Lifetime Achievement

I feel like I am on here once a year and if you look at the history, that is not far from the truth. I will make every effort to make this a norm now, not an exception.

I decided in 2011 to commit myself to earning my degree. Something that has been a lifelong goal since the kids were babies. I can happily say as of October 28, 2013, I have accomplished that goal. I am officially the only member of my family to graduate college. I am the proud recipient of a Bachelor of Science in Business/Marketing from the University of Phoenix. I am very excited to have accomplished my degree!

It is still very surreal to think that I do not need to come home each day and plant my behind in front of the computer to do homework. However, it is a welcome change. Not only do I get to enjoy some major down-time with the end of race season being here, but I also get to really use this time to revamp my "sleeping" business.

2013 RACING SEASON

It has been chaos this year working full-time, changing careers, finishing school, crewing for three teams, and racing the Harmon's Jr. Comp car. But honestly, I could not ask for more and would not trade a single moment of it for anything. Well ok, I would trade all the issues we had with the jr this past year, but not the experiences and memories.

Despite getting accepted into the West Coast Pro Gas Association, we were only able to compete in one (1) of their races for the 2013 season. We decided that even IF we could not run the number (due to issues with the car) that we would still run Governor's Cup. It was important to me to show my support and appreciation to the guys for letting us run with them. So that is exactly what we did, unfortunately, we were still experiencing a lot of problems with the car (electrical and entire nitrous system failure) we were four tenths off the number all day. It was still a blast and that is what is important.

We also decided to compete in Pro ET at Charlie's All Motorcycle race in October. Our power plant is a Hayabusa motor after all. We decided to run on all motor because we felt it would help us determine if the two major issues the car was having was indeed the wiring and the nitrous system (as we had suspected) and in fact it is. The car ran about what it should on all motor with the current gearing. We won first round against Mona Weller and that was an amazing feeling. Our friend Jay came down to see me as I peeled out of my gear to deliver the happy news, followed closely by my crew chief, tuner, and husband. It was a great moment, quickly followed by me losing in Round 2. Dang it! It was still a blast!!

We have had the car for two (2) seasons and October was "the" date. The date we were to return the jr. to the Harmon's, who have been amazing and incredibly supportive.

2014 RACING SEASON

I was blessed by the Harmon's to have the car one more season. I am sure Jason doesn't feel so blessed. LOL! We will do our best to procure some sponsors and make as many races as possible in the 2014 season. With no school to compete with, we are confident that we will be able to have some real fun in the 2014 season.

For sponsorship opportunities, please contact me at (916) 670-4349 or by e-mail at bumblebeezx@yahoo.com.

Official and in competition!

I am officially licensed again. When I originally licensed on my motorcycle in 2005, I was given the NHRA competition license number of ETMX 725. This time around, I was given ET 724X. Not too difficult to remember, thanks Rosa! ;) Upon receipt of my new NHRA competition license number and getting the chassis re-certified on the Jr. Comp car we talked about entering my first race. That happened to be the Spring Jam CMI race on April 15, 2012. Personally I really dislike CMI cars, but its a chance to race, right?

I unfortunately do not have any pics from the race but I can share with you the events of the day. We got to the track and were advised we may not be able to compete because we did not have doors. We talked to Tony and inquired about our ability to compete, he thought about it and decided to make an exception for us this "one time". Did I mention I am not a fan of CMI cars, ridiculous noise makers. Anyway, we got unloaded and ready for Q1. It's important to mention that this is the first race that I have EVER lined up against another car. I was thinking about everything all at once, except being in the car. Which was evident by the fact that I never got on the low rev, just smacked the throttle and went. How stupid. I had a reasonably bad reaction time at .163 and ended up running a 9.36 @ 133.6 with a 1.40 60' time. When Jason got down to pick me up, he said "did you forget something". And it dawned on me at that moment of how out of the game my head was. I was so mad at myself when we got back to the pits I had to go for a walk. Jason wasn't real happy with that decision as he wanted to talk about it, but I just needed time to get my thoughts together and pull my head out of my a$$. Q2 revealed I was at least pushing the tree (a bit too much) with a -.031 reaction. I had a 9.45 ET @ 134.0 with a 1.43 60' time. We got one final hit with Q3, where I again red lit with a -.043 reaction. Yay me, I get to qualify with a .163. My Q3 produced a 9.38 ET @ 135.2 and my best 60' so far at 1.37. At this point, we sat down and had a discussion about bracket racing. I am not too familiar with it in a car, since I have never raced a car. Aside from that when I rode a bike in competition, I won one bracket race out of luck and won another race running on my index.

