We still continued to see Paula and Krista, albeit not nearly as frequently as before. She had a lot on her plate getting her life back in order, and for some reason, things just seem a little more awkward after somebody passes away. Over the next few years we would run into Paula and Krista every now and then, and they both seemed to be doing great. I don't remember exactly how many years ago, but we went over to Paula's and met her new beau Gary Flanagan. Gary had known both Bobby and Paula back in the day and I am sure was a pillar of strength for Paula. Gary is a great guy, and you could tell that he really cared for Paula and Krista. Over the last couple of years we have become a lot closer again and have a great time just hanging out. So it was no surprise when we got an invite to their wedding.

They got married at a restaurant close to where they live. It was a nice Italian place called Antonino's, and the food was awesome! It was set up pretty cool as they had a huge sunken bar and area to hang around at and then a beautiful restaurant to sit down and eat. I knew there would be a few racer types there but I had no idea how many. It was like the Hot Rod Reunion, only a week before the Bakersfield one. Of course "the Greek" was there, and he had a great time chasing the belly dancer around while she was performing. I only hope that when I am 82 or whatever the sundial he uses to calculate his age says he is that I am having just as much fun as he does. I then saw the world famous Hawaiian, Roland Leong. Roland always has some great stories and it is hard to believe how long that he has been racing for and all the "legends" that he has worked for. Roland had a lot of drivers over the years and has accomplished more than most in the sport of drag racing. He still tinkers with the nostalgia cars, but I could tell he would love to come out and work as a consultant for one of the "Big Show" cars. He was sitting with probably one of the best machinists in the sport, J.T. Stewart. J.T. has come up with a lot of innovations in the sport and runs a very successful business called Dynamic Machine. The drag racing part of the business is a very small part of what he does, but I know that we run his clutch management systems on all our cars.

Next we ran into Tim and Kim Richards. I was kind of amazed that they were there all the way from Florida until I heard that Kim was Paula's maid of honor at Paula and Bobby's wedding many, many years ago. I have known Kim for probably 15 years, but it is still hard to imagine her all dressed up as a maid of honor… sorry Kim! As you can see from the pic, Tim and Kim both looked great and well rested. I guess that's what happens after you take all the travel and stress out of your lives. They haven't taken up golf yet though, so you never know what will happen in their future. After that I saw a guy that I first met about 10 years ago. His name is Ronnie Capps (the original) and the first time I had met him was at Frank Hawley's. He was actually the first student I had to run in the 5's with our alcohol dragster. Ronnie was a great driver and as I found out later has been involved with the sport for a long time. From what I understand he has done about everything from building cars to tuning them. We also saw Ronnie's wife, Leigh. Now if you know Leigh, she is always the life of the party… lots of fun to be around and obviously, also a big motorsports enthusiast. Leigh's dad was the late Lil’ John Buttera. John was probably one of the best machinists that has ever been and his contributions to the automotive industry are almost unmatched. John built Funny Cars for the "Snake" and Don Schumacher just to name a few. He was also responsible for building many of the "trick" parts used by many teams back in those days. Later John got into working with billet aluminum and his products revolutionized the street rod industry. He also built an Indy Car that qualified 6th for the Indy 500 believe it or not. Leigh is a big follower of my blog, so I thought I would surprise her and include this pic of her and I.

Needless to say we had a great time at the wedding and wish Gary and Paula a long and loving marriage. Now, back to racing. I am getting ready to go to Gainesville in a few days, and I have a feeling that it is going to be a great weekend for Kalitta Motorsports. We have Doug running the Darrell Gwynn tribute Coors Extra Gold car, which looks awesome, and nothing would be better than seeing that and Connie's Bounty Hunter car in the final.. .and on the Funny Car side, I really don't care who we meet in the final with our DHL car!

Thanks for reading!

Friday afternoon, I got a call from my wife saying she had arrived with my daughter Jenna at the Phoenix airport. They had run in to Danny Gokey at the airport and got a pic with him and Jenna. Of course, I was like, who? She explained to me that he was the third runner-up on American Idol and pretty well known. Who knew? Our day at the track started off with a tire smoking run at about 200 feet. Our DHL crew went to work and after looking at the computer, came up with a good game plan for the night session. They did a great job as our DHL Funny Car ran a nice safe 4.15 to put us in the 6th spot after qualifying ended.

Why is it always that when you look at the weather report for the races a few days before the race and everything looks perfect, it almost means it's going to rain for sure? Same thing when they call for 3 days of rain, you almost know for sure it will mysteriously rain everywhere but at the track, and the race will get done with no problems. Phoenix was no different as 0% chance of rain for the weekend a couple of days before turned into 100% chance of rain Saturday and Sunday. We managed to get one run in on Saturday after dodging rain drops for a few hours. We had a couple of things we wanted to try on the car and what we did ended up working a lot better than we thought. That along with a fix to a part that has been giving us fuel system issues all year caused our DHL Funny Car to have tons of power and smoke the tires at about 200 feet but not before we recorded our best 60-foot time in a couple of years. The guys knew they were on to something and sat down to figure out what to do with our newfound power for Sunday.

Sunday was more rain and as usual when NHRA about gets the track dry, it starts again. It is very hard emotionally as a driver as well as a tuner as you try and get pumped up for your race only to sit around for another hour or two when it starts raining again. I am sure all that time doesn't do the tuners any good as well, as there is just more time to second guess yourself. We finally got to run Jim Head at almost 4 p.m. in the afternoon. I knew that lane choice was going to be important, so I staged it really thin to get the best e.t. possible. Our DHL Funny Car left the line hard recording the best 60-foot time of the session, and by the 330 timer we were already 7-hundredths ahead of Jim. Unfortunately, at about 500 feet, our clutch welded and started to smoke the tires. I pedaled it a couple of times, but Jim ran a decent 4.17 to put us on the trailer. After looking at our run on the computer, we were well on the way to a 4.08 or so run, so that is giving us a lot of confidence going into Gainesville. Our fuel system issues are now resolved, our motor is making some great power, and our 60-foot times which we have struggled with in the past, are now at the top of the list.

We flew back home on Sunday night but were glued to the computer on Monday. Why, you ask. Because my teammate Doug Kalitta was going to his second straight final in as many races driving the Technicoat/Kalitta Air Top Fuel car. Doug's car has been running great and when it hasn't, he has shown his great skills behind the wheel to expertly pedal it into the next round. Connie has Grubby's Top Fuel car running great as well and after a "nuclear run" to get a little TV time on Friday came back in the first round to run a spectacular 3.84 to put Brandon Bernstein's 3.89 on the trailer. If you saw it on TV it was kind of funny to see the look on Kenny Bernstein's face after Grubby laid that run down. That put Grubby up against Doug in the next round. Doug's car dropped a cylinder at the hit, but Grubby smoked the tires giving the win to Doug.

Later on Monday after many rain delays, Doug finally got to run Cory Mac in the final. Cory laid down a great 3.81 and Doug had some problems early in the run. Congrats to Cory for the win, but Doug is right there in second place and is looking great going into Gainesville. Speaking of Gainesville, I hate having to wait almost 3 weeks to go racing again especially when I know that all the cars in the Kalitta Motorsports stable are ready for a win at anytime. We keep making refinements to our DHL Funny Car and it is evident if you look at it closely. Everything just looks better from the paint, to the way the car is plumbed and wired, to the way everything is detailed just a bit nicer than before. I know I have said it before but we are on the verge of really kicking some you know what, and I can't wait for it to get started!

Back on the homefront, I was also very proud of my daughter, Jenna, who made the Principal's Honor Roll at school. This means that she had straight A’s in every class, and on top of that she got the "good conduct" award that basically means she pays attention in class and doesn't get in any trouble, unlike what her dad used to do in school… Ha, ha. She also excelled in her fundraising abilities for the American Heart Association. Her school does something called "Jump Rope for Heart" to raise money for AHA, and Jenna always loves to help out. She ended up raising $1600 by herself and it doesn't hurt when you have Connie and the Kalitta Motorsports people, The Cowboys, and some of our other associates within arms reach for her to sweet talk into a donation! She also just turned 10 years old on the Tuesday after the races, so we got her an iPod Touch to play with. It's amazing how fast that kids can pick up on this stuff. It is certainly a lot different world than the one that was around when I was 10! Speaking of birthdays, our fearless leader Connie turned 72 on Wednesday. You'd never guess it though because he is like a kid at the candy store at the races. Whenever one of his cars starts up he comes running to watch... probably making sure Nicky doesn't waste too much nitro on our warm up. J

I had a big golf match coming up on Friday, so on Thursday I went to the club to get practiced up. I spent about 3 hours there just hitting balls, chipping, and putting and thought I was going to be in good shape going into my match on Friday. Now I always seem to mention when I play well, so it is only fair to report that I got my butt kicked in our Team Play match. We played "away" at another course, which automatically puts you at a disadvantage, but the guy I played ended up playing great and I just didn't have much for him. That's the way golf is, but in the end it is a lot of fun and I love the competition. Anything that I do, I want to win, so I will just put in some more practice and learn from my mistakes, just like in racing or in life.

To end the blog I would just like to express my condolences and those from everybody involved at Kalitta Motorsports to the family and friends of the lady that was tragically killed at the races last week. I know that the smartest minds in drag racing are working hard as we speak to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again.

We were all looking forward to our first lap on Thursday because of how well we had tested. Our DHL Funny Car left the line hard and was well on the way to a 4.10 run when all of a sudden it smoked the tires for no reason just before half-track. Further inspection found a mechanical malfunction that caused this to happen. One of those 5 cent parts that costs you the run stories (although there aren't really any 5 cent parts found on our race car anymore these days). Thursday night we were invited to a private 40th birthday party for Del Worsham. The party was hosted at a great Mexican restaurant that they had rented just for the party, and what a party it was. There were a lot of the old CSK guys that had worked for Del as well as a mix of drivers, crew chiefs, and crew members that are out there today. The food, music, and atmosphere were great and Windy and I had a fantastic time.

