The car went back to Bickel's shop. After twelve months of conversations between JBRC and the sanctioning body, NHRA Technical Director Danny Gracia flew to the shop and inspected the revisions Bickel had made. He issued his approval with some

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caveats on items still not clarified by NHRA. This was the first Cavalier of its kind and there were still some gaps in the rulebook, which have since been addressed.

While attending Doug Foley's Drag Racing School, I met Chris Applegate, who was running her own Mustang, and talked her into making a pass in the Cavalier. She ran quicker on her first pass than anyone who had driven the car before, including myself.

With Chris shoeing the car, we started running at every divisional meet we could to accumulate the points she would need to run at Indy in 2003. We ran at Bristol, Cleves, Numedia, Maple Grove, Englishtown, Lebanon Valley, Atco, Cecil County and New England Dragway. The Cavalier always attracted a lot of attention; some people really loved the car, while others didn't know what to think it. The team was often referred to as "that girl and that car." Many competitors contacted NHRA questioning the Cavalier being allowed in the Super Stock class.

A week before the U.S. Nationals, NHRA sent a letter stating that the car again did not comply with the Super Stock requirements.

Back we went to Missouri to address NHRA's list of concerns. We had to move the driver's seat forward, install an OEM dash, install OEM lower control arms, shorten the steering column and make both pedals swing from the top. Bickel's staff worked feverishly to get the changes made and we took the car to Chicago to have it inspected.

Then came the worst news imaginable. On top of NHRA declining to allow us to run in Chicago, I received the shattering news that Chris had been struck by a drunk driver and was in a coma. (See the Chris Applegate story)

Since I had my Super Stock license, I went to the Dutch Classic in Pennsylvania where Lang and LaShure looked over all the changes that had been made to the car over the last 15 months and approved the Cavalier for competition. Chris had been running GT/F, but with me in the seat we were 100 lbs. heavy. I won our class, but was nosed out of eliminations by Jackie Biondo.

Photo by Competition Photos

We had been running a break-in engine up to this point, but in early November 2003 we put in our race engine. In test passes at Maple Grove, the Cavalier immediately ran quicker and faster that the GT/G national record. With our final letter of approval from NHRA in hand, we decided to run at the Montgomery