Hand clicked off at 1000 feet. “Not 999, not 1001,” said McBride crewman Roland Stuart, watching as he drove up the return road to fetch the Spiderman. “1000 feet exactly.”

So you might think that, what with shutting off 320 feet from the finishline, that Hand’s run might be slow. You might not think that, 14 years after McBride’s first ever 5 second motorcycle pass, this particular run might not be the one that would finally put Hand into the exclusive 5 second club. And you’d be wrong. Hand skipped right past the 5.90s to a 5.89 at 230 mph—good enough to beat McBride to number one qualifier in a fair fight.

Hand slowed to a 6.17 for the first round of eliminations but still powered past legendary builder/racer Sam Wills, returning to Top Fuel action after nearly two decades out of the seat. Wills and the Mike Dryden Nitro Conspiracy team did a great job getting the new bike down the track. McBride escaped an E1 upset when Vantine took the tree and stayed straight and in the throttle to a 6.20, losing to the Spiderman by only 6/hundredths in a great side-by-side race. Neither Hand nor McBride nailed the tune-up in the final, but McBride was able to stay in the throttle longer to score the win despite a loose valve cover that covered him in oil.

McIntosh Machine & Fabrication/Orient Express Pro Street saw a huge turnout miss the all-time quickest field mark by only .005 of a second. Jeremy Teasley qualified number one with a 7.000 on Ronnie Mitchell’s turbocharged, pink “Rizzo” Suzuki Hayabusa.

That was before 6s came raining down on LOR in eliminations, with Frankie Stotz recording the NHDRO’s first ever 6 second street legal pass on his Honda CBR1000RR. Stotz got beat by DME Racing’s Joey Gladstone’s 213 mph blast in the semis, and Teasley lost to the surprising supercharged ‘Busa of Tony Ficher’s 6.96 in the other semi. It was the first 6 for Ficher, who went 7.00s recently while testing. Ficher took the tree against Gladstone but slowed to a 7.03 while Joey—whose DME team didn’t touch the tune-up at all between rounds—won with a 6.99. Louisville teenager Sean McPhee won Pro Street B.