October 08
Oct 4

Now that we're into October, we'll be running Action City Dragway on Saturday and Coles County
Dragway on Sunday till the end of the month. This week we started out on Friday night for the Friday
Fun Night program, we made a few time runs getting ready for Saturday. We started October on a
good note with a semi finish besting a tough group of Super Pro racers including racers like Mike
Lourash, Garry Thompson, and Steve Thompson. To get down to three cars, I use a combination of
dead on runs and good reaction times. I even ran a 5.164 on a 5.16 to earn the 4th round bye run.
Sometimes a good thing has to come to an end and it did when I matched up with my good buddy
Zip Donnan. Zip and I go back a long while and any time we race, it's going to be close and exciting.
This time my old buddy kicked my butt killing me on the tree with a .011 reaction time to my .026 but
as you know by now it's not over till you hit the stripe which I gave up when I backed into him too
much giving him the stripe by .001 when I ran a 5.185 on a 5.16 dial to his 6.939 on his 6.900 dial.

We're going rounds and as I have said before that's a good thing.  It takes round wins to win races.
On a side note, if I would have won my semi final race and Lance would have won his quarter final
race, we would have met in the final.
Oct 5

Sunday at Coles was all right, but not as good as Saturday, even though we made it to the quarter
finals. In the first round, I ran Randy Protz and he just clobbered me, so I bought myself back into the
next round. In the 2nd and 3rd round, I was able to get by Brad Jones and Paul Hargis before losing
to the eventual runner up, Vic Seeley when I broke out by .001 of a second. October means the year
long track points are winding down and would you know were in the top 10, even though we have
missed some races and would be great to finish the year there. Our round wins this weekend helped
that cause.
---------- More stories to come ----------
Oct 11

We accomplished the impossible, three races, three wins in one day. Action City Dragway held it's
last race of the season and in grand style holding not only it's normal bracket program but also the
6.50 index race and the king of the track race that paired the finalist of Super Pro, Pro, Sportsman,
and Motorcycle. I looked forward to running the 6.50 index class because it closely resembled the
Super Class racing I do when I go to the divisional and national event races where throttle stop
timers are allowed. We felt like we had a distinctive advantage given the amount of index racing we
do and after our third time run we were real close running 6.534 on the 6.50 index qualifying us 3rd in
the field. We started eliminations with a first round loss to Rick Hale when I had a crappy light and
the car ran off, but we bounced back in the 6.50 class with a first round win beating my opponent
with a .012 light and running 6.546 to his .068 and 6.556. Of course, we bought back in Super Pro and
after a lengthy starting line burn down, I eliminated Cheryl Pound. A quick splash of fuel and taking
of weather info we were back in the lanes for 2nd round of our 6.50 class. As the tree lit, Thad Mann
went red by a fraction of a second with a -.002 and that allowed me to run the car all out to see
exactly how close we were with our throttle stop timer. I guess we had our stuff together when 6.500
showed up on our time slip. By now, the length of time between class had been drastically reduced
and it became a total family affair with everyone chipping in with different jobs. In the 3rd round, I had
Rick Seals and my reaction time was the deciding factor in the double breakout win. 3rd round 6.50
class was easy enough given the fact I had the bye run. We made it through the 4th round of Super
Pro, downing Jeff Joslin when I used a .014 light and 5.209 on my 5.19 dial to turn on the win light on.
Of course, a Stillwell final wouldn't be appropriate without some sort of drama. In the 6.50 class final
round, I was matched up with John Moy in his Mopar. We did our burnouts, staged our cars but
when the tree came on all the bulbs on the tree lit including all the amber, green and red bulbs. After
coming off the track, we were called to return directly to the lanes for a rerun of the final. This time
there wasn't any glitches and I easily won when I had a decisively better reaction time and was able
to back into him at the stripe running a 6.569 on the 6.50 index for the win. Our celebration was short
sense we were still in Super Pro and they were calling us right back to the lanes, so everybody did
their job and sent me to the lanes for my 5th round match with Mike Lourash. Mike had me by a
couple of thousands on the tree, but my awesome car carried me to another round win, sending me
to the semi's for my match with my old buddy, Zip Donnan in his killer Chevy II. Me and Zip have beat
on each other all year long and I knew I'd better be on my -A- game and today, I was with a .003 light
to his uncharacteristically late light and was able to give a little brake peddle and run a 5.239 on my
5.19 dial for the round win. We're in another final today and it was over as soon as we got staged
when Cory Brenton set off the red light .006 thousands of a second too soon. He was going to need
all the light he could get because I had a near perfect .002. Again, our celebration was short lived
because we're still not done.  We had the king of the track race to run and they were calling us to the
lanes.
When I get to the lanes there were only 2 cars and a motorcycle to run because Rob Fisher and his
big turd brown Malibu wagon (Rob I had to say that LOL) was the winner in both Pro and Sportsman.
Rob is one of Coles County Dragway's best foot brake racers and I had him in the first round of the
king of the track and knew I couldn't hold anything back, but I got lucky because I was a little late on
the tree but it didn't matter when he left a little early and turned on the red light. In the other pairing,
Rob had to run Pop Arthurs on his low 6 second motorcycle. If Rob could win this round, I would
have to run Rob again in the final but it wasn't meant to be when Pop won that round. In the final
final of the day, it was Pop Arthurs on his motorcycle and me in my dragster and again a reaction
time advantage was the deciding factor when I left .008 thousands after the green light came on and
carried it to the finish line. After it was all said and done, we made 19 runs in a little over 5 hours.  It
was a very special win because it had been a long while sense my mom and dad had been able to
see me win a race. Like my earlier wins today, our celebration was short due to us being completely
wiped out from our long hard day but we still enjoyed every bit of it.