I left last Thursday afternoon to go to Rockingham. Upon arrival, I called home as usual to check on my wife and kids. I spend time talking to each one of my three children with each phone call I make while I am on the road. When my daughter, Ashley, got on the phone, I ended up spending 30 minutes with her to work through some of her math homework problems. Even though my racing career requires a lot of traveling, I still make time to stay involved in my children's lives. And, I thoroughly enjoy those moments with my kids even while I'm on the road.

	Jay Sauter is looking to redeem himself at Las Vegas, which was the only track he failed to qualify at last year.

Qualifying was Friday and we just missed the setup for my run, but we still came away with a 25th-place start. We knew we had a good car and we were confident heading into the race on Saturday.

During the race, there were quite a few nearby incidents -- not only on the track, but in the pits, too -- that could have easily involved the Quality Farm & Country Chevrolet and I. Fortunately, we were able remain fairly clean and sustained only minor damages to the car from the altercations.

We went in hoping to nail down a solid top-10 and we ran a really good, clean race. However, our last set of tires, as the story usually goes at The Rock, just couldn't give us enough to get into the top 10. We came home from Rockingham on Saturday night pleased with our 11th-place finish.

I felt our overall team performance was great. We had good pit stops all day. I was particularly happy with our stops because it was the first time for this particular group of 'over the wall' guys to work together. They did a great job on all three stops of the race. So, we will gladly take our 11th-place finish and head out west to Vegas.

I left Wednesday and my wife, Patti, is making the trip to Las Vegas with me. My in-laws will come to town to stay with the kids over the weekend while we are there.

I am looking forward to tackling the track that produced our biggest disappointment last season; it was the only race where we did not qualify. I really like the track in Las Vegas and I ran real well there in the truck series in the past. So, I am on a mission to redeem the Quality Farm & Country Racing Team and myself. We are looking forward to a strong finish.

Jay Sauter drives the No. 43 car in the NASCAR Busch Series Grand National Division and will be submitting a weekly diary to ESPN.com throughout the season.