Usually on Friday morning before qualifying AJ and I go and play a round of golf over at my club. I had seen AJ the night before at Del's party and because we are a little spoiled with the weather living in California and he had played a lot of golf recently, he decided to pass on the 40 degree morning temps as well as a pretty drenched as of late golf course. My other golf buddy Aaron Brooks wanted to play though and because he is from Indy, the fact that you could even play golf in February was enough reason for him to want to play. We met at 7.30 a.m., and to tell you the truth it wasn't that cold. It took AB a few holes to knock the rust off, and by the end of the round, we both were playing better and the temp was well up into the 60s. After having a couple of bad holes, my luck turned around and I ended up shooting a 75. I was hoping that luck was going to transfer into the race car, but it wasn't meant to be as we ended up overpowering the track on Friday night. We ended up going out for dinner with a good friend of mine from Texas, Fred Spell. Fred worked on one of the first cars I drove back in the Paul Smith days. His dad, Fred Sr., was heavily involved in the sport of drag racing back in the day and specialized in superchargers among many other things. Any ways, Fred decided to surprise his dad by bringing him out for the Winternationals and Sr. had a great time reminiscing with all the guys he used to race with.

Saturday was now upon us and things were starting to look too familiar to what happened to our DHL team at the Finals last year. It really looked like that as well as when we just tried to slide it down there to run a 4-teen anything and it smoked the tires just before half-track, just like it did last year on Q3. This time I just stayed in it for awhile smoking the tires to try and at least get a better e.t. It ran a 4.44, which when all the dust settled after Q4 would have kept us in the 16th spot and probably would have worked out better for us on race day. Wish that crystal ball would have been working! Now we are going into our last qualifier with a time that we really think won't hold. Fortunately for us and unfortunately for a few of the other teams, a few cars got shut off and some just idled down the track, so before we even had to run, we knew we were in. Our DHL car was on the way to a nice 4.17 when just at about 800 feet, it dropped 5 cylinders all at one time. Let me tell you from a driver's perspective that the engine sounds really BAD when it does this! The car ended up running a 4.20 at only 280 mph, putting us in the number 15 spot and earning us a first-round match-up with my buddy Del. Not the way we wanted to start the season!

Race day was finally here and we were pumped up for first round. Our DHL Funny Car and Del's Al-Anabi car treated the fans to the closest race of the day with Del getting the win by two-thousandths of a second or about a foot. The good thing was that when Jon O. and Nicky looked at the computer after the run, it looked more normal. We had a few glitches come up over the weekend and I think they are all fixed now.

Grubby's car ran strong all weekend as well, and the car looks spectacular. Candy red with the Kalitta and Bounty Hunter logos on there in gold leaf. His car also had a glitch come up in the first round and the shutoff system got activated. Doug's Technicoat-sponsored dragster on the other hand was flat out hauling the mail. After getting his "lucky" round-win out of the way in round 1, Jim O. stepped up the performance of the car to make it right to the final. That earned him a date with Larry Dixon and his Al-Anabi dragster. It was a great final round with Larry just edging out Doug for the win.

I think that you are going to see a lot of Kalitta/Al-Anabi finals this year, and next race we are going try and meet Del in the final instead of the first round!

Talk to you after Phoenix!

So last week, with the help of my wife, Windy, I got set up with both a Facebook page and a Twitter account. After months of kind of giving her a hard time for wasting so much time on Facebook, I actually realized that it is a lot of fun. My wife likes to play a few of the games on there, and I will admit it, I got hooked on playing a few of them as well. See, for me, it is really more of an exercise in hand/eye coordination, which of course is work related and will make me a better driver and…well…Windy didn't buy that story either. Ha!

Besides all the fun games, the social networking part of it really can help a race team though. The more fans and people you have following you equates to a larger audience for your sponsors. This is a real number, with people that sign up to be a part of Kalitta Motorsports because they want to be in the know. The other cool thing to me is that you can follow your favorite race teams/drivers and get a more personal or “behind the scenes” idea of what is going on rather than the “cookie cutter”-style press release that is so common.

Things are going full speed ahead back at the shop in Michigan, and again I can’t tell you how both lucky and honored I am to be part of the Kalitta Motorsports family. As each day gets closer to the 50th annual Winternationals, I am getting more and more excited. I think we got rid of the rain for a while, and I expect our DHL Funny Car will be ready to do some serious battle.

Don’t forget to “friend” me and Kalitta Racing on Facebook and “follow” me and Team Kalitta on Twitter!

After we spent Christmas day at Windy’s parents, we got all our warm clothes packed up to go to Toronto, Canada, for a few days. Usually my mom comes to sunny California for a visit, but this year we decided to travel back to see my mom. It had been quite a few years since I had been back so I was really looking forward to it. That and my daughter, Jenna, was dying to see some snow and feel some cold weather!
 
The other thing I was looking forward to was a little reunion that a couple of my old friends had put together. Once upon a time a LONG time ago when I was 16, I used to hang around at this shop where a bunch of guys I knew had really fast race and street cars. They were the guys that got me involved in racing and kind of taught me the ropes. Around that same time I got a job working at the local speed shop, Engineered Racing Services. I was in heaven. I worked at the best speed shop and got to hang around with people that had the same passion for cars and racing that I did. I learned pretty quickly and later on we built a motor for my first street car. I got to go to the local drag strip and learn everything there was to know about building and maintaining a race car. This came in really handy when I stared racing myself.

Anyway, every now and then over the last few years I would see a familiar face at the races and we would talk about old times. Well, about a year ago, one of the guys from that first shop, Leo D'Agostini, sent me an email congratulating me on my job at Kalitta Motorsports. We sent a few emails back and forth and I asked about some of the other guys from back then. Leo started to do a little investigative work, and after a bit had actually made contact with some of these people that we hadn't talked to in 25 plus years. Every month or so Leo or another one of the mainstays from the old shop, Neill Stevens, and I would swap an email back and forth. As it got closer to the end of the year I told them that we were going to come up to Toronto for a visit just after Christmas. They came up with a great idea to try and get a hold of a bunch of the boys from back then and have a reunion of sorts at a local restaurant and pub called Archibald's.

Within a couple of months our small get together ended up turning into a pretty big party with well over 40 people being there. Here's a good pic of some of the people at the restaurant. I had lots of friends from the old racing days, the owner of the speed shop and my first real boss, Greg Wicklum, was there as well as quite a few buddies I went to school and hung out with. It ended up being a great night and everybody vowed not to let another 25-plus years go by.
 
The next day we went up north to a friend of mine’s place that lives up on the lake. Randy is the VP Fuel distributor for a large part of Canada. I remember many years ago when he would work at his day job and just be selling a few drums here and there. Now with a lot of hard work he has turned it into quite the business. We got together with a couple of other friends and sat around telling some stories and going out for a nice dinner. My daughter even got to see some snow and make a snow angel. The night we went up there, the temperature with the wind chill was -25 Celsius! As you can see in the top picture, it was actually snowing when we were there.

We spent the next few days hanging around with my mom, doing some shopping and eating at a lot of my old favorite places. Jenna got to take her first ride on an underground subway, we updated my mom to a new Sony flat screen TV from a circa '80s 19-incher and hit about every mall in the greater Toronto area looking for a cool 2010 Olympic sweatshirt we had seen for my wife. It only took about three days and 10 stores to find it. I guess they were popular at Christmas time. We also ended up going to downtown Toronto to see another friend of ours.

Ray Commisso is one of Canada's premier Pro Mod drivers and he happens to own and run a beautiful Italian restaurant and bar called the Dimmi Bar and Trattoria. It is located in the trendy Yorkville area of downtown Toronto. Ray met us at the door and treated us to one of the best Italian meals that we have had in a long time. The place is really cool and the atmosphere is great. It also has a couple of big patios that are open when it's not freezing outside, and I hear that they are busy from 11 in the morning till 2 at night. If we make it back this summer, we will definitely be hanging out there.
 
If you live in the area or are visiting TO, make sure to drop by and say Hi to Ray...you won't be disappointed! Here's a pic of Ray and I and the sign out front of his place.
 
All in all, it was a great time and it went by way too fast. We are already planning another trip, hopefully this summer, to hang around on the lake when it’s not frozen and see a bunch of people that we missed on this trip.
 
I am leaving this Sunday to go to West Palm Beach to go testing for a week. We have a lots of new parts and pieces to try and I can hardly wait. I will fill you in after I get back.
 
Take care and have a great 2010... I know that we are going to!

A couple of months ago we decided to add another member to our family. We had been talking about getting a dog for my daughter Jenna to play with. Now, I have never had a dog before so we did a lot of research into getting one that would fit our lifestyle. We ended up getting a Labradoodle. They are not too small nor too big, are hypoallergenic and best of all do not shed. My wife ended up flying up to Northern California to pick her up right after the Vegas race. I have to admit that she is really cute and Roxy definitely provides us with lots of entertainment. Here is a pic of her with my wife and daughter.

This offseason has been really flying by and the guys are hard at work back at the shop getting ready for next year. I can say that in all my years of driving that I have never been this excited to get the year started. We have made some big changes to our car that should put us right where we belong ... in the hunt for the championship. It’s been a while since a Kalitta Funny Car has done this, but Connie wants it to happen and he is giving us every part and resource necessary for our team to accomplish this goal. I just got back from the race shop back in Michigan and what I see going on is giving me and our team a lot of confidence. We had a nice Christmas party complete with a catered lunch in the race shop for everybody involved with Kalitta Motorsports and as you can see in the picture, there a lot of people that are involved in the day to day operations that make the Kalitta team so successful. In the next pic you can see the banner that our friends at Pro Cal sent us to commemorate our win from Memphis. It is a big honor for me and our team to have it hanging in the shop next to the ones that Scott won, and I hope to have quite a few more hanging there by the end of the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle season.

Of course for those of you that know me, I have been getting my fair share of golf in recently as well as going to the gym pretty well every day. I want to be in tip top shape come the beginning of the season because I know it is going to be a long one. I even got the old PS2 out with my NHRA Drag Racing game. It is a fun way to keep the competitive juices flowing, practice your reaction times and generally just have a good time. I even managed to run a 3.98 to the 1,000-foot mark. Hopefully our guys can duplicate that this year ... if they can, it going to be a lot of fun!

