Consider it a cyber rain delay.

Consider it the reality of a new season rapidly converging on the off-season.

Regardless of how you see it, the two day delay of the second annual CompetititonPlus.com War Stories final round could be labeled the calm before the storm. Only two remain, John Force and Pat Musi, and this one ought to be a battle for the ages.

Force, all fourteen world championships behind him, has performed worthy of his fan-voted No. 1 seed in the annual competition which pits drag racing’s finest storytellers in head-to-head contest with the readers of the popular e-zine becoming the deciding factor as to who wins and who loses. John Force versus Pat Musi in a final Battle of Storytellers …

LINK: CATCH UP ON THE COMPETITION – WAR STORIES HOMEPAGE

Consider it a cyber rain delay.

Consider it the reality of a new season rapidly converging on the off-season.

Regardless of how you see it, the two day delay of the second annual CompetititonPlus.com War Stories final round could be labeled the calm before the storm. Only two remain, John Force and Pat Musi, and this one ought to be a battle for the ages.

Force, all fourteen world championships behind him, has performed worthy of his fan-voted No. 1 seed in the annual competition which pits drag racing’s finest storytellers in head-to-head contest with the readers of the popular e-zine becoming the deciding factor as to who wins and who loses.

Force opened the competition with a story of misunderstanding and pigs in pipelines. As good as Force’s tale was, his opening opponent, Don Gillespie, had an equally hilarious tale about his experience as a budding photographer at Orange County International Raceway and the evening of his “accidental” first drink of alcohol. Force won that match by a mere five votes, the closest of any competitor in the competition.

He then defeated noted icon Shirley Muldowney with a tale about his first-ever national event win. Force reveals what happened behind the scenes when he lost daughter Ashley while out looking for sponsorship money just to attend that fateful event in Montreal, Canada.

Force advance to the finals with an overwhelming victory over friendly rival Gary Scelzi. There’s no doubt the visions of Scelzi dressed in a nurses outfit in an attempt to cheer his crash-battered morale was more than enough to sway the reader vote in droves.

In the other “lane” Force might just face his toughest challenge in Musi, the hard-nosed, tough as nails, prankster from Carteret, N.J.

Musi only ranked 10th in the “qualifying” process, but he let the fans know he had plenty of horsepower in the tank for each round. In fact, Musi’s first round victory over Whit Bazemore produced the highest vote total for any story in the competition to this point.

The top-vote story focused on his experience of ending up on “The People’s Court” television and the story surrounding the experience.

As if that side-splitter wasn’t enough, he returned in round two with a story about combining antics with the world famous Roy Hill for a memorable evening in the Poconos during a rain-delayed IHRA event in which they handcuffed a totally nude man to the elevator, sending him up and down each floor as a showcase. The intervention of a “Columbo” type detective makes the story.

Musi then eliminated “Big Daddy” Don Garlits in the semi-finals with another yarn about a guy with an uncanny knack for being able to yank one’s trousers down to their ankles with no advance warning. Musi calls it is “depantsing”.

This is where they meet.

This year’s competition has already exceeded 2007 - 2008’s competition by nearly double. That competition yielded an incredible 101,434 visits.

The final round voting will open on Wednesday, January 20 at 4:30 AM, EST.