We made our way out of the tent to our cars, and John made a comment that the cruise back to Dale's house would be the first time he had the opportunity to run with us all of Drag Week. Then as Boone, Darren and I exited TRP, I found it odd that it didn't look like anyone else was following us. John finally showed up at Dale's about ten minutes after we arrived and got out of his Valiant shaking his head, "We need to take a truck and trailer back to the track to get Dale and the Gremlin, something broke in the front suspension!"

The next morning when we were checking it out on the trailer, Dale explained to me, "I just backed into a little pothole, and the next thing I knew the front tire was rubbing on the fender."

Much in the same way he had ripped the welded on ladder bar bracket out of the stock frame on day one, now he had done the same thing with the strut rod on the lower arm. Guess it might not have been such a terrible thing that he didn't get to launch with the front end in the air and try to go 140+ in the final of the shootout!