favorite ways to get instant news these days. I only follow about 35 people or organizations on Twitter, preferring to keep my incoming tweets strictly in the news vein unless they are tweeted by specific people whose day-to-day stories I enjoy hearing. I leave Facebook for the gazillion "I just woke up" or "I'm having lunch now" updates from about 600 people I'm "friends" with over there.

On Twitter, I check it regularly because I mostly follow a bunch of sports writers and columnists, who will always tweet when they have posted a new important story with their newspaper or magazines. If you had kept an eye on Twitter last night, for instance, you could've found out that the Twins had signed "free agent" 2nd baseman Orlando Hudson, basically at the moment it happened! I also follow some carefully selected individuals, who almost always have something unique to post; people like Buzz Aldrin, Roz Savage (a fascinating woman who now has rowed, solo, across basically every ocean in the world), and astronaut TJ Creamer (who is currently tweeting from the international space station). There are a few athletes who are interesting tweeters as well, so I follow Twins pitcher Pat Neshek, Vikings Sidney Rice and Visanthe Shiancoe, and the absolutely hilarious Chad Ochocinco from the Cincinnati Bengals. On the racing side, I get all the tweets from NHRA's media department, Phil Burgess, Bob Tasca, Cory Mac, Brandon Bernstein, Ford Racing, John Force Racing, and a few others. Facebook is clearly social and informal, so I keep my Twitter content in the old Sgt. Joe Friday style: Just the facts, ma'am.

Hey, and how about our Twins! I'm not sure who spiked the water over there in their new offices at Target Field, but they've broken the mold on how they go about the off-season. Since we moved here, most of the "big moves" the Twins have made have simply been call-ups from their very productive minor league system, or low-dollar bargain-basement additions no one else wanted (who would then immediately show why no one else wanted them, once they got on the field). This year, they've gone aggressively after specific players who could fill some important needs, and actually outbid other teams for them. They've jumped their payroll from only about $65 million up to something closer to $100 million, which is still paltry compared to what the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and the other big spenders invest, but it's a huge improvement around here. They've got the town buzzing right now, I can tell you that, and a lot of fans are wondering if this is all a dream. If so, we don't want to wake up. Now, once they get Joe Mauer signed to a long-term deal, it's going to be a great time to be a Twins fan.

After following the Vikings all year, and attending a slew of Twins, Wild, and Wolves games, I was sorting through some stuff in my office and knocked over a stack of hats I'm always cycling through. I often talk about all the different hats I wear, when it comes to my job, but there's also a rotation of actual hats I wear, around here. Ya gotta support the teams!  And starting next week, I'll break out the racing hats and make sure to always have one or two of those with me on the road. I'm a hat guy...

Got a text message from Bob Vandergriff yesterday, who beat all my Twitter sources to let me know that Justin Verlander had just signed a very lucrative (and, I might add, well deserved) contract with the Detroit Tigers. As you might recall, Bob and Justin have gotten to know each other, and when Justin and his family came to the Richmond race Bob sent them my way, because he couldn't be there. Justin and the whole Verlander family were terrific, and it was a pleasure to have them in our pit for a while. I may be a Twins fan, but I'm also a baseball fan, and Justin Verlander is really about as good as they come. If I owned a team, he could pitch for me anytime he wanted to.

On a totally different subject, I got a note from longtime loyal blog reader and good guy Tom Miller, also known as TomFWL (Tom from West Linn). He just got a new credit card from one of those companies that allows you to customize the front of your card, and in the photo gallery you'll be able to see how he decorated his new MasterCard. Pretty cool, and it's actually made from a photo he took, while seated in the stands at a race. Question: Do we get to charge Tom interest every month, now?

Finally, the UPS guy just came to the door and delivered a small overnight envelope. It was one of those cardboard envelopes that you open by pulling the tab across the top, and that leaves you with a small strip of curled-up cardboard when you're done. That little item may be of no interest to humans, but it becomes the focus of all attention for a cat! Boofus went nuts, chasing that thing around the kitchen, flipping it into the air, and getting all worked up over it. I took a chance, grabbed the camera, and held it above his head while I clicked the shutter to prove that cats, just like dogs, can master the art of sitting up and begging.  Then he got the strip in his teeth and the battle was on. Until you've heard a little cat growl, as he shakes his head to take his prey with him, you wouldn't believe how funny it is.

And when Da Boyce get all worked up, and start flying around the house at Mach 5, leaping five or six steps at a time going up the stairs and walking on top of the hand railings instead of using the actual staircase, their tails get really fat. It's the funniest thing. Boof just ran in here at 226 mph, leaped up onto my office window sill, and was still panting and making funny noises as I got a shot of the famous "fat tail" cat.

That's it for today, gang... Have a great weekend, and then let's get ready for school to start next week! Wonder who my homeroom teacher will be this year...?

Can you smell the nitro, yet????

Wilber, out!

This is always an odd time of year, in the whole "it seems like forever but it seems like yesterday" vein. The final race of the year is like this, as well, when you look back over the full season and realize it simultaneously feels like a marathon and a short sprint. Like it just started but lasted forever. The off-season is nearly over, and in some ways I feel like we just left Pomona after the Finals, but it also seems like I haven't been to the race track in a decade.

And then, of course, when we all do convene in Pomona next week, the look ahead to the rest of the season will seem daunting and enormous. 10 months and 23 races, all over the country from coast to coast and border to border, including too many airplanes and too many bad late-night meals. It's usually not until around the St. Louis race, in early May, that it seems like we're into the season and right in the middle of it... All of those conflicting and sometimes self-contradictory feelings will begin next week. The clock, she is ticking.

Speaking of the full season and all the travel, we crossed a major milestone point this past week and it's one I wasn't looking forward to. Right now, and forever more, if you attempt to go to Northwest Airlines' website at NWA.com, you go straight to Delta.com instead. It's all gone. Basically, the only things left that still look, act, or operate as if Northwest was still around are the 30-some aircraft they have yet to repaint. Everything else is totally Delta. That sounded like some sort of derisive remark a teenager would say, didn't it? "Like oh-my-God, that is just so totally Delta..."

Dave and I did go on a little road trip for lunch, but the operative word there was "little." Not only were no planes involved, the entire trip was no more than a few miles, as we hopped in my car and went down to Cottage Grove to have lunch with Shorty at his All-American Motorsports Bar & Grill. This lunch date has been one we've been talking about forever, but just hadn't gotten around to, so this week Dave and I made the commitment to keep an hour clear in the middle of the day, and off we went.

One of the reasons we've been wanting to get down there was the fact I haven't been back since I donated the Wally, starting line shirt, and ND cover to Shorty last year, so we took the camera to commemorate the occasion with an officially licensed photograph. Smile!

The better two reasons, however, were the food and the company. It was great to see Shorty and everyone else, and the Walleye Fingers were officially "TDF" as our appetizer. You know the old saying: "Ya haven't lived until you've had the Walleye Fingers at Shorty's, don'tcha know. Darn right!" Seriously, though, they were as terrific as I remembered, despite the fact I'm still a bit confused. I'll admit to not being much of a fisherman, but I'm pretty sure Walleyes don't have fingers. Of course, chickens don't have fingers (or nuggets) either, so it's just one of the mysteries we'll have to relegate to the category of "unanswerable."

Now, after not having seen Shorty for a while, I'll see him again in a week. He and Cheri are coming to Pomona, and then they're also coming to Gainesville. I'll be sick of the guy! That won't stop me from getting back down there for more Walleye Fingers, though.

Hey, another item just crossed over into my consciousness about next week. A certain former boss of mine (last name rhymes with Worsham) is celebrating a pretty big birthday next Thursday. I think it qualifies as a big one when it's the first one you've had that starts with a 4... Can you believe that? Del Worsham is going to be 40! That doesn't seem possible... Seems like yesterday when we had a surprise party for him on his 30th... Seems like the day before yesterday when I first joined up with Del, and he was still living at home, and the race car shop was actually Chuck's garage...

During my Worsham tenure, of course, we had four different drivers in the second CSK car, and together they sound like an early 60s doo-wop group. "Okay ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together and welcome to the stage, Frankie, Johnny, Phil, and Jeff!!!" We also had a few moments, though, when we fielded three cars. The first time was when we brought the inimitable Cory Lee into the fold in an effort to slow down the JFR Mustangs, but then prior to the 2003 season we were approached by a creative young guy by the name of Michael Karp, who wanted to bring his dad out of retirement and into a nitro FC. Yes, that would be the old "Boston Strangler" Arnie Karp to whom I'm referring, and even though we could instantly tell that Michael was very sharp, very connected, and very much a go-getter, we still had to calm him down and tell him "You know, these sponsorships aren't that easy to get. Don't be disappointed if you can't get something put together right away..."

Seems like it was about five minutes later, and in reality it couldn't have been more than a few weeks, when Michael called with the good news after having secured Artisan Entertainment as the primary, and we scrambled to get the Terminator 2 car put together and race-ready. Del and I were impressed, to say the least, and we've both remained good friends with Arnie, Michael, and the whole Karp family.

Arnie is involved with a nostalgia team now, and I still hear from him on a semi-regular basis (thanks to Facebook and email!) He's truly one of the really good guys in this sport, and his son shares his genetics, for sure.

I brought all that up because Michael is going to be in the Twin Cities for a few days this week, and tomorrow we're going to meet for dinner in downtown St. Paul and then walk over to the Xcel Arena to see the Wild play Edmonton. It'll be great to see him and catch up on all he's up to these days. Photos will be taken.

On a completely different subject, I was sitting here at my desk earlier today, when I heard the unmistakable sound a bird makes when he (or she, I guess) thinks one of our big windows is a passageway, instead of a wall. It wasn't a particularly big bang, so I didn't think much of it other than "I bet Boof and the Big Fella heard that..." I didn't hear them scampering around, though, so I then figured it hadn't even been loud enough to wake them up.

I was wrong about that assumption, however, because they had heard it and were on full "stealth mode" and rigged for silent running. About 20 minutes after the thud, I walked to the kitchen and found them both standing at the window, front paws on the ledge, peeking out toward the slats of the pergola, where a dove was still collecting himself after the collision. He was clearly okay, in terms of anything being broken, but there was no doubt that little bird concussion was still being felt. Da Boyce were mesmerized, and doing all they could to be discreet and stay hidden, but those pointy black ears tend to be a big give-away. LOL... They were pretty funny about it, and the bird was clearly not feeling real hot, as he'd turn around and see them, but didn't have the desire or the ability to fly away. He sat there so long, the cats actually got bored and left, apparently feeling that food and sleep were more fun than watching a bird just sit there... Not long after that, Boofus returned to the scene for one more look, and the dove flew away. It was fun while it lasted, and all three of us are happy the dove made a full recovery. He's been cleared to play in the Super Bowl on Sunday.

Finally today, I've saved my serious stuff for the end again...

I'm sure all of you are familiar with Jim Brissette, one of the all-time great tuners in the history of the sport. Under the heading of "You never know who's out there reading this blog" I learned, a while back, that Jim's wife Carroll is a regular visitor here at the Team Wilk blog, and we correspond from time to time. I got the following note from here a few days ago, and I immediately promised to mention it, and put out the word on this very good cause.

Carroll wrote: "I wanted you to know we received a lovely Christmas card from your friend in Hawaii again, thanking us for help during his time of need. If you ever get a chance to put a line in your blog about an organization called Donate Life I would appreciate it very much. I have pulmonary fibrosis, which is a death sentence without a lung transplant. I found out in March of 2009, even though I have never smoked. Sure, I've had a few Miller Lites and some red wine along the way, so maybe my liver.... But no, it was my lungs. I have jumped through all the hoops to be on the transplant list at Cedars Sinai Hospital, here in Los Angeles, and fortunately I was listed on Sept 12, 2009.

"The gift of life is the most precious gift any of us can give, and I will forever be grateful for my new lungs once I get them. I will treasure them and take care of them very well until my party is over. Of course, we can't get transplants if people don't sign up to be donors, so hopefully people in California will visit DonateLifeCalifornia.org and sign up.

"Jim has been working in Europe with the Danish team, with Andy Carter driving. He will again do that, and the Danish car will be in Pomona so he will be there. He also helped Rob Flynn out at Bernstein's at the end of last year. I am trying to keep him busy so that he doesn't worry about me. Say hi to Barbara for me. Thanks to the blog, I feel like I know her. Carroll Brissette"

For those of you who aren't California residents, you can find your state's organization by going to DonateLife.net, and clicking on the state map. State laws vary, so they have formed an affiliation of state groups to help raise awareness and increase the number of people who are willing to share life by being an organ and tissue donor.

And here's wishing Carroll, and all the people who are awaiting transplants, the very best.

I'm signed up as a donor. Are you?

Wilber, out!

But, as we kick off the second (and shortest) month of the year, I plan to hijack the blog today to take you on a magical journey to places many of you, no doubt, have never been. In the interest of fair reporting, that first paragraph will most likely be the last reference to Pomona or the 2010 Full Throttle season (not counting this reference, claiming that was the last reference, or some reference at the end).

I'm actually starting this blog on Sunday afternoon, while Barbara is out speaking to a group of Girl Scouts here in the neighborhood, and I mostly want to get going on it so that the memories of one of the most fun-filled and authentically Minnesotan afternoons and evenings remain fresh. Shall we begin?

Well, grab your mittens, put on your stocking cap, and dress up in your warmest coat. Put on some long-johns and two pairs of socks. We're going to the final day of the 2010 St. Paul Winter Carnival, and if you have 50 percent as much fun as Barb and I did on Saturday, you'll have half a riot. Okay, all you get are these stories and the best of the 119 photos I took, but I hope it translates into something more enjoyable than no blog at all, and it's a chance for me to share the weekend with all of you.

We were going to start the weekend with a trip to the Metrodome for TwinsFest, but after it opened on Friday and we saw all the reports on TV and in the paper, we changed our minds. Apparently, an enormous group of Minnesota sports fans were collectively ready to flip the switch from football season to baseball season, and that meant, to us, that TwinsFest had to be considered a victim of its own success. Some people camped out as many as six hours early to get in line, and the place was absolutely packed, so rather than deal with that, we went to the gym and got in a good workout instead.

Good idea, to go to the gym instead of the Dome, I think. Plus, our intrepid local writers and TV reporters kept us up-to-date on all the baseball news, so it felt like we were there. At least a little. At that point, on Saturday afternoon, we altered our focus to the Winter Carnival and the annual ultimate ending to it, the Torchlight Parade.

I've written about the Torchlight Parade and the wonderful, phenomenal, and truly entertaining St. Paul Winter Carnival in years past, but just to recap: The Winter Carnival lasts for 10 days and includes a wide variety of outdoor activities, sprinkled all around the St. Paul metro. There's ice fishing, ice carving, ice skating, and just about anything else you can do with ice and snow. There are stock car races on frozen lakes and if you like your racing on two feet instead of four wheels, there's the "Frozen 5-K" and a half-marathon. It all culminates right in the middle of downtown St. Paul, in and around Rice Park on the final Saturday night, when the Vulcans clash with the court of King Boreas in a battle of wills and strength to see if the red-clad Vulcs can bring summer and warmth back to the state.

The whole thing is a huge social event for the city, and it's an enormous honor to be named a part of either group for the Carnival in any given year. And, beyond the honor and fun of participating as the "stars of the show" during Winter Carnival, being a Vulcan or part of the King Boreas court is a year-long obligation, with appearances and promotions all around the city. On multiple occasions in the past, we've gone out to dinner in Woodbury on any random summer night, only to arrive at the restaurant to see the Vulcans' antique red fire truck out front. We know what that means... A group of rowdy fun-loving guys in red capes are going to be inside, marking people's faces with a sooty black "V" while we all shout "Hail the Vulc!"

Now here's what's funny. King Boreas is, technically, the good guy. The Vulcans are, technically, the bad guys. King Boreas is a gentle sort of regal chap, dressed in white fur, and he brings the north wind with all of its winter splendor to St. Paul, which means he provides the atmosphere for all of the associated wintertime fun in these parts, don'tcha know.

The Vulcans, led by their head dude Vulcanus Rex, want to bring the heat, and their rep is strongly on the side of "rabble rousers" and aggressors. All King Boreas and his court want to do on the final night of this grand celebration of the coldest months, the wonderful Winter Carnival, is to marvel at the beauty of the scene, and enjoy the huge crowd that has gathered for the Torchlight Parade. Then, just as the last marching band and float are passing by, we see the flames from the Vulcan torches marching up the street, bringing up the rear of the parade. The Vulcans assemble in front of Boreas and his court, then make a charge to take over the viewing platform, while the crowd screams either "Hail Boreas" or "Hail the Vulc" at the top of their lungs...

The first wave of Vulcans is, of course, repelled by the good King's guards, who are big and strong. Again the Vulcans charge, and again they are thrown back. Finally, in a melodramatic final push that has the members of the huge crowd laughing hysterically while also screaming in support of their favorite side, the Vulcans capture Boreas and we all celebrate, knowing summer will again, eventually, return. It's all a juxtaposition and a jumble of wills and intentions. We love Boreas and all the fun of winter, but we want summer to return. The Vulcans are the bad guys, but who doesn't love a good-hearted rapscallion of a bad guy? Whoever thought this stuff up, about 120 years ago, was a genius.

The weather, this year, was perfect. It was in the mid-teens, which makes it just cold enough to be a bit crispy and very wintery, but not so cold you're in pain. A few years back, the last time we went to the parade, it was about 8-below zero that night, and even though the parade went off as scheduled (there's no stopping the parade!), the Vulcans' assault was amazingly quick. Everyone wanted to get to the big (indoor!) dance they hold for all the members of both courts... It was like "Here come the Vulcans. Okay, we win. Let's go!"

I've included the front page coverage from today's newspaper in the photo gallery, and what makes it even more classic is the way they report on the assault in standard news lingo. The story below the photo says "Torches in hand, Vulcans from previous St. Paul Winter Carnivals march along 5th Street during Saturday night's Torchlight Parade in downtown St. Paul. After the parade, Vulcanus Rex led the dethroning of King Boreas and his Guard on the steps on the St. Paul Public Library, signaling the approach of warmer weather — though temperatures hovered in the mid-teens." You can't make this stuff up.

Barbara and I started the celebration by getting downtown before dark so that we could tour Rice Park and see what was left of the ice sculptures. Sadly, that goofy warm weather and rain we had a week ago took its toll on the artwork, but a lot of neat stuff was still there. Our favorite was one of the big winners, and it was an ice carving of a cat on top of a bird cage, trying to get at the bird through the slats of the cage. The intricate work, to carve a bird cage (with a bird in it!) out of ice, was amazing.

We then walked over to a wonderful Japanese restaurant, called Sakura, a block away to enjoy a marvelous dinner. My chopstick skills used to be nil (or perhaps below-nil), and I still operate them at probably only about a 3rd-grade level, but I managed to eat everything from my salad, to my appetizer, to my entree' with no American utensils and no fumbles. I was quite proud! And the food was terrific. The place was mostly empty when we got there but wall-to-wall when we left. Turns out the crowd of 30,000 that assembled for the parade didn't represent the only influx of people that night, as a big rodeo was also at the Xcel Arena and the opera was playing at the Ordway Center, just on the other side of Rice Park. Big night for St. Paul, all-around.

After dinner, we walked back over to 5th Street, just as the parade began, and stayed on that corner for about 30 minutes before cutting back through Rice Park (taking a few night-shot photos of the ice carvings along the way) and then grabbing a front row spot on the sidewalk along the front wall of the St. Paul Public Library, where Boreas and his court stood to observe. By the time the Vulcans appeared, with their torches and flame throwers, we were right up front like groupies at a rock concert, while thousands of others filled the park and the surrounding streets, straining to get a view. We really hadn't planned on it working out that well, but it did, and that would be a good thing in the photography category.

I had my Nikon with me this time but quickly figured two things out: It was useless to use the flash unless I was taking a close-up of a person right next to me, but I needed a very steady hand and a good amount of ambient light to shoot without the flash, out there on a dark winter night. In the end, I got all of my best shots that way, as you'll see in the gallery.

To say "A good time was had by all..." would be a vast understatement. It was really a ton of fun, very festive, enormously friendly, and all the good things we've come to associate with St. Paul and the Twin Cities since we moved here.

Speaking of moving here, our first Torchlight Parade experience coincided with one of our house-hunting trips, back in 2002. We had flown up from (warm and sunny) Austin, Texas, and were staying in the St. Paul Hotel (which, like almost everything else in this story sits right on Rice Park in downtown) when, much to our bemusement, some sort of parade thing began to happen on the streets outside. We bundled up and went out to the sidewalk to check it out, trying to grasp what was going on as we chatted with the locals to glean all we could in order to understand all the melodramatic actions and what those crazy guys in the red capes with the soot on their faces were all about.

When someone told us that the Vulcans were trying to overthrow Boreas to bring summer back, a shivering Barbara said, "So do people actually cheer for Boreas? Are they nuts? Hail the Vulc!!!" Since that introductory moment, Barb has been a major Vulcan backer. Now we know that everyone actually roots for both sides, because winter is fun but summer is too, and let's face it... Next year we get to do this all over again. Great stuff! Hope you all enjoyed it, and maybe some of you will have the chance to come here one year, to really experience it all in-person.

Now, it's time to start thinking about what we're doing tonight. Dave and Nichol will be joining us in a couple of hours, as we head over to Minneapolis to attend the Timberwolves game against the New York Knicks, and this is the night we've been upgraded to courtside seats by the fine folks at the Wolves. Should be fun! Of course, the Wolves actually won on Friday night, beating the Clippers, which gives them a record of 10-38 on the year. Who said we wouldn't reach double-digits for victories? Can they win two in a row? We don't worry about it... We go to see the skill and the NBA action, laugh at Crunch the mascot, and just have a fun time... Win or lose, they give it a good effort and we support the team that has treated us so marvelously well this season.

I'll be back to finish this after the game...

Monday morning...

I'm back. Once we got home from the game last night, it was simply time to hit the sofa and watch some TV before going to bed, but I'm back behind my desk, bright and early, to finish this. Bottom line, we had a GREAT time at the basketball game, for a lot of reasons.

We got down there early, as in so early there were hardly any cars in the parking structure and only a few other fans milling around the arena. As we walked into Target Center via a skyway, I called our Timberwolves guy Conor Noonan, who met us just inside the building. Conor took us on a brief tour of the private club that can be used by people who actually own the sort of season tickets where Barb and I were going to sit last night. Nice place! You get your own private locker to store your stuff in during the game, and free appetizers and drinks. Kind of like a little country club inside the arena (without the golf).

We cruised around, entering the arena through the same walkway the players use to get from the locker room to the floor, found our seats in the second row under the basket, and then watched some of the Wolves guys shoot around and loosen up. After taking Dave and Nichol up to our seats, at the other end of the floor, we all grabbed a bite and then got ready for the game.

Conor had told us some other great news, after we arrived, and that was the fun little detail that last night's game was officially "Crunch's birthday bash" as the Wolves' hilarious mascot celebrated another year with the team. To make it all more festive and to help Crunch have a party, a bunch of other mascots were in attendance. We had Nordy from the Minnesota Wild, TC Bear from the Twins, Goldy Gopher from the U. of Minnesota, Prowl from the Minnesota Lynx (our WNBA team), and then some guys who made the trip from much farther away. We had Benny the Bull from the Chicago Bulls, Rufus from the Charlotte Bobcats, Bango from the Milwaukee Bucks, Stuff The Magic Dragon from the Orlando Magic, and probably one or two others but I lost track. Much hilarity was generated, all night long, from this rag-tag group of ruffians...

We'd warned Dave and Nichol that the Wolves try hard but can sometimes get overwhelmed and completely run out of the gym, but I was still hoping that wouldn't happen so that they'd have a good time. Just last week, they lost to these same Knicks, in New York, by 27 (and apparently it wasn't that close), but we had hope. Sadly, by midway through the first quarter, basically 10 minutes into the game, the good guys were already down 22-7 and it looked ugly. As fun as our second-row seats were, it was tough to watch.

Then, the Wolves came alive and closed to within three by the end of the first. They got their game going and ended the first half actually up by three. At halftime, while all the mascots took on the Wolves dancers in an uproarious "dance contest" out on the court, Barb and Dave switched seats so the guys could have fun down by the floor, and the Wolves ran away with it in the second half, finally winning 112-91 for their second win in a row, improving their record all the way up to 11-38!

Seriously, though, it was a terrific amount of fun to sit so close. You can hear all the stuff the players are yelling at each other, calling out plays and coverages, and you can hear the arguments between the players and the refs, as well. And when you're no more than a few yards away from a 7-foot tall athlete flying through the air, dodging arms and elbows, to finally slam it through the hoop with a fierce growl (they usually do yell as they throw it down), you get an appreciation for how talented these guys are.

Fun stuff (pun intended) and the class and grace with which Conor and the Wolves staff have treated us does not go unnoticed or without appreciation. Once the season is over, Conor and I are going to discuss how Barbara and I can become actual season ticket holders, on a limited basis of course, but on an official one for sure.

So there you go. A totally hijacked blog from the perspective of a Minnesotan enjoying winter activities, and nary a hockey game involved! Hard to believe, but true...

I'll be back soon, and we'll start counting the days until Pomona. It's 10 days, in case you haven't been counting...

Wilber, out!

I'd love to share a whole stack of pics from last year's season opener in Pomona, just to set the stage, but few exist. This one survived, and if you look in the background you can see the overwhelming theme from the 2009 race: Rain! The Full Throttle TV gang was going from pit to pit on one of the rainy days (they've all blurred into one now) and I got a quick shot of them talking to Tim, while everyone attempted to stay warm and remain dry on a miserable day. Sadly, the rest of my photos from Pomona, and then all the way through Englishtown, were lost when my old laptop threw the rods out, burst into flames, and finally exploded into a million shards of carbon fiber and aluminum. Okay, I made those last two parts up, but it did throw the rods out, and coincidentally I had just taken the step of storing all my pics in iPhoto files, so I could keep the memory card in my camera empty after each race. Poof! All my pics were gone. Lesson learned, and now things are backed-up in case anything untoward should happen to this unit.

This year, don't ask why but I'm flying in and out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County, despite the fact we're staying in a hotel right next to the Ontario Airport. It has to do with the confluence of the following facts: Barbara is coming out for Saturday and Sunday, there is a complete lack of nonstop flights from here to Ontario, and even if you were willing to fly through Salt Lake City or Portand to get there, the difference in fares made it a no-brainer. It just works better this way. And who doesn't enjoy a nice trip on the So Cal freeways to get to and from the airport. Seriously.

This year, we're hoping the rain stays away and we get to run more than a single qualifying session.

This year, we're going to leave Pomona higher in the points than we did last year. I promise.

This year, we won't be showing up with a new-style chassis and a new Shelby Mustang body we'd barely run, nor will we start the season with a new PR guy who was trying to teach his fingers how to type "Levi, Ray & Shoup" fifteen times a day, instead of "Checker, Schuck's, Kragen."

This year, with it being the 50th anniversary of the Winternationals, the whole event is going to be incredible, and any drag racing fan with the wherewithal to get there should be there. Be there, be there, BE THERE!!!

This year, is almost here.

Hey, got my hard card and parking pass yesterday, delivered right to Dave's door by our regular UPS guy. Why Dave's door? I don't know, but it all worked out. For some reason, both of our hard cards were delivered to his house.

I'm proud to say that I must be taking very good care of myself, because in my photo on the hard card I don't appear to be a day older than I did last year! Okay, it's actually the same photo that was on my 2009 credential, but I am taking better care of myself. I'm hitting the gym whenever my balky ankles will allow me, and Barbara and I are both following some far healthier "meal plans" that give us the right blend of protein, vegetables, and fruits. As of this morning, I've lost 7.5 pounds since we started, and I can tell I have more energy.

Of course, sticking to this sort of regimen becomes inordinately more difficult once you start spending three or four days per week at the race track. I promise to do my best, though. There's no reason I can't swing through a grocery store upon arrival and buy some bananas and oranges, and there's no reason why I can't even find a McDonald's for a grilled chicken salad at night.

I'm also a man of my word, and my earlier commitment to In-N-Out, to show support for their sponsorship of Melanie Troxel by purchasing and consuming a Double-Double upon arrival, still stands. Some things are just necessary.

Finally, I need to mention something important as the closing section of this short blog. As I was writing the part about how the new PR guy had to learn how to type "Levi, Ray & Shoup" instead of "Checker, Schuck's, Kragen" last year, I was thinking "Man, my fingers remember how to type that like it was yesterday..." but then I also was hit with a reminder of the tragic reality we learned of just a couple of days ago. My phone rang, in the middle of the afternoon, and when I heard Del's voice on the other end I was happy to talk to him, but he immediately said "I just heard some bad news. Some really bad news..." Martin Fraser, the former President of CSK Auto, had passed away suddenly, and Del had just gotten the word.

There are a million wonderful things I could say about Martin, and many would revolve around his stature, both physically and in terms of how important he was to all of us. He loved our Funny Car team, and as an astute businessman he knew the value of it. He kept us all focused on what we could do best, the most important elements for CSK and their vendors, and helped us ignore many of the petty issues that really had no impact. He backed us, he encouraged us, and in the end he made it clear that the best thing we could be was just ourselves. If we did our best, and stayed true to who were really were, we were a major asset for the company.

I will absolutely never forget the time we were struggling mightily at the 2002 CSK Nationals in Phoenix, going into the last qualifying session outside the field and a long way from having even the slightest clue as to how to fix a bratty race car and get it in the show. To use the old cliche' about the tension being so thick you could cut it with a knife would be giving too much credit to the slicing ability of most of the knives in the world, and I'd never really felt anything close to the pressure we were all feeling as the guys serviced the car to go back out there for the final qualifying session on Saturday afternoon. Martin was there, of course, as were hundreds of other CSK staffers and executives, all of whom had looked forward to that particular weekend as their one chance to gather as a group and root for the CSK Funny Car. We were terrified of letting them down, and worried sick about how that might impact our deal down the road, but Martin (all 6' 6" of him) walked up to Del, put a huge one-armed bear hug on him, and calmly said "Don't sweat it. This means nothing. I love you, we all love you, and nothing changes if you go out there and smoke the tires. We'll all get up tomorrow and go on, and you'll still be the guy everyone in this company rallies around. Stop looking so worried!"

Del went out there and qualified. On Sunday, he won four rounds and we beat John Force, who was looking for his 100th career victory, in the final. The cover of the National DRAGSTER featured the CSK car and the headline "Not In Our House!" When we won those rounds, and the race, it was Martin who was enjoying it the most.

I know Del feels the same way I do. There is simply no telling what our lives and careers would be like now, if not for Martin Fraser. Had he not been there, with his business acumen and passion, I can't imagine the CSK deal would've lasted the 12 glorious years it did. Had he not instilled continuity by making sure guys like Joe Spica and Jim Schoenberger, who also saw the value and felt the passion, were always in charge of our program, it more than likely would've run its course in a shorter time frame.

As I was typing that last line, my iPhone rang it was the same Joe Spica I had just written about, the man I worked with on a daily basis for all those 12 years, calling to keep me up-to-date on services and plans. These are connections that will never go away. As a marketing partnership, it was a great sponsorship. More importantly, it allowed us the privilege of forming some wonderful and deep friendships.

It's easy to be sad about this, and my heart goes out to Martin's family and his closest friends. But, it also says something about the remarkable value of a man when so many people can look back and realize the positive mark he made on their lives. What better legacy could one man leave? Rest in peace, Martin.

