Dateline: Saturday morning....LIVE from the ESPN TV Compound!

Last night was an early night...really sad for yours truly! Dinner at the Hard Rock was fun and then a quick tour of the casino to check out the Halloween-themed costumes was a blast but at 11:30 p.m. I was in sleep mode... bummer, total bummer!

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Wow, what a day for a drag race. Nice weather and hopefully a great crowd. As I write this it is the start of Pro Stock Motorcycle qualifying session number three. I have been in the truck since 9:30 a.m. getting ready for our first show of the weekend. We, as in yours truly, Paul Page, Mike Dunn and our producer Eric S. go over highlights from Friday's qualifying. Of course we pick the best runs from the Sarge and the race for second in Top Fuel. In Funny Car we pretty much stick with the top five in points. Last night we saw the third quickest run in the 1000 foot era by Tony Schumacher and his crew chief Alan Johnson. What's great about the Las Vegas race this year is the amount of cars racing in both Nitro classes. Is it the location of the race, the facility or is the fact that you can race and have a whole lot of fun in town that brings out all the competitors?

I have pretty much done all my work prior to the event so I spent some time this morning in the tower working the room. I love to see Kim, the woman who works the clocks here at The Strip. She is smart, funny and a real pleasure to talk to. Her nickname among those in the know is "Super Cute," which is a dead on the "DIAL" nickname. After some time in the control room I had a chance to talk to Bob Tasca III who was in the press room to announce his alliance with Tim Wilkerson for next season. Tim will be driving a Ford, just as "Stat Guy" does. Mine has over 237,000 miles on it though. I would say the alliance is a great deal for both teams. After a quick tour of the Super Stock lanes to say hi to some of my friends from both coasts, it was time to go back to the truck and get ready for work.

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At the moment Paul and Mike are practicing the open for the qualifying show seen tonight on ESPN2. I am in the process of getting ready for session 4 of Pro Stock Motorcycle. I have already looked up the fact that Angelle Sampey will possibly score her first pole of the season on the Buell that she rides for Karl Klemment. She would also become the Pro Stock Motorcycle rider with the most number one's in history. I would call that a COOL STAT. She has not won a race this season, so maybe her first number one finish on the Buell would give her some momentum on race day. We will see......I do love the bikes, it is a great class. My favorite thing about a Pro Stock Motorcycle class is the fact that you can actually see the person in control of the vehicle as it rockets down the race track. We do not promote that fact enough in the drag racing media. Pro Stock Motorcycle driver Eddie Krawiec looks like he will pick up qualifying points on Matt Smith and turn a three-round deficit into just two.

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Pro Stock car is on the track right now so things are going to get crazy in here real soon. Jason Line just made a really awesome pass. He was a field bet at the Palace Station at 18 - 1, did yours truly place a bet, no way!  Mr. Cool Jeg Coughlin was number one after last night and so far, I do not see that changing in any way. He is so good under pressure it would take a major disaster for him not to win his fourth Pro Stock Car Championship. What I love most about Jeg is the fact that he still bracket races in his time off and wins in that arena just as much as he does in Pro Stock car.

Time to focus. Stat Guy needs to concentrate! Be back later with more updates.....

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Top Fuel is on the race track. This is the Top Fuel debut of Terry Haddock. He won the last possible IHRA Funny Car Championship a couple of weeks ago and is here racing Top Fuel for the first time ever. He is a man determined on making a career in drag racing. He has raced Funny Car for many years and has survived some of the most wicked Funny Car fires ever. I wish him the best racing in Top Fuel. There is another oil down so I have time to get ready for Pro Stock car. We usually show about six to eight pairs of cars in the FINAL session. As I said earlier, I did all my work at home so all I have to do is add some notes here and there and hit the print button. Back in the Marty Reid era I wrote things by hand. He thought I could have been a doctor based on my penmanship. My mom would have loved a Jewish doctor in the family. She got a drag racing announcer/Stat Guy instead.

