What a weekend!!! The setting was AMAZING. I lost track of how many cars hit the wall. The last I heard, the count was over 20. They nicknamed this track “the Gaunlet”… and it was right on the money. I towed the e46 to Chi-town in working order… and towed her back to Atlanta in the same condition… so all in all, a successful weekend!

There was only one judged clipping point… which I thought was weird. They were judging your entry speed, how you hit that clipping point, and how hard you were on the throttle.

I landed a whopping TWO practice runs before qualifying. Tyson Beckford slammed the wall for the second time, so they cut practice. I was next in line. Sweet. I pulled off to cool down, and ended up the second to last to run qualifying. I blew a flat tyre, and Mitch Wright came over to my car and told me I better pull off and take a look at it. Dan and I changed those two rear tyres in record time… and I hurried back on track to be the last person to run. I was still out of breath from the whole ordeal. I never had time to stop and collect my thoughts… but I put the pedal through the floorboard and went. I rocked out decent speed, but I felt like my angle coming into the first clipping point could have been better. I qualified 16th out of 43… so I didn’t advance to the main event… but had a great time in the process. Had that flat tyre not blown on two runs, and my concentration not been throw off… who knows. Such is racing. BUT… if it’s not my day to go out there in make it… it sure as hell is someone else’s. I didn’t hit the wall, which is always a plus.

I got to hang with my dear friend Antonio Garcia for the rest of the weekend, and stayed all day Sunday to run around Chi-town with him, Kevin, and Patrice. That town is beautiful to say the least.

See what I mean about the setting??

Note the flat tyre in the rear. If you look close, you can see my concentration flying out the window.