The clouds were just as ominous, but the rain was gone, and the parking lot was nearly dry.
"Where are they?" I asked Rachael
"Still a little ways out, twenty or thirty minutes."
After a brief shopping trip at Wal-Mart, we headed out to the track, and watched several Drag Week competitors turn into the airport, even though the route sheet clearly said turn left AFTER the airport entrance.
I made the 975 mile trek to S.C.R.A. Dragstrip from Phoenix three times in the previous decade to race NHRA division 5 races, so I was pretty familiar with the layout of the facility. The pits/return road is a WWII era expanse of broken, cracked concrete wide enough to handle The B-29 Superfortress in it's former glory, and home to the 1955 NHRA Nationals. Rachael and I drove four or five pit spots past the last people in line hoping to be able to hold spots for the other guys, but there were still a large number of racers just rolling in, and we were barely able to hold onto enough real estate for all five of us.

I went to grab a couple of gallons of race fuel for Rachael, and on my way back to our pit got a text from Opal, "Left a cup of Hot Chocolate in your trunk on the fuel cell." Ever had somebody give you something you didn't even know you needed? Dang, that hit the spot!
Everywhere you looked, the t-shirts of the previous three days were replaced with fire jackets and hoodies, for a desert dweller, I could feel it to my bones.