Paulie's Blog: Summertime brings (some) relaxation

Since racing in Iowa, I have actually been able to spend some time relaxing at home. What a concept! I haven't done much laying around, but have gotten to spend a lot of time with family and friends, started a new workout program, got caught up on a lot of paperwork, worked on new programs with sponsors, and planned some events for the coming months. I know that that may not sound relaxing, but believe me, when your used to being a full-time student and race car driver, any slight let up in workload is relaxing.

This is my third year with Bill McAnally Racing, the Sacramento, Calif.-based team that I drive for. As such, this is my third year flying between the East and West coasts to race. However, I haven't actually spent a summer at home since 2003. 2004 was spent driving all around the country racing go-karts. 2005 was spent working at Richard Petty Motorsports (then-Evernham Motorsports) with the Nationwide Series team. That summer was my introduction to NASCAR racing, as I started out sweeping the floors, moved up to cleaning cars, then to disassembly and, by the end of summer, was actually able to do some assembly work on the Nationwide cars. 2006 was spent working in the Richard Petty Motorsports Sprint Cup shop, mostly in the electrical department. Both 2007 and 2008 were spent in the Engineering and Research and Development departments at Joe Gibbs Racing.

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So, as the semester wound down at Duke, I thought that spending a summer at home was probably a good idea. I had a lot of things to do and a number of opportunities that I felt I could make the best of from home. Additionally, my sisters are growing up -- they're 10 and 12 right now -- and I really want to spend more time with them. And so, my decision was made to live at home.

Living at home, though, doesn't mean being home all the time. I am writing this blog from Newark Airport (but rather than jumping the gun, I'll discuss where I'm going in next week's blog). I will spend just about half of the days of summer in my own house. The rest will be spent traveling, mostly to the West Coast.

Getting back to discussing the week's events, it started out with a great Memorial Day. I took a jog (about 2.5 miles) to my best friend's house. There, a bunch of my friends and I had a cookout, threw a baseball around (and into the woods to end the game ...), hung out, and played a few games of basketball. After working up a sweat playing basketball, we decided to go to my house to jump in the pool. Being the competitive group that we are, we started a water volleyball game soon after arriving at my house. I should note that after Evan and I lost the final basketball game by two points, I was 8-2 in the water!

Toward the end of the semester at Duke, I allowed a number of personal items to pile up. I was able to get several of those things done over the course of the past week. Our church has Liturgy every Wednesday at noon, so I attended that. Afterwards, I went to my grandparents' place for a little lunch. It was great to spend time with them and (as always) my grandmother fed me way too much food. Which leads me to the next thing ...

I allowed my workout program to fade away as the semester wound down at Duke. During the last month of the semester, while I was traveling three or four days a week for racing and still keeping up with schoolwork, my workout program was one of the first things to get cut from my schedule. Personally, I feel as though I should be completely physically able to run an entire Nationwide race on a hot day without any noticeable fatigue. Although I don't face any serious fatigue in our Camping World Series races, I believe I would face a small amount in a Nationwide race, meaning I have some work to do. Now that I have some time again, I'm changing up my workout program. Part of that includes adding a lot of swimming to the program, as I want to make better use of the pool in my backyard and, in the fall, the facilities at Duke. So far, the new program is working well, as I love the water. (Continued)