Early in the first session for class cars US131 was showing off some teeth, as Shane McClelland's Crusty Nova and Brad Dyer's 72 Nova both did huge wheel stands, and a couple of other competitors tossed driveline parts out. Corey Pant's green Duster and Ross' yellow Road Runner were probably the first Mopars ready to hit the road for Indy, as they made good runs within the first thirty minutes of track time, and turned in those slips.

Many racers either start suffering on Wednesday, and see their average begin to fall apart, or they figure stuff out. It was as if Rick Trunkett looked around and decided to step up and take the "Quickest Mopar" plaque for his own at Martin. The Duster already had a pair of 8.80's, but upped the ante with a little more power down low and the R-3 small block responded with a great 8.56-162.8. David Meyer and the TT528 Hemi in his 66 Belvedere continued to trend in the right direction also, following up his 4 tenths improvement on Tuesday, with another two tenths on Wednesday, and his first nine second run. He turned in the 9.90-146.2 that he carded on his only attempt. Randy Heinselmann seemed to be happy with his wedge to hemi switch, as the 70 Cuda continued to lay down good numbers, leaving Martin with a 9.73-139.

Ray made it back around for a second hit in his Barracuda just an hour and five minutes after opening the proceedings, that's a stark contrast to the two previous days which saw the lanes stacked full early on. His 9.851-134.87 would ultimately prove to be the Gen-3 Hemi's best run of the week, but it still meant he would give up 6 hundredths of his lead in SSSBNA to Jeff Sias' Mustang, which had won the class over Ray in 2015!