We headed six miles up Raceway Road, until we hit US-40 west, which was stop light to stop light, and after a few phone conversations with the brothers, we decided to find a nice air conditioned restaurant and get out of the heat. Chili's wasn't my first choice, but since it was across the street from a Napa, and a block down from an O'Reilley's, it was agreed upon to stop there.
Once we cooled off, everyone was in good spirits, rehashing the days events, and planning what looked to be a fairly easy 210 miles in front of us. Dale wanted me to go over to Napa afterwards and look for some shocks for the Gremlin.
"You know what we went through with the Valiant, everything's going to be too long! What coil-over springs are under there?"
"110s"
"Which is great for holding up a bracket car on a drag strip, but as soon as you throw in a passenger, some luggage, and an extra 35lbs. of fuel, then drive down a rough public street.... they don't have a chance!"
"I know, at first I thought the shocks were broke, but after closer inspection, it's just completely destroyed the rubber bushings on the top mount!"
I looked over at Darren, "Why were you having trouble staying on the nitrous?"
"It's a column shift, reverse pattern, and I usually grab the shifter overhand to pull down. That put's my pinkie finger on the end where I taped the nitrous button on. Couldn't hold onto it, so I shifted underhand the second pass, that way I could use my thumb."
"Should've put a full throttle switch on it", James interjected.
"Say's the man with no right thumb!" Boone laughed, "You're just going to have to race without it James, you have to have thumbs to use nitrous, it's in the rulebook!"
"Shut up Boone!" James smiled, "Everyone else notices the thumb and they never say anything, you guys have been busting out thumb jokes since Saturday!"

I walked over to the NAPA, and explained to the manager what we were looking for, he was in his mid 20's, but really seemed to have a handle on things, and dug up a shock dimension book for us to comb through. We were looking at it when Kevin rolled by in the RX7 with the small-block chebby.
"Nice!" The manager exclaimed.
"Yeah, big inch small block! I don't know why guys build cars that small with big power, kinda crazy!"
"I've got a 240Z with a 540 BBC", he looked at me sternly.
"Cool...that's cool!" I tried to recover. Open mouth, insert foot... it's an acquired skill!