Take care, and if I don’t blog again before Christmas, I wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and a great New Year!
 

The NHRA Las Vegas Nationals started off with the NHRA Fan Fest Autograph session on Thursday night. This is the second year that I have done it and it is one of the best that we do all year. We all signed autographs for over two hours and the place was packed! It's nice to see the support from all the fans, and the "Freemont St. Experience" light show is awesome.
 
Friday did not go all that well for us as we smoked the tires on both runs. We came in Saturday bound and determined to make a nice, safe run. Unfortunately our car was still throwing us some curve balls and on Q3 it smoked the tires just before half track. Now we were going into the last qualifier not in the field for the second time in three races. Now to be fair, we did win one of those races, but as a team it's nice to be in earlier. Anyway, Jon O and Nicky got it right on the last lap and we laid down a great 4.16 to get into the show!
 
Sunday we had a meeting with Tony P and he was hungry to keep in the points battle. As a driver, you always get a little more pumped up when you race Tony because he is usually not going to give anything to you. Well, I was ready for him as I got almost a four-hundredths headstart on him. Unfortunately for our DHL Funny Car we hurt a piston and shot a spark plug out early in the run. Even with all those problems we still almost beat Tony as we ran a 4.33 to his 4.27 to lose by a lousy one hundredths of a second.

In between Vegas and Pomona, we decided to visit one of our friends for a little wine party. A couple of years ago, a couple of fans came up to me and said they had a nice bottle of wine for my wife Windy. I talked to them for a bit and said thanks and put the bottle of wine up in the lounge. A couple of weeks later I remembered the wine was still up there and told my wife about it. She asked what kind it was so I opened the wrapping paper and told her it said "Opus One." Well, she about freaked out... I guess a 1998 Opus 20th Anniversary wine is like a $300 bottle of wine. Don't blame me, I just drink Coors Light. And then of course like a typical male, I never even got their names! Luckily they did email me after I got the job at Kalitta's to congratulate me so thanks again to Mary Ann and Mario Bertolo!

Anyway, we had planned to drink that wine with some friends that are real wine connoisseurs and the day was finally here. We met Paula Baldwin back in the late '90s when I worked for Frank Hawley. Paula was married to the late Bobby Baldwin who not only did a lot of work around the Pomona Fairplex but also drove a Top Fuel car, and for that matter, also liked Coors Light. Paula is also the daughter of the "Golden Greek," Chris Karamesines. Paula and her friend Gary cooked us a great dinner to go along with the great wine. The Greek and I spent a lot of time "bench racing" and then later in the evening we watched the "Barbecuing the Bounty Hunter" DVD. It was nice to watch because my wife wasn't at Indy for the BBQ so she kind of got to relive it. The real funny part was that "the Greek" was there and actually on the stage but I think because of some fine Scotch didn't really remember any of it! He kept saying, "I can't believe I just said that." If you ever get a chance to see the DVD or just buy it, you'll know what I mean ... funny stuff!!
 
 

On to Pomona…I was really looking forward to this race as it is right around the corner from where we live. We started with a party for the Funny Car crew at my house on Wednesday night. I barbequed up about 10 pounds of seasoned tri tip and we had a great dinner and just shot the breeze till later on that night. It was nice to do something for the guys and let them relax and unwind a bit. I know how hard a job they have and the countless hours that go into preparing the car for a four-second run. I know every driver says this, but I firmly believe that my crew guys are the best in the sport.

The World Finals are a little weird as we only make one run on both Thursday and Friday afternoon. Our Thursday didn't go so well as after the car left, it was trying to drive all over the place. That, along with some tire shake caused us to lose that run. The next day, the track was great and we ran a little later. The track was too good though as we shook the tires about a hundred feet out. Now we were back to the old Saturday deal, not in the show yet. On Q3 we were probably on a 4.16 run when it just smoked the tires just before half track. I am pretty sure there was something wrong with that lane as only 2 cars out of 20 made a run good enough to qualify. Now we were back to the old "not in with one session left" deal again. The track looked great but with no real baseline runs to look at, we gave it our best shot. Unfortunately it was not quite good enough and we ended up missing the field by less than two hundredths of a second. Not quite the way we wanted to end the season but only our second DNQ in a year and a half.
 
On Sunday, even though we didn't qualify we got to celebrate two things. First of all it was mine and Windy’s 12th wedding anniversary (Sorry, I didn't win the Wally for you at Pomona!) and Lexi’s (daughter of one of my crew guys James Riola) birthday. We got a big cake for her and made the best of a not so fun day. We did get to root on my team mate Doug Kalitta who had a pretty good weekend narrowly losing to Larry Dixon in the second round. Later that night, Morgan Lucas had a little year end party in his pit complete with a live band and the infamous In N Out truck.
 
Monday, Windy and I drove down for the NHRA Awards banquet. This year it was hosted at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in West L.A. I would say that it had to be one of the best banquets that I had ever been to. There were hundreds of people and the awards part of the ceremony went smoothly and was over in just over two hours. If you have ever been to the ceremony, you know that some driver’s acceptance speeches can get close to that long! Like I said it was a great time, and we got to say "see you next year in Pomona" to a lot of good friends.
 
Next year is going to be here fast and we have a lot of new goals for our DHL Funny Car in 2010. And if you know what the name "Kalitta" is all about, you know we are going to do everything possible to achieve them!
 

Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you make your own luck is what I always say. On paper Ashley had the best car but because of our win the week before and our 4.10 on Friday night, they couldn't take us for granted like in the past. We both left the starting line about together but by about 300 feet both our cars started to smoke the tires. I was probably ready for it more than in the past because on Saturday it smoked the tires right about the same spot both times. As soon as our DHL Toyota started to spin, I lifted for bit and then stepped back on it. A bit is only a few tenths of a second but that's all you need when the track is as good as Richmond was. It hooked right back up and went straight to the finish line. Again I saw that now seemingly familiar win light come on and now we had won 5 rounds in a row! Not bad considering I didn't see one for almost 23 straight races earlier this year.

Second round, we had to race my buddy Del. My crew got the car turned around fast like always and we tuned the car up to run around a 4.10. We both staged and at the flash of yellow we were off. Unfortunately, our car didn't go too far before the engine just quit and Del sped off to a nice 4.12 for the win. Our guys poured over the car after that run to see if they could figure out went wrong. In the end it looks like they figured it out and hopefully it won't happen again. I stayed for the final and watched Del take out Timmy. It was a great race and I was more nervous watching the final than I was being in it the week before! It was great to see Del win and we even took a picture later of us celebrating. It's a bit blurry but we both are holding up our Wallys.

Last Tuesday I dropped by the Worsham's shop to do a little bowling with Chuck and his buddies. It had been a couple of months since I was last there and it is always a fun time. I found out that the Storm bowling ball sales manager, Jim Callahan, was bringing with him one of the best women bowlers in the world, Liz Johnson, to bowl with us. Now to me that was pretty exciting because when you get the chance to play any sport with one of the best in the world, that's a pretty special privilege. We all got warmed up before she got there and I actually bowled over 180 the first game, which was good for me but a little off the 210-plus games Chuck and a few of his friends bowled. Liz showed up and you could tell right away how good she was. As the game went on she got better and almost never missed getting strikes in the latter frames. We bowled for a few hours and finally Chuck Worsham beat her by a pin, 258 to 257. She probably averaged 240 and we all had a great time. We even got her into NHRA drag racing a bit and she had Jim take a picture of her and I together. Oh yeah, I let Eddie win a few times to stop him from complaining about what I wrote in my blog the last time we bowled…haha.

Yesterday Del and I played in a golf tournament together with a couple of his buddies. It is pretty nice to live in SoCal where it is almost always sunny and warm. It must have been over 80 yesterday and beautiful. We didn't win the tournament or win any prizes but it was a nice, relaxing way to spend the day. Vegas is in a few days and after racing four weekends in a row these last two and a half weeks off have seemed like an eternity. Our entire Kalitta/DHL team is ready to get back at it and in my opinion we have as good a chance as any to win in Vegas.

Don't forget to check those odds!

Well, unless you live in a cave, you know that we have had a great couple of weeks here at Kalitta Motorsports, but let's take a minute to see how we got there. It all started Thursday, Oct. 1, when I arrived in Memphis. I met the “O” Bros and Nicky at the airport and Jim “O” took us over to one of his favorite places for some lunch, Leonard's BBQ.

After a great lunch, we went over to the track to see how the boys were doing. We hung out there for a while and then the infamous Technicoat Cowboys called wanting to go out for dinner later. We went back to the hotel, got cleaned up and then met Bob and Glen at one of my favorite restaurants, Ruth's Chris. One big steak, some crème brulee, and a few frosty beverages later we were on the way to Beale St. for a little fun. If you have never been to Beale St, it is like a few blocks of lights, bars and Blues clubs. You can hear some great music there and see some great sights ... you can even carry your drink from bar to bar out on the street, legally!

Friday didn't go all that well for us as far as racing went. On the first run, our DHL Toyota dropped a cylinder and only ran a 4.28. On our night run we were a little too aggressive and it smoked the tires at about 150'. Mike Neff ended up running a 4.13 and that wasn't even good enough to get in to the Top 12! It just goes to show you how tough the Funny Car class is right now. That didn't stop us from going out with the Cowboys again and for the second time in a row, we were back to the hotel early...early in the morning that is!

Saturday morning came a little too fast, for me anyway and we had a tough task at hand trying to break into the field. On our first run, our DHL Toyota did something it usually doesn't do, it smoked the tires almost at the hit of the throttle. Now, we were going into the final session not qualified yet, and without a good baseline run to look at. Jon “O,” Nicky, and Connie came up with a game plan for the last qualifier but until you get to the finish line under power, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. Luckily for all of us, our car made a nice, straight as a string conservative 4.25 run to get us into the 15 spot. This earned us the unenviable task of running the No.  2 qualifier Jack Beckman who had run a 4.10. I figured that I had better be on my game so I left the track pretty early and was back in my room and asleep by 10 p.m.

