When it comes to rooms, Mike, I take responsibility for that, and I prepay through Travelocity ahead of time, so they are locked in. Every year I get two rooms per track, with double queens, and we usually think we are going to have 8 people, and it's usually less. Anybody who doesn't want to double bunk can bring a sleeping bag and sleep on the floor. THIS is DRAG WEEK, not a comfort cruise! Plenty of guys bring tents, others even sleep in their cars, it comes down to how bad you want it versus what your budget can handle!

To that end, I've decided to lay all the numbers out as best I can this year, to give guys thinking about it a real world accounting of the investment in this trip.

To start, pre-registration was 336.45 per car, so I'm in 672.90 for both rides in April.

Then I got rooms for Sunday night through Friday night, so six nights for 943.50. That put me at 1616.40 before May 1st, which allows me time to pay it off over the summer, before the trip even gets here. I didn't get a room for Saturday night in St.Louis because, knowing my brothers, I just figured we'd be driving all night just to get there for registration.