Darryl and his Dart went 11.18-120 a few cars after Boone, and I headed back to find Rachael in the lanes. We were about 5 sets from getting her second run in, when they cut off the class car lanes, and went to Daily Driver. I walked back over to the pits to get the Satellite and see what everyone else was up to. Darren was still knee deep in the Charger, and since the next hour and a half would be DD cars, he didn't need to rush. I walked over to where Dale had the Gremlin's Dominator tore apart, and was looking at Boone's time slip.
"You going to run again?", I looked at Boone.
"Nope, I'm Done... that thing had me white knuckled after 330 feet! Kept dragging me towards the wall, then once I got in Drive, the front end felt like it was floating and I was just praying for the finish line!
Darryl walked over with his time slip.
"You going back up?"
"Nope", Darryl shook his head, "not interested in sitting in the lanes, simmering in my own sweat for another identical E.T.!"
"Thought you wanted a 10.99?"
"Well, if it went 11.04, I might try again, but it's not getting there in this soup, no way".

Ok, two down, four to go, and I headed to the lanes in the Satellite. Forty-five minutes later I pulled into the left lane, as nervous as I'd been in quite some time, because I have virtually no seat time in this car. I launched, hit the horn (N20) at about 60ft., watched the tach jump past five grand, then shifted to neutral! Let off the N20 and the gas, found second, nailed both again, then shifted to neutral a second time. Finally found drive, then just half throttled it to the finish, 13.84-82, and embarrassingly wriggled my way back to the lanes. I had the exact same luck as Rachael, getting all the way to the front, only to get cut off and told they were running the class cars again. At least I didn't have to walk far to help her get ready! I turned on the bottle as she got situated, and reminded her to only use it from 60ft. until about a 1000ft., then drive it on through. She drove the Belvedere perfect, and we had an opening day 12.17-113, almost identical to her first day run last year! I went back over, leaned on the fender of the Satellite, and watched the remainder of the class car 2nd session for about 20 minutes, when Rachael walked up to me.
"The Belvedere won't go into reverse..."
"It doesn't have reverse? Like it just goes into neutral?"
"No...like it locks up and won't move!"
"OK", I shook my head, "I'll have to look at it after my run."

The Charger, and the Gremlin, were nose to tail, and quickly made their way through the staging lanes. Darren laid down a no bottle 12.89-106, and Dale followed him down that lane with an 11.000-122, barely denied a 10 second run to start his drag week out. I pulled around into the left lane water box, directly behind a certain purple duster. I glanced to the right lane, and realized he was racing a certain silver Aussie valiant charger... and I had the best seat in the house! Faraone took his time spooling up the Valiant Charger, so it wasn't a side-by-side match. But Eddie's 8.71-152 to John's 8.52-164 was still enjoyable from where I was at! 120 feet into my run, the bottle ran out, and I was still struggling with the shifter, this was just not my day, 15.90-74!