Patiently waiting in the other lane was Wayne Newby, who was caught off guard nearly as much as me. Assuming that I'd be red-lighted as soon as the tree was activated, I just sat and waited for the inevitable. And waited. And waited some more. Seriously, it felt like I was hung out there for thirty seconds, until finally, the tree flashed and Newby left.

Not quite sure whether I should stay or go, bearing in mind the almost complete lack of vision, my worse judgement got the better of me (how's that for a completely mixed-up metaphor?), I nailed it and hung on. Now, if you've been following the Northern Thunder saga through the year(s), you'll know that we hadn't gone past half track... okay, 500 feet... all right, 400 feet, under power with the new car.

Now for the god's honest truth (and I really shouldn't be admitting this to anyone, let alone the world wide web): all I saw was the lights flash on the christmas tree and the shift light come on twice. That's it. I simply could not see the track at all until I shut off somewhere around the 1000 foot mark. The run felt pretty good, but I felt bad for Newby and wasn't looking forward to his reaction later in the pits.

When the crew came down to retrieve me, they were pumped up and excited. The reason was beyond me for a few moments until one of them mentioned he'd heard "180 mph at half track" over the p.a. A buck-eighty and I was still on it and driving blind? Oh man; now my knees were shaking. Hey, how'd we get a time when I'd overstaged?

At the scrutineering shed we were waved onto the scales and told our run was valid (who am I to argue?) and issued a timeslip. The e.t. was pathetic, a 7.34, and the finish line speed was only 174 mph, but it did put us seventh in the field after the first session. A closer look at the timeslip really got the mental wheels turning when I noticed a very slow 60 foot time of nearly two seconds. (Remember, the 60 foot clock was already started before I left the starting line). Knocking that time down to one second (and we should be quicker than that), yields a true e.t. of 6.40 something... shutting off very early. Now my knees were really knocking!

The launch felt fantastic (to me) and was reflected by the .963 time we got at the 60 foot mark. Then the trouble started. It had been a long time since I'd experienced any serious tire shake and wasn't really aware of it until I realized that the black groove was starting to grow a double white stripe... Say what? Off the throttle just in time for the vision to clear up enough to see that I was nearly on the centerline.

At this point the run looked like a lost cause, but in another serious lapse of judgement, I nailed it again, over-revved the engine (still in low gear... ooops!), shifted, steered it back into the groove, hit high gear... then.... ELVIS! what the heck are you doing here?

Time for another ill-advised admission: from half track until the finish line, I really don't remember anything of the run. I DO remember the finish line stripes coming at me REALLY FAST, then the chutes hit, then I was taking the last turnoff. Whew! But what did I run? Six seconds? Seven seconds? No way to tell.

The first indication that it was something decent came when the crew showed up hooting and hollering and sporting very large smiles. Ken Lowe broke the ice with the question "What do you think it ran?" Not sure just how leading a question this was, I was momentarily at a loss for words (Wilson lost for words? Has the Pope converted to Judaism?) and stammered out something like "6.70?... 6.50?". Not a chance mate: 6.34!!!

"What was the speed?" came out of me in response. "210 mph". Hmm, sounds like I shut off early... again. But 6.34... faaaarrr out! One second quicker and nearly 25 mph faster than I'd ever gone in my life before. And that's got to be good enough to keep us in the field. This is really starting to be a lot of fun. Let's get it over the scales, collect the timeslip and see what shape the car's in.