Good morning!  We just landed in Daytona and getting settled in.  The team is heading to the track for tech day.  NASCAR has a very detailed inspection process for superspeedway cars, so the teams usually spend an entire day just rolling the cars from one station to another.  I am thinking about hitting the golf course again.  Yesterday I golfed in Hermie and Elliot Sadler’s charity golf tournament in Virginia.  It was really, really hot there!  Thinking about that now, maybe I’ll just head to the pool instead.  It’s 9 a.m. and I think it is already 90 degrees here!  Welcome to Florida in July!  (well, almost July)

We were in Loudon last weekend.  It’s one of my favorite tracks.  I really like how flat it is.  It reminds me a lot of the tracks I grew up racing on back when I was in ASA (American Speed Association).  This weekend I drove both the No. 32 Dollar General Toyota in the Nationwide Series and the No. 83 Camry for Red Bull Racing Team in the Cup Series.  It was my first weekend driving the No. 83.  I’ll also be driving it here in Daytona and at Chicagoland Speedway next week.

We had a decent race at New Hampshire in the Dollar General car.  Even though we got a top-10, it wasn’t the finish we thought we would get.  We battled a tight condition for the majority of the day, but Trent and the guys worked really hard to make adjustments.  The car got a lot better as the day went on, and our last run was the best.  We got really lucky that it didn’t rain.  The forecast did not look good at all.  Fortunately, we got the race in and didn’t have to reschedule.  With the teams having to be down here in Daytona by early Tuesday morning, it would have been really tight trying to get the haulers from New Hampshire to Charlotte, unload them and reload the Daytona cars and then get down to Florida in order to park today.  I know that my truck driver, Patrick, was not looking forward to doing it all in one day if our race was rescheduled.

My Sunday race went well, too.  I’m still getting to know the No. 83 guys, but it helps a lot that my crew chief, Jimmy Elledge and I have worked together before.  We worked on the car all weekend and during the race and got it running pretty solid in the end.  The biggest thing for me was to log laps, get the feel of the team and the cars and to finish clean.  This is a great team and I’m excited for this opportunity.

Well, I’m going to head out for a while.  I’ll put out another blog later this week and tell you how things are going with the “New” Nationwide car.  I think it is going to be very interesting to see how the car handles when the entire field is out there together.

Have a great week everyone and thanks for following me on here!