10/11/11 - Beginning A New Chapter by Alexis DeJoria

It’s hard to believe my Dallas debut has come and gone so quickly!  There are so many great things going on right now I wanted to share with everyone as I begin a new chapter in my life.

8/4/11 – Son and Sea

Howdy all. Sorry for the slight delay in getting a new blog up, but like the trip from Denver to Sonoma, the trip from Sonoma to Seattle was packed with all sorts of things to tell you about, and I’ve just now gotten a few minutes to sit down at the desk in the hotel room in Seattle to relay those to you.

7/31/11 – Calm Before the Storm

It’s a few minutes before 7:00 a.m. and I’m sitting in an empty media center at Infineon Raceway. As I look out the windows, I can see some track folks and NHRA Safety Safari workers starting to trickle in and slowly the silence that almost seems awkward at a race track is replaced by a various array of noises that will inevitably bring the race track its auditory comfort.

7/30/11 – Under Wraps

Hello again disciples of all things Conrad. It is Saturday morning and all of us at Team Kalitta are getting ready for what we hope will be a great day of qualifying action here at the FRAM Autolite NHRA Nationals at beautiful Infineon Raceway. Ever since I started working in drag racing, coming to Sonoma for the races each year is one of the highlights of the season. The facility here is one of the best on the tour and the folks that run the place are top-notch.

Things have been pretty crazy around here since I last checked in with you. As you hopefully have seen by now, we are running a special “paint scheme” on Doug Kalitta’s car for this event. Our good friend “Cowboy Bob” Coffman and his Technicoat Companies are the primary sponsor on Doug’s dragster for Sonoma. Cowboy Bob and Technicoat continue to be one of the best partners we have on both the business and personal sides of Kalitta Motorsports. Bob’s a big bulk of a fellow who you most certainly would not want to cross with ill intent, but he’s really a big teddy bear with a heart of gold (Shhh…don’t tell him I let his secret out).

7/29/11 – Did you see that?!

It’s 9:00 p.m. local time here in American Canyon, Cali. And midnight back home in Detroit, Wednesday, and after getting some Chinese take-out food and getting settled in here behind my electronic appendage, I finally have a chance to get my breath and tell you all about the last two days I’ve spent on the road from Denver to here. I’m sure I won’t finish tonight, but I will get as far as I can before I crash and then finish up in the morning. Don’t worry; by the time you read this you won’t (hopefully) be able to see the seam.

My head is literally swirling with all the things I want to convey. To say that the past two days have been really cool would be doing a vast disservice to “Fonzie” and everything that has ever shared the adjective. It was a life-changing 48-hour experience that my simple words to follow here will not be able to properly describe, but I’m going to set out to do my best.

7/25/11 – PIX!

After the race was finished Sunday, went for a drive on the road right behind the race track at Bandimere Speedway. Took a few pix along the ride...

7/24/11 – Owling and Race Day on the Mountain

I’ve never been one to be a very trendy fellow. I guess I did okay with keeping up with the Joneses when I was younger, but as I have gotten older, I know that side of me has waned. Now, I like to think that I’m pretty hip to what’s going on technology-wise. We were one of the first drag racing teams with a Facebook and Twitter presence on the Web and I take a lot of pride in all things Web-related that go on with our team.

Recently, there has been a trend on the Social media outlets called “planking”. Essentially, it involves a person lying face down, arms at their side on top of something interesting. Something interesting might include planking Napoleon’s tomb (Yes, a girl did it…you can see the photo at http://twitpic.com/5tb1pr) and planking a Funny Car, like NHRA’s uberpersonality John Force did here…

7/23/11 – Day Two in Denver

This morning I got up a little early and took a pre-race walk. I took off in my new Rocky TrailStalkers (Yes, that was a shameless sponsor plug) from the hotel thinking that in the suburban setting of asphalt slabs and sidewalks we were in that there was not actually going to be any real trails for my Rocky’s to actually stalk. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong.

As I do on most of the walking adventures, I just walked outside of the hotel…looked left…looked right…and then picked one way and started walking. Since the highway, protected by a very large fence for a reason, was on my right, I went left. I doubt that I had gone a quarter of a mile before the sidewalk came to an abrupt halt, but there was a well-worn footpath that continued along the side of the street, and I could almost hear the TrailStalkers applauding, well, maybe not but I would like to think they would have if they could have. I ventured through the Denver suburbia up one street and down another going from sidewalk to trail and back to sidewalk on a few other occasions. Then, I came upon something that I would have never expected to come across, smack dab in the middle(That’s a southern saying for you hillbilly-challenged) of an industrial park – A prairie…chocked full of prairie dogs! At least that’s what it looked like to me as I’m not sure that I can confidently say that I have ever seen a prairie or a prairie dog. Either way, it was a small field with all sorts of small furry critters about. There were little ones, big ones, fat ones, skinny ones, young and old in varying degrees of brown hue. I tried to take a shot with my cell phone, but it didn’t really turn out. You can sorta make a couple of the little guys and gals out…

7/22/11 – Where Did I Put That Oxygen Mask?

Greetings all for some mile-high musings from stupidly scenic Bandimere Speedway. I absolutely love coming to Denver to race. The scenery here is literally breathtaking. Even the view from the Media Center is cool. The only drawback for me about coming to Denver is the high altitude. My malcontent lungs complain the entire time I’m here. But, even with the heavy breathing, it’s always to come watch a race on Thunder Mountain.

7/21/11 – And, We’re Off…Sorta

Hi. I’m Todd Myers, the PR rep and graphics guy with Kalitta Motorsports. Okay, so I’ve threatened to do this for several years, but I’m actually going to take the plunge this year and do it – I’m going to stay out on the road for the NHRA’s Western Swing. A few years back I did make a road trip in a rental car from Denver to Seattle, but this time I’m going to go all in and I’m hitting the road with the Team Kalitta crew from Denver to Sonoma and then on to Seattle. I’m going to chronicle my journey regularly right here on the teamkalitta.com blog throughout the coming weeks with some words, some photos and probably a few videos. Please do keep coming back here to hopefully get a little different insight to the crews’ cross-country travels. Hopefully I can entertain you a bit, too.

Thursday, July 21, 2011