We cleared the outskirts of Watseka, and came up to the bridge over the river Iroquois, and it had a makeshift stoplight and construction barriers, because it was one lane only on IL-1. This is the same river which we couldn't cross because of bridge construction on US-52. Who the heck is planning bridge projects in the Illinois Dept of Transportation?

Two miles down the road, all my brothers started calling me with questions about the possibility of stopping to eat. The fact that they chose to make this a priority after we were all split up into three different groups, after we just drove through a town with 10 or 15 eateries, and after seven at night did not make me happy, or agreeable to much, and I made that abundantly clear.
Dale must've drawn the short straw, because he called me back about thirty minutes later to let me know that they had found a Mexican restaurant in a strip mall next to a Wal-Mart, right before we jumped onto I-57. I live in Arizona, so my first thought was that I probably eat better Mexican food off Taco trucks than we were going to find in a strip mall in Illinois, but I went with the flow.
When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was that we had lost John and Opal. Dale explained that he tried to call them once they made the determination to stop, but John didn't answer. Obviously, in this instance, John was smarter than I was.

Actually it was quite a nice place, and they slammed four four tops together to accommodate us banquet, long table style. Shortly after the drink orders, everyone had their smart phones out, checking the Drag Weeker face book page, and looking up the days results on Hot Rod's website.
Rachael sucked a breath in and commented loudly, "The guy with that white Chrysler had a wreck today!"
"The 79 300, Dan?" I asked, motioning her to show me the post.
Sure enough, there was a picture of the late B-body sitting at the second checkpoint, with the passenger's fender shoved back considerably.
"You are in second place now!", Dale pointed at me, "That yellow Cars Camaro didn't show in Indy!"
"Oh, yeah, I heard a rumor about that last night", Boone added, "The Black Camaro he was with was having all kinds of overheating issues right out of St. Louis, so the two of them threw in the towel."
"I was fourth after day one. How did I get around the other red Camaro", I asked.
Dale was squinting at his screen, "You went 10.39 to his 10.50 today...so you're average is 10.465 to his 10.490!"
"That's going to be tight all the way back to St. Louis", Robert chimed in.
"You're third in B-Gas, Boone", Dale continued, "That gold metal flake Falcon never made it to Indy."