Dale stopped just through the water, then stomped the throttle to begin his burnout. The 440 promptly burbled and died...then the carb caught on fire. I was still next to the tower, behind Paul's Demon, so I could see the fire through the passenger's side of the Gremlin's windshield blazing away in the cowl scoop. I motioned to James, still standing in front of the Gremlin, and he quickly gave me a brush off sign while acting as nonchalant as possible. Apparently this is a regular occurrence with the Gremlin when the timing is backed off far enough to run both kits. Dale doesn't have any retard capabilities with his ignition system, so he has to pull it all out in the pits which results in a very lazy 440 in the burn-out box. Paul finished his burnout, and was preparing to stage while Dale was still cranking his over. It finally lit, sucked the flames down, then he promptly grabbed the bottle and throttle, sans line lock, and completed a hasty burnout to within a few feet of the beams.
The Gremlin left with the front tires about a foot up, nice and smooth, but even when he grabbed the second stage, I could tell it wasn't as violent as it has been, and I suspected that he had pulled out even more timing than he has in the past. Shortly after the gear change, I heard that sickening sound of it dropping a cylinder, Dale lifted for a split second then stabbed back into it and labored through to a 9.20-139 while the green Demon went 9.76-138.

Rather than walk directly back to our pit spot, I decided to make a concerted effort to look up Mr. Bridger and his Camaro. I'd been battling with him all week, but he was usually gone by the time we rolled in every day, so I hadn't spoke with him or even looked the car over. By the time I located it (there were about 10 red or orange first gen Camaros, so it's a bit of a shell game) I was surprised to see the trailer hooked to the back of the Camaro, and an open beer in the cup-holder, obviously his Drag Week 2015 was in the books. I was admiring the interior when I noticed a guy, late thirties, fairly close to the car, so I looked up.
"This yours?"
"No, it's my Dad's, he went to turn in his time slip."
"Did you ride with him all week?"
"Yeah, we had a great time...definitely worth it!"
"So it ran okay today?"
"Yeah", he gave me a big smile, "about the same as all week"!
Apparently my cover was blown, because he was not going to divulge any information whatsoever! His Dad, Glenn showed up a few minutes later, and I tried once again.
"How'd it run today?"
He glanced at his Son, and I caught a slight shake of his head.
"'Bout the same, you're not gonna run much better than fifties in this air, so we decided that was good enough."
"Well dang", I smiled a both of them, "I've got the Valiant and I was hoping for a side by side race in the second session!"
"The elder Bridger smiled and stuck out his hand, "I would've enjoyed that, but we decided to pack it in, and get our stuff loaded up for the trip home."
"Have a safe one", I told them as I shook both of their hands, "just not going to tell me the exact number I need to shoot for are you?"
"Nope", they were chuckling as I turned to head for our pits.
I checked my phone as I walked away and realized I had a text: "Scored you some burn creme", from Opal.