Watching the live feed later on, it was understandable why so many competitors were already on their way to Martin by the time we arrived. The first hour of class car time runs had went by in near flawless fashion, with only Mike Burroughs' shredding and tossing of a Gilmer belt from his Pro-charger to slow up the action.

Corey Pant's small block 74 Duster improved by eight hundredths and a mph over their Monday run, carding a 10.82-124.5, likewise for Dave McKenna (OUTLAWD) who's 66 improved four hundredths, so they were both one, done, and on their way to US131.

The surprise for me in that first hour was the sighting of Ross Dudley's yellow 68 Road Runner among the class cars. He's always ran Street Machine Eliminator, and I know he had an R signifying that class on his windshield in Columbus, but you are allowed that first day to switch classes, and he clearly had a K on there in Norwalk. My guess was that he determined the cut-off for the quick 32 was going to be well below the 11.50 limit for no-bar cars, so he might as well move to a class so he could get the early shot at the track. Ross installed a small N20 plate a couple years ago to get him right on the 11.50, but this year he was back in the 11.90-12.00 range so I suspect he was running NA.