Rachael was faunching at the bit for another pass, and I just decided if I couldn't calm her down, I might as well join her.
"I'll follow you up in the Valiant", I told her, as she was already back behind the wheel despite the hood still in the up position.
"Look...if it feels as good as it did on that last pass, you're going to have to lift early. But if it spins, or you are late on the N20 button, or it does anything stupid in the front half, run it out the back!"
She nodded in affirmation, and pulled her helmet back on, as Skippy lowered the hood.

By this time, there were only a handful of cars still making runs. Some, because they had yet to hit their goals for the day, some were chasing problems, and some were wringing out every hundredth they could, in an attempt to try and stay in the hunt for their respective classes.

The latter group included three of the six Street Race Small Block NA cars which still had nine second averages for the week. Roberts and Tabscott were trading body blows all day at the head of the pack in their chevies, making run after run to shave off hundredths. The third was Paul Corman's Demon. Paul was the defending class champ, and he had been blindsided on day one by the onslaught of fast cars challenging for supremacy in Drag Week's most competitive class. His willingness to punish the green a-body had rewarded him with a move from 6th to 4th by Wednesday, putting a pair of C-6 Corvettes and a pair of fox body Mustangs in his rear view mirror for the rest of the week.

Hunter's 56 Chevy, and McGilton's Big bucks Zl-1 '13 Camaro were loading up their trailers and preparing for the trip ahead, apparently deciding that giving up a tenth to Blasco's Dart on hump day would have to be good enough. Only 6 of the initial 12 Pro Street Power Adder entries were still in the battle, so perhaps survival was the smart call.

I was directly behind Rachael, sitting in the water box, when she launched the Belvedere, and it was fairly obvious by the time she made the one-two shift that the ole 440 was making a stout pass.
"Better get out of it!" I shouted into my helmet.
The starter motioned at me to begin my burnout as an 11.53 at only 100 mph flashed on the scoreboard.
"NICE", I breathed a sigh of relief, "now we can call it a day!"
My pass was anything but nice, with a bad hesitation at the hit, followed by spinning, but by the time I clicked second, I had put it behind me, deciding instead to focus on the track, and my surroundings as we traversed a quarter mile I may never see again. The 10.66-126 was nothing of note, but I enjoyed the run in spite of the numbers.

When I returned to our pit spot, and pulled up behind Dale's Gremlin, all I saw were somber faces gathered around his engine. It became fairly evident that my prediction of "calling it a day" was not even remotely close!