Sunday, we got to the track by 8 a.m., but Mother Nature wasn't cooperating very much. There was a light drizzle that just wouldn't go away. By noon it was raining and things weren't looking good. The crew guys and I were up in the lounge playing the NHRA Drag Racing game on our PS2. I actually had got Doug Kalitta's Top Fuel Car to run a 4.46 @ 330mph with my tune up so everybody was trying to beat my low ET. Now for some reason, I totally forget what happened between 1:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon and Monday morning at 8 a.m., but there are reports of me playing golf in Kansas before the race was called on Sunday ... really?? How would that be possible?? Anyway, that's another story all together.

So, fast forward to Monday morning at 8 a.m. when I show up at the track. The weather is still not looking great and there is a really light drizzle. It is cloudy and dark and the sun is nowhere in sight. They are telling us that the race is going to start at 10 a.m. but it doesn't look very good. Nothing is worse for a driver than sitting around and thinking about what might happen later. It's harder to stay focused because you can't go through your normal race day ritual. Then of course when you think you are going to be sitting around for a while, they call you to the lanes and now everybody is in a hurry.

The conditions were so good as far as air quality and track temp goes that we figured we had nothing to lose, so the boys tuned it up to try and run a low teen or high 4.0. It made it about 300 feet or so and the started to spin. I got off the throttle and then back on and it made a right hand turn for the wall. I didn't see Jack so I drove it about as far as I could go without crashing and then lifted. I saw our win light come on and a split second later Jack went flying by. Cool, round one out of the way! Next we had to race John Force. I had a great record against him, if you call 0-10 great. That's right, in over 14 years of racing on and off I had never beat John Force at a NHRA National Event and to tell you the truth it kind of pissed me off. Let's face it, you want to be able to tell the grandkids one day that you actually beat him ... at least once!

So here we are, round 2. Jon “O” and Nicky have been working with Aaron Brooks pretty closely lately (Thanks A.J.!), and they tell me that it should run a 4.10. I am thinking to myself these two things. 1.) If I had a dollar for every time a crew chief told me we were going to run way faster than we had before I would be rich, and 2.) If you know how to run a 4.10, why didn't we do it in qualifying or for that matter all this year? Anyway, I hit the throttle and it feels strong, at about 300 feet it just plants me in the seat right to the finish line. I see our win light come on and Andy yells at me over the radio that we just ran a 4.10...no @*%!, I say to myself … we beat John Force and ran a 4.10…things are looking pretty good! Did I mention that our 4.10 was low ET of the second round?

Next we have to race Ashley Force Hood. The boys are looking at the computer and like what they see. They tell me to hang on again against Ashley. Now the last two times I have raced her I have had great lights, like a mid .070 and a high .060 and she has left on me both times! What happened to the Ashley that was a .110-.130 leaver? So I decide to steal a bit on the starting line so I don't get embarrassed again! I have a .064 to her .080 and run a 4.109 to her 4.119, what a great race, but in reality we probably leave at the same time and our car actually runs a high 4.08! Now we are going to the final against Tony Pedregon.

Tony is one of those guys you really don't like to race because he is a great leaver and driver and his car runs well to boot! My crew guys, Andy Cetwinski, James Riola, Rob Pierce, Chris "Caveman" Butler, Rick Ducusin, Jared Graibel, Jason Hurd and Randy Shatzer (in spirit) get our DHL Toyota turned around in 27 minutes! Unbelievable! As a matter of fact, for almost every round we were one of the first cars up in the staging lanes. It really gives you a lot of confidence as a driver to know that you have the best crew out there! Alright, on to the final. We ended up waiting for almost 20 minutes for Tony to make it to the lanes. He does a real short burnout and then tried to make me red light by deep staging, but it was futile as I was on my game on the starting line and Nicky and Jon “O” sent me to a stunning 4.09 at the 5th fastest speed ever at the 1000 foot. Again in reality we probably ran a high 4.06, low 4.07 but we won!!

The outpouring of emotions from everybody involved with Kalitta Motorsports was evident. I didn't know whether to celebrate, throw up or cry. It was really strange and I think we all felt like that. After the finish line interview we towed up through the pits on the way to the Winner's Circle. We stopped at our pit and I saw Connie standing there. He went to shake my hand but I gave him a big hug instead! I told him, this is for you and Scott and I handed him the Wally. He looked at it and said thanks, then he told me that I should have it. In the end we are going to bring it to Scott's grave site and party with Scott for a while! So our teammate Doug Kalitta, who also had a great weekend going to the semis, convinced Connie to stay for the Winner's Circle pictures. Looking at the pics, I know that both my team and I, and Connie were glad he stayed. There were lots of smiles, hi fives and great pictures that capture the emotion of that great win. I know that I will remember it forever! Our team hung out at the track until 11 p.m. that night and many members from other race teams came by to congratulate us. Phones were ringing, texts were coming in and we were smoking Swisher Sweets and drinking Coors Light, just like Scott would have done! It was an unbelievable night.

The next day we had to go to the track to get all our stuff loaded up because we had a DHL display to do at the Norfolk Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia. We were at the track by 8 a.m. (all of us a little wounded from the night before) and on the road by about 10:30 a.m. We drove all day and most of the night and got to Norfolk 15 hours driving time later at 3:30 a.m. local time. We got a few hours sleep and then went to do our display. We got to meet a lot of people there including some of the "Top Gun"-type fighter pilots and a Captain.

After our display, they took us on a tour of their fighter jets. We even got to fly an F-18 simulator. That was really cool, but they weren't ready to turn the keys over to me for a real one...hey I didn't even crash it? We got a tour of the hanger and got up close and personal with some F-14 Tomcats painted in Russian colors that they use for dog fighting. After that we watched a few of the pilots practice some acrobatics right off the deck...and we were standing close! They are loud when they go full afterburner and over 600 mph just a 1000 feet or so from where you are standing. It was nice that my whole crew got to go as well and somehow it made the 15-hour drive seem not as bad! We ended up going to the Outback for a real team dinner (not that our winner's dinner at the Waffle House at 12.30 a.m. after the race doesn't count), but this one was a little nicer!

I am going to end this blog now with a pic of the great thing my wife and daughter did for me when I finally got home after Richmond. They did a great job coloring our driveway with chalk and it made me feel extra special. It's nice to have a family that supports you when you are off racing. I know it's a tough thing to do when your husband/dad is gone all the time!

I still can't believe that we did it! We got "The Wally!"
 

However, now that Connie, Jon O and Nicky have our DHL Toyota running fast and that my reaction times have been good, sometimes you are going to pressure the other team into having to make a great lap and have a great light to beat you. We both had great reaction times and we sped off to a great 4.14 lap as Timmy overpowered the track about 300 feet. Three round wins in the last three races and none in almost a year!! We were on a roll. Unfortunately, "the roll" ended with a loss to Matt Hagan in the second round. I had managed to get a two-hundredths jump on him at the Tree but we went into smoke at about the same spot as Tim. The good thing is that we are learning and the competition is not looking forward to racing us anymore. We hope to spoil a bunch of peoples days in these last five races and maybe even win a race while we are doing it. We have three races in the next three weeks so keep tuned to ESPN2 to see how we do.
 
Thanks for reading!
 

Well, it's been a while since I last blogged so let's get back up to speed. Before the Brainerd race our DHL Toyota Funny Car team had a display to do at Goodson Tools. I had never been there before but was familiar with their vast supply of engine building supplies. Once I was there I was very impressed with the whole operation, the friendliness of the employees and the incredible amount of inventory on hand. If you are building an engine or just want to check out the cool picture of one of our fuel motors on the cover of their catalogue, just go to http://www.goodson.com/.
 
The display that we did also featured a lot of show and race cars as well as an Eliminator boat and Tim Wilkerson’s car. After the display, Dave from Goodson tools was nice enough to take us out on the Mississippi River in his little 30-foot boat (sarcasm). I had no idea that Minnesota was so beautiful and from a couple of the pics I took from the boat you can see why. We also visited this little floating bar. It was located right next to the dam and set of locks that they have there, hence the cool name: The Dam Bar and Grille. I even got the T shirt.
 
Next was the event in lovely Brainerd, Minn. We struggled again on our first two qualifiers but then managed to make a nice 4.24 run on Saturday. That set us up with Tony P. in the first round. I managed to get a little jump on him at the starting line but then he began to just pull by us at the finish line. The good news was that our DHL Toyota made a respectable lap and had Tony had any type of problem, we would have been right there.
 
I got a little surprise on Sunday after the race when my buddy Del called asking if I wanted to ride back with him and A.J. Anytime you get the chance to fly private that is a good thing. We got back late Sunday night and made the drive from Santa Maria back home. Wednesday, I drove back up to Santa Maria for a little golf match with Alan. I ended up playing in a fivesome with Alan, his buddy Steve and me taking on the other two. I had a great start birdying the first two holes. On the back nine, A.J. and I both shot one over par, and we both ended up carding mid-70 rounds and collecting some well-earned money from the other players. Thursday we made the flight to Reading, Pa.
 
Our luck changing weekend started on Friday. With doom and gloom weather reports, the weather actually held off long enough to get a run in. We smoked the tires almost instantly and ran a 12-second run. While that doesn't sound too lucky, there were actually 17 cars there and Ron Capps only managed a 15-second run. With the threat of rain all day Saturday at least we were in the field. The second bit of luck came on Saturday. Our DHL Toyota was the first car to make a run. We were just trying to go A-B and it left the starting line fine. However at about 250’ it blew the tires off. It caught me by surprise and I ended pedaling the car to a 5.01. I was pretty worried as there were a few cars behind us that could bump us out. The first couple did and then Gary Densham, who was driving Terry Haddock’s Funny Car got shut off after the burnout. This meant that if it rained out the last session, we were in for sure. Of course as you all know it did rain out and we ended up in the 16th spot with a date with the No. 1 qualifier, Ashley Force Hood.
 
