Ashley Force Hood
July Blog

July is a big month for my family and I because not only is it time for the Western Swing, but also birthday’s galore! My sister Brittany, my husband Dan and my mom all have birthdays this month along with my father in law Kelly, sister in law Sandra, and crew guy Alex! Whew! It’s an exciting but very busy time of year because not only will we be celebrating these special days and racing out here in our neck of the woods for the next month, but on top of that, my husband and I will literally be living on the road as we have once again rented an El Monte RV this summer to travel to the next three races and see some beautiful country.

To kick off our first weekend of July Dan and I spent the weekend up in Lake Tahoe to celebrate 4th of July with our good friends Justin and Sarah from Chicago. They flew out and we got to spend a few days boating, swimming, and catching up since we don’t get to see them all that much. Dan grew up with Justin, who was one of our groomsmen in our wedding, and I’ve gotten to know him and his girlfriend Sarah these last few years and we always have a lot of fun when we all get together.

We flew home from Lake Tahoe Monday afternoon and headed straight to the El Monte RV location out in Santa Fe Springs to pick up our RV. The rest of that day was pure chaos as we unpacked and washed our Tahoe clothes and then re- packed for the next 3 weeks. Since we had rented an RV last summer and had such a great time, we knew we had to do it again this year, and it was easier to pack and get set up considering we’d done it before. Since we had nothing in our refrigerator at home (other than popsicles…when I had my tonsils out last year Dan literally bought me cases of popsicles which we are still trying to get rid of) we grabbed Chipotle on the way home, watched a little TV and then headed to bed. We knew we had a very long day and a great adventure ahead of us.

Tuesday morning we hit the open road and headed towards Seattle. The NHRA Full Throttle series races out here in the west for the next three events in Seattle, Sonoma and Denver. This is an important time of year because the Countdown to the Championship is just around the corner and every team dreams of sweeping the Western Swing and winning all three. It is certainly not easy to do, but has been done by a handful of great drivers and teams. We have really struggled this season even though our car has been running good so we are hoping to turn things around this summer. Maybe a little change of pace and living out of an El Monte RV instead of airports is just what we need. After driving all day and night we stayed the night in the beautiful Redwood Forrest and took some pictures of the scenery and are now back on the road to Seattle.

Tomorrow we’ll get to the track, see our team and get set up. Unlike most other drivers, I will be the one out decorating our RV area with colored lanterns and balloons for all the birthdays going on this week. But like all the other drivers out there, I will also be looking forward to the first qualifying session of the Western Swing come Friday afternoon and hoping that it will be a good solid pass and one step closer to winning Seattle and maybe even sweeping the Swing.