Sixteen minutes after the meeting ended, the first two cars staged to open the official racing. The CBK team trio of John Dodson (blue 80 Malibu), Jason Doisher (tan Mercury Marquis wagon), and James Karger (white "lstuners.com" fox notch) were the first in line. Realizing that they needed multiple passes to run as close to 8.500 is one thing, but how did they manage to coordinate being first in the lanes? We were still trying to get our pits in order, and none of us were even remotely ready to race.

Corey Pant and his 74 Duster came up 3 sets later, but he spun the tires hard at the hit, and an 11.10 wasn't going to work for him, so he would be back in line. A couple of pairs later Mark Gissendaner stood his 40 Chevy B-Gas "Gizzo Gasser" on the rear bumper for the first "Oh, wow" from Brian Lohnes of Drag Week 2017. Ten minutes in and Scott Hendrix's 70 Duster Twister was the first Mopar to toss down a good number and be ready to hit the road. His 10.65-124.6 in Pro Street NA was two tenths quicker than his only pass of DW16.

Hot Rod Drag Week 2017 was off to an awesome start, with 38 cars down the track in the first twenty minutes before they took five to drag the first 60 feet.

Rachael and I dropped the exhaust off the Valiant, let the air out of the rear tires, backed the timing down, and bolted a fresh nitrous bottle in. Then I grabbed an empty fuel jug and went off in search of the Rockett brand fuel truck. I bought 4 gallons of 114 and headed back to our pit. Even though the first session was going remarkably smooth, getting sent back to the pits at the end of the first session last year still had me leery, and I was determined to just wait for the all-run session to head to the lanes.

Ten, fifteen, twenty more sets of cars ripped down the track with nary a problem. Radar Watson would accept his initial hit of 12.31-111, and the big Fury was packing up for the trip to St. Louis. Squirrel would also be happy with the A/FX Chevy II's 10.24-131, but I knew that Dan and he would likely stick around to help Brian Kohlmann with his 31 Chrysler A/Fuel Altered.