As I mentioned earlier with Tom Taylor, previous success at Drag Week doesn't mean you won't draw the short straw on your next attempt, Drag Week is a fickle and cruel mistress.
Coming into 2016 Matt Blasco and his 72 Dart were the 19th fastest car in Drag Week history with their 7.70-185 blast in 2015's Pro Street Power Adder Class, with one bad day preventing him from an all 7 second finish. Matt had problems on his first hit in 2016, only logging an 8.79-140 earlier, and I was hopefully expecting him to return to the lanes any time now.

Meanwhile, twenty five minutes into the final session Ev Bernardo pulled to the line in his 90 Mustang. Ev was 12th on the fastest car list with a 7.45-193 way back in 2010 with an Unlimited 68 Camaro.

Just as Ev began his burn out, Brian Lohnes announced that Elana Scherr had reported that the Blasco Dart was out with terminal transmission failure.
I looked at Boone, "dang it, that was over quick!"
"All the upgrades to improve on last year...and done in one shot", he shook his head.

On Ev's first pass, Brian explained that the Mustang belonged to one of his customers, and the motor was a mix of parts sourced from previous projects. It launched and got up on the turbo so quick he had to pedal once, then it really started to make steam, and the small tire car was moving hard to the 1/8th. The nose dipped noticeably at nine hundred feet, and a smoke cloud formed under the car. The slight wiggle of the rear bumper let every experienced fence jockey know that Ev was driving through his own oil. He fought it away from the left wall twice, but it finally got into the concrete once just after the stripe, and again three hundred feet further down, but Bernardo never once quit fighting for control, and wrestled the fox body all the way around the final turn-out.
"He did everything he could!" Dale critiqued
"Wow...that went from good to bad to worse in a heartbeat", I added. The 9.18-118 was of little consequence at that point.
We headed back to our cars in the lanes, looking at a protracted clean up, and a narrowing time window to get a good pass in.