"If you're adding race gas, why aren't you adding timing?" John was looking at me over the top of his glasses, "It runs fine on pump gas when you hammer it on the street, so you should try more timing here."

Boone, John and I had been discussing what was needed to give the Valiant a chance to make up the ground I needed on Glenn Bridger and his 68 Camaro. I had checked the results from Cordova, and our runs were separated by a thou, so I still needed six hundredths to catch him. Glenn had already made a pass, probably about the seventh set down, but Lohnes and Freiburger were bragging so much on five time class winner Curt Johnson and his N/A Fox Body in the other lane, that they never announced Bridger's ET.
Our pits were at a spot close to the entrance, with easy access from the return road, but it was impossible to see the score boards from there, so I still had no idea what I was up against, or if he was going to make another pass.

"It didn't really respond to timing on Brian's dyno at IMM", I protested, even though I already had the light hooked up.
"Sure, but what fuel did he have in it", John wasn't taking no for an answer, "Listen, it's hot, it's sticky...you're adding 118 to the mix, bump it up!"
I added three degrees, and we had just shut the 428 off when we heard a car rumble through the gate with horn blaring.
We looked up to see the Trapnell Brothers driving in with four people in the purple Holden Monaro, all waving Australian flags and foam fingers with "Oi!" printed on them.
I stepped back from the Valiant, cupped my hands to my mouth and yelled "Aussie, aussie, aussie" at the top of my lungs. They responded with a chorus of "Oi, oi, oi", as they drove by, followed with more horn blaring and waving as they made their grand entrance, clearly excited to have arrived at the final track.
"We didn't see them at Cordova did we?"
"No", Boone agreed, "last time we saw them was when we left Union Grove at 10:30pm."
"They promised they would make Cordova by 2:00pm and we left before then, so I suppose they could have made it", I shrugged.
Their emotional entrance had thrown me off my thoughts at the moment and I promptly laid my arm across the fender-well header while reaching to tighten the distributor down. I walked over to the cooler to put some ice on it, but Opal took over and made me up a baggie of ice water to hold on it.
"I'll find you some burn creme for that somewhere", she shook her head, "or it's going to get much worse before the day is over".