In a Nut Shell . . .

It was cool walking into Bristol on Tuesday. All we had for the day was initial inspection. The track is an awesome place and it was neat to see all the new seats and suites they had added since the last time we were there. Travis thought the flower garden in turn 4 was cool. We got through tech without any problems and Truck 8 was ready to hit the track on Wednesday.

When we arrived on Wednesday, the Hooter’s Pro Cup series was ready to practice so we had to go through the pedestrian tunnel. In all my years of racing at Bristol (10 seasons) that was the first time I used the tunnel, which by the way is pretty cool too! Not sure anything at this track is not cool. With the Pro Cup cars on the track, the noise got cranked up right away. As they practiced, we got things ready for our first run of the day.

We really didn’t know what to expect out of the truck, but we did know we were going to make the truck work. The truck was really tight at first and it took about ¾ of the practice to free it up. About ½ way through the second practice, we had the truck dialed in to where David was comfortable. After that, we made a quailifying run. The truck was a little too tight, but not bad and we were around 17th on the timing sheet.

We were 6th to go out and qualify and David hit the track for his two laps and out of no where he dropped the hammer and sat on the Pole. Man, I guess 8 and 9 did have a talk on the way home from Nashville. We had a really good truck.

Once qualifying was over and the trucks were impounded, I went up to the NTN suite to visit with some our guests. It’s always cool going up there and meeting the people behind NTN. We had a lot of guests from Canada at Bristol and it was nice talking with them . . . AYE!!!!

After the suite visit, it was time to go and get ready for the race. Knowing we were at Bristol and that anything could (and probably would) happen, everyone was double checking to make sure we had everything we might need.

As we pushed the truck onto pit road you could feel the excitement grow. Chase and Ashley were up in the stands and came to the fence to wish us luck. They were having fun!

When the green flag fell for the race start, the truck was pretty tight and David was doing a great job hanging on. We fell to around the seventh position when “anything” that could happen, happened. We blew a seal out of the power steering pump, which was causing the wheel to want to turn to the right. This was probably what was causing the truck to be tight at the beginning of the race. After fixing the problem we returned to the race 25 laps down. We just needed to stay out of the way and finish, and that is what we did.

The No. 12 team had a good run with Mike Wallace behind the wheel. They really needed a good run and it was really cool to see that.

After the race I met up with Paula, my Mom and the kids . . . we were staying for the Food City Family Race Festival on Thursday. Paula had to work and do some fundraising for the Women’s Auxiliary. While they were adopting ducks (this is what the duck on my home page is for . . . be sure to check it out, it is for a really good cause), I was signing autographs in their display. It was really cool. All of the fans were really nice and I had a lot of fun with them. We’ll have photos posted in the gallery soon.

We left Bristol on Thursday evening and headed back to Sherrills Ford. It’s neat to get to race and still get the weekend off . . . we (Paula, Chase, Ashley and my Mom) went camping with our church and had a good time.