Dale and James pulled into Beech Bend Raceway Park about forty minutes after Rachael and Dad arrived, and a good twenty minutes earlier than us. Dale swears they pulled in at 12:05, everyone else in our group that I have interviewed are much more vague, and only feel comfortable putting it in a two hour and a half hour window between 10:30 and 1:00 pm! We were a pretty ragged group by then, and the drive though all the LS crap, then through all the Drag Weekers all the way to the return road where they had directed Dale to put his rig, felt like an interminable procession.

Boone's Barnyard was already unloaded, so he went straight up to tech. I grabbed everything I needed to wire up the horn, and headed into line with the Satellite next. There were two lines for Daily Driver class, and two lines for The Class cars, so when Dale and Darren came around I motioned them into the appropriate lanes. When we went in 2011, Dale had wired the N20 relay to use the horn button for activation, and since he did this after tech, the Satellite had been without a horn ever since. So I sat in line, with a big ole starter button, a curly cord off a dead switch from years gone by, a handful of butt connectors and a universal stripper/crimper tool. In a matter of minutes I had used the tool to nip the inside of a knuckle on the opposing hand, and was bleeding all over the interior! In an hour or so Boone, Dale, and Darren had disappeared down the hill and started up the line towards the tech area, I had moved forward 3 spots. In the next hour I had kicked it in neutral a few times and moved maybe another 3 spots. Finally, my line started to move, and I hit the key...Click, click, click...apparently the battery in the Satellite was so weak that sitting in line with the door open and my foot on the brake pedal for 45 minutes was enough to drain it! This is not the NHRA, there is no honor in a Drag Week line, so the remaining cars drove around me before I could even get out and open the hood! A gen two Camaro that had already went through the gauntlet gave me a jump, and I pulled up into the very back of the line.
Boone finally walked down to check on me, "What the heck, we all finished up forty-five minutes ago?"
"I'm just a lowly daily driver, so we don't get the express lane service like you big guys."
Darryl and Tony came over and were talking to us, and Boone mentioned, "Dale pulled it off, he got the Gremlin teched down to 8.50!"
Tony looked surprised, "That thing has a current cert? He has a license?"
Boone and Darryl tried to swallow their tongues, and I certainly didn't want to lie to Tony, but they are in the same class..."Uhh, he's had his license for awhile, and I'm sure the car has certed before,...I'm not sure about current".
"The Javelin is certed, but I haven't had a chance to get a license" Tony shook his head, "Maybe once Firebird re-opens, I doubt I'll need better than 10.0 for this trip though!" he smiled.
"Dale shouldn't either, but it's nice to have it", I added. Dale's best computer simulations have shown 10 teens with this combo, but I had told him to try to get the 8.50 box checked, and apparently in the few minutes he had spent with the tired track tech inspector, he had been convincing. It's sure a much easier process to deal with Finnegan for 90 seconds on which class you want to run, and a local tech guy for 2 minutes on how fast you can go than it is to post pictures and threads all over the internet boards for the whole world to sort through your junk....just saying!!

I finally cleared tech with a weak mmeeap from the horn, and then had to go to the registration tent.
"Gebhart", the lady said as she checked off my name and handed me my numbers, "Thought we had processed all of you guys already!"
It was after 4 pm by the time I joined everyone on the return road, and the last of the LS Fest was wrapping up eliminations through intermittent sprinkles. Dale and James were working over the front end of the Gremlin adjusting the tie rods, adjusting ride height, and setting toe. Darryl was standing by, "Well, I wanted to make some test runs tonight, but this weather doesn't look promising!"
"Nope", I shook my head, "I think this LS thing just screwed us out of our Sunday test and tune!"