~Bristol Journal~

Hi Y'all, I hope everyone enjoyed the excitement under the lights at Bristol this weekend. As usual Bristol proved to be everything it's known for: loud, competitive, and lots of yellow flags flying. Unfortunately for us, we got caught up in the early wreck Friday night but luckily we stayed out of trouble for the rest of the race. As y'all may know Bristol is one of my favorite tracks. I love to race there around the high banks, nose to tail with the rest of the field. So did we keep you on the edge of your seats during qualifying waiting to see if I was going to make the race on my lap time? Sorry to do that to y'all but you definitely weren't the only ones to sweat it out. I never like to have to rely on a provisional to get into a race so I can't tell you how relieved I was when the last car finished qualifying and I knew that we were in the race on our qualifying time. I have to admit I was a little disappointed in my qualifying run. During the practice sessions, the crew and I had really worked on the setup and thought we had found one that would put us at the front of the field for the start of the race. On the short tracks, it is important to qualify well and get one of the pit stalls on the front stretch. It is really tough to win a race when pitting on the backstretch because you are a half lap behind the guys who pit on the front. But I'll take pitting on the backstretch any day instead of packing it up and not making the race. In any case, once the race started we really just got focused on how to get to the front of the field by having fast pit stops and making adjustments on the car. Our main goal was to run all the laps of the race and that is definitely easier said than done at Bristol. When that first wreck happened I was about a turn behind the cars involved. My spotter let me know exactly where it was and told me to slow down. I thought we were going to miss it but the cars behind me just couldn't slow down in time and got in the back of me. Really there is no one to blame that's just the way short track racing is. Speaking of spotters, you really need a good one especially at tracks like Bristol where the cars are bunched up all the time. I am fortunate to have a great spotter, along with the rest of my team, who kept me out of trouble all night by letting me know what was going on. It just proves once again how much racing really is a team sport. As far as the rest of the race goes, I just wanted to get back out there and pick up as many positions as I could. It is like the guys on my crew said, we've learned from our experiences this year and we will come back next year and improve. I just have to say once again that I have the most awesome fans out there. After hearing and reading all of comments on how y'all think that I ran a great race, I felt so much better. I really was disappointed to begin with because I had real high goals going into Friday but y'all definitely made me feel much better. Man, if someone hadn't watched the race they may have thought I came in 1st not 22nd after hearing what y'all had to say (LOL). Speaking of fans, I want to say "Hey" to Gina, Christy, Kim, Erin and Allen (I hope I included everyone). These five members of my fan club had what I guess you could call the first "unofficial" Adam Petty Fan Club meeting Friday at my merchandise trailer. Rhonda showed me the pictures and told me everything y'all had to say and it sounded like everyone had fun meeting each other. When I heard that y'all hadn't met each other before Friday I was really surprised. After reading all of the posts on the message board I thought that everyone already knew each other. I am really sorry I couldn't get out there to talk to everyone and I can't wait until we will get to meet in the future at the first official meeting if not before then. While we are on the subject of fans, I want to tell each of you that y'all are absolutely the greatest fans that any driver in NASCAR could ever hope for. I got a real kick out of the fact that y'all took my comments on the INSIDE NASCAR Feature personally. The only fan that I ever really feel pressure from is Evelyn #13 (LOL!!!). She made me realize how important timely journals are for everyone; thank you Evelyn. Unfortunately I was not as clear in my comments about the pressure that I feel from race fans and the media in my interview on INSIDE NASCAR. I was trying to explain the difference that I see in the demands on my time now from the media and fans versus last season when I competed at the ASA level. At the Busch Level, more and more people want and need access to you. The farther you advance in the NASCAR Series, the greater the demands on your time are. Everyone requires more of your time, and that takes some getting used to. Hey, if the media or the fans did not want any of my time, then that would mean I wasn't doing my job out there on the track. So I am really happy that things are the way they are. I guess the real pressure comes from myself to try and make time for everybody. I'm getting better at scheduling my time. There are times when this is impossible and I don't like having to turn anyone away. So the real problem I run into is having enough time to fit everything into my schedule. That is why this journal and the discussion board are so great. They allow all of us to talk to one another from our own homes. I hope this explains everything a little better. I am really sorry if what I said was taken the wrong way, sometimes our words don't match what we are trying to say. That's about all for this week. I hope I didn't get to serious for y'all I just wanted to be sure to make myself clear. I hope everyone has a great week and I'll talk to you after Darlington. God Bless, Adam