We arrived, after stopping for breakfast, around 10:00 am and found a good place to pit. After unloading the car and getting set up in our pit area, we decided not to do anything to the car before our one and only time trial pass.

Around 12:30 in the afternoon, we were called to the lanes for our time trial and I gotta tell you, I thought my right leg was going to shake itself right off!! I was so pumped up and at the same time, so nervous, I had a hard time staging the car. I managed to get the car staged ok and tried to concentrate on the tree, remember, this is the first pass in 7 years!!

I thought we were going to see a pro tree even in our time trial run but it wasn't and my .326 reaction time red light was the result - but who cares when your heart's pounding and your ears are filled with the sound of a high winding small block chevy on it's first pass in a long time!

That first pass ended up to be a 12.66 @ 108.45, but that was shifting from first right into third and bogging of the line with a 1.85 60 foot time. At first I was a little dissapointed but I had to keep telling myself that it's just the begining. The drive train was all fresh and it was a new combination so we need to get some time behind the wheel and some time to try different things.

Qualifier #1 was only an hour away so we thought we should check to see where the timing was and also, I wasn't too sure what jetting was in the carb, so we took it off to see. The timing was set at 44 degrees total! Considering I was running C-12 racing gasoline, that wasn't an issue and I thought I would leave it there for the first qualifier. We thought, lets change the carb jetting and see how the car responds.

Our first qualifying pass was a 12.42 @ 109.67 mph. Not bad, a little change and she ran 2 tenths faster.

Prior to our next qualifying session, we backed off the timing a little to see if that would make any difference, again the car responded by going 2 tenths faster with a 12.25 @ 110.64. After that round was completed, I was 6th in qualifying.

Qualifier number three was a complete right off, I was distracted by, well let's just say I wasn't feeling very well at that time!! The car went 12.46 @ 109.73.

Unfortunately, the torrential rains came early Sunday morning and eliminations had to be postponed until September 28th, 2002.