The Setup:
My brothers Boone, Darren and I attended Drag Week '06 with our Dad. Boone and I drove a 78 Dodge 100 SWB, with a 915 headed, hyd cammed, 493 which had been bolted in front of the 8" convertered 727 and 3.91 geared 8 3/4 just hours before. Dad and Darren "ghosted" us in a PT Cruiser. We took home 3rd place in the 12.00 Daily driver class despite busting a rear yoke, and tossing out the D-shaft. Like everyone else who has done DW, plans for "next year" started immediately, but the event moved east, then south, and we were involved, like most mopar guys, with multiple projects, and it never materialized.



When the route for 2011 was announced, the fire was rekindled. While I reside in Phoenix, my 3 brothers live within 7 miles of Tulsa Intl. Raceway, we have all ran the NHRA Divisional at Great Bend's SCRA Drag Strip, and competed at HPT.

The plan called for 4 brothers, in 4 Mopars..the ultimate drag racing road trip.

The principals

We are a Family of 4 boys raised on God, Family, Hard Work, and Mopars...the order is completely optional. Now all in our 40's and time together becoming a precious commodity, we thought this would be a throwback to the days of our teens when we would thrash all week on our street driven rides, then head the 70 miles to Mo-Kan Dragway with our freinds for T&T.



A short introduction is in order so that the rest of this adventure will be easier for you to grasp. I'm the oldest, wisest and clearly best looking of the bunch. Looking at pics from '06 when I was 320 lbs. led to me joining Boone in his running hobby, resulting in the shedding of 60lbs. and a much brighter outlook on life.

Boone is the 2nd born, a mere 15 months younger than me and my roommate, best freind growing up. His strange moniker is a nickname given to him by me. Mom called us by our middle names, David and Danny, and we enjoyed watching the Davey Crockett/ Daniel Boone shows on TV, then re-enacting them. He is the runt of the family at 5'10" and 170, and easily the fleetest of foot. Incredibly intelligent, quirky, with a temper that is hard to ignite, but darn near impossible to extinguish.

Darren is 2 years and 8 months younger than Boone, but from 6th grade up they were nearly the same size. The consumate natural athlete 6'3" 230. In high school he was the 1000 yard tailback, the 17 point a game Forward, the second fastest 200m runner in the state of Oklahoma, all with absolutley no work ethic, and a total abhorrence to practice. Dad's Favorite, the girls' favorite...you know the type!

Dale was the baby, always eager to get along, to be along, 6 years my junior with many of the same features. Then we put a helmet and shoulder pads on him and he became an animal!! All the big Universities wanted him, but he just wanted to get married and work on cars. His dream of big time football died in the summer following his Senior year when the 727 in his 340 Duster exploded, breaking his right foot in 4 places. Simply the most mechanically intelligent and gifted person I've ever met. 6'1" 280 gentle monster.


The Cars:
I purchased my 62 Valiant in '06 from a freind. He had bracket raced it extensively throughout the 90's, but it had been parked, broken, for about 7 years when I brought it home.



After freshening everything, another freind was racing it in '08, and hit the wall in a top-end mishap. In '09, after already deciding to convert it to street use, the driveshaft failed in a burnout, trashing the trans, and most of the floorboard. It sat, parked, untouched, until the announcement of 2011 DragWeek stirred me to get back to it.

Boone had traded his 493 and an enclosed trailer for a 67 Belvedere street car in late '09, also ready to make a move toward a more street driven car. equipped with a 440, 727, and 4.10 8 3/4 it yielded easy low 13's on street tires.



Darren's plan was to take a myriad of parts from stalled projects, and combine them in his street driven 400 powered 73 Charger.

Dale had been buying smallblock parts from a local roundy-rounder when he came across Stock Eliminator engine builder and racer Jimmy Lewis, the chance meeting led to a conversation about a 66 Satellite that Jimmy was looking to sell. His son had grown tired of it, originally a 383 4-speed, the car was equipped with an 8:1 cast crank 440 with a small hyd cam, and a 727. He made the purchase, and immediately began driving the wheels off the tired old girl!!

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.

The Big Thrash

Both Boone and Dale work Mon-Thurs., but Dale had taken Thurs. off. I flew in on Friday after working a half-day in Phoenix, and arrived in Tulsa at 6:00 PM.

