The first day of Rocky Mountain Race Week 2021 is at S.R.C.A. Dragstrip in Great Bend, Kansas. A former Army Air Force base that was sold off as surplus in 1946, the Sunflower Rod and Custom Association has been the main force behind the dragstrip, helping to bring the NHRA out for the first Nationals-level event in 1955. Over the last year SRCA has been re-working the dragstrip surface, retention walls, and timing system and RMRW 2021 is the first major event to take advantage of the fresh surface and the new digs.

321 cars made their start, spread out among the classes. The S.R.C.A. team certainly put their best foot forward with the new surface and the prep that they laid down, because almost immediately we started hearing things about welders being broken out to weld spider gears, snapped axle shafts, and lug studs that popped like corn in a microwave. Among some of the early casualties was Ruby, the red C6 Corvette out of the Cleetus McFarland camp. On a side-by-side run against "Mullet", Cleet's new twin-turbo El Camino, Ruby made a blistering pass, but once the parachute came out and the revs started to come down, some very wallet-aching noises started to rattle from the engine bay. Rather than see how far out of the block a rod could go, the McFarland camp made the wise decision to put the Corvette away to fight another day. Others would find themselves in the middle of a hotel parking lot thrash for anything, from building an impromptu air conditioner unit out of a cooler and a cheap fan, to a full-on engine teardown and rebuild.

From Great Bend, the merry band of racers and staff will take a day and drive to Pueblo, Colorado, where they will race the day after at Pubelo Motorsports Park.