Wilber, out!

The inclement weather excuse seemed like it might be a good one, and I briefly considered the tried and true classic "The dog ate my blog..." but the roads (hallways) from my home (master bedroom) to my office were clear of everything but cat toys yesterday, and we don't own a dog. So... The truth is I had some other things to do, I was dealing with the weather a little bit because I had to scrape the drive and spread salt three or four times, but mostly I just didn't have it in me.

Being around professional sports my whole life, I rarely get so emotionally involved that losses by the local team impact my mood to any great degree, but that game on Sunday night was a whole different deal, and I'm one of about five million Vikings fans who had a very dark Monday. The Vikes were pretty much the last pro Minnesota team that Barbara and I embraced after moving here, and much of that had to do with the types of nefarious characters that were still around back when we relocated. They were a hard team to like, basically, unless you were just a longtime loyal purple-pride sort. This team, however, was far different. This was an easy team to love, and the whole region shared a Vikings addiction this whole season. The 40-year-old quarterback had a lot to do with that, but the character of this team ran throughout the roster and they really endeared themselves to the fans. It would've been a tough loss to take, no matter what, but it seemed harder than usual the way it all went down.

I had to be out running some errands yesterday, and the communal grief (that's the best term I can come up with to describe it) was palpable. People were shuffling around with their heads down, barely making eye contact, and hardly speaking. No one was smiling. No one was laughing. It was sad, and unlike anything I've ever witnessed when it comes to how fans get so emotionally involved with a team... I hope the fog of depression is lifting today, because it was just downright eerie to be out in public yesterday. I've been around when the local teams lost big playoff games, and when World Series were lost, but I've never witnessed anything like this.

Headline in today's St. Paul Pioneer Press, superimposed over a photo of Brett Favre: "Baby Come Back!" I apologize now for getting that song stuck in your heads.

The weather, yesterday, just made it all more morose. We had almost a full week of ridiculously above-average temperatures here, and over the weekend it actually rained quite a bit, making a complete mess out of all our snow. Then, late on Sunday night, the backside of this low moved through and the winds shifted from the east to the north. You might be able to imagine the result... All that standing water and slush on the streets and sidewalks became ice, as smooth as the surface of the Minnesota Wild's rink, then the rain turned to snow and the wind picked up. Bingo, bango, bongo you got yourself a mess.

Yesterday, in the southern and western parts of the state, it was an all-out blizzard and schools were even closed. That almost never happens in Minnesota, but the weather shift was so quick it caught some people by surprise. About 100 kids actually got stranded at school, overnight, out in a rural area when the weather moved in and it was too dangerous to send them home. Something tells me they probably had a pretty good time, actually...

All in all, a lousy Sunday night and a cruddy Monday. Today is a new day, though, and it's all getting better.

Out in Phoenix, a certain Funny Car team with a Levi, Ray & Shoup Shelby Mustang have been making laps. You may have noticed a lack of updates regarding this adventure, and I can at least now tell you why. The main reason our team went to Phoenix was to continue the testing program on what people are generally calling the NHRA "spec motor". These tests have been going on for about a year now (and will continue to go on for quite a while), and Tim agreed to make some more laps in Phoenix, using the motor in various configurations and set-ups, as NHRA continues to gather data on this deal. In my opinion, if we're ever going to go quarter-mile racing again, we'll have to slow the cars down in an affordable and equal way, so these tests are all valuable in the long run, whether the car runs any good or not.

My buddy Barry Feldner, who works Pit Control for NHRA on the tour, is out in Phoenix for the test session, and he was nice enough to snap a shot of the LRS car backing up from its first burnout of the year. Thanks, Barry!

Our plan was to simply send the team out there and keep our heads down, in terms of publicity. Basically, just do the work and gather the data but try not to make a big spectacle of it. With the media being the media, however, they soon started nosing around and the news got out. It's not like we were trying to keep anything a secret, but we had just decided to just let the guys work and not be distracted by lots of prying eyes, cameras, and note pads. Once someone asked Tim what was going on, however, he simply told them the truth, so now it's out there.

Therefore... Any Team Wilk elapsed times you've heard about, from the Phoenix test session, are not a reflection of our normal tune-up, and frankly the guys haven't even been planning on making many full runs. There's lots of experimenting going on, and as Tim said this morning "Sometimes it can be just as valuable to find out all the things you don't want to do, and we're definitely doing that."

The next part of the plan was to finish up these spec motor tests and then stick around one or two more days to run our normal stuff a few times. Good ol' Mother Nature may have something to say about that, though, because rain is on its way into Arizona again and our guys may not get to run after today. I don't think anyone is really concerned about that, because we'll go into Pomona running basically the same stuff with the same tune-up we finished the '09 season so strongly with, and even though we were running the other motor our guys still have had the "spring training" experience you want to get out of preseason testing. It's always good to set up the pit area and service the car under a little pressure, to get back in that groove.

Speaking of spring training, I just nailed down some fun news yesterday, in conjunction with John Fink. The Finkster and his wife Tammy maintain a winter-time condo down in Fort Myers, Fla., which also happens to be the Spring Training home of our Minnesota Twins. The Twins have an afternoon game against the Baltimore Orioles set for the Tuesday after Gainesville, so I bought two tickets and John and I will attend! If you've never had the chance to go to a Spring Training game, either in Florida or Arizona, you're missing something special. I'm really looking forward to it, and so is John.

The Tuesday date also affords me a chance to do something far more important and heartfelt, between the Gatornationals and the ballgame. On that Monday, I'll head straight to Sarasota to see my sister Mary, her husband Lonnie, and at least one or two of their kids, and I'll also have a chance to see my mom. Considering many of my greatest family memories surround our annual childhood pilgrimages to Florida for Spring Training, it will be a big trip for me.

It also hit me yesterday that the Twins might be able to provide a great deal of solace for local sports fans after the Sunday football game, and for the first time since we moved here I think Barbara and I might actually attend TwinsFest this weekend. Every player on the roster, and most of the team's former greats (Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, and others) will be there, along with about 30,000 fans over the course of the weekend, and it should be a fun way to flip the page to baseball... Having never attended, I can only assume that it's easy to get autographs but difficult to have conversations with the stars of the show, and that's why I've never gone before. Rather than walk down a line getting a piece of paper signed, I'd rather have the chance to introduce myself to those former greats, who all remember my dad... We'll see...

Shifting gears completely, now, I'll show you a pic of the very cool Personal Planner I got this year from the NHRA Media Department. They've been sending these things out to the media, and to us PR hacks, for the last few years and I use the heck out of each one. Each two-page spread is a full-month calendar, with all the races noted and highlighted, so I then write my flight, hotel, and rental car info into the corresponding boxes, as well as other important dates (like days we have Wild, Wolves, or Twins tickets!), and these things are always within reach.

The cover art on this year's planner honors the long history of big NHRA events, which is a perfect tie-in to this year's celebration of the 50th Annual Winternationals, and they did a great job with it. Lots of old credentials and stickers, and some authentically greasy fingerprints adorn the front and back. Way cool... And I'm already filling in the boxes with info...

Under the heading "Timing is everything..." I missed out on a great dinner last night, by mere minutes. Barbara was flying back from New York (after two flight cancellations and a lengthy delay) and I decided to whip up a meal of fettucini with chicken. Just as I was about half done with my version of that dinner, the phone rang and it was Dave next door, letting me know that they had just hosted the entire Woodbury girls hockey team for a big pasta dinner and that he had a whole tray of fettucini alfredo with chicken left over. D'oh! Mine was good, but I'm sure theirs was better...

And here's another fun thing to look forward to this weekend. On Sunday, when the Timberwolves play the New York Knicks at 6:00, our stellar Customer Service rep, Conor Noonan, has arranged for Barbara and me to be upgraded to courtside seats! We'll be right under the basket, near the Wolves bench, and will be in the second row. We're REALLY looking forward to that, and I'll make sure to take the camera...

I'll also leave you with a brief gallery of all things Boofus, today, since my in-bound e-mail continues to contain more request for pics of both Boof and Buster than anything else. This time, simply by luck, it's Boofus starring in the photos. The Big Fella must've been sleeping through all of this.

I think my favorite part of the popularity Da Boyce have enjoyed is all the interaction with other cat owners, who continually send me photos of their favorite fur balls in return. I probably get between 25 and 30 pics a week, and at least a dozen links to funny cat videos or cute cat slide shows, and they're all great! It's also heartwarming to hear the "a little stray kitten came up to our door and adopted us..." stories, which I get pretty often. It's always nice to hear when a family takes in a stray and gives it a loving home. Thanks, to all of you who continue to share your pics and stories!

In the gallery, you'll see that Boofus found a way to wedge himself under the chair in the living room, just like he used to do when he was much younger and much smaller. I'm not sure how he got under there, but as I was in my office, typing away, I saw a black arm reach out from under the chair, trying to reach a little stuffed mouse toy that was out of reach. To watch him flatten himself out, in order to escape the chair, is pretty interesting, to say the least. He also tore out onto the screened porch last night, right in the middle of the blowing snow storm, sliding around, scratching at the snow, and briefly examining a frozen toy that never was brought in after the seasons changed. He's a good cat, and so is his brother...

Well, my "day late" installment sort of throws me off my blogging schedule, but with the season not too far away it's probably not that big of a deal. Monday blogs are very difficult to get done during the race season, because I'm usually traveling that day, so we'll try to slide into a new routine here, leading up to Pomona. And then... Let's go racin'!!!!

Wilber, out!

Yes, after having won Seattle and Sonoma all the way back in August of some other year (2009) my two Wally trophies, which I ordered and paid for not long after the victories, finally arrived here. Better late than never! Now, I'll admit I don't assemble and ship trophies for a living, and I don't even play a trophy manufacturer on TV, but it seems like it took a long time for these two guys to get here. No complaints, though. I'm just glad to have them.

And did you know that the Wally presented to the winning driver at the race has the Full Throttle logo covering the bottom? That's a bit of Marketing 101, so that when he or she raises the Wally in celebration the logo on the bottom is visible in all the photos and on TV. And did you know that each duplicate Wally, the ones guys like me order, has a blank wooden bottom, but it also has a small golden sticker that has the words "The WALLY" printed upon it? There's even an ever-so-tiny registered trademark symbol next to the name. Now you know.

Coincidentally, yesterday (of all days) I got a phone call from Shorty, the guy who owns and runs the American Motorsports Bar & Grill just south of here, in Cottage Grove, Minn.  Shorty is the guy I donated a Wally, a crew shirt, and a National DRAGSTER cover to, all from Phil Burkart's big win in Reading a few years ago. I hadn't talked to Shorty in months, but yesterday he called to get some hotel advice for Gainesville, and then out of the blue he said "You know, your Wally has been on display for a long time, and now it's just kind of part of the background around here. But just this week, on back-to-back days, two different people walked up to me and asked 'Is that a real Wally?' That's kind of funny, huh..." 

I think there's some sort of Wally vibe in the air.

Signs of the inevitable arrival of spring: Today I signed my annual service contract with the sprinkler company that fires up and shuts down the system each year, and I even picked my date for the "spring start-up." It's April 21, for those keeping score at home. Of course, I also selected October 21 as the "fall shut-down" date, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Also, sunset yesterday was at 5:07 p.m. here. That's a full 33 minutes of additional daylight since the shortest day of the winter, when the sun set at 4:34 on December 21.

Spring may be inevitable and out there somewhere, but we're clearly not done with winter, by a long shot. After a long cold snap through most of December and early January, we've ended up with above-average temperatures for the last week or so and it's making things a mess around here. This weekend, the same storm system that is swamping California and the southwest will arrive here, and it is apt to feature rain (in January!!!) followed by sleet, freezing rain, and snow. Not a good combination.

I got a little meteorology lesson from good ol' Sven Sungaard on the TV news last night, explaining how we got a short but effective blast of freezing rain yesterday. Within about five minutes, we went from dry to having a covering of ice on everything, and Sven clearly explained how the ambient temperature up above us was higher than the freezing mark, but down here on the ground it was 29, thanks mostly to the still-thick snowpack we have. So, when a cloud moved over us it produced rain, but when it got down here to the ground it immediately turned to ice. Now I have that bit of trivia lodged in my brain, and some other piece of possibly important data was no doubt deleted to make room for it. If I get to an ATM today and can't remember my PIN, we'll know what it was.

Speaking of this weather system that we're going to get; my gosh it sure has hammered California. I was talking to Del the other day, and he said it was already a massive storm, and the worst of it had not even come ashore yet. The vicious So Cal cycle of drought, followed by wild fires, followed by huge storms, creates a really dangerous mess out there, and there's sadly nothing anyone can do about it. Here, we may have to deal with some snow and cold weather, and in the summer we can have tornadoes, but mud slides are not part of our lives. I can dress in layers and stay warm, but I'd be out of luck if a mountain of mud and rock was headed for my house. I hope everyone out there is safe, especially all the racers and other people I know in that part of the country.

News flash: It's "Purple Pride Day" here in the Twin Cities. I did a double-take when Barbara got dressed for work this morning by donning her Adrian Peterson Vikings t-shirt instead of her normal executive attire. Of course, wearing purple is about the only thing any of us can do, other than worry about the three star Vikings players who haven't practiced this week due to physical ailments. Their big-time rookie receiver and kick returner, Percy Harvin, has had a reoccurrence of the chronic migraines he's had since childhood, so you never know how long those will last and keep him out. And, two of the team's four vaunted defensive linemen came out of the Cowboys game with banged-up knees, so we don't know about them either. I can't even imagine the Vikings giving the Saints much of a battle if all three of those guys can't play. I think they're going to have a very hard time hanging with New Orleans no matter what.

And let's face it, the Saints are a feel-good story. One of our local sports writers got it right when he wrote "The Saints are the team Vikings fans would be cheering for in the playoffs, if we weren't playing them ourselves." Very true, I suspect.

Here's something new and different, and it's not only pretty cool it's also on this blog because it was presented to me by a blog reader. A few days ago, I got a note from a very nice guy, named Steve, who reads every installment of this on-going diary. He mentioned that he has a company called "Garage Art" that makes retro-style metal signs and other goodies for guys like us to hang on the walls in our garages. Most of us males have managed to secure our garages as "man space" so this concept intrigued me. Before long, we'd come up with a design for a metal Team Wilk sign, 12 inches tall by 18 inches wide, and yesterday I put in an order for some. Hopefully there are enough guys with "stuff" on the walls of their garages to make this a good venture for us. It's a pretty cool deal, and they even weather the edges to make it look sorta antique. I know I'll have one in my garage soon enough.

Oh yeah, I also promised in the last blog that I'd include a copy of the design for our new "baseball style" Wilkerson t-shirt, so that's in the gallery today. It's a gray t-shirt, so I guess you can officially consider it a "road uniform" when you wear it.

Finally, speaking of baseball, I have the MLB Network on my cable package (duh) and the other night Bob Costas was interviewing one of my all-time favorite baseball figures, Jim Bouton. Bouton was a very successful pitcher for the Yankees in the early 60s, but then hurt his arm and hung on with various teams for a few years by throwing a knuckleball he'd perfected, although he is now most famous for having written what is roundly considered to be the greatest sports book ever published, entitled Ball Four.

Ball Four was the first real "behind the scenes" book ever published about Major League Baseball, and Bouton wrote it by keeping a daily diary throughout the 1969 season, much of which he spent with the Seattle Pilots, a team many people today don't even know existed. They only played in Seattle one year, and then became the Milwaukee Brewers, but that one year at rickety old Sicks Stadium on the south side of Seattle was one for the ages.

Bouton's book is expertly written and extremely funny, and it gives the reader a unique insider's view of life in the big leagues, circa 1969. It also got him blackballed from the game, because up until that point all books supposedly written by players (he actually did write his book, but most others were ghost-written) were completely whitewashed, purified, and sanitized for public consumption. Bouton had the gumption to mention things others wouldn't, such as the fact owners were cheapskates with all the leverage in the days before free agency, and you had to fight them for every nickel, every step of the way, or that not all ballplayers actually get along that well and some teammates actually don't like each other. On top of that, not every big leaguer drinks a glass of milk and goes to bed early every night and a few them, even Mickey Mantle, would show up at the ballpark the next day still hurting from the night before. Shocking, I know.

In college, I quickly discovered that my roommate Lance also loved the book, and between us we figured we read my weathered old original hardback copy at least 20 times each. It's that kind of book, that you can just pick up and read again and again. Lance took to calling it "The Bible According to Bouton" rather than its actual name, and I soon learned we were not alone in our affection for the book. A few years later, when I was scouting for the Blue Jays, I was having dinner with a couple of minor league players one night, when the subject of Ball Four came up, and both guys immediately said "Oh yeah, we call it 'The Good Book' and we've each read it at least 20 times..." Small world.

The final line in Ball Four is one of its most memorable. Bouton ends the book by writing, "You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out it was the other way around all the time."  Indeed.

After seeing Bouton on the Costas show, I decided it was time to order a new copy. Amazon.com just emailed me to say it's on its way. I can't wait.

Finally, the big announcement yesterday, about the 4-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, sure did set the drag racing world spinning. As the day wore on, it became obvious that there were strong opinions on all sides, both pro and con, and the longer I listened and thought about it, the more I came to understand and respect all sides of it. I have no idea how well it will work, or if we can manage to make it work at all, but as long as we can sort through the important safety issues my instinct tells me we'll find a way to pull it off.  I'm only one inconsequential guy with one opinion so I guess it doesn't really matter what I think, but I figure if some guys hadn't thought outside the box at some point, we wouldn't have night games in baseball or 3-point shots in basketball. Heck, we wouldn't even have the forward pass in football. I come from the "stick & ball" sports world, and personally have felt the pressure of being a General Manager and a promoter, of having to sell tickets and get the fans excited. We'd tweak the rules if we needed to, and create new promotions on a whim, just to see what worked, and we learned from the mistakes. For the record, handing out mini soccer balls to all the fans before the game seemed like a good idea, until about 4,000 of them ended up on the playing surface after a bad call by the ref. Some things work, some things don't, but you never know until you try.

Wilber, out!

Personally, I can't even venture a guess as to what our house is really worth right now, because so few have sold around here in the last year there's little to base an estimate on. As for my personal IRA (my self-contributed retirement money), I watched as it dropped nearly in half, but just as I was about to pull that decimated sum out and stick it in a savings account, the market began to rebound. I was actually just a little tardy at the time, exhibiting a kind of "deer in the headlights" look about me as I wondered just how low it would go, so my own procrastination actually saved me there. Had I yanked my money out, I would've missed the first part of the rebound, and over the past year my account has finally grown back to "whole" again. That was close, and a little lucky, on my part.

It was strictly a matter of time (and not much of it) before our sport felt the wave of bad news wash over us. With corporate America in a bind, race car sponsorships became more difficult to justify and therefore became more scarce, and many of our teams were hit in the gut in the worst way. Just recently, we heard the Don "the Snake" Prudhomme was unable to secure a primary deal to replace U.S. Smokeless, so he is retiring. I'm tellin' ya, it's been a long tough go and those of us who have jobs and race cars to race feel fortunate to still be doing this. We've got a long way to go before we're back to anything close to the "good old days," but I think we're headed in the right direction, and here's why.

Over the course of the last few days, it struck me that we're starting to see some good news. Not huge blockbuster announcements that proclaim "All is right with the world!" but significant deals nonetheless, and just as bad news can beget more bad news, good news can do the same. If nothing else, it shines a bit of light in the darkness and makes you think better days are ahead.

First off, congratulations to Melanie Troxel and Roger Burgess for bringing In-N-Out back into drag racing. No other quick-service food chain ties in with drag racing better than In-N-Out, and they really belong in our sport. Melanie will be a fantastic ambassador for them, and I can succinctly say that the Funny Car class in particular, and the sport in general, are better for this news. I'll do my part to show support for In-N-Out's return to the NHRA landscape by contributing via the purchase of a Double-Double upon my arrival in Pomona. And, hopefully, now that a company as well-respected as In-N- Out has made this move, other corporate marketers will take notice.

Secondly, the news that NHRA is taking the step of truly becoming a worldwide sanctioning body is another very positive development. Our sport has long had a foothold in northern Europe and Australia, but in the last couple of years we've seen a rapid growth of interest in a variety of places. The numerous European teams that came over at the end of last year might just have been the advance guard for a bigger and better exchange, if you will, in the future. The completion of Western Sydney International Dragway, in Australia, took the sport to a whole new level Down Under. And now, with the "need for speed" running rampant through the Middle East, a whole new universe of drag racing opportunities are in front of us.

The Al-Anabi team, over here, was the first major example of this new rapid growth, and the news that DSR has assembled two complete Top Fuel teams to race in Abu Dhabi (and, I would imagine, some other places on that side of the world, but I'm not really all that familiar with their scheduled plans), with ace drivers Tommy Johnson Jr. and “Hot Rod” Fuller in the seats, might just be the biggest good news we've recently heard. I know it was good news for the drivers who get to pilot those cars, the crew guys who get to work on them, and the manufacturers who created all the new parts and pieces to make it all happen. That's one little corner of the economy that got a good jolt.

If you put all that together, you can let your mind wander to imagine just where we're headed in the near future. NHRA Drag Racing seems to be, right at this moment, perfectly positioned to ride the wave of new interest and a better economy, all around the globe. Drag racing professionally is anything but cheap, but it's a bargain compared to many other forms of international or "big stage" racing and, on top of that, the sheer performance we display tends to blow people away.

It's not hard for me to imagine a variety of international racing venues, where teams from different countries and cultures can come together and speak the one language we all know fluently: The language of horsepower!

It's easy to sit here and think inside the box that is my life, or inside the larger box that is Team Wilk, but it's also encouraging to stand up and peer over the top of the box and see some positive things happening. They might not have any direct impact on what I'm doing, or how we're racing, but they're positive things and good news is welcome any time it wants to come along.

And I can't wait to bite into that Double-Double at the In-N-Out at the Vineyard exit off the 10 Freeway in Ontario. When I do, I'll be thanking the company with my wallet.

Here in the small world of my office (inside the box) it's beginning to feel more and more like the season is really almost upon us. Yesterday, I spent a boring afternoon setting up all my templates and spreadsheets for the new campaign, and if we raced this afternoon I'd be able to plug in numbers, keep up with the stats, compile points, and put out a press release. It was the "changing of the files" day in all regards, as all my file folders from 2009 were summarily boxed up and put on the shelf, while all my computer files were likewise archived and updated. It's all ready to go now, as are my flights for the first two races. In addition, I just received our first hotel confirmation from Jerry at Racing Circuit Travel, so I now can slide that piece of paper into my Pomona file, next to my Delta confirmation and Hertz reservation. It's all getting ready to happen!

And here's your first peek at the 2010 souvenir T-shirt. We may tweak on it a little bit before we put it into production, but basically this is what the back of the shirt will look like. Pretty nice, I think. I'll show you the new baseball jersey-style shirt in the next blog.

As you can see, we're not making any changes to the car design this year, as our aim has been to strictly keep the focus on going fast. With all the changes the team went through before the 2009 season, it's all about keeping it moving in the same direction now, sticking with what we know and what works, and building on the big momentum we finished the season with.

Of course, if it was really that easy it wouldn't be as big of a challenge as it always is. It's funny how you can take a perfectly good and perfectly fast race car and put it in the trailer after it's just made eight great laps, and then take it out a few days later and it seems like a whole new bratty child. Race cars are funny that way... But, the philosophy around here is that if you minimize the variables, your odds of success increase. That's been the goal this off-season. We have, I think, minimized the variables.

In the arena of more typically nonsensical blog material, I've been accumulating a few of those tidbits as well. After I made my semi-serious comment about "How do you ski jump for the first time?" I did get a note from blog reader Mark M., who grew up in Robbinsdale (just a bit north of downtown Minneapolis) and who did, actually, ski jump a bit in his youth. He was kind enough to explain that there are methods to help an aspiring jumper build up to that first big one, by starting out with mini jumps, then little jumps, and on up to intermediate jumps. Each step of the way, however, can be a bit of a "crash and burn" experience.

Mark's note got me thinking of the fact I can actually see a ski jump tower every time I get on I-494 here in Woodbury. It's just a few miles from where I sit right now, in the town of Maplewood, and the top of the tower is clearly visible from 494, just south of Lake Road. I've never driven over there, so all I've ever seen is the very top of it, but that's the beauty of satellite images and the "Bird's Eye" view on Bing.com. You don't have to drive two miles to look at something, you can sit right at your desk and take a look.

I found it easily enough, and then when I zoomed in it became apparent that there are actually three ski jumps there, but only the biggest one is visible from the interstate. Learn something new every day...

While I was zooming around doing that on the computer, I got the grand idea to see if I could find the famous "cherry on a spoon" sculpture that's located just west of downtown Minneapolis, in a famous sculpture park over there. I think its actual name is "Spoonbridge and Cherry" and it was designed by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen (okay, I looked that up). The giant-sized cherry on a spoon is an iconic bit of modern sculpture, and it only took me a few minutes to find it on Bing, and grab a Bird's Eye view of it. That was kind of fun.

Finally, I kept Delta.com on the screen for most of the evening last night, tracking Barbara's progress as she returned from a one-day trip to Atlanta. She flew down there yesterday, at the crack of dawn, had meetings during the day, and flew back last night. I was picking her up at the airport, so I took it upon myself to see just how closely I could time it, so that I'd be pulling up at the door just as she walked out.

I followed her flight's progress, and kept an eye on the updated arrival time (she ended up landing about 22 minutes ahead of schedule) and, of course, I know exactly how long it takes to drive from our house to MSP, so I could do that math. I planned to get there and pull into the cell phone waiting lot approximately 4 minutes before she touched down, and that went off just like clockwork. Then, with iPhone in hand, I could stick with Delta.com and see which gate the plane used after landing. That allowed me to figure out how long it would take Barb to deplane and walk to the curb on the baggage level. I had it all worked out perfectly and pulled up to the last door (our pre-arranged meeting point) only to see no Barb. The ever-pleasant policeman on the scene only let me sit there idling for a minute before he shooed me away, and my plan was crushed.

I made a quick loop around the airport and drove back to the door, to find Barb standing there waiting on me. How did I fail? What went wrong with my master plan? Turns out she needed to stop in the restroom after getting off the plane... Rats, I never factored that possibility into the math!!! Maybe next time...

So, all in all, it's a good news blog today. And now I know what that ski jump looks like, just up the road...

Ha! Ever get that feeling you're being watched? I thought I was done writing, and was just intently poring over this blog making sure I didn't send it in with too many glaring mistakes or typos, when I looked up to see the Big Fella, Buster, calmly sitting outside my door staring at me. Cracked me up... When I took his picture, he just made his patented "Cut it out!" meow and walked away...

Hope to see you here on Friday!

Wilber, out!

I suddenly realized a connective trend I've been impacted by over the course of the last few days. Actually, it probably goes on most all of the time, but it just was a lot more obvious over the last few days. It's the way things of mutual interest can keep us connected here in this wacky world of drag racing, and it gets a huge assist from today's instant-access technology. Not too long ago, these random bits of contact would probably have not been made because the effort would've been deemed too great, the cost too high, or the reason too trivial. Now, it's as easy as a text, a quick email, or a visit to Facebook, and nothing seems too trivial. I think this is a very good thing, by the way, because all this "social media" gives us the chance to be social, and stay connected.

Of course, the overwhelming cause for a lot of interconnected contact and communication over the weekend was football, although I'm going to slide off on a tangent here before I mention the specific people I heard from. There's no getting around the fact a lot of people are NFL football fans, and likewise there's no denying that many of them are incredibly fervent in their support of the local squad. That's all good, and it's what makes football so fun. I just find it interesting how Facebook seems to bring out a side of people they'd rarely display via email or on the phone.

For some reason, the natural evolution of Facebook has made it the place were people stand up and shout about their favorite sports teams (as well as other things even more partisan) and I just find that fascinating. Not necessarily good or bad, just fascinating. A sociologist might be able to tell me why it all worked out that way, but I don't have any sociologists' info in my address book so I'm a little in the dark as to why Facebook became the place for that sort of thing. Like I said, I just find it fascinating but I'd never consider doing that sort of thing myself. As any of you who are regulars here know, I'm a huge supporter of my local teams but you might also have noticed that I rarely trash talk. Actually, I try to never trash talk because I have this inner fear and feeling that that sort of thing comes around to bite you in the derriere, eventually.

Anyway, sociological observations aside, it was a big football weekend. Our local team, the Vikings (you may have heard of them), had the bye week in round one and had to play America's Team (that would be the Dallas Cowboys) yesterday. The bad news was the Cowboys were probably the hottest team in the NFL and were really on a talented roll. The good news was this game would be played at the newly renamed Mall of America Field (otherwise known as the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome) here in the Twin Cities, where the noise level can give two Funny Cars a run for their decibel-level money. Prior to the game, had you asked me if I thought it might end up as a blow-out, my answer would've been "Yes, I think the Cowboys might just cream the Vikes." Little did I know...

I did look forward to this morning's St. Paul Pioneer-Press, because the sports headline writers there almost always come up with something witty, and they didn't let me down today. Seeing as how it was America's Team playing at Mall of America Field, the banner headline read "Maul Of America". Well done.

Anyway, as the game was being played, the text messages began to arrive. My former CSK teammate Tom Abbett was first, chiming in with a "Vikes look sharp" early in the game. My reply was a simple "So far..." but they soon erased my paranoid fears of a Cowboy comeback by busting the game wide open. I also had my laptop with me, in the living room, and it didn't take long for contact to be initiated via the internet.

Actor buddy Buck, who grew up a New Orleans Saints fan, reached out via Facebook to say "So I guess it's my Saints against your Vikings for the NFC championship.." You can see that Buck is like me, in that he'd never take the "We're gonna kick your butt" approach to this sort of thing, and my response to him was "Yup, and now if someone would just kidnap Drew Brees and six or seven other key Saints players, the Vikings might have a chance..." Playing down there, in their loud dome, I figure that might be what the Vikings need.

Finally, I got up this morning to find an email from my longtime friend, former teammate, great crew chief, wine lover, and all-around smashing guy Dave Fletcher, who lives in Indy and is a Colts fan (duh!) More than a month ago, Fletch dropped me a line saying he thought it would be cool if the Colts and Vikings met in the Super Bowl, and all I could say was "I'm pretty sure you've got a good chance on your end, but it's going to be a long-shot for the purple guys..." His note this morning simply said "The dream is still alive!"

Now, those three bits of contact (one a text, one on Facebook, and one via email) are all innocuous enough, but they're all sent by good friends I met through this sport and I'd venture a guess that none of that contact would've been made without today's social media and technology. We wouldn't have called each other, and we most certainly wouldn't have written a letter and mailed it... This is a great thing.

In the same vein, but maybe a different artery, I also got an email from Phil Burkart this morning, which contained a link to a sneak peek at some of the video that's being made into a TV show covering the Lucas Oil Bobsled Challenge that just happened up in Lake Placid. Although Phil wasn't one of the featured NHRA drivers (congrats Melanie, by the way, for her big win!) he made the trek up to Lake Placid to help out, since he's made quite a few trips down the course during prior events. In the video clip, he's driving while IRL star Dan Wheldon rides along as the brake man, and it's a thrilling ride to say the least. If you want to see it, just go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34w7cMNFm0

That email fits right in with the others, in that it was all the excuse Phil needed to drop me a note and stay in touch. And little did he know that I've been a huge bobsled fan since I was a little kid, watching the Winter Olympics with rapt attention. I have no idea what originally attracted me to the Winter Games, at a very young age, but from Grenoble (1968) on I'd circle the date on my calendar and reserve the family TV to watch my favorite events: Bobsled, ski jumping, and downhill skiing. By 1980, of course, I could add hockey to the short list.

