Brainerd, MN was a trip I will NEVER forget.  A weekend of many firsts for me and memories I will never forget.  First my week started off with shipping my car to Brainerd without me!!!  It was a different feeling for me!  Weird, I know but something about just sending your car off and meeting it there was a first for me.  Having my car shipped to the track in a hauler with others was a great experience and gave me a chance to have a couple more days of work!!!!!

Let’s discuss the town of Brainerd, MN.  Not only did I ride a legit PROP PLANE from St. Paul into Brainerd.  We land in Brainerd at 12:30 to find out that there are only 3 flights into that airport EACH DAY!!  Only 2 car rental desks and no luggage conveyor belt!  What a cute little town it was!  I didn’t stray too far.  One night I had the pleasure to join fellow competitors and a couple of Mazda representatives.  Such a gorgeous dinner!!!  It was on a lake, with a guitarist, and boats everywhere!  I will leave out the fact of how cold it was!!!

Friday started out great.  I was given the opportunity to do a radio interview with the local rock station.  A great chance to help get my name out there!!  Such nice guys!   Practice started at 9:45am for us.  What a great track to learn!!!!  I had the pleasure of riding around the track with Greg C. Thursday evening.  I should have known when he said buckle up I was going to be in for a ride!!!  He took me around in an Expedition at almost 100 mph!!!  Needless to say I learned an immense amount about the track and the line there.  Friday was good however I still needed to feel some more stability out of the car to get some more speed.  Last round of practice has left a vivid image in my head that I will never forget.  There is an extremely high speed wide open corner… turn 2.  I had finally built up my confidence throughout the course of the day and was taking the corner wide open.  A competitor had passed me right before entering the corner and I was trying to see his line vs. where mine was.  Losing sight of the corner and focusing on him and not the task in my hands I spun out wide open down into a field where the grass/cat tails were higher than my car and I!  As I looked over to check the corner workers I noticed they were all staring at me in disbelief!  Started the car and eased my way out.  The poor shop vac I borrowed had at least 10 pounds of sand/dirt in it when I was finished cleaning my car out!

Saturday started with a round of practice, qualifying, and then the race.   I never really felt comfortable with the new tires we are required to qualify and race on.  For me the comfort came from the BF Goodrich tires that had over 5 heat cycles on them.  Luckily for me the driver that drove my car to the track also had some great car set up advice.  My father and Casey worked hard on my race car and gave me the confidence I needed to start my Sunday off well.

Sunday came and I was .5 of a second quicker in the qualifying session than I had been all weekend.  I really was starting to feel good about the comfort of my car.  It felt stable for once and I wanted to get up on that wheel!  We grid for the race and the dark clouds start rolling in.  Lap 4 or 5 comes by and the rain starts.  No denying it, I have minimal experience racing in the rain.  I just haven’t ever really had the opportunities to get much seat time in the rain.  So the rain starts and it’s pouring on one half and sunny on the other after 25 minutes of staying out on the track in slicks I came in for rains.  A whole new world for me!!!!  I learned so much in 20 minutes on rains it was great!  Not that I overly wish I have too many more of those rain races but I will take any learning experiences I can get!!!!  Above and beyond everything there were a BUNCH of race cars that are going home with a LOT of damage and I am thankful I brought my car home in one piece.

Life is slowly starting to calm down.  I think this is the calm before the storm!  One more race, at Petite Le Mans at Road Atlanta.  I hope everyone who is thinking about going makes an attempt to go!!!  We race Friday morning September 30^th and hopefully you will stop by and say hi!  I am sitting 8^th in points with one race to go in my 2011 rookie season.  Numerous tricks and lessons have been learned so far this year and I can’t wait to see what 2012 will hold for me!!!