Next up is my first add involving Tim Richards when Brandon Bernstein runs, hopefully I will not screw it up. How's my hair? Well, we ran out of time so no "Stat Guy" just yet. I do get nervous before going on air, I think that is natural but my personality is not to be calm. Top Fuel features the quickest field in 1,000-foot history. We also have 23 cars in Top Fuel this weekend, the most this season. All facts I am responsible to look up and keep track of. Antron Brown made a fantastic pass, low for the session. Shoe and Cory Mac are last up, then it's time for the reason I became a drag racing fan: Funny Car. Blame it all on the late "Jungle Jim," or maybe "Jungle Pam". Shoe makes another good pass but Antron Brown and Lee Beard are low for the round. It's Funny Car time!

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First up, Robert Hight and Jimmy Prock made a great run going 4.08 seconds. I then received a text message from Alan Reinhart on when John Force was last #1 qualifier. The answer is Indy 2006. It has been a while for the 14-time champ. Things seem to be going well, no stat drama yet. Qualifying has had some decent runs. Cloud cover always helps out a race track. The best part about TV is lunch which is coming up real soon, I am starving. Funny Car ends with a nice side by side run by Force and Cruz. I had a great add about Lori Force and John's time off between races, but once again no time. I keep selling stats as we say in the ‘biz.'

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Lunch is over and it's time to go back to work. We will see how much I can blog here in the fourth session. It should be busy. We have some guests in the booth: Mike Dunn's sister, Patty, who brought her friend Patty to the booth also, how weird is that. She lives on the West coast and if you saw her you would know she was a member of the Dunn Family.

Did my first "Stat Guy" add on my one year anniversary about qualifying in points in Pro Stock Motorcycle relating to Matt Smith and Eddie Krawiec. Angelle stayed number one, her first this season. I have watched her career as long as anyone since she had her star racing debut at Atlanta racing Top Gas at the time at an AMA/Dragbike Event. She has been a friend for a long time. Congrats to her and her team.

Pro Stock car went by with Jeg Coughlin staying number one, no surprise there. He has not lost in the first round since Seattle, so I look for him to leave here with the championship or a substantial lead tomorrow.

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TF is on the race track. Shoe virtually clinches based on the number of cars left to run. We announce he is the champion. NHRA will make it official after qualifying. Alan Johnson is the man and think about this stat: Tony has only lost one round of racing in the 1,000-foot era, the final round at Dallas and that was on a slight hole shot. He is now a six-time TF Champion. Congrats to the entire Army TF team. Qualifying continues so we will see what happens next. The track has a pretty good cloud cover it and JR Todd and Brandon Bernstein both run 3.86 seconds. I did an add on Tim Richards and his only NHRA race win back at Atco in 1971 racing in Super Stock. I wonder if Bob Frey was announcing that race? Shoe will most likely stay number one and he would be one pole away from tying Joe Amato for first on the all time number one qualifying list in TF. Any moment now Shoe will take his victory lap or is it victory run down the quarter-mile here at The Strip. The last two years he has won the championship on the final run of the season. This year he will have two weeks to work on his speech. What a victory lap it was, the fastest speed in the 1000 foot era almost 319 mph. Someone will run 320 at the FINALS!

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One class away from being done for today and that will be to set the field in FC. Then the real work starts getting ready for race day. I work on TF and FC before leaving the truck to go to dinner. Where that will be and what time it will be remains to be seen. The story in FC is weather John Force will stay #1 and who Tim Wilkerson and Jack Beckman will race in round one tomorrow. The Schumacher celebration is under way just prior Bob Tasca makes an excellent pass to get in the field. They say some weather is on the way, hopefully we will get the entire session in. Tony Pedregon goes from out of the field to #3 and Jerry Toliver along side runs even quicker at 4.06 seconds. I can SMELL the Nitro here in the TV truck, YUM! The cloud cover has provided us with some great Hi-Def shots of Header Flames, reason number one to get a new LCD TV. Wilkerson and Beckman do not improve their qualifying position. Two pairs away from being done. All that is left is three-fourths of Team Force. Ashley, Robert and John. Robert Hight and Jimmy Prock steal the pole from John Force with another monster run, alongside Ashley Force becomes the 1^st FC driver to run over 310 in the 1000 foot era of Drag Racing. The fastest speed ever in FC history both in the ¼ mile and 1000 foot era have come here at the Strip. That's something everyone here should be proud of.

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That's blog number three for the weekend. I will probably have less time to update on Sunday. I really do work non- stop once racing starts. We will see if time allows.

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