And here's the question I've always wondered about, when it comes to ski jumping... How do you do that for the first time? Seriously! In just about any other sporting endeavor, you can build up to the big stuff, but at what point do you just push off from the top of that huge ramp, then lean forward and fly through the air for a while before (hopefully) gently touching down on a pair of slats with no poles. That first jump has to really take some nerve, I suspect...

I mentioned hockey earlier, and that sport also ties in with today's obtuse theme, bringing us right back to drag racing. Any of you who have been around a while remember Scooter, my pal and self-appointed assistant (or valet, or boy-Friday, or perhaps even butler) who lives in Phoenix. You might recall that Scoots now works at the arena where the Phoenix Coyotes play, and last fall he sent me a fabulous photo of the rink from the catwalk high above the surface. Well, on Saturday night our Minnesota Wild were out there to lay another egg (I'm sorry, I mean play another hockey game) against the Coyotes, and Scooter was kind enough to click off a phone pic from right next to the glass, and fire it off to me. Again, just the easy excuse needed to stay in touch, and it gave me a rink-side perspective of seeing our local team on the road. Thanks, Scooter. Take the rest of the day off...

My final reference here, but perhaps the most meaningful one, came from former National DRAGSTER writer, and life-long drag racer, Todd Veney. I've known Todd for a long time, but we've never been much more than friendly acquaintances at the track, and have rarely stayed in touch away from the sport. We've always gotten along well, and I have always thought the world of Todd's writing abilities, so much so that I vividly recall sending him an email once, many years ago, simply to tell him that I thought his story (covering one of the pro classes at a race) in that week's ND was one of the best I'd ever read. I'm not sure I've ever done that a second time, but his work that week was stellar, and I was motivated to let him know.

Anyway, I checked my email over the weekend and saw a note from Todd Veney in my in-box, with the subject line "Your blog" and I'll admit to being slightly scared to open it. I figured a guy of Todd's stature could only be negative about the slop I write, but he was generous and complimentary, letting me know he'd basically just started reading it and was enjoying what I'd written. He even mentioned that the baseball and Minnesota references were particularly interesting to him, and that he'd always thought he might enjoy living here, if he ever had the chance.

Other than being a little stunned, I was thrilled to get that note from Todd, and a bit charged up about it too. Again, this social media and connectivity is a very good thing. And c'mon up Todd, the weather's fine!

Today's only other pieces of trivial minutiae have to do with that reference to life up here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. I went out back to check on the hot tub over the weekend, and discovered an evil plot to bring me to an unpleasant demise. I don't know what bad guy was up to no good, but as I walked out the back door I looked up and saw the most dangerous and scary set of icicles we've ever spontaneously created back there, hanging right over the door and directly above the narrow path that leads through the snow from the house to the tub. I carefully clicked off a photo of the potential guillotine before knocking it down with a shovel.

Minutes later, I heard the scraping of skates on ice, just as the sun was going down, and looked out to see Neighbor Dave making one of his rare appearances on the pond, actually enjoying the fruits of his labor. The way I see it, the guy works so hard carving and creating that rink, he ought to get out there and utilize it himself. "Jacobsen crosses the blue line, passes to himself through the legs of a defender, skates in all alone... He shoots... He SCORES!!!!"

News item from today's paper, which comes under the heading of "You can't make this stuff up..." Police in Fon du Lac, Wis. were called to an apartment after receiving calls from neighbors about excessively loud music. After knocking on the door and getting no answer, they asked the neighbors for the resident's name, got his phone number, and called him. He seemed surprised to hear from police, but quickly came to the door. When the 42-year-old man was asked why he was playing the music so loud, he replied "I was just rocking out..." And what artist was he listening to, at max volume? John Denver!!! LOL... Exactly how loud can you play "Take Me Home, Country Roads"?

Finally, today is Martin Luther King Day, so a lot of you have the day off. In appreciation for the Reverend Dr. King, I suggest you ponder one of his greatest quotes: "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?" Amen.

That's enough for today, eh... We're texting, we're emailing, we're Facebooking... We're staying in touch! And that's a good thing...

Wilber, out!
 

So, once I did arrive in my office after the lengthy commute from upstairs, I had to dig into my email and get to work, and now I finally have time to start this blog. I might be a little late, but I'm up for it and ready to go. The only problem is, I really don't have much in the way of subject matter. I guess that's never really stopped me before, so off we go and I'll just see what words end up on the page after my fingers are done typing...

We're neck-deep right now in t-shirt and apparel designs for 2010, so hopefully the fine artists at T-Shirts Unlimited will have all the proofs finalized and the shirts in production before Pomona. Last year we sold our shirts out of a trailer that hosted merchandise from about 20 different teams, so we weren't able to really put much out there other than our standard "car with flames" souvenir shirt. This year, Bob Tasca is bringing a dedicated souvenir trailer out on the tour, and has invited us to share that space with him, so we have the ability to do a bit more, which is a very good thing.

Last year, it was obvious we were missing out on quite a few sales simply because we had such a limited supply of stuff. This year, we'll have ladies apparel, hopefully some kids stuff, and a few different adult t-shirts to choose from. One of those will be an "instant replay" of an old classic I did a few years back, with Team CSK, but which was never offered to the public. The CSK shirt was just for the guys to wear away from the track or on set-up days, and it was a gray t-shirt designed to look like a baseball jersey. This year, we'll do the same thing but we'll put it on the trailer so that anyone can have one. It will have a script "Wilkerson" on an angle across the front, with a long tail coming off the end of the letter "n" so that it underlines the whole word, and it will have a small number 10 beneath that. On the back, a big number 10 (in that classic block style with a border) and the name TEAM LRS across the top of the back, as if that's the player's name. Should be cool, and I bet we sell quite a few of them...

In terms of race cars and new seasons, this year will be pretty much a polar opposite for us compared to last year. We began 2009 with so much new stuff, it was hard to get a handle on how everything worked together, and that certainly played a role in the start we had. When you begin the year with a new chassis that's also a completely different design, and then put a different make of body on top of it, you're biting off a big hunk of "change" right out of the gate. This year, we'll be will start with stuff that's identical to what we're used to, and although we do have 2010 Shelby Mustangs coming, we'll begin the year with last year's car, so basically we should be able to hit the ground running in Pomona. Considering how well the car was performing when we put everything away last year, I think we're all pretty excited to see if we can't get off to a really good start and just continue to build on that.

I haven't seen the 2010 Mustang yet, so I can't tell you how different it appears, but Tim says it's very similar to the '09 in terms of looking at it with the naked eye. The aerodynamic improvements are real, and the car should be fast and slippery, but visually it supposedly looks very similar to the '09 version. We should have our first '10 car on the track by Gainesville, I suspect.

On a completely and utterly different subject, I guess the one topic that I've received the most email and text messages about, over the last couple of days, has to be the Mark McGwire admission and apology. Everyone wants to know how I feel about it, and I think I agree with one of the sports-radio guys here in the Twin Cities, who said "I'm glad he did it, and I personally forgive him. But, I think this verifies the notion that 61 is still the legitimate single-season home run record, and 755 is still the career record. None of these steroid-era records should count." Hey Barry, you're next. Be a man and admit it. You don't actually think any of us believe you were clean, do you? Maybe your head just grew about four hat sizes in your mid-30s because you were eating better, huh...

The problem with the steroid-era records, and why it's highly unlikely they will ever be erased, is that it's a longer chain of dominoes than just the Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa records. What about the pitchers who gave up all those home runs? If the home runs aren't legit, the pitchers should have their stats adjusted too, right? As you can see, it's a tangled web that would never stop. I think we just have to come to some sort of public agreement that we know, in our hearts, these numbers are meaningless. Now, in the post-steroid era, let's see if someone can hit 62...

It's also been hockey central around here the last few days, with Wild games on Monday night and then again last night. Unfortunately, Barb started a new class up at the Y on Monday night, so she couldn't make that game, and then last night her flight to Florida left at the same time as the game, so I attended both games as a solo fan. I still enjoy the games when I'm there by myself, so that's never a problem, and on both nights the Jacobsen kids used their seats, with Alexa bringing a guest on Monday and Justin bringing a buddy last night. I enjoy letting the kids sit in our seats for a period or two, so after the first we swapped locations and I moved up to their 18th row seats so that they could sit down there in row 2.

They're two completely different perspectives, and the game actually looks very different from each spot. Down low, it just seems ridiculously fast and rough. The players and the puck go ripping by you at supersonic speed, and the hits into the boards are so violent you cringe. But, it's difficult to see the other end of the rink, and it's hard to see how the plays develop. Up higher, you get a better view of the whole ice surface, and you can see how the offense and defense set up and play, but you don't get that "in your face" fun that's part of the experience down low. For me, it makes the game experience more fun to swap seats at least once, and we're lucky to have the Jacobsens sitting so close by in such great seats, to be able to do that.

Last night the Wild played the Vancouver Canucks, and the second period was very tight and mostly controlled by the Canucks. Unfortunately for them, a hockey game is three periods long, and the Wild pretty much dominated the first and the third, eventually winning 5-2. Once the outcome was fairly certain, I doubt anyone was surprised to see the Vancouver guys picking fights and trying to salvage some respect by wanting to drop the gloves, but those were all mismatches as well, and one particular fight, between a guy named Bolduc for the Canucks and "Big John" Scott of the Wild, was a royal beat down. If it had been a boxing match, the ref would've stopped it right away, because Big John was landing blow after blow. I think he actually felt a little sorry for the guy and let up at the end. Or maybe his fist was just sore from making repeated contact to the guy's face.

In the paper this morning, it was interesting to read the comments about all of that. The Wild's Derek Boogaard said that one of the Canuck players approached him before picking a fight and told him the coach demanded they do it! Now how about that... Boogie just mercifully pulled the guy's jersey up over his head after he dropped the gloves, so the refs stopped that one. Bolduc then came after Scott about 18 seconds later, and he ended up looking like a bobble head doll, the way he absorbed all those punches. In the paper this morning, Scott said "I let up on him a little bit, because he was in a couple of bad positions. But he asked me to go. He put himself in that situation." Nice coach! "Okay boyz, we're getting our butts whipped on the scoreboard, so go out there and ask their two biggest guys to fight. I demand it!" Ridiculous, if you ask me. Fighting has always, and will always, be a part of hockey and every team has a guy or two who will take it upon themselves to drop the gloves when things get rough, but any coach who tells his players they have to go fight ought to be an ex-coach the next morning. Either that or the coach should have to go out there and fight Boogie or Big John himself, rather than send his players out to do it. That's my opinion, anyway...

Once I got back home last night, I checked my email and my Facebook page, and discovered that the latest rage on Facebook is what members are calling "retro week" and to join in you simply replace your current profile picture with something retro, from years earlier. For anyone over 40, that can be pretty hilarious, so I joined in and posted a photo of me in my SIUE Cougars baseball uniform, circa 1975. I look like I'm about 12, but I was actually 19 at the time. Then I found another one from a few years later, when I was playing minor league ball for the Medford A's in the Northwest League. That was 1979, so I was 23 by then, but I still look like a kid. And man, I had tons of hair back then!!! I remember that none of us went on the road without our blow dryers! LOL... Seriously, after the game the clubhouse sounded like a salon, and we'd all be jostling for position in front of the mirrors, getting those long locks to look just right. I don't have that issue to deal with anymore.

Ah, the glorious and pampered life in the minor leagues. 18-hour bus rides, miniature clubhouses with concrete floors, budget hotel rooms with bad beds, hand-me-down uniforms from the higher classes, and playing fields that challenged even the slickest fielders. We did get $8.00 per day in meal money, though! So we had that going for us. You've never lived, though, until you've finished up a night game around 11:00 p.m., in Victoria, B.C. or Walla Walla, Wash., and then gotten on the smelly old bus knowing you had to ride all night and most of the next day just to get back to Medford to play there at 7:00 p.m. In Class A, we'd play 140 games in 140 days, with bus rides in- between, so it's not hard to imagine why our favorite "hilarious question" asked by the fans was always "When's your next game?" Answer: Tomorrow.

Speaking of all that, and ending this blog on a very serious note, I played with plenty of guys from the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.

What has happened in Haiti is mind-boggling and heart wrenching. I can't imagine what the survivors are going through, and if you just stop for a second to think what it would be like if everything around you was destroyed, including all the hospitals and government buildings, it will make you wonder how anyone can cope. Those people are literally "on their own" with untold thousands dead.

Do what you can to help. Donating to the Red Cross is simple enough (we've already done that), but you can also get on-line and find non- profit charities and organizations that are mobilizing or sending supplies, and most of those need our help too. Do something. One thing we've always taken great pride in, as Americans, is our compassion in a time of need. I was pleased to see our government and our armed forces step up immediately, even before the dust had settled, and I know Americans will lead the way in the coming days and weeks, but we all need to find a way to do something. Anything we do will help.

Take care, everyone.

Wilber, out!

There's a lot to relate, many stories to tell, and it's clearly up to me to somehow put it all into words that sufficiently tell the tale, despite the fact I'm pretty sure I'll be unable to send the taste of incredible pizza through an e-mail and then onto this blog, no matter how hard I try. I'll just have to give it my best shot...

To set the stage and begin this story, I have to go back far enough to restate how this past week was one of the four annual "earnings call" weeks at work for Barbara, and that means ridiculously long hours, tons of stress, and a backbreaking workload for her. Her company always makes their quarterly earnings announcements after the close of the markets on a Thursday, so basically I only saw my wife for brief minutes in the middle of the night (when she'd come home well after I'd given up and gone to bed) or in the half-light of the early morning, when she'd trudge back to downtown St. Paul to start another day, on a couple of hours of sleep. As the V.P. of Investor Relations at Lawson Software, she quarterbacks the actual earnings call, so I know what to expect each and every time "announcement week" comes up. With all that in mind, I knew two things... 1) She would be physically and mentally exhausted by the time Friday rolled around, so our trip to the Wilk's Warriors reception would have to be both fun and a chance for her to recharge. 2) She really needed to get away and put the week behind her, so a quick but complete "never done that before" trip might be just the right medicine at just the right time. With great food, great friends, and Barbara's first trip to Springfield making up the agenda, I could only hope...

We weren't quite done with the work-induced stress when it was time to leave on Friday, though, because Barb was unable to get away from work at the time she had wanted, so she called me and said, "Drive to the airport and get to the gate. I'll get home, throw some stuff in a suitcase, and then take a cab to the airport, and hopefully I'll make it and I'll see you on the plane. You just need to make sure you get there, and I don't want you to miss the flight because you had to wait for me." That sounded like a good plan so I jumped in the car and took off for the airport, already leaving later than I normally do, which only made a nervous situation a little bit worse because we'd both been hearing some horror stories about the security lines this week. I was kind of sweating it the whole way to MSP, but when I pulled in the parking ramp and found an open spot directly across from the doors to the elevators, my mood lifted. I have NEVER parked that close to the elevators, so I took it as a very good sign. As an omen, it couldn't have been more wonderfully accurate...

Since I only had a carry-on bag, I dashed for the double-secret back entrance hoping the line would be manageable, and when I stepped off the elevator and turned the corner I saw nothing more than a lonely TSA agent manning the area, sitting there just waiting for me. Not a single person in line! I went from dangerously late to absolutely early in an instant. So early, in fact, I actually had time to stop in the Sky Club for a snack, and when our local Woodbury cabbie dropped Barb at the curb, she skated right through security as well, and we managed to meet up in the Club, as opposed to on the plane. Mere minutes later, after I stopped to take a photo of the frozen ramp workers, all bundled up against the subzero cold as they waited for a flight to arrive, we were onboard and on our way to the Gateway City. Smooth as silk, just like we planned it.

After a robust game of Trivial Pursuit on my iPhone, we touched down at STL, jumped on the Hertz bus, and then alit from said bus to find a frosty Ford Explorer waiting for us, at around 6:30 on Friday night. The mission had come together perfectly! We drove down the highway a few miles, to the bustling mini-metropolis suburb of Clayton, checked in at the brand-spanking-new Homewood Suites hotel, and then turned around to head out for dinner. Farotto's baby!!!

For those who are uninitiated, here's my best explanation of St. Louis-style pizza: Ultra-thin crust, sliced into small squares, topped by a micro-thin coating of the standard tomato-based pizza sauce, and then covered with unique inclusion of copious amounts of provel cheese, which is the real key here. That creamy wonderful cheese is pretty much unique to St. Louis-style pizza, and Farotto's has the best version of it in the world.

Writer's note: I just did a Google search for "Provel Cheese" to make sure I was spelling it right, and the top listing was the Wikipedia description of it, which goes something like this: "Provel cheese is a white processed cheese that is popular in St. Louis, Missouri. Provel is produced with cheddar, Swiss, and provolone. It is soft at room temperature, with a gooey and almost buttery texture, and thus has a low melting point. It is the traditional topping for St. Louis-style pizza. Although popular in the St. Louis area, provel is rarely used elsewhere."

So how about that! Learn something new every day... Anyway, when we pulled up in front of Farotto's and saw the tiny parking lot full, I wasn't surprised. When we drove down the side street behind the restaurant and ended up parking four blocks away, I knew what we were in for... We trudged through the slush and the snow flurries and entered the warm embrace of the sensory overload that is a jam-packed Farotto's on a cold winter night. With a 30-minute wait for a table, we were lucky enough to score two chairs at the bar after only a couple of minutes, and once there we ordered up another St. Louis delicacy, some toasted ravioli. We also ordered a couple of Budweiser Select drafts and the bartender said "That'll be six dollars." For both of them? Yup. Man, I can't remember the last time I ordered a full-size draft beer and it was three bucks. At the baseball or hockey games, you get the privilege of buying a luke-warm plastic bottle of domestic lager for the tidy sum of $6.50. Each. When the toasted ravioli showed up, with the mandatory marinara sauce for dipping, one heavenly dinner began...

Knowing we'd be spending the next two nights in a pair of hotel rooms that both would feature a mini-fridge and a microwave, we each ordered our own pizza once we were seated, and although I did take a photo of the two large platters sitting in front of us after they arrived, I shall defer from showing that today. For some reason, pizza and hamburgers never quite look as yummy in photos as they do in real life. I don't know why that is, but somehow a big hot pizza looks more like a mess than a delicious masterpiece when you shoot a phone pic of it. Trust me, though, it was incredible...

For me, a guy who grew up just a couple of miles from Farotto's, this pilgrimage was very special, and everything I'd hoped it would be. For Barb, it was yet another revelation about my hometown. As she savored one small square piece of her pepperoni pizza, she rolled her eyes and said, "It's the cheese. It's this incredible cheese! We get so used to Pizza Hut and Domino's and we forget pizza is supposed to have flavor. This thing has layers of flavor." And that comment came after a bite of a single-topping pizza. My "Deluxe" style had layer on top of layer on top of layer of flavors, ranging from robust to subtle. It was a symphony of pizza magic.

Stuffed and satisfied, we headed back to the hotel and slept the sleep of the gastronomically thrilled. Plus, with two pizza boxes in the fridge, we knew there was more to come...

On Saturday morning, we finally dragged ourselves out of bed at the crack of 10:30 (it was Barb's first full night of sleep in over a week), and after reheating a few more pieces of our individual pizzas (perfect), we then hit the road, heading north toward Springfield, Illinois. On the way, I made a quick exit to spin through my alma mater, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, showing Barb the campus for the first time (including a couple of my old apartments and the baseball complex, of course) and then we got back on I-55 and clicked the miles off, one after another. About an hour later, we pulled into Springfield, checked in at the hotel and met Krista Wilkerson and our young crew guy, Cole Nance, out front for an afternoon of historical education.

We headed off immediately to the Abraham Lincoln Museum in downtown Springfield, not really sure what we were going to see or how it was going to be presented, but Krista was obviously very excited to take us there and both of us had made it clear we really wanted to do something "museum oriented" when we got there. To make it even better, my best buddy Rachel Wilkerson met us there, with one of her best friends, so we all got to tour the museum together.

Now... How do I describe the Lincoln Museum??? Perhaps I can use the word "stunning" or maybe "spectacular"... I think I'll go with the combo description of "fabulous and incredible."

I can say this with no reservations: If you're EVER in Illinois and have a chance to get to Springfield, you simply MUST visit the museum. It's high-tech, interactive, and fascinating. The main exhibits are almost beyond description, but let me just say that Disney has absolutely nothing on this museum, and in a lot of ways I think the museum out-Disney's anything you'd see in Orlando or Anaheim in terms of the "wow factor" and the way it's so easy to suspend your disbelief and soak it all in. It's incredible, and it's enormously educational. Frankly, I didn't realize just how difficult Lincoln's presidency had been, in terms of how splintered and fractured the country was and how viciously unpopular he was with vast swaths of the population. In the end, he stuck to his core beliefs, following his own personal ethics and values, and just as he was finally being recognized for the great leadership and vision he'd always possessed, he was tragically assassinated. It's an almost Shakespearean tragedy, but the historical significance of Lincoln's achievements should continue to motivate us all to look beyond the splintering and partisan bickering we still deal with today. He dealt with a country at war with itself, and managed to somehow put it back together...

After that enlightening and fascinating excursion, we headed over to a little restaurant known for its tenderloin sandwiches and chicken wings, meeting up with Tim and a few more tables full of Wilk friends and colleagues, to enjoy a quick meal before the reception. There was going to be food at the party, but most of us thought it would be better if we had already eaten, so that we wouldn't have to be holding conversations or meeting fans with our hands (or our mouths) full. I wolfed down a few wings and then ducked out early, so that I could get to the reception room and help Dan "Dozer" Hough, the man behind this whole extravaganza, with any last minute details. Plus, I was the guy with the DVD video Neighbor Dave had slaved over, featuring a bunch of the still photos he and I shot all year and splicing them into a 45-minute presentation, interspersed with some key video footage we were able to secure. He put it all to music, and it ended up being one heck of a good show...

As for the reception, I really didn't know what to expect, but Dozer had told me he thought it would be pretty crowded. I guess if you consider "pretty crowded" to mean the room was standing-room-only packed with a lot of people spilled out into the hall, then that's what it was. It was terrific, and the assembled group was made up of exactly the sort of people you'd love to spend an evening with. Great folks, great fans, and loyal Wilk Warriors!

Dozer also arranged for a band to play and they were great as well. We all mingled, the video played on the wall, the band cranked out classic hit after classic hit, and I was able to circulate and meet so many wonderful people, many of whom immediately started the conversation with references to Minnesota, the pond, Da Boyce, and other things blog-related. It was all just terrific. I got to shake hands and have conversations with so many people I'd never had the pleasure of meeting before, and Barb and I got to hang out with the crew, the whole Wilkerson family, and a ton of great friends. New friends, old friends, good friends. It was a GREAT night! I also had the pleasure of introducing Tim to the crowd, letting them know how honored I was to be there, and how privileged I feel to be a part of this unique and tightly-knit team. And when I say "team," I'm not just talking about the one small group that travels the country to race a Funny Car. I mean the whole team, and that extends far outside the large and avid crowd we had in the room. It really is a privilege, and I've never experienced anything quite like this in my career...

As the evening wore on, and we closed in on midnight, the gathering began to break up, the band played one more song, and we all said goodnight. Almost everyone else had to head out into the frigid night, dealing with frosted windshields and sputtering engines, but Barb and I were able to walk down the hall straight to our room, since we stayed at the hotel that hosted the event. The Northfield Inn had made sure we had the best suite in the house, with a large living room and a big jacuzzi, so our night was capped off by a glass of wine as we wound down with the perfect ending to a phenomenal day.

In the morning, we headed down to the shop where we met up with Rich and Annette, who are spending a few extra days in Springfield so that Rich can get all of our blowers ready for the season. Barbara had been talking to both of them about everything Rich was up to and about their business in southern Minnesota, so our trip to the shop doubled as both Barb's first visit there as well as a brief tutorial for her to learn about blowers and Quality Racing Products, the machine company Rich and Annette own and run. As Rich was taking internal measurements of our blower casings, denoting variances in the range of a thousandth of an inch, he had Annette pluck a single hair from her head to show Barb what three-thousandths looks like, so that she could get a visual grip on just how detailed his analysis was. I think Barb got a little better idea of just how much focused and detailed work has to go on prior to the races, in order for us to be able to show up and compete at the highest level, like we do... Neat stuff, and Rich and Annette were perfect tutors.

Tim came in just after that, and he was eager to show Barb around Wilkerson Service Center, his repair shop that takes up pretty much the front half of the building. He gave her the 75-cent version of the Tim Wilkerson story, brilliantly and entertainingly weaving the short-version tale of how he went from gas station employee to owner to being the owner of a string of service stations, and then how he parlayed all of that into the successful business he owns today. All the while, a racing career was blossoming in addition to the business side of things.

Tim is a great businessman, and a classic entrepreneur who has worked hard, worked right, and worked smart his whole life. It's that attitude and approach that has always allowed this team to do more with less, and his focus permeates every bit of our racing operation. To say it's all "impressive" would be an understatement of huge proportions.

A few minutes later, we were back on the old "double nickel" (I-55, southbound and down) headed back to STL for our 4:00 flight home. We covered the 100 miles with no delays and even had time to swing through a Steak 'N Shake right by the airport, to enjoy a steakburger and some chili before returning the rental and getting checked in at the beautiful main terminal at Lambert Airport. I think, to this day, I've probably spent more time in Lambert than any other airport, thanks to all my years living in St. Louis, despite the fact I rarely get there more than once or twice a year now. From picking up my dad there when I was a little kid to my days traveling all over the world from STL, it still feels like home to me, and it's soaring walls of glass remain an architectural masterpiece.

A couple of hours after finally conquering a very slow security line, we were home...

It was fast, it was furious, and it was fun. It was educational, it was motivational, and it was inspirational. It was delicious, it was spectacular, and it was everything we'd hoped for and much, much, more...

What a great weekend.

I'll be back soon, but until then...

Wilber, out!

I finished the day yesterday, and then began it again today, working on our hotel bookings for 2010. We work with Racing Circuit Travel (RCT), and Jerry there is my main man for hotel arrangements. Like all booking agents, they sign contracts with various hotels, blocking sections of rooms for the race weekends. We then work with Jerry to pick which of his hotels we'd prefer to be in, and then I have to make sure he has a correct rooming list, room types, arrival days, departure days, and whatever other information he needs to confirm we will have rooms, for the right people, when we arrive in every market. No one likes walking up to the front desk in the hotel lobby and hearing "Uh, nope. We don't have anything for you in our system..."

RCT tries to have at least three options at each race, so that you can go "budget" or middle of the road, or top-end crazy. Considering every hotel owner or manager knows when the NHRA races are coming to town, even "budget" inns can be pricey, depending on the available hotel inventory in that town, and since we try to watch our pennies carefully we sometimes get first-hand experience when one of those lower-cost hotels starts to get too seedy. You might recall the emergency move the whole team made after one night in the absolutely scary hotel (rhymes with Red Roof) in San Dimas, during the Finals last year. Well, that joint is no longer on Jerry's list. Thank you, Jerry!

It's kind of funny to go through the season, race by race, and reconnect the various hotels in my head. After so many years of doing this, in so many different hotels, the brain can get a little foggy when you're looking back and trying to remember where we stayed, during the previous year, in Bristol, or Charlotte, or at any other event (unless something particularly heinous took place, like in Pomona). Right now, due to some new choices, a couple of new sponsor opportunities, and a few "lessons learned" it looks like we'll be staying in different hotels in a few markets this year. I'd say Gainesville, Charlotte, Houston, Topeka, Bristol, Norwalk, Sonoma, and Dallas will all involve that initial "search mode" upon our arrival, as we find our way to a place where we've never stayed before. That's a hefty amount of change from one year to another...

I also spent some time this morning trading emails and information with a guy named Barry House, from Levi, Ray & Shoup. Barry is a writer in the LRS Marketing Communications group, and they're going to put together a cool little "customer card" for their clients and prospects. Their sales guy will conveniently drop a few of these with their customers, to get them dialed-in and excited about the 2010 season, so the card will have a picture of the LRS Shelby on one side with some cool stats and information about Tim and the team, and on the other side they'll have the full 2010 Full Throttle schedule. In my opinion, it's a good thing when your sponsor is proud of their race team.

And did you know that Tim's overall round record over the past two seasons is 73-39? I knew that, because it's one bit of the info I sent to Barry. And 73-39 is pretty stout, if you ask me. Not to mention the eight race wins that were a part of that record in the last two years...

Longtime blog reader Scott The Pilot (who is now flying the big jets for Korean Air) not only keeps in touch as he flies around the world in his Airbus 330, hitting such destinations as Melbourne, Brisbane, Bangkok, Phuket, Kuala Lumpur, Guam, and Bali, he also took it upon himself to have a couple of really neat bag straps made for me. They just snap around the handle on your bag, and the professionals use them because all of them use the same style of bags and they don't want to pick up someone else's stuff by mistake. One of them has my name on it and the Delta logo, and the other has my name in Korean, with the Korean Air logo. I have to admit, I have no idea which way is up on that one. Korean is not exactly what you'd call a strong language for me. Whether I'm reading it upside down, right-side up, or sideways, it's still pretty cool. Thanks STP!

Happy birthday to my brother Del, today! I sent him a Hallmark E-card, but since he's 11 years older than me he's probably as excited about additional birthdays as I am...

Interesting cat fact: Boofus is enthralled by the fax machine and my laser printer. I've seen YouTube videos of cats going nutty when printers spit out the finished product, but apparently this is not a universal feline trait, because Buster has no interest whatsoever. All I have to do is hit "Print" though, and Boofie will come running at a dead sprint when he hears the printer spool up and begin to operate. He doesn't really care if he knocks over my phone, modem, router, lamp or anything else on my desk, either, when he makes a beeline straight for the top of the printer, where he intently watches every page come out. He's a funny dude, what with his attraction to running water (he's about to the point where he'll just stick his whole head under the faucet now) and machines that make noise and spit things out. Buster would rather just sleep.

Buster, on the other hand, is the one we have to worry about when it comes to the great outdoors. We've gotten to where we won't even answer the front door before locating him and picking him up, because he's made at least a half-dozen "great escapes" in the past couple of months, dashing out the door between people's legs, and then turning right to head off around the house. He has no idea where he's going, and no good defenses should he ever accomplish his mission and run into a natural enemy out there, so the whole thing is worrisome to us. Just to be a little safer, Barb found some really neat little "do it yourself" name tags and we whipped one up for him.

I'm not sure how these things work, but they come out of the package feeling like they're made of thin cardboard, and they're about two inches square. That gives you enough room to easily write the cat's name and your phone number on it, then you put it in the oven for a few minutes and it not only shrinks to cat-size, it also hardens into a solid plastic tag. Kinda like a wacky science experiment, making it, and Buster doesn't seem to even be aware that he has it on, so safety first...

Weird how these two brothers are so different. Boofie goes nuts when the printer runs, while Buster could not care less, but if you open a door Buster wants to run right out while little Boofie looks at you with an expression that says "Would you please close that!"