Boone's 67 Belvedere was finished out with new additions of an 850DP on a M-1, NOS big-shot plate system, new Carter mechanical fuel pump running to a t'd line with fuel pressure guage. The new Dr. Diff axles were ready for the abuse, and a pair of ancient 28X9 M/T slicks were on 8-inch Pro-Stars and ready to go in the trunk. One MAJOR snafu, the alignment shop on thursday had left the right front lugnuts loose...the American racing acorn style aluminum wheel was wallowed out, and the lug studs had loosened in the hub and destroyed the hub and drum. He had went to our home town and picked up a spare, very rusty hub, but we still had to deal with the wheel, and put it together.

Dale had decided that he could run low 12's with his 66 complete with low compression 440 smogger, a plate, and 2.76 gears if he only had the right converter. My attempts to explain that didn't exist landed on deaf ears, and he settled on a 10' 4000 stall that he installed 2 days before my arrival. It was painfully obvious immediately that it was too loose, and was a heat creator of the first order!!
It puked Tranny fluid out as we arrived at his house from the airport, and there in the pile of parts he had yet to install on it was a mondo-huge tranny cooler, and the requisite Big-shot plate system. A pair of 29.5X9 M/T slicks mounted on 7" police wheels were ready to load in the trunk.

My Valiant looked close to the untrained eye, but I knew an uphill battle was ahead. Boone had finished installing the interior, including the second plastic front seat. He had removed the old wiring going to the shifter, and installed wiring under the carpet, the leads were coming out near the shifter, and under the dash, but nothing had been re-wired..no trans brake, no nuetral safety switch, no rev limiter, no line lock. In addition the stock wring had never been tied into the race car wiring, so the car had no head lights, turn signals, tail lights, brake lights. only one set of the 4 8" electric fans had ever been wired in, and the denso 60' amp alternator had not been wired in. Dale had condemned my tranny cooler lines, and had new 3/8 steel ones he had yet to bend up.
Our biggest Challenge was the Cheetah SCS shifter. When my tranny builder had rebuilt my blown up 904 into a new case he got a little overzealous and cut off not only the front ears to clear the CSR Sheild, but also the back ear...the one that mounts and locates the Cheetah cable, so now a 5 minute bolt-in job was going to require fabbing a trans-pan mounted cable bracket strong enough to do the job.

"Thought you were gonna build my shifter bracket yesterday" I commented to Dale.
"Spent all day yesterday putting Darren's Stealth headed 440 together" he mumbled. "Dammit, you know he's not close, and now he's using up resources and time these other cars need" I shot back. He just smiled and shrugged, We'll make it...".

It was good to put a face to a name.Had a blast and it looked like you guys were as well.

Good read ...

Really nice write-up, thanks for sharing. I would LOVE to do Drag Week some day.

Good read so far Billy... I know the dilemma of trying
to get a car ready but 4 cars... congrats to you guys
for getting them completed... hope to read the rest
of the saga soon

Big Thrash continued
I noticed the QA1 Stocker Stars front shocks and new torsion bars were still laying in the front of Dale's shop. The current torsion bars are about 9 turns apart to get the same ride height, so you are limited to about a 3/4 inch gap to bottomed out. The shocks are toast.
"What the heck, Dale?"
"Not gonna happen, your old shocks have the nuts welded on at the top, and we have to pull the fenderwell headers to get to them." Dale replied, "Pull those fans off and re-clock them so all the wires will exit to each other, and then to the side of the radiator..."
"You're kidding! I'm riding on a junk front-end but the fan wiring has to look good??"
"Priorities", he retorted with a smile.
When pulling the 8" Derales off thier brackets, I noticed they had a nice little instruction decal which explained the two I had wired previously, the two that never seemed to do much, had been wired backwards! While I grimaced at my own stupidy, it did give me hope that we could keep it cool on the road.
Boone was attacking his damaged wheel. It was decided that since they had a washer slot for a shank type lugnut, we simply needed to drill out the damaged acorn bevel, and resize the holes to accept the lugnuts...simple, but daunting, and time consuming with a few worn out bits, and a hand drill. Upon completion, he moved it to the rear of the car.

As we worked through the lists of needed work on all 3 cars, Darren continued to call with issues of his own. He was dressing the engine for installation when he discovered the 67 440 block had bosses for mounting the power steering, but they weren't drilled or tapped. Boone decided to go help him, so we drew up plans for parts runs Saturday morning, and cut him loose.
Dale and I called it a night at about 11 pm, deciding a good night sleep might be at a premium at this stage in the game.