Now for those of you that don’t know this little piece of trivia, I was actually the person that Ashley Force got her first ever professional win driving a Funny Car against. I was driving the blue CSK car at the Gatornationals in 2007. We had qualified third I believe and had to run her first round. I got about a four- or five-hundredths advantage on her out of the gate, but then just past the Tree it smoked the tires for no apparent reason. She made a nice lap and there you go, Jeff Arend, now forever the answer to the trivia question, “Who did Ashley Force get her first ever round win against?”

So anyway, I am looking forward to racing her as I feel there is a little redemption coming my way and hey, so far the luck has been good, at least in my eyes. First round is here and at the Tree Ashley has a great .070 light to my .078. As we race down the track I see her put about a car length on me but then after half track we start pulling on her. Then our car starts spinning hard and putting out cylinders. It was close, but on the radio Andy tells me that we just lost another close one. Now I don’t know if the NHRA Stats Guy keeps any stats on who has lost the most number of close races but if he does, I know my name is at the top of the list!

I get back to the lounge and start putting my stuff away and sulking a bit ‘cause we lost first round again. About 10 minutes later I hear all this hooting and hollering. Everybody is high fiving and they are thrashing on the car. I am like, 'What’s going on?" They then tell me that we won. I said “Really, was I imagining her beating me to the finish line?”, and that’s when they told me that she got DQ’d for being too light at the scales. I couldn't believe it, the luck continued and we now had our first round-win for Connie and our DHL team. The guys got the car turned around in record time and we were ready. Unfortunately the track was not, as some water was seeping up through the track just past the finish line. I guess the luck gods wanted me to enjoy that round-win for a little longer! Next we had to race John Force and I knew he would be looking for a little revenge against me. I took a little starting line advantage on John, but his 4.29 was a little too quick for our 4.39. All in all it was a good weekend for us.

 Later that day Connie came in and said he wanted to test in Indy on Wednesday. So the guys loaded everything up to go back to the shop, service the car and then drive over to Indy. I hung around with Del and we watched A.J. and Larry win again in Top Fuel. Alan told us a couple of weeks ago that he has about got a handle on the Top Fuel car and to watch out at Brainerd. He was right and I think everybody better watch out for the rest of the year! We flew back to Indy, and now I am sitting in the hotel downtown writing this blog.
 
The Indy race is coming up in a week and a half. Hopefully our test session goes well and we can kick some butt and win some more rounds at Indy!
 
Cya there.
 

Denver went pretty well for us in qualifying. We ran some of best numbers there, which is pretty amazing considering the corrected altitude can get up close to 9,000 feet sometimes! We also got to make two real nighttime qualifiers there and let me tell you that driving a Funny Car at night is an experience second to none. NHRA and the people at Bandimere Speedway did an excellent job with the track surface and the fans there were as good as I have seen. Even after a lengthy rain delay on Friday, when we finally got to run pretty late at night, the stands were packed. On Sunday, we made a nice lap against the Cruzer with our DHL Toyota but again just came up a hundredth or so short. I promise, one of these days our team is going to start winning those close ones and then watch out.

I flew home after Denver and then a couple of days later flew up to Seattle with my wife Windy and daughter Jenna. At the race on Friday we came out of the box with a strong lap that gave all of us some confidence. Unfortunately, the rest of the weekend didn't go quite as well. We have been struggling to get some better early numbers out of our DHL Funny Car to improve our overall performance, but it has been trickier than we thought. We had to race Mike Neff in the first round, and while I got a good jump on him at the line, we both had to pedal our cars pretty early in the run and he got his car to hook up better for the round-win.

My family and I had lots of cool stuff planned for the week off between Seattle and Sonoma, so Monday morning we were kind of excited to get things under way. My team was nice enough to let me and my family use one of the Toyota Sequoias that we have for our little venture. Now I know I drive a Funny Car, but that Toyota has lots of power and I had to keep and eye on the old speedometer to keep us out of trouble. The first day we drove down to Salem, Ore., home of the world famous Walery's Pizza. Dave Walery has been involved as an associate sponsor in drag racing for quite some time now and currently is on Matt Hagan's car. I met him through Del Worsham when I drove for CSK back in 2007. At many of the races, Dave would fly in some of his delicious pizzas for the team, and we even had a pizza oven put in the CSK hospitality trailer. Most of the Team Schumacher crew guys also came down to the pizza place. We got the royal tour of the pizza parlor, and we even got to make our own pizzas. Dave's pizzas are made from all fresh ingredients, and they even make their own crust from scratch, which is a rarity these days… probably why they taste so good. Later, we were all invited back to Dave's house for a big party. I got to know a lot more of the DSR guys there, and a lot of them played some catch with the old baseball and football. I even contributed a bit by grabbing a golf club and a few golf balls and seeing how good they were at catching golf balls from 50 to 150 yards away! That was fun… for me anyways.

Tuesday we headed on down the road to Redding, Calif., to meet some other friends of ours, Boris and Julie from T Shirts Unlimited. Boris does a lot of the T-shirts and designs for some of the top racing teams out there. Well about a year ago, Boris decided to open and invest in an indoor go-kart place that he called Need 2 Speed. I asked my guys about bringing the rig down there to do a display and in turn they could do some go-karting and race on some of the cool simulators he had there as well. Now, I had never driven an electric kart before, and I will tell you that they are way faster than I thought they would be. Their top speed is about 45 mph, and on a tight track indoors, you are never full throttle for more than a few seconds. It's not like the normal outdoor deals where you can run around the track with your foot on the floor and really never use the brake; you better know how to drive. We had some people from the local radio and TV stations there as well as a bunch of "regulars" from the kart track that were ready to take on yours truly. They let me have a couple of sessions to warm up, and then I raced with Boris and his buddies. It was good to learn the lines from following them, and by the end of our short race, I had posted a couple of better lap times than Boris and some of his buddies. Well, now it was on. Twelve of us lined up for an 18-lap race, and I started about in the middle. Somehow by then end of the race, I ended up in first place much to the amazement of both myself and the other competitors! They about wore me out the rest of the day wanting more races, and when it was all said and done, we all had a great time and some stories to tell. I even convinced my wife and daughter to give them a try. Jenna really enjoyed it, and I think was turning faster lap times then my wife! Now she wants to go there for her birthday party. Nice idea, but the 11 or so hour drive from home might be a little long.

On Wednesday, Boris and Julie had invited us to come out on their ski boat to Lake Shasta. What a beautiful place that was. Although the lake is looking a little low, it is huge and the water was just that perfect temperature. It was nice to just relax and hang out with some friends for the day. Boris even convinced me to try his Sky Ski. I had never seen anything that even looked like this, but I gave it a try anyways. It kind of has this horizontal fin on the bottom and then attached to that is about a 3-foot vertical fin. That's attached to what looks like a wake board and then on top of that is about a 2-foot high seat that you strap yourself into. I got up the first time but never really was able to ride it for very long. If you lean back a bit you end up about 5 feet out of the water and then when you lean forward it's going back down. My wife managed to get a pic that almost made me look like I knew what I was doing in maybe the 5 or so seconds that I actually was riding it before crashing! After about 10 times eating the water, I had them throw the kneeboard out, and I was good to go for the rest of the afternoon. Later that night, we went back to Boris and Julie’s for a nice barbeque. He has this wicked racing simulator at home that you can race in almost any kind of car and at any type of track (sorry, no drag racing). This is a big deal that Dale Earnhardt Jr. has some involvement in, and you can race people from around the world. You can also set your car and suspension up just like you would with a real race car. It is so realistic that it's unbelievable and obviously very addicting. The wife had to drag me out of there as it was approaching midnight… now if only I had an extra 20k for the simulator and a place to put it.

Thursday, we got back on the road towards Sonoma. We had set up a dinner for all our team and a few friends at a restaurant called Pietro's in Vacaville. I met Joe Murdaca, who owns the restaurant, a few years ago, and we hit it off great. Joe is a big drag racing fan and years back even sponsored Alan and Blaine Johnson with their Top Fuel car and Kurt Johnson in his Pro Stock for the Sonoma race. Guess what, they both qualified number one. I was like, "Hey Joe, what about sponsoring our"… well you get the picture. We dropped by the restaurant for some lunch, and Joe was there. Everything in his kitchen is fresh from the local farms there, and when I say that it's the best Italian cuisine I have ever had before, I am not lying. If you are ever driving through there you have to stop. After a great lunch, we dropped by the track to see the boys and then went to the hotel to check in. We had a 7 p.m. dinner reservation back at Pietro's for about 20 of us. The traffic going back to Vacaville was bad, and we had about five cars worth of people. All the way there I was getting texts from all my guys. "This better be worth the drive," "are we there yet?" blah, blah, blah. Once we got there though and went into the private dining room, they understood. Plate after plate of appetizers and entrees came and went, and the only talking I heard was about how good it was. It was nice to see our team there, all together having a good time. We also got a nice little surprise when Mike Parkman from one of associate sponsors K2M announced that he had just got engaged earlier that day to his fiancee Marie. Congrats! Dinner was great and thanks again to Ray for picking up the tab!

Friday morning, my wife Windy finally got to do something she had been looking forward to. One of our friends, Ron Maden from Chateau Ste. Michelle Wine Estates set Windy up with a wine tasting. She went with Holly Hurd, Josie Kalitta, and Connie Worsham to Conn Creek winery. They got to sample and blend their own wine and even hand cork a bottle to each bring home with them. They ended up spending the day touring some other wineries and having a great lunch. She looked pretty happy when she finally got back!

The Sonoma race again went pretty well for us. We made a sold lap on Friday night that kept us in the top 12 going into Saturday. Again, though, we struggled with tire smoke trying to get our car to run faster. On Sunday, we decided to just go A-B against Timmy, and if he made any kind of mistake, we would be there. Unfortunately for us, he didn't make a mistake and instead laid down a great 4.17. We ran a respectable 4.26, but our day was over. We ended up back by the pool at our hotel and before you know it, we had pizza, sushi, frosty beverages, cigars, and the whole nine yards going on. Quite a few other teams were there as well, and the party went on well into the night. Luckily, we didn't have an early flight, and we got back home  yesterday afternoon.

