I backed the Satellite into my designated spot in our line of six and jumped out with the intent of swapping in a fresh bottle, but I was immediately swallowed up in the flurry of activity surrounding the rest of our group. Darryl was standing nearby, studying the route map to Indy, as he had already been to the tower to turn in his time slip.
"256 mile jaunt for us today, when do you think you guys will be ready to roll?", he looked at me. I noticed quickly that he already had his Dart packed up.
"Are you done, or not?" I asked Darren.
"If I get the nitrous hooked up in time, I'd like to try another one", he shrugged.
"Boone, what's with the Belvedere?"
"It's stuck in a forward gear, it pulls forward in neutral and locks up in reverse, so it could have a clutch pack welded together, or just a valve in the valve body stuck. The fluid isn't burnt, we can try dropping the valve body if you want, or we can swap to that other trans..."
"Left it in the truck in impound!" I winced, "what do you want to do Rachael?"
"I don't care, either way, fix it or leave it, whatever we have to do", she smiled, standing there with her time slip still in hand.
Robert (6pak2go, Moparts) walked up about that time with a big smile on his face, and a firm handshake. "I see you made it! I told him.
"Yeah, rented a Charger , and I'm ready to check out this adventure, today has been awesome already, so I figured I'd follow you guys to Indy, or I'm ready to start wrenching if needed!"
I looked over at Dale, and James, in the middle of the Gremlin carb again, and asked, "Are you going back up or getting ready for the road?"
"One more", Dale shook his head, "This thing won't make any RPM, barely hit the chip that run".
I looked at my phone, it was 12:45, and the announcement had already been made that the last car down the track would be 2:15. The pits, and staging lanes were thinning out considerably as most were making their way towards Indy. My quick assessment was that the Gebhart clan was probably going to be the last group leaving Bowling Green this evening, and I didn't want to drag Darryl and Robert into that abyss on the first day! So I told Rachael to go turn in her slip, and get a route map for Robert, so He and Darryl could get rolling, and leave the rest of us to our misery. Everyone seemed to agree to that plan of attack, so we set up on our course of action. By the time Darryl and Robert rolled out of the gate, Boone had the Belvedere up on jack stands, and Dale had the Gremlin headed back to the staging lanes. I stuck a new bottle in the Satellite, and told Rachael to run the old one over to Monte's trailer for a re-fill (Thanks again to Holley/NOS for providing free re-fills to us junkies on this trip!).