The first official pass of Drag Week 2016 was Dan Saitz's Turbo SBF 88 Mustang; yeah, a fox body with a small block Ford! Dan is one of the best heads up small tire racers the NMRA has to offer, so there was never going to be a question about his ability to throw a number on the board, but could he keep the monster alive for five days and a thousand miles?
Saitz's Mustang had an E on the windshield which meant he was in Modified Power Adder, the same class the Gremlin and Valiant were in. You could feel a collective gasp from all in attendance when the orange Fox opened the ceremonies by tossing down a 7.782-175.57 blast.
Fifteen minutes later Rick Prospero pulled to the line in his green Twin turbo BBC powered 90 RX7, also with an E on the windshield. Rick had won Modified Power Adder in 2015 with an 8.22 average, but fell short of the seven second times he had expected. Dale and I were in our pits when Rick and the Mazda lit up the boards with an astounding 7.53-189.
"You know if we can just stay within a couple seconds of them..."
"Yeah", Dale chuckled, "just to put a little pressure on them? Make sure they know we're right on their heels?"
"Yeah, something like that", I agreed, slowly shaking my head.
"Freiburger commented that he expected more seven second cars this year than ever before, and we've already seen two in the first twenty cars", Boone added.
"What exactly are you guys working on now?" I asked, as I realized they were once again playing with the wiring of the Duster.
"Installing the nitrous system. When we got through tech last night, we had all the lights and street stuff, the car starts and runs, but the solenoids are just sitting next to the plate with their pig tails. We have to wire them, put in a relay, a button, and a toggle, mount the bottle and run the line.
"Why don't you make a motor pass first", I shrugged, "You don't have any miles on it at all, we just broke in the cam!"
"I entered the Power Adder class because I intend to spray it!" Boone glared at me as if the mere suggestion was blasphemy.