Oh yeah, our swing isn't over yet. The crew is on their way back to the shop in Detroit. A measly 40-plus hour drive. Driving straight through, they should be there early Wednesday morning. I have it a lot easier as I am flying back to Detroit on Wednesday. We have a couple of things to do at the shop, but Jim O just started taking golf lessons a little while ago and wants to go out and play with me and his brother Jon O. That should be a lot of fun! Then the crew has to get our car ready and head out Friday afternoon to Norwalk for the "Night of Fire" match race on Saturday, Aug. 1. I have never been, but it is supposed to be a great time. There are at least eight Funny Cars that are going to be there, including some Force cars, the Pedregons, Daniel Wilkerson, and of course, our DHL Toyota. If you are in the area make sure to come out as we will be making 2 runs under the lights! I also hear the fireworks show is spectacular. As they used to say, "BE THERE OR BE SQUARE!"

Arend out

Vinny and Debbie Ferrone from VF Trucking are some of the nicest people that you would ever want to meet. I met them when I was racing with Paul Smith and the CMKX team, and VF Trucking was an associate sponsor on our car. Ever since then, our families have kept in touch and we always try and make an effort to spend some time with them when we can.

A few years back I got Vinny interested in golfing and let’s just say he is definitely hooked on it now! On Monday and Tuesday, Vinny, his buddy George, Alex and I drove down to the Poconos and played some golf. We all had a great time and I managed to give Vinnie a few tips to help him improve his score. Don’t ask his accountant, Alex, how much better his chipping was though because I personally witnessed how much more loft Vinnie got on his ball, right about at ear height for Alex, OUCH!

We played at a place on Tuesday called Mt. Airy and there was a beautiful new casino there. The course was an older course, but a lot of fun to play. I even managed to shoot an even par round of 72 there so I am sure that I would go back ... well maybe I shouldn’t, I am probably not going to shoot any better! Vinny and his wife had a nice little get together for some of their friends on Tuesday night and we all had a good time.

Wednesday was a nice relaxing day hanging around the pool and then we went home on Thursday. I am glad that I don’t live full time at the Ferrone’s, because Debbie is such an excellent cook and with all that homemade Italian food I would weigh a LOT more than I do now! Thanks again Debbie and Vinny.
 
Less than a week later, the family and I hopped on the plane and flew to Detroit. Jon O picked us up at the airport and I brought my wife and daughter over to see the race car shop. They were thoroughly impressed and found out I wasn’t exaggerating when I said you could eat off the floor in there.

{GALLERY_norwalk}The whole facility is in excess of 60,000 square feet. Inside you will find a full machine shop capable of fixing our blocks and cylinder heads, a fuel flow bench, a blower dyno, a clutch dyno, and even a lever dyno. It’s quite obvious that Connie had built a race shop with one thing in mind: to be competitive and run for championships. We have the best of the best in parts and personnel and while it is taking our DHL Funny Car a little longer to find our tune up than we would like, it is slowly headed in the right direction. Later we headed out for a nice dinner with Jon O and his family.
 
The next day we made the short two-hour drive over to Norwalk. We stayed at this hotel called the Kalahari. It boasts the largest indoor water park in the entire United States and the rooms are fantastic. You never really have to leave there as there are great places to eat and drink and tons of stuff to do in the water park. Everything from huge wave pools to places to surf and wicked tube rides. I was amazed at all the racers and their families that were staying there and partaking in the fun. I know for sure that the Norwalk race next year is already on my wife and daughter’s schedule. It is nice when you can take your family to a race that has more to do than just hanging out at the track. 

The race went pretty well for us. On our first lap the “safety box” went off for some reason just after I hit the throttle so we lost that run. Then on the night run racing my buddy Del our DHL Toyota started to vibrate pretty bad just before half track. I stayed with it for a bit but shut it off a couple of hundred feet early. It was running well enough to stay in the top 12 if I hadn’t shut it off early, but we found a broken rear body strut after the run that probably caused the vibration, so it was probably a good thing that I did shut it off. Saturday we were able to make two good runs that were in the upper half of the e.t.s posted for those rounds. Sunday we had to race Ron Capps. The weather threw everybody a bit of a curve but we ended up smoking the tires right about 400 feet to end our chances of winning the round. Ron ran a great 4.27 which was third quick of the round, so at least we made him earn it.

Jon O’s daughters Jessica and Julia also got a lot of their hair cut for a good cause at the race track in Norwalk. The Locks of Love folks were there getting donations of hair. I know it must have been tough for Jessica and Julia to cut off 10 inches of their hair each, but it’s for a really good cause and I’m sure they’re glad they could help. I know for sure that their dad is very proud of his daughters for their donations!
 
We ended up driving back to Detroit Sunday night and on Monday morning went by the shop for another visit. Some of the guys had their kids there and even Hillary Will dropped by. My daughter had fun playing with all of them and especially Jon O’s dog Nitro. My wife, Windy took the time to take a bunch of pics around the shop so that I could use them in this blog. At lunch most of our team and Doug’s team went out for some lunch.

{GALLERY_sim}After that Jon O arranged for my family and Nicky to go over to the Willow Run Airport and check out Connie’s 747 simulator. This simulator is one of the best ones in the world and has every switch and gauge that you would find in a real 747. They even had to build a huge building just to house it. It is probably 50 or so feet off the ground and had all types of hydraulics on it to simulate what you would if you were really flying.

We all piled in and our simulator instructor told me to hop in the left seat! I have never seen so many switches, gauges, and gizmos in one place. Long story short, I got to take of from Kennedy airport in New York, smoked it over and really close to the Empire State Building and then went on a little strafing run over the Hudson River at a pretty low altitude. So low in fact the computer was saying PULL UP, PULL UP and OBSTRUCTION AHEAD at an annoying volume, ha-ha. After I got back up to a normal altitude, my instructor told me to give it a shot at landing at night. He pointed out the runway which was probably 20 miles away and way over to the left and told me to make my way over there. Now, I was basically just operating the stick and the rate of turn and descent. He did the rest with the throttle, flaps, and landing gear. I managed to actually hit the runway … notice I didn’t say land!  Actually we would have been okay, but it was a bit rough and it probably would have been a bit worse without a little expert advice from my instructor, Leon. What an experience it was though and I am looking forward to giving it another try.

We dropped by and saw Connie in his office and there he was reunited with Nitro the dog. Nitro was Connie’s dog for many years before Jon O ended up with him, but Connie hadn’t seen him in a few years. Well, you could never tell as Nitro jumped up on Connie’s lap and gave his face a good lick. You could tell that Connie really missed the dog and vice versa! We left later that day and flew back to sunny California.
 
Tuesday night, I went by the Worshams' shop to do a little bowling with Chuck. I hadn’t been bowling in a few months and it showed. While Chuck and his buddies were averaging 210 to 230, I was down in the 165 range. They gave me a little handicap but not enough, at least not until the last game when one of Chuck’s buddies, Eddie, wanted a little side bet for the last game. Eddie and I always talk a lot of smack, and he was bowling well over 200 in the previous five games. He even had bowled a perfect 300 game the night before at a local bowling alley in league play. I got him to ante up 50 pins and the game was on. How did it end up? Let’s just say, that true to form, Eddie folded up like a cheap lawn chair and I went on for the win. I even beat him scratch. Now I won’t tell you what I bowled ‘cause I don’t want to embarrass old Eddie anymore than I already have!
 
I am going to hang around with my friend Ray Donahue from DHL a little later this week. We are going to play some golf Thursday and then we are going to his place for a Fourth of July party. The family and I are really looking forward to that as I am sure it’s going to be a fun time. Then next week it is off to Denver. We actually have four races in a row and we go to Denver, Seattle, Sonoma and then back to Norwalk for a match race. There is going to be a lot of racing and hopefully some round wins for our DHL Toyota! I’ll check back with you with some more updates in the weeks to come.
 
Thanks for reading!
 

Hi everyone, Nicky Boninfante here with a report about how I spent Father's Day weekend.
 
Most racing fans probably wonder how the guys that work on NHRA Full Throttle Funny Car teams spend their weekends off. A lot of drivers and crew chiefs usually enjoy a relaxing day fishing or playing 18 holes of golf. I have a different way of enjoying myself on my valuable weekends off, I love to go to local match races with my dad and all his old guys and burn nitro with his U.S. Male nostalgia Funny Car driven by Phil Burkart.
 
The car has actually already run two races so far this year and has run a best of 5.82 at 247 mph. During my “spare time” at Boninfante Clutches I usually service the car for my dad, Nick Sr., so he and the old guys can go run it on the weekends while I am “tuning’ on the DHL Toyota Funny Car with Jon O and the Radman.
 
So we had a perfect weekend planned. Saturday morning we head out to near-by Maple Grove Dragway for the "Night of Fire."  But the typical weather at Maple Grove, which is rain, postponed the race until the next day. The rain date was the next day, Sunday June 21 … Father's Day.
What better way to celebrate Father's Day than to celebrate it at a drag strip with your dad. Sunday was a beautiful day, 73 degrees, partly cloudy and perfect conditions; kind of unusual for Maple Grove.
 
We ran Crazy Jake Crimmins in a two-run match race. Most people probably remember Jake. He drove one of "Jungle Jim's" cars in the '70s back when I was in diapers.  The first run we had it set up soft and ran a 5.93 at 243 and beat Jake's 6.55. Then we had to service the car. Cool part is that the crew is actually four of Nick Sr.’s old crew that worked on his cars back in the '70s and '80s.
 
Nick Sr. does the most important job, the supervising. The driver Phil Burkart packs the chutes, John Hums changed the bearings just like he did way back then, my brother-in-law Ken McGlade worked on the top end with Elliott Pickett. Pat “Mouse” Walsh, my dad's “old” driver (and I do mean old; I think Mouse is in his late 70s now) mixed the nitro. I reset the clutch and my brother Rob just was standing around looking cool. Even my nephew, James, who just turned 10, was there waxing the body and pocketing all the profits from the T-shirt sales. What a great time. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to work on a nostalgia Funny Car; it is truly like the old days. Not having any tools you need to work on the car, and getting it ready in about 50 minutes. Having Lex Dudas in the background …. "Hurry up we need you in the lanes in five minutes, oh, by the way and you run behind the jet cars. That should provide more of a challenge for you, after they spray the track with kerosene."
 
