Boone closed the hood on the Valiant, and asked if I was ready to head for the lanes.
"Yeah, I'm ready to go, how about you?"
"I'll be right behind you" he assured me, but he walked over to the Gremlin to check on Dale's progress.

Cars had been pounding the track for forty-five minutes, but the lanes were still packed when I rounded the corner. Sean Fling waved me into lane six, as he coned off the back of lane five. Apparently they were filling, and pulling the lanes in pairs, rather than taking four or five cars from each lane as they had most of the week.

Parking in lane six meant I had a front row seat to lane 7 which I heard Freiburger announce earlier as the "impound and exhibition" lane. The "and exhibition" part of that statement didn't sink in immediately, but it became very frustrating once I saw all the guys who were disqualified or hadn't completed each leg using that provision to get fast tracked to the head of the lanes, and making runs before guys that were actually still in competition. As I mentioned earlier, Sunday through Thursday this Drag Week was among the best; smooth, well organized, great facilities, but Friday was like a bad ending to a really great movie. I walked back to where Boone was parked, about ten cars behind me, and noticed that Sean had coned the lane off behind him.
"How close is Dale to being ready?"
"He should be up here in fifteen minutes or so", he shrugged, "who are they running right now?"
"They just cleared out 1 and 2, so now they will be pulling out 3 and 4." I decided against telling him about what I'd witnessed in lane 7, because I knew he'd be making a scene at the head of the lanes, and we really didn't need that.
He looked at the lanes, and pulled his phone out of his pocket "It's going to be a while. Rachael was cooking, and I'll see if her and Skippy can fix us a plate and bring it down."
"Something to drink too", I added before he dialed.
"I have drinks already", he pointed towards the passenger's seat of the Barnyard.