(Our next stops - we will be enjoying a weekend off being spectators at the Night of Fire in Salt Lake City, September 26th - and enjoying seeing the rest of our friends who are racing.  Then our next stop will be Tucson, AZ on October 10th and we will close the year at Phoenix, AZ on October 24th.  We would love to see you there!)

We saw some new country this time around as it was our first trip to Montana.  One feature of note - we drove through a fire that was burning on both sides of the highway and through the median.  Not as bad a road contruction - it may be an incredible sight but the destruction is heartbreaking. 

Once we did get to Billings, we followed our trusty GPS to the dragstrip - well, almost all the way.  The track had put great, large signs on the road directing us to the track.  So, we made the turn…into a large, empty field….which we keep going through…until we reached the dirt road….is there really a dragstrip back here??

 Actually, Yes there is!  A topnotch facility with great lanes, a wonderful track crew and a reaallyyy long shut down area, wonderful for jet cars to wind down and not worry.  Eric, the track announcer, was born to fill that position and he spent a great deal of time coming back to the pits and making sure we knew what times we were running and keeping us up-to-date on developments.  It was a really well run race.

 We made two passes on Saturday in front of a record crowd.  We learned that Montana has some great race fans!  First pass at 6.461 and 250.13 mph (a track jet funny car record) and a second pass at 6.467 and 249.03 mph.  Pretty darned good for that altitude!

 Sunday we had to do some welding on the tailpipe before we could make our runs.  With all the help we received from Prairieland Racing - Jordan Pawlik and Shane Therris - guys we just could not have done it without you.  They supplied the welder and the welder - both machine and person.  It was truly done in the spirit of racer helping racer.  With their help, our Sunday runs came in at 6.542, 246.84 mph and 6.561, 246.21 mph.  You can’t beat the Warhawk for consistent runs!

 A couple of bonuses - Monday was a holiday so we could take our time driving home.  And - we saw a bear in the wild by the Yellowstone River!