Apparently this is enough of a burn out on a Drag Radial? I don't know, seems conservative, but she has done more of them on these tires than I have.

Clark and I go round and round about the Chebbie Mopar debate. Cant wait to see him in person and ask him how he did in the shootout

Tina Pierce had the next choice, and decided to take on her fellow female competitor, and fellow twin turbo LS competitor in the form of Alex Taylor and her orange 68 Camaro.
Alex had been struggling to put the power down early in the small tire cal-trac Camaro all day, and that was the 17 year-old's down fall in this match against the tube chassis S-10 in an 8.88-153 to 9.51-152 contest.

Dale had the 5th choice, and he chose to race the heavyweight nitrous 70 Pontiac Grand Prix of Randy Belehar.

Randy got him on the tree, but in the end it was just too difficult to overcome the 850lb deficit!

The final pair was Nick Plewniak and the Stretchy Truck against Scott Klepinger's 3rd gen Camaro with turbo LS power. On paper, the mid-engine S-10 had a two tenths advantage, but Nick pushed the tree and just barely went red, handing the win to the traction limited small tire Camaro.

So, when the smoke cleared, there were six left, four turbo LS entries, and two stock stroke nitrous 440s! Rachael was the first of the six back to the lanes, and Dale was nearly the last, as John was once again trying to remove enough of the oil sprayed everywhere to keep it off the track, and James was swapping in a new nitrous bottle.

The last one back was Tina, with her S-10, and her husband was fussing over the truck trying to make sure it was ready for the next run.
Freiburger took the mic to Shane McClelland, as the fastest in the previous round and asked him who he wanted to race. He gazed across the lanes and answered "I'd like to race Mrs. Pierce". That got a raise from everyone, as she had been the second fastest, and had ran faster than him earlier in the day during Drag Week. I don't know if he felt they were vulnerable with the hot lapping, or if it was personal, but it was an interesting choice!

The Crusty Nova was up to the task, running a best of the week 8.36-167.43 to handle Tina's off the mark 8.79-156.75.

Scott Klepinger chose to race Rachael, and drove a sensible easy pass to end her fairy tale day. Figured you guys would think it was a nice touch that she left her wipers at half mast all day!

So, all in all Rachael put twenty passes on the Belvedere in a week, drove it every inch of the Drag Week course herself, and seemed to be the happiest I've seen her in a while! The win/win of course, was that through all that the car was still running!

That left Dale and the Gremlin known as "Spike" (evidently your car has to have a nickname if you want to be a famous, big time street or grudge racer? Not very original, and I suppose The Gremlin, or Gremmie would work, but I didn't have a say in the matter) up against the 93 Firebird they call "Nanner" (Ok, on second thought maybe Spike isn't so bad!).

Based on previous rounds, this should have been very close as their bests matched up as 9.00 to 9.12, but as soon as the tree came down, and the Firebird's nose didn't reach for the sky, it was over.

The run was not only an all time best for the Gremlin, it was personal best for Dale. Yep, his street car had just outran his race car! He's been faster than the 142.9, (the Gremlin is really gear limited on the nitrous) but the 9.081 was one tic better than the old AMX's 9.09!

While all this racing was going on, the Gasser class was continuing their tradition of staging all the cars together for pictures at the end of the event, all were still present except for the previously mentioned early departure of Keith's 55. I had to take a photo from each end to get them all!

The other side.

Jeffrey Lutz brought the Heavy Twin back and ran his first ever 200 mph lap, a 7.31-203. John Faraone had also been making time runs in his Valiant Charger all day after each round of competition, and had lowered his new best down to 7.66-184, If I remember correctly.

When we were prepping Dale for the semi-final, I had to run gas out of the Valiant for him, as the fuel depot was closed and he was running on fumes. The poor 440 clearly had it's tongue hanging out, with the last three runs in just over an hour, but Dale is one of those guys that will burn a car to the ground to keep collecting win lights.
"The trans-brake is going away", he shook his head, "it lurched that time, and I can hear a couple of the clutches rattling around in the case."
Anyone who has ran a p-glide for a long time is familiar with the sensation, it breaks the clutch plates into two or three pieces so that they push away from the splines, then eventually enough break that the brake won't hold and you lose reverse.
"Maybe just foot brake it and hold the button just to activate the nitrous?" I suggested.
"Naw, I need the tree against these guys...besides, it's time to poor the coals to her and get my eight!"

In the semis, Scott Klepinger's Turbo Camaro shoved through the beams, and Dale lifted at the 330ft mark, since he knew they were going to hot lap him back against Shane's Nova who only had to break the beam, and back up on his bye.

The final, unfortunately, was just as anti-climatic as the semi. Dale staged at about half-throttle on the trans-brake, refusing to take my advise, and when he matted it, the Gremlin lurched through the beams handing the win to Shane and the Crusty Nova. A very disappointing end to a very fun day.

With the event in the books, it was time to head to the awards tent, so all the class winners could be announced. The only problem was that TRP was trying to have a team bracket race at the same time, so all the locals were trying to pit in our spots, we moved all of our cars nose to tail in a single long line to make room for a gentleman with a diesel pusher motorhome and a stacker trailer. Talk about getting back to reality, we had just spent a week watching 6,7, and 8 second cars pull their own trailers and drive through the gate under their own power, and now we stared in disbelief as this guy unloaded four junior dragsters out of a 250,000 dollar rig!

I gotta say, I went to Great Bend in person and watched the rest of the week on the live feed but your view from the inside is like I was experiencing it for the first time.

I'm really wanting to do Dragweek next year!

Rachael make that guy next to here look better.At least Scott didn't photo bomb. LOl.

The awards ceremony seems to take longer every year, and with a third more entries this year I could only imagine how long this one was going to be, but with the sun descending before we even got started, Dave and Brian ran the program pretty efficiently this time curtailing much of the hijinks that have made previous editions legendary.
They started with Daily Driver, and it was great watching John get his accolades for winning the bracket race and his class on his first attempt.
Next up from the Mopar perspective was Paul Cornman accepting the win in Street Race Small Block NA, besting twenty-three other entries with his green Demon.
Shane McClelland gladly accepted his third place plaque for Super Street Power Adder, but was clearly still basking in the glow of his Heads-up win.
Mitch Horn accepted the class win in Super Street Small Block NA in his Challenger.
Darren got the call next accepting the plaque for third place in Pro-Street NA, the class that Eddie and his Purple Duster dominated for the second year in a row. If we could have just managed to squeak another second and a half out of the old Dakota, maybe we could have pushed him a little bit!