I took photos of the bad fuel pump belt, but will post those later. Lynn Goodfellow said it was the fuel pump belt that went away, either because the bolt holding the plate on which an idler for that belt went loose and let the belt get cockeyed -- or because the driver lifted a bit for another reason, then got back in the throttle and -- during that little intermission -- the high pressure in the pump "deadheading" at 33k psi pushed back and hurt the belt.
So: Fuel pump belt went bad. Repairs are under way, nothing big, they'll plan to run tomorrow morning. The driver/data says they were close to 300 when the driver pedalled it.
Here are photos of the suspect idler and the front of the motor, but you can't see very well -- the light sensor ignored the flash thingie and looked instead at the bright metal. Sorry -- but there is a bad-looking belt in there.
New News: Mike Cook just came over here. They're planning to open the pits tomorrow morning at 5 ("Mike, it's frickin' dark at 5!", I said. He said "We're here to race!"), and at 7.30 all the vehicles that are ready to run will parade down to the north end and get in line to run (sorta like record return runs, hey?).
Nish, Burkland, Hess and Ack if the winds are mellow, Buckeye Bullet says they've found the electronic gremlin that's bedeviled them today so they'll run, Goodfellow says he'll run if the minor repairs are done, and Cook says he's been asked by George Poteet to go over and give the Speed Demon crew a pep talk to get them going to get that car resurrected and ready to run. No word yet on Sam Wheeler's promised appearance.
That's it for now.
No it isn't -- here's a cool shot of the tracks the Speed Demon left when leaving the line on the ill-fated return road (gotta look at the salt kinda carefully, but they're there):