I've decided to change one thing we do next year, in terms of how the team interacts with fans, and I hope you all can enjoy it. Back in the CSK days, the most popular part of our website was the photo gallery, and I'd regularly post from 15 to 25 pics after each race, mostly of the "people and places" variety, as opposed to the "race car doing burnout" sort. Right now, we don't really have the capability to do that on our timwilkerson.com site, so I'm going to fold that aspect into our TeamWilkerson Facebook page! I'll try to post a new photo album after each race, just to give everyone a better flavor for what it looked like and what we were up to. Of course, many of those pics will probably also appear here, but the more the merrier, I think...

I haven't mentioned the smaller hockey pool in a while, the one Phil Burgess puts together and is currently leading in the standings. This is the complicated league, where you trade, release, or pick up new players, and have to make sure you have the right guys in the line-up every night. Unfortunately, despite as much strategic roster shuffling as I can do, my team (Da Boyce, of course) is scuffling along near the bottom of the standings. I'll post the league in the photo gallery today, and you'll see that Burgess (He Shoots, He Scores) is in first place, just ahead of Neighbor Dave (Woodbury Royals) and my lovely wife Barbara (Cosmopolitans). In this league, you match up against one other team for a whole week, and you gain points by winning various categories (Goals, Assists, Saves, etc.). I'm matched up with Rob Flynn (CanAm99) this week, and so far we're about even, but I really need some of my guys to catch fire quick, or I'll have no chance as we near the playoffs... I have a good roster, but somehow all these good players I have never seem to all have a big week at the same time... For instance, here we are on Wednesday and I don't have a single goal yet this week. C'mon guys!!!

Oh, here's another sign of the proximity of the upcoming season. Yesterday, I started the process of booking my flights. I've just done Pomona and Phoenix so far, but it has begun. And, taking the advice of some other experts, I started right out making all my reservations on Delta.com, leaving NWA.com behind for good, I guess. Within the next month or so, the old NWA site will be disappearing anyway, so I figured it was best to get accustomed to the other site and this way I don't have to worry about any tickets or seats getting mysteriously lost in the final days before everything Northwest disappears from the planet Earth. So long, Northwest. It was, by and large, a pleasure to know ya...

Time for lunch... Tonight, I'm off to watch the Timberwolves take on the Golden State Warriors, and considering they just barely lost to the Warriors the last time they played, by only 41points (146-105, ever so close) here's hoping for a slightly better showing tonight. Maybe that 8th win on the season? Let's not go crazy...

Wilber, out!

Anyway, I think this year's holiday season was about perfectly set up, in terms of where Christmas and the New Year’s fell, so that this particular Monday morning really feels like the start of a new season. With back-to-back long weekends, just about everyone got up this morning with all of that revelry in the rearview, and looking forward we see a new year, and a new racing season, laying right there in front of us.

As for this blog, I guess the new season can hardly come soon enough. As we dive into the fifth year of this thing, it does seem like a more daunting challenge to get through the off-season with anything pertinent or entertaining to say (especially during a winter when I couldn't take you all on vacation, since we didn't go on one), but it's not in my nature to just put it on the shelf and take a hiatus until something newsworthy comes along, so I just keep scratching the surface to see what's underneath. It's obviously way easier to write about individual races and stuff that happens at the track, but it's also my mission to keep this thing fresh to the best of my ability, and considering the amount of e-mail I get during the winter, that seems to work out okay for most of you, as well, so on with the show...

First rambling point today: The guy who sent me the question about our warm-up procedure, whose e-mail I accidentally deleted, did read about it in my earlier blog and make contact again. He's Kevin M., and he lives in North Hills, Calif., about 40 miles northwest of Pomona. Thanks Kevin, and thanks for getting back in touch.

When Kevin did reach out again, he asked another good question, so I'll answer that one too. Since we travel so much, he wondered about the housing situation for the crew guys, when the team is in Springfield. That's a better question that you might think, because I'm aware of a variety of teams handling it many different ways.

With the massive amount of time we spend on the road, it's really not practical for the younger crew guys to have homes and mortgages, especially if they're single, despite the fact it is their responsibility to find a place to call home for the days when the team is at the shop. On most teams, guys will either rent apartments or maybe even just rent a room in someone's house, because it's not only too expensive to live in a hotel, it's also something we do so much of during the season that it gets really old, really fast. It's nice to have a place that's yours. A couple of our crew guys, Jon Gimmy and Rich Schendel, are married and have full-time jobs between races, so they do have homes, and in addition we have one crew guy named Kevin Wilkerson who lives at home with his mom and dad. LOL...

I know there are some teams that actually provide a house for the crew guys to live in, and at the Worshams we just had the guys live in an Extended Stays Hotel, which is sort of a cross between an apartment and a hotel room but you only have to pay for the nights you're there. Frankly, I think it's tougher on the guys if they all live together in one place, because it's never an easy dynamic to spend so much time with the same people, long day after long night, all year long. It's amazing how much good chemistry can hold a team together and bad chemistry can tear one apart, because it's probably not natural for any group of young guys to be able to deal with each other and all their personalities, all the time. We're lucky to have a great group that really finds a way to get through the long season as a tight unit, but I've seen other teams pretty much self-destruct when the personalities don't mesh. If that's the case, and you can't get away from it even when you're home between races, it's almost impossible to be functional.

Hey, just in case you haven't been paying attention, we're now only 37 days from the 50th Winternationals. And just minutes ago, I got a press release from NHRA which outlined the launch of a new website specifically for the event. How cool is that! Check it out: http://www.50thwinternationals.com

More rambling... I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year's Eve. We attended a truly awful Wild hockey game with the neighbors (final score, L.A. Kings 5 - Wild 2), then came back here to celebrate 2010 at home with them. Dave and Nichol came over to our house and we all contributed to lay out a nice spread of appetizers and finger food, and then we did what all people do on New Year's Eve... We played Trivial Pursuit! What, you didn't do that? Maybe it was just us... We had a very good time (although the questions seemed to get harder to answer as the hours ticked by)...

It's been a little nippy up here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, as in -12 on Saturday (that would be 12 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit), but the sun has returned and frankly nobody seems to care about the cold all that much. As long as the sun is out, we can deal with the chill. Right now, as I type this at 12:00 noon on Monday, it's all of -6, but the sky is blue, the snow is white, and with this thing we call a "furnace" running, I'm at my desk writing a blog in a T-shirt. What's so tough about winter anyway? From where I sit, it's not so bad...

From where Neighbor Dave stood, for most of the day on Saturday, I'm thinking it was a tad chilly out there. The deep freeze gave him a great chance to get out there and rehabilitate the rink on the back pond, so after plowing it, scraping it, and clearing it off he then spent a long few hours out there, slowly flooding it with fresh water. It had to have been below zero (or at least very close to that cold) and the flooding part is the one piece of the hockey rink deal where you don't stay warm. You just stand there. For a very long time. On a frozen pond. Brrrr...

Here inside, though, I just put out a quick little reminder e-mail, to all the Wilk Warriors and LRS staffers I have in my mailing lists, to make sure no one forgets the Wilk Warriors reception this Saturday night, in Springfield. Barbara and I will be flying out of here on Friday afternoon, arriving in St. Louis just in time to hop in a rental car and head straight for Farotto's Pizzeria, on Manchester Road in Rock Hill. My Pavlovian instincts kick in just by typing the name... Yum. I am but four days away from an order of toasted ravioli and a Farotto's "Deluxe" pizza, cut into little squares like any self-respecting St. Louis-style pizza would be...

We'll make the drive up I-55 on Saturday morning, and earlier today I talked about that with Krista Wilkerson, who is excited to show us around Springfield and take in some of the historic stuff there. You see, there was this guy. His name was Abe (Abraham, actually, but I call him Abe). He was a really honest sort of gentleman, as well. Turns out, he used to live in Springfield... And now his face is on the penny and the five-dollar bill! How 'bout that...

After the trip to the Land of Lincoln, we'll come back home on Sunday night and by then it will seem like the new season is just around the corner. I saw a tweet on Twitter, by Bob Tasca, which mentioned that he and his team will be in West Palm Beach next week, beginning their preseason. We did that last year, and I really enjoyed being in West Palm, but this year our team will be headed to Firebird Int’l Raceway in Phoenix. The plans are for the guys to get there somewhere around Saturday the 15th, but it doesn't sound like the car will even hit the track until Monday. With that in mind, and considering how close we'll be to the actual season starting, I don't think I'm going to go. If it was a weekend deal, I could possibly justify the expense and the time out of the office, but it's hard to do that if we're talking about being out there during the week, just days before the season starts.

Oh yeah, here's another obtuse note of interest. On this very day, January 4, 2010 (twenty ten), the Minnesota Twins officially took up residence at Target Field. All of their offices, the whole staff, and all of their "stuff" is now moved in and operational, two full months ahead of schedule. I bet the whole place has that "new stadium" smell...

Hmmm... Well, I have about eight "must do" things scribbled on my notepad, so I need to get after this list and start checking things off. To do that, I guess I have to wrap up this blog.

Happy New Year, everyone! The Winternationals are just around the corner...

Wilber, out!

Hey guess what? Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case anyone forgot.

Okay, now let's immediately dive into the first topic, and it comes in the form of a question that will be preceded by an apology. I got this great question from a reader a few weeks ago, but then I did a huge purge of my email system, clearing out about 2,500 old in-bound notes, and I accidentally deleted the guy's original email. Therefore, I have no memory of who sent this to me, but if you're out there let me know and I'll give you credit next time around... Also, I'm 99 percent sure I didn't answer this right after I got it, but if my memory is faulty I apologize in advance. When you write as many blogs as I have, over the course of more than four years, it's kinda hard to remember everything you've written. You often get deja vu all over again, and I'm not all that sure what I wrote on Monday, to tell you the truth...

He (the now anonymous email writer) asked me why our team sometimes warms the car up with alcohol for a while, before we switch over to nitro, and other times we start it up and go basically right to the fuel pumps to create those nitro fumes everyone loves. That's a great question, and I actually hear it quite often so this is a fine time to answer it. We have our short blocks lined up in a predetermined rotation, and whenever a new block goes in the car we need to set the timing. Since it's a lot easier to have your nose and the timing gun right down there by the motor when the car is running on alcohol, rather than cackling, fuming, and nearly jumping off the jack-stands on nitro, we put a red plastic gas can full of alcohol on top of the injector, and run a couple of syphon lines from that. The little bottle that Rich squeezes into the injector to initially fire the car is actually full of gasoline, but as soon as it's fired it will start running on the alcohol. When all the settings are correct, the guys pull out the syphon lines, Brandon pulls on the fuel pumps, and away we go...

If, for any reason, Tim wants to give the timing or anything else a quick once-over on a subsequent warm-up, Rich will make sure he has the gasoline bottle absolutely full, and then it's up to him to be able to continue squeezing that little starter bottle for as long as he can, to give Tim enough time to check things out while the car is purring on gas. If his forearm cramps up doing that, it wouldn't surprise me but I also know Rich would never admit it.

Hey guess what? I'm back on wireless at home after being hard-wired and trapped at my desk for about a week. At some point last week, right in the middle of the morning while I was on a website, our wireless router went kaput. I recycled it a bunch of times, spent some time on the phone with our wonderful friends at Comcast, and then came to the stunning conclusion that the thing had simply died on me right then and there. So... Barbara and I were jolted back to what we dealt with a few years ago, with one little cable line supplying all the internet capability in our house. She couldn't work from her desk, and I couldn't take my laptop anywhere else in the house, because the blue ethernet cable was stuck right into the side of my MacBook. If she needed to get on-line for her work, I had to unplug and she had to take over my desk. How archaic!

Last night, an officially geeky guy arrived to install the pretty new Cisco router we bought at Target, and once again I'm glad we paid a nominal fee to have a real expert (and geek) do this for us, because after watching all the hoops he had to jump through to get three laptops and a printer all working together wirelessly, I can say for certain that I would've gone crazy trying to make it all happen myself. You get what you pay for. Had I tried to do it for free, that old cliche' would've rung particularly true. And that was the second time in this blog that I started a paragraph with the line "Hey guess what?"

Okay, next topic. Uniforms. I've been trading emails with Lisa Vanbeek, from Vicci, to get our shirts approved for next year. Analyzing artwork for shirts is sort of like analyzing and approving artwork for die-cast cars, because as "real" as it looks it's still a two-dimensional rendering, and the real thing will always come out looking a little different. But, since we're basically keeping the shirts almost exactly the same, this process is pretty easy. We've only had to make a couple of small changes. So far...

The trick is this: We continue to have some great discussions with a few potential new sponsors, and they would be of the level to most certainly earn a spot on the crew shirt for their logos. But, our deadline for making sure we have our shirts in our hands comfortably early (as in before the first qualifying lap in Pomona, 42 days from now) is basically upon us. As I wrote in my last note to Lisa, I guess the way to guarantee that one or more of these deals come through is to go ahead and start production on these shirts. Then, of course, we'll have to produce a whole new set when we need to add logos. If that's really all it takes, we should probably make these things right now.

People also ask me, quite often, what I think of these new-style shirts (they are technically called "sublimated" shirts) that are printed instead of stitched. Well, it took everyone a while to get used to these things, and for the manufacturers to fix a few early issues, but now they are the standard in the sport and I could never imagine anyone going back to the old embroidered days. This genie is officially out of the bottle and he ain't goin' back in.

In the early days, the material they used to make these shirts was something that had the breathability of a plastic garbage bag. On a humid or hot day, you felt like a wrestler trying to make weight in the sauna. They fixed those issues a few years ago, though, and they're really quite comfortable now. In terms of design, you just can't beat these things, because if you can dream it up, they can make it. I think back, now, to how we actually had to count stitches to know how expensive our shirts were going to be, and it seems nuts. Plus, those old cotton shirts had to be thick and heavy, to hold all the stitching, and they had to be dry-cleaned. Even then, by the middle of the year the material would always be bunching up around the stitched areas, and the white material would eventually turn gray... Now, all of that is history.

Okay, moving on to stalagmites. You know what a stalagmite is, right? It's a big formation that forms on the floor of a limestone cave over an enormously long period of time, as mineralized liquid drips down from the ceiling and solidifies in place. Do you know how to always know the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite? It's easy. Stalagmites are "mighty." Stalactites "hold tight" because they grow down from the top of the cave. If a stalagmite and a stalactite meet, they can form a full column. I learned all this when I was a kid and our parents would take us to Meramec Caverns, not too far outside of St. Louis. And here's your Meramec Caverns trivia for today: Not only is it a fascinating place well worth seeing, but it was also used as a hideout by Jesse James. True that.

I know, in winters past, I've either mentioned or shown our annual stalagmite that grows just outside the door to our rear patio and the hot tub. A vent from our furnace system sticks out of the house directly above the door, and when that hot air hits the cold atmosphere, it vaporizes. Most of it floats away as steam, but a bit of it will condense into liquid and drip down to the ground. Right where it hits the ground, just outside the door, it begins to accumulate into a stalagmite made of ice. Well, this year it has three little brothers, for some reason, and this grouping of four ice boulders is a bit of a danger to bare feet. I know this first hand (first feet?)

Last night, when it was a deliciously crispy 8 degrees, I went out for a wonderful session in the tub around 11:00. I knew where the stalagmite was and was well aware of it, as I was coming back in out there in the dark, but I conveniently forgot about the three smaller ones that now surround the main monster. Bam! Let's put it this way, when I came in the door and noticed the odd red blotches on the tile just inside, my first shout was to Barb, to ask her if she could please bring me a couple of Band-Aids. It really didn't hurt much at all, but it sliced me open pretty nicely. Stupid stalagmite...

When I was in the tub, though, I was sitting there thinking that it was just about as good as it can get, last night. Just cold enough to create some haircicles and make the 101-degree water seem heavenly, but not too cold or windy to make it uncomfortable in any way. It was brisk, calm, and pretty much sublime, and while I was out there I kept thinking of an often-overlooked Rush song that fit the situation perfectly.

It's called "Time Stand Still" and was on the "Hold Your Fire" album, which came out way back in 1987. It's a beautiful song (I know, Rush songs are rarely considered "beautiful" but this one is), and the lyrics are all about learning and yearning to slow your life down to appreciate everything. Sometimes you just want time to stand still, so you can soak it all in.

Time stand still
I'm not looking back but I want to look around me now
Time stand still
See more of the people and the places that surround me now
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each sensation a little bit stronger
Experience slips away

Summer's going fast, nights growing colder
Children growing up, old friends growing older
Freeze this moment a little bit longer
Make each impression a little bit stronger
Experience slips away
The innocence slips away

And here's the craziest thing about "Time Stand Still." The song features a guest vocalist, and a female guest vocalist at that! Yup, if you look back up at the headline you'll see the name of that guest vocalist, who sings the words "Time stand still" throughout the song. Aimee Mann! She was still the lead singer of 'til Tuesday back then, but has since gone on to a fine solo career. I can't think of any other Rush song in which anyone other than Geddy Lee is doing the singing...

Anyway, I kept playing that song in my head, over and over, in the hot tub last night, because I wanted to freeze the moment and permanently etch it into my mind. It was, perhaps, the perfect night in the hot tub.

And then the stupid killer stalagmite ruined it all... Stupid stalagmite.

Hey guess what? (Third time). I spoke with the Finkster yesterday, who is home in Indiana. He and his wife Tammy, however, rent a condo in Fort Myers, Fla. during the winter and spring, and they make regular pilgrimages down there to enjoy the sun and the beach. With that in mind, I had two ideas to run past John, and we're going to try to figure out how to make this happen. First of all, my actor buddy Buck and the Jersey Boys show will be in Fort Myers from February 17 to March 7, so I'd love to get John and Tammy to the show. Secondly, since the Minnesota Twins have spring training in Fort Myers, I checked to see if they'd be playing home games right before or after the Gatornationals, and sure enough they play the Cardinals on the Wednesday before the race, and the Orioles on the Wednesday after. So, maybe I'll either go down early or stick around for a few days after the race, so that John and I can go to a ballgame together. It's been a few years since I've been to a spring training game, and that's a situation that needs to be fixed.

Hey guess what? (Fourth time!) It's snowing. Again. Stupid stalagmite.

Have a SAFE and HAPPY New Year, everyone. I'll see you in 2010.

Wilber, out!
 

Where to begin??? I have to go back and do some research because in lieu of the blog I've been more active than normal on Facebook the last few days, posting some short holiday updates and some Christmas snow storm photos as well, and I have to remember that only a few of you do the Facebook thing, so most of that bears repeating. When I was last here, way back on Wednesday last week, we were getting all geared up for our big blizzard, while simultaneously getting ready for Christmas. In the end, the blizzard hit hard at first, then a slight shift in the low-pressure system really changed things. And when I say "changed things" I most definitely mean for the worse.

Throughout Christmas Eve it was simply beautiful, with about 8 inches of snow fluttering down and piling up gracefully. Barbara and I went for a walk through the woods, late in the afternoon, and we were trudging down the trail through virgin untouched snow that was deep enough to come well up our lower legs. If you've ever had the pleasure of taking a walk through the woods after a major snowfall, you know the unique "blanket of silence" it creates. Everything is so pristine and so wonderfully quiet, you feel like you're the only people in the world.

When we got home, the hard-working UPS guys pulled up out front and delivered the last box with the last gift, and I'm happy to report the box contained "winner's jackets" from the Seattle race, for both Neighbor Dave and myself. Tim got one right after the race and he gets his free, of course, but the rest of us have the option of ordering them on our own, so Dave, Finkster, and I got together and figured out what we wanted (I just ordered the Seattle race only for myself), and then it was supposed to be my job to send the order in to Phoenix Custom Apparel. I procrastinated a while, then simply forgot to do it for a week or two, and then finally (about two months after the win) I sent a note to my guy at Phoenix Custom to get it done. Two seconds later, I got a "bounce back" alert that said Phoenix Custom Apparel had gone out of business. Yikes! At first, the three of us were thinking I should've gotten that order in earlier, but then we realized we might have ended up paying for jackets we never got, so we went with the flow and waited for NHRA to select a new manufacturer.

Over the course of the next few days, we discovered that Advertising Edge, out of Santee, Calif., had gotten the gig, and we made contact with Earl out there. We placed our orders, but it took Ad Edge a while to get all the necessary computer files and make the jackets. Christmas was closing in fast, but Earl went above and beyond the call by getting our jackets done by December 23, and then he overnighted them to us at no charge so we could have them by Christmas morning. That's some good customer service, if you ask me.

Anyway, the big storm was right on track to reach the predicted total of 20 inches of snow over the course of three or four days, but then we woke up on Christmas morning only to hear something odd. No, it wasn't the sound of reindeer hooves on the roof, it was the sound of dripping rain! Somehow, the front shifted and we went from 26 degrees up to 34 degrees, and the beautiful white snow turned to sleet, drizzle, and mush. It not only took the beauty away, it also compacted the existing snow into something altogether different. As I posted on Facebook, our gorgeous and fluffy Christmas snow turned into something resembling the consistency of a 7-11 Slurpee. Gross... Worse yet, once the temperature finally dropped again, all that slush froze solid. I still have areas on my driveway that are an inch or two thick, made up of solid ice.

Dave and I got to work on both of our driveways, and he made a valiant effort with the 4-wheeler, but we came out on the short end of the deal and I'll either have to eventually go out there with something sharp and solid, to break it up inch by inch, or wait for spring...

During the pretty part of the storm, I went all "artsy" with the Nikon and got some really beautiful photos, a few of which I posted on Facebook. I'll add one in the first gallery today, though, which has not yet been seen by anyone. I simply went outside around 10  p.m. on Christmas Eve, turned off the flash, and held the camera as still as possible (I don't own a tripod). The result was a wonderful shot of our decorated trees out front, with the entire photo being lit only by the Christmas lights and a soft glow in the western sky, coming from the lights of St. Paul far off in the distance. The pic actually makes it look like it was quite light out, but it was as dark as any normal winter night. Hope you like it. It took a steady hand to make it happen.

After the rude awakening by the rain on Christmas morning, we raced the cats downstairs, made a couple of cups of tea, and got to work on the tough assignment of opening presents. Christmas morning is kind of like Thanksgiving, in that the build-up and the work go on for a long time, but then it's all over in a blinding burst of frenetic speed... For us, it was all good and by "good" I mean "wonderful" and by "wonderful" I mean perfect. Santa brought Barb a new iPod Touch, a Cole Haan tote, a bottle of 2004 Silver Oak, a bright red quilted jacket with a small Minnesota Twins logo stitched on it (she'll need that at Target Field!) and lots of other fun things (including the always-popular full pampered day at the spa; a gift that's never the wrong color and always fits). The jolly old guy brought me lots of great clothes (I look positively "hip" wearing this stuff), a Sharper Image Shiatsu massage unit that fits on my office chair to do the work that normally costs you $75 per hour when a human does it, plus lots of other great stuff. Buster and Boofus also got a new toy, some new treats, and the unmitigated joy of being able to play in all the boxes and wrapping paper.

Because of the weather, the Jacobsens couldn't travel to visit Dave's family, so the four of them came over to our house to enjoy a lasagna dinner (we decided that's our new Christmas culinary tradition) and much fun. We even capped the night with a massive Wii tournament, and all I can say is that it's simply not fair for old geezers like us to play Wii against anyone under 25. Justin and Alexa proved that point, time after time, but I think us older folk held our own. If I just hadn't thrown that one meatball pitch, right down the middle because I somehow thought a slow pitch over the heart of the plate would confuse Alexa, I'd have won that one...

Oh yeah, and in the first photo gallery you'll see the newest example of "We've never seen that before" when it comes to the pond out back. After the Christmas slush storm, we woke up yesterday to see the entire pond covered in dimples. It looked like a golf ball, or maybe the top of a cracker! None of us have any idea what caused it, but it still pretty much looks that way...

Saturday night, we all headed downtown to meet our friend Mary Beth and her significant other, also named Bob, for dinner at Pazzaluna followed by the Wild's game against my old hometown team, the St. Louis Blues (pronounced "da Say Looie Bloo" by French Canadian hockey players and coaches) and were happy to witness a big win for the good guys. Funny to see them playing the Blues, though. I grew up watching the Blues, although my allegiance to them ended pretty much right after the era of Glenn Hall, Red Berenson, Al Arbour, and Barclay Plager. Despite that, though, I killed enough time copying and sketching that "blue note" logo in my school books to still get a little nostalgic when I see it.

Now on to other unrelated topics...

I know a lot of you continue to get personal notes from Adam in Hawaii, and that really warms my heart. He sent me a short letter, and in it he wrote "Aloha Bob. Who was the first person to respond to the 2007 blog call-out you made to help us? Answer: Jeff Arend. This season, I am sending out Christmas cards to everyone who helped, and who do you think was the first person to respond with a Christmas card in return? Answer: Jeff Arend." That's my boy! And that's pretty cool.

After I wrote about the trip to Springfield, and the Saab turbo-prop Annette and I flew on, I got a funny note from longtime blog reader Matt Turk. No, not the NFL punter, but a great guy who was the Sports Information Director at Simpson College when he first made contact with me, and who has now taken the big forward step of becoming Associate Sports Information Director for the Thundering Herd at Marshall University. He wrote: "Loved the Thursday blog. Just try shoving an entire men's basketball team into a Saab 340 and see how much fun that is! I still don't know how our 7-footer and our 6-11 guy made it to and from Binghamton, N.Y." Wow! Me neither, Matt... And congrats again on the move to Marshall, although Barb still wears her Simpson Storm t-shirt to the gym all the time.

Moving on now, to a wonderful series of emails I received from my sister Mary. She became the de facto "keeper of all things" in terms of old family photo albums, baseball stuff, and other memorabilia, and she chose the Christmas holidays to send us all some scans of a bunch of old prehistoric black & white snapshots from days long gone by. Tying into Christmas, there are two shots of us with a department store Santa (I'm sure we were at the old Stix, Baer & Fuller store at Westroads Shopping Center in Clayton, Mo., but you'd have to be pretty old and pretty midwestern to remember either Stix or Westroads, as the whole chain was sold to Dillards in 1984 and Westroads was demolished to make room for what is now The Galleria). She also included a wonderful and vibrant photo of my mom and dad, and looking at it I'd be surprised if they'd been married for more than a year or two, or perhaps they were not yet married at all at a time. Finally, she found a shot of my dad, in his catcher's gear, playing for the Philadelphia Phillies (so it must've been around 1951) and he looks so strong and athletic I'm mesmerized by it. This is the man I choose to remember as my dad...

Holy cow, that Eagles/Broncos game has been on in the other room, and all of a sudden it became a cliffhanger. And now I see the Colts pulled their starters in the second half and lost to the Jets, which means a variety of people on TV and on Facebook are ripping the team and bemoaning the impossibility of a perfect season. To those folks I say "What if they'd have left all the starters in and some big lineman had rolled up on Manning's leg, and put him out for the rest of the season? If your goal is to win the Super Bowl, a perfect record is really only slightly more important than meaningless, and this game was, at its root, meaningless in the big scheme of things." But that's just my opinion.

Gosh, there's lots more to write about but I guess that's enough for today... Just think, by the end of this week we'll all have to do that purposeful mental thing of telling ourselves to write or type 2010 instead of 2009. And just getting to the year 2000, which I looked forward to for the first 44 years of my life, seems like it happened yesterday.

More soon...

Wilber, out!

Just a very short yule-time blog to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Like you, I'll be enjoying some time off for the next few days, but I'll be sure to check back in once Santa has left, the reindeer tracks have faded from the roof, and all the wrapping paper is in the trash bin (or blowing down the street, whichever comes first).

Here in beautiful Woodbury, we are officially in the process of an activity known as "hunkering down" because good old Mother Nature has thrown us the proverbial curveball (might actually be a slider but I'm not sure, because I was never good enough at pitch recognition). Yes, Virginia, a real-live blizzard is apparently on its way, just in time to mess up everyone's holiday travel.

48 hours ago, the forecast called for mild temps (the 20s are mild, this time of year) and some on-again/off-again flurries all week. The worst part of that scenario was the obvious conclusion that we'd be seeing very little of the sun this week, after having just gone through about five straight days of overcast here. We shouldn't have complained about that! By yesterday morning, the forecasts were spinning around and changing faster than a Caesar's Palace slot machine, and by midday the general consensus, out there in the weather forecasting world, was that it was going to snow. And snow some more. And be very windy. While it's snowing. For a long time.

Right now, we have nothing more than a few little icy sleet pellets falling, but the snow should enter the state around 6:30 tonight and by 8:00 p.m. it should be coming down in the Twin Cities, on this fine Wednesday. It is scheduled to end some time Saturday night!  The projected snowfall amounts range from 6-8 inches to our south all the way up to 20 inches just to our north and west. We're supposed to be somewhere in the middle, I guess.

I spent about two hours running around, out-and-about in Woodbury yesterday, stocking up for the storm so that we don't have to go out in it if we don't want to. About $150 later, at the grocery store, the back of my car was full of everything from chili ingredients (what better food to have during a big snow storm!!!) to water, soda, bread, eggs, the makings for lasagna (Barb wants to make home-made noodles with her pasta maker), and basically everything else I passed at the store that looked good. At our local market (Kowalski's) you aren't allowed to take the carts outside, so they have a whole staff of fresh-faced kids who will haul your groceries out to your car for you. They're all such nice and fine-looking young people, Barbara and I have officially dubbed anyone who looks that friendly and clean-cut "Kowalski Kids" whether they work at the store or not. Usually, if I can somehow get a grip on everything, I'll just carry my own stuff, but this time I needed some help and the store was allowing the Woodbury High volleyball girls to do a fundraiser, so I let one of them give me a hand, in exchange for a tip that hopefully goes toward a new net, or sneakers, or sweat suits, or something the volleyball team needs. Maybe a new air pump to inflate the volleyballs with!

Anyway, that was just a long and boring paragraph to illustrate how I joined most of the Twin Cities in preparation for the storm. It's the same out there today, as it seems like every person who lives here is on the roads, hitting the stores, and trying to get everything done for Christmas before the big blizzard of '09 comes roaring in. Geez, you'd almost think it's like two days before Christmas and the weather is about to be bad... There's panic in the streets! Run for your lives!!!  Alright, it's not really that bad, and everyone is in great holiday cheer, but it's impossible to miss the fact everyone is stocking up and, as I said before, hunkering down.

We attended another Timberwolves game last night, but in the interest of fair reporting I can tell you that it wasn't quite as much fun as the last one, when they actually won their 5th game of the year. This time, they played the Atlanta Hawks and, for a while there, I thought the final score might be 102-0, because the Wolves turned the ball over something like 11 out of their first 12 possessions. They gave it their all, but man this team has a lot of missing pieces. Like a shooter. That would be good thing to have in the game of basketball. That's all we need! A guy who can shoot the ball and actually have it go through the net instead of it bouncing around in crazy directions. "Dear Santa. All we want for Christmas is a pure shooter for the Wolves. Even a decent one would be fine. Thank you."

(Note: I got a quick email reply from Santa. He said the NBA draft was out of his hands, but best of luck with that. Thanks.)

An interesting part of being a Wolves season ticket holder is that it's giving Barb and me a chance to learn our way around a part of town where we had never spent much time before. The Metrodome is on the east side of downtown Minneapolis, so it's like the first thing you come to when you're driving over there from St.Paul. Target Center, where the Wolves play, is on the opposite side, the far side, and every time we go we try another route, because downtown Minneapolis is pretty big and pretty busy, and it can take as long to get through downtown as it takes to get to downtown from here. Last night's new route, jogging over to 3rd Street and then up to 1st Avenue, where we took a left to Target Center, was working like a charm until the last four blocks. That one's not going to work either.

