Well, as of Wednesday we had pulled the pin and decided that New Jersey would be one race that we would be dropping. Being over 1000 miles the Diesel bill was going to cost us over $1000.00. But as always we smashed open the last of the piggy banks and by Midnight Wednesday we were on our way. After sleeping and stops at Bob Evans & Cracker Barrel we rolled in to New Jersey about 1 in the morning Friday. It took us the same amount of time to drive to New Jersey as it takes to fly to Australia….

For this race we took the 85mm off the car and put the 88mm back on. With the rule changes we now had to weigh 3400 lbs with the 88mm so ballast was added to reach that minimum. First test hit on Friday we ran a 8.14 @ 175. We were very happy with that and decided to park the car until first qualify session later that night.

Hoping to duplicate that hit during qualifying didn’t happen as with the wheels in the air the car drove to the left which it had never done. Watching more racing we noticed that there were a few car’s that were pulling towards the wall so it must have been in the track.

Saturday rolls around and the conditions are great and the track looks good. Second qualify session the old girl dances the front wheels and goes a 8.020 @ 178 mph. Couldn’t believe that we had just broken the National record. 3rd and final qualify session we had to run quicker than a 8.10 to back up the record. I got out of the groove and thought it was all over with. Pulled her back in the groove and went a 8.024 backing up the record and putting us in the #1 spot.

If she would have stayed in the groove there is no telling what she would have run. We picked up 3 hundredths in the 60 ft but when it drove over to the center line I was only 1 hundredth over the last hit in the 1/8.

• The 8.020 she went 5.26 @ 142 in the 1/8.
• The 8.024 hit she went 5.25 @ 141 with a 1.37 (60ft)

A 7 would have been nice but you can not complain about a National Record.

Sunday morning the sky looked great for a very short instance. In the distance you could see that all hell was about to break loose. Sure enough before long the track was flooded and we were at the Berlin Diner eating Philly Cheese Steak. Using every event we are either swapping converters, changing transmissions but for once all we did this whole event was change the trans fluid. We almost felt guilty. We considered pulling the converter and putting the same one back in just so it felt like we had done something. The event was called and hopefully somewhere along the way the rest of eliminations will be held.

Only 2.5 weeks until Columbus, Ohio