Thanks for the warm welcome, all. I know that Dan and Wayne are quite active here, so they'll also keep everyone updated on progress related to this weekend's marathon.

As to the pressure being on, Jason, I got quite a taste of that when I did the NPR interview. It was 97 degrees and I had a local WVPR reporter riding along to tape my side of the conversation as I listened to Jeff Young on the headset and tried to duplicate the driving style we'll be using this weekend. The AC was off and the windows rolled up to both maximize mpg and eliminate any extraneous noise for the recording. By the time we finished both of us in the car were sweating profusely.

I felt like I'd bungled the interview as my brain felt like mush and it seemed like my driving, thinking, and talking had all suffered equally. The 81 mpg I reported sounds pretty good but the evening before I had driven the same course and scored multiple 100 mpg five minute bars. I actually contacted Jeff and offered to repeat the interview, sure I'd made a mess of it, but he assured me he had plenty of good tape, and sure enough he managed to splice together enough of my more coherent and humorous responses to make me appear far more together than I felt at the time.

I'm looking forward to the HBO presence, as it will help us achieve one of our three goals - to spread the word about what these great cars are capable of and how to get the most out of them. Our other two goals, of course, are to get the maximum possible mpg and miles out of a single tank of gas and to have fun doing it!

The biggest challenge for me will be to drive at the same level as Dan, Wayne, and Rick, all three of whom have considerably better records than I do. My personal best tank of 71 mpg sounds good compared to a lot of drivers, but pales in comparison to what my teamates have accomplished. We do plan to stay flexible on the shift assignments as we see how we each do on our first shift or two in order to keep the better drivers behind the wheel the most, and we'll make every effort to assure that we both start and end with Dan behind the wheel, as this whole thing was his idea to start with and he both discovered the course we'll be using and refined the strategy needed to consistently score 100+ mpg laps on it.

And please bear in mind that the true athlete in this marathon is the Prius. We'll just be helping her be all she can be!

Good to be here,

Dave Bassage