Ashley’s Weekly Blog
Monday, July 13, 2009

The western swing has officially begun! This past weekend we raced in Denver, Colorado, one of the most beautiful tracks on the circuit as the drag strip is tucked away into the side of a mountain! But before we actually arrived to the track on Thursday afternoon we had already spent a little in time in Colorado leading up to the race.

My husband and I decided to rent an El Monte RV motor home and go on the road for the western swing. So the Tuesday before the race we loaded up basically everything out of our condo- clothes, kitchen and bathroom supplies, and our cat Simba of course, and got on the road towards Colorado. Dan drove all day and late into the evening and I rode alongside, reading, sight seeing and taking pictures out of the RV window, and sleeping a little too!

Our first stop on our adventure was the Mesa Verde National Park. We actually stayed there for two nights and went hiking and took tours of the amazing cliff dwellings- some of the largest ever discovered- in the mountains of this park. It was also Dan’s birthday that day so we celebrated that evening by making leftovers in the motor home and opening presents (movies for the trip, an electric toothbrush and some other random gifts!) It was a really fun couple of days out in the wilderness where there were deer everywhere, and no service on our cell phones anywhere!

On Thursday we got up really early when it was still dark and got back on the road so we could stop at the Royal Gorge before we had to be at the track. We walked over the bridge and took a ton of pictures of the highest suspended bridge ever built. It was pretty amazing and a little nerve racking as you could look down through the boards of the bridge and see the river rushing below us with people river rafting!

After our stop we headed on to the track and that evening had my race team over for tacos at the motor home. My crew guys helped us hang little decorative lights on the awning of the motor home and played with Simba while Dan and I made dinner. It was a fun night and very rare for all of us to have a home cooked meal while on the road!

We had a challenging few days of qualifying (with one really sideways run!) but ended up qualified #7, in the middle of the pack. The change in altitude here in Denver really caused a lot of teams to struggle but fortunately my crew chiefs Dean and Ron were able to get it figured out and we ended up going all the way to the final round! We lost to Ron Capps and are now tied with him for #1 in the NHRA Countdown points. It was a great weekend for us and now we have packed up our RV and are getting ready to caravan with my team to Seattle for the next stop. Have a great week!