Will, Michelle, and Derik Heath
Will Heath was a friend of Cody, Dale's step son. He bought the big block Aspen that Cody and Dale built years ago. Then his younger brother Derik purchased the small block Mopar powered BMW from Dale. Finally, Michelle (Will's Wife) purchased the 70 Duster that was previously owned by Michael Beeler, from Dale. Dale kept the 572-13 mega block engine and tricked out 727, and sold the magnum force front end, 4 link Dana 60 pro street Duster less engine and transmission.

Michele and Derik both managed to get pre-registered for Drag Week during that hectic six minutes in March, so they were determined to make their first ever attempt at the event.

Now, you can spin this story several different ways depending on your perspective. It's either a case of my three younger brothers taking these bright eyed kids under their wings to provide them with the technical expertise and discounted parts to build cars far beyond what their skills and budgets would allow, or it's a case of three older hot rodders finding some awestruck young proteges to unload all their used, and possibly used up junk on! I'm eleven hundred miles away from the day to day interactions so my best guess is the reality is somewhere in the middle!

Derik wanted to bring the Beemer, but he removed the electromotive fuel injection and replaced it with a carb, and driveability wasn't sorted out yet. He also wasn't confident that the sketchy BMW IRS would handle repeated full throttle launches on drag radials either, so he elected to bring his daily driven small block chevy, short box, 14 sec., 79 GMC C15. While we were disappointed, a slower more reliable option was probably a good choice.

The original plan for Michelle's Duster was the Indy headed 440 that Dale had sprayed into the eights on two Drag Weeks, but upon close scrutiny, most of those parts fell into the "used up" category. The H-beam rods were combined with a 4.15 crank Darren had on hand, and she purchased a set of Icon flattops for 500 inches. One of the Indy -1 castings was damaged beyond repair, so a new bare head was ordered and all the hardware transferred over. Dale's old 272/640 Howard's Flat tappet was put into service, along with a set of Indy rockers that Dale had on a shelf. The barely used Cometic head gaskets Darren had were thicker than they wanted, but time and dollars necessitated their use, so compression came in at 10.4.