Saturday, Topeka -24 hours.
7AM, quick shower, and back at it. We got the 67's hub turned by an overzealous kid at the parts store who left it woefully thin. Stretched the hole in my hood under the scoop to allow for the small diameter breather that was our only option. Installed the Nitrous bottle brackets and line in the Valiant. Wired the fans, nitrous, and alternator through the firewall, installed tranny cooler lines on both the Valiant, and the Satellite. Boone was the runner most of the day, making trips to parts stores, speed shops, and of course, Pizza Hut. We continued to get updates from Darren, "When are you guys coming over to help me??".
We fabbed the shifter bracket mount from a motor home shifter peice, hooked it up and tested many times to get it right.

The hours just continued to tick by, and I started lobbying for an early departure. "Tech is 8-2 tomorrow..I don't want to show up at 2, we need to be there early.."
"It's a 5 hour drive" Dale says, "We still have alot to do".
"We need to concentrate on getting to the track, and getting through tech! Then we will have time to work on making a decent pass, then we will have time to hit the open road."
I was starting this argument early because I know how Dale is. Always the last guy to show up at the track, the last to tech, the last guy in the lanes...drives me insane.

Sometime around 9Pm, we get a call from Darren..seems a fully dressed 440 with deep 8 quart pan and 727 won't slide into the engine bay without hitting the K-member. After a brief discussion, he decides to separate the tranny, rather than dropping the K-member. At midnight he calls, and admits defeat. Engine is in, tranny is not, fuel tank is not, fuel lines are not. He's going to bed, wake him up when we are ready to roll.

We make the decision at that point, that Boone will drive his car to Topeka, and Dale and I will haul ours on the open 2-car trailer. The Valiant fires to life for the first time since Nov. 09 about 20 minutes before we start loading. Boone helps us load the cars, then heads home to pick up Darren, shower and pack. Dale and I load half the darn shop in the truck. None of us are talking, just going through the motions, bone tired. Good decisions give way to just moving..we shower, pack and are ready to hit the road at 6AM.

Chris..

Sounds like the beginning of a great adventure to me. Cant wait to hear the rest.....

Heartland Park Topeka, Sunday Tech, test and tune

We rolled into HPT at straight up noon, and straight into total chaos!! I was overwhelmed by the amount of cars and things going on in every direction. Our '06 DragWeek was much smaller. I began to wander as we pitted, if it would even be possible for me to enter on site, or if the 250 car limit had been reached. The only semblance of any organization was a massive snakelike single car tech line which was strung out throughout the whole facility.
After talking to a few people about the process, we realized the HR staff were just as overwhelmed as we were!! Get in the back of the tech line, and wait, someone will bring you a tech card as you approach the tech barn...that was it. We unloaded Boone's 67 and sent him to the line as our test subject. Meanwhile Dale's 66 had no working horn, and my Valiant had no working lights of any kind, so we unloaded them and went to work.
The line was moving terribly slow, and as seasoned NHRA vets, Dale and I realized there was no way on earth they could cut this thing off at 2.
"We've got time".
"Yeah..We'll just work on them 'til the line dwindles down then jump in."
"Wanna check 'em out?"
"Yeah, let's go see what they are looking at".

** Tech Tip **
It's always a good idea to meander up to the tech area of any new track or event and watch how they tech, and what they are keen on looking for...the process, the timing, and the individual inspectors. This can give you a better idea of how to approach them, and how to best get by with those 1,2 or 10 things on your car which aren't quite right.
** **

Boone went through without an issue, and came out of the tech barn, with his goody bag, and car numbers. 1 down, 2 to go. Darren wired my horn in, as Dale chopped out the original fuse box, and ran power into the stock 50 year old body wiring. Dims/brights, taillights, turn signals, all fired to life without a hitch. The brake light switch was trashed though, so no brake lights. Dale's 66 got a nitrous relay to replace his wounded horn relay, and we jumped in line behind the last 10 or so cars. The guy handing out tech cards was already gone, so Darren went to rustle up tech cards. He came back with a HotRod junior staffer, who said, "Hey, you guys were supposed to be in line by 2pm...
We cut him off with icy stares..."not that it's a problem, here just fill these out".

