The UPS team headed to Vegas with high hopes of starting the turn-around to our season. Unfortunately it didn't quite happen. We had struggled in Gainesville and stayed around and tested on Monday afterward and felt like we had made some progress.
We unloaded our car and prepared for qualifying only to be bit by the same problems we had been facing: the dreaded dropped cylinders! You have to remember when you have an engine that makes 8000 horsepower if you drop a cylinder there goes 1000 horsepower out the window. It makes it difficult to run well when you don't have all 8 cylinders lit.
When you are struggling and then you are thrown a curveball the way we were in Las Vegas it just adds to your misery. We have raced down some pretty marginal racetracks this season, but Vegas was as bad as any of them.
Every team struggled getting down the racetrack. Track preparation has been a hot topic this season. The theory is there is a lot less going on because of the fear of tearing up tires, but I can assure they are missing it on the wrong side by a mile.
Qualifying ended with us in the 11th spot. We basically detuned the car so much it felt like it took forever to get to the finish line.
On race day my buddy Kevin Harvick and his wife flew over from their race in Phoenix. They had raced on Saturday night and with the close proximity they took the opportunity to come over and watch us. We are working on a pretty exciting program and it could be a really good deal for drag racing. As things develop I will keep you all informed.
On race day we faced the hotter than a pistol Antron Brown. I knew we were at a performance disadvantage and tried to help out a little too much and red lighted. I just missed a green light by a little, but it wouldn't have mattered as he ran me down anyway and took the win light. All in all a pretty lousy weekend for the UPS team. We will keep on flogging it until we get it straightened out. We are going to go testing to speed up the process and we will give everything we have until this ship is back on track.
See you in Atlanta!