Boone flipped open his 9 year old samsung, and called his big brother, "Dave, what's goin' on"?
"Not much, we're at the track, but they sound pretty set on waiting until 3:30 to fire this thing up", Dave commented. "Where are you guys"?
"About 5 minutes out"
"Cool, guess stop by here first, and you can get the key to the motel if you wanna clean up".
"Alright by me". Boone hung up. "We'll go by the track, maybe unload a couple of things, and grab Dave's motel key".
"What else do we need to take care of in town"? Dale asked
"We need to do something with those slicks for sure".
"Yeah, we'll drop them off at a shop, and see if they can knock them out real quick".
They rolled into the track, found the pit spot, and unloaded some of the heavy stuff. It seemed most of the crowd was there, but everyone was just milling around, all relaxed...it was almost a surreal atmosphere compared to the rest of the week up to this point.
No matter, they still had work to do, Darren, GF, and kids went off to the motel in the Satellite. Dale and him searched for a tire shop, found one, and dropped off the slicks.
"We need these back quick", Dale told the guy
"Well, I can't promise anything".
"Just figure out where they are leaking", Dale countered, "I'm sure I can fix it myself If I know what's going on".
"What the heck was that"? Boone asked when they jumped back in the car, "We don't need you jacking with them at the track".
"We're out of time, Boone"!
They showered, and changed at the motel. Darren and his entourage headed for the track. Back at the tire shop, they picked up a set of slicks with yellow circles aound all the missing tire screws, which were all of them. They had been assured the stems were good, no leaks in the tread, just the holes in the rims/tires. The first O'reilly's had one package of 4, next was a harware store that had something that "might" work. The 2nd O'reilly's had 2 packages with the same part number as the first store, but both packages had different screws, from each other, and the first package! They jumped in the Belvedere and hit the key, it turned over but made no attempt to fire until Boone let off the key. 2nd attempt yeilded the same result.
"Wonder if we burned up the ballast resistor", Dale surmised.
"Possibly", Boone agreed, "Do we have anything to cross it over"?
Dale diappeared under the hood, "Try it now"!
It fired, "What did you do"?
"Just wiggled the ballast wires", Dale smiled, "Whew! let's get to the track"!