My co-driver at Childress-Howard Motorsports is Mr. Rob Finlay. Except that he was recently awarded an honorary Doctor of Business, so now it’s “Dr. Rob Finlay”. How cool is that? As if that wasn’t enough he just completed another (I’ve lost count of how many he’s done now) triathlon, finishing right near the front. Then there’s the fact that he’s an excellent race car driver and an all round nice guy. What’s not to like you might think. . .

Ha! I just found something. All those bloody triathlons have caused his painstakingly created seat in the #2 Gentleman Jack Pontiac-Crawford to be too big for him now. So through a large dose of favoritism the team has made him a brand new lovingly crafted fresh one. Stay with me here… What do you think happens when I try to put my seat insert into the car now? Correct. It doesn’t bloody well fit does it!

So now guess what I've been doing for the past 2 days? Right again. Mr. Andy Wallace – that’s me (because I’m not clever enough to be a Dr.) – the one who couldn’t even do one triathlon (mainly because I’m too lazy but partly because I’m too old), now has a nice shiny new seat insert which fits both me and Dr. Finlay’s new base seat.

Most of my weekend was spent roasting to death sitting in a plastic bag full of Styrofoam balls waiting for the resin to go off. And you thought it was all glamour. I can’t really take credit for how well made my new toy is though. Sitting still was my claim to fame. The difficult stuff was done by the clever people in our team. Thing is, as much as I don’t like making new seats, I still have the best job around. I mean, what’s not to like about traveling the World and driving cool race cars.

Off to New York in the morning for the 6 hours of The Glen. Another one of my favourites tracks, and I prefer the format of the longer races. I’m planning to stop off at my good friend, Butch Leitzinger’s place on the way up. He’s promised get the kettle on for a nice cup of tea, but I’ll probably end up staying over after a couple of glasses of GJ . . .

Andy Wallace

June 2009