I think you are doing a great job and wouldn't want you to change all the details. Just love it.

thanks for the update on the "rat dodge" billy ! keep up the great saga !

Armed with my new tire guage, I pumped the Goodyear 315/60 Drag Radials all the way to 24lbs., desparate to stop the "isolating", or "wobbling" of the body from Monday's pass. I pulled into the burnout box, ran it up to 6, and came out fairly agressive, it felt decent. 3500 against the trans-brake. Rattled the tires hard, no attempt at anything remembling traction, I lift to half throttle, slowly open it up, at 5800 it starts popping and breaking up, shift to second, and the body starts rocking side to side again, I short shift to third and try to ride it out, at 1000' ft I have to level out my speed, and just try to get to the stripe without wrecking or completely lifting..what a freaking joke, this is as frustrating as anything I've faced before. 13.30-101.15. I told Boone upon my return, "I've managed to turn a 10 second racecar into a 13 second street car, unbelievable"!
Dale turned out a 12.44-112.48, followed by a 12.469-112.04 and called it good. The three of us went to the tower, showed them our pics of the previous days check points and turn in our timeslips. For our trouble we received a map and mapquest type instructions showing a 3 checkpoint, 336 mile jaunt to Amarillo!
We set about changing back to Street tires on the 2 B Bodies, and resetting everyone's timing back to driving mode.
"You want to try those other shocks", Dale asked.
"If not now, when"?? I shot back "We'll be too tired, and it'll be dark by the time we get to the hotel, then it's morning, and get to the track..."
"Yeah, this deal moves much faster than I expected" Dale explained
"177 cars, and a 4 hour window to make runs, I don't think it's like anyone expected, this is a different DragWeek than any in the past".
"Everyone is rolling out, if we don't load up and hit it, we won't get to make the drive with everyone else", Darren piped in.
"I could CARE LESS about driving with everyone..I wanna fix this thing and make a decent lap at some point..."
I didn't want to take it out on them, that didn't serve any purpose, but they could sense how far over that slippery slope I already was.
The eyelets on the new shocks were correct width, but the rubber bushing and bolt sleeve were too wide, so each shock got considerable time on the angle grinder. Upon finally bolting them in we discovered the passenger side lower shock mount appeared to be bent, or mis-aligned. you had to grab the shock and physically shove it into place.
"The old shock on this side was toast, and appeared to be binding, maybe it took more of a hit in that accident than you thought", Dale surmised
"Or the driveshaft explosion", I added, thinking aloud. "I should have pulled this entire rear suspension out and checked every single component..."
We dropped her down, and pushed on the back a few times, it felt a little better. We started to load up, and took a look around. Joe Barry had his 56 still up in the air, the hayseed boys with thier straw hats and overalls were changing a head gasket on the 4 door catalina (aluminum headed BBC with ports the size of a fist!!). The orange camaro I posted a pic of was having problems with the disc brake setup on thier Dana 60, a seemingly stock appearing 95 Mustang was on a roll-back. We checked with everyone before rolling out in case something we had might make repairs easier.
When in Great Bend for Divisional races we always stopped at the China Buffet before leaving town, so we didn't buck tradition. With stomachs on the full mark, we rolled out of town around 4:30...it was going to be a long night!!

Bang,...bang, bang...Ugh, we had bottomed out the suspension quite often on the drive from Topeka to Great Bend, but with the 1/2 longer shock it was much worse...darn near just crossing paint stripes. I had added the watter wetter earlier, but today seemed to be worse than the first drive, the temp charged to 220 fairly rapidly, as we drove into the small town of Larned, I saw several competitors pulled over under shade trees appearing to be just allowing thier rides to cool.
"What're we gonna do" Darren asked, "It's climbing"
"I don't know yet".
By the end of town, and sitting at 225, I made up my mind and pulled over with Dale and Boone in tow.
"What's up", Dale asked as he approached.
"Runnin' Hot, let's put some timing back in it"
"It's at the same place it was"
"Yeah, lets try more"
He loosened the holddown, but couldn't budge the distributor...finally got a wrench but still couldn't get it, then just leaned over to two hand it....
"AyyAyy", he screamed, and yanked back in pain. The fenderwell exit headers had claimed another victim. I iced up a rag in the cooler as he finished up, his forearm was going to have a momento of this trip!
"42"
"From '31' to '42', that's all the options I get"?
"Yep, until you get a motor with the distributor where it's supposed to be"!
Several caravans of DragWeekers had went by, with us giving them the "Were OK" thumbs up...surely we were last by now.
Back on the road, the temp seemed to level out at 210, and the engine sounded a bit happier.

