The email was simple and to the point.

“Would you be interested in coming down to cover our Castrol Edge Winter Nationals at Willowbank?”

Visiting Australia has always been one of those bucket list destinations. It’s always been one of those places you envision visiting but never really expect to happen.

Clicking on the respond button, my response was, “No races that weekend, would love to.”

Then it hit me. June for me would contain four consecutive weekends of drag racing starting in Englishtown and ending in Norwalk. Two of the three races would require flights and the one was in Bristol, just a two-and-a-half hour ride through the scenic mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

The email was simple and to the point.

“Would you be interested in coming down to cover our Castrol Edge Winter Nationals at Willowbank?”

Visiting Australia has always been one of those bucket list destinations. It’s always been one of those places you envision visiting but never really expect to happen.

Clicking on the respond button, my response was, “No races that weekend, would love to.”

Then it hit me. June for me would contain four consecutive weekends of drag racing starting in Englishtown and ending in Norwalk. Two of the three races would require flights and the one was in Bristol, just a two-and-a-half hour ride through the scenic mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

But this flight to Brisbane, it would be a monster.

In case you were wondering, the flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane is a relatively short 13 hours. This 13 would come after a flight from Charlotte to Dallas and then to LA, where I would have a 10 hour layover.

A week after the initial contact, the travel agent contacted me with the flight info.

Generally, it takes two days to come down off of the adrenaline a race weekend generates.

For me, a race weekend consists of usually three consecutive 12 to 15 hour days at the track. You’re chugging Mountain Dew and Five Hour Energy shots all day to maintain the momentum needed to chase down the stories [on foot, no golf-cart] and then come back to the media center, transcribe and write into a story. This is a day in the life of a CompetitionPlus.com reporter.

Well, I’m sure there might be some who will suggest, “Cry me a river, you sit and watch racing all day.”

Yeah, Funny Car racer Robert Hight thought the same thing and we took him to a race. His response, “After about 25 hours in a day, I figured you guys might call it a day.”

Before headed to Brisbane, I was coming off of a challenging Englishtown assignment. Now I had to get amped up for what seemed like 24 hours of flight time.

This video will be a synopsis of the journey to Brisbane. You will get to see the interaction between myself and my youngest daughter, the camera hound Emily, and my cousin Philip. Cousin Philip is my “git-er-done” guy and usually a behind-the-scenes person.

Hope you enjoy the first of many video diaries.