All of this is good, because our new ballpark, Target Field, is right next door to the Target Center (can you tell that Target Stores have their world headquarters in the Twin Cities?) Over the years, you develop a "favorite parking lot" and a "favorite route" to the ball games, but now all of us Twins fans are going to have to stumble around and figure it all out together, come April. With each trip to a hoops game, we try to scout out a few more things...

To their credit, the Twins have let us know that they'll be holding an Open House for season ticket holders, sometime before the first game. That way, we can all stumble around as a massive group and scope the place out. Need to find that new favorite parking lot, too.

As we prepare for the holiday, and prepare for the storm, I bid you a fond adieu with the help of my fuzzy friends (who looked none too excited about posing for this picture) and my lovely wife, who acted the part of ace photographer.

Our stockings are hung on the mantle (with care) and our presents are stacked under the tree. The snow will be coming, the roads will be a mess, but we'll be safe and warm in our humble home, watching the tube or listening to tunes, with two fuzzy boyz keeping us warm.

Well, that pot of chili isn't going to make itself, so I better get to cookin'...

It has become a tradition for all of us PR flacks to drop each other lines, during the holidays, as a way to stay in touch and spread some cheer. Funny thing, we all see each other so much, for 10 months out of the year, but we must apparently miss each other in the off-season, because we tend to send each other quite a few emails.

In that tradition, I will leave you with a peek at the heartfelt thoughts I shared with all of my PR and media colleagues, via email, yesterday. It went a little something like this...

To all...

May all your wishes be granted

May a group of reindeer settle ever so softly upon your roof (with no damage, as that's rarely covered by homeowner's insurance)

May a red & white-clad fat man fit easily down the chimney

May you have you an alternate entry for his jolly self should the fireplace be enclosed or strictly ornamental

May the weather be to your liking, whether that be snow on the ground, sand on the beach, or anything in between

May the New Year be greeted with happiness, excitement, and a toast all-around (maybe two)

May your resolutions be realistic (I mean, seriously, think about that)

Spread a little joy

Pay it forward

Scoff at the negativity of the grinches (I mean, really, who has time for them?)

And above all else, ENJOY THE HOLIDAYS!

See you soon!!!

The same goes from me to all of you. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!!!

Wilber, out!

At least there's no fancy bicycles or plasma TVs under the tree (and there's none hidden in any closets, right honey?) We both think it's fun to have a lot of stuff to open on Christmas morning, so we make a point of getting a number of "little gifts" for each other, in addition to the more extravagant ones that always seem to pop up under  the tree as well. T-minus four days and counting...  I bet I sleep  better on Christmas Eve this year than I did as a kid. Man, the memories of those endless nights of tossing and turning and praying for the clock to move are as fresh as if they happened yesterday.

Christmas will be here soon, there's no getting around that, but I do have some work to do this week, even above and beyond blog writing. I  actually have a press release to get out today, odd as that may seem.  I normally wouldn't have a lot to write about on December 21, but for the last couple of weeks I've been talking with Dan "Dozer" Hough, the man who carries the torch as the unofficial leader of the amorphous yet widespread group of loyal backers who consider themselves "Wilk's  Warriors."  I've said this before, but it bears repeating: When  people ask me how they can become one of Wilk's Warriors, I tell them they already are. You just have to feel that way.

Above and beyond the loyalty and interest, however, there are times when a large number of Wilk fans actually gather to share their common interest. One of those places is the St. Louis race, of course, and if you're ever there all you have to do is look for the large gaggle of fanatics along the fence, well down-track. They'll welcome you with open arms.

In addition to the 2010 St. Louis race, though, you'll have another opportunity to mix, mingle, and enjoy the company of other Wilk fans, when the Warriors host another reception for our fearless leader, on January 9 in Springfield. That's what the press release will be  about, but here's your tip-off in advance: Saturday, January 9th.  6:00 p.m. Northfield Inn, on the northeast side of Springfield, Ill.  (basically the corner of Dirksen and Sangamon). Finger food, cash bar, and a live band! Come one, come all, and feel free to bring the  kids...  Neighbor Dave and I are currently in the process of putting  together a lengthy slide show and video-highlight DVD, and we'll be showing that in the banquet room as well.

Seriously, if you're in the middle of the country, and want to come to Springfield to have a night of fun, just call the Northfield Inn (217-523-7900) to tell them you're attending, and they'll give you a  great rate ($69 plus tax, which is well below the normal rate).  There's no charge to attend the reception, and a fun time is all but guaranteed. Okay, I guarantee you'll have fun. If not, we'll refund the price of your free admission! LOL... It's going to be a very informal affair, and with the January date we'll position it as not just a look back on a great 2009, but also a kick-off and look forward to a FANTASTIC 2010.

Now, on to a variety of other small and unrelated topics. First of  all, here's your latest update on the top portion of the hockey pool.  I didn't feel the need to show all 40 players (trust me, Ron Douglas is still firmly in control of last place) but I thought it was worth noting that I'm now tied for 12th, with my former teammate and all- time good buddy Matt Madden, but we can both feel the heat as Dale Armstrong stalks us from behind. When I looked at the standings this morning, it just hit me like the proverbial 2,000 pounds of bricks that DALE ARMSTRONG is right behind me in the hockey pool. Imagine that. That's kinda neat, and for a guy like me that's a bit like seeing the name Tommy Lasorda or Joe Torre right behind me in the rankings.

Oh, and that huge 15-point lead Neighbor Dave was sporting just a few  blogs ago...?  He's now in a tie with Greg Ozubko. The league is in  flux, I tell ya...

Speaking of Dave, much of today's photo gallery will be devoted to his work yesterday. I noticed at the end of last week that he had made his first foray out onto the pond, on foot with a shovel. This weekend, he rolled out there on the 4-wheeler, and we now have a hockey rink. If you think this is the sort of thing you decide to do at noon, and have done by 2:30, you are incorrect, especially on Day One when the whole thing has to be carved out of nothing. He hit a perfect shape this time, which isn't that easy to do when you're down there with no perspective, and after much plowing and then hand scraping throughout the day, I looked out there last night, peering into the darkness, and there he was with the hose, flooding the rink foot-by-foot and yard-by-yard. And that process is more complicated than you'd think. You have to continually keep moving, because if you let the water run on one spot for long, it will make a dent in the ice. The object is to get a nice even coating of water out there, to form a smooth surface. Good work, neighbor!

While Dave was out there flooding, I was inside cringing as the Vikings laid another huge egg on Sunday Night Football. That's two awful games in three weeks, and both on Sunday night. Apparently they don't know how to spend a long day on Sunday and then play under the lights, because that was just terrible. Ouch.

The Timberwolves were in Boston (how they, the Celtics, and the fans managed to get to the arena in that massive blizzard is beyond me, and as it turned out one of the referees didn't make it, so they played one ref short) and our local guys were pretty much creamed by the Celtics last night. Funny on-line comment this morning, though, from local sports radio guy Dan Barreiro, who said: "Who would've thought the Wolves, playing the Celtics, would be only the second-most overmatched Minnesota sports team in action on Sunday night?" True that.

As for the humongous blizzard that dumped massive amounts of the white stuff all up the east coast, I've been getting photo updates from blog reader Pat W., who lives in the Mid-Atlantic region and was inundated with so much snow it's hard to fathom. Wait 'til you check out the shot he took of his back porch, in the gallery below...

Regarding the Wolves, however, I have to give them major props. Huge major props. Gigantic props. On Friday night, the team hosted a group of the car buyers who all got the free season tickets, so we were, of course, part of that gathering. We weren't really sure what it was going to be like, but let me give this basketball team one more badge of honor. We gathered in a wonderful reception room on the suite level, were treated to a terrific dinner (lasagna, chicken, salad, all great) and got to meet some other fans who were lucky enough to be in this program, and then were saluted by team President  David Kahn, the man who was brought in to turn this franchise around.  He spoke to all of us (I'd say there were 50 or 60 in attendance) for a while, then answered questions for as long as we could come up with them. He was gracious, appreciative, blunt, and very honest. The room was full of Timberwolves reps, who all circulated and made us feel like a million dollars, and Mr. Kahn could only say he hoped the team would play hard that night, but it's impossible to say they'll win, or even be close.

Well, they play hard almost all the time, but on Friday they turned it into their best performance of the year. For the first and only time this season, they got a lead and then simply expanded it as the game went along, finally beating the Sacramento Kings 112-96 in a rousing, fist-pumping, get up out of your seat and scream game. We had a great time. Now, the Wolves are 5-23, baby. Nowhere to go but up!

When we were at LRS last week, my web services colleague, Andy, mentioned that we'd actually had a heck of a year in terms of traffic at our website. To prove that point, he mentioned that our site is currently popping up third on the list if you do a Google search for the generic term "Funny Car Racing." Only the Wikipedia explanation of what Funny Car racing is, and then John Force's site, come out ahead of us. Now that's pretty cool!

While I was looking around on Google, I started clicking through a bunch of Funny Car photos there, and instantly found a famous shot of one of the more memorable "boomers" from my days with Del and the CSK gang. It was the car we called "Big Red" because we'd blown up so many of the standard CSK-painted cars we needed to recycle the old red Jurassic Park car into a new all-red CSK look, and then we banged her  up pretty good at the starting line at Maple Grove. Kablooey!!!  Never forget that one...

I also had another old CSK-era memory pop up today, when I got a nice note from reader Tim L., who is a racer himself and who got a chuckle out of my recent line about the shift of the Denver race to the end of the Western Swing. Bandimere is Tim's home track, and he mentioned how much of a challenge it is to race there in the middle of the summer, when the late afternoon thunderstorms make their daily appearance. That reminded me of 2003...

On Friday, that year, the two CSK cars ended the first qualifying session in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, with Johnny Gray and the blue team grabbing the top position while Del was right behind them. As the two top cars, we then were positioned as the last pair to run on Friday night, so we watched pair after pair go down the track, while the lightning glowed in the distance, the thunder reverberated, and the clouds rumbled over the mountain. Finally, just as our two cars pulled out from under the Bandimere tower, the storm arrived. The first lightning strike knocked out a transformer, so that put everything on hold, and then the rains came. Bottom line, our two cars were the only two that didn't get to run that night. That's what you get for being No. 1 and 2. We ended the night in 5th and 7th (I looked it up), so it wasn't the end of the world, but it was still an odd moment...

Well this was a wonderful surprise! The doorbell just rang and it was a delivery man bringing us the most beautiful Christmas floral arrangement, from Chris and Sheila Cunningham! Gorgeous, and so  thoughtful from two terrific people.  The whole house feels just a  bit more festive now.

Hey, here's an important update. Lately, I've been receiving notes from blog readers and friends, all of whom have been getting wonderful, warm, very personalized, and hand-written cards from Adam Vincent, our friend in Hawaii who continues to fight the good fight against a difficult enemy. Many of you probably weren't even around this blog when we all reached out to help Adam and his family keep their home while he battled his cancer, but he has never forgotten a single one of you who sent money and support, when Adam, Francine, and the family were just days away from being evicted. The memory of how so many of you stepped up to help a family you did not know, and likely will never meet, still gives me chills. Greatest moment in the history of this blog? I'd have to say so.

Well... Guess that's about enough for today, and ending on the Adam Vincent theme is always a good thing. Have a good week, gang. I'll be back before Christmas!

Wilber, out!

Despite the fact I was out of practice when it came to business travel, I was able to efficiently pack everything I needed into one small roller bag and my briefcase, and it was off to the airport at
2:15 on Tuesday afternoon. To be honest, I packed everything I needed in one of Barb's small roller bags, because try as I might I couldn't get the three big binders, the short stack of "Year In Review" books, a change of clothes, and my shaving kit in either of my little carry- on bags, but hers is just slightly bigger and that did the trick. The goal was to not have to check a bag, for two reasons, neither of which included the wait at baggage claim in Peoria (because it's pretty quick in such a small airport getting off such a small plane). I just didn't want to risk getting down there and then not having the "show & tell" stuff (hard to believe any airline could lose a bag on a non- stop flight to Peoria, but we are dealing with a Delta world now and they managed to lose one of my bags last year, on a non-stop flight) and if I had to check a bag going down, I'd also probably have to check it coming back. MSP's baggage claim system can be timed with a calendar, rather than a stopwatch, and it's the most frustrating when you're eager to get home at the end of a trip. Nothing quite like cooling your heels for 40 minutes in the bowels of MSP's lower level, knowing your car is right outside the doors on the fifth level of the parking facility, and home is but a 20-minute drive away...

So, the roller bag, the briefcase, and I headed straight for the gate through the double-secret back entrance security area at MSP, with my already-printed boarding pass in hand, and once I worked my way all the way out to the little B Concourse (little concourse, little miniature gates, and little planes all go together) I immediately spotted Annette, who had been at the airport since well before I left home. I completely understand that, because when you're driving a decent distance to the airport (she and Rich live in Janesville, Minn., down in the southern part of the state) each mile you drive exponentially adds to the odds there might be some sort of delay. So, you plan to get there early and then relax if traffic is good and there are no foul-ups. I'd do it exactly the same way if in the same situation.

We both had our boarding passes and we each had picked a specific seat on the little Saab turbo-prop, but therein lies the rub when flying in  a cramped little cylinder driven by the same spinning mode of
propulsion used by Orville and Wilbur Wright. As the agent called us to board, we each had to stop at his desk to get a different boarding pass, with a different seat assignment. Why? Because the plane is so small they have to move people around to make sure the weight distribution is correct. Ergo, despite reserving seat 2-A, I ended up in the back of the plane. I guess they needed my mass back there by the tail, and I'm a team player, so no problem. It's not like I lost a seat in First Class or anything...

And, since the miniature overhead bins can barely hold a briefcase and a winter coat, you then leave your carry-on bags on the jetway, although they do make the effort to have them waiting for you next to
the stairs when you get off at the other end. Once we got off the plane, and I could stand up straight again, we hopped in our rental car and made our way south, about 75 miles, to the capital city in the Land of Lincoln... Springfield!

As soon as we checked-in at the hotel, Tim and Krista pulled up out front and off we went to dinner at Outback (but not before Krista handed each of us a wonderfully sweet Christmas gift bag!) Dinner was great, the conversation was wonderful, and the customers at the table next to us were a sight to behold. My guess is that they were an aspiring rock band of the sort that covers themselves in tattoos, pierces everything visible (and no doubt some places we couldn't see), and paints their faces white to highlight permanent black eyeliner and black lips. Marilyn Manson wannabes to the max. And, one of them was
just this side of Jabba The Hut when it came to circumference.

Basically, they were about as bizarre a sight as you'd ever expect to see in Springfield, but the whole thing was made more comical by the fact they were all sitting at a round table in the middle of the room, calmly and politely chatting while eating their steaks and salads, just like we were... Must've been a business meeting to discuss their plans to attain stardom. Best of luck with that! I hear the whole Marilyn Manson thing is still going strong. Somewhere.

After that, Annette and I went back to our rooms, got as much sleep as we could, and headed over to pick up Tim at the shop at 8:30 in the morning. The funny part about that was how frozen and cold all the locals were, and when I looked out of my hotel room I could see lots of cars being warmed up in the parking lot, with clouds of exhaust steam pouring from them. That had me convinced it had to be frigid out there, so we headed out the door, braced for the impact, and then both looked at each other and laughed. I said "Oh for cryin' out loud, it's got to be in the teens here!" It was 16, at the time, and that felt just fine to us.

We headed over to LRS, met up with Shannon, Shelley, Ryan, and Andy in the conference room, and got to work, plowing quickly through the two- page agenda of marketing, PR, and management topics I had brought with me, then shifting over to Annette for a hospitality update, wrap-up, and look forward. For the record, Shannon is in charge of LRS corporate marketing, and considering the enormity and scope of her job  the Funny Car program is but a small slice of her responsibilities. Ryan has been the day-to-day guy who works with Annette to make the hospitality program work seamlessly, but he's having to take on some new responsibilities this year, so Shelly will be digging in to be a part of the program in 2010. Andy is my main man in the LRS Web Services division, so he and I work together often on website updates and additions. Great people to work with, and even better people to know. We make a very good team.

Our meeting was productive, quick, and enjoyable and was made even better when Dick Levi managed to drop by for a few minutes to say hello and wish us all well.

All in all, a couple of hours well spent and a trip very much worthwhile.

We packed up, said our goodbyes, and let the LRS team get back to important work, and then our first stop, after leaving LRS headquarters, was the Shell station down the street. As you may know, Tim made his original mark on the Springfield landscape by building up a small empire of filling stations, and this particular Shell station used to be one of them. When he got out of the gasoline business and opened Wilkerson Service Center, the buyer of this Shell station (on Monroe) made it part of the deal that he could leave Tim's last name on the door. The buyer must have known he was dealing with a guy who was going to become a local hero! I couldn't resist taking a pic of  the door while Tim was inside.

As we drove back to the shop, Tim filled us in on the whole retail gasoline business, enlightening me enormously as to how it all works and how hard it is to make money on such razor-thin margins. It was a bit surprising to me, but it's pretty obvious that of all the links in the supply chain that brings the oil out of the ground, refines it into fuel, gets it to the storage depots, and then moves it into the tanks under the pumps at your local station, it's the final link, the station owner, who works the hardest and earns the least. And yet he's the guy who hears the complaints from customers about how much the gas costs. All the while, the drillers, refiners, and transport guys are making fists full of dough, and the gas station guy is hoping he might make a penny a gallon from your purchase. No wonder Tim got out of the business... Now you know why almost every gas station is now a mini-mart of some sort, as well. They actually make a profit off those doughnuts, hot dogs, candy bars, and Diet Cokes we buy, and that can be the difference between staying in business and closing the doors.

We then spent some time at the shop, where Jeff, Brandon, and Nick were all extremely busy doing all the off-season work. Pretty cool to see brand new never-been-used blocks and cylinder heads being prepped, let me tell ya! Our two '09 Shelby Mustang bodies were there, and it sounds like we'll at least have to start the season with them. Ford has developed a new 2010 body for all of us "blue oval" FC racers, but production hit a few snags last year and now our new ones are just beginning the mounting process at Murf McKinney's. As fast as Murf and his guys can work, it's still going to be January before we have them, and at that point they'll still need more work at our shop before they even go across town to be painted and have graphics applied to them. With Pomona and Phoenix now back-to-back, any midwestern team is going to have to "run what they brung" at both of those races, because there won't be time to get back to the shop between events. Unless things go perfectly smooth and extremely fast, expect our new 2010 Shelby Mustang to make its debut in Gainesville. Same design, same paint, some scheme, but new carbon fiber and a few new aerodynamic tweaks. It's good to have the power of the Ford Motor Company behind us!

Then... (Drum roll please...) Krista stopped in, we went to lunch, and I was officially baptized into the world of the "horse shoe" in Springfield. The horse shoe is not a place, it's a dish, and it's a Springfield highlight you can find at a number of restaurants. Frankly, I had never heard of it until I joined Team Wilk, and a full year got by me before I had the opportunity to witness and participate in this local delicacy. Let me explain...

Take a couple of slices of bread and put them on a plate. Pile on top a heaping mound of your favorite meat, whether it be ground beef, Italian beef, pork, or even chicken. Cover that with ladles full of melted cheese (the sort of stuff you get with your ballpark nachos) and then, add the crowning touch. Are you ready for this? Top it all with a super-sized order of french fries, piled so deep the rest of the food is invisible below the mountain of crinkle-cut spuds. How's that for health food!!!!

We ate at a great place just down the road from the shop, and it was really fun to be there and see the full-house of lunch diners (most of whom were digging into their own horse shoes) all recognize Tim and
either wave or come by to say hi. There's really a lot to be said for local charm, locally owned establishments, and that whole sense of community that comes from these places, as opposed to the "What city is this again?" ambience of the standard national "TGI-Applebee's or maybe this is a Chili's if it's not a Ruby Tuesday" cookie-cutter joints.

As for me and my horse shoe initiation... I tried. Tim cleaned his plate until it looked like it just came out of the washer, but I hit a wall about 70 percent of the way through my horse shoe and I therefore failed in my first attempt to conquer the beast. Wow. I may not eat for a week... I gave it my best effort, but sometimes you come up short.

After that, despite the fact I could've laid down anywhere and taken about a six-hour nap, Annette and I had to drive back up to Peoria to catch another little Saab turbo-prop home...

Just as we were pulling out of Springfield on I-55 (the old double- nickel, come on) my phone rang and the words "Del Worsham" appeared on the iPhone screen, super-imposed over a picture of Del I took right after I got the phone, which I then tagged onto his number. I hadn't talked to guy since the NHRA Awards Ceremony, I think, so he was calling to catch up with me and to fill me in on his world travels as of late. He and Connie just got back from long trip that took them to Qatar, London, and Paris, so he had plenty of tales to tell and things to rave about, but I think the most amazing thing he said was that the service on Qatar Airways was so spectacular, and the plane was so comfortable, that even after a 17-hour flight from Houston to Doha, he didn't want to get off the aircraft! He said it was as relaxing and luxurious as an ocean cruise, and he was actually a little sad when  they finally touched down. All in all, they had a great time, learned a lot about different countries and different cultures, and they really enjoyed the entire experience. And, he said, the race track in Qatar is nothing short of first-class. It was great to talk to him and hear all about it...

Annette and I then returned the rental car at the Peoria airport, which is not quite like returning one at DFW or LAX. You just find an empty spot with a Hertz sign next to it, in the small parking area right across the road from the terminal, and then take your keys inside to get your receipt. No long lines of cars being returned, no yellow-clad Hertz employees printing receipts from the little holster attached to their belts, and (thankfully) no rattling shuttle bus to drive you 15 minutes to Terminal A, or Terminal 3, or Terminal whatever. We parked the car, walked in, got my receipt, checked in for the flight, got through security, and arrived at our gate (Gate 1... of six) all in a span of, perhaps, seven minutes.

During the ride, Annette and I were wondering if the TSA scanner person would be able to recognize the new LRS die-cast car I was bringing home with me, in the little roller bag. Sure enough, the guy behind the screen said "What kind of race car is that?" as he looked at the image, and after I told him it was a Funny Car he said, and I quote "Is that Force guy still racing? Is it John Force? Man that guy sure used to talk a lot on TV and I never did understand a word he said..." I had to tell him that nothing has changed.

So, the screeners did recognize the odd shape of a 24th-scale die-cast Funny Car, but the lady next to the "Is that Force guy still racing?"  TSA agent couldn't figure out something else, in my brief case. After running it again, then taking it all apart, then running the contents individually, she finally figured out the bizarre and never-before- seen item I was attempting to take with me on the plane. Yes, my phone charger. Never seen one of those before, eh?

After on one-hour and twenty minute flight, during which I played dozens of games of solitaire on the iPhone (and finally won two as we were on final approach) while listening to two full albums by Disturbed ("Indestructible" and "Ten Thousand Fists") we landed, deplaned, and each headed our own way; me to the parking ramp to get in my car to drive home, and Annette to the curb, to wait for Rich to pick her up and head back down to Janesville.

All in all, a great trip to Springfield. And have now checked the box next to the line item "horse shoe." Perhaps permanently.

Wilber, out!
 

So, as I finished up my Year In Review book the other day, I decided to add one final page at the end. Since all the other sections begin with the title "A Look Back..." I figured it would be appropriate to have the last page say "A Look Forward..." and include next year's schedule on there (or "sked" if you're into slang headlines like the tabloids).

Well son-of-a-gun, until you type it up and print it out, it doesn't really sink in. Of course, we'd already heard about the reschedule (re-sked?) of Phoenix so that it's now back-to-back with Pomona, but I had conveniently put that out of my mind, too. Looking at this thing, I had the first pangs of "Holy cow, I need to start booking flights" after I realized what a short week that's going to be, between the Winternationals on Feb. 11-14 and the trip right back out to the lower left-hand corner of the country, for the race at Firebird on Feb. 19-21. That's a couple of long flights to endure just a few days apart. We then get back to normal by going to Gainesville, but the first Charlotte race is added in after that, so Houston and Las Vegas will be a bit later than they were last year.

What I also hadn't noticed is that Bristol has been moved to the middle of June. We now go from Vegas to St. Louis (from The Stratosphere to the Gateway Arch!) and then Atlanta, Topeka, Chicago, and Englishtown before we end up in Bristol on June 18-20, just before Norwalk. That's gonna be a little weird, but putting some separation between Atlanta and Bristol is probably a good thing. The crowds in Atlanta have been mammoth the last couple of years, but its geographic footprint probably eats up a few ticket buyers from Bristol.

The next weird thing is going to be heading out to Seattle after the Norwalk race is over. That's really going to feel like we're skipping a step, because everyone is used to starting the "Swing" in Denver. If moving the Bandimere race back just a couple of weeks gives us even a 2.9 percent chance of having a little less thunder, lightning, and rain in the late afternoon, it's worth a shot. We're probably dreaming, but it's worth a shot.

After that, the most noticeable things are the complete lack of trips to Richmond and Memphis (two places that generally pop into my head with visions of bad weather attached to the memories) and the shift of the Reading race to early October. Needless to say, visions of Maple Grove always include bad weather, and despite the fact we've moved this race around a lot over the years, forward, backward, and sideways, we can never seem to escape the wet stuff. Here's hoping we get lucky with the Oct. 7-10 date ... Fingers crossed already!

We will be back in Vegas for Halloween again, which just adds even a little more lunacy to the trip. And then, finally, back to Pomona to crown the champions in the middle of November. My gosh, it's still 2009 and I'm already thinking about how the 2010 season will end...

So, let's wrap up '09 (and put a bow on it) and get to work. I know I'm "out of practice" when it comes to travel, but that will be addressed tomorrow afternoon and evening, when Annette and I get on the little Saab prop and fly to Peoria, then make the short rental car drive to Springfield. At least I hope we will be, since I just looked at the seat map for the aircraft and there are all of 14 people currently booked on our flight. One hopes the half-full nature of the airplane doesn't coincidentally end up abetting a cancellation. Our flight is at 3:55 tomorrow, but with such a small load on the plane I think I'll aim to arrive at MSP around 2:30.

The plan is to meet Tim and Krista for dinner (Outback here we come!) then have our 9:00 a.m. meeting with LRS on Wednesday morning, followed by lunch and a swing by the shop, before we head back to Peoria to catch our 6:00 p.m. flight. I have checked the weather for central Illinois, and while it's going to be a bit brisk, there's no heavy weather in the forecast, so here's hoping it stays that way.

It's about 8 degrees here, right now, and I still have the rosy cheeks to prove I was out shoveling, scraping, and socializing this morning. Much to my surprise, we got about three inches of snow last night. I'd heard the forecasters talking about flurries, but a small band of heavier snow swung right through here and got us. According to Dave, the band was so narrow it didn't even snow in Minneapolis, but when I awoke we had a nice new fluffy coating of white on everything. So... To the driveway!!!

As I opened the garage door, and took a quick pic of the project before me, still as of yet untouched, I heard Dave out on his drive, getting after it next door. It was just deep enough to make the big 48-inch mega-scraper a bit unwieldy, but I was in no mood to do the old back-breaking "shoveling" deal with the deep scoop, so I divided the whole driveway up into sections. That way, I was never too far from an edge and could push it all to either side pretty easily.

Once we were both done scraping, Dave got on the 4-wheeler and cleared the curb where the city plows had created a nice wall, and badda boom, badda bing, we were done. Funny, I never really felt cold at all except for the rosy cheeks, and all I had on was a light jacket and a sweatshirt (well, gloves and a hat too, but that kind of goes without saying). Eight degrees out there, and I was so hot I needed to change T-shirts... Anyone who heads for the slopes to ski knows how that works. It doesn't take much physical effort to stay warm, even in single digits.

To the extreme, however, I got a note from regular reader Maureen R., who attached some photos she received from her brother-in-law and his family, who live in Port Carling, Ontario. They got 5 feet of snow in two days! That's one of those deals where you have to shovel and plow your way out of your house, because the drifts can be so deep they go right up to the roof line! Port Carling must be in an absolutely gorgeous area, a couple of hours north of Toronto and right by Georgian Bay, which is basically part of Lake Huron but big enough to almost be a Great Lake in its own right. Another few hours north, and you come to Sudbury, an Ontario town that has produced a large number of NHL players, including the Minnesota Wild's Andrew Brunette, who used to be a neighbor of ours here in Woodbury (from Sudbury to Woodbury!). Andrew went off to play for the Colorado Avalanche for a while, and when he came back to the Wild he, amazingly, didn't attempt to buy his old house back. Can't believe that. I think we should take it personally...

So how's everybody's shopping coming along? I'm almost done, I think, but I do have a couple additional ideas for Barbara and I plan to get that all completed before the end of the week. What we both need to do is get started on the wrapping, because we still have zero presents under the tree. Lots of stuff hidden in closets, but nothing under the tree...

Well... I know this is a short one, but I'm really hungry. Guess I need to wrap this up and get some chow. Then, I'll start thinking about whether or not I can squeeze everything into one carry-on bag for tomorrow's trip, or if I'll have to check a bag.

With this trip to LRS landing in the middle of the week, I doubt I'll be able to keep up with my Monday/Wednesday/Friday routine, but I'll be back here as soon as possible, hopefully with pics from Springfield. Until then...

Wilber, out!

I shall commence the blogging with an update on our NHRA hockey pool, seen here. Despite a poor day on Thursday (the column headed by the letter Y is your total score from the day before, which is also known as "Yesterday"), Neighbor Dave continues to hold onto the top spot, now with a large 15-point lead over Greg Ozubko, who is followed closely by Rob Flynn. More on Ozubko in a bit...

If you look down to the No. 12 spot, you'll see I am now (as of this morning) officially known as Geddy Wilber. There's a reason for that, but it shall also follow shortly.

Notables to spot include that Canuck hoser Jeff Arend (eh) in 7th, with Bob Vandergriff right on his tail, and how about the husband and wife duo of Sheila and Chris Cunningham in 9th and 10th! They swear they didn't cheat and peek at each other's picks. Yeah, right. Susie Worsham's technique of selecting only the cutest guys for her team is working out better this year, and Dan Hood is hanging in there as well, no doubt cheered on by his wife, a certain Ashley from the Force family. With Jimmy Prock right behind him, Dean Antonelli way back, and Ron Douglas (the pride of Highland, Illinois - Go Bulldogs!) firmly holding down the 40th and final spot, you might think young Mr. Hood leads the Force contingent, but that's not so. My boy Matt Madden, who is in 11th place, is a JFR crew member. For the record, Ron Douglas' fatal flaw was allowing his heart to overrule his head, by picking a bunch of St. Louis Blues (obviously his favorite team). You need to check your actual team allegiance at the door, if you want to win in this league.

Okay, back to Ozubko... He sent along a photo the other day, which is prominently displayed as the first pic in today's gallery, down below. Greg recently got married to the lovelyJami Butterfield, so his 88-year-old mother was there for the ceremony, and she joined him and a couple of his hockey-playing friends for a quick photo after they came off the ice at their local rink down in Georgia (Greg, who is on the left, is a goalie - and yes, they do play hockey in Georgia). Quick: Who can name the other two guys in the photo? Answer at the very bottom...

