Hello! I am sorry that I missed writing to you guys last week. It has been a whirlwind of a season so far! I had hoped to be writing to you about making the first Sprint Cup start for Dollar General in last week’s Daytona 500, but unfortunately that will have to wait until later in the season. The team did a great job on the car! During the Gatorade Duel, we made adjustments during the first couple of pit stops and got the car handling well. Unfortunately the race didn’t end like I’d hoped. I want to thank Dollar General and I am really looking forward to driving both cars for them this year! I stayed in Daytona for the remainder of the weekend to hang out with our Dollar General guests and to support the Nationwide Series team. Saturday morning I visited our series sponsor’s Pit Road Patio and talked to their guests. I watched the start of the race from the No. 32 team’s pit box and then went up to the suite with the Dollar General executives. It was a lot of fun to spend time with them and what an exciting race it turned out to be! Brian Vickers and the Dollar General team finished fifth…a great start to our 2010 season!

I decided to ride home in the motorhome on Sunday morning. It was a nice, quiet trip. I wasn’t home very long, though. Just enough time to do laundry and repack for California. I had to head to California early for Toyota’s Motorsports Day. I flew out Tuesday morning with the rest of the Braun Racing drivers and our PR Reps. It was a non-stop flight, but still a long one! I passed the time watching movies on my laptop. When we landed we got checked into our hotel in Torrance and headed to Redondo Beach to check out the scene and grab dinner at the Redondo Beach Brewing Co., which was really good!

Wednesday all of the Toyota drivers met up in the lobby of our hotel and headed over to the U.S. headquarters in Torrance. We spent the morning signing autographs for Toyota employees and then had lunch with the executives. It was great to meet everyone and be able to thank them for all of their support. After we wrapped up our afternoon, I headed to the Roosevelt Hotel for the night. It was really cool to check out the Hollywood area. Definitely a lot different from what I’m used to at home! The Jimmy Kimmel LIVE show was even filming a skit in the street!

Reed Sorenson at Daytona International Speedway

Now I’m out in Fontana and hanging out with the team. It’s really hard to not be driving and I can’t wait to get back behind the wheel of the No. 32 Dollar General car! Bristol can’t get here fast enough! I’ll be driving for the team in the fall race here at Auto Club Speedway, so I’m going to spend time talking to Vickers and Trent Owens this weekend so we can see what is working for them and what we can do when we come back.

Well, that’s about it for this week. I’m going to hit the In-N-Out Burger a few more times before we fly out of here on Sunday morning. Thanks for following the blog and have a great weekend!

-Reed