DuJa's Chili Bowl Oh Ten

It's almost midnight and I'm sitting at the kitchen counter on my recipe computer because I was too lazy to go fire up the machine in my office.  My Chili Bowl photos are downloading from my memory card and I am piecing together various notes that I emailed myself throughout the week in Tulsa, things I didn't want to neglect to tell you.  (Often things I can't really explain if I did tell you, because I'm not even sure what I meant myself.  For example:  "Johnny Murdocked is the greatest verb since Ambrose Bierced.")

I realize I have no idea where to start.  There are so many ways to tell this story, from the lists of funny crazy things we did, to the chronological recount of the racing itself.  But it's all in a big mush in my brain, much the way that I felt after that first fall from an airplane.  There was life before it, and then a transformation, and how do you talk about that?  How do I again take to the internet and say "Hey guys.  I did X and Y and Z and now it feels like everything in my life has changed and I'm a whole new person"?  AGAIN.  Because those of you who have been here for years know that there has been a lot of whole new personhood 'round these parts lately.  It's that bastard Saturn, leaving me like he did.

So I guess the real story starts in 2004, my last Chili Bowl. The 2004 show was kind of a dividing line in my life, a point in time when a lot of friends became strangers, spouses became exes, and in retrospect, the worst result of all of that turmoil, it was the point in time when racing became that thing I used to do.

There is no question that my comeback year was 2009.  Despite my numerous loud testy Jeanie Bueller moments this weekend, I love my little brother fiercely and that phone call in May and the WoO race in July were two turning points in life that led directly to my homecoming.  The Chili Bowl was really the only thing I had left to do.  The only thing I'd change about this week is that I'd have Wags there with me.

Homecoming.  That's the only word that can possibly describe it.

I had 8 to 10 different people say goodbye to me last night with some variation of the phrase "Write about me!" and to all of you, how could I NOT?  The racing results are out there.  TJ has them.  I won't.

I made a lot of new friends this week.  Not just people that I partied with until 3 am every night that I'll never see again, although there were plenty of those, I'm sure, but people that I know I will maintain contact with and see again for many years to come.  My first shout out is definitely reserved for my 4 hotel bar buddies: Kevin, Kyle, Doug, Mike and Dave.  (Mmmm hmmm.  Let me know when you figure it out, because I still haven't.)  There was never a minute that I was in your company that I wasn't smiling, and I love you guys. 

Big hideously schmoopy love to Lacy, my partner in crime for 85% of the crazy things I tweeted this week.  I'm sorry that I broke your finger, told everyone in Tulsa that you were easy, married you to a Stock Car Driver with Stock Car Hair (though I really enjoyed annulling that marriage) and most of all, I'm sorry that it's been almost 2 years since we've been together.  That won't happen again.

To the evil SCD himself, I really enjoyed getting to know you, even if that particular outfit will never recover from the 5 hour soak in chlorinated pool water quite as well as your boots did, and I fully acknowledge that you are a much bigger Big Deal than I am.  To Mo, for making the trip, and Nerd, for not keeling over and dying from the surprise, thank you both.  Mike and Jim, I enjoyed your company, or at least your repeated attempts to dodge my company.  I know I will neglect some names and forget somebody, but please know that all of you are very special to me, particularly any of you that helped me find my shoes any of those times I lost them.

I came to Tulsa this year as both a fan and as a very minor cog in a bigger machine, watching my parents fulfill some dreams and have a lot of fun.

So in addition to the new friends I made, there was this Team Thing, this group that had so much serious business to take care of, who accomplished so much, and yet spent the vast majority of every single day smiling, cracking jokes, laughing, and enjoying the hell out of each others' company.  In other words:  doing it right.  You are the definition of team, and I'm so proud of you and happy to have the opportunity to hang out with you and watch racing the way it's supposed to be done. 

And for all of these reasons, it is a homecoming.  In 2009, I came back to racing by showing up at a dozen events.  But at the 2010 Chili Bowl, I returned to racing by embracing the family that's always been there for me, in perpetually evolving ways, but always there.

Did I also embrace a few too many beers (and whatever was in that roofalicious cocktail that SCD handed me on Saturday night)?  Yes.  Did I do things on a crowded elevator that defy explanation?  Yes.  Do I have a lot of embarrassing stories that nobody will ever, ever let me forget?  Sure do.  But I'm going to bed tonight/this morning, to try to correct my sleep schedule back to something resembling an American time zone (my Monday alarm is currently set for 10 minutes earlier than the time I went to bed on Saturday morning, if that gives you some idea). 

And when I doze off, the 2010 Chili Bowl will not be scripted in my dreams as a week of "OMG I'M SO WASTED".  I will always treasure it as the great big loving, secure, comforting, occasionally handsy inappropriate hug from the racing family that I've been away from for far too long.

Oh yeah.  And also it turns out that Andy Hillenburg doesn't have a restraining order against me after all.  Jane, FTW!

Thus begins my 2010 racing season, and I'm absolutely giddy.  There is nothing that will stop me from being at the 2011 Chili Bowl, hopefully alongside BLC, Amy, Scott, D, and the rest of my racing family.  And the seven different drivers that my mom promised to buy race cars for at the Village Inn team breakfast in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

The title of this post?  I know.  But you have no idea how many shots I did with race teams this weekend, toasting the oh-10 season.  Given how I feel about it, it seems perfect now.

Oh, 10.  Ohhhhhhh.  10.