Paulie's Blog: Some R&R before heading to Utah

This past week, I was able to spend some time at the Jersey Shore with my family, meaning there was tons of fun, laughter, competition, and even a little singing. I departed the vacation a bit early, though, as I headed to Salt Lake City for our 10th Camping World West race of the season. After starting in the rear, we finished second!

Each year, about 30 members of my mother's family all go to the Jersey Shore together for a week. In addition to my two sisters, I have 11 cousins. Between aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, and wives, there were 29 of us clustered together on the beach at one point.

Paulie gets dirty during practice and changes the shocks.

I really enjoy being down there, as we are quite the unique group -- including a PhD candidate who's doing cancer research, an ER nurse, a computer programmer, and a whole bunch more. We do share some great common threads, though, including our faith and our values. Oh, and one more thing: we are all extremely competitive.

As I'm sure you can imagine, beach volleyball was intense, as was horseshoes. We got to the point of having to keep the sand groomed near the boundary lines so that we could clearly tell, by the imprint the ball left in the sand, whether a hit was in or out of bounds. The team I was on? Undefeated. 'Nuff said.

Away from the beach, we spent time together having dinner, going on bike rides, getting knocked around on roller coasters, and playing board games (yes, the competition there is just as intense). My Uncle Tom is an amazing musician and he brings his guitar along each year. We sit outside well into the night singing old Beatles, Eagles, Don McLean, Rolling Stones, and Van Morrison songs. It's always a blast!

I had to depart early, as we raced at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele (outside Salt Lake City), Utah, a three-mile road course. I arrived in Miller on Thursday evening, just in time for dinner with the guys.

We were told that the bar near our hotel had good food, so we tried to check that out. I ruined that idea, though, as they said a 19-year-old couldn't even walk in the door. We ended up settling for pizza. As always, it was a great evening with the guys with a lot of laughter.

We headed to the track on Friday morning for practice knowing that we have a good road course car. I built two shocks that I wanted to try during practice while the guys got the car inspected. When we got on track, I wasn't particularly thrilled with the car, not getting the steering wheel feel I was looking for. We ended up 12th in the first session.

Crew chief Duane Knorr and I decided on a number of different changes between practice, making five changes in all. While the rest of the guys were working hard changing out other parts (including the entire transmission), I got dirty and pulled the shocks off of the car.

When the second round came, I was much happier with the handling of the car, asking only for a few more minor adjustments. We ended up fifth in final practice. The team got the car ready for qualifying and got it through inspection (and into impound) and we headed back to the hotel. We all hung out in the lobby for a bit and I called it a night.

We headed to the track bright and early Saturday for qualifying and the race. Since we changed a transmission, we knew that we would be forced to start from the rear of the field. So, qualifying meant nothing. I went out and made one lap (as mandated by NASCAR) and pulled in.

Between qualifying and the race, teammate Eric Holmes and I spent some time in the NAPA hospitality area. Miller Motorsports Park is a beautiful facility, and NAPA hospitality was actually a covered patio that overlooked pit road.

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After driver introductions, I got strapped into my Toyota and was ready to race. When the green flag flew, I slowly started picking my way through the field, once car at a time. Whenever I got to a car that seemed to be a bit out-of-control, I just sat back and waited for them to make a mistake, not pushing my equipment too hard.

We made our pit stop for fuel under green and a miscue on pit road led to too many guys over the wall. That meant that I had to come back in on the next lap for a penalty. Fortunately, Miller is so long that we didn't go a lap down. The caution ended up coming out after we served it, bunching the field back up. After pit stops cycled through, we were fifth under caution on Lap 21.

As soon as we went back green, I began working to pick cars off. I passed Brian Wong going down into Turn 1 for fourth and began working on the next one. After jumping into third, I set my eyes on Jim Inglebright, the winner at Portland, for second place. I had to work hard to get around Jimmy, and ended up getting him in the braking zone entering Turn 5, a left hand hairpin turn. By that point, the leader, Patrick Long, had a big lead. I settled into second and waited for the next caution.

The rest of the race was pretty uneventful, really. Points leader Jason Bowles was able to get close to me, but never able to work his way around me. Although one more caution did come, I wasn't able to get around Long and had to settle for second.

Overall, it was a great day for our NAPA team. We are now solidly fifth in points and are less than 60 points out of third. Our next race is at Colorado National Speedway, which is just outside of Denver, next weekend.

Congratulations to Lisa from Arkansas, who won the giveaway this week. Lisa won a signed, race-used helmet visor, as well as a personalized autograph card. Make sure you enter the drawing at paulieharraka.com if you haven't yet!

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.