I know it has been a while, but I needed to take a deep breath after the Chicago weekend. Faithful followers of this column will know that Chicago of last year was my final as a race engineer for RGM. In honor of that anniversary I went and ran a different kind of race. And instead of it ending in tears or emm-effs like just about every race I did with the 7, this race ended at a brewery. Of course I am taking about the Boilermaker 15K road race in Utica New York. It is actually one of the… Read More

This week, I laid a pass on Kyle Busch…and it wasn’t in NASCAR ’09. It was not in the Arby’s drive through near the Gibbs shop, and it was not in the aisles of Target either. Now that I think about it, I didn’t really lay a pass on him, so much as he wrecked, and I drove around the wreck. Then I wrecked and he drove back by me one corner later. Actually, it seems as though Kyle has caught the RC racing bug, and he was in my race at one of the local RC tracks in the Charlotte area. Even the 34th… Read More

Last week I learned an important lesson about tires. I went to the Mini dealership for my regular service appointment. I expected to get my oil changed and a car wash and be out of there in an hour. However, it got ugly in a hurry. The service chick came over to me and said, "We got your oil changed and the rest of your car serviced, but you have a problem with your tires. There is a chunk of your right front tire wrapped around your axle, and it will be $800 to replace the front tires."… Read More

Before diving into the Cup talk this week I have to tell you about an excellent culinary adventure I had the other day. For the first time in my life, I made my own salad dressing and it came out awesome. I made a fresh Caesar dressing. MMM..mmmm.The fresh ground garlic just gave it a sublime quality that is unmatchable by the packaged stuff. It was so easy and I would recommend it to anyone. I'm not sure why I got motivated to do it, but it was a fantastic experiment.



I digress.… Read More

What a superb race at the weekend. There was something to cheer about for everyone. Each manufacturer had a stint in the lead, rookies came to the front, plenty of wrecks, different pit strategies, and many different drivers had a dominant stint of the race. Can you believe that I fell asleep with 30 to go? What a great day for Hendrick too. Their engines and engineering support were behind each car in the top 5. They are the classiest operation in Cup racing and proved it in a big way at… Read More