1st stop was the NHRA tech official. I managed to work him away from the interior of the car fairly quickly before he discovered the broken lower window net rod. One small victory at a time. Freiburger walked up next, twirling the famous "Go, No Go" guage in his hands, "What class?"
"Hopefully Modified," I replied, "Unless the tire is too wide and I'm forced into Pro Street."
He seemed pleased at the chance to put the guage to work, and crawled under the car to give the 315/60's a jab or two. "Yeah, those will work, looks like fun"
We tried to pull a fast one on Keith Turk, and nearly got by with the brake lights, but he wrote us down as having a taillight issue on his "naughty list" and said "Come see me tomorrow". The Valiant rolled across the scale at 2905 less driver... I was pleased with that after adding an extra seat, Dyna Mat, carpet, nitrous, and exhaust system.

Back at the trailer, we all 4 breathed a sigh of relief, teched in, ready for tomorrow(kinda)...the roar of cars running T&T, but all we wanted was out of the searing sun, a shower, and sleep. We left the cars at the track, disconnected from the trailer, and headed for the motel.

Sounds like how the process would take place if I was to go. But sometimes it is the over coming obstacles and testing of stamina that makes an adventure rather than a event.
I am sure you and your brothers will treasury this memory. Thanks for sharing it with us.

I am looking forward to the rest of the story.

Billy... I give you guys credit... I wouldnt do what
you did... I want some testing before I go... I would
hate to get there to find out I had a major problem
the first time down the track OR the first day on the
road.... I do give you guys a big

Cool write up. Waiting for the rest of the story!

...and I was just wondering what you'd been up to Billy! Good to hear the family is doing well.

Interlude:
I'm always told I have darn near photographic memory, and it is a gift I cherish. DragWeek puts you on sensory overload however, and it's difficult for me to write this story in the cronological style I usually try to employ.

A few tales are just better told separate of the normal narration, this is one:

The Great Nitrous Bottle Debacle.
Dale and I are hard core nitrous abusers; Boone,and Darren are not, as such they don't have much experience dealing with the pushers, peddlers and dealers that ply in the trade. I've always had a plethora of old, tall skinny bottles, that I try to maintain regularly, including trips to Phoenix's premier handlers of pressurized bottles for regular tests and certs.
When we started this plan, I brought 4 of my bottles to OK with me, but as I've been away from racing for a while, they were out of date. Dale had 1, and we bought 2 more off Ebay. Darren found a small gas dealer who claimed he could get 5 of them certed and hydrotested, for 20 bucks a pop. When he went to pick them up he got tagged for a 5$ a peice "visual inspection" as well! We had two filled immediately with no problems. Darren brought them home and dropped them off. We sent Boone to fill two more on Saturday before leaving, and he came back empty handed.
"One was plugged with what appears to be Mud dobbers nests, and the other has a blown pressure disc", he reported. Sure enough both bore fresh certs. "How in the heck did they pass cert??"..."and where is my bottle nut!" Boone got a strange look on his face, "Dang it, he took it off, and I guess..." "Boone! you can never, NEVER trust a N20 filler with your bottle nut, geez!!!"
When we arrived at Topeka, Dale's 15lb NX bottle was mounted but that was it, he installed the rest of his N20 system Monday morning, only to find Darren had never re-installed the nut, Darren just shrugged, and said, "Guess I left it in the RamCharger". Dale luckily found one from a nearby chevy racer. He then proceeded to completely plug the N20 filter in 5 passes...another of the recently tested bottles that we had the valve replaced in, I guess a clean-out would have been extra!! Cheating is not supposed to be this hard! Moral to the story, if you are new to Nitrous use..hang on to your nuts!!!

Hot Rod had announced that lanes were closing at 5:30 and Pizza/beer would be served at 6:00 Pm in the tech barn. I realized I hadn't eaten since Pizza at 1:00 pm the day before, so we decided to join them. The Pizza went fast, not nearly enough, and we held ourselves to 2 peices each, barely enought to hold off the hunger, no that the adrenaline was wearing off. In typical HOTROD/ Freiburger fashion, there was PLENTY of Beer. We aren't really drinkers, but I had 2, and then polished of my brothers' which they took a swallow or 2 of. An hour later I jumped behind the wheel of the 1 Ton, and they dutifully bailed in with me as we headed to the Motel. Pulled in the lot, and Dale immediately headed for the McDonalds across the street. I hit the pillow, exhausted, as Boone and Darren took showers. They woke me an hour later, for my shower, and my first words were, "Why the Heck did you let me drive back here?? A CDL driver who's been awake for 36 hours, had 4 beers on an empty stomach,...GEEZ that was stupid!!"