We made it up to the line for the last run and finally managed to mess up. Phil did a real long halftrack smoky burnout and backed up about 100 mph. When he left the line it was obvious there was a problem. A big cloud of clutch dust from behind the car and it left like a “turtle.” Well it was in high gear and Jake finally beat us. He ran a 6.33 (one of his best runs ever) to our 6.52. Man, we were pissed. When we got back to the trailer everybody was standing around talking about how quick we could have gone. Then we loaded up; it took about 10 minutes cause in nostalgia racing everything has a place, just thrown on the floor of the trailer then we headed for home, about a 50-minute ride.
 
I got in at about 6 p.m. and was greeted by my wife, Sara, and son Blake who had a bunch of Father's Day gifts for me and a wonderful steak dinner. It was a very special Father's Day for me and I recommend that all the crew chief and drivers that are tired of fishing and golfing try a nostalgia Funny Car for some relaxing time. It’s fun!
 
See you all in Norwalk. Later

Topeka went pretty well for us, and for a change we were able to get all four qualifiers in as well as race day without even smelling any rain. Unfortunately, it was also one of the few times we ran in conditions where the track temp was high so it took all the teams a few laps to start getting a handle on how to slow them down. We then had to race “Fast Jack” in the first round and, while our DHL team made a good lap and I had a good light, it was still a couple of hundredths too slow for that elusive round-win.

We were all excited about going to race at Route 66 in Chicago because of the cool weather forecast. Again though we were thrown a little curve ball on the first qualifier as there were almost no good runs. Then you get into “defense” mode because you want to make sure that you get down the track to qualify. We ran okay on Friday but still a good tenth or more away from the low guys. Saturday we had great conditions and we managed to improve a bit, but again we didn’t really gain too much on the field. We then had to race John Force in the first round.

Let me tell you a little story here… Back in 1996, I had a match race back in Canada at my home track. All my friends were there, of course, and there were four Funny Cars there: Force, Chuck Etchells, Tom Hoover, and I was driving Paul Smith’s car. To make a long story short, I beat Force there and even took the low e.t. track record away from him. We won the match race and since then John has beat me like a drum. I don’t think he has ever forgiven me! Big surprise, he whooped me again in the first round.

We had Scott’s two sons, Corey and Colin, with us for the Chicago race. Colin, who is only 9, is like a mini-Scott in looks, build, and character. He had us all cracking up! He did a great job washing parts, cleaning the bottom of the body, and cleaning the money out of the Oberhofers’s and Nicky’s wallet. Apparently, the jobs that he did almost pay more than driving the Funny Car! He was up to $10 a minute last time I checked. Nicky offered him a check, but in true Scott fashion, he came back with “I only take cash!” Priceless.

Corey helped out servicing the cylinder heads, blowers, and whatever else needed to be done and was a big asset to the team. We all enjoyed them being there and helping out and somehow I just know how proud Scott would be of his two sons. Our entire team has a tough weekend coming up here in a few days at the Englishtown race. Our whole Kalitta team is going to have a lot of friends and family there, and we are all going to do our best to remember Scott for the great father and competitor that he was and to share a lot of laughs while we all tell our “Scott/ Eddie” stories.

Take care and thanks for reading!

The first pic is of the car that I drove to high school and also was the first car that I helped build a motor for. It was nothing special, but it got me on the road to where I am today. It was a ’72 Monte Carlo with a 350 small-block Chevrolet. By the time I sold it, it covered the quarter mile in the low 14-second range, which was pretty fast at the time (1979). After a few more years and a few cars, including a ’75 Corvette, I sold that Vette and bought another ’vette … a ’84 Chevette S. I worked at a GM dealership then, and it was my first new car. Why sell a Corvette to get a Chevette you may ask? So I could take the rest of the money and buy a ’70 Chevelle SS with a 396 and a 4 speed!

The white Chevelle with the trademark black stripes is the next pic. Now that I had a reliable first car, I could have some fun with this one. The motor already had a few upgrades, and it had a 4.56 gear in it. My first trip to the track with no slicks wasn't very exciting. I found a pair of 10.5 x 29 slicks for it, and the next time I went back, it ran a high 12. That was about the last time I took the slicks off. The pic is a little small but there are slicks on the back, and that’s the way I drove it on the street the majority of the time. Once you feel how a car hooks with slicks on, it’s hard to put the street tires back on. Remember back then most street tires were like hockey pucks! I ended up with a tunnel ram and 2- 750 Holleys on it as well as some new motor upgrades and actually got it to run a high 11-second quarter-mile. Over the next winter with a bunch of money I had saved up from working, I decided to put a rear frame kit in it. A good friend of mine had just opened an Alston Chassis place and offered to do the job for his cost. So in went an 8-point roll cage, rear frame kit, shortened rear with a 5.38 gear, and a 4-link suspension. Back then I bought the biggest street tire I could find (a 16x33 Pro Trac) and told my buddy to make sure they would fit! Over the next year or so we also ended up building a supercharged 427 ( that's the next pic … and yes that’s me with the “big” hair) for it and got all new body panels, a ’glass front end, and a custom paint job. I only ever took it to the track once, but it ran a 10.33 at 133 mph. Remember that was in 1985, and you barely saw any 9-second race cars at your local track. It was definitely one of the fastest street cars in Toronto, Canada, but that came with a price. Every time I drove it, I was probably going to get pulled over. The exhaust was loud, the blower whined a lot, and the police officers liked to check it out. That got old after a while, and I wanted to race at the track more. A friend of mine wanted to buy the car but didn't have the money for the engine. So I sold it to him as a roller and bought my first real race car.

Another friend of mine had started building a full tube chassis ’27 Ford roadster. It was about 70-percent done but still needed a lot of work. The price was right, and I bought it. Over the next year, I plumbed and wired it and got all the finishing pieces done. Almost instantly I learned how much weight made a difference in how a car runs. With the same engine out of my street car and a 2-speed Powerglide, I was able to get the car to run consistent 8.80s at over 155mph. It was a great learning experience for me as I learned not only how to tune the engine to run consistently but also learned a lot about chassis setup. I won my first bracket race with that car and had a lot of fun. Just about that time, though, our local tracks were getting into the Quick 8 and 16 series that got very popular. My car would barely make it into that field as the competition was getting faster and faster. So I sold that car, and with the help of one of Canada's fastest crew chiefs back then, John Rossitter, embarked on my next venture.

I had always liked the Fiat Topolino bodies and decided to build one for myself. I bought an Alcohol Funny Car chassis and engine through John and a body from A-1 fiberglass. A good friend of mine, Eddy Bryck from The Chassis Shop, went to work mounting the body. John taught me how to build an alcohol engine, and the rest was history. My “Bad to the Bone” Fiat was number one qualifier at every race we went to for the next 3 years. I won many races and even earned a half decent paycheck from match racing — something that was basically unheard of at the time. I learned about engine and clutch tuning and did almost all of the maintenance on the car myself. The car had a blown 526 Hemi with some outdated parts on it as well as a Crower pedal clutch and a 3-speed Lenco. It was fun racing the guys with the 8-second Powerglide cars with the delay boxes and transbrakes. My car ran mid-6s at over 200 mph, so you were waiting at the Tree for a long time before you could leave. Eventually I sold my whole racing operation and went to work for another Canadian legend, Al Billes.

When Al decided to change from Pro Modifieds to an Alcohol Funny Car he called me to see if I would be interested in coming to work for him. Of course that was a no-brainer, and in 1994 we did very well with Al's car. He won both IHRA and NHRA events and finished high in the points standings. It was through racing with Al that I met Paul Smith. The “driving” part definitely was still in my system, and it was a lifelong dream of mine to drive a nitro Funny Car. Paul and I eventually worked out a deal for me to get my license at the end of 1994. I showed up at Paul’s shop and “school” was in session. In November of 1994 I got my license in the minimum number of runs and even set the track record (5.57 at 266 mph) at Moroso Motorsports Park in the process of doing it. Paul and Jerry Gwynn (Darryl’s father) signed my license. A few months later, Paul wanted to know if I wanted to “rent” his car for a national event. For the 1995 Gatornationals we finally worked out a deal. We ended up qualifying No. 10 there, and I was hooked. The next race, in Englishtown, we ran low e.t. of eliminations and beat Mark Oswald in the In-N-Out car in the first round. After that Paul and I went to many more races. We even ended up racing in 1996 at one of my home tracks, London Motorsports Park, up in Canada. The next pic is of me and John racing. The pic after that is me and my “mullet” hairstyle, John Force, Todd Paton, and a younger and still skinny Bob Frey. There was John Force, Chuck Etchells, Tom Hoover, and myself booked in for this match race. Not only did we win the event, we beat John Force and took the track record away from him in front of all my friends! I didn’t think life could get any better.

Less than a couple of months later I went to watch Paul Smith drive at the 1996 NHRA Keystone Nationals in Reading, Pa. When we got there Paul said that his ankle hurt and asked if I had any money to drive… gotta love Old Paul! After I told him I was broke, he said, and I quote, “F it, you can drive.” For those of you that don’t know, we ended up winning the race. Paul had the car running great, and I left on everybody I ran. All of the races were within a tenth of a second with no tire smoke, so we earned our first win. Here is a pic of a younger looking Paul Smith and myself celebrating. Actually I think we celebrated so much, we missed the next race! Later that year at the World Finals, Paul tuned me to my first two "0s:" A 5.07 e.t. and a run over 300mph. That run made me the first Canadian to run over 300 mph.

The next pic is of the car I drove for Al Hoffman. After Al crashed at the Gators in 1997, they asked if I wanted to drive his car for the next few races. I ran four races with Al, and even qualified No. 2 in his car at the Rockingham Invitational race. We had a few ups and downs, but I learned a valuable lesson while I was there: Don't drive a car that you are not comfortable with and always lift when in doubt. Luckily nothing really bad happened, but it was a learning experience. Next pic is a car that I drove a few times for local California racer, Chuck Beal. Chuck is a great guy, and we had lots of fun. The car ran well, and in 2000, we even were the first car to get picked for the Winston 100k No Bull Challenge.

That gets you up to speed for what I did from 1979-2000. I’ll scrounge around a post some more pics of the cars I drove from then up until present time. Hope you enjoyed this blog, and we’ll see you at the races!

Jeff

{GALLERY_grave}I first went to work for the Kalittas from 1991 until 1996. I crewed on Connie’s car for a while, then worked on Scott’s championship car in 1994 and 1995. Since then, I’ve been with a few fuel teams, including Don Prudhomme, Doug Herbert, Bob Gilbertson, and Bruce Litton, so now that I have gone back to work at Kalittas, it is like be home again.

I went back to work on Doug’s TF car as co-crew chief with Jon “O” last August before Brainerd. Then for 2009, we got switched to Scott’s DHL Funny Car as co-crew chiefs. I love Funny Cars and want to get a win for Scott, Connie, and the whole Kalitta team.

Anyway, me, Jim “O,” and Jon “O” flew to Tampa for the Gainesville race. We got to Tampa, went straight to a liquor store, and bought a box of Scott’s favorite beer and some Swisher Sweets. We then took off to visit Scott in the cemetery. We drank all the beer with Scott and smoked a terrible cigar with him.

Then we went to visit Kathy, Corey and Colin.

We took a tour of the house Scott was building. It’s now completed and is on inlet with a dock for his boats. The place reminds me of a resort. Corey, Scott’s oldest son, took us for a boat ride, and that was pretty cool. Colin’s dog ran away, and we went looking for it, too. After we found him, we piled into the car and went to dinner and ate some “Gator Balls” at a great seafood place. When we were done, me, the Os, and Corey took off for the Gatornationals for the weekend.

After getting done early on Sunday with both cars out in round one, we went to the Ale House for some food and a few beers. While we were in the outside bar, we even got to see the Space Shuttle take off. That was impressive… it lasted about 20 seconds.

We all got up early Monday morning, had a “double trans-fat special” breakfast at Waffle House, then drove back to Tampa’s airport to head back home, me to Philly, the Os to Detroit, and Jeff to California. Corey rode home with “Waterbed” Fred Sunday night so he could make it back in time for school in the morning.

Even though we had a rough weekend in Gainesville, I really enjoyed having Corey hang out with us. He is a cool kid, and his dad Scott was a very special person to me.

Thanks for reading.

Ben Marshall, our team marketing guru, decided to get married last weekend in Las Vegas. Now Jenny and Ben had been planning this for a while, so it wasn’t a surprise to us. They decided to get married at the Red Rock Casino and Resort, and a better choice they couldn’t have made. My wife, Windy, and I drove up on Friday, while we left our little daughter Jenna, with Windy’s parents… Whoohoo — an adult weekend in Vegas!

The Red Rock Resort is spectacular and was easily one of the nicest places I have ever stayed at. We ended up having dinner with Jim “O” and his wife, Tammy, and their daughter, Ashley, at T-Bones Steakhouse at the resort. Of course, the food was great, but the cool part was that pro tennis stars Andre Agassi, Steffi Graff, and their kids sat at the booth next to us. We didn’t go over and bug them, but it was still kind of neat. My wife and I ended up playing her favorite quarter slot machine, Wheel of Fortune. We played it over three days, and she won the 1,000-coin payout a couple of times while we hit the 500 payout a few times each. Can't remember the last time we left with more money than we came with!

The wedding on Saturday night went great and a good time was had by all. We had all kinds of “Kalitta celebrity sightings” there as well. Besides the world-famous interview giver Jim “O” and his family, there were Glen and Bob, the Technicoat cowboys; “DHL” Ray Donahue; Rick Fischer, a.k.a. Raul the Doctor of Fuel; and the bride’s father, Dan Hayes, from Hawaiian Structures, a.k.a. the great guy that hooked Windy and I up with their beautiful condo in Oahu last year.

Sunday came too soon, and it was time to drive back to sunny California. We stopped by and saw my brother, Rich, and his wife as well as his great kids, Damon and Holly. We ended up going to the Claim Jumper for lunch. Let’s just say that we were all full for the ride home. Speaking of the ride home, what was a three-hour ride there turned into a five-hour ride home, complete with a few of the biggest sandstorms I’ve ever seen. The front of my black GTO didn’t appreciate it too much.

Oh well, just getting ready to cut the grass, go to the gym, and then hop on a plane at 2 this afternoon to go to Houston. We have our DHL display to do tomorrow, and then we are going to the track to get set up. I have a great feeling going into this weekend, so maybe we can turn it into a win. I was reading Bob Frey’s column, and it was 20 years ago at this race that Scott won his only Funny Car Wally. Maybe, we can win him another one.

Jeff

On Thursday we got everything parked and the pit and hospitality set up. The Kalittas' deal is top-notch, but it certainly doesn't set itself up! Many hours of hard work go into the preparation. On Friday we made the first qualifier. Alan Reinhart told me after we got out that we ran a 4.22. While it was nice it to go A-B on the first lap, it didn't sound very fast. Shows how much I know because it stood up for the No. 8 spot after 2 sessions! Saturday, we didn't make it down the track under full power but Jon O. and Nicky were starting to learn our new deal. On Sunday morning, we made a great 4.19 lap, but my old buddy Del put down a great lap as well as a nice reaction time to put us on the trailer. The good news is that our car ran as good as his from the 330-foot timer to the finish line, so we are all pretty jazzed going into Houston!

We ended up at the infamous Gainesville Ale House for dinner later and got to hang out with a lot of other race teams. We also got to see the shuttle take off from a distance and the word "awesome" barely describes it. It was also cool to see the Bob Tasca III show up with the ever elusive "Wally" in tow. I was very happy for him and especially the majority of his team, which was pretty well my team when I drove the "Blue car" for Del in 2007.

This weekend my wife and I are driving over to Vegas because our marketing guy, Ben Marshall, is getting married. Should be a great time! After that, I fly to Houston on Wednesday for a display that we are doing for the fine folks at DHL on Thursday. This will be my first display deal for DHL, and we even get to fire the car up for them. I am sure that there are going to be more than a few surprised people there!

As I said, we are all looking forward to Houston as I now feel we have a great "baseline tune-up" to go off of for our first lap. If you are in Houston make sure to drop by and say Hi.

Take care and thanks for reading,
Jeff

As you know...Toyota will be co-sponsoring 8 Full Throttle events this
season. They include the following locations:
Gainesville
Houston
Seattle
Sonoma
Indianapolis
Concord, NC
Las Vegas 2
Pomona 2

At these locations, we will have our "Toyota Pit Pass" interactive display in Nitro Alley. This display will have life-size "standees" of each Toyota sponsored driver for fans to take pics with, etc. Also, we will have a caricature artist sketching the cars for fans.
 
 If you haven't seen this display, you are missing out. I first saw it at Charlotte last year and it is pretty trick. Two levels, spiral staircases, and last year, Kenny Youngblood, the famous motorsports artist, was the one doing the caricatures! If you are going to one of these races make sure and drop by the display and get a picture taken with "Cardboard Jeff!" Or you could always come by the DHL/Kalitta trailer for a real pic .. haha.
 
That's about it for now. Cya at the races

As I am sure all of you know, my predictions of mid 70s and sunshine didn't come to fruition. Instead we got rain, rain and more rain with a dose of FREEZING (at least for me) temps thrown in. After raining Thursday and Friday, the racing gods let us have one qualifier to set the field. Seeing as we were about 1 for 18 in testing for full runs, I was pretty happy when our DHL Toyota Funny Car made it to the finish line on our one shot. It was a little slower than we thought, but we were only the second pair to run and couldn't learn much from the other cars. We ended up in the 10 spot and had Gary Densham for round one.

Come Sunday, more rain on and off. After being in the staging lanes a few times we finally got our turn. Gary was nice enough to remind me that his would probably be his last race ever and to take it easy on him. Sure Gary, I think I have heard that line before … ha ha. Anyways, at the flash of the Tree, I didn't cut him any slack and had over a four-hundredths advantage. We both had to pedal our cars out of shake and we were probably just ahead of Gary when our car spun the tires just before half track. It ended up putting three cylinders out on the right side at the same time. That's probably why it ended up pointed at the right wall at over 200 mph. Luckily we missed the wall but Gary won the round. There was only one car that won in the right lane and had a full run, so our odds weren't looking too good anyway. My teammate Doug Kalitta made a highlight reel lap against his first-round opponent for the win. There was LOTS of fire but Doug legged her through for the win.

Fast forward two days later. Finally a great SoCal day, albeit 15-20 degrees cooler than normal. Doug ran a stellar 3.82 to take care of Cory Mac in the second round. All you have to do now in insert Morgan Lucas and Antron Brown in that same line as like a bracket car, it ran 3.82 again both times. He also dug deep in the final for his best reaction time of the day! Credit Jim O, Connie and the entire Kalitta Motorsports crew for a job well done. It was awesome to be on the starting line to watch them win. My family and I hung out for the photo shoot and the celebratory team dinner. There is nothing like seeing Connie get all excited as the car was going rounds. You couldn't wipe the smile off his face after the win!
 
Now of course we can't wait for Phoenix. Our DHL Funny Car is starting to respond to the changes that we are making. I am praying for dry weather and four qualifiers. Now, our team is looking for the Wally … would a double up Kalitta victory be too much to ask?
 
Here are a couple of pics from the race. My wife picked up this lab coat for our good friend Rick Fischer. Rick mixes all the fuel for the teams (as well as the drinks, after racing is over) and has the nickname of Raul. My wife and I decided to personalize it a bit for him and here you see the end result!
 
Next is a picture of our team PR/ Graphic Designer/ Web page guy Todd Myers and myself. Nice job on the handout cards, Todd!
 
Saving the best for last is my daughter celebrating her first appearance at a team win with no other than the man himself, Doug Kalitta.
 
Looking forward to Phoenix and more wins.