For as long as I can remember the week of the Knoxville Nationals has been something you can’t wait for, but it’s also a week you can’t wait for it to be over. 
That might sound strange, but it’s true.
When my dad and I used to come down it was the highlight of my summer. When I first started racing, I couldn’t wait until we could come down and try. When I got going pretty good racing around home, we couldn’t wait to see how we stacked up against the best in the business. Heck, maybe we’d qualify and race well enough on the qualifying night to get locked into one of Saturday’s races.
After being in the Nationals three times, we entered the 1997 event with a little different feeling. I had spent the season as a rookie with the Outlaws trying to keep up with Mark Kinser, Dave Blaney, Steve Kinser and Sammy Swindell. We were just looking forward to being more competitive. It was a classic case of hero to zero in a span of a few seconds.
Back then, the format was the same, but the fast qualifiers were making bonzai starts in the heats and getting from 10th to first. We weren’t quite sure how good we were going to be, but we timed second quick on Thursday night.
Then we had the task of racing from the back row of our heat into the top four to transfer to the feature. We did more than that. We were just like one of the big guys who started 10th and got the lead. I was pushing as hard as I could and we were on our way to scoring some major points and getting locked into Saturday’s feature.
With two laps to go in the second heat, we were going down the backstretch and I entered turn three and the car made it through half the corner then went straight into the wall. A broken torsion stop caused the crash, and ended the dream. 
The Nationals has a way of doing that. Looking back, those types of things do build character.
Going into last year’s Nationals, everyone knew our history of finishing second at Knoxville. Talk about character building! After finally winning the race, it took a while to sink in that we finally reached the top. All the sweat and tears were worth it.
Now, it’s just a matter of trying to do everything we can to stay on top.
It’s hard to explain all the emotions and drama that go on during the Nationals. Believe me, if I thought we had the magic formula for how to win it every year we’d do it. At least now that monkey is off my back.
I’ve learned that experience is really important if you want to maintain a level of success.  Through experience I know that it’s still just seven days and Sunday morning will come.  The approach is simple. Work as hard as you can. Do the best you can, and see where you are at the end of the night. 
Early in the week, it’s all about being sure your car is ready for qualifying. Two laps is all you get and points are the like gold. We don’t even worry about those totally inverted heats or the qualifying feature until after qualifying. You can’t win the Knoxville Nationals on Wednesday night, but you can certainly put yourself in position to. It’s about taking advantage of everything—including luck. You have to make the most of every situation.
After your qualifying night, you can evaluate where you are and see what you need to do to get closer to the front on Saturday night. Thursday is a time to enjoy the atmosphere, but not get too caught up in it. Friday is another full day with races at the end of the night, and it’s like you can’t wait until Saturday night. 
It’s that experience thing that helps you get from Wednesdays feature to Saturday when you can just worry about racing. You’ve heard guys say we treat it just any other race, but it’s not. You tell yourself that and hope to block out all the distractions.
This year will be certainly different than the past, but we’ll try to do everything we can to keep it simple. I know we’re honored to come in as defending champions and hope we can be right back up front this year.
Then we’ll all start looking forward to Knoxville next year.