Opal jumped in the Belvedere with Rachael, and they headed off to Wal-Mart to re-stock the coolers, while the rest of us headed to a car wash to clean some of the week's road grime off our rides. We arrived at the the track just in time to hear Freiburger and Lohnes drop the bombshell that nine Drag Weekers had been eliminated from competition because they had been caught miles off the route, cruising down a major interstate Thursday afternoon!

"All of those competitors that were eliminated will still be allowed to run today, this is not a 'vote 'em off the island kinda deal", Freiburger explained, and with that they moved on to the next announcement. Which kinda left many of us in limbo.
"What if you're in a class, battling for fourth or fifth, and the top two guys just went out", Boone questioned. "You won't know you were in a battle for a top three spot until the awards ceremony!"
"Could happen", I agreed "but I'm glad they didn't out of them over the loud speaker, they've been kinda heavy handed over the years with some of that stuff."
Dale laughed, "So you're telling me I have a chance!"
"Maybe...if all nine were Modified Power Adder cars", I joked.
"Hey! I was fifth after yesterday, so I only need a couple of them out!"
"You know, when I saw only one checkpoint, that close to the start of the route yesterday, I suspected quite a few would jump off route, but I sure didn't expect nine to get caught!"

Twenty minutes later, word spread through the pits that Romano and Hunter were included in the nine.
"The 55 and the 56? Geez, those guys have been on the cover of the magazine, they are like Drag Week royalty!" I exclaimed.
"Remember that conversation we had about the rules only taken seriously when they have teeth", Boone reminded me, "Everyone knows that a guy got black-balled from Drag Week in '06 for loading his car in a trailer, and that became like touching the third rail. If they enforced the route deviation rule on those two guys, that sends the message to everyone else that they are serious!"