Tennessee Rumbles
by Eric McClure - Staff Writer
NASCAR Nationwide Series Driver
03/25/2008

It's Easter Sunday and I just finished watching awesome finishes in a couple of NCAA tournament games (more on these in the random thoughts). I'm tired at the moment. After the long ride home last night, Miranda and I had nursery duty at Chilhowie Baptist this morning (and again tonight) and I will admit that I was overmatched by the two and three-year-old kids. There must have been 15 kids this morning and six adults, although some of the adults were more interested in conversation and less interested in preventing disaster. (It's a joke people - Ha Ha.) Seriously, though, the kids were great and most of the adults were holding sleeping children, which left yours truly in panic and improvisation. It's no wonder Miranda doesn't leave Mabreigh alone with me for very long. :

The last two races, Bristol and Nashville, saw the Hefty® Racing™ team make some improvement to our season. At Bristol, it rained again for a day and a half, which has become the normal protocol for the Nationwide Series in 2008. We started by Owner's points and actually ran pretty fair for the first part of the race. We made the car too tight during the second run and lost a couple of laps, then we were hit by the No. 40 car, which knocked the toe out and we flat spotted a tire when I locked the brakes down for a second to keep from hitting the wall. After that, with the rain coming, we tried to stay out and ride out as long as possible, although on the bottom, and lost a few more laps. Then it rained out the remainder of the event. We ended up 30th, but should have been a bit better.

At Nashville, we made a huge gain on our intermediate program, although you couldn't tell from our 31st-place result. We went out first to qualify and ended up 30th, which wasn't too bad considering the draw. We ran competitively throughout the first third of the race, only losing a lap. We were able to race some cars and pass some cars, which was much better than before. We had a long run during the race, about 100 laps or so, (and only three cautions-which is crazy in the Nationwide Series) and lost a couple more laps, including a green flag stop. We lost two or three laps in the long run as we fell off a bit after 40 or so laps in a run and ended up burning up the brakes at the end, which cost us a couple of spots to guys we had beaten all day. But, it was fun racing those guys and we're getting there with our program, it's just taking us some time.

We have a week off before Texas. We were planning on testing at Richmond, but we cancelled the test as it was determined the days off could better be spent assembling more racecars, which would be awesome. With our schedule and being such a small team, this is the first time that the team will have the chance to spend at the shop and work on finishing up the other cars we have, rather than turn around the one we had complete. I think in the long run this decision will pay off. Everyone on the No. 24 FRM team has been working very hard and we're looking forward to getting back to the track and continuing to get better. I really expect to see us make some strides this year. With the cup team involvement in our series, success could be relative, but we have goals we are working towards and hopefully we will meet them.

Anyway, other than the above and a fantastic week of meetings at CBC with bro. Lou Rossi, there really hasn't been anything exciting to report. I was booed for the first time (at Bristol -my home track) and cheered pretty well (at Nashville), which is always neat. Mabreigh is very close to walking and everyday she does something cuter than before. We did Easter morning for her today and she really enjoyed the Peeps (some kind of soft candy). She also knows about 25 words and, like a good little girl/queen, points to what she wants and Mommy and Daddy goes and gets it. I have learned that Mommy says "no" a lot easier than I do. Annabelle is fine too. Last year, at Food City race night in Bristol, no less than eight people asked where Annabelle was. If you are new to the column, Annabelle is our poodle. She is our "other daughter." Ha Ha.

Finally, being the Easter holiday, I want to say we had a great service with MRO at Nashville. Lonnie Clouse, Tim Griffin and their NNS staff do such a fantastic job every week and are such an encouragement to me personally that I felt it necessary to bring up that their organization could use any support you may give. Check them out at www.go2mro.com. The things they provide at the track are fantastic and I look at it as the next best thing to my home church.

Well, that's about it. I'm going to enjoy a few days at home with the family and head for Texas early next week for appearances with the wonderful folks at Hefty® brand. We always have a great turnout for the shows in Texas and I feel certain that they have one of the strongest fan bases in NASCAR. We're looking forward to getting out there.

I'll be back a couple of times before Talladega with reports on Texas, Phoenix, the Doodlebops and more!

Random Thoughts for this week: