After reading the great post about Drag Week I decided to share my first National event experience.... It was awesome! A few weeks ago we heard that Raceway Park was going to send the Winner and runner-up of Sunday May 25ths 11.50 index class to the Summernationals as part of the show. I am not to good at deep staging or at leaving on a pro tree but my close friend is so for the first time in 25 years plus of racing I vacated the drivers seat for him to drive 11secdart.after two time shots at our local track we ventured to ETown, we qualified #1 with a 11.50 with a two and he was 001 on the tree . awesome! we would have had the bye but there was an even # of cars , we won first round, had a bye second and lost a close race in the semis. Close but no cigar but wait! The track called on Memorial Day... we were in, the runner up was going for another track and because of being # 1 qualifier we were in ... Cool. We arrived at ETown Sat. at 7.30 A.m. to pick up our credentials... three all event passes free of charge Wow! I have to say that outside of the Bracket Finals I have never really had much dealings with NHRA officials, from the credential trailer ladies, tech officials to the guy riding around on the scooter to inform us of when we would run everybody was courteous , professional and helpful and made the experience all the more enjoyable. Little things that happened during our time there will last in my memory for a lifetime and made this one of the highlights of my racing career. I strive to keep 11secdart clean and looking good despite its 20 year old paint job and it was worth it as countless people pointed at it and took pictures, So Cool!!! it sounds good also even with mufflers as people noticed. A few times on the way to the staging lanes( I was following on a scooter) an officer/ security guard at the head of the lanes stopped the heavy foot traffic to let us thru, the looks and pointing at the car were priceless, It meant so much to me that after 32 years of owning the Dart people still like it and notice it. I practically melted after the next item, we were sitting about four cars back from the burn out box when there was a slight delay on the track.... Roy Johnson walks up to the car and starts looking it over then came up and talked to me and my friend/driver for about 20 minutes about the car and his early days working in a dealership and racing, what a super nice down to earth guy you would never know that he builds the baddest Mopar Pro stock engines on the planet, I almost had a liquid accident in my pants I was so excited, it sure made my day, week , month etc. Now to the racing we qualified #3 out of eight and lost a close ( about two inches) first round but we still had a ball... btw the Winner and runner-up of 11.50 index were both Mopars. I/we already have a game plan on how to improve for future 11.50 index races and the NED Dutch Classic in Reading Pa. in October, I will continue to drive weekly in Street Eliminator and my friend will drive the index races. I / we loved the whole National meet experience it was a blast, I even saw a few Moparts people. Hemi-itis and Valiant Rich, Thanks for stopping by. pic below not from ETown

Couldn't happen to a nicer racer !

Congrats ! Must have been a great feeling to race at that event !

Awesome ! Really happy for you.

Congrats for getting there and having some fun

Very cool seeing so many guys I know from the forums. These are from Saturday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMWwRz2oReg

Congratz for making the show

Rich https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai9I_IPBrYo

Mike

Awesome story thanks for sharing, sounds like a great time

Great looking car too

drag345

Thanks Tony, Al and everybody ,great pictures, thats my friend/driver Jeff Rahner with 11secdart btw that SS/AM Duster was really nice , it won the Best Appearing Award