As soon as I walked into the tower, I realized that I had left my camera with my pictures from last night's checkpoints in the car, so I called Rachael to bring it up to me. That saved me the trouble of walking back for it, and had the added benefit of allowing me more time to soak up the air conditioning. With less than ten minutes of time on the clock, Darren finally approached the starting line again. The big Charger belched a little black smoke when the nitrous hit 30ft. out, but it stayed straight and hooked up. The 440 sounded very crisp all the way through, and I startled a few people in the tower with my fist pump, and "YES!", when the 11.62-119.9 flashed on the board.
Rachael arrived, and I finished the process of showing the pictures, turning in the slip, then getting both a written official hot rod slip, and the driving directions to the next track. We were halfway down the tower stairs when Boone met us on his way up, time slip in his hand, and a nasty burn mark on the inside of his forearm.
"What the heck did you do?"
"Darren came around for that pass as time was running out, and called me to say his car wouldn't start! So I looked under it and saw the neutral safety switch wire hanging down." He shook his head, "He had to get out and lift up on it just to give me room to get to it, and then it's right next to the exhaust... it got me good!"
"Did you bring your pictures?"
"No, Dang it!, Dad has them on Darren's I-pad, and he'll have to show them for Dale and Darren both so I better call him to come up here!"
"Yep! go sit in the AC and wait for them, that will make you feel a little better!"
Rachael and I went over to check out the HOT ROD Indy shirts, and my phone rang, it was Darryl.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"It's not!, I'm sitting in the middle of I-70 not moving at all!" he exclaimed.
"What the heck is happening?"
"We are in a one lane construction area, and a couple of tractor-trailers got tangled up, pretty bad, so they shut us down. I think they have a detour set up now, but those of us who were already on here are just stuck!"
"Wow, well we are just finishing up, haven't even started packing yet." I informed him.
"I hit some rain over by Terre Haute also", He added, "pretty good down pour, so tell your brothers to be careful!"
"Alright, talk to you a little later", I hung up. Considering the sticky, hot miserable day we had been through so far, afternoon thunderstorms shouldn't surprise me in the least, but we have two cars on ET Streets, so I was hoping for dry roads!