Monday, HPT
One of my favorite parts during Drag Week, odly.. is the continental b-fast at each motel. You are guaranteed to find yourself conversing with other particpants you've never met before, and they are all just as revved up and excited as you are!!
We pulled into the Track at about 8:30, and backed the truck up to the trailer...we noticed most of the trailers were gone, and before we even got started preparing the cars the loud speaker crackled out instuctions, "All trailers and support vehicles MUST be in the impound yard BEFORE driver's meeting. Driver's meeting begins at 9AM"!!

We looked at each other in shock, then jumped in, unloading the truck, while hooking up the trailer...we hadn't even really thought about what would fit in the cars, what we were taking or leaving behind. Decisions were made quickly, and we designated Darren to drive the truck to impound, while we headed to the Drivers Meeting. We were told that the 3 hour window for passes, namely 9-12 each day would most likely be expanded due to the 177 cars in attendance, that was certainly welcome news!
We returned to the pits at about 10:15 AM. I still had no wiring to the line lock, or nitrous, or alternator. Boone decided to change oil as well as mounting the slicks. Dale had reworked his 700 and sandwiched the bigshot plate between it and the torker 2 last night after tech, but he still had to plumb the bottle, wire the solenoids, change his stock fuel pump out for Boone's cast-off Chrome Holley pump, and change to his slicks.

We worked for quite some time, when I could feel that Dale and I were getting perturbed. We had a ton to do, and Boone's 67 Belvedere should have been up to run fairly quickly, but he and Darren seemed to be messing around with trivial stuff. We had a small 12 volt powered air pump, and he was bringing the slick up to what he guessed would be correct, I say guess because the guage on the pump, and the little POS thumbnail guage Dale had brought were roughly 4lbs. apart.
I walked by to see what he was doing, and he turned, "I finally had to tick Dale off."
"What for??"
"He was trying to help me with the tires, I told him to work on his car!!"
"DAMMIT, BOONE!!" my voice raised, "don't you get it? We need you to make your run and quit messing around so you and Darren can help us get ready before we run out of time, that's the bottle in your car that I have to use!!
He spun, spitting mad, ripped the air pump off his slick, and jumped in the car. As he headed for the staging lanes, Dale walked over, "What was that?"
"Just Dave pushing all the wrong buttons" Darren retorted.
"Now he's furious, and about to make a pass for the first time in that car on slicks with nitrous"
"First pass ever" Dale came back
"What"??
"Yeah, I'm the only one who's ever ran it at the track"
"Well...call him up, and calm him down, OK?"
I returned to my car and changed my approach, I'd never been down the track with that carb, tranny, converter, tires..what the heck, I don't need nitrous or a line lock at this point, I slammed the hood and headed after Boone.

