Busy Week for Harrah's
 What a week it has
been. I arrived in Lake Tahoe, Nevada on Monday to meet the
enthusiastic employees who operate the Harvey's, Bill's and Harrah's
casinos there. Tuesday evening I was in Laughlin for a photo shoot on
Wednesday. It was at a ranch and I was on a horse for a future Meals
on Wheels promotion around the Texas race. I've been on a horse before
but it's been a long time and I can tell you, I feel a lot better
being in control of 750 horsepower instead of one!
Afterwards we went
to the casino for an employee recognition party similar to what we did
in Tahoe. It was great to meet the employees who work so hard to make
Harrah's Casinos so successful around the country. That evening there
was an autograph session at Harrah's Laughlin with close to 2,000
people attending! It was a great success.
 Thursday morning we
flew to Vegas. I stopped in at Harrah's corporate headquarters to say
hello to the board members who were meeting that day, as well as the
employees. Later that evening, we had a Private Fan Fest for Harrah's
Diamond Club players. What a great turnout we had there. NASCAR
drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Robby Gordon, Bill Elliott, Greg Biffle
and Kenny Wallace signed autographs with me and I think the drivers
and the guests (over 800) really enjoyed themselves.
 When Friday came, it
was time to go racing but all we could do was watch the rain for most
of the day. Fortunately, Las Vegas Motor Speedway has lights so once
the rain stopped and the track dried, we were able to get in a short
practice and qualifying.
During the first
practice we didn't have the car as fast as we wanted, but we steadily
improved with each run. We qualified 31st and our time was five-tenths
of a second faster than our quickest practice time! If we had tested
at Vegas then we probably would have qualified a lot better because
only one-tenth of a second separated us from the top-15. We were still
pretty happy to make it into the race on speed though.
On Saturday it
looked like rain might cancel practice for the second straight week,
but we were able to get it all in. Once again we steadily picked up
speed. We weren't trying to get one fast lap. We wanted to post
consistent laps for the longer runs.
We didn't fare so
well during the beginning of the race on Sunday and we immediately
fell to the rear of the field. The car would get real loose when I got
back on the throttle coming out of the turns and as we ran more laps
the car would push real bad at the entrance to the turns. But,
eventually the car started to free up and our lap times came way down
and I was able to pick up a few spots.
We made some more
adjustments during our first pit stop and the car was running even
better. But, that's when the first wreck happened.
I could see Ricky
Craven coming on fast, so I just held my line so he could just drive
on by me. All of a sudden I'm spinning sideways with a beat up
racecar. We tried to make the repairs on pit road, but eventually had
to go behind the wall to make sure that the repairs were correct. We
didn't want something to happen that could endanger my fellow drivers
and me.
After losing about
25 laps we were able to get back on the track. Unfortunately our luck
was pretty bad on Sunday because we got caught up in another wreck.
A couple cars were
spinning across the track down the backstretch and I had to go off the
track to avoid plowing into the back of Ken Schrader, but somehow it
tore up the right front of the car. Once again, we had to go behind
the wall for repairs.
I have to hand it to
my crew, they worked extremely hard to get the car repaired and back
on the track each time. Their hard work paid off because we were able
to pick up eight positions and finish 35th.
It was pretty
disappointing because we wanted to put on a good show in front of
Harrah's and I thought we had the car running really well. But, in
racing there are some things that are out of your control. I was
really proud of how well our team responded to the situation.
Our next race is
Atlanta, one of the fastest tracks in the series. I'm really excited,
because I think our team has grown leaps and bounds in the last two
weeks and we're hungry to learn more.
See you at the
races,
Larry Foyt |
