It was a forty minute clean-up, and the announcement was made that the first session cut-off had been moved back all the way to 11:30AM, virtually guaranteeing that no SME cars would see the track until Noon. The natives were getting restless, and even Hemi Joel found time to get away from his Ford buddies and come by to check on us.

The first set down after the clean-up featured Dave McKenna's 66 Belvedere.
"Is that OUTLAWD?" Boone asked, looking up from draining the oil out of the 512.
"I thought he was on the 'early run, one and done' program", Dale chimed in.
"Up until now, he has been", I agreed, "but this is Indy, home of the Big Go, so maybe he wanted more than one run down the fabled track."
"Then he got a front row seat to an extended oil clean-up" Dale laughed.
"The Drag Week Gods are fickle, I'm sure if that's the worst thing that happens to him all week, he'll take it", I shrugged.

I had changed the bottle in the Belvedere for Rachael, changed the oil on the Valiant, and was pretty much just standing around at that point, when Boone noticed me fidgeting.
"Are you going to try and get a hit in the first session?"
"No, they are calling for a hard cut-off at 11:30, and the lanes are stacked full after that clean-up, so it would be a waste of time. I'll just wait for the final session with you guys!"
"Good point, I guess...you've already made that drive back to the pits once, and you weren't very happy!"
"I think I'll grab my camera and get some pics...we never seem to get quite enough!"

I walked over to David Pearson's 70 Charger first, as I had heard the call go out for an 8 3/4 third member earlier. We had a 3.23 we brought as a spare that I would offer if they could make it work. When I made an inspection of the parts they had on the ground beside the car though, I realized we couldn't help them. What they really needed was a correct length axle! The first 1/4 inch of male splines on the axle, and the outside 1/4 inch of female splines in the third member were sheared off. With no more contact than that, I was surprised the 13 second, 4000lb machine had made it this far!