I parked the Valiant in our spot, and Boone started putting it back in street trim as Dale and I tended to the Belvedere. We swapped out N20 bottles, at right about the same time it was being announced that Monte Smith was done filling N20 bottles after today, and would not be going back to Tulsa.
"You better get up there and get this one filled", Dale pointed at the one we had just pulled out, "It's your last chance to get a free fill on Drag Week!"
"This is the 4th day, we've used one on the whole trip, and I've got two full ones, I'm not worried about bothering him for a free fill."
"That makes no sense, you'll certainly use it at some point!" he shook his head.
"I've got plenty for this event, I'm a big boy and I'm fully capable of paying for what I use!"
I'm sure at this point he felt I was overreacting, but this was something that stuck in my craw from last year when we brought 3 cars all on Nitrous, and Dale's idea was to show up Monday morning and drop every single empty bottle we could dig up, buy or borrow at Monte's feet, and expect to run on free nitrous all Drag Week, and go home with full bottles! I appreciate what NOS has done for this event, and I appreciate the fact that Monte follows us around with 10 mother bottles to help all the N20 cars out, but at a certain point you are just abusing thier generosity.
We had the car all squared away, then Dale and Rachael left for the lanes. Dale called a few minutes later and had Darryl bring tools to the lanes, something about the unit not working right. All the guys who had close battles going on in the classes had crowded the lanes at the last second, because the word was already out that rain was in the forcast for Tulsa the next day, so none of them wanted to make that drive back in 2nd place! This delayed the Daily Driver class' first hit even more. Rachael didn't actually get her first run down the Memphis 1/4 mile until an hour and ten minutes after my last, and nearly 2 hours after Darryl's last attempt!
She left the line decent, hit the juice and the car ran great through the remainder of low, and the bottom of second, then just seemed to level out like she had lifted off the spray. 12.54-94, not good, but certainly workable, she would still be solidly into the 32 car field if we turned it in.

Dale came back into the pits, obviously agitated, and started yelling at me about the bottle being empty, and Grand Prix didn't fill it right, only pressure, no nitrous...now he was getting under my skin!
"You think I'm stupid? That bottle is a hell of alot heavier than the one I pulled out! Don't tell me it's not full!"
"Then it's plugged up or something!"
"Did you check the darned filter?"
I hate N20 filters with a passion, I really do, sure enough it was plugged.
"Let's just turn it in and get the heck out of here", I pleaded.
"No way, we're going back up!" was the answer I received from both Rachael and Dale in eerie unison. That spidey sense was starting to tingle again!