With a weekend N.Y. trip, this one is for the girls

Watch out New York City, the girls are coming to town.

I'm meeting seven of my high school friends there on Friday for a girls-only weekend. It could be quite dangerous having that group together in one place.

	Erin Crocker drives the No. 98 Dodge in the Truck Series. Credit: Autostock
	Erin Crocker Year-to-date statistics Race Start Finish Daytona 24 27 California 33 27 Atlanta 30 26 Martinsville 34 25 Gateway 30 22 Charlotte 2 18 Mansfield 25 28 Dover 25 24 Texas 12 33 Michigan 11 24 Milwaukee 33 25 Kansas 12 16 Kentucky 34 27 Memphis 34 30 IRP 33 27 Nashville 27 29 Bristol 31 35 New Hampshire 28 32 Las Vegas 12 24 Average 24.7 26.2

They've always had reunions over the years that I've missed because of racing. This is the first one since I graduated in 1999 that I've been able to attend.

One of my friends has been in Iraq for almost two years and the rest of us are spread apart, so we've got a lot to catch up on.

One of my friends is getting married next year, so I'm sure we're going to shop for bridesmaid dresses. I was in both of my sisters' weddings and both of my brothers' weddings, but this will be my first for one of my close friends.

I'm sure others will follow closely.

This is the same group of friends I've had since the fourth grade when we started playing soccer and hanging out. We keep up through e-mails, which is a neat way to stay in touch, but it's not quite the same as getting together.

It's funny. We talk a lot now about recipes and cleaning, which makes us feel old since all we used to talk about was going out and all the drama of high school.

The girls appreciate the fact I'm into racing. They watched me every now and then in high school. We went to a preppy type of school and these girls would come dressed really nice to this dirt track and seem kind of out of place.

They didn't look quite as nice when they left. Nobody does when they leave a dirt track. I tried to warn them the first time they went. They didn't listen.

But they always supported my career and are glad I'm able to do something that is different.

It felt good to get on the track in Las Vegas last weekend. That was the first time I'd been on that track, so it would be hard to compare the new surface with more banking to the old surface.

We thought it would be a follow-the-leader type race with one groove around the bottom, but there was a lot of side-by-side racing. It was really fast with a lot of grip, a little like Texas for me.

I was a little bit tentative on it at first. They spilled some jet fuel on the track before our testing on Friday, so that made people real nervous. It was one of those deals where you wait around for a few trucks to go out and put some rubber down before you go out.

	Erin Crocker Credit: Autostock
	SUPERSTORE •   Get Erin's gear!

I don't know how the jet fuel got there. When we got there they were washing off the track and cleaning it up. We still got in a good eight hours of practice.

We qualified 12th, so that was encouraging. We ran 12th to 18th for three-quarters of the race, but kind of fell back at the end and finished 24th. We were right behind Jeremy Mayfield [replaced by Elliott Sadler in EMS's No. 19 Cup car two months ago].

He said some things when he left [about how Ray Evernham neglected his team and spent too much time with my Truck team] that affected me, but I don't think it carried over onto the track.

It was between Ray and Jeremy and had nothing to do with me. Unfortunately, I kind of got thrown into it.

This weekend, though, it's all about the girls.

Erin Crocker is stepping up a program that she hopes will land her in a full-time Nextel Cup ride by driving in the Busch, Truck and ARCA Series for Evernham Motorsports. The youngest of five children, Crocker has been sharing weekly with NASCAR.COM readers the ups and downs of her life on and off the track through staff writer David Newton.