So what the heck has been happening -- or NOT happening -- around here at Northern Thunder lately? It's not as if there's nothing happening in the world of drag racing; far from it, as last weekend saw two national events and starting today, two more major NHRA races, plus the Nightfire Championships in Australia and the Nitro Nationals at Sears Point, California. Even Mission Raceway is open this weekend. So there's lots on the menu.

There's still lots of "stuff" flying over the screw blower issue, with no end in sight and no resolution to the situation, other than NHRA's blanket moratorium on changes to the Federal-Mogul Dragster and Funny Car rules for this year. On the other side of the Pacific, the annual debate over possible rules changes is moving into high gear, with the most contentious and troubling offering being a proposal to make Top Alcohol a . . . . hang on for this one: Funny Car ONLY category. No, I'm not making that one up. More about it later.

So why aren't you sitting down and writing about all these things that are happening? Why aren't you stirring it up and letting it fly? Why are weeks going by with no updates? There's several answers to those questions, but to sum up, here's the best answer I can give: I'm tired. I'm old. I'm sitting here wondering whether I really have anything to offer to the web. And I've gotten so bogged down by the burden of trying to reorganize the site, update all the sections, fix all the broken links and clean up the layout that it seems like the presentation has gotten in the way of the content.

Starting to sound like a classic case of burn-out, isn't it? Not the tire heating kind either, nitro-breath. The mid-life crisis type, the feeling of being trapped in a cycle of work, eat, sleep, work . . . on and on to the farthest horizons that I can see. Time is flying by, days flash by in a blur that seems to accelerate with each passing year. Heck, even the years are zipping by. It seems that just a short time ago I was a young guy with so much time on his hands that the possibilities seemed limitless. Now, I feel so burdened by the accumulated baggage of my life that the horizon is getting closer all the time.

And the timing of this "burn-out" couldn't be worse: The popularity of the Northern Thunder website is at an all-time high; the visitor totals have nearly doubled since last year; the opportunity to take this site to another level have never been better. Yet I'm wondering whether I've still got the energy and drive to continue. Yes, I've actually been pondering pulling the plug on this site for a while now, but that really isn't a serious option . . . .
at the moment.

What I really need is something to get me charged up again. Something to get me back up to speed mentally and give me the energy to put this site back into "attack mode." Something to keep me at the keyboard long past the time when I should be in bed sleeping. Hey, I just remembered: I've still got a race car waiting for me in Australia. But it seems so far away and my last run down the track seems so long ago, that it's too easy most days to forget that it even exists. Where's the phone? What's the travel agent's number? How far into my line of credit am I?

More news -- maybe even some good news for a change -- as soon as I can. No promises of when that will be, so you'll just have to be patient while I try to re-charge the batteries and get this old brain fired up again. In the meantime, if you really care about what happens to this website, take a moment or two and drop me a short message with your reasons why it should continue. Constructive criticism, compliments, complaints . . . in fact, everything except incendiary devices and requests for payment are invited.