Warren Witmer's Blue 68 convertible Camaro, with white stripes and white top pulled alongside Jeff Gallagher's white 66 Mustang in the water box. The pair of small tire, 10 second, first gen pony cars made for a visually striking race.
"Gallagher qualified tenth, and Witmer is twenty-third", I explained.
"The Mustang got the tree", Boone observed.
Gallagher used the hole shot to win, despite running further over his number.
"I don't know why these guys are racing the stripe so hard", Dale shrugged, "with a tenth cushion, and the moisture in the air tonight, a breakout is almost impossible!"

Brian Peterson had brought his 1980 C-3 'Vette all the way from Denmark to qualify number 5 in the Quick 32, but he couldn't get around Dino Cardella's 98 Trans-Am, who went 11.02 on his 10.99 dial. Peterson was only seven hundredths off his 10.33 number.
"What about those two?" Boone pointed at the scoreboard then turned to Dale and shrugged.
"Power-adder cars", Dale returned, "and they turned 'em up!"

Benny Adkins brought his bright blue 74 Ventura up in the next set with a 10.94 on the window. He was paired against Jeremy Wilson's Artesian Turquoise 66 Nova, which won the Drag Week 2015 SME Class. It looked like a good race on the track, but The Pontiac couldn't run the number, so the Nova paced him to take the stripe by a couple hundredths, and ran a 10.53 on his 10.43 number.
"Textbook win for the faster car", Dale stated.
"Yeah", Boone agreed, "but I think he gave some up on the tree, which makes no sense for someone with as much pro tree racing experience as Jeremy."
"He'll need to tighten that up if he wants to repeat", I observed, "all these guys are going to give him their best shot."