TAN Driver Blog - Marie Ferriolo - TAFC

As a rehab therapist I have to set goals for the course of treatment with my patients. There are two types of goals: short term and long term. For example one of my 5-year old speech therapy patients diagnosed with Autism who currently only uses single word to communicate may have a long term goal of using sentences to communicate. I expect this to happen in about 9 months from the start of therapy. In the meantime I'll work on having them use 2-3 word phrases. Or with a feeding patient transitioning off of a bottle to table foods I'll have them eat pureed foods like applesauce first. There are very few things you can just dive into the deep end with. And drag racing is one of them.

My long term goal of the season is to win a round at a national. My short term goals are to qualify and then to qualify well.

Gainesville couldn't have possibly gone better for us!! Sure it would have been awesome to win first round but when you're up against someone like Lombardo you do have to be realistic. I was just super psyched to have qualified in the first place after what happened at our national event appearances last season. It was amazing to go down the track four times, straight as an arrow!!

Regional events are going to be very tough for our team; they’re basically just small national events with so many cars registered for each event. And Maple Grove was a perfect example of how much my Dad needs to retire so he can work on our race car full time ;-) When you’re up until midnight putting the transmission together after getting up at 4am… well let’s just say I’m not sure how he does it. I used to pull nights like that when I was finishing my master’s degree and I spent the following day doing nothing but dozing between Sex and the City reruns. 

It’s really hard to watch you own father have to go through something like that… I’d like to thank everyone on the team who were always prepared to tear something apart and put it back together. Also, thanks to all of the guys at the track who came by to offer suggestions – just further proof our class is a family :-) But another good, clean, straight pass went into our books.

So now we’re off to Norwalk. Have you SEEN the entry list?!?! Yikes....Lots of heavy hitters on that list.  It’ll be a fun weekend, but to continue with accomplishing my goals of the season I would really like to qualify, and better than where we did at Gainesville. Odds? I’m not a betting woman. (I’d rather chance my money at the outlet mall.) We’re super prepared – all of the guys have been down to help my Dad get everything set with the race car and my Mom has the menu prepared!! My bags are almost packed, but since I constantly change my mind about what to wear I’m sure they’ll be unpacked and repacked twice before I leave on Thursday morning haha!! Wish us luck or see you there!