Countdown and Indy Bound

We have a busy week heading into Indy. Last week, we attended an NHRA test session in Indianapolis and I’m really glad we did. We gained a lot of valuable data from those two test days. At the end of the session, we were on top of the charts with the quickest and fastest run with a 4.07 second pass at nearly 310 miles per hour.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been struggling with lifters. We’ve had lifter failure at the last couple of races and we also had a lifter failure on the test session, so we made some changes. All of us, my crew chiefs Chris Cunningham and Marc Denner and the entire team, were very happy with the remainder of the test session. You always learn something when you drive these Funny Cars and the teams always learn something. We will use the test data to help us run some quick times during the Friday and Saturday night runs in Indianapolis.

After the test, I was off to Montreal. I was invited by Ford Racing and Ford of Canada to participate in the Ford Racing Crescent Street Festival that is held in conjunction with the NASCAR Nationwide Series race. Even though my trip was short, I had a great experience. I hadn’t been to Canada in a long time and just to see the excitement and enthusiasm for racing was really cool. What was really neat about the whole thing, a lot of people had never seen a fuel Funny Car before, so to have the opportunity to talk and explain it to them was amazing. To see their reactions at just how cool they thought my Motorcraft/Quick Lane Funny Car was and they saw our film on a lot of the different runs we made.

Then I was blown away by how many people actually knew what we did, who we were and actually followed the sport of NHRA racing from Canada. It was a great experience, a lot of fun. Ford had just a wonderful presence up and down the street. I flew home on Sunday and we’re just a few days away from heading out to Indianapolis for arguably the biggest race of the year.

The boys are back in hockey now too. They had a hockey tournament this past weekend, the first of the season with practice and tryouts. As our NHRA season is staring to wind down, their hockey season is just starting. I know the boys are excited about it. I missed the tournament this past weekend but I was getting blow by blow via text messages. I’m not sure who is more excited to get back – the boys to hockey or me to the race track.

If you are coming to Indianapolis, be sure to stop by and say hello. We’re running the FordParts.com paint scheme this weekend. That blue and white Mustang brought me some good fortune our way in Englishtown. Let’s see if we can get that magic back and bring home another Wally!

See you in Indianapolis.