Driver Blog: My nightmares of moving on from Houston to Charlotte 

Coming off of a 3-race win streak, and headed into our biggest race of the year, to say there is some pressure is an understatement. I am one of those people who thrives on high-pressure situations and I tend to put things off on purpose just to turn it into motivation to do my best.

My goal is to be a legend in the Top Alcohol Dragster class and we are quickly making strides to achieve that. Leaving Texas with two Wallys, my quickest time of 5.11 ET in Q1, and a new title as the winningest Sportsman female in the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, is still shocking to me. We have had a lot of success this year with both of our cars and the different drivers; Matt Sackman got the runner-up in Pomona, Julie has qualified well and gone rounds at every race to rack up points, Rachel got a win bracket racing with her Super Comp car, and she made it into the prestigious Jegs AllStars race, making us the first sister duo to compete in the AllStars, and Camrie got her A/Fuel license and competing in her first race, and she will race her second event coming up.

With all of the highs comes the lows, and this past week was a crazy one for our team. We secured a new title sponsor (announcement coming soon!!) for our second car, and have been rushing to get new uniforms, crew apparel, and a wrap designed in time. I also changed the wrap on my car to debut this weekend at the #4WideNats sponsored by NGK Spark Plugs – see a sneak peek at the end!!!

We planned on having both of the wraps done before Friday last week to take pictures to get new hero cards and post on social media, but because of printing errors, we had to reprint the wrap and overnight it from Denver to Kansas City, but then the UPS truck had a mechanical error and it was delayed 4 hours.

Flights were changed, again, but we finally got the new wrap on the new body, a day late. Unfortunately, the photographer was in a serious car accident Friday night, he is okay now, and we were left without someone to take pictures. I reached out to my good friend, Rick Belden, and he gave me some lighting tips to do the best I could with what I had; just a simple camera and no lighting equipment.

My family spent their Easter holiday holding up cardboard over windows to block out the natural light, so I could try to get the best shots of both of our cars before mine was loaded up to head to Charlotte. The problems kept coming when my software and computer crashed in the middle of designing the hero cards yesterday, but after patiently waiting, I was able to reopen the files and finish the work to send to the printers for a same-day pick-up.

Thankfully, everything is done and ready for Charlotte, and we can finally take a deep breath. Although a lot of the work was done last minute, it has taken months to get to this point. We are extremely grateful for our partners like NGK Spark Plugs, Lucas Oil, and WELD Racing who have stuck with us and helped us creatively expand our brand and team.

I am so thrilled, yet nervous, to return to zMAX Dragway. I am hoping we can continue our win streak, but I know that all good things must come to an end, and I will try not to be emotional if that end is this weekend and keep my grace. But, I have a really good feeling that we will take home another Wally 🙂