The previous picture was Checkpoint #1, 53 miles in. The pillow I had stolen from Boone's car was working miracles in the Driver's bucket, supplying a little cushion, and keeping my hips from sinking into the sides, and getting sore.
A local was looking at my car at the checkpoint and suggested that my return spring holder was pushing against my upper radiator hose, and chaffing it. In between his stories of "Hopped up 318s", and his 73 Challenger he had in his younger days, he mentioned that hard plastic would be a good buffer. I slid the lid from my vitamin water bottle in between, and he seemed genuinely pleased.
Fuel in Minneola, then on to check point #2 in Liberal Ks., Dorothy's House!! The pics were to be taken in front of a small playground called "Land of OZ"

I don't know if we were just punch drunk from the road, or if The Wizard just brings out the kid in you,but we ran around taking goofy pics. and acting like children there for about 15 minutes...not a care in the whole world.

.... good read Billy.... there seems to be a
problem on all the DWs on temp with a few cars

We pulled away from the "Land of OZ", and I noticed the ignition was acting up again, missing and breaking up over 3K, with the tach flickering. It only did it at night with the lights on, and for a little after initial start-up.
"We rushed the wiring on this thing, and I ran all the alternator wires through the same firewall grommet as the distributor wires, I think when the alternator is working hard we are getting interference in the signal to the digital 6", I commented to Darren.
"Yeah, it's definitely worse with the lights on", he confirmed.
It just didn't seem happy, the lifters seem to chatter more than ever, Little noises were popping up. There was a storm brewing ahead of us, with lightning flashes, the air was cooling off quick, and the car seemed to run worse, I started to develop a theory that it had to be lean.
We stopped in Guymon Ok. to fuel up, and my gas mileage victory over Boone was even larger.
"I think I'm bad lean, I got into detonation passing a few of those Semi's, and it didn't like it when the air cooled off" I said to Dale.
"What jets are in it"?
"I, do, uh not know.."
"WTH, what size is it"?
"I borrowed it from Darryl, supposed to be some Chuck Nuyten peice, like 1000 CFM", I didn't like the way this conversation was going.
"How many passes did you make on it"?
"I did a nice burnout with it, before the driveshaft broke...and this trip", I surmised
"Guess we should take a look" he agreed.
I backed across the parking lot to an abandoned station with nice canopy lights, Boone and Dale drove over also and we set up camp, and started tearing the front off the carb.
A big guy in his late 60's walked over from the hotel across the street, and started up a conversation. Talking to Darren mostly and looking at the cars. I heard him comment that he had been watching the cars drive by all day.
"My son called and said you guys would be comimg through,
You might know him, he's got the 59 Jag in Hot Rod magazine this month...".
"Yeah!! we saw him at the start of Drag Week, back in 06, he was at Cordova just spectating, and we drove behind him for a ways leaving the track"!
"He's crazy about that darn car, and he was excited about all the DragWeeker's coming into his old stomping grounds...I just live up at Kingfisher, I believe you guys will come by there tomorrow on your way to Tulsa, so let me give you my phone number, I have a shop if you need anything."
I couldn't help but think how the world of racing, and hot rodding seemed to get shrunk down and condensed on this week long celebration. Bill Fowler pulled up shortly afterwards, pulling his silver 71 Mustang convertible on an open trailer, he had heating issues within 10 miles on the opening drive, and now was just going from track to track, and making a run or two for the fun of it.
Darren, Boone, Mr. Henderson, Bill and his co-pilot stood around BSing while Dale and I checked the front of the carb out.
"82s, geez, that's like stock for a 750", Dale said as he peered down the throats, "and this certainly ain't no 750".
I dug some 88's out of the box, and we screwed them in.
"This will get us down the road, we'll change the back in the morning." I told him.
"Yeah, let's wrap this up, it's fixin' to get nasty out here". It was starting to spit a little rain, and the lightning was getting closer, we loaded up and headed out.