Time for eliminations!
Round 1
I got paired against this little red Honda. It was sorta funny sitting in the car (all strapped in) and listening to the kid talk with his friends before we ran. The comments ranged from "you're racing that little dragster" to "you're racing a girl". Jason reminded me that I would be sitting...for awhile when the lights came down. His dial-in was a 14.68 to my 9.32...YEAH I sat for awhile! But it was a good first round for me. I could see him relatively clearly (due to his bright color). I ran a 9.67 @ 109.2 with a .130 reaction time and a 1.36 60' time to his 14.67 @ 91.0 with a .270 reaction time. I got lucky, but it felt good to get a first round win!! We had some motor problems at the line, but got the car down the lane.

Round 2
Well let's just say learning the bracket racing thing is tricky. I left my dial-in alone and was running against a guy who dialed a 13.90. Everything on my side of this run was off, I had a .293 reaction and ran a 9.83 @ 127.2 with a 1.38 60' time. I tried to judge how much room I had between the stripe and him... and ended up giving it back at the stripe. So frustrating, but that's how we learn, right? Once again, we had some problems with the motor, it kept stalling and boy did it mess with my head. No excuses though, I plain and simply lost.

Alas, I got the yellow slip and that was the end of our day.

I had a lot of fun and thanked the applicable people for allowing us to run despite the no door thing! ;) Doesn't look like I'll be back in the car until May but I'm looking forward to the next time!!! By the way... I still dislike CMI cars!! LOL! As usual, I owe my husband a huge thanks for his patience with me and teaching me how to be a driver. I love you babe, you're the best!!!

New Journey in 2012

2012 has been a whirlwind of new experiences and I can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings! We have been on the slow long process of building our bike. It will make it to the completion zone at some point. In the meantime a few (on the larger side) bills have been hanging over our heads. We should be ready to take the leap with that project as we near the end of the year or early 2013!! In the meantime, we were given a rare opportunity. Our amazing friends, The Harmons, gave us their blessing to run their Jr. Comp car for the season. So exciting!! We began ordering all my gear before we even had the car, I just couldn't wait. I ordered my fire suit (pants and jacket), harness, arm restraints, and gloves. I needed to re-order my pants, harness, and gloves because they were either too big or didn't work in the car. We eventually got everything we needed and then we waited on the weather. Wow that's frustrating!! We finally got our chance on Saturday April 1, we got the chance to make our Jr. Comp debut. It was licensing day and we were running 1/8 mile! My first time in the car (which was literally the first time I had ever raced a car down the race track) was so much fun! Ironically, my first time in the car I really wasn't nervous. I think I was more anxious than anything. We talked about our routine and what I needed to do off the line to start with. I just put the pedal to the floor and away I went. My first pass produced a 6.39 @ 109.19 in the 1/8th. Which equates out to approx. 9.97 in the 1/4. My next time out, Jason said I could leave on the low rev, so I would get to feel what it does off the line. That pass produced a 6.11 @ 114.65 which equates to a 9.54 in the 1/4. Talk about fun!! Now its important to remember I'm suppose to be licensing, Jason said I was going a bit quick for that. Oops!! We made four passes in total and the next two were nothing to write home about. My third pass just didn't feel good to me, she felt wiggly and weird, so I got out of it. Jason adjusted the shift light and off we went again. I was thinking of so many different things, I literally sat at the light and watched it turn green. Who does that?? Seriously, how dumb. Anyway, upon taking off we ran another 6.114 @ 111.97. Jason said she was starting to go through the clutch so we called it a day. At the end, I won't lie I was disappointed in myself. Especially for my (at best) meager performance the last two passes, but Jason reminds me I started out going quicker than I was suppose to! It's so different to drive a car, especially one that you practically lay down in to race. But it is so much fun to learn something new.







I can't wait to get back in the car!! Stay tuned!!!

Miss to Mrs.

It has been far too long since I have been on here and no apology would ever make it right. So I will simply swallow my pride and apologize. Life has been a whirlwind for us over the past two years. Sara is now on the road to being a grown-up; moving out and living life independently. I got married to my best friend and continued my education prowess' as a student at the University of Phoenix. We continue to make efforts to remain involved in the racing world, by building our bike and slowly building on this little business of ours (Bumble Bee Motorsports).



Till next time ladies and gents!!! I will update with more information in the coming weeks!

Interviews

Do you recall your first "real" interview? Well, I can't either really, but I do remember my first job. Who forgets there first job... even if it's fast food, it's an epic time in your life! I mention all this because my daughter (Sara) is interviewing as I type this. She is nervous and is recognizing that it's a competitive job market. She really is perfect for the position she is interviewing for; retail in a very teen popular store! When I went on my first interview, I aced the job (as the cliche goes... "in the bag"). Wow, the job market has changed, now there are tens of hundreds or even thousands of over-qualified people competing for one under-paid position. I am thankful to have a job...in every sense of the word. Just wish it were enough to live on...

