Paulie's Blog: I'm finally getting started on 2009

OK, so I know the title seems a bit odd. Yes, I know that this is March and that we're actually 67 days into 2009. But for me, this is the beginning of it all as this is the week leading up to the Allstate Texas Thunder 150 at Thunderhill Raceway in Kyle, Texas. This is the Camping World West season opener and will be my first race as driver of the No. 12 NAPA AutoCare Toyota for Bill McAnally Racing.

Today also happens to mark the date of my first blog entry for the year. This is my third year writing blogs, but, for the first time, my blogs will be shared with the entire NASCAR.COM community. I hope you're as excited as I am about this. Through these blogs, I'm going to do my best to give everyone some insight into the life of a 19-year-old, up-and-coming NASCAR driver who (tries really hard) to balance racing and his life as a Duke University freshman.

Harraka

On the balancing act? So far, so good. On the blogs? You be the judge.

Right now, I'm sitting in the lobby area of Bill McAnally Racing in Antelope, Calif. How'd I get here? Well, I think the best way to start a series of blogs is to provide some background info.

Two years ago, I began driving for Bill McAnally Racing in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series, flying back and forth between the East and West coasts each weekend. The 2007 season was my first full year in the series and, with a lot of mentoring from team owner Bill McAnally, we were able to win rookie of the year and come home second in the point standings. For 2008, Bill paired me up with car chief Ryan Precher and crewmen Travis Sutcliff and Herman Cortez. Together, we won 11 races and the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series championship! We are especially proud of this championship because it was the first for NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program. For 2009, I'll be racing for BMR in the No. 12 Toyota in the Camping World West Series.

While the racing season was unfolding, I moved to Durham, N.C., to begin life as a freshman at Duke University. I began as a mechanical engineering major, but it wasn't long before I discovered the Public Policy program, which is an extremely large department that covers much, much more than just governmental-style public policy. So, I'm currently a mechanical engineering and public policy double major and loving it. Additionally, I'm enrolled in some leadership classes, am the social activities coordinator at the Newman Catholic Student Center and serve on the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention Advisory committee. I live in the dorms and will do so again next year.

So ... for the first blog entry:

The last week has been extremely busy, but equally as much fun. Classes wrapped up last Friday and our spring break began.

I spent this past weekend in Southern California with my girlfriend, Ashton, and her family. We were able to hang out at her house with her parents and brothers, go go-karting, go on a hike, go to church and a bunch more. It was a ton of fun.

On Sunday night, I flew from Los Angeles Airport up to the Bill McAnally Racing shop outside of Sacramento, Calif., and spent all day Monday and Tuesday building Penske shocks for our cars this season. I'm extremely fortunate in that I've been able to learn all about shocks from some of the best in NASCAR: Ronny Crooks, Scott Hewitt, Nick Hughes and Jim Arentz. Thus, I've worked hard to apply what I've learned to the cars that I drive.

I'll spend the next two days working with the BMR team to finish getting geared up for our first race, which is in Kyle, Texas, this weekend. Hopefully, my next blog entry will be reporting a season-opening win!