Greg is also, of course, involved in the new Geddy Wilber appellation on the hockey pool rankings, since he's the pool administrator and has exclusive access to change names. The name Geddy is, as I'm sure you know, a direct Rush reference (to lead singer and bass player, Geddy Lee) and my new name is connected to the fact Mr. Ozubko sent me his hockey photo in reply to a note I had just sent out, to a bunch of my hockey buddies, about Rush drummer Neil Peart. Neil, it turns out, just recently recorded a new version of "The Hockey Theme" for sports network TSN in Canada. "The Hockey Theme" is played on TSN hockey broadcasts, so this is a pretty big deal to have a drummer like Neil Peart do a new version of it.

I sent along a TSN video, shot in the studio, because Neil was not only wearing a hockey jersey when he recorded the song, he also had his traditional drumming hat on, but this one featured the logos of the "Original Six" NHL teams (quick, who can name the "Original Six?") and he is playing on a new custom drum kit, created for him by DW and featuring the logos of all 30 current NHL teams. If you want to check it out, go here: http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=301709.

Onto different subjects... My wife (who got to be part of ringing the closing bell at NASDAQ on Wednesday) finally got home from New York last night, a day later than planned due to the big storm. That 24-hour delay was more than just an inconvenience because it put her, quite literally, in the line of fire.

If you didn't hear the news, an unlicensed street vendor who was hawking his stuff on the sidewalk in front of the Marriott in Times Square, was approached by NYC police, and he reportedly fled when they asked for his vending license. According to newspaper reports, he then stopped, turned, and pulled a gun, aiming it at the officers. According to my own first-hand reports, direct from my wife Barbara who was waiting in line to get in a taxi while standing in front of the same Marriott, it went something like "Pop... Pop... Pop-Pop-Pop" and then the street vendor staggered under the hotel portico and collapsed. She was no more than 20 yards away.

Lots of people were panicking, although she also said that it was uniquely New York-like in the way the people reacted. Some ran, some screamed, some just acted as if nothing had happened, but her immediate thought, as hoards of police officers descended on the scene from all directions (including a group on horseback, at full gallop!) was the far more practical, "If I don't get out of here and into a cab, they're going to shut this whole area down, and I'll never get to the airport."

She walked to the head of the taxi line and asked the nattily-attired valet guy, "Where can I go to get in a cab, right now?" and he said "Come with me." He took her across the street and a whole block away where he flagged a cab for her, sending her on her way to LaGuardia. Now that's actually pretty impressive, and the tip she gave him was commensurate with his effort.

After I got all this news from Barbara, I sent out a note to my brother and sister, with a link to a New York newspaper's immediate online report of the shooting, and instantly got a note back from my brother, Del. He wrote, "I was there too, not more than 20 yards away from it." Amazing. My wife and my brother had to have been no more than a couple of feet apart from each other when the whole sordid thing went down. As I wrote to Del: "Small world! In this case, far too small." Wow...

All's well now, though (not for the street vendor with no license, who thought pulling a gun on a New York City cop was a good idea), Barb is home (actually at work) and that drama is yet another story for us to tell (I just did). There's a full day's supply of parentheses in one sentence.

When we got up this morning, we looked out onto the sun-drenched frozen pond and saw not only a whole bunch of tracks, but also a new string of very odd bumps. It seems like every year there's something new going on with the pond that I've never seen before. The bumps are so big, at first I thought they were human footprints, but then I realized they would've had to have been made by a one-legged guy hopping across the pond, because they're all lined up in a single-file row that meanders all along the edge of the pond.

It took me a while, but I finally figured out what's going on, although I still don't know exactly why it's happening. It looks like a rabbit originally hopped across the pond, right after the snow quit the other day, and since then all of his footprints have morphed into these larger blobs that project up from the surface like inverted plaster-of-Paris castings. How did I put two and two together to figure that out? The process is still on-going, with the latest set of prints, heading off in a new direction. As the photo in the gallery shows, each print eventually turns into a bump. Very strange...

Well... I gotta get to Kinko's (FedEx Office) and then to the watch-repair place. It's warming up today. I think it's all the way up to 3 whole degrees right now. At least that's above zero! Oh, and special thanks to blog reader Mike S., on the island of Maui, who sent me this note today: "Bob. The weather here on Maui has been terrible. The last few nights have seen early morning dips into the high 60s. I have to wear my fleece-lined Croks until 8:00 a.m., but I can still wear shorts." Thanks, Mike. Thanks a lot.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Oh, and here's the answers to the questions up above...

Standing with Greg Ozubko are a couple of his hockey buddies. That's former NHL first-round pick and 13-year veteran Scott Pearson in the middle and former Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Tom Glavine on the right. As for naming "The Original Six" franchises in the NHL, that would be the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Boston Bruins, the New York Rangers, the Chicago Blackhawks, and the Detroit Red Wings. They were the only teams in the league for about 25 years, until the first NHL expansion in 1967. They all actually date from the mid-1920s or earlier, but a number of other early teams failed to survive The Great Depression and World War II, leaving "The Original Six" to play it out by themselves from 1942 to 1967. Quick, name the six 1967 expansion teams for extra bonus points... tick-tock-tick-tock... That would be the St. Louis Blues, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Minnesota North Stars, the Los Angeles Kings, and the never-to-be-forgotten California Seals. Pat yourself on the back if you got all of that right.

Wilber, out!

Heck, Annette and Rich just live about an hour south, and I know it hit them harder down there in Janesville, Minn. For the 24 hours leading up to the storm's arrival, we were hearing that the Twin Cities would be just on the edge of it, and we might get as little as two inches of snow, or as much as six. Frankly, I don't know how much we got because the snow hasn't been the big issue. It's the wind that's been the major problem, and it's been whipping non-stop since late yesterday afternoon. It's blowing so hard, I can still see the tops of grass blades in some parts of the yard, where the wind has blown the snow away, but it's piled up 18-inches deep in other parts, in beautiful artistic drifts.

It started just after noon yesterday, as I took Barbara to the airport to drop her off for what was supposed to be a quick 24-hour trip to New York. At that point, the temps were dropping and the snow was just starting to accumulate, but the highways remained clear. Still, Barb had the foresight to pack for two days, instead of one, and sure enough she has now already rebooked her flight, opting to wait it out and come home tomorrow afternoon. She just didn't even want to deal with the stress of trying to fly home on a day like this, out of LaGuardia. Flying home out of LaGuardia on a crystal-clear beautiful spring day can be stressful enough, but mix winter weather into the deal and it can be horrible. I told her to relax, have fun in Manhattan, and we'll see her tomorrow.

Funny thing, and totally coincidental, was the Facebook posting made by Phil Burgess last night. They just got quite a bit of snow in the mountains that tower over Pomona, and he took a photo of that while driving down one of the So Cal freeways. It's obviously a typical warm and sunny So Cal day in the shot, just with a nice crown of snow in the mountains, but he wrote "It's all snowy here in sunny SoCal" on the Facebook post. Believe me, I was just one of many who responded to that photo and that outlandish statement. You want snowy? You can't handle snowy!!!

Ace professional drag racing photographer, and all-around good guy, Dave Kommel says "Snow is something you should go to. It's not something that should come to you..." Now THAT'S a Southern Californian way to look at snow... LOL.

Anyway, it was just me and Da Boyce here last night, watching it come down and listening to the cold wind howl like some sort of distressed or ghostly animal. I put the porch lights on out front, and the big spotlights on out back, and both Boofus and Buster were mesmerized by all the flying flakes. Kept 'em entertained for hours, I tell ya.

We finally went to bed around 11:00, and I'm not sure how many times I woke up last night (with both of them snuggled-up and tucked under the comforter!) but each and every time I could hear the screaming blizzard wind and the incessant music of the wind chime we have out by the hot tub. From our master bedroom, that's two levels down but it sounded like it was right outside the window. I should've thought of that before the storm started...

One pleasant and much-appreciated sight to behold this morning was a startling lack of snow on my driveway. Dave's son, Justin, accepted an offer from our friend Mary Beth, to come plow her driveway before she went to work early this morning, so when he was done with that he and Dave cleared theirs as well, with the 4-wheeler. While they were at it, they came over and took care of mine. Here's to great neighbors!!!

The white stuff is still blowing around, and I have been out there once already to scrape off the drifts, but it's a piece of cake after they did the heavy lifting.

Now, as the storm moves out and the skies begin to clear, the bottom is going to drop out of the temperature and we're headed for a few very cold nights. I was still thinking in terms of a sublime hot tub session or three, so I went out back and carved a path from the door to the tub. At that point, I realized the wind chime wasn't the only thing I forget about, as I also forget to move the big wooden furniture off the patio... Oh well...

Another interesting piece of storm trivia is how much we got on the porch! I've never seen this much snow accumulated inside the screened porch, but this storm arrived with tiny little crystalline snowflakes and this big wind, so it was nothing for it to blow right through the screens. I did have the foresight to bring all the cushions in from out there, but everything else is covered. Both of the boyz thought that was pretty cool (pun intended) at least for a little bit. They walked around, sniffed the snow, played in it for a while, and then came flying back in at 246 mph...

One of my emails today was from longtime reader Jon B., out in Hinsdale, Mont. He, like a number of other people in colder locations than mine, did a screen shot of his local on-line weather (just like I did in my earlier blog) to show me that it was -23 there, this morning. Then, he attached a great photo of his two cats, Spyke and Schnookie, both doing just what Boofus likes to do, playing with the water coming out of the faucet in the sink. And you thought cats didn't like water... Ha!

Jon's funniest line, used to describe Schnookie, was "The only high thing she hasn't been on is the ceiling..." She's still a kitten (a year old) so that doesn't surprise me.

Hey, do any of you remember the legendary and hilarious "Scooter" out in Phoenix? He appointed himself as my assistant and valet a few years back, and still drops me notes from time to time. He works at the Phoenix Coyotes' home arena, and was therefore at the Coyotes/Wild game the other night, so I'll post the cool photo he took, just for me, in the gallery. He was up on the arena catwalk, directly over the ice, and snapped a shot right when they dropped the puck to start the game.

Also got a couple of great photos today, from Richard S., who works for DHL and is currently on a work assignment in the Philippines. One of the photos, which he called "a shot of a shot," was taken by his wife, of a guy taking my photo while I'm standing with another longtime loyal blog reader, Terry M., who lives in the great state of Washington and always brings a home-made sign to the races, upon which he collects autographs. This blog world is all intertwined, obviously. We just saw Terry in Las Vegas, and you might recall the photo of him and me taken there, with his latest autograph-laden sign. Richard's "shot of a shot" is from a couple of years ago, hence my CSK shirt...

Since Richard was kind enough to send me that shot, along with one of his wife and me, I'll post both of them. She obviously got the grand majority of all the good looks in that shot, but I'm impressed how clean and bright my CSK crew shirt is in the photo! Good work, Woodbury Cleaners.

Okay, what else...?

Hopefully, the traveling Wilkersons all got where they are supposed to be, today. Krista and Rachel were scheduled to fly out of St. Louis for a quick and fun trip out to Disneyland, in So Cal. At the same time, Tim was going to catch a flight out of STL to head off to the PRI show in Orlando. I don't think the brunt of the storm got as far south as St. Louis, but it might have made the drive from Springfield to the Gateway City a little dicey.

And that's kind of funny, isn't it? It just struck me that Krista and Rachel are going to Disneyland, out in Anaheim, while Tim is going to the PRI show, in Orlando, which is where Disney World is located. I guess they just really wanted to go to the old original "Happiest Place On Earth" and I can understand that. Disneyland does have its own unique charm.

I'll wrap up this weather-related blog with another reader question. This one from Tim F. who lives in Pennsylvania. He wrote: "I’ve heard Paul Page and Mike Dunn occasionally refer to different Full Throttle drag race venues as being “majors.” I’ve been a drag race fan since the 60’s and 70’s and I’m not sure what differentiates a “major” race from a “minor” race today. Is there a difference? What races would be considered as major and which minor on the current Full Throttle schedule?"

It's funny, actually, how we still refer to some races as "majors" because all of our races are, technically, the same now. The term applies to what are really the "granddaddy" races on the tour, so you're talking about Pomona, Gainesville, Englishtown, and Indy. These days, the "major" designation is much more emotional than literal, because those are the tracks and races everyone wants a Wally from, and there's still something special about winning any of those events. But, back in the day they actually were different. Even as late as 1991, when I got into this sport, we still had races designated by the letters A, B, and C and the prize-money payout was structured differently depending on the status. Also, it wasn't that long ago (in the long-range scheme of things) that Indy offered double-points, as compared to all the other races, so that made the U.S. Nationals the biggest major of them all.

These days, they're all the same in terms of points and prize money, but we still think of those historic and venerable races as our "majors" on the tour. I know, personally, that winning at those places was a little more special than the others. Indy, obviously, is the king but winning Gainesville was a very close second for me. It's The Gators, man... That's an honor and a thrill.

Guess that's about it, boys and berries.

Stay warm and stay safe. And Scooter, be careful up on that catwalk!!!

Oh, and just in case you're wondering if the kids around here got the day off from school... Nope. Maybe in some of the harder hit areas, but here in the Twin Cities a foot of blowing snow and -25 wind chill temperatures aren't enough to close the schools. Get on those buses, ya little munchkins...

Wilber, out!

Barbara and I were in Honolulu one year, on December 7. And a few years later, Marc and Krysta Denner were there on the infamous date, although Krysta loves to tell the story about how they really weren't paying attention to the date, or even days of the week, but were really just concentrating on having a great time in the islands, and it was therefore a coincidence when they decided to visit Pearl Harbor on that particular day. To fill in my memory blanks, I just spoke with Krysta, who said "We only rented a car for one day, to tour around Oahu, and while we were driving around, we just decided to stop by Pearl Harbor. We had no idea it was December 7th, but when we got there we kind of figured that out in a hurry. There were people everywhere, including some older gentlemen who had been there on the day, and there so many wreaths out at the Arizona it was amazing. We were both kind of impressed by the guys who were doing nothing but raising and lowering flags, as fast as they could. It's a big honor to have an American flag that has flown at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, so they were running them up, taking them down, and folding them as fast as they could."

I clearly remember the time Barbara and I were there. We were in the midst of a wonderful swing around the islands, and were having morning coffee on the wrap-around balcony of our room at the New Otani Hotel, right near the foot of Diamond Head. We were reading the paper and enjoying paradise when it occurred to us what day it was, but as opposed to the Denners we had been able to visit the Arizona, the Missouri, and Pearl Harbor a few days before. For a place where everything happened a good 15 years before I was born, I was struck by how meaningful it all was. Krysta just used the word "solemn" and that's the perfect description.

December 7 also means that it's really getting to be winter, finally. Just take a look at the forecast for us, up here in Minny-Soda, for the next few days! Yup, if this holds true we'll have four consecutive nights in the single digits, and I suspect if they're calling for a low of zero on Friday night, it just might end up below that. It's too bad we have this tiny little coating of snow on the pond, because if it wasn't there the ice would really be taking great shape through this string of cold days we're supposed to have. As it is, the snow acts as a sort of insulating blanket, so the ice won't firm up quite as well or quite as quickly. Plus, it adds to the drama for Dave... If you can't see the ice, how do you know when it's okay to go out there and drill a hole to see how thick it is? Better him than me.

Here's hoping we get this harsh weather out of the way this week and it's not so bad next week. Annette and I will be flying down to Peoria next Tuesday, for our Wednesday meeting at LRS in Springfield, and we're booked on the little Saab Turbo-Prop, complete with the rubber bands that keep the propellors turning. Winter flying is always exciting, but I'm not a big fan of flying in little propellor planes when it might be snowing...

In preparation for our meeting, I have my 2009 Publicity Summary all done, and will take three of the big binders with me. My "Year In Review" publication is about 95 percent written, but still has to be copied and bound, so that will happen in the next couple of days. I know Annette well enough to know she'll come armed with all sorts of diagrams and plans for the hospitality area, so all in all I think we'll have plenty of good "show & tell" material.

So, with all that being said let's get back to the questions... Leigh L., from "Down Under" wrote and asked me this: "When a crew chief leaves a team, does he take all the tuning data he's accumulated throughout his time there, or is the data the property of the car owner?"

That's a great question, with no set or all-inclusive answer. Personally, I don't have much experience with these sorts of things, considering I worked for 12 years for a guy who was "all of the above" as driver, tuner, and team owner, and now I've just finished my first year with another multi-tasking guy who covers all the bases. Considering how rare that is, in this sport, it's kind of remarkable that I've been lucky enough to be involved with two teams like this, for 13 straight years.

Anyway, in the more standard set-up, it's pretty much like the rest of the business world. The crew chief works for the team owner, and he's being compensated for his knowledge, so the data is rightfully the owner's. That doesn't mean that individual crew chiefs and owners might not establish different ground rules up front, and agree in the beginning that certain things can be shared or kept, and it wouldn't surprise me if some crew chiefs might not even keep duplicate records, in case they feel they might want to keep all the data upon departure. When the split is less than amicable, I know there have been instances of owners confiscating log books and computer data before anything can be grabbed, but that sort of thing is pretty rare... Having been around guys like Del and Tim, though, it's pretty obvious that having hard copies of the data is one thing, but most of it is locked in a place no one has the key to: Their brains.

Next on today's hit parade comes this probing inquiry from Tommy V., out in Bakersfield, Calif. Tommy asked "Wouldn't it be better, and make for better racing, if they allowed traction control in the fuel classes?"

Well, I suspect it might be a better show, if we all had hundreds of millions to throw around. When it comes to NHRA and the strict rules against any "smart systems" on the car, we're basically following a rule of thumb that could be summarized by the thought "If Formula 1 allows it, we won't." Once F1 let the technology genie out of the bottle (or the technology toothpaste out of the tube, or the technology cat out of the bag) the price of being competitive went through the roof, and now those cars are like fighter planes, doing most of their own thinking and reacting (far more quickly than the human driver could manually do any of it, much less all of it at once) as the car goes around the track. That's not to say that F1 racing isn't spectacular and thrilling, because in many ways it is, but there's a huge lesson to be learned regarding the price of technology. If you were ever fortunate enough to get a garage and paddock pass at an F1 race, you'd think you were in Mission Control for a trip to the moon.

Grant W., from just up the road in Fargo, N.D., sent along this one: "My wife and I are going to plan a vacation around a race this year, and want to get to a track we've never been to before. We've been to Brainerd, Chicago, St. Louis, Gainesville, and Topeka, so if we have to pick one new place to go this year, what would you suggest?"

Grant, I'd suggest you sell your house, buy a motorhome, and come out on tour with us because it's impossible to nail down just one place. Pomona is on the short list, Las Vegas is obviously a destination race for thousands of people, Bristol is one of my personal favorites, and if you're a wine lover you can't miss Sonoma. But, I think I'll have to recommend Charlotte this time around. You simply have to see zMAX Raceway. It's a must. See you there! And I was just kidding about the whole selling your house thing.

Before I forget, a huge thank you to Brenda B. from South Dakota! She and her husband are fans of the Phoenix Suns basketball team, so I hooked them up with Timberwolves tickets when the Suns were here recently. Little did I know that the Wolves had a great give-away that night, as they distributed 6,000 pairs of hilarious Kurt Rambis glasses, just like the ones he wore when he played for the Lakers. Since they each got a pair when the walked into Target Center, she sent me one of the two as a thank you, and they're awesome. I added the white tape myself, just for added effect, and couldn't resist having my photo taken with them on yesterday. Rambis Youth unite!!!! As you'll see in the photo, little Boofus didn't know what to make of me in my Rambis glasses.

Here at the ranch, Barbara and I had a wonderfully lazy Sunday morning, then right after noon we cracked the whip and got to work. By 5:00, we had the whole house decorated, the tree up, and everything in perfect Christmas shape! I'm afraid the holiday spirit took a hit later in the evening, though, when we watched the Arizona Cardinals absolutely destroy (literally!) the Vikings. Wow, that was a serious beat-down of the first degree, in all phases of the game. Sometimes a team loses and you can look back and see a couple of fluke things that cost them the game, but this was just a royal whipping put on by the Big Red.

And I still can't see that wonderful white helmet with the red and black bird on the side and not think of Jim Hart, Dan Dierdorf, Jerry Stoval, Jim Bakken, Roger Wehrli, Larry Wilson, Sonny Randle, and Bobby Joe Conrad. Especially Bobby Joe Conrad.

Today's final question comes from Frank M., who hails from Nashville, Tenn. Frank posed a question that's rarely asked, but it's certainly extremely relevant to me! He wrote "How much does it actually cost to go on the full tour? With all those planes, rental cars, and hotels, it's got to be a small fortune."

Depending on your viewpoint, it might even seem like a large fortune, Frank. Put it this way, if you're going to fly to all the races, you're going to have a real hard time doing the whole tour for much less than $25,000 dollars. This year, my average flight cost me $356. My average rental car was $195, and the average hotel stay was $394, a number held way down by the fact we were lucky enough to get comp rooms at four races, and my room was individually comped at another one. Right there, with just that stuff, you're at $945 per race. Add in parking at the airport, meals, dry cleaning, and gas for the rental cars, and you're looking at about 25-grand.

I know through experience that you can beat that down a little bit by cutting lots of corners, booking flights only on Expedia, going for subcompact rental cars from less glamorous companies, and staying in fleabag dives for hotels, but all of that still doesn't chop that much off the bottom line. In the early years I was all about going as cheaply as possible, but then you never end up with any elite airline status because when you shop flights strictly for fare, you end up flying a bunch of different airlines. You also sleep poorly in noisy and uncomfortable hotel rooms, and you can't stand up straight after driving some little miniature car for four days. To me, it's worth it to fly one airline and use a first-class rental car company, and with just a few exceptions our hotels have been fairly inexpensive and comfortable, considering the price-gouging that goes on during race weekends at most of our events.

Obviously the platinum status I'll have for next year on Delta/ Northwest is a big thing, because sitting in the front cabin takes a lot of the stress out of the travel, but the thing I've noticed about only renting from Hertz is how the benefits compound over time. When you reserve a car, it's only a few dollars a day more to reserve a full-size car over a midsize, and those are just a couple of bucks more than a compact. When you start to pile up points and earn elite status, they then start to throw free upgrades at you like confetti, so it all gets better and better. I guess if you shop around and get the cheapest car at each race it's possible to save up to $100 a weekend, but with my 5-Star status at Hertz, I've had a whole bunch of really nice cars this year, and the service I get if I don't like the car, for any reason, is far better than the stand-in-line for a half- hour experience I always see at the other rental counters. I get to walk right by, get in, and go. Plus, three or four times a year I can cash in those points I'm earning, and end up with a luxury car for the weekend, for as low as $16 total, which is what my very nice car cost for the weekend in Charlotte. Like I said, it's worth it to me to make all the travel as painless as possible.

I keep a spreadsheet to track all the numbers, but since I'm an independent contractor who needs back-up for his taxes, I keep it all organized by stuffing all my receipts into a small envelope for each race. Should Uncle Sam ever ask me to prove how much I spend, it's all there.

Wow, during the winter I can tell when it gets to be 12:00 noon without even looking at my watch. At noon, the sun stops coming in the big living room windows, and the temperature in the house just nosedives. I mean, it's instantly noticeable! When I'm sitting at my desk and I go from being totally comfortable to totally cold, it's time to tick that thermostat up a couple of degrees. And it's 12:00 noon.

Being midday, it's also time for lunch. Subway? Wendy's? Quiznos? I'm thinking Quiznos... All of a sudden I'm starving!

Wilber, out!
 

Two days ago it was still near 50. Yesterday we were in the low 30s, falling to the high 20s by late in the day. Right now, it's a balmy 15 degrees with light snow flurries. Lo and behold, it's almost like normal! After the second-warmest November on record, it's taking a bit of getting used to, but we're in it for the long haul and we'll deal with it.

Yesterday, the pond was only frozen on the right side, despite the fact it was 32 degrees or below for most of the day. I think a bit of a breeze was rippling the left half just enough to keep it liquid, although it was kind of neat to notice the growth of the first edge of new ice, spreading leftward throughout the day, claiming more and more of the water and adding to the two-day-old ice that was already entrenched on the right. This morning, we have a full white pond for the first time this season. Just enough ice to hold, and just enough snow to cover it. Kinda pretty, really...

(NOTE: I just got done with this blog, and it ended up being pretty long, so you may need some time to wade through it. Probably a good thing this is Friday, because you can nibble on the leftovers during the weekend...)

I do have a few more questions to answer today, and I'll get to that in just a bit. First off, though, I've spent the last couple of days talking with Dan "Dozer" Hough, the guy who really is the heart and soul of the loosely-formed "Wilk Warriors" group, and he let me know that a bunch of them want to have a get-together in January, down in Springfield. Last year, as you might recall, they had a pretty official, formal, and almost banquet-like party for Tim and the team, to celebrate the 2nd-place finish in the points, and we had all discussed whether or not anything like that should happen again. The consensus was this: The next big formal bash, with local dignitaries, dinner, well-dressed people, and other actual banquet-style stuff, should come right after we win our first Full Throttle championship.

So, we weren't really expecting to do anything this year, but Dozer had the great idea to make it just more of an informal mingling reception, and by scheduling it for January 9, we can both celebrate the past season and kick off the new one. That sounds great to us! And, as opposed to last year when Dave and I had hadn't even officially joined the team yet, and had other plans in place, I'm absolutely going to be there for this one.

I mentioned it to Barbara, and she immediately said she wanted to go with me, so that's even better. I booked flights, a car, and rooms yesterday (just like press release writing, I was going through withdrawals, so it was good to be back on my regular travel websites and set it all up) and we'll fly down to St. Louis on Friday the 8th, have dinner at my favorite St. Louis-style pizza place (Farotto's, in Rock Hill) then drive up to Springfield in the morning. On Sunday, we'll drive back down to St. Loo and have lunch somewhere in the city before flying home late that afternoon.

The trip will be great on multiple fronts, obviously, and I'm thrilled to be able to join my team for the deal on the 9th. Plus, I've been suffering from acute Farotto's cravings lately. I can close my eyes and actually taste a Farotto's deluxe pizza, and it's been driving me crazy. I'm counting the days until we have dinner there on the 8th. No, seriously, I am. It's 35 days until I munch on toasted ravioli as the appetizer, and then dive into my deluxe pizza for dinner. 35 days. But who's counting...

In support of the reception, Dave and I are going to put another video/slide-show together, compiling some video and great pics we've accumulated throughout the year. That should be fun, as well... And it sounds like he might enlist the help of his son Justin, who is an aspiring sports video and film guy.

Catching up since the last blog, Barbara and I did go to the Wild hockey game on Wednesday night, and we spotted Dave there in the Jacobsen seats, two sections over. Dave even took a neat picture of us, standing in front of the big mural that features the first-ever Wild team, holding our "Go Wild!" signs. Nichol wasn't feeling well, but Dave didn't want the tickets to go to waste, so he attended alone and we both commented, between periods, that hockey is the one sport we can have just as much fun watching alone as we can with company. If I go to a baseball game by myself, it's okay but it brings back memories of my scouting days, and that's not that much fun. Basketball and football are fine, but it really seems like having someone there with you is essential. Over the years, with our Wild tickets, I've ended up going by myself a number of times, and I think the non-stop action that envelopes you so much that you don't even notice you're by yourself. When they score, everyone high-fives total strangers anyway, so it's just like being there with your extended family, the Team of 18,000.

We did have a good hockey fight, right in front of us, and I was able to grab a few iPhone pics of that, as the Wild's big man Derek Boogaard went at it with the Nashville Predators' Wade Belak. Boogaard (aka "Boogie Man") has been the Wild's designated tough guy for years, but under the new head coach he's been handed a much more substantial role in playing actual productive hockey, so he hasn't been fighting much this year. He even got an assist the other night on a beautiful no-look pass into the slot, but he's still a big guy who will fight if provoked, and when he and Belak "gently bumped into each other" in the corner, right in front of us, Boogie was ready to skate away but Belak shoved him again, and again, and we could actually read his lips as he said spewed a few R-rated expletives at Boogie to get him riled up, and then said "Let's go, right now..." Boogie kind of smiled his crooked little grin, the one that says "Are you sure you want to tangle with me?" and then the gloves were off. Boogie got the better of it, as he almost always does, considering his off-season training regimen actually includes regular sparring in the boxing ring with a trainer, to increase his fitness and his fighting skills.

Here's something I just noticed... I went to the Predators' website to make sure I had the correct spelling of Belak's name, and I noticed he's originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Derek Boogard is also from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. You have to wonder how much history there was, building up from familiarity over the years, prior to that fight. Local bragging rights were at stake!

Speaking of Saskatoon, which is in Saskatchewan, which is right next to Manitoba, which is where Winnipeg is located, I was trading emails with a Winnipeg native this week, who you might recall from earlier blogs, but even if you don't you surely recall him from a zillion gold records and the fact you can hardly turn a radio on, even today, without hearing his music. Yep, Fred Turner and I have become fast friends ever since we met in Brainerd a few years back, and we stay in touch regularly. We got to see each other a year ago in West Palm Beach when we were doing our pre-season testing, and were cyber-chatting this week just to catch up.

He let me in on a little news that I've been hearing about since West Palm, but at least it is now being reported on the web so I feel free to announce it here. Fred and Randy Bachman have been in the studio recording some new music, and are about to embark on a new tour! They have a press conference scheduled for December 8, up in Winnipeg, and Fred seems really jazzed to see if he and Randy can still crank it out, on the road, "live" and on-stage. Due to some legal wrangling by the other two members of the former band (who are not part of this project) they aren't allowed to use the name Bachman-Turner Overdrive, but will simply go out as Bachman-Turner, or Bachman & Turner, or something like that.

Fred is hoping to get to a race, if our tour schedules cross, and I'm hoping that's the case as well, because John Fink and I have already decided we'll go to great lengths to see them play, if it's at all possible. See, you never know what kind of news you're going to get here...

Okay, back to the questions (as well as the answers).

Sheila H., from Jackson, Mich. wrote in with this one: "I've never heard anyone talk about how sponsorships work, in terms of how you get paid. Do they write you one big check at the beginning of the season, or do they break it up into payments, or what?"

Well, not every sponsor deal is the same, but you can pretty much take it to the bank (financial pun) that just about all of them are paid in installments. It's far better for the sponsor's cash flow that way, it surely makes the CFO and accountants happier, and it also eases the burden for the team, in terms of being fiscally responsible so you know you'll have operating money throughout the year. It's not uncommon, however, for sponsorships to be "front loaded" a bit, to give the team a stronger and deeper bottom line as they start the season, when a lot of new stuff has to be purchased, cars have to be painted, and up-front bills need to be paid.

It's funny, because when I got Sheila's email, my first thought was "Well, everyone knows that..." but then it hit me that most people probably don't, because we don't talk about the money side of sponsorship very often.

Thomas W., from Raleigh, N.C. asked this great one: "Why aren't all the tracks prepped exactly the same way? It seems nutty to me that so much time is taken analyzing the lanes, and that some tracks have lousy traction when others are so stout. Why can't they make them all the same?"

Thomas, I think I know the answer to your specific question, but if I knew the answer to the challenge of making them all great, all the time, I'd be offering my services as an extremely well-paid consultant, because (as we say) it ain't easy. Believe me, the track prep at each stop on the tour is as good as it can be, but every track has its own personality, it's own weather to deal with, and its own surface. You have your concrete tracks in Dallas, Charlotte, and Denver, and all three of them are in places that could hardly be more different. Everywhere else, we have both concrete and asphalt, and no two asphalt applications ever seem to come out quite the same. Just take a look at your street or driveway, and you'll see all the little pits and indentations in the asphalt mix. On a race track, every one of those is a place where the tire won't be making contact.

