March 30, 2009

GREAT WEEKEND IN HOUSTON

Hey Everyone,

It's Monday morning and Ed Parker & I are driving home from Houston. In Louisiana right now and heading East. It's been a great trip but we're excited to get home and spend some time with our families.

Had a great weekend in Houston. We had our last qualifying pass on Saturday morning and ended up 3rd qualifier going into first round of eliminations later in the day.

Arnold Gacita & Edward Ibarra from Wynn's came to the races on Saturday. Arnold brought his son Andrew with him and it was great to have them there to experience the racing. They really enjoyed themselves and we were glad they could join us.

The whole team worked hard to ready the racecar for the first round of eliminations, where we won the round. We gave the car a service after the run to prepare for second round on Sunday morning. Woke up to sunny skies and much less wind on Sunday-just a beautiful day for racing. Rich made us all a great breakfast and we got ready to go racing. Ran a 5.71 @ 255mph in the second round of eliminations that got us through the round and into the semifinals. Everybody was extremely pumped up and ready to work quickly to get the car ready for the next round. Short turn around between rounds and before we knew it, it was time to stage again. Won the semifinal round as well and everybody continued to be excited and very satisfied that all the hard work throughout the weekend was paying off. Going to the finals with the Permatex/Wynn’s/Texas Roadhouse Chevrolet Impala SS Top Alcohol Funny Car!

Our opponent in the finals was Steve Harker, who had the racecar to beat all weekend. Unfortunately, we came up on the losing end with a 5.61 to Harkers 5.63 due to a red light. It was disheartening to lose but we were greatful to be there.

The team worked really hard all weekend to get us to our first final of the year. Not our last though, as we're getting closer all the time. Tommy's getting more comfortable and we seem to be getting a better handle on the car with every run.

I can't thank our sponsors enough for giving us this opportunity. Again, it was great to have some folks from Wynn's join us. We also had visitors from San Jacinto College, where we spoke last week before getting to the track. Also saw some folks from Texas Roadhouse at the track. It was great to have friends and fans with us.

Will get home later this week and begin to ready the car for Div 1 race in Petersburg, VA at the beginning of May. In the meantime, we'll be making some appearances in the month of April. Keep checking the site for updated schedule of events and we'll keep you updated on the blog as well.

Have a great day!

Jay

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Jay and Team...
Tremendous effort this weekend - gave me chills coming right down to the end. Many more races to come to show off all the hard work the team does to pull together such an awesome organization!! Drive safely home and enjoy the time with the family.
Take Care
Joan

Unknown said...

Jay,

really enjoyed your hospitality this weekend. You guys did an excellent job. I was thoroughly impressed!!! See you again next year!!

JD Moffitt

Mike Bradford said...

Hey Jay and Team, my dad is visiting this weekend, great to see you guys make it to the finals...Thanks for taking the time to keep us up to date on our favorite race team around...Best to all Mike and Bob Bradford