In the Field: Elliott Sadler (cont'd)

With what went on there, I'd have to say I'm ready to get down to business for the next Car of Tomorrow race, Saturday night at Richmond. Between us friends, I played the best game of golf I've ever played on Tuesday!

But I can hardly even begin to explain how busy my schedule is -- not that it's any different than what any Nextel Cup driver has to go through, because it's not.

Autism awareness

For the Sadler family, autism awareness is a daily fact of life, and it has been since Elliott's niece and Hermie's daughter, Halie Dru, was diagnosed with autism in 2001. To bid on the special helmet Elliott wore during races in April, go to sadlerfoundation.org.

• Complete story, click here

This is a particularly special week for me, because we'll be racing in Richmond this weekend. The weeks that we race in Richmond are pretty important to all of us Virginia guys, for a lot reasons.

For one, a lot of the people who watched us race as we were just getting started get to see us perform in the big time.

The toughest thing is that we don't get to spend as much time with them as we might like, but we do have a couple events this week that we'll spend out with the fans.

Now, get your red pens out and mark your calendars on Thursday, 6 p.m. at Southpark Mall in Colonial Heights, where I'll be having an autograph session. Now, if you're not from the Richmond area, that's at 230 Southpark Circle.

I hope you'll have to follow the crowd.

Like I say, I love these home-state appearances, like this one. It's about 40 minutes from Emporia, so I'm looking forward to seeing some of the home folk.

If you don't get a chance to get out there, come on by RIR and say hey.

The nicest thing about kicking off the month of May at home is it's going to get wild -- or even wilder -- in a hurry. I'll be spending virtually the entire month down in Charlotte, because I have a bunch of appearances, and several tests.

We have a test at Charlotte, which as you know is always crazy-fast. From there we'll be testing the Car of Tomorrow at Dover, which is maybe the biggest question mark everyone's had with that car so far.

We've also got a COT road course test scheduled at VIR -- Virginia International Raceway over near Danville -- and that will be pretty interesting, especially if we get "coach" Boris Said to come along with us while we're there.

If that wasn't enough, I'm one of several Nextel Cup drivers that are being followed for the better part of a month by a crew from ABC News, for a prime-time special that's going to broadcast later this summer.

We're hoping it will give people some insight into what our lives are like, away from the racetrack.

And through all these things that are going on, we continue to line stuff up and fill in the rooms of my new house.

That continues to be the biggest adventure I've experienced outside of a racecar in a long time, but it looks like I'm on schedule to get into that by some time in June.

Elliott Sadler, now in his ninth full season in the Cup Series, shares weekly with NASCAR.COM readers life on the road through staff writer Dave Rodman.