In the Field: Elliott Sadler

I've got an appearance Wednesday night at the NASCAR SpeedPark in Myrtle Beach, S.C., that I'm really looking forward to.

I can't wait because I always have a fun time doing NASCAR SpeedPark appearances, because they let me play. Yeah, I've got to sign some autographs and be calm and cool and hang out with the fans for a little while.

Don't get me wrong, hanging out with the fans is always great.

But after that they're just going to turn me loose and I get to race go-karts against the fans and beat and bang a little bit -- and have some fun -- which those appearances always are.

And this one, for me, is going to be extra special because my brother, Hermie, is going to be there; and we're going to have a match race.

We've gone and made another family outing out of the whole thing, as Hermie and his wife and daughters; his wife's family and friends; and our cousins are all going to be there so it should be a fun Wednesday night in Myrtle Beach.

You know, Hermie is a little older than me, so when he was racing Late Model stock cars in Myrtle Beach, I was not quite there yet. But we did race Busch cars at Myrtle Beach Speedway one time.

But this is our first time in go-karts on this particular speedway, so we're set up for a match race -- one-on-one and we'll see how that works out.

It should be fun, but I've just got to get there before he does and make sure I get to work and tune on my kart a little bit.

And when you talk about working and tuning and family, we had an interesting development in the last week or so at Evernham Motorsports.

We promoted one of the guys within our organization, Scott McDougall, to step up as the team director of my No. 19 Dodge Dealers/UAW Charger.

I think it's going to work out great, and I think that most of all, for our owner, Ray Evernham, to promote from within is great for morale in our company, because it gives people opportunities to move up to take on positions with greater responsibility.

We just decided last week that Josh Browne, even though I enjoyed working with him, would be better suited for the company as a whole if he stepped back from being team director of my car into an engineering role where he's helping all three teams -- not only ours, but also Kasey [Kahne] and Scott's [Riggs].

We felt we'd lost a little with all three teams as far as front-end geometry and reading tire data -- with Goodyear changing the tires so much. We think putting Josh back in that role where he's helping everyone will make us more prepared when we come back to the racetrack.

That's where Josh excelled, and that's why he got the chance to be the team director for the 19 team. So now our team is sacrificing a little bit for the benefit of the whole company, but we're gaining as a company to get him back involved with the different simulation programs that will help us all. (Continued)