In those moments when hardy fans could see through the wall of heat, humidity and that stinging combination of sweat and sunblock in the eyes at the O’Reilly Mid-South Nationals, they looked into, and down at, the future.

Start with a 5-foot-4 ball of ability and confidence named “Hot Rod Fuller” who took a knockdown punch in this sport a decade earlier. Team him with a long-ago name from the nitro wars named David Powers and a couple of equally battered and bruised veteran tuners, mix them together and it spelled victory for Powers’ Valvoline Top Fuel dragster on only its 19th start.

“There are people who said I would never win a Top Fuel race,” said Powers after an impressively consistent day at Memphis Motorsports Park ended with an impressive win over reigning NHRA champion Tony Schumacher (who could console himself by the fact he cut a 70-point deficit to Doug Kalitta down to four).

“But after we ran a 4.62 (to qualify third) I knew we had a car to deal with,” Fuller added. “I was focused on what I had to do and this team … the people are here. The equipment is here. We’re going to be around.”

Eric Medlen, who was languishing in eighth place in the points a month ago, made it two wins in a row in his Castrol Syntec Mustang and three in four races by topping John Force Racing teammate Robert Hight in the semis, then blowing past Ron Capps at the starting line. Medlen, the vocabularic heir to Force on this team, is now just 71 points behind rookie Hight – with Capps (30), Scelzi (35) and Force (47) sandwiched between.

Two-time defending champion Greg Anderson proved once again that, while Kurt Johnson may be the hottest driver on the circuit (23-4, three wins and five finals in his past six races), it’s the Summitt Pontiac GTO that’s still the car to beat. For the second time in three races, Anderson beat Johnson in the money round and leads KJ in the points by 73 going into the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.

And for the second time in as many weeks, it was an all-Vance and Hines Harley final in Pro Stock Motorcycle. But this time, young Andrew Hines knocked off teammate GT Tonglet and for the first time this year its defending champion Hines--atop the points by 15 over Tonglet – with the rest of the field at least five rounds away.

As the circuit now heads to the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals two weeks from now at Indianapolis, Anderson said, “if the fans aren’t seeing that we’ve got great points races across the line, they aren’t paying attention.”

Perhaps the most amazing thing about this day was the fact that, despite brutal temperatures and humidity, the haze came from the atmosphere and not from the tires.

After a shaky first round on a track that reached 140 degrees, teams settled down to produce some amazing side-by-side action, including a second-round Top Fuel race where Schumacher and Morgan Lucas had identical 4.806 times, and The Sarge won by his .008 edge at the light.