Keep your fingers crossed for my daughter! Till next time... LIVE LOVE LAUGH!!! -AB

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.0

Bee in the News...

Check out the article on dragbike.com (to see included photos) @ http://www.dragbike.com/dbnews/anmviewer.asp?a=5198&z=3. Huge thanks to my friend Paul Cavanaugh for writing the article about me and my company! :)

______________________________________________________________________________

Flight of the Bumble Bee
Tuesday, September 08, 2009 By Paul Cavanaugh

Flight of the Bumble Bee
By Paul Cavanaugh

I do not know how many of you have heard “Flight of the Bumble Bee” by Rimsky-Korsakov, to be quite frank, it completely drives me crazy.
Fortunately, this article has nothing to do with it.

What it does have to do with is a woman by the name of Annette Rob who I met through www.sponsorhouse.com back in 2005 when I first started racing and was trying to find sponsors. Annette had also newly started racing and was on the website doing the very same thing. Sponsorhouse is sort of a social networking site where racers of all types try to find sponsorship. You can have friends much like Facebook and all of us drag racers have a tendency to find each other like magnets.

The Bee learns to fly.
Annette learned to ride on a dirtbike as a child under the tutelage of her father. As she got older Annette learned to ride on the street with a friend’s early model GSXR1100 and finally bought her own 2005 Kawasaki ZX636R where she had her first taste of drag racing at Sacramento Raceway in California.

She managed to do well ET racing getting the bike to run 10.75s. Then she had a slight mishap, which resulted in her waking up under the timing tower answering a bunch of trivia questions like, “What is your name?” “What is the date?” “Who is the President?” “Where do you live?” Admittedly, Annette told me she did not answer the questions very well so the paramedics awarded her a trip to the hospital for losing their quiz show.

It took a few months after the “looptie off the line loop” incident to get back in the swing of things. As time passed she got back to the 10.7 range again only to have to sell the bike for financial reasons.

A friend had been bugging her to ride his wheelie bar drag bike and Annette asked him if he realized she had wrecked her own once on the track. He did not seem to mind and told her to give it a shot. At first Annette was a bit apprehensive about letting the clutch go, wheelie bars or not and her first runs were in the blistering 14 second range (The blisters were on her feet from pushing the bike down the ¼.). Three months later she became comfortable and started knocking out 8.80’s.

She entered in S/C at the NHRA West Coast Motorcycle Challenge and was running all over the board from 11’s to 9’s while somehow managing to make it to the finals. The bike she had to race looked like a Pro Stock bike and she feared the worst. Annette said the run felt good but nothing spectacular stood out about it. At the track she was racing you do not know whether you won or lost until you get your ticket, a white one for a win, a yellow for a loss. When the lady at the ticket booth gave her the white one and congratulated her, Annette thought the lady had made a mistake. It turns out Annette had run an 8.904 for the win.

The owner of this bike had run into financial issues of his own and sold the bike. This left Annette without a ride again. Next, it turns out the company she was working for had financial issues of its own and downsized Annette out the door in October of 08.

4 months and 220 applications later Annette had not one interview for a job and started seriously questioning her ability to be hired. She had been to job fairs where 7 employers would show up to hire and there would be anywhere from 300 to 1,500 people there trying to get these jobs.

Annette did some soul searching and thought about the things she was talented at; marketing, and the things she liked to do; motorcycle racing. Putting them together she came up with www.bumblebeemotorsports.com.

While Annette’s dream is to pick up a Pro Stock ride, for now she is content enjoying herself at the track using her creativity to market her fellow racers.

Now that is something to buzz about.


See ya on the track!

Highly recommended... from my family to yours!

Now everyone has done the family photography sessions at JCPenney's or Sears or even maybe the Portrait People or something like that, right? And typically that is where we have taken our family photos. However, I am beyond delighted to share with you a recent experience I've had with an amazing photography company.

BMG Image is a very professional, personable and trustworthy company. Its hard to find a photographer that not only makes you feel comfortable but someone who you know has your best interest at heart! BMG Image is that someone... they are very attentive to your concerns and help you flourish in your images. Brett and Kathryn Gardenhire are beyond amazing people, I just love them. I could sit here and tell you a 100 reasons why they are amazing, the truth is their work simply speaks for itself!


Check them out and consider them if you need some photography services, whether those needs are family or professional! Check out the images below to get a taste of just some of their work...

I wouldnt trust just anyone to photograph my only Mother Daughter photos, I trust and love our photographer, BMG Image. And so should you!