“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
It wasn’t all that long ago that I was reading in front of a cozy fireplace in a ski lodge on the Rocky Mountains while Adam snowboarded his heart out, or that I was chilling poolside in sunny Ft. Myers with my best friends. These adventures between races are so important to me because they keep my creativity flowing and keep me emotionally grounded.
Adventure is a pretty subjective word, but to me it means anything that is exciting and new. I used to be someone who preferred retail therapy and buying material items over traveling, but I never felt whole. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered what was missing was true adventure and exploration of the outdoors. The idea of life lived to the fullest excites me more than anything else nowadays, other than winning races. I hope that my desire for making as many memories as possible outdoors inspires you to live a fulfilling life too.
It has been almost a month since I was at the track. For those who don’t understand the points structure, NHRA limits the Top Alcohol classes to only count points at 10 national events out of the 16 races that they run our classes at. I have raced at three so far: Gainesville, Houston, and Charlotte. As you know, I won both Gainesville and Houston, and finished in the third round in Charlotte (Julie won the race). Also, we can only run up to seven regional events in the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, so I will race five inside my region (Central Region) and twice outside of my region. I have already raced at the Gainesville Regional (runner-up finish) and Dallas Regional (winner). My second outside-of-my-region race will be at the end of the year in St. Louis, only four hours away from home.
This allows the team to visit other regional races and let Camrie and Julie (who claim the North Central and East Regions) gain points at the Division 1, 2 and 3 races. Since Charlotte, we’ve continued our win streak as Julie won in Columbus, and Camrie just won in Norwalk for her first win this past weekend! We’ve also announced our new partnership with Dot’s that extends through Menards and will debut a new dragster at our next race this weekend in Tulsa for my sister Rachel.
While I do miss making memories with the team, I need to fill up my wanderlust cup to stay sane. In my time away, I had the pleasure to visit Rogers, Arkansas, and camp at the beautiful Lake Atalanta for a night. We installed my new Yakima skyrise rooftop tent (the best invention in the world!) on my Rav4, and filled up the car with food, firewood, and fishing gear for a mini vacation. It was incredibly relaxing and refreshing to wake up in the woods and breath in the fresh air coming off the lake. It took us less than an hour to get the fold-up tent on top of the car and locked in to the roof rails, and it was so much simpler to set up camp when we arrived at the lake; just remove the cover, unfold the tent, adjust the ladder, then set up the rain cover in minutes!
We also got our boat out for the first time this year and went fishing for crappie at our local lake a few times.
During this past weekend I ran in the Missouri Tough Mudder event and it was an absolute blast! It was a big step up from the 5-mile obstacle course we did last year to this year’s 8-mile course, much harder than I trained for. The hardest part for me was the constant running between each obstacle, as well as the tall climbing ones (since I’m afraid of heights). I have greatly improved my strength and endurance, but I have a long way to go still. I will do a few more 5k runs and obstacle course events this year to stay in shape and feed my competitive spirit.
Now it’s time to get back into race mode and conquer the next three races on our schedule: Tulsa Regional race, Chicago National + Jegs AllStars, and Topeka National events. My sister Rachel will be racing with me (or against me) at all three, but she will be piloting her new Top Alcohol Dragster built by Chase Copeland. We have yet to bring it out to the track and test, so we hope to make some runs before Tulsa to make sure it will run smoothly. We will be retiring the dragster that she previously drove, currently being driven by Julie, but not before we bring it out a few more times this year. Visit the Randy Meyer Racing social media pages to see how things work out for us this weekend!
Megan Meyer is the driver of the NGK Spark Plugs/Lucas Oil/WELD Racing A/Fuel Dragster in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. Follow Megan on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
This DRAG ILLUSTRATED Driver Blog is presented by WELD Racing. Follow WELD Racing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and visit them online at www.WELDWheels.com.
This story was originally published on May 21, 2019. 
