Hey that's me on the right with pro NASCAR scrib Dustin Long. 

Photo credit:  My son.

O.k. I admit it, I've been a bad blogger.

Between work, family and getting sick these last few months have not been exceptionally good for me as far as blogging goes.

Now granted things have improved around here now that we have access to NASCAR pictures and other NASCAR related media materials.

And things certainly have gotten interesting now that Ricky Byers has got in the act.  It has been fun reading his posts and reading his email (none that I can share with you however) about his trials and tribulations of trying to land a full-time sponsor for his ARCA entry next year.

Oh and I can't forget about our budding young journalism phenom Matt either, when his busy sched permits he puts up some pretty good stuff for us to read.

But with that being stated I must say things did slow down here for a while, especially once baseball season started. You see my son and daughter both played this year in different divisions and between games and practices I was out of the house 5 days a week.  I was also helping coach my son's team - they won their championship BTW.

Oh, and I got the H1N1 crap that is going around, but I got it in July.  I'm sitting back now and watching the people at work come down with it.  At one point 1/6 of all the people in my place of employment were off and I was the only 'regular' working in my division as everyone else working at that time were substitutes.

But where I feel the worst about all of this bad blogging stuff is with my fellow bloggers.  In the past I have been active at their sites posting my opinions and sharing in the conversation, and spreading the 'link-love' with them, but in these last few months I haven't been spreading the blogger-love and link-love that goes with it amongst my fellow bloggers.

Honestly I just haven't had the time.  So I'm going to give a shout-out to some of my fellow bloggers that I've been unintentionally ignoring:

Jannelle Ramon:  We started something at the beginning of th race season called 'Track Rants' and I dropped the ball back in July when I got sick and we never really got it back together good enough to finish what we started - maybe next season.  Oh and if you want some good inside info for this weeks race then go to her blog as she will be behind the scenes at PIR getting you pictures and stories only she can get.

Steve and Charlie:  The On Pit Row guys who have interviewed Ricky Byers about his search for a sponsor and will be doing another upcoming interview soon.  These guys were at Texas this past weekend and they got some great fan stories up on their site right now.  I was so busy while on vacation at MIS in Aug. I couldn't even meet up with Charlie and Steve before the race on Sunday - although I did manage to get one 15 minute meeting in with someone else before the race started - see below.

Jerry Wilson (aka The Diecast Dude):  The guy that me doing this blogging thing in the first place.  Jerry has a renewed interest in NASCAR blogging and has even started doing his famous pod casts again.  Check out his latest offering.

The folks at All Left Turns have us continuously turning our heads with their unique coverage of the sport.

Speaking of unique coverage I'd be remiss if I didn't mention From The Marbles mostly penned by Jay Busbee - man that cat has a unique twist on a lot of things in the sport, especially merchandising.

Perhaps some of the best motorsport coverage you'll ever get from a blogger would be from Marc at Full Throttle - how this guy was left off of NASCAR's Citizen Journalist list is beyond me -  I love his Bump Drafting Quotes article he posted a few days ago.

Oh man how about my old FLA blogging friend Tire Dawg who is the creator of some of the most unique custom made NASCAR diecast collectables out there - mostly one-of-a-kinds too.

And how can I forget about Dustin Long either?  O.k. the man is a paid NASCAR journalist who also blogs about the sport too, but really out of most of the mainstream media he has been the most accepting of NASCAR bloggers.  He even took time out of his busy schedule at MIS in August to come trackside to meet with me and my son for about 15 minutes.  Dustin created quite a stir a week or so back with his series of posts about the state of NASCAR with some candid quotes from some pretty prominent NASCAR figures - some really good reading for sure!

As always I'm running out of time and I just can't name everyone that I want to right now like The NASCAR Insiders, or Unrestricted: My Rants and Raves (no relation), or Thunder Lounge,  or ... but I'll have to continue this tomorrow I guess.

There are some really good NASCAR blogs out there let me tell you and if you don't believe me just click on some of them in my link list over there to the right of this post - all of them are good or they wouldn't be on my list.

Then there are those blogs that I haven't even put onto my blogroll yet that I've met over Twitter - most of them are listed in my 'Following' list at my Twitter site, but I should still put them on my blogroll too.

Just never enough time to run things around here the way I would want.

I should put up a 'Help Wanted' sign.

Hmm ... there's and idea - any takers?