A schedule change partway through the day at Las Vegas yesterday (due to high winds) saw the Top Alcohol cars run their second and third (final) qualifying sessions before launching into the first round of eliminations late in the day. The winds had died down and the 4000+ ft. adjusted altitude dropped to "just" 3662 ft. for the first round.

The dragsters led off with Joey Severance picking up the pace to put down a 5.286 - 273.66 to leave a tire-smoking Kim Parker with a long slow drive back to the pits. The next pair turned into a single as Mike Burns was unable to bring the idle down after the burnout, and couldn't get the car in reverse, forcing him to shut off and hop over the wall so the Eastern invader, Jackie Fricke, could make a very good 5.270 - 275.39 pass to advance to the semifinal. Following that, the next pair of A/Fuelers saw Casey Grisel take the measure of Mitch Myers by a 5.388 to 5.571 margin.

Saving the best for last, the low qualifying "Team Canada" entry of Langley, BC's Shawn Cowie bombed the scoreboards with a new low e.t. and top speed of the meet at 5.189 - 278.52 to leave fellow Division Six competitor Garrett Bateman far behind at the finish line, despite a decent 5.480 - 265.48 effort. The only downside to Cowie's very convincing win was that it matched him up with his Northwest nemesis, Severance, in the semi-final. Although Cowie holds lane choice by a full tenth, he will have to be sharp on the starting line to get past Severance.

That matchup was scheduled for noon today, but a couple of lengthy oildowns (20 minutes for a SuperComp car, and a full hour for a Top Dragster) have pushed the schedule back quite a bit so we'll have wait a bit for that result.

Before we close off for now, we can quickly mention the first round of Top Alcohol Funny Car eliminations from yesterday. The first - and only - pair featured Nick Januik taking what would have been a very close win (5.644 to 5.635) over Ray Martin... except for Martin's -.038 redlight. Januik did pick up a little more than a tenth from his qualifying number, while Martin was slightly quicker too. Finishing the very abbreviated round was a bye run into the final for the 2020 World Champion Doug Gordon who improved over his very good low qualifying 5.589 - 265.69 effort, with a slightly better 5.551 - 265.80 timeslip, and lane choice for this afternoon's final against Las Vegas local Januik.