Paulie's Blog: St. Patrick's, the Yankees and Infineon

Last week's blog ended with some down time with my family, a welcomed reprieve from my constantly busy schedule. I spent the first three days of the week in the Northeast before flying west for our race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma. Of my time spent at home, the highlight was walking onto the field at the new Yankee Stadium. In California, we ran as high as second in the [Camping World Series] West race before being punted.

After spending Monday catching up on everything from being away from home for the last week and a half, Tuesday was time for some real fun! After lunch with a close friend in Manhattan, I spent most of my afternoon just cruising NYC. I absolutely love "The City that Never Sleeps." Something about the constant movement, the diversity, and the positive vibes around the city get me in a great mood. I strolled around the city for a bit before sitting down in the middle of Central Park for a short rest. The park is amazing to me, as it is such a serene place amidst the chaos of the city. From there, I took the 10-block walk to St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Paulie Harraka signs a baseball for Dr. Tom Haveron while attending a game at Yankee Stadium.

Although I have been in the city countless times, I have always missed St. Patrick's, for some reason. When I walked in, my jaw dropped. I have been fortunate enough to see some of the world's most beautiful churches including St. Peter's Basilica [located in the Vatican City], but St. Patrick's was just amazing. As I walked around the chapel and observed the individual chapels, I marveled at their beauty, especially the Lady Chapel, where the Eucharist is kept. If you are ever near New York City, go to the Cathedral.

From there, I jumped on the 4 [Train] to the Bronx to head to Yankee Stadium. This was my first time on a subway, so I'll admit I was a bit uneasy. Everything happens so quickly that it's easy to miss your stop or end up on the wrong train. However, it all went well and I got off at 161st Street, right across from the Stadium. There, I met up with Steve Fortunato, who I would be attending the game with. We walked into the Stadium around 4:45 [p.m.], well before the 7:05 start time.

Steve works with a number of the Yankees players, and we immediately headed through concrete hallways and quiet stairwells. I had no idea where I was until, all of a sudden, I stepped up and saw that I was standing on the field. The Yankees were having batting practice and I was standing on the field, just behind the temporary backstop. I'm not the type of person that is easily star-struck, but I've been a huge Yankees fan my whole life and this was awesome.

I met a number of people while standing there and even had the chance to chat with [Yankees outfielder] Johnny Damon for a bit. He's an awesome, down-to-earth, soft-spoken guy who is a big NASCAR fan. I also met Dr. Tom Haveron, who is truly an inspiration. Tom is a New Jersey doctor who works tirelessly to raise funds for charitable causes, such as autism. I was honored when Dr. Tom asked me to sign a baseball for him.

From there, Steve and I grabbed some food and headed for our seats, which were two rows behind the Yankees dugout. We had a blast, watching the game and talking the whole time. The Yankees won that night, beating the Washington Nationals, which made it all the more fun.

On Wednesday, I came down with some sort of head cold and sore throat that stayed with me for the rest of the week, which killed a lot of my productivity for the day. I boarded a flight that evening and headed to California. I arrived in Oakland late Wednesday night and caught some sleep at engine builder Tony Oddo's house, whom I talked about in last week's blog.

Once at the track on Thursday afternoon [NASCAR opened the garage at noon], I went to work on my shock dyno. Fortunately, the replacement parts that Roehrig Engineering had sent to us corrected the issue I was having, allowing me to shift my focus back to racing. Just as I started to build shocks, Jim Arentz, technical director of Penske Shocks, walked into the hauler. Jim and I started talking about things as I built front shocks for our car and came up with some ideas for rear shocks. Based on Jim's experience, we built a set of rear shocks that were much different that what I had been running. When we put them on the car in practice, the car was much more stable and faster. As always, the guys at Penske came through.

• West: News, Results, Schedule

Duane Knorr, my crew chief, brought a camper to Infineon, along with two other [Bill McAnally Racing] crew members and my teammate, Eric Holmes. After the garage closed on Thursday, we all headed up there for dinner. It was an awesome way to unwind and hang out with the team.

We arrived at the race track early on Friday morning, as we were asked to do a pit stop for the morning show on KCRA 3, the local NBC affiliate. The guys busted out a two-tire stop and we were off. Following that, I did an interview with KCRA and another interview with Fox 40. All of this before ever hitting the track.

Finally, we were able to turn our attention to our race car. I spent about the first 10 laps of practice getting acclimated to the track and to the car before asking for any changes. Throughout both rounds of practice, we made a number of small changes that made the car better and better. Out of the 44-car field, we ended up sixth in final practice. Considering that this was our first time working together on a car like this at a road course, we were extremely excited.

Qualifying was done group-style, meaning that 11 cars were on the track at one time and were given the opportunity to make about four laps. We thought that our first lap would be our best, so I went out and focused on making no mistakes on that lap. Coming off Turn 11, the final turn, the lap felt pretty good, so I backed off as soon as I passed the start/finish line. It was a rookie mistake, as I should have stayed in the gas up the hill and waited for word from my crew chief on whether or not to run another lap. Still, we ended up 12th.

Infineon is a fuel-mileage race, with every crew chief trying to predict how many caution laps there will be and how good their driver is at saving fuel. We spent the first few laps of the race cruising, falling back to 14th before getting back up to 11th on Lap 9.

We pitted early, and Joey Logano, Boris Said, and I all came off pit road together, with the whole field in front of us. I sat behind those two and let them open up the holes. When the next caution came and the rest of the field pitted, we were third, behind Logano and Said.

Once we went back green, the [No.] 25 of Tom Hubert out-braked me into Turn 4, taking the third position; we settled into fourth for a few laps before passing Hubert back. I was about 15 car-lengths behind Said at that point and running about 90 percent. In a matter of about three laps, we caught Said, only to lose him in traffic and have to catch him again. With about 20 laps to go, I was on Said's tail as we came off Turn 11. I followed him up the hill and he got a little loose in Turn 2. That allowed me to get beside of him. We ran side-by side through [Turn] 3a and I cleared him in 3b.

Obviously, at any race, you go to beat everyone. However, whenever you go to a road course, passing Boris Said is a big deal, especially as a rookie and when it's for the second position. Just as I was thinking, 'OK, this is going to be a good day,' I went from hero to zero. As we entered Turn 4, someone punted me from behind. My spotter couldn't clearly see who it was, and I'm not going to name names because I have been told conflicting stories. Either way, we got spun running second with about 20 laps to go. Man was that frustrating.

As I was picking my way back through the field, we got caught up in someone else's wreck, putting us to the back of the pack. At that point, my frustration reached a boiling point and I punched the closest thing in reach, which happened to be the rear-view mirror. Fortunately, I didn't break the thing.

We passed as many cars as we could and ended up 13th on the day. As frustrating as it is to be that fast and have some idiot spin you, it's great to know that we've got such an awesome road-course package, as we have two road-course races, Portland and Salt Lake City, left on the schedule.

After the race, we took a number of Toyota executives for rides in the Bill McAnally Racing ride car. Doing that is a lot of fun, as there's nothing like seeing the look on a passenger's face when you finally pull into the pits. Sunday was spent catching up with friends around the track at Infineon.

Happy Father's Day (a bit late) to all the dads reading this blog. Have a great week!

Paulie Harraka, a native of Fairlawn, N.J., is a student at Duke University. He is a member of the Drive for Diversity program and races in the Camping World West Series for Bill McAnally Racing. Harraka won the 2008 track championship at All American Speedway.