I have never been to California when it has rained so much.  It rained every day we were there except Monday for the rescheduled finish of the race.  Qualifying was rained out and we able to get in about an hour of practice before the rains came again.  The starting grid was determined by the owner points from last year.  Even though the start of the race was delayed, we really thought we could get it in that night.  The track has pretty big seams in between the grooves and the officials had a hard time drying out the water that constantly seeped from the seams.  There had been so much rain it completely saturated every crack and crevice, the banking on the track kept the water flowing out. 

Every possible thing happened to delay the race.  Once we finally got going, the 55 car had an oil leak on the pace lap and completely covered the track.  That took 20 minutes or so to clean up then a huge wreck on the backstretch put the 5 car on his roof and the race under a red flag.  On lap 87, while running near the top 10, it started raining again and we sat at the track until 11:00 pm on the west coast (which was 2:00am at home) trying to get restarted but could not.  The race was to be concluded on Monday at 10:00am.  We were exhausted, cold, and wet.

Monday was like a new world in California with nice sunshine and warm temperatures, the race started right on time.  The race was a lot more fun, it was so cold and rainy on Sunday it was almost miserable. There were few runs that we were really descent and made good progress through the field. While running in the 11^th position and about to make our final stop, I thought we were in really good shape.  Juan got a little high in turns one and got into the wall just a little and it changed the handling of the car. The aerodynamics are so sensitive just an inch or even less on the fender width will dramatically change the handling of the car and the contact made it tight.  He just had to turn the steering wheel too much and it scrubbed too much speed.   I was really hoping for a top 15 but had to settle for a 20^th.  I had planned to go home after the race but with the rains changing everything, many of us decided to just drive over to Las Vegas and hang out a couple of days.  Our front tire changer, Trevor Lysne and I drove over after the Nationwide race.  It was the first time I had driven through the desert and mountains in the day time, it was awesome.  It was a very cool unexpected road trip.  It was only a three hour drive. 

Right now I am sitting in my room overlooking the Vegas strip just relaxing a little bit.  Later today I plan to meet up with some of the guys on the Nationwide team and going on a 20 plus mile road bicycle trip though the mountains for some exercise.  It is nice to have a couple of days to just hang out and take in some site before going to the track and getting to work on Friday.  I will talk to everyone after the race in Vegas!  Have a great day!