You add in the weather during the week, any big oil-downs that happen during the race, and any bumps or other smoothness issues that pop up once the "big honkin' fuel cars" start to run, and you end up with 24 races that all feature their own track characteristics. It can be frustrating for sure, when the lanes aren't equal, but the whole part about learning each track, analyzing the lanes, and then making tuning decisions based on what your guys firmly believe to be out there, is all a great part of this sport. If all golf courses were the same, no one would play the game...

Now, referring back to a question I listed earlier in the week when a reader wanted to know if we, in the free world, were ever going to actually see and be able to own the 2009 Tim Wilkerson LRS Shelby Mustang, in die-cast form. Visit our website (timwilkerson.com) right now to find out the answer!

This next one is quite original, and the only problem I have with answering it is that I'm sure I'm going to leave someone out, because if I really thought about it and included everyone I know, this blog would be two weeks long. But here goes... Charles. D., from my old home town of Austin, Tex. asked: "It's been great to get to know Del, and now Tim, through your blog, and I feel like I know all three of you guys in ways we never could have otherwise, but can you tell us more about some of the other drivers? You know a bunch of them, so tell us what they're really like, if you can."

I guess I can, but I'll only endeavor to do this with the guys I know the best. To be honest, I know most of the drivers in only a social sort of way. We say hi, ask how things are going, and that's about it. Of all the other drivers, beyond Tim and Del, I obviously know the ones I've worked with far better, and I stay in touch with them the most. Jeff Arend and Phil Burkart are now what I simply consider buddies, and hardly a day goes by without a few emails popping up in my in-box from Jeff and Phil. Both very funny guys and they're both great people.

As for the rest, I probably don't have to even say anything about "Fast Jack" Beckman, because I write about him often and his life is an equally open book over on his blog. First class, top notch, great person. To meet Jack is to meet a guy who goes through life like he's running for Mayor. Everyone is important to Jack, and he makes sure that's apparent when he meets you.

I've just gotten to know our teammate, Bob Tasca, in the last year but that's been great, as well. Coming from the Tasca family, Bob's upbringing and background are so different from most of the other drivers, and his business acumen is noticeable from the moment you meet him. Bob comes at this sport from a totally different angle, and he sees it (and all the marketing benefits it provides) very differently. He's become a very good driver, but what I appreciate most about BT3 is his firm grasp of marketing, PR, and promotion. You'd almost think the guy is a third-generation car dealer, or somethin'.... Oh yeah...

Ron Capps is hilarious, and pretty much just like he appears on TV. Thoughtful, funny, and very engaging. Plus, he and Michael Waltrip do a great job on those NAPA commercials. Jerry Toliver is really interesting, to me, and in a great way. When he first came on the scene, I didn't know what to make of him with his ultra-outgoing personality, but over the years we've finally gotten to know each other a little better and he's really a terrific guy. He's a sharp businessman, and he's also a funny dude, but in the way I like the most because he's naturally funny, as opposed to stand-up comedy kind of funny. It's not an act, and they're not lines he uses over and over again, so if you get in a conversation with guys like Jerry, or Capps, or Gary Scelzi (boy do we all miss him) the humor just naturally evolves through the conversation, and is created out of thin air.

I miss Whit Bazemore too, and I'm not the only one. As you probably know, I worked for Whit in 1996 and our business relationship didn't even make it through the full season. He's outspoken, unfiltered, and can even be confrontational, but he's absolutely real, and he's very intelligent, to the point I'd say Whit is clearly intellectual. Back then, it just didn't work out for us to work together but he and I now really enjoy seeing each other on those rare occasions when he's at the track. Basically, he's a good man and good for the sport, and I really liked the work he did for ESPN2 this year. The sport needs Whit...

And Doug Herbert! I hope I won't be saying that we all miss having Doug Herbert on the tour next year, because he's one of the truly class acts in the entire sport. From the day I met Doug, way back who-knows-when, he's always treated me with enormous class and respect and he's always one of the drivers I openly cheer for when he's racing.

I've been on the phone and trading emails with Bob Vandergriff, over the last couple of days, helping him out with some important information he's working on as part of the Drivers' Safety Committee, and I can tell you that Bob is also a very intelligent, business-oriented guy. You could trot him out in any corporate boardroom and he'd not only be comfortable, but also successful. Just don't get suckered into playing golf with him if any money is on the line. Dude can play some golf.

Tommy Johnson is a great guy as well, and about as down-to-earth as they come. Sounds like he's got a great new opportunity in front of him, driving what will certainly be a top notch car in far-off desert lands, and hopefully that will allow him to race over here some, too. Good for Tommy! Our only loss will be his terrific work on the P.A. this year, with Bob Frey, because Tommy turned out to be a complete natural in the booth. We'd joke about that, at the races, because it was never anything he wanted to be, but he ended up being absolutely terrific in that role.

Basically, I have a great appreciation for almost all the drivers. Some are funny, some are serious, some are business oriented, and some are race car drivers, living the dream. They're all different, but all the same in their passion for this sport.

Wow, this went on forever, so I'm sorry for that... Once I got started, my fingers just kept going.

Time to send this in, but before I do I simply must announce the arrival Gibson Ali Hujabre, who entered this world last Friday with the enormous good fortune of being the first-born son of two of the nicest and most gracious people I know, my actor buddy Buck and his wife Mary. Gibson (think guitars, when analyzing his name) has a life of music, singing, dancing, acting, and (if Buck has anything to do with it) Funny Car driving, ahead of him. Can't wait to meet the guy!

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Wilber, out!
 

So, it's 10:32 in the morning, here in rapidly changing Woodbury (we're looking at about a 30-degree shift in temperatures from yesterday afternoon to tomorrow evening, and I don't mean in the upward direction) and I'm waiting to see if that new feature story I sorta kinda half-way referenced the other day will pop up on NHRA.com in the next half-hour. I almost wish I could post this blog in real time, like a chat session, because then I might be able to write "There it is!" at precisely the exact the second the story appears. Instead, I'm probably not going to get this whole blog written before the story "goes live" and I'll have to take a break from writing this right after it does pop up, to spread the word a little. You'll just have to imagine the fact that, as I'm typing these words, the story hasn't appeared yet, and waiting for your work to show up is a bit like waiting for Santa...

Let's get right to the questions, though, starting with this great one from Tom M., who lives pretty much directly south of here, in Magnolia, Ark. Tom sent me this original query: "I was at the Dallas race several years ago, and after the final pair I decided to take a shortcut to the parking lot by walking acorss the starting line area of the track. First thing I noticed was that my shoes weren't tied real tight, because I proceeded to step right out of one of them. That traction compound is like tacky glue! No big deal, I just put it back on and finished my walk back to the car. Then, a few days later, I was at the gym and found that my good shoes no longer had any grip while I was playing volleyball. It really didn't effect my game much, since I basically stink, but it begs the question: Do you have a pair of shoes that you wear only at the track, so that you don't screw up your street shoes? My gym shoes were never the same and always felt "odd" after just those 20 steps across the starting line..."

For the record, I do have a pair of shoes I wear only at the track. I usually go through two or three pairs a year, actually, and those shoes never even come out of my suitcase. The reason for that is because leaving them in there means I won't ever arrive at a race and realize I forgot to pack them. My black belt and my black shoes, therefore, live in my suitcase. They're even in there right now, on December 2.

Yes, the track is amazingly sticky, and I doubt that 99 percent of people who have never walked on it would even be able to imagine just how tacky and "tight" it is. Even standing behind the car, to shoot the video, I'm constantly picking up and setting down my feet as I wait for the cars to get staged, just because the longer you stand in one place, the more stuck to that place you become.

However, I've never noticed that my track shoes become "odd" or lose their grip off the track. Here's my uneducated guess as to what happened to Mark's shoes. The parking lots in Dallas are grass fields, and usually they are very dusty. Once you've walked on the track, the soles of your shoes pick up some of the traction compound, and if you then walk around on dirt and gravel, you're going to bring a layer of that along with you, on the soles of your shoes. Even after they look clean, there's still a layer of material stuck to your shoes, and that would definitely change how they feel on the gym floor. If this ever happens to anyone else, I'd advise trying to thoroughly clean the soles of your shoes after you get home, perhaps even using some rubbing alcohol on them, just to get the sole cleaned off and "grippy" again. If your shoes still feel "odd" well... I have no idea. Great question, though, Mark and a fun story to boot.

Our next inquiry comes all the way from Fort Myers, Fla. (spring training home of YOUR Minnesota Twins) and it's from Catherine H., who wrote: "I'm pretty new to drag racing, but have fallen in love with it thanks to my boyfriend's interest. I know these are stupid questions, and I'm probably the only one to not understand this, but is there a simple way for you to explain to me how the Friday qualifying works, and why some teams don't have their times count? Also, I think I understand how holeshots work, but if I'm trying to explain it to someone else I'm basically just lost and have no clue as to how it all really works. Can you give me a holeshot explanation for dummies?"

First of all, Catherine, welcome to the sport. We're a bunch of good folks here, so enjoy the fun. Secondly, there are no dumb questions. The only dumb thing would be to not ask when you don't understand something. So, knowing that I'm fully capable of taking a four-word answer and turning it into four paragraphs (with eight sets of parentheses) I'll try to simplify. That's hard for me, but I'll try.

The Friday "Top 12" thing was instituted in response to a problem we'd regularly run into at any race that featured only one session "under the lights" on Friday night. We call those the "home-run sessions" because the times can be so much quicker then, and it used to make the other three sessions almost irrelevant, to the point where if anything went wrong on Friday night (even something outside your control, like the guy in the other lane crossing the line and negating your time) you could often find it impossible to get qualified on a hot and sunny Saturday. This way, only the top 12 times are counted, and for everyone else it's just as if they chose not to run on Friday.

Oddly, that "home run" scenario used to happen so often it was clear we needed this rule to give guys a chance to get in the field on Saturday, but ever since they instituted the rule our weather seems to have changed a lot, and it seems like the big difference between the second Friday run and the other three runs has rarely been a factor. Meteorology is weird.

Also, nobody has ever asked me, but if they did I'd tell them that if any race has at least two night sessions, or if there are 16 cars or fewer there, they ought to drop the Top 12 rule. That's just my 3-cents (inflation!)

BAM!!! There's my story on NHRA.com. Back in a bit...

Okay, I'm back. Lots of people on vacation this week, though, I can tell you that. I sent out a note about the feature story to my full mailing list, and instantaneously my in-box was filled with automatic "I'm out of the office..." replies. It's not the most entertaining feature I've ever written, but it looks really nice and they chose some nice photos to go with it.

Anyway, back to Part Two of Catherine's email... Ah, the hole-shot. The single most common thing at a drag race that produces the question "How can that be?" Just remember, Catherine, that the two lanes are timed independently and the clock in each lane doesn't start until the car in that lane moves. If you understand that, it makes Bob Frey's explanation of a hole-shot really easy to understand. Bob always says "Just imagine the light going green and one car tears off down the track. The other driver is actually asleep in his car, and by the time his crew can wake him up on the radio, the other guy is crossing the finish line, with a 5.00-second e.t. Driver B wakes up, hits the throttle, and runs a 4.80, but he loses because the other guy got there first. That's how a 5.00 beats a 4.80." Okay, I paraphrased that, but Bob's explanation is really similar.

Last question for today... This comes from Frank G., in Springfield, Mass. who asked: "Is Daniel Wilkerson going to drive again, in 2010?"

Answer: We're all doing all we can to make that a big 10-4, but nothing is etched in stone just yet. In terms of Daniel wanting to drive after the big crash, he was ready to do that by the time he got back to the starting line. I think his line was "If there was any way I could've talked my dad into letting me drive his car, I would've jumped right in." No one is worried about Daniel being comfortable in the car. He's as cool as a cucumber. As cool as the other side of the pillow. As cool as, well... Daniel Wilkerson.

We do need to find him some sponsor backing though, and Dave is hard at work quarterbacking that effort. We've got a ton of proposals out there, and we're pretty encouraged by the response from a lot of different companies. Those responses, along with a dollar bill, will get you a copy of today's USA Today, so we're not counting chickens, eggs, or anything else yet. But, it does give you hope when the feedback is along the lines of "This is interesting, let's discuss..." rather than "Our budgets are slashed, we don't do motorsports, and you don't need to call back" followed by a click.

Bottom line: We hope to have Daniel out there, at least for a few more races in 2010. We'll keep working on that until we make it happen.

A little higher in the blog I mentioned the nice photos they used to illustrate the new feature stories, and that brings me to my own shortcomings and failure in that regard today. I can't have a blog without pictures, but I don't have much to share... Oh well. A few odd photos are better than no photos at all...

Next up, not a question exactly, but a fine story to tell. I've mentioned and shown Jane and Chris, the irrepressible married couple from Vancouver who always make it to a few races each year. They were in Vegas, of course (if you knew Jane and Chris you'd say "of course" before I could write it) and Jane told me this amazing story about Sunday at the Las Vegas race: "When we left the track, Chris stopped to organize our stuff before we got in the car and then we drove back down to Bellagio. When we got there, no backpack! We knew then that he must have left it in the parking lot. Of course, we drove all the way back out to the track, and at least got there before the whole crowd was exiting. We found our old parking space, but the backpack was gone. I didn't hold out much hope, but we located the Lost & Found and some fabulous, honest, person had actually turned it in. I had my DSR leather jacket, two pairs of brand new jeans, Chris' camera, and a few other things in there that all added up to at least $800 worth of stuff, and it was all still there. I'd really appreciate it if you mentioned this in blog, because I have no way of thanking the honest person who turned it in. Maybe they'll read about it on the blog and know how much we appreciate what they did. This proves there are good people in the world!"

Mission accomplished, Jane. I hope whoever did that reads this, and knows how much their good deed was appreciated. Oh yeah, and "Go Wild, eh!"

There you have it. I've reached my productivity quota for this morning... Whew. That was hard work. :-)

Wilber, out!

And, since the final Thursday in November is always Thanksgiving (we had a GREAT one, and I hope all of you did as well) I think it only makes sense to make the final day of November (11/30) a traditional day for "Q & A" here on the blog. No, not the Canadian Billiards championship (that would be "Cue & 'eh") but your questions and my answers.

Q & A is also the fallback for any blogger who is running low on material, as you might suspect. Once the season ends, and I've wrapped up all the stuff from Pomona, there's a startling lack of racing things to write about for a few weeks, until we really start to ramp up the next season, and things like cats, ponds, local sports teams, and major holidays can only take me so far. I mean, those things are interesting to me 365 days a year, but believe it or not (I know this is a stretch) I'm actually not dumb enough to think it's all that interesting to anyone else. I do have to keep in mind the near- constant flow of emails asking for more pics of Da Boyce, as well as the regular in-bound stream of photos from readers, featuring their cats of all sizes and colors (all of which are enjoyed and appreciated) so in the interest of keeping up with the overwhelming amount of requests, Boofus and Buster will never be too far away.

I'll jump right into the questions I've been saving, and then will finish up with some miscellaneous nonsense and photos at the bottom. Let's get started...

The first question is from Bryan H. in Frisco, Tex. Bryan (whose name is also the name of another town in Texas, for whatever that's worth) asked "Are you guys planning a lot of changes over the off- season, in terms of how the car will look?"

There's a really short answer to Bryan's question, but I'll stretch it out a bit. The short answer is NO. Seriously, though, we actually made a conscious decision to keep all the changes to a bare minimum this year, starting with the paint scheme on the car, right to the uniforms and the hospitality area. Other than the possible addition or deletion of an associate sponsor decal or two, the car should look almost exactly the same, and that goes for our shirts, as well. We have a "drop-dead date" with the shirt manufacturer (Vicci) and we know we have to pull the trigger by that date in order to have our shirts in our hands before the Winternationals, so we'll wait until then to see if we need to make any additions in terms of logos, but otherwise the shirts will look the same as they did this year. We're making a few cosmetic changes to the hospitality area, in response to a few things we learned this season, but overall we're going to look very 2009 in 2010, and that's fine by all of us.

Next up is Cheryl M., from Marietta, Ga., who asks "Are we ever going to see those die-cast cars?" Short answer: I think so! They were on the boat, over on the other side of the world, a couple of weeks ago and the projected arrival date here in the U.S. of A. was listed as 11/30/09. That would be today. If I lived in Long Beach I could drive over to the docks to see if any die-cast cars were offloading from any of the huge ships, but since that would be impossible I did the next-best thing and dropped the folks at Motorsports Authentics a note and asked for an update. We really should have them soon... And this question actually ties in with the first one. If the die- cast cars didn't get to us until the 2009 season was over, we might as well keep the real car the same in 2010 so they, at least, match up.

Thirdly, I got this somewhat hilarious note from Carl H., who hails from the beautiful town of Portland, Ore. Carl asked "Now that the races are over, and you don't have all those press releases to write, what on Earth do you do with yourself? Do you still write as much stuff every week to keep in practice, or do you go through withdrawals?"

I go through withdrawals. Actually, for the first week after Pomona it feels pretty nice to not have deadlines on my calendar, but after that it gets a little odd to start a week (like today) without having a pre-race feature to write. I figure, during the course of the year I probably write about 68,000 words just putting out pre-race, post- race, and qualifying releases, and that doesn't include any additional feature stories or notes I might also put out. Nor does it include the blog, which now regularly features so many words per week my calculator simply bursts into flames if I try to add them up.

But... To ease the withdrawal issues, I still write and "pitch" feature stories on a fairly regular basis during the winter, hoping to get them out there and visible so that I'm still doing my PR job even though the season is over. You might just check NHRA.com over the course of the next 24 to 48 hours... I'm just sayin'...

And that whole withdrawal thing reminds me of the first few years after my slow-burning mostly-fizzling minor league baseball career was over. I might not have been very good when I was a pro, but I did go to the ballpark everyday and I was usually the first guy there, around 2:00 in the afternoon for a 7:00 game. For at least three or four years after I was out of baseball, hardly a month could go by when I'd simply be walking through life somewhere, at around 2:00 on any warm afternoon, and I'd feel a wave of panic wash over me, because I thought I was late getting to the ballpark... Weirdest thing...

Okay, next question. This one's from Marty T., who lives, coincidentally, in Winter Haven, Fla. I say coincidentally, because I was a member of the Lakeland Tigers in the Florida State League, and the Winter Haven Red Sox were not only in the league, but just a few miles down the road. Marty asked "Is there some sort of protocol for the whole start-up and burnout thing? Who starts first? Who stages first? Is Rick Stewart telling you guys what to do, or do you communicate with the other teams, since everyone seems to do things at a different pace?"

We've had variations of this question on here before, but it's been a while and it's worth repeating. Rick Stewart is up by the tree, so he's too far away to be involved with how and when we start the car, but another Safety Safari person is right in between us. When he or she gets the "all clear" they immediately ask both teams if we're ready, and if we are they say "Fire 'em up" or something to that effect. Marty is correct, though, in that most teams do things at their own pace, and we all have a pretty good handle on that. Our guys have a mental book on just about everyone, as do the other teams on us, so there's rarely a time when both teams want to start last, because we all want to stay within our normal routines and our normal timing. I'd say about 85 percent of the time, we end up pulling to the line together, right on schedule, but there are instances where either something goes wrong, or the other guy does a longer burnout than usual, or something delays them, and we have to wait.

Once both cars are near the staging beams, and the crew chiefs are ready to back away, you can almost always see both crew chiefs turn to each other and nod. That's a professional courtesy that says "We're ready to go" and from that point forward it's up to the drivers. It can, of course, get a little tricky after that, because some drivers like to go in last, no matter what. Tim has a clear mental book on all the other drivers, too, and I've never seen him get rattled by staging stuff. For the record, if you ever line up next to John Force, he likes to go in last. And he usually waits for a solid 3- count to get fully staged after you're in. Guys mess with him all the time, of course, and he will go in first if you make him wait long enough, but if everything is normal John will go in last and you can just about set your watch by the 3-count he takes to light the second set of bulbs. Everyone knows this, and most just do their own deal and go along with it, but there are some guys out there who just can't help trying to throw him off. Best of luck with that one...

Today's final question is from Terry P. in football-crazy Indianapolis. Terry wrote "Is the entire state of Minnesota just going absolutely insane over Brett Favre?" Short answer: Yes. There was actually a story in the paper yesterday about the "Favre Factor" in terms of retail sales throughout the state. Store owners, real estate agents, and other people who normally do a lot of business on Sunday afternoons have learned that EVERYONE watches the Vikings games now, and they can anticipate a near vacuum in terms of transactions and traffic. Something close to a million Minnesotans are now watching every Vikings game on TV, and you could just about shoot a cannon off in a grocery store during the games and not hit anybody... I've never seen anything quite like it.

And visually, around the Twin Cities, it's impossible to miss the impact. I haven't heard how many purple No. 4 jerseys Reebok has sold, but I think the number is about a gazillion.

There are more questions left, and feel free to fire off anything that I'd have a clue about (as opposed to anything too technical about the car) and I'll wade in and try to get to all of them as we go forward into December.

Before I leave though, I'll utilize the photo gallery to catch up on our wonderful Thanksgiving, next door with the Jacobsens and their large extended families. I'd say we had to have close to 40 people there, and we did consume two (count 'em, two) 20-pound turkeys and a full ham, as well as a kitchen-full of side dishes galore. It was all wonderful, and Barbara and I are made to feel so much like family it's like being "home for the holidays." Since you've all gotten to know Dave, and his family, via this blog, I thought you might enjoy a few pics.

It's also always a little funny to be inside Dave and Nichol's house, because the view is almost the same, but just from a slightly different perspective. Same pond, just a slightly different angle. Same view, but our house is out the window, instead of theirs. At least that gives me a chance to check out the retaining wall and the porch, to see if everything looks shipshape over here...

I'm also including a new Pond Cam shot, from our house, because the back pond has been starting each day with a microscopic little layer of ice each morning, for the last few days. It usually melts by noon, but one of these days it will make it through to the next night, and get a little thicker, and then the skating rink won't be too far away. I'll believe it when I see it, because we actually just had the second-warmest November on record, and the least snowiest. It seemed like it was in the 50s all month, and if not for a little dusting of snow on Saturday night we would've had exactly zero white stuff. As a matter of fact, the people who set the hunting seasons around here are discussing the fact they probably need to make some serious changes to when the goose and duck seasons are scheduled. They've always been the same time, in the fall, but with the warmer days lasting longer, year after year, the timing of the annual migration has changed. Right now, when it's goose or duck season, the hunters hardly have anything to shoot at, because the main masses of the birds are still up in Canada and aren't here yet. By the time it finally cools off enough for them to come flying through, the legal hunting seasons are nearly over. I'm not a hunter, but I find that to be a little troubling...

Oh, and one last thing that is also Jacobsen related. I mentioned, last week, that Alexa has been talking to a lot of colleges, trying to decide where she wants to go next year, both in terms of playing hockey and getting the degree she wants. One school that has been very interested in her is St. Norbert College, just outside of Green Bay. She visited the campus, and really liked it, but she also really liked the coach, who just came to St. Norbert from Dartmouth, and he's starting the girls hockey program from scratch, next year. Alexa had to make up her mind by today, and late last night I got a note from Dave, the proud parent, letting us know that Alexa has committed and will be headed to St. Norbert in the fall, where she'll get a chance to play four full years of varsity hockey for the Green Knights, on a brand-new team. Way to go, Alexa! Perhaps, a year from now, I'll be giving you updates on how the Green Knights are doing.

That's all from here. I'll be back in a couple of days with more stuff, I'm sure.

Wilber, out!
 

Just a rambling blog today, to do a little giving of thanks. The last Thursday in November is an important day, and a wonderful reason for all of us to stop and think about how good we have it and all we should be thankful for. It's also a vivid reminder of just how rarely we take even a minute to do that. Maybe every Thursday, all year long, should be a day when we count our blessings, minimize our complaints, and find all of the justifiable reasons to be thankful for everything we have. We can save the big meal for November, but we need to be thankful on a more regular basis, I think.

To boil it right down to the essence, I got a note from Gordie Bonin this morning and it simply included a quote he had heard and appreciated. The quote was: "If I wake to see the sunrise, I've had a good night. If I live to see the sunset, I've had a good day." Bingo.

Now, just for the exercise, let me recite a few things I'm truly thankful for, in no particular order other than the way they pop into my head. I feel motivated to include some of the more obvious things I'm thankful for on a daily basis, but equally motivated to share the odd little pleasures. Sorta like the nonsensical material that often finds its way into this blog, that's just me...

I'm thankful to be a part of the National Hot Rod Association. No organization in the world is perfect, and I'm not excluded from the group that sees things they'd like to change or improve, from time to time. But, at the core of it, I'm part of a group that puts on the best, safest, and most exciting racing events in the world. Most people have no idea how difficult it is to organize and manage a sporting event of any magnitude, much less a huge major-league weekend like one of our national events. Having been the General Manager of two different pro soccer teams, and the GM at Heartland Park, I know very well how thick the binder is that includes all of the details on how to make one of these deals come off smoothly. I'm amazed at how hard the event marketing people work, how skilled and organized the pit control people are, how tireless the ticketing, sales, and marketing group are, and how talented the NHRA Media Relations staff is, from top to bottom. As for the Safety Safari, there is no better group in the world when it comes to track preparation, and no one on the planet is more fearless or selfless when it comes to keeping our drivers safe.

I'm thankful for this blog. It's not hyperbole to say it has changed my career and my world. It's certainly changed the way I go about my daily life, because I'm not only constantly mentally preparing to write the next one, I'm also constantly looking through my eyes as if they're "blog material binoculars." That last part is so true, because I regularly catch myself thinking "Oh, that's good blog material" even when I'm miles and weeks from the nearest race track.

Of course, I'm thankful for all of you, who click on the Team Wilkerson banner to come here and read whatever nonsense I've written. I know Phil Burgess likes me and thinks I'm an okay guy, but this blog probably wouldn't be here if no one read it. It's a team effort, gang!

On that account, I'm thankful that my buddy "Fast Jack" Beckman writes his blog so carefully and expertly. I may motivate him in terms of quantity, but he motivates me in terms of quality. Plus, he's just a great guy.

Same with my esteemed mentor, buddy, and hockey pal, Phil Burgess. Like most of you, I get a little amped up when I see that his DRAGSTER Insider column has been updated, and I marvel at his editorial skills on a weekly basis when my copy of the ever-evolving and ever-improving National DRAGSTER arrives in my mail box. I've been doing this job since the Dark Ages, but I still get excited when I get my latest copy of the ND.

For that matter, I'm thankful for the ND and its wonderful, talented, staff. I know all of the writers and photographers well, and can only tell you that you are fortunate to have them working so hard to give you this product, week in and week out. I know of no other in-house publication that rivals the ND. I hope you all realize how lucky you are to have it.

I'm thankful to have two wonderful, funny, loving felines in my house. One of which, Boofus, can sometimes be found inside the sink in our utility/laundry room. Yesterday, one of us had left the faucet slightly on, so that the water was dripping into the sink, and Boofie quickly came to the rescue, bound and determined to save the household from the demon water. True, cats are generally not appreciative of H2O, but little Boofie is no ordinary cat, and I'm thankful for that.

Both he and his brother will often simply vanish from time to time, although they're always in the house. You can scour all three levels, look under all the beds, and call for them on a room-by-room search, but they are nowhere to be found. And then, moments later, they'll simply walk down the hallway as if they were right in front of us all the time. I don't know where they go, but I consider it one of their well-kept secrets and I'll allow them to keep it that way. Perhaps they have a portal to another alternate universe, where the people are the pets and the cats are the owners... I wonder how the food is there...

These photos are from yesterday, when I was working away on my Year In Review project (much progress made, thank you) and I was wondering where the little guy was hanging out. Some small noise attracted me to the utility room and there he was, bravely fighting that dripping water on our behalf, lest it overtake the house. His fearlessness was obvious! No amount of droplets on his head were going to stop him from his mission, whatever that goal might have been in his little cat brain. Good boy, Boofie!

I'm eternally thankful for having been raised the son of my parents. There's no getting around the fact I've lived an incredibly fortunate life, and that good fortune continues to this day, despite the fact my father passed away in 2002 and my mother is now lost deep in the dark recesses of Alzheimer's. In college, my roomie Lance and I would talk all the time of how fortunate I'd been, and yet how I'd also faced challenges that many other kids hadn't known. My dad was a great man, but he was usually gone at least nine months out of the year because of his career in baseball. My mom was a sweet and intelligent lady (I get my writing genes from her) but she too wanted a full-time career, so my sister Mary and I pretty much raised ourselves, with a little help from our older sister Cindy before she went off to college. Still, I grew up in a house where every time the doorbell rang, you couldn't bet against the odds that someone like Stan Musial might be on the porch, of if the phone rang the voice on the other end might say "Hi Bobby, this is Bob Griese. Is your brother home?"

I miss my dad every day. We didn't get to spend as much time together as a lot of fathers and sons but our time was priceless, whether I was sitting by his side at yet another ballpark while he was scouting, or running around as his team's bat boy during one of my many dream summers, out on the road with Dad in the minor leagues. My mom gave me every ounce of my appreciation for fine writing and communications, and was as skilled a PR person as I've ever known. She also gave my sister and me all the rope we wanted (more than we deserved) when we were growing up, due to her busy life running her own PR agency, and I think that loose hand allowed us both to develop and mature pretty fast. It also made Mary and I even closer, since we spent our teens helping each other, confiding in each other, and looking out for each other. That bond remains to this day.

What I'm most thankful for, in terms of my parents and my upbringing, is the compassion and acceptance we were taught. Much of what our parents instilled in us was absorbed, but the concepts that everyone is equal, that we're all the same on the inside, and that there is no place in our world for prejudice, pre-judgment, or hate, were specifically taught to us, on a regular basis. I'm saddened (often infuriated) to see so much of those negative traits on display, to this day, in our world. But I'm thankful I was taught to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. 

I'm thankful I finally got to move "home" to the Twin Cities seven years ago. I might be a St. Louis native, but I grew up with a navy blue "TC" cap on my head, since my dad worked for the Twins throughout the 60s. All my life I felt a strong attraction to Minneapolis - St. Paul, and I never shook the feeling I was "supposed" to be here. It took me a long time to get here, but in 2002 I finally arrived. What, no parade?

I'm thankful that I've now been around long enough to be one of those almost-ancient grizzled guys who has actually lived through a thick part of any current school kid's history book. From JFK to The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. From Mickey and Roger in pinstripes, to Gibby and Lou in St. Louis. From Mercury, to Gemini, to Apollo, and then to Skylab, the Shuttle, and the International Space Station. From Vietnam to the Russians in Afghanistan, and now to us in the same place. From 45s to LPs to 8-tracks, and then to cassettes, CDs, and mp3s. I've gone from the little plastic yellow inserts you needed in order to keep your 45 "single" on the spindle to an iPod full of 2,000 songs. I remember my first sight of a color TV, and clearly recall that Bonanza was the show that was on that night. It's been a helluva ride so far, and there's so much more to come... I'm enjoying watching The Jetsons and 2001 - A Space Odyssey actually come to life.

