Last weekend, Terry McMillen tried to be proactive in his approach to preventing an oildown by putting absorbent material inside of his dragster's containment device. What looked like a good idea on paper instead turned to disaster when a vacuum leak from the diaper sent shredded remnants of the absorbent flying out.

Fast-forward to a week later, to Reading, Pa., when persistent rains limited nitro racing to just one qualifying attempt. There were sixteen cars on the grounds, meaning all McMillen needed to do was take a green light and idle to the finish line to collect a berth in Sunday's final elimination.

Instead, McMillen gave the race-starved fans who braved the weather to watch racing what they wanted, he stomped the throttle and drove the car to the finish line. McMillen drove his dragster to a 3.84-second pass, a run good enough to claim the No. 3 spot in a traction-challenged field.

Instead, McMillen's dragster clipped a timing cone.

This wouldn't have been a problem if the weather had cooperated and allowed a second pass. Much to McMillen's chagrin the second pass never came.

Per NHRA rules, McMillen's run was thrown out disallowing his run. In the end, he drew the same fate as Chris Karamesines, who didn't even make an attempt to run.

“We actually made a pretty good pass given the conditions,” McMillen said disgustedly.  

The conditions, McMillen said, were less than optimal.

“In our only attempt on Saturday we ran a 3.84 elapsed time, but I clipped a cone at the end of the track, disqualifying my run," McMillen said. "The NHRA ran the jet dryer just before my run, it was sprinkling on my windshield, it was just slick out there - I couldn’t keep it in the groove. I guess that’s just the way my luck goes this season. All we had to do was stage the car! They (NHRA) didn’t hit the cone, I did.”

The decision to disallow McMillen's run left the race with 14-cars for Sunday's eliminations. He understands the NHRA did what they felt they had to do according to the rulebook.

“Hey, NHRA did what they could to get at least one session in,” McMillen said. “I guess this is just one of those times I wish they (NHRA) would have done something different. It wasn’t a great qualifying session for the fans, and it wasn’t for most of the teams. It’s going to be a guessing game for the crew chiefs tomorrow with only one shot at the track.

"Maybe we should have ran another qualifying session tomorrow, I don’t know. A 14 car show on Sunday certainly won’t be a great show for the fans and byes in eliminations doesn’t say much for a Championship Countdown. I’ll get over it. Hopefully Dallas will be our luck changer.”