In the Field: Prelude (cont'd)

The car I had to drive at Eldora was a good one, don't get me wrong. It belonged to Jay Johnson, of West Burlington, Iowa.

He had to straighten the front clip out and do a little suspension work, though -- because I crashed the thing in the heat race. I actually spun out twice -- on my second lap of qualifying and then in the heat.

Dream weaver

Carl Edwards held off Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon to win the third annual Prelude to the Dream at Eldora Speedway.

• Complete story, click here

I did find out one thing, though. Everything I ever learned as a Nextel Cup driver does not apply in any way, form or fashion on dirt.

It is so much backwards, but I'll be honest with you -- it was a lot of fun. Everybody was so relaxed.

But back to that car, a driver is real finicky about the cockpits of our racecars. Those are our offices.

So if I do my own dirt car, I'll know how the seat and the wheel and everything will be. I'll be more comfortable. I know we're weird people sometimes, racecar drivers.

But I got in this car and the seat was just different. The steering wheel was huge -- like driving a danged school bus.

I prefer a small steering wheel, so that was one thing that was tough to get used to.

And when I got in the thing, it had all kinds of switches and knobs -- like "three-wheel brakes" and stuff like that.

I told them to just put duct tape over all that because I didn't need to be messing with any of that.

And this car had a transmission that was like nothing I had ever seen before. I dumped it about eight times before I was able to take off out of the pits to practice -- but my car owner was cool.

When they opened up pit road for us to go out to practice he ran along in front of me, waving his arms and saying "he can't stop!"

True deal.

We were out for a couple laps and I was just getting the feel of it, when they turned us loose. I jumped on the gas and whoomp! That bad boy just leaped sideways! I thought, "Now, ain't this going to be interesting?"

All I had in front of me -- where the windshield would be -- was some barbed wire or something. And all these clumps of dirt were ripping into me.

My head was hitting the roof, so all I could think was what would happen if the thing turned over -- like Bill Elliott did. Bill and I both wrecked out in our heat races and didn't even make it to the feature.

We had two practices -- about 10 laps total. I was starting to get the hang of it -- but I just kept saying, "Please, don't let me be last."

Well, I was next-to-last on the first time sheet, but I picked up to 20th on the second.

When it came time to qualify, I was 15th -- and I killed Ray [Evernham]. I out-qualified Bill, so I figured I would be all right.

But then I had my little problem in the heat race, and didn't get to start the feature.

But I got to watch what, in my opinion, was maybe the best race of the year, as far as us guys racing against each other.

It was a heck of a race. If the fans didn't order it on pay-per-view, I'm sorry -- you missed it. I do think it's coming up on SPEED in a month, so make sure you watch it.

It was amazing to watch, and it was a fun night. No points. No money. No anything.

It was a great, great fun race and we raised a lot of money for the Victory Junction Gang and Tony did a great job. Well, it was kinda fun for me -- not as much fun -- but I think if I practice some and learn more about it, I'll definitely have more fun next year.

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.