I'm thankful my little buddy Boofus has a big brother to keep him company, since Barbara and I are often more scarce than they are when they disappear for hours at a time. We are truly gone when we go away, but they keep each other entertained and supply each other with love and kisses. And yesterday, when Boofie was fighting the water in the sink, I found Buster in his latest favorite place, right on top of Barb's laptop in the sun room. Perhaps he was looking for the mouse!

I'm thankful for the pure strokes of luck that have allowed Barbara and I to live next door to the greatest neighbors in the world. Just like you can't pick your parents, you really can't pick your neighbors either, but we still miss the McCarleys in Austin and we know how lucky we are to live next to the Jacobsens here in Woodbury. If I was this lucky in Las Vegas, I'd be a billionaire.

I'm thankful Brett Favre came out of retirement. Again.

I'm thankful I'm getting the chance to see Joe Mauer play baseball. When I'm truly old and even more gray, I'll be able to tell the younger kids "Oh yeah, I saw Mauer. Greatest catcher who ever played the game, and a great and humble man he was, too."

I'm thankful for the 12 incredible years I spent with my great friend, Del Worsham. Those years, with Del and CSK, allowed me to find myself, in terms of my career. I shudder to think where I'd be right now, had that never happened.

I'm thankful to now work for Tim Wilkerson, and to be part of his team, his wonderful family, and the great people at LRS. This may come as a shock to you, but the truth is not all of the people in professional sports (ours included), are really as they appear on TV. There are some brilliant actors in pro sports, that's for sure, but Tim Wilkerson is actually a lousy actor. What I discovered, once I got here, was that Tim is actually more of all he appears to be. His humble nature doesn't allow him to even let all of his attributes show through. Simply put, I could not be in a better place.

Needless to say, I'm most thankful to be married to my wonderful wife. Some people have told me that the most obvious thing I unwittingly display in this blog is my pure love and devotion to Barbara. I'm not sure it's unwitting. There is no one on the planet I respect more, love more, or care to share my life with other than Barb. I can't imagine life any other way.

I'm the luckiest person in the world.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Wilber, out!
 

So, with no pre-race press releases to write, and no travel plans to coordinate and keep updated (the NWA/Delta thing ended up changing a LOT of flight times, so we had to make sure we kept our rental car reservations in line with the ever-changing flight arrivals), Barbara and I finally have time to completely and utterly consume ourselves with sports, sports, sports, nothing but sports. It's all sports, all the time, nothing but sports. Ya baby! Of course, my job is in sports, and I've spent my whole life in sports, so why is this anything other than normal?

Hey, before I go any further with that all-sports train of thought, I need to send an important message to a very faithful reader, Jesi Lang. "Hey Jesi!!! I'm so sorry, but I can't find your email address so I haven't been able to tell you that I totally messed up and forgot to get those autographs for you in Pomona. I apologize, but I'm getting the item back to you today. My bad!"

Stupid me. I was trying to a do a favor but all the craziness of Pomona got in my head, including the fact I had family there on Sunday, so I failed in my mission to get a few specific driver autographs for Jesi. Either I have to do a better job of compartmentalizing and remembering stuff like that, or I have to stop promising that I can do those sorts of things, because I have a tendency to mess up on those deals, from time to time. Rats...!   Sorry, Jesi.

Anyway... It now seems impossible that the banquet was one week ago. 
It seems like a year! To mark the passage of time, though, I can now tell you that I haven't shaved since last Wednesday. Maybe I'll take a pic of one week's worth of stubble in a couple of days... Lots of guys were not shaving in November, for a variety of reasons that ranged from laziness to supporting medical research, but I kind of missed the boat by not getting aboard until the 18th of the month. I got up last Wednesday morning, dead-tired from the long weekend and the trip home, and just decided not to shave. Then, the next day, I made the conscious decision to let it grow for a while, because I think the longest I've gone without shaving is about seven days. I have never had a beard, period. I doubt I'll get to that official position with this one, either, but I might get it to a length I like and then start trimming it. If nothing else, this process also allows you to lengthen your sideburns a bit, without having to go through that awkward "almost longer sideburns" phase... And, as opposed to the top of my melon, it's at least reassuring to know I can still grow hair somewhere above my shoulders...

After a couple of days I made the next decision, which was to keep my neck shaved and cleared off because I don't like the feel of it on my neck. So now we're at six days since the last time I ran the Norelco over my face, and I'm starting to have a real "Brett Favre" thing going. I expected it to come in sort of salt & pepper, but there's a little more salt than pepper, I'd say...

Okay, speaking of Favre, it's time to get back to the all-sports theme of this blog. It went something like this, over the weekend...  Wild  vs. Islanders at the Xcel Energy Center arena, in downtown St. Paul, on Friday night. Woodbury High girls varsity hockey, at Bielenberg Ice Center, right here in Woodbury, on Saturday afternoon. Two movies  on the big screen Saturday night (one of which was a sports movie). 
Then, Vikings vs. Seahawks at the newly renamed Mall of America Field (okay, everyone still calls it the Metrodome) in downtown Minneapolis, on Sunday afternoon. Followed by more football on TV when we got home. Followed by reading all about the Vikings game in the paper this morning. This is what you do after the racing is over...

Friday was actually a lot of fun, in all regards. It was Nichol Jacobsen's birthday, so the hockey game ended up being a combination sports outing and birthday party. It was also the first day of deer season, so Dave secretly arranged to have her name put on the scoreboard before he and "the boys" headed out to their property in Wisconsin to sit in trees all day, while we took Nichol out to dinner at the always-fabulous Kincaid's in St. Paul, before walking over to the game. In addition, Nichol's friend Allison met us there, and our neighbor Mary Beth was also at the game, with her significant other,  Bob.  We were spread out all over the lower level of the arena, but  we all had fun when the Wild fought back, hung on, and then won the game with about a minute to play. Much cheering and high-fiving was done by all.

Two other hockey notes worth mentioning: The Wild, this year, have  hired a new crew of ice maintenance skaters who are all young women.   During stoppages in play, a crew skates out onto the ice with shovels to clear away as much of the skate-created snow as possible. It's always been a bunch of guys who were obviously former high school players, but this year they found an equally adept group of girls to do it, and when they scrape around the goals both goalies move aside for them. The Islanders goalie, Martin Biron, would skate right over in front of us and we couldn't tell if he was resting or staring at  the girls with the shovels.  Also, Dave scored massive points by not just having Nichol's name on the scoreboard, but also having the Wild add a very sweet message, as well. That's how you get to be out there for the deer opener on your wife's birthday! Score those points every year, and you have a few in the bank for hunting season.

After the game, we all met at Pazzaluna, a few blocks away, for a couple of appetizers and drinks, and while we were sitting there, Eric Belanger of the Wild came in the door. Being French-Canadian, his name is pronounced (and this is straight from the Wild website) "buh- LAWN-zhay" but you probably knew that. As he and his companion (I assume it was his wife but I don't even know if he's married) walked by, we all clapped and his wife seemed to really like that, but Belanger looked a little embarrassed. Not long after that, the hero of the game who scored the winning goal, Owen Nolan, entered the room, so that was kind of cool. It was a night of great food, great friends, and great fun. You really can't beat that.

The next day, our neighbor Alexa Jacobsen and the high school girls had their first game of the season, at the ice center just up the road from us. Dave was still out in the country sitting in a tree, waiting for a deer to walk by, and Barbara had an appointment, so Nichol rode with me and we went to the game to see Alexa play her first game with  the captain's "C" sewn on her jersey.  She's really a great player,  who basically out-skates and outworks the other players on the ice because she's not going to beat anybody with her size. Her teammates all call her "Midge" as a reference to her diminutive stature (she might be 5' 1" on skates) but she's tough as nails, great on her skates, and very talented. Because of all that, it's been interesting to hear about all the college visits and recruiting that's been going on this summer. She's not sure where she's going to go, yet, but she'll be playing college hockey when she gets there.

The girls looked great, won big, and I even got lucky enough to capture a photo of Alexa just as she shot the puck, which then found the net for her first goal of the season. She also had an assist, and a two-minute penalty, so she pretty much covered it all right there.

On Saturday night, Barbara and I had a nice salad and then retreated to the big screen downstairs, to see the new "Star Trek" movie in Blu- Ray. If you haven't seen it, you should! It's really a terrific flick, and it's fun to see how well they went back to the beginning to fill in the history of how the young versions of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura all ended up on the Enterprise together. The characters are very rich, the acting is great, and the movie is visually stunning.

When that was over, it was still early so Barbara and I popped in the old-reliable hockey movie, "Miracle" and watched that for the 1,334th time. I can easily watch it another 1,334 times... Greatest hockey movie ever made, and one of the best and most accurate sports movies ever produced. I give it 8 stars and four thumbs up!

Sunday was all about something we rarely get to do. If doing something for the second time in your life makes it "rare" then that's exactly what it was. We donned our purple, headed for the Dome (er, uh, Mall of America Field) to watch No. 4 and the Vikes, from great seats on the 20-yard line. We sat next to some great people and had a great time chatting with them and cheering for Brett and the Vikes, who gave us plenty to cheer about. And, Mary Beth and Bob, who were at the hockey game on Friday and met us afterward, were also at the football game, so we met them at half-time.

On the walk around to meet them, we passed two open doors to the outside, and got to have some fun there, for no additional charge (as expensive as everything is at the Dome, I'm surprised they don't  charge $7 to do this...)  The dome is inflated, obviously, and you  can imagine how much forced air it takes to keep the gigantic teflon roof and all those steel cables lifted into place. When you enter or leave, you go through revolving doors that are actually air-locks, so that all of that compressed atmosphere stays inside, but every now and then they open a few of the regular doors, and you can practically fly if you stand in the right place...

The air is rushing through those openings at a high rate of speed, and if you walk out the door it literally ejects you from the stadium, pushing you a good 10 feet before you regain your balance. But, if you stand just in front of the door (but not directly in it) you can lean forward and the air will hold you up. Photographic evidence is available for viewing in the photo gallery.

Hey, I'm hungry... Guess I better eat something before I dive back into that "Year In Review" thing... Then I have a Procrastinator's Club meeting later this afternoon, but after that... I promise.

How many more days until the Winternationals???

Wilber, out!
 

Going back over the many years, my first "banquet" (to be technical, I think a "banquet" includes a sit-down dinner, so many of our ceremonies have just been "shows," but everyone still calls it "the banquet") was in 1992, when I attended with Chuck Etchells and his crew (my first PR/management job with a team) and back then the banquet was held at the old Red Lion Hotel, by the Ontario Airport. I don't remember a lot other than it lasted a really long time, and the top three points finishers in each Pro class got to make a speech. I had to look it up to be sure, but Cruz Pedregon won the FC championship that year, and John Force came in second. What most people probably don't remember is that Al Hofmann finished third and therefore got to speak. He went to the podium first, and let's just say it was vintage Al because his "speech" was more of a rambling monologue about anything that was chapping his hide at the time. Nary a "thank you" or a sponsor mention included. We were, as a group at our table, alternating between laughing out loud and peeking between our fingers. After they made Al Hofmann, they broke the mold.

I recall the fact that Force came up next, and it was as if Robin Williams had just followed Andy Rooney to the stage. His "speech" was a maniacal out-of-control comedy act, full of veering tangents in a stream of consciousness, and at some point, we were all reaching for our napkins to dab away the tears running down our cheeks. Frankly, I'd never seen anything like it. I actually felt a bit sorry for Cruz, who had to follow that act, although I think they also had a hard time getting Force to stop.

Since then, we've had a wide variety of ceremonies, at places like the Cerritos Performing Arts Center, Universal Studios, and the Kodak Theater. Throughout most of those years, the CSK team would rent a huge limo and "commute" to the show, and despite the fact the car was fully stocked with any adult beverage you could think of, I recall all of us having some fun on the way there but then being sound asleep for the whole ride back. By Monday night, at the end of the season, there ain't much fuel left in the party tank...

Also, throughout those years, the banquet was more often a marathon of uncomfortable speeches, boring presentations, and lame skits or musical entertainment. My gosh, it seemed like they let anyone with an index card in his hand get up there and ramble on for 15 minutes. Sometimes the skits were funny (they did a video parody of "The Sopranos" one year, which included the Snake in a starring role, and that really was very humorous), but mostly they were groaners, followed by yet another executive with no public speaking expertise, stepping to the microphone to drone on for a quarter-hour about the history of his involvement with the sport, in a sort of "I started out as a child..." fashion. It was, quite often, a night of agony that would stretch on until we'd all taken four bathroom breaks and basically couldn't stand another minute of it.

Fortunately, this year's banquet was a concise, well-run breeze. We gathered in the lower level of the Hyatt for a reception first (although there were no signs pointing you down the escalators, so about half the group simply gathered in the lobby), and that hour was spent circulating, admiring each other's formal wear and congratulating each other on another successful year. There was also much talk of brief vacations or other off-season plans. Once the lights flashed, we all headed into the beautiful ballroom and found our tables. We were seated at A-22, at the back of the main lower level and right in the middle, and the Tasca team was next to us, although they needed three extra seats so Bob's mom and dad sat with us, along with my PR colleague Susan Pollack.

Almost immediately, the "sorry if you wanted rubber chicken because you have to take this filet mignon" dinner was brought out, and we all immediately made it obvious that we were hungry. Not a lot of talking going on when you wolfing down dinner and grabbing dinner rolls. As planned, I sat between Krista Wilkerson and my best buddy Rachel, who (as previously noted in the Wednesday blog) looked simply marvelous.

All during dinner, a slide show was showing on the big screens throughout the room, and I had been warned by ND photographer Jerry Foss that I was in it. As soon as he said that, I knew the photo he was talking about... Yup, I think we were in Phoenix when he walked right up to me and stuck the lens in my face, at which point I did what any insanely handsome man would do: I crossed my eyes. My mother would be so proud, but I'm living proof that they don't get stuck that way. Sure enough, about halfway through the slide show (which was on a continuous loop and therefore ran about 20 times during dinner) a 12-foot high version of me appeared, eyes firmly focused on the tip of my nose. Ah, my 15 minutes of fame!

About the fourth time it appeared, Tim turned to anyone near our table and said "There's our guy. We actually pay him..."

Once dinner was done, the esteemed Mr. Frey took the stage, and one of the first items was a nice season recap video, with all sorts of highlights from 2009 and a lot of great people shots. One of those included Neighbor Dave and I doing our "slap, slap, bump, explode" fist-bump behind the car, after which I turn to the ESPN camera, point at either Nelly or Dana (no clue which one of them shot the scene) and did a fist bump with him. Tack on another eight seconds to my 15 minutes of fame...

From that point on, the show moved quite briskly, with each of the four Pro classes being introduced. If you've never seen it, the methodology is for points finishers 2 through 10 to come out as a group, and then each driver is introduced with a very short video. They get to step forward and wave, and then it's on to the next one. Finally, the champ is introduced solo, and he or she gets to come out and make a speech.

For the record, Hector Arana's speech was from the heart and totally unrehearsed. So unrehearsed, he forgot a few people and actually asked Frey if he could make amends for that after he was done. From that point forward, throughout the night, Bob kept looking at Hector in the audience, saying "Anything else you need to add, Hector? Are we good? Forget anyone else?"

Mike Edwards' speech was about as motivational as you can get, full of meaningful messages. Robert Hight had the foresight to bring his whole crew up on stage with him, and his speech was also well- delivered. He only had a little emotional trouble when it came time to thank Force, his boss, mentor, and father-in-law. Finally, Tony Schumacher came to the stage, and frankly you'd think this would be old hat for him. He actually pointed at Robert and said "I can't believe you thought to do that and I didn't" about having the crew on stage, and then he calmly and seriously spoke of Fort Hood and how he was going to take his Wally down there for the grieving families. The Sarge did a great job.

In between classes, there were other awards to give out, including Spencer Massey's rookie of the year trophy, and a few key speeches from Tom Compton and the Coca-Cola folks. All in all, we were dressed up for about three and a half hours, then let all the youngsters kick up their heels at the after-party. Dave and I headed straight to our rooms, and I can tell you with no exaggeration that I then attempted to check my e-mail and caught myself nodding off at the desk in my room. Straight to bed it was...

I did have some time to kill in the morning, before my 3:20 flight out of LAX, so I took the rental car over to Santa Monica, then over through Brentwood and Westwood, down the El Segundo, and then finally to the airport.

Now... It's Friday and Dave just called with some marketing assignments we have to tackle RIGHT NOW, so I have to wrap this up and get to work. Enjoy the photos, enjoy the weekend, and maybe send a few positive vibes to our struggling hockey team. The Wild play the New York Islanders tonight, and we'll be there in our Row 2 seats, hoping they pick up the pace and look a little better than they have so far this season.

See you soon,

Wilber, out!

For the record, I slept late. My excuse was that my body was still on Pacific Time, but the truth is my body was still on the "really, really, tired" setting, and I just needed to recharge. Even on Sunday night and Monday night, out there, it was all still "on" and the sleep was never up to what I was looking for in either quantity or quality. Once I got home last night, and then joined both cats and my wife on the sofa to watch a little "Dancing With The Stars" it was off to bed and some total relaxation.

I spent a short morning (they are short when you sleep through half of them) wrapping up my expenses, printing out a few clippings, and answering 2,000 pounds (that would be a "ton") of wonderful emails, and then I took the dry cleaning up to Woodbury Cleaners and let the girls there know that I was dropping off the LRS shirts and the black slacks for the last time this year. I then went next door to Subway for lunch (Subway Club, toasted, with American cheese) and one of the regular guys behind the counter said "I was watching on ESPN 2 Sunday night, and I think I saw you. There were Funny Cars racing, so was that you?" It's possible...

Anyway, it's basketball night tonight (hapless 1-10 Wolves vs. the 6-5 Houston Rockets) so Barb will be home soon and we'll turn around and head for Target Center in Minneapolis. Then, we have Wild tickets (vs. the New York Islanders) for Friday night, which is also neighbor Nichol's birthday, so we're trying to figure out whether we'll have pre-game or post-game festivities in downtown St. Paul. On Sunday, our all-sports-all-the-time weekend will conclude when we attend our only Vikings game of the year, at the Metrodome versus the Seahawks. This should be a lot of fun.

Barbara and I are still debating whether we're going to try to get away for a few days, at any point, this winter. Sadly, the London trip now seems impossible. With all the grueling travel she's just been through, there's no way she wants to fly that far without being certain of a seat in First Class (okay, call us both spoiled rotten but until you've flown as much as we have you might not understand how totally unappealing a 10-hour flight in coach sounds) and for us to get guaranteed upgrades the full coach fare is well over $1,200 apiece. London sounds great, but that ain't gonna happen.

So, today I nosed around a bit for fares to various places we enjoy, and right now we're analyzing the options. Barbara is taking all of next week off, but I really don't feel I'm able to do that, so we're looking at someplace close by, with good food, and lots to do. Austin is on the list, as are a couple of other fun destinations, but we might just stay home and enjoy Thanksgiving with the Jacobsens and their large extended family. After all of the airports, airplanes, and rental cars we've endured this year, staying home sounds kinda nice...

Basically, my next deadline is December 16 when Annette and I will meet with LRS, down in Springfield, to recap the season from our marketing, PR, and hospitality perspectives, and then discuss how we can change, improve, or make any of it more efficient next year. For that meeting, I need to have all of my post-season review stuff done, and I feel the need to come up with an outline of the bullet points I want to talk about, so I can't be messing around too much over the next few days. This guy's got work to do!

And... The next work item on my agenda is this blog. Today, I'll go back to the weekend, and we'll wrap up all the racing news and photos. On my next blog, I'll show you the sights and describe the fun of the Awards Ceremony. You will no doubt enjoy seeing us all dressed up. I know we did.

I won't go into our on-track results in any great detail, other than to say we ran pretty well in qualifying and ended up 6th on the ladder. That brought with it a first-round match-up with our buddy, Fast Jack, and we knew that was going to be tough. What was also facing us, square in the eye, was the wide range of possibilities for where we'd end the season in the points. We entered the race 6th, with Ron Capps just a couple of points ahead of us, then Fast Jack and Tony Pedregon were 4th and 3rd, respectively. They were both less than a round ahead of us, so getting around Jack was a mission we had in our own hands, but we'd need someone to beat Tony and Ron if we wanted to get by them. Same thing for Ashley Force Hood, who was 27 points ahead, in 2nd place, when we started the race. 

Well, two out of four ain't bad.

We beat Jack, Matt Hagan beat Tony, and in well fell swoop we moved up from 6th to 4th. Ron and Ashley won, too, so we were still on their tail but running out of time. Sure enough, we beat Robert Hight in the next round, but Ron beat Hagan on a hole-shot to keep us at bay, and when Ashley won we knew she'd have to lose in the semifinal and we'd have to win the race if we wanted to retain the number 2 on our car for 2010.

There was a way for that to happen, and it went like this: Ron would have to beat Ashley in their semifinal, while we beat Mike Neff. Then, if we beat Ron in the final, we'd end up in 2nd place. Easy, right!  Well, not so much, actually. Ron lost to Ashley, we lost to Zippy, and we'll have a 4 on our car next year. Hey, how many other Funny Car teams would trade their number for a 4 next year? My guess would be all but three of them...

Other fun stuff...  My nephew Ewan now lives in So Cal, working for Pitney Bowes, and his sister (my niece) Lauren just happened to be out there visiting, so they came to the race on Sunday, bringing along Ewan's buddy Dave, who is a huge NHRA fan. It was great to see Ewan and Lauren, and to meet Dave, and it was even better to give them some backstage access during driver introductions, and let them see and experience what it's like to win a couple of important rounds on Sunday.

We also wanted to get our picture taken, as a group, so I grabbed the closest guy who ought to know how to work a camera and asked him to take one. Who was that? Well, I figured the Editor of National DRAGSTER and NHRA.com should be up to it, so I asked Phil Burgess. Dave and Ewan then said "The picture will be nice to have, but the real story will be telling everyone who took it!" Yup.  And, for the record, Ewan is a former high school and college basketball player so, no, I have not recently been reduced in size. He's about 6' 9" or thereabouts.

In case you missed it on TV, the Budweiser Clydesdales were also there, and that's always a thrill for a St. Louis boy like me. On Sunday morning, as we walked up the staging lanes toward the stage, the horses and the Bud beer wagon were getting ready to go, and two different people came up to me and said "Kenny doesn't know yet, but Budweiser is giving him a Clydesdale!"  My first thought was "Huh?" followed by "I guess that's pretty cool..."  It was cool, and talk about a heckuva gift!  I wonder if the Sheraton allowed him to take the horse to his room that night?

Rachel Wilkerson, my best buddy, saw John Force on Sunday morning and he took off his Castrol hat, autographed it just for her, and gave it to her. She was jazzed, as you might imagine. The autograph even said "John Force. Love you!"

Tim went up to his lounge to get his fire suit on before the introductions, and he came out wearing a Mike Edwards Pro Stock World Champion t-shirt. We all thought that was pretty cool...

As I mentioned in the last blog, once the day was over I just didn't have it in me to go to the post-race party over in Morgan Lucas' pit, despite the fact he got In-N-Out to bring over their mobile store (it's a truck with a kitchen, I guess) and he served 400 Double-Doubles. Instead, I got a good night's sleep, then took Finkster to the airport in the morning, and finally drove back over to the track. As promised in the last blog, I have included a "morning after" pic of the pro pit area. Plenty of trash, some teams (like ours) completely gone, some packed up and pulling out, and a few pit areas that had barely been touched yet. It's always a weird thing to see...

Then, as previously mentioned, it was off to the Hyatt via the scenic route. The first stop was to exit the freeway at Katella Ave. so that I could drive over to Angel Stadium. When I worked for Converse Shoes and had to call on the Angels, that stadium was one of the least appealing in baseball. Originally, when it was built between 1964 and 1966, it featured grandstands that only extended to the foul poles in each corner, leaving an open outfield, and that allowed them to place a gigantic A-shaped structure with a halo around the top of it, out in left field. The scoreboard was placed about one-third of the way up the big A structure.

But, when the Rams football team moved to Anaheim they "closed the loop" by fully enclosing the stadium, and at the same time they really did nothing to make it feel like much more than a giant concrete bowl. And, because the new part of the grandstand blocked the old giant "A" scoreboard, they moved it out to the edge of the parking lot so it could be seen from the 57 Freeway.

A variety of things happened to change all of that. 1. The Rams moved to St. Louis. 2. A major earthquake seriously damaged the upper deck of the newly enclosed part of the stadium, above the baseball outfield. 3. Disney bought the Angels.

Put all three of those things together, and what you got was a total refurbishment of the stadium, including the removal of the newest part of it out in the outfield (returning it to its original design, with an open outfield) and lots of cool new features, including the scenic rocks beyond the outfield wall and a lot of other stuff. Disney has since sold the team, but the new owner continues to spend money to make what is one of the older stadiums in the game seem fresh, fan friendly, and fun.  The giant "A" is still out by the freeway, but I'll never forget where it started, nor will I forget those classic old hats the original Los Angeles Angels wore, with the white halo stitched around the top... Where have you gone, Bobby Knoop?

I also drove over to the other side of the freeway, to Honda Center where the Anaheim Ducks play. My buddy Rachel Kaizoji (who used to work for NHRA) works for the Ducks, but I hadn't called to see if she was around so I didn't bug her. I just took a pic of her workplace from the parking lot. I'm sorry, but it's pretty odd for me to see an NHL hockey arena surrounded by palm trees...

Well, that's about all I have time for right now. I have to finish up one more small project, then get ready to go watch the Rockets destroy the Wolves, even without Yao Ming.

I'll be back tomorrow (at least that's the plan) with tales of the Awards Ceremony...

Wilber, out!

First of all, it's Pomona, it's the Finals, and the finality of that is inescapable the whole long weekend, as you're constantly aware of where you are. There is a certain unique quality to the natural light, and the air, in Pomona. It's unmatched anywhere else on the tour, from the mountains in the distance to the warm glow as the sun sets somewhere out there, beyond the Pacific Ocean. It's So Cal, it's Pomona, and it's unlike anyplace else we race. So... For about five days you know it's the Finals, and you know the season is about to end.

Unless you win the race (we came close, but no cigar) your day ends before the race does. As soon as we lost in the semifinals, to Zippy, we all got to work. I crouched in my corner of the hospitality area, and Annette did me a HUGE favor by having everyone start to tear the area down at the front end, so that I didn't have awnings, banners, and privacy walls coming down around me. It's not easy to immediately seat yourself at a table in the middle of a noisy pit area and put into 1,200 words what just happened, but it's a thousand times harder when people are disassembling the world all around you, and you know you're not only in the way but also taking up a table and chair that need to be packed up.

Then, after hitting the "Send" button, I changed into a work t-shirt and joined the elephants tearing down the pit, for the last time in 2009. Somewhere well after dark, well after all the final rounds, and nearing what felt like the middle of the night (but it was actually only about 8:00) we were done. There was a big pit party out there, since Morgan Lucas picked up the baton from Del and all of us former Team CSK members who had hosted the mega-party forever, but I just didn't have it in me. Our guys said "C'mon, you gotta come hang with us for a little bit," and all I could say was "Dude, I helped invent that party. Been there, been through it, been sucked-in by the vortex it creates like a black hole you can't escape, and tonight I'm going to bed."

On Monday morning, I drove back over there, just to get a look at the surreal scene that is the pro pit area on the morning after.

If you're wondering why I'm not mentioning a photo gallery, it's because I'm pressed for time and need to get to LAX to catch my flight home. We'll have reams of pics to look at all the rest of this week, I promise, including one of the worn-out looking pro pit area!

So, the season was over, but it wasn't over. I had to hop on the ubiquitous LA freeway system and drive to Century City, just east of Santa Monica, for the Awards Ceremony last night. I had time to kill, so I took the long slow route, down through Anaheim and then over to the Pacific Coast Highway near Redondo Beach, up through Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, and El Segundo. Knowing I'd soon be heading home to Minnesota for the winter, I put the windows down, opened the sunroof, and basked in all the glory that is Southern California and the PCH. Another totally unique area, and it is so much of everything I think of when I think of So Cal. I even ended up passing through a bit of Hawthorne, Calif., where the Beach Boys all grew up, just to put the perfect bow on my mini-tour of the lower left coast.

Then, here to the Hyatt, into my room, then shortly after that into my monkey suit for the show. We all mingled, we laughed, we shared a lot of hugs, and all the stories and the pics will be forthcoming later this week. And Rachel Wilkerson looked FABULOUS!

Now, it's Tuesday. Is it over? No, because I still have to check out, get to the airport, turn the car in, get checked in for my flight, get through security, get on my flight, sit strapped to a seat for three hours, get my luggage at MSP's eternally slow baggage claim area, get to my car, and drive home. Then, once I walk in through the door from our garage, kiss my wife who I haven't seen in three weeks, and rub my little buddies Boofus and Buster, then... It will be over.

Much more to come, I promise. So many stories to tell and photos to share. I'll leave you with this view out of my 9th floor window at the Hyatt, looking eastward through a building that is designed to have the whole center part of it missing. Beverly Hills to my left, Hollywood in the distance, and LAX isn't too far away. Time to go home...

Wilber, out!
 

This race is already pretty "crazy go nuts" in terms of stuff going on, so I'm not sure how long or coherent this blog will be. It seems like every few seconds I'm reacting to some other different assignment or conversation, but the bottom line is I have some great pics to share so I need to at least tap a few words out here just to have a vehicle for the photos. This blog will play the part of the chips, and the pics are the good queso. You have to have a way to get the queso in your mouth; hence the chips...

I'm also about hyped to the max on coffee this morning. John Fink and I have eaten breakfast together over at the Sheraton each morning, and the waitress is always hovering over us to keep the cups full, then (of course) we still need to make our standard morning pilgrimage to McDonald's for another large one. Considering I don't drink coffee at home, and only have it sporadically at the races, I'm not saying I'm hyper but things sure are moving at a high rate of speed! LOL.

Okay, a few short updates:

1. The flight out was uneventful except for the 35-minute delay leaving the gate so that some sort of repair could be made to the Captain's seat in the cockpit. A mechanic made three different trips in there, and on the last one he was carrying a roll of duct tape, so that must have cured whatever ailed the pilot's perch. You can't make stuff like that up.

2. Hertz gave me a brand new (4 miles on it!) black Cadillac DTS. It's a pimp-daddy ride for sure, but a very nice car. Plus, I can make a few extra bucks at night driving teenagers around to proms or dances! All I need is the snazzy hat.

3. I'm in a nice room at the Sheraton. Originally, Barb was planning on coming out for the race and she likes to stay there because she can ride the tram over here from the Wally Parks Museum. She's still in Europe, though, so I could've stayed with the team, but I like the place too and Finkster wanted to stay there, so I bucked up for the big room rate and took it like a man.

4. On Thursday morning, John and I drove out to Ontario to pick up Jon Gimmy and Kevin Wilkerson, who flew out here in the morning. Considering they landed at 10:00 in the morning here, and had to fly from St. Louis to Dallas, and then to Ontario (and, of course, first had to drive the 110 miles from Springfield to the St. Louis airport) I was wondering what time they got up. According to Kevin, they didn't. They had to leave Springfield quite literally in the middle of the night, so they both stayed up and then slept some on the planes. No way in the world I could do that... No way.

5. The team was originally staying in San Dimas, just up the road, at a hotel that shall remain nameless, but which rhymes with Red Roof Inn. They checked in on Tuesday, and were immediately struck by the quaint way in which half the guests appeared to be actually living there, and how they so charmingly put their chairs out in front of their