Keselowski vs Joe Gibbs Racing, Charlotte Edition

Anybody that isn't sure the Chase for the Sprint Cup isn't intense didn't watch the events unfold last evening.

During a restart with 62 laps remaining in the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Brad Keselowski and Matt Kenseth got together as Kenseth attempted to pass Keselowski out the outside.  The contact sent Kenseth into the wall, damaging his car and causing him to fall a lap down. 

With a few laps remaining, a caution gave Kenseth the free pass.  Keselowski claims while Kenseth was making his lap up intentionally drove his car into Keselowski's, causing damage to his car.

On an ensuing restart, Keselowski and Denny Hamlin got together, causing Hamlin to get loose and lose several positions.

The race ended, and on the cool down lap, Hamlin and Keselowski tangled on the track.  Both drivers headed towards the pits, where Keselowski ran into Matt Kenseth's car.  Kenseth claims he had already unbuckled his seat belt and removed some of his safety equipment.

Hamlin was visibly upset as he exited his car, and was greeted by members of his crew andseveral NASCAR officials.  Words were exchanged with Keselowski, and Hamlin threw a towel towards him.  Hamlin was escorted to his hauler.  Keselowski headed to his hauler, where he was chased and run into by Kenseth.  It took several crew members and Officials to separate the two drivers.

Kenseth and Keselowski are both on the verge of not advancing to the next round of the Chase.  Both drivers were fighting for every position they could get.  Every point could make the difference between advancing and missing out on a chance at the Championship.  So both drivers were frustrated at their finishes. 

It's obvious that the pressure is on every driver involved in the Chase.  The only two that are smiling at the moment are Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick, who both will advance due to race wins during this round of the Chase. Keselowski and Kenseth let their emotions get the best of them.  In the good ole days of NASCAR, that is how drivers would settle it - in the parking lot after the race!

It would be too early to speculate if NASCAR will issue any penalties as a result of this duel, but with their "boys, have at it" mantra over the last few seasons, nothing will probably come out other than a small fine and probation.

All it means is there's going to be several desperate drivers at Talladega, and tempers may flare again. I can't wait.

Poland and Italy

The month of September will be remembered as the "month of travel".

I departed the day after Labor Day for Warsaw, Poland for 10 days of work and play.  We spent two days working with our customer doing some preparatory work and planning for our mission. 

We then spent the weekend in the Krakow area visiting two very different places.  First on our list was Auschwitz.

I can say that visiting Auschwitz was definitely skin crawling.  I'd never been to a concentration/death camp before.  It was eerie walking around the original camp, which was very small.  Birkenau, however, was much, much larger, and to me, much more emotional.  There were places I had to turn my head away, or sometimes leave the room.  It made me wonder how cruel humans can really be to each other.  Thinking about the millions of people that passed through the gates of both camps that had no idea what was going to happen to them was hard to think about.  I kept thinking to myself, "Never again" as we walked around.  Both sites are definitely a must visit if you go to Krakow.

After a relaxing evening at the Pink Panther hostel (highly recommended if you are into that kind of thing) we headed to the Wieliczka Salt mine.  It's a semi-retired salt mine on the east side of Krakow.  It was definitely worth the visit.  We walked through 2 kilometers of tunnels, which was only about 1% of the known tunnels.  It was quite interesting to see how they mined, but also how the preserved the mine after they were finished with some of the rooms.  The most impressive part, however, was the working church about 300 feet below the surface.  Every Sunday they have mass, which people can attend.   Pope John Paul II led mass there once.  What impressed me the most were the carvings on the walls done by miners of biblical scenes, mostly by hand.  It's amazing how talented some people are and what they can do with a simple surface and a few hand tools.

We spent the rest of our week in Warsaw, working, and visiting a few sites locally.  We had a tour of the Royal Palace, which was really interesting.  Unfortunately most of the artifacts were destroyed in World War II, but a few workers rescued some of the more important ones.  The restoration, however, is quite impressive.  The Warsaw Uprising museum was somewhat of a letdown to me, though.  The exhibits mostly showed what let up to the Uprising, but not so much about the actual uprising.  I'm sure a lot of information, records, etc were lost during the war, but the museum just didn't seem to be designed well.  It left a lot to be desired, IMO.

The food was nothing short of amazing.  I don't think we had a bad meal the entire trip.  I had my share of pierogis, cabbage, and beets.  Potato pancakes and goulash were also very popular.  Apples were the big food though.  Russia issued an embargo of Polish produce, and Poland exports most of their apple crop to Russia.  So there were social media campaigns asking the Polish population to eat more apples, drink apple cider and juice, etc.  So we had a lot of apples during our journey.

We did work while we were there, however.  We ran into some unexpected issues while there, so we had to work some long hours and scratch a few heads to get things to work.  But we worked through it, completed our mission successfully, and returned home.

My time at home was short lived, however.

8 days after arriving home, I was on a plane back to Europe, although this time to Italy.  I spent 3 days in a town south of Rome.  We completed our work a few hours early, so we snuck up to Rome for a quick drive by of the important sites.  We did a quick walking tour to the Vatican, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, and the Colosseum.  I would've liked to go inside the Vatican and Colosseum again, but it was getting late in the day, and we wanted to be sure we got home at a reasonable hour.  I did get to enjoy some absolutely amazing Italian food while there, however.  I haven't found an Italian restaurant that met some of the places that we visited while in Italy.


Three of the four weeks in September were spent on the road.  While I love to travel and see new places, it is definitely nice to come home and sleep in your own bed, not eat every meal in a restaurant, and speak the same language as a majority of people around you!  I highly recommend visiting both Poland and Italy, however.  Both places have lots of hidden treasures that are just waiting to be unearthed.