Season heating up for NASCAR drivers
Hey Review-Journal readers. My name is Ted Yerzyk and I am the publicist for NHRA Top Fuel driver Antron Brown, the current NHRA points leader. We work for Mike Ashley Racing and compete on the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series with the Matco Tools dragster for all you drag racing novices
And for the serious drag racing fans and motor sports fans, we’re quite fortunate to have a straight-line admirer in Jeff Wolf as the auto racing pro for the Review-Journal, both in print and on-line.
Jeff called me up last Friday afternoon and asked if I had an interest in blogging for the RJ’s motor sports web page. Well sure, why not. I write a monthly blog for our team website on www.mikeashleyracing.com, so doing a weekly blog shouldn’t be too much to ask, right?
Given our travel schedule and the many different hats we wear, I’ll do my best to keep you all up to date on Antron and our travels through NHRA land during the 2009 season.
Things are finally starting to heat up for the NHRA series. The NHRA schedule starts sort of slow. Well, very slow. Kind of like a Charlie Hough knuckleball for all you baseball fans.
The season started the week after the Super Bowl and we’re now about to run round four of 24 races some two months later. We’re currently in lovely Baytown, Texas just east of Houston for the 22nd running of the O’Reilly Spring Nationals.
It’s Wednesday (March 25) morning and I’m sitting in the drivers seat of a Kenworth T600 truck using the oversized steering wheel as my makeshift desk. We’re stacked in line ready to park our hospitality trailer for what then begins 10 hours of madness as we unload and construct the Iron Eagle Club. Perhaps one day we’ll have a time-lapse video to post of the 10 hours into about five minutes. You would be amazed. Once erect, it is a pretty cool hospitality area with lots of tables and chairs, Matco Tool boxes, flat screen televisions and an awesome food spread. It really is a terrific hospitality experience for any racing fan. Ok, enough with the shameless plug. Contact your local Matco Tools distributor to buy tickets.
Baytown is not one of the more scenic cities that we visit. There’s a haze that covers the Port of Houston that very much reflects the smog in Southern California. Thankfully, we’re here for just a few days and don’t have to breath this stuff on a regular basis. A few of the locals have told me they refer to it as, “Bayhole.” I think that pretty much sums it up in one word.
The Houston race was kind to us last season. It was the site of Antron Brown’s first career Top Fuel win, which also made history as the then 32-year-old New Jersey native became the first driver in NHRA history to win races in both the Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle categories. A.B. had a pretty solid transition from two wheels to four last season winning two races in five final round and earning three No. 1 qualifying awards or as they say in most other forms of racing, poles. Earlier this year, after posting a runner-up finish at the season-opener in Pomona, Calif. and winning the Phoenix race two weeks later, Ant again made history as the only NHRA racer to ever lead the points in both the Top Fuel and PSM divisions. As we enter race four, Ant is every slightly clinging to a 20-point or one round lead over second-placer driver and second generation shoe Brandon Bernstein and the Budweiser team. As a stick-and-ball sports lover, I’m sort of a stats guy. Yes, I’m a geek. I’m good with it. I’ll post lots of numbers and stats in the blog.
I don’t want to get too wordy in blog entry number one and scare everyone away. We’re coming to visit Vegas next week to arguably our nicest facility on the circuit, The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. A few of us were in Sin City just a few weeks back to attend the Matco Tool Expo at Caesar’s Palace. We had a great time. So good, we got to Caesar’s at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning and didn’t go outside until we had to leave for the airport at 11 a.m. on Wednesday. Cher was awesome and we had two excellent dining experiences at Rao’s and Mesa Grill. We’ll also offer up many food suggestions as we travel this great nation of ours because if there’s one talent I do possess, it’s eating. Like I mentioned, we’ll be in Vegas in one week for the first of two events at The Strip at LVMS, April 2-5, for the 10th annual Summitracing.com Nationals.
As we sign off, please don’t hesitate to contact us with questions, tyerzyk@mikeashley.com. If you have questions for Antron, we’ll be glad to answer them in upcoming RV blog entries. Thanks for reading and bye for now.
Thanks,
PR Ted
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