That's right, pull the pick up or SUV up to the fence, set up your EZ Up, and have to it. Lawn chairs in the back of the truck or on a small mound of dirt. Some even bring their camp stove and instant party.  It is very quaint and very old school.

Then to pair this ambiance with the Nitro Night under the Lights, featuring the Blown Alcohol Thunder group made for a great evening of racing. Even though it was 111 degrees at 5 o'clock, people started to make their way to the track.

Besides the Blown Alcohol Thunder group of cars, there was a full contingent of Super Pro, Pro and Sportsman racers, along with Junior Dragsters, and, of course, Jet Cars.

The Blown Alcohol Thunder cars run at Yakima on an eighth-mile format with two rounds of elimination preceded by two qualifying runs the day before. All cars run with a closest two cars to 4.25 making it to the final.

With twelve cars making the trip to Yakima, the car type was as diverse as the teams' hometowns. Cars came from Canada, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Washington.

One of the great appeals to this type of racing is the diversity in the types of cars that show up. The one mitigating factor is that the car must have a supercharger on it. Everything else is up to the discretion of the car owner. There were three rear-engine dragsters, two funny cars, and six altereds, along with a beautiful Anglia from Alaska.

One of the cars making their first appearance with the group is Hayden, Idaho's Ken Nelson. Nelson who is one of the most proficient bracket racers in the western United States was going to test his new M&M dragster equipped with a Steve Schmidt blower motor.

"I have never run one of these before so this should be interesting," stated Nelson after an already event-filled trip from Northern Idaho to Yakima.

Nelson traveling with his wife, daughter Katy and son-in-law Trevor Harkema had not gotten very far from the shop when Trevor noticed one of the trailer wheels seemed to be acting funny. "We pulled over and found a couple of wheels loose, got those tightened up."  No long after that Nelson suffered a blown trailer tire on the same side of the trailer, which took some time to fix. Nelson pulled into the track just before first round, but Nelson's adventures were far from over.