I jerked wide awake at 5:30AM, and made my way over to the motel window. It was raining outside, which is usually not a welcome sight for a drag racer on the morning of a race, but I desperately wanted to sleep in, and anything that would push the race back an hour or two was OK by me. My alarm seemed to go off fifteen minutes later, but when I went to shut it off it was clearly 8:30AM. This gave me just enough time to shower, pack my stuff and make it down for the last fifteen minutes of the free continental breakfast, and missing that was not negotiable!
Dale had asked me to bring my logbook down to the breakfast table and we looked at my limited amount of nitrous run data together. I only had six runs, three with the trans-brake, three foot-braking. "The sixty foots are nearly identical, but the 330' E.T.s are better on the footbrake runs", I pointed out. "I think it's wrong to assume the sixties are the same. The car clearly leaves harder on the brake, but it takes you so long to find the nitrous button that your trans-brake 60ft. times are identical whether you run N20 or not. Not the case on the footbrake, where the nitrous runs are quicker...so you are getting on the nitrous around 30 feet out and exiting the 60' at a higher speed, which is worth almost two tenths by the 330, and that's two tenths that we seriously need!" "Yeah, I suppose, it's more fun on the brake though", I mumbled. "Then put a darn full throttle switch and timer on it," he shook his head while still studying the numbers. "It's really not running well in the back half though...what do the plugs look like?" "Umm, don't have a clue". "What?" "I haven't pulled one yet, but it's the same set I ran last year". "I'm going to take you out back and shoot you! You want to complain about it popping, but you can't take the time to pull one plug? When we get to the track, I want you to screw a brand new set in it before you do anything else! Understand?" "Yeah, I get you, new plugs, more nitrous...blah, blah blah!"
The first two days had went pretty well for Ray Meyers and the Black Pearl 67 Barracuda in SSSBNA. The only two competitors in the class that had ran faster than him Monday were out, and he had thirteen hundredths in the bank over his nearest competitor. Ray once again opened the session at US131, but he spun and only went 10.03. Fifteen minutes later second place in the class, Jeff Sias' 90 Mustang coupe with a stick, laid down a moonshot 9.79-136.70. Stuff just got real, and Ray wasn't going to get out the gate so quick on hump day, he still had some work to do! Despite a nice opening pass Dave McKenna(OUTLAWD), decided to stick around for another run at US131 as well. His 66 was printing out effortless 11.60's.
"Livin' in a powder keg and givin' off sparks"
4 Street cars, 5 Race engines
