~Talladega Journal~

Hey Everyone! Well, as you know already, this past weekend was an off-weekend for the NASCAR Winston Cup and Busch Series. We've been going at hard for around nine to ten weekends now so it was nice to have a little "down time" and get to spend some time with my family during the Easter weekend. We had a really good run this past weekend at Talladega and scored our best finish of the year so far, coming home in the 12th spot. I guess after the bad luck we had been having the past couple of weekends at Bristol, Texas, and Nashville, it finally was our turn for a little good luck and we were able to keep out of some really big wrecks that were right in front of us. It seems like almost every city that we have visited this year, there has been rain in the forecast. Well Talladega was no different. We practiced pretty well on Thursday morning and I knew that we had a pretty good shot at qualifying within the top 15 or 20 or so. So after practice when it started raining I wasn't very happy about the fact that it looked like qualifying was going to be rained out. Because of some of the lower finishes we have had when we have been caught up in those wrecks has put us back in the points and I knew we had a better car than the 31st starting spot. They called qualifying Friday morning so at that point you have to put the qualifying part of the weekend behind you and just get ready to go race. We did get a Happy Hour in on Friday afternoon and we tried a couple of gear changes. We didn't make any major changes to the car's set-up because we didn't have to. I told Chris [Hussey] all weekend that this was one of the most comfortable superspeedway cars that I had ever had. On Saturday, I knew that I would have to make my way around some cars who may not be as good as I was since the field wasn't set by qualifying speed. I knew the key was going to be to be patient and be sure to stay out of the "Big One." "The Big One" is bound to happen at least once during a race that is run on a superspeedway. It usually happens when a bunch of cars start running three and four wide and they are fighting for position or just to stay in the draft and then one car will eventually tap another car and just start a chain reaction that collects a big part of the field. The big accident for our race happened right in front of me and I saw Randy Lajoie basically in the air in front of me. I really don't know how I made it through that wreck because it just happens so fast. Randy really hit that wall hard and I am happy to see that he is OK because whenever you wreck going that fast, it is going to be pretty bad. When the race started, we were in the back but I knew that we would eventually make our way to the front of the field. My team was absolutely awesome this weekend, as always, especially on that second pit stop. We went in the pits around the 33rd or 34th position and came out 15th. Good stops can help move you to the front of the field and that is what they did for me. In those last couple laps of the race, I ended up picking up a couple spots and finishing in the 12th spot. It is still not the top 10 or top five that we're shooting for but this team is definitely capable of running that well, so it will just be a matter of time. If we are looking for our first top ten, California is a good place to go. We had a really good run there last year finishing in the fourth spot, which was our best finish last season. It rained qualifying out last year in California also and we had to start by points and I remember that I didn't get much practice time but that race day it just seemed as if everything went right. Hey, hopefully that will be the case once again and we' be back in the top five. Since we did have an off weekend, we took the opportunity to head out to Richmond last week and test for a few days. It rained us out for one day of testing but we still got some good time in and I think the time on the track will help us out when we go back there for the race in May. I hope that everyone had a very, very happy Easter. The good news is that it's back to racing this weekend so I'll talk to you after California. God Bless and Thank You, Adam