Only three of the SDAC group made it down before a third gen Camaro in the other lane dropped trans fluid on the first 120 feet of the track. Ordinarily you would expect that to upset guys who hadn't made it to the lanes yet, but we were hoping it meant Lonnie Grimm would extend the amount of track time available because of the clean-up.

In the relative quiet while they worked on the track I heard Boone yell at Billy to shut off the fuel. I looked up to see him once again standing next to the passenger's fender with his fuel jug, and the drain line once again attached to the return on the log style regulator.
"Did you fill the engine with fuel again?" I asked as I walked over, and noticed that the breather was off the carb.
"No", Boone shook his head, "I had my eye on the vents, and told him to shut it down when fuel shot out."
"Find another way, Boone", I growled through clenched teeth.
"I just don't understand why it won't work that way, it shouldn't be a problem."
"I don't know why, and I don't care why", I threw my hands in the air, "It's not working, so do something different!"

Rachael came back with a 12.36-111, so I told her to go back up for a third run, but she said she would follow me up, when I had the Valiant ready to go. It was only about twenty minutes after the call for the third all-run session went out that Rachael and I headed to the lanes, but it had already thinned out dramatically when we drove up.

I was a Molotov cocktail of nerves, sleepiness, sugar and caffeine when I rolled into the burnout box. As I staged, I decided to foot-brake the Valiant so I could have my hand on the shifter and my thumb poised on the nitrous button. The track was getting warmer and a little greasy at this point in the day and the Hoosiers weren't completely stuck at the launch. The Valiant body-rolled hard toward the passenger's side, and when I touched the button, it lifted the front tires and set them down well out of the groove. Suddenly I was headed for the center line, so I lifted off the nitrous and shifted to second as I cranked the wheel hard left to get it back straight in the groove. I grabbed the bottle again, but it popped and cracked all the the way through the top of second and the bottom of third, even when I lifted off the nitrous at eleven hundred feet, the engine never cleaned up to the finish line.
"What a pathetic, pathetic pass that was", I thought to myself as I drove up to the time-slip booth. 10.137-127.59 was not what I was looking for, but I didn't have time for major changes, so it might have to do.

Rachael walked up with a glum look on her face and handed me a 12.58-109.8, and a mumbled explanation that it just wasn't pulling hard.
"Let's see", I scratched my head as I looked at all the assembled numbers, "You went 11.93-115 yesterday, then 11.97-113, 12.36-111 then 12.58-109 today..."
"Yeah...and I wasn't like, lifting or anything, because it just doesn't feel real strong!"
My tuning abilities are questionable at best, I was far from being as cognitive as I needed to be, and my driver's input was vague, but even I could figure this one out.
"You need a fresh bottle in that pig!" I explained to her as I handed back the slips.