The Lead-up
In July, I was heading to Tulsa to join Boone in the running of the TATUR Midnite Madness 50 miler, and was dropping off the 70 Challenger R/T project I had recently sold. A conversation with Dale spurred the possibility that he would be interested in finishing the work needed on the Valiant, for financial help in attending the DW event. The added benefit would be that my rig would be in Oklahoma, allowing Drag Week to be a fly in, fly home deal. I loaded up the 2-car open trailer, and all the spare parts for the Valiant and dropped it off in Owasso.
Then began the process of weekly phone calls to all 3 brothers, parts orders, money orders, cajoling, prodding, encouraging, planning...and mostly frustration!!

Both Dale and Boone, showing thier old age and general automotive wimpiness had traded in the 4.10s both of the b-bodies were equipped with for 2.76s...2.76s!!! Boone's 67 was still running fairly well in the quarter, thanks to a stout 440, and 3000 stall, but it really killed Dale's 66 with stock converter, and barely adequate smog 440. Looking at the cutoff for previous years quick 32 in the Daily Driver class, we surmised that they needed to be in the mid-12 range to make the cut. Boone's car was running 13.30's, Dale's in the 13.90 range. Nitrous was the obvious choice, but both cars were struggling with fuel starvation in hot conditions, with nearly stock, manual pump fuel systems, not to mention the 235, and 245 street rubber tucked in the restrictive stock wheelwells would never handle it.
Progress on the Valiant was at a snails pace, and Darren had 3 cars stripped down, but had yet to start putting anything back together. His ability to clean, sand, and detail every small part is uncanny, but definitely not a asset in the current situation.

At 2 weeks to go I had already began intimating to local Phoenix buddies that we were going in 2 cars, I just could not see a scenario in which the Valiant or Darren's Charger would be done in time. I pre-entered the 66 and 67 in Daily Driver, and tried to anticipate our needs as the last opportunities for mail-order parts loomed close.