3-30-09

March 30 Blog (after Houston, TX event)

This past weekend we were in Houston, Texas for our fourth race of the 2009 NHRA Full Throttle season. We started out the weekend with a team dinner at a local Mexican joint near our hotel. It was our crew chief Ron’s birthday that day so we celebrated with him. We also had Tom, a former crew member and team goofball, return to our team this weekend after a few months away and everyone was really excited to have him back! Come Friday and Saturday we did awesome in qualifying. Though we only had 3 qualifying sessions due to some heavy rain Friday afternoon, we had 3 awesome passes with a 4.13, 4.09 and a 4.08 and ended up #3. The car was very consistent I had some of the smoothest runs I can ever remember having!

My sisters Brittany and Courtney were also out here this weekend racing their Darien & Meadows BrandSource A-Fuel dragsters and they did great. Brittany qualified really strong on Friday and placed 6th though Courtney struggled and stayed on the bump. Come Saturday that totally changed and Courtney made a beautiful pass at a 4.30 and 270 mph (her career quickest!) and jumped all the way to the #1 spot! Brittany didn’t improved and was bumped down to the 15 spot but still in the show. Watching Courtney’s run, especially when she had been bumped out and needed to get back in, was one of the most exciting moments of the weekend for me, my family and her whole team! Though they both went out early in the first round later that day, it was still a great weekend. They got a chance to get some more experience in their cars and it was really exciting to watch, especially when they lined up side by side for one of the sessions!

Sunday found my team matched up with Ron Capps in the first round. Now it was Brittany and Courtney’s turn to cheer our team on. Shortly after I stepped on the throttle my Mustang smoked the tires which surprised me after the 3 great qualifying runs we’d made. I pedaled it and fortunately was able to get the car to recover and get down the track before Capps who was also up in tire smoke. I got over by the wall towards the end of the run and lifted and coasted through the finish line and I was just waiting for Ron to fly on by but thankfully he didn’t. It’s the hardest thing to step off that pedal during a race but if you hit a wall or cross the centerline you are disqualified so I wasn’t taking any chances! Second round I matched up against dad and the fans were super excited to see us line up side by side. By then the track was really giving all the teams a lot of grief and while I was getting suited up to run I could hear pair after pair of cars ahead of my smoking the tires and pedaling and this time I was ready for tire smoke since I knew the chances of having to pedal the car were pretty likely. Sure enough dad and I both smoked the tires but again I was able to recover and get down the track. Semi finals I raced Del Worsham who beat me last year in the final round so I owned him one! My crew chiefs told me before the run they had the car figured out and it would go down the track this time and they were right. We were so excited after that round to be back in a final round since we had really struggled so far this season. In the final round I raced my former race instructor Jack Beckman. This time we didn’t get to choose our lane so I was a little nervous about the car going down the track but my team gave me a great car that went smoothly down the racetrack and we got the win in a close finish line race!

It was a great day with a fantastic finish and really felt how a race win should. We celebrated and signed autographs for the fans who all stayed to check out the winner’s circle, did our win pictures and then packed up our car and trailer early so our guys could relax and enjoy the win. They earned it! We ended up at Hooter’s for our win dinner with all 4 of the funny car teams, the A Fuel teams and my family and had a fun night. My team was still so excited about our day that after dinner we went to our hotel lobby and played cards and watched the race on ESPN2 on the flat screen in the lobby. It still hasn’t really hit us that we just won our second national event but you can bet we will all have big smiles on our face for the rest of the week!