Day 4: Thursday Sept 13
Wake up, get showered, just about to head out to Thunder Valley and there's a knock on the hotel room door. 7:45 is kind of early for housekeeping. Turns out it's Mitch and his brother Tyler. Mitch is the owner of the shop that did the paint and body on my Jeep. They hopped in his Cobra Wednesday after work and drove through the night to Tennessee to surprise us. The picture I posted from the hotel room window gave them a clue about the type of hotel we were staying at but they had no idea what town we were even in. So they drove around all morning looking for the hotel with a blue Cherokee in the parking lot. Well, they found us. What a huge surprise, great friends!
Arrived at Thunder Valley. It should be noted that it was hot and I was exhausted before the day even started. Just let this be a one and done day, please?
This picture is especially cool because it's the same color as my buddy's old Dart that we used to raise hell with years back. The shifter handle from that car is in my Jeep now.
Went out and made an outstanding pass for the crummy conditions. Grabbed the time slip and what?! It definitely did not run a 12.3 @ 127 on that pass.
Assumed timing system error so went and got back in line again frustrated and still tired. Many other competitors were having the same issue.
Wristband was starting to look how I was feeling.
Another pass, another unexplained slow et with a bunch of mph.
At this point we realized that the starting line wasn't level and the Jeep was rolling backward out of the lights and starting the clock early. Solution: let's go in deeper, clutch in, step off the brake, floor it, and dump the clutch as quickly as possible. What could possibly go wrong?
