You can have your opinion about dig versus roll racing all you want, but here’s where I stand: once you start making four-digit horsepower figures, starting off already moving is probably your best bet to not wind up carving your signature out in the grass along the track. It’s not promised that you won’t, but you stand a better chance of hooking and booking when the green light flashes and you’re already in second gear. The Texas Invitational sounds just like our kind of party: drag racing meets land-speed racing, exotics are being beat like a rented mule, there’s turbochargers everywhere force-feeding cylinders like the goose that’s going to become foie gras, and there are stripes down the lanes from cars that can’t hook even on the best of circumstances, so eff it, just hold it to the floorboards and hope for the best. Fast is fast and these suckers are moving, but what do you expect with cars flirting with 2,000 horsepower or more?

The race is just that: an elimination-style deal. Trap speed isn’t important unless something goes down, like the parachute leaving the show before the car comes to a complete stop. More than a couple cars proceed to give the lawn care team at Caddo Mills something to reflect on as they spin through the grass at scary speeds. But this is the price of prestige: every car in this race is invited and paired off by the team. If you didn’t get the RSVP, you don’t get to play!