We collected our official time slips, then picked up our route sheets for the evening drive. I quickly flipped it to the back so I could check the total miles.
"Only 153 tonight", I breathed a sigh of relief, "That makes me feel a little better about the repairs I've got to deal with!"
"Piece of cake, brother", Dale clasped his big right hand onto the top of my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "But tell me, since math isn't my strong suit...does that twenty-four hundredths the Gremlin put on the Valiant today wash away your two day advantage?"
"You know it does, but tomorrow is a return to Union Grove, and if I remember correctly, the Gremlin didn't enjoy the last visit there!"
"Don't remind me", Dale laughed as we walked along the fence to catch the last cars running before returning to our pits.

"This is the guy that is 2nd in my class", Dale pointed as Matt Bryson staged up his four eyed hatch back fox body.
The 8.97-151 was impressive given the weather and track conditions, but it was a full tenth and two mph off his Monday pace. Terry Miller's red 3rd gen Firebird, who was a tick behind Bryson, holding down 3rd in Modified NA was up next, but blew the tires off early, so he would have to settle for the 9.04-154 he ran earlier.
"He's had MPH on Bryson all week, but can't ET with him", Dale shook his head, "Gotta be driving him crazy!"
Rick Steinke's "Honk if parts fall off" 67 crew cab Chevelle was up next. They had left Cordova with a share of the SRSBPA lead, having turned in a nearly perfect 8.509-160 mph. But while a 9.46 on day two ruined their chances to finish in the top three of the class, the broken transmission that led to the poor showing threatened to saddle them with a DNF! They limped to the motel, pulled the trans, and rebuilt it in the motel bathtub just to get to Byron, so getting an opportunity to stage the car in the last few minutes of track time was a real victory. The 8.69-159 got all of us excited.
"Love the thrash, and send it stories!" Boone smiled.
"Yeah", I agreed, "They usually don't work out as well as that, though."

Steve Morris brought Clark Rosentengal's twin turbo 2010 Camaro back into the water one more time, and while the LSX sounded great the car just didn't seem to move out of the hole. The 8.98-167 definitely wasn't what they were looking for, and it seemed the problem that held them to an 8.23 earlier in the day was only getting worse.

That left only two cars in the lanes: John Faraone's Valiant Charger, who was trying to stay ahead of Matt Blasco's Dirty Drag Week Dart for the "Quickest Mopar" plaque, and Tom McGilton's TT 2013 ZL1 Camaro which was holding off Matt Blasco for 2nd place in Pro Street Power Adder, but was trying to stay with Glenn Hunter's 56 Belair, which had run 7.53 earlier in the day.

Faraone left extremely soft for about 80 feet, then really ramped the power in. The big predator headed wedge lifted the front tires slightly and started driving the Valiant towards the center line. The last ditch nature of the effort precluded John from lifting, and he deftly tip-toed the 3900lb A-body down the stripe until it finally just clipped the foam blocks for the eighth mile ET and MPH, forcing him to lift and manhandle the old girl back into his lane, finishing with an 8.72-167.

"Another rough year for John", Dale shook his head, "He deserves better!"
"I doubt that pass will count" Lohnes explained over the PA, "and we will get that debris cleaned up and let Tom run without eighth mile clocks!"

We were headed back to our pits when Rick caught up to us.
"Billy!" He held his phone up in front of me, "I got a killer shot of your awesome wheelie!" "That was so cool! Everyone in the stands was blown away! It was great!"
I spun to lock him in my gaze and spat the words out through gritted teeth. "It WASN'T cool...sure, maybe from the bleachers, but in the car it SUCKED Rick!" Now the front-end is knocked out of alignment, and who knows what other damaged occurred...it wasn't COOL at all!"
I regretted the outburst an instant after it happened. His shoulders slumped and he had a wounded look on his face. "Man...I'm sorry, I thought you would be excited..."
"I didn't mean to snap at you Rick", I attempted to apologize, "I'm just worried about the car..."
"Don't be", his smile came back and he slapped me across the back, "Sharma and I will get it off the ground and put an Oklahoma tape measure alignment on the beast that will have you back on the road in no time!"