As the saga continues... good read Billy... we'll
be waiting

First pass
When I stopped in the lanes, Boone was about 7 cars ahead of me, and seemed much calmer at this point, after some small talk, I started back toward the Valiant, and noticed oil dripping in the area of the filter, the filter adapter has given me trouble in the past. I thought, "just do an easy burnout, stage quickly, and get a run in...then we can look into it".
Boone did a quick, efficent burnout, and staged. he launched, then grabbed the nitrous at about 30ft out. When he did, the driver's front rolled up noticeably, and the back walked out toward the wall, 2nd gear, and a steering correction sent him back toward the centerline, then it just started a slow walk in the tailend, "Geez Boone, you don't have nearly enough air in those slicks" I thought. I heard him lift off the nitrous for a second as he shifted to third, gather the big B-body, then hit it again.
12.146-112.02. Freiburger had announced at the driver's meeting that we had 100 Daily Driver Class cars, but I thought that number would be good for the quick 32!!
I tightened the belts and pulled in the water, just a quick run-up to 6 Grand in 2nd then walked up to the line. Set the transbrake, but only went about 3/4 throttle, hedging my bet a little. When I let go the drag radials went up in smoke, no attempt at traction at all, the back washed out towards the wall, I lifted to half throttle and steered into it, then nailed it, I was already at 6 grand with the low gear set, and the ignition was breaking up terribly, so I instinctively hit 2nd. The car started pulling hard, but the body staring oscillating from side to side, hitting drive made it worse...you didn't feel it in the wheel, but the rear end was getting worse. I leveled out my speed and just prayed for the finish line to finally get there. 13.472-101.54...I was devestated, simply embarrassing..disgusting!! I walked over and talked to a few guys with Drag Radial experience, trying to comprehend what just happened. Went over and talked to Dale, "This is gonna be a horrible Drag Week, If this the way it's going to go", I lamented.
"No", he said, looking out from under his hood, "this is a minor setback", "that..." he stretched out his right hand, and my eyes followed his index finger toward the oncoming roll-back, perched on the bed was the beautifull Orange Fox body Mustang that was only moments earlier, behind me in the staging lanes, "is a horrible Drag Week"!!! The Mustang was crumpled on a least 3 corners..kinda changes ones perpective real quick.
Scott Abbot rolled up to our pits in his Orange/primer/body work 70 Road Runner, introduced himself as a Moparts member, complimented our trio of Mopars, then said, "What the heck is the deal with all the nitrous?? Haven't you heard of motor-only??"
"Sure Scott, but we're just trying to get in the show"! "Hows your 70 running?"
"Couldn't turn the first pass in...no roll bar, slowed it down to an 11.56", he said as he lifted the hood. The engine was a sea of turquoise, which tried to deceive the unwashed masses...we were duly impressed...with the E.T, and the workmanship.
Shortly afterwards, Dale grabbed his horn button, and the engine RPM jumped on his idling smogger, "Hehe, I'm ready".
He went to the line with about 30 minutes left in the session...12.86-106.8, with black smoke trailing. Back in the pits, "Need more nitrous jet", he surmised, his second pass as time was running out on our day was with 73 Squared in the Plate, 30 degrees timing, and 91 in the tank. 12.66-106.29.
"Our work is done here boys, let's load em up". No sooner had Dale spoke those words than a rental car started heading to our pits at a high rate of speed. Keith Turk stepped out with "naughty list" in hand and my heart sank.
"Boys, we get these issues taken care of.." he started. "Well, we are still working on wiring"...I stammered. "YOU GOTTA BE S***'in me", he was ready to attack. Dale quickly flanked him, "you mean the taillights? Heck yeah we got em' fixed!!"
"Well..my paper says taillight issues..."
"No Problem! this baby is ready to roll", Boone came up from the other side.
This wasn't the tech barn, this was our pits, 4 on 1, I started to feel we might pull this off..
Keith walked to the back of the car, we showed him the taillights, then the blinkers. "I didn't see the left one" he said. Darren stepped up and cupped his hands around it, "See there it's on!!"
He turned his attention to Dale's Satellite, "What about your lights"?
"I showed 'em to you the 2nd time yesterday and they worked, remember"?
"Show me again!!" As he put Dale through the test, he commented, "Did you know there is a difference between a Satellite, and a Road Runner??
"Goodness Keith, you didn't make THAT mistake!"
"Yeah, I didn't know, I went up to that guy with the 68 RoadRunner, and told him I had his Satellite on my list...and he went off on me!!"
We all laughed, "Mopar guys are sensitive"!
"You know Keith", I went on, "We had these cars fixed earlier today, and I told Dale we needed to find you, and he said let him chase us down!!"
"All you Drag racers are the same", he started in on a profanity laced tirade, "cheatinest suckers I've ever seen, We don't cheat in Land Speed racing, and we don't call people out, but you drag racers can't be trusted"
As he drove away, Dale crossed his arms and smiled, "Guess we don't have to chase down those brake lights now."

One more hurdle, then we were faced with the task of loading up everything we'd hastily tossed out of the truck that morning. Boone's Belvedere has 5 leaf springs that are basically shot, so his 245/50/16's will rub at the slightest inkling of weight thrown in. His own slicks and a few light bulky items, and it was loaded. The Valiant has a fuel cell, 2 batteries, and a bottle in the trunk..no back seat makes room for bags and other items, but a truck it isn't. Dale's Satellite has massive HD leafs, and the 235/70/15s don't come close to rubbing..2 floor jacks, the generator, power tools, jack stands, bolt bins, 2 sets of jack stands...poor thing had to be over 5000 lbs., with the slippiest converter of the group..this was going to be an interesting trip!!
We headed under the roadcourse tunnel, out to the open road, and shot this picture...