2-23-09

Our race weekend in Phoenix did not go exactly how we had hoped however it was still a very exciting day as we rooted on our teammate Mike Neff and his Ford Racing team who went all the way to the final round! Our Castrol Mustang struggled the first day of qualifying on Friday and I even had my first fire of the year. My sponsor Oakley had recently set up an in car camera so that ESPN 2 could show footage of inside the race car during a run, and the camera perfectly captured me as the fireball came up around me. This is the first time we’ve had an in car camera so it was very interesting to be able to see what goes on when there is a fire. The video shows a lot more fire than I remember at the time but fortunately all my Impact gear did its job as I wasn’t affected at all except for a singed race boot. Luckily, our next day of qualifying on Saturday was a lot more of what we had in mind! We ran two nice passes down the track and qualified in the #12 spot. As happy as we were to make it in the show we then learned that I would be paired against my brother in law Robert Hight in his Auto Club funny car for the first round. Racing a teammate is never how you like to start a Sunday but that is how the ladder ended up and though we knew one of us would lose, we also knew one of us would be going on the 2nd round and on their way to a possible win. Sunday was not my day and though we had a killer race with both of our cars running great runs, I came up a little short at the finish line and lost the round. My team’s mode then turned to teammate as we could now only help the others who were still in the race. Though we were disappointed not to go more rounds we know it’s very early in the season and that we have a car that’s running very well and a team that is working great together so we know we can’t get down on ourselves. This will be a challenging year but if we can keep positive and if my guys keep giving me a good car and I do my job as a driver, we’ll be just fine this year!

We drove home from Phoenix on Monday and now I head to New York City for the week to do some interviews and a photo shoot and to visit my younger sister Brittany who’s attending school in the Big Apple this semester. I’ve been with my guys, my husband and my male cat all weekend long so it’ll be nice to have a little girl time with my sister and with our PR person Kelly out on the east coast. I just hoped I packed warm enough clothes! After coming from sunny Arizona, I think I’ll be in for quite a shock when I step off the plane in New York! Have a great week!