The next pair in line behind Boone featured John Faraone's 72 Valiant Charger. With the news that Tom Bailey was out, John had already moved to second in the Unlimited class, and third overall if he could only repeat a pass close to his day 1 pace. The silver beast left incredibly well, and looked to be on a stellar run, but he clicked it at 1100ft. and the chutes were blossomed at the stripe. The 7.481 was only a tenth slower than Monday, but he scrubbed twenty MPH, down from 194 to 173.

Michelle would bring the Duster up two pairs later for a nice, smooth 11.26 at 121.5 that seemed to satisfy their hopes.
"Is that just all it has?" I asked Dale as the scoreboard lit up.
"No...not by a long shot...but it might be all it's got with a rookie tuner and a rookie driver trying to finish Drag Week, so as long as it keeps moving forward and putting down those numbers and they are happy, I'm happy."
Will walked over a few minutes later, and he wasn't happy.
"I've been talking to some of the other racers, and they tell me that at Byron you have to back into the burn-out box! What are we going to do with the Duster, do we need to look into the trans tonight?"
"Back into the burnout box?" I asked, "I've never heard that before".
"It's something new", Will explained, "Someone got hit by something flying out of the box, so they put up barriers to protect the cars and people behind them and that requires you to drive around then back up to the water."
"Listen", I decided to borrow Darren's phrase from earlier in the day, "It's not a National event, they'll be hosting street cars on their third track in three days with five hundred miles under their belt, so I'm sure leeway will be given."
"Yeah", Dale took up my train of thought, "She'll pull around the barrier, kick it in neutral, three of us will run out there and push it back in the water, and no one will say a word, guaranteed!"
"OK, if you guys say so, I just don't want her to get kicked out because of something like that", Will shook his head.
"Don't know why you're worried, she hasn't done a burnout all week", Bone interjected.
"Well, thank goodness you didn't say that in front of her", Will smiled, "I've been critiquing that very thing and she's pretty sensitive about it right now!"
After Will walked away, I gave Boone a slap on the back. "Dale and I are trying to save you, but if you want to be a joker maybe we should tell them to get it on stands. Then guess who is going to be on his back under that purple car for the next three hours!"
"Why does it matter to you?" Boone gave my shoulder a shove, "You and Rachael will be on the road to Byron in thirty minutes regardless of whether the rest of us are ready to move anyway!
"That's a fact right there!" Rachael exclaimed from the ground where she was installing the driver's side exhaust on the Valiant.
"Yep", I laughed, "call us the scout team this year...out in front, checking for danger!"
"Out in front, avoiding getting your hands dirty is more like it!" Dad piped in.

Rick brought the green 71 Dart under the tower, preparing for his first run of the day. He would have time to come back if anything went terribly wrong, but both he and Sharma were wore plum out, so I had a feeling that anything remotely representative would be good. The 11.53-115 was an improvement of two tenths and twelve mph over day 1 numbers, so they were ready to pack up and call it good.