I was so excited to be back at MO. Practice was literally a wash out, Paul Newman and Tom Sloe looked visibly the fastest. Most only ran a few laps. It seemed like the drivers that planned on attending the run-offs went out and the rest worked on staying dry.

Qualifying was a mess. We missed the set up and the gearing, I was working hard and seeing no results. While Rick was working on finding the right gear for this track, I talked with my friend and crew member Steve Butzen. We figured out what we needed to change. Thanks to #57 Tom Wallace, I borrowed a gear set and had some hope for morning warm up.

Morning warm was absolutely nuts! Most of the closed-wheel cars showed up and so did open-wheel cars, waiting for their turn. I was told if I came in during the session, I would probably not be able to make it back out due to the amount of cars. They struggled finding a hole to get the last of the closed-wheel drivers out for warm up on a 2 ½ mile track. I knew as soon as I pulled out and began warming up my tires that my car was now right. I was able to charge corners and turn in the keyhole and carousal. I thought to myself...life is good again!

I had not started on the outside before, this is only the second time I had been to MO. I learned what speed you need to carry in the carousal for next time. I was having fun with my new set up and learning what gear I wanted to be at. I saw what I thought was Steve Scennell in my mirror, but it ended up being the track record holder GT2 champ Finch in his Porsche. It made sense why I could not make any time on him in the back section.

I started to drop a half a second a lap. I had my what I call my superman cape on and was feeling good. So good that I decided that I no longer needed to trail brake into nine and just threw it into the corner. Big mistake! I guess I thought I was at the flat tracks that I normally run on. I almost had it saved before I lost it and went over the exit bumps. I knew I no longer had a chance to get to the front so I decided that I would come in and make sure the car was ok. I lost at least two laps.

I went back out and started to clip off the same times and dropped a few more tenths, but by that time the tires started to get greasy, the brakes warm, and I just "enjoyed the ride" for the rest of the race. MO is a tough track to master, but it has been fun trying.

I can't thank Tom Wallace enough for letting me borrow gear set. My only regret is not meeting the guys from Rob Gorgio's team. I wanted to meet everyone one the www.GT1DA.com site from the east side of CENDIV. I will have all week at the Runoffs to try again.