Despite the fact that Rachael and I arrived fifteen or twenty minutes before Boone and Dale, the Barnyard Viper followed us into the lanes. Boone is pretty quick at converting the truck over from pack mule to strip ready. I pulled up beside the 69 Chevelle of Darryl Yost, which appears to be your typical hot rodded SS 396. While the body and the stance say boulevard cruiser, the drive train, featuring a pro-charged 540, and a G-force 4 speed, align more with the full cage on board. He had a 9.82 on day one, but had made four runs to get it, so I figured I had a chance to get to the finish line first.
The Valiant still had a slight hesitation when I slammed the holley wide open, but it pulled quite nicely, and I shifted to second at 6400, hit third at 6200, and looked over my shoulder for the Chevelle. Reminiscent of my T-stop SST days, he just appeared out of nowhere as we hit the stripe, but I got the win light. I followed the Chevelle up the return road, and was handed a 10.39 time slip, that thrilled the heck out of me. I had no sooner let out a whoop, and started to pull away from the booth, than the beautiful rumble of the small block turned into a thud, thud, thud that sounded like it might be hitting on two cylinders! I shut it off and coasted over to the edge of the pavement, before entering the scale area, and stepped out of the car to have a look under the hood.