Last week I got to participate in something I've never had a chance to do with any of the race teams I've driven for, and that was to take part in Gillett Evernham Motorsports' annual sponsor summit.

It was a pretty interesting event that was held over two days in North Carolina, and it was a lot of fun. I really like doing those kinds of events, with sponsors, away from the racetrack.

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It's cool for me because you get to meet all the different people that you represent every Sunday at a different area than the racetrack, where we're always busy and have so many different responsibilities that you can't spend the time with folks that you'd like to.

So I really enjoy it -- and I really enjoyed my first one with Ray and George's team.

It's like anything else, if you get it on a personal level, it puts a whole different spin on things. I'm one of those guys who wants to know who I'm representing every week -- whether you're my primary sponsor or one of our associate sponsors.

Whether you're involved with a company that's represented on our Dodge racecars, or you're involved directly with me through a personal services contract, I want to know the people behind the scenes -- the people behind the logos -- and what they stand for and believe in, because that helps me do my job of representing them better.

So when I got to meet these people face-to-face, whether it was at a dinner, or a golf outing or a ride-and-drive -- whatever it was that Gillett Evernham did at its sponsor summit, I got a better understanding of what they wanted out of racing, and what they wanted out of Elliott Sadler.

So doing functions like that is good for me.

Over the two days we had all kind of responsibilities split up among all the drivers.

On one day, I went on a golf outing with a group of about 30 people. The next day, they had a summit with a lot of b-to-b -- business to business -- opportunities among all the partners.

That was set up with an address on the state of Gillett Evernham Motorsports and NASCAR right now, what's good about marketing and what's bad about marketing in this day and time.

I did a ride-and-drive one day with about 40 people, and we had a couple big dinners, including one at The Speedway Club at Lowe's Motor Speedway, with 50 or 60 people.

Everything we did was split up between Scott [Riggs], Kasey [Kahne] and myself. So it was a couple days of meeting the people on the inside of the companies we represent and getting to know the ins and outs of what they're all about; and that was a lot of fun with me.

We wanted to meet them on a more personal level and to let them know what we do -- and to find out what we might do -- for them. Like I said, the other teams I've been with did not offer that type of event, whereas Gillett Evernham does offer sponsors this opportunity to get together and meet and have b-to-b opportunities with other sponsors, which is very important in the sponsorship environment today, specifically meeting with other people in racing and making these things happen.

I'll tell you this, the Gillett family has only been involved with our organization for only a couple weeks now, but I'm already seeing an impact on Ray -- and it was something you could see in how we hit the track and qualified at Michigan.

One thing I've seen is that Ray has gotten to be at the track a little more and around the cars more and he's a lot more relaxed -- and that's nice to see. He's much more involved in our car set-ups and things like that, and he's not worried about other things, so that's really the biggest thing I've seen so far.

You know, this is a pretty big ship -- a NASCAR race team -- and I don't think you're going to just see it turn on a dime and go one way or the other.

But I have started to see Ray being more involved in what makes us go fast on Sunday -- or as is the case this weekend -- Saturday night at Bristol. That's the biggest difference I've seen so far.

Right now, with three races to go until the Chase begins, we're faced with a different scenario -- trying to get our cars competitive week in and week out. Over the last few seasons, I've been in the Chase and I've missed the Chase.

For these three weeks, you've got guys like Kurt Busch and Martin Truex Jr. trying to stay in -- and Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. and Ryan Newman trying to get back in.

For those guys, oh man -- the pressure is big-time. One year I was able to win my way into the Chase at California, and the next year, I just missed it by having a few wrecks.

So the pressure on those guys is at an all-time high right now -- not only with the driver, but with the crew chief, the guy that puts the rear end in the car, the guy that puts the valves in the motor.

I mean, everybody is just under so much pressure anyway -- but for these next three races, it's just going to be tough on those guys, because as a driver, they've got to go fast and get the best possible finish they can -- but they really can't take any bad, bad chances that might take them out of the race.

They've really got to be on their A game for these next three weeks. California is not really that bad, because it's big and spread out -- but when you get to Bristol this weekend and then Richmond, where you're all on top of each other and one little mistake can cost you your chances of making the Chase.

So it's going to be tough and I'm sure everybody is going to be watching those guys. They're going to be under a microscope for the next three weeks -- and a really tough situation.

But we'll all see how it turns out. These guys are the best teams. Kurt Busch is a champion -- they're all winners and we'll see how it turns out. It's going to be a good race.