Ashley’s Weekly Blog
Monday June 29

This weekend we raced in Norwalk, OH and after a weekend off from racing everyone was excited to be back together at the track and ready to go racing! Our team stayed at a really fun hotel called the Kalahari about 20 minutes from the race track that has an actual indoor water park with slides, a wave pool, outside swimming pools and also a zoo in the back! This was a real treat for all of the crew guys and when we got into town on Thursday afternoon after our team dinner down at the hotel restaurant all of my guys along with my husband Dan hit the water park for a few hours and had a chance to goof off and have some fun together! It was really funny because my team was so excited to go swimming that when we met down for the dinner half of them showed up in their bathing suits! They were like little kids antsy to get outside and play.

Now I love to swim but I think the coolest thing about the hotel was not so much the water park but the white baby tiger they had in the front lobby that guests could take pictures with and pet! He was adorable and actually looked a lot like my cat Simba! Of course I had to get a picture with him and actually ended up getting 2 pictures…one of Dan and I and one of me in my Castrol GTX race uniform for the hotels “Wall of Fame” in the front of the hotel (It’s a wall filled with different athletes and celebrities who have stayed at The Kalahari and taken pictures with the tiger.) We had a lot of fun Thursday but come Friday it was time to go racing.

The track was very tricky all weekend long with most every car struggling to get a good pass in. We qualified #5 regardless but it was still a strange couple of days of racing. A few other few things were going on during the event other than racing however. Team Braveheart was out at the event as guests of Tim Wilkerson’s team so many of the drivers went down on Friday to meet kids who are struggling with health problems but also are big race fans and getting to spend a fun day at the track. One of the kids, Klaus, rode with me and my team in our Ford Flex up to both qualifying sessions and we had a lot of fun having him come along with us and giving him a behind the scenes look at what we do. He was a really fun and smart kid and he brought us luck that day as we made some good runs! He came back with his family on Sunday to watch the race and cheer us on and it was great to get to meet him and all of the kids involved with Team Braveheart!

On the other side of the pits in Tony and Cruz Pedregon’s pit area ‘Locks for Love’ was out for the day on Saturday cutting fans and racers hair for a great cause to help out cancer patients. Tony’s daughter along with Larry Dixons daughter and others chopped many inches off of there hair that day and it was great to see everyone getting involved and having fun doing it. After qualifying they also had an auction to raise money for the program. It was a lot of fun and really great of the Pedregon’s and all of the other racers to get involved to help out this cause. And seeing all the drivers and fans outbidding each other was a great time as well!
 
On Sunday we had our team meeting and prayer, went up for driver introductions and were ready to go! The weather had different plans however as moments before we were to pull up to the lanes in started raining hard so we went into a holding pattern which is never fun for anyone! Thankfully it didn’t rain for long and once the sun came out it was beautiful for the rest of the day! All 4 of our teams did really great and dad and I got to the semi finals. My sisters also did great and Courtney also went to the semi finals as well, which was really cool! The best part of the day was that we moved in to the number 1 spot in the points! My whole team and I were super excited and can’t wait for the ‘Western Swing’! It should be a great summer of NHRA drag racing!