Sitting here writing this at 9am our time you will all be asleep at 4am. The mood here is mixed between both the excitment and the anticipation of what tonight may bring. We are about to head off to the track to get the cars out and begin our final prep work on both cars. I spent all of yesteday going over our car from front to back checking everything and fully servicing the working parts, so should be getting close.

The racing action last night wasn't too bad with top performances from Cory Kruseman, Jerry Coons Jnr and Danny Stratton. Straight after that race they called all the qualifiers out onto the infield to draw their starting positions for tonights A Main. Michael starts 7th and Brad starts 12th. Both these guys have a shot a winning this thing as the field will start to run their lines and there has been passing either on the bottom or on the top. My guess is, it will happen early and then it should settle down.

For those who have not qualified, they start with two L Mains taking the top 2 finishers out of each and they transfer into the K Mains off the back. Then they take the two winners of the two K Mains and they transfer forward and this repeats all the way up to the A Main where they take 6 out of each B main. This is where the final 12 cars come from and then they have 1 provisional which is Sammy Swindell as last years winner. He told me last night that he may not run the mains today and risk the car, he will probably just sit it out and start from grid 25.

If you want to hear the race live you can go to Race Fan Radio and log in there, I am sure the news will move pretty quickly especially if one or both of our boys go well.

Thanks again to all those sending texts and emails, really appreciate your support.

Greg

Volt Tv have filmed all the activity both back home leading up to our departure and up here with the racing action.

They are producing the doco which will be shown back in NZ about 6 weeks after we get back.  They have put an intro to this Documentary up on You Tube and I have copied the link here so you can have a look at it.

        Click on this photo to watch the Documentary Intro.

I am still pinching myself, tonight Brad finished 3rd in the A main which locks him into the A-Main event on Saturday night. Just to give you some idea as to how hard this group was, it includes Sammy Swindell, Jonny Rodriguez, Shane Cottle, Darren Hagen, Tracey Hines, Jason Leffler, Damion Gardener, Jay Drake, Cruz Pedregon, PJ Jones and Kasey Kahne. The commentators continully told the crowd that this was the hardest night of the week. So here we go.

Heat 2, Brad had drawn the 2 marble which put him outside row one. The 8 lap race had Brad in the lead for 6 1/2 of them and Kasey Kahne arrived running the bottom with Brad on the top. Kasey shot up the inside of Brad taking the white flag for last lap. Brad hung it in there for the entire lap running wheel to wheel with Kasey and picked up the cushion off turn 4 and crossed the line less than 2 feet ahead of him taking the win.

Our second run had Brad as the 6th overall in points. This had him start off Grid 5 in the second qualifier as they inverted the top 6 and spread them throughout the four qualifiers. He had Drake, Pedregon and Kahne in front of him and Hagen and Swindell right behind him. Brad ran the top for the 10 laps and finished one car length back from Kahne in second spot. This put him on grid 4 for the A-Main feature.

Brad rolled out with a very tight car as the track had nothing on the bottom and very little in the middle. The cushion was about 2 to 3 feet off the wall at both ends. It took three attempts to start the race. Brad got two great starts but spins forced restarts. When it finally did go green we caught a rut coming off Turn 4 and fell back to 7th. Brad hauled in all these top guys including Kahne to run 4th for most of the race. Sammy Swindell got hooked up in a crash with 3 to go and he had to restart from the rear. Brad was now in third behind Hines and Hagen, on the restart Brad slid up infront of Hines to go to second and on the last lap he jumped over the cushion. he fell back to 4th and when he came off turn 4 for the last time he drove down the straight with the right side of the car half way up the wall to grab third which locks him into the A-Main Race on Saturday Night.

You would be proud of the Kiwi Team here in Tulsa, we were the last to leave the building and headed back to the Hotel. The place we are staying at has an Atrium in the centre looking down from each balcony. We ended up having over 60 people who had been at the racing staying in the same hotel standing out on the balconies chanting to us. It was full on as we started calling back to them. In the end we had the Tulsa Police Department turn up and ask everyone in the place to be quite.

We had the Crew Chief from Sammy Swindell's car join us and he cannot believe we have got two cars locked into the Saturday A`main. He bought six cars here, he has been coming here for over 10 years and these Kiwi's turn up in a Budget Rental Truck with bits of 2 by 4 hanging out the back and get them both locked in.

So thanks again for the endless emails and text messages from you all down in NZ, keep them coming and find a place to listen to this 50 lap race on Saturday here which is Sunday your time.

Cheers

The second part of the process unfolds today for the team, having Michael through to the A Main on Saturday we are soon to head off to the track to prepare for round two.

We spent yesterday going over the car to ensure it was in the best shape possible for tonights racing. The promotion split out the drivers into seeded heats so we should only have a couple of the very fast guys in our heat. We draw our marble at 3pm local time which would be around 10am NZ time. There are a couple of possibilities that seem simple enough; either a front marble or a back. However, you get points for finishing and also for passing. An example of this is if you draw the 1 marble and you win the race you collect less points than the guy who starts last and finishes 5th. This is made difficult as you have no control over where you start and who you have in front of you. There is a diffinative element of risk vs the reward here.

Last night we watched the racing and the track did not hold up through the night. The place filled up with dust and fumes and it was pretty tough to sit through more than a couple of races. Normally the fans keep up with it, however, the track got quite slick early on which made things get worse as the night wore on. I guess the track took rubber on night one and even though they turn the track over completely it soon burns down to the slick stuff and then collects more rubber to add to the next nights track. The right rear Michael ran on opening night was a RD12 and after the 25 Lap Main it still had the dimples on it. We will just have to chase it tonight the best we can.

I will run a full report on Brad's racing tonight, thanks to all the people back home sending emails and texts with your support.

Greg