Several people at the station had commented, "I can't believe they are sending you down 136...that's a bad road!"
Now we had pulled up at a stop light to make the left turn onto 136, and a guy came running out of the Pizza Hut parking lot adjacent to the intersection, braving the weather to shout a warning at us. "Be really carefull on 136, there's a bunch of sharp turns...really watch the one at the State Line"!
We started off down a wide, rutted, redgravel asphalt two lane road, silhouetted against fierce lighning strikes, 5 minutes later the winds kicked in, and the sky opened up.
Darren is a clean freak...the guy pre-sprays his work clothes with Castrol Super-clean. When we started this trip, I told him I'd like to get a bottle of Meguire's quick detailer for the car...His eyes had lit up and he walked to the counter with about 4 chemicals and an armload of blue paper shop towels and microfiber towels of every color, darn near 40 bucks worth! This was one of those times I'm glad he did. He had liberally sprayed the windshield with the quick detailer before we left Guymon, claiming it would work as well as Rain-X...I have no wipers!
The wind, and the rain was coming at us from the passenger's side of the car, so Darren had to close his window wing and window. I had to leave mine open about 3 inches, and even at that, Darren was wiping fog off the inside of the winshield. The windshield gasket has spent 50 years in AZ, and it was not up to the task of keeping out the driving rain...we had drips coming in at about 5 places. I was running about 45 keeping my tire on the centerline, so as to stay in the high part of the road, out of the ruts to minimize hydroplaning the 315/60's any more than I already was. "Slow Down, were hydroplaning"! Darren pleaded frantically.
"Haha", I replied, "What's the worse that could happen, We've got a spool out back"!

Awesome write up....

We played the wind and rain last year... I was wiping
the inside of the 52 ford PU windshield(no defroster
or wipers)... didnt realize we were on the out skirts
of a tornado in Ohio

This is such a fun read. I can't hardly wait for each segment as it comes. I've gotta make it a point to get a car together enough to do both Power Tour and Drag Week. I honestly don't care if I'm the slowest car on Drag Week either!

Mopar Billy, very good write up. is there more commin?

I would have loved to help you guys had i known

More to come.The "Tulsa Experience" should be good.

Another anxiously awaiting the next installment!!!!!

Thanks for the kind words and support guys..I know this is moving slower than a plot in a soap opera, but stick with me!

When we had turned onto 136, there had been a 4th Gen Firebird, and a Fox Body Stang in front of us, but they had dissapeared down the road pretty quickly. I was figuring we'd hit Amarillo about 1AM, so now I was certain we were the caboose in this deal. The rain started to let up, as well as the wind, but 136 lived up to it's billing, I was slowing to 25 around most of the turns.
We drove through 3 small towns in Texas, in one of those we saw the infamous Green Nova...you know the one, with the beater look, and the poverty caps, and Faux whitewall tires, that runs really quick. He was under it, with the back on jack stands, working on something. I saw a local in a rat rod 50's chevy p/u there helping him, and embarrassingly we drove on through. This is the one and only time in 2 Dragweeks, I haven't pulled over unless I was given a thumbs up to go on...not proud, just tired.
We got to the final checkpoint a little before midnight, a large cowsign in Panhandle TX. A car was in the parking lot, running, with it's light shining on the cow, so we could find it, and take our pictures...at midnight, bizarre..I have no idea if it was an organizer, or a local, or what. The next 40 miles went by pretty quick, I was prodding the old girl along pretty good, for the short while we spent on I-40 to the motel, I let her stretch out a bit, passing Semi's (with approving thumbs up, light flashes, and horn blasts) at 3500rpm. The 2 b-bodies behind me with thier 2.76 gears were not duly impressed. We parked at the end of the motel parking lot, in front of us was a large field with abandoned old barns flanking a small dirt path. We decided against that arrangement, and found 3 separate parking spots in between other patrons Suv's and trucks... Probably not a problem, but a little camoflauge would help me sleep easier. Yeah right, My head hit the pillow at 1:30 AM, and the alarm went off at 6:00AM, those 2 events felt like they occurred simultaneously.

Amarillo; small Texas track, big fun!
Finally, we seemed to be getting our sea legs...we got our bags to the cars, and into the continental b-fast in record time, the best spread so far, so we were loading up. I saw a guy at the next table, by himself, with a Drag Week shirt on so I started a conversation.
"Are we having fun yet"?
"Yeah, I guess", he looked really wore out. "Long night last night".
"Yeah, we didn't get in 'til 1"
"Later than that for us...broke a brake line out on 136, lucky you don't need brakes out in the middle of nowhere. We nursed it into a little town, then some local in a rat rod came to our rescue...took us to his place and welded up the fitting to make a cap so we could cap off the back brakes.
With a pang of guilt, I realized this was the guy in the green Nova. "Bummer!, glad you could make it in".
"This was supposed to be the time of my life", he reflected, "This is a tough event".

Plan the work, work the plan. Boone headed off to Wal-Mart to grab a few things, the rest of us were headed to the track. We had drove 134 miles on our last leg, I was sitting at a light 2 miles from the motel when the big Volumax fuel pump started changing it's tune. "We're running out of gas"!
"Over there", Darren pointed
We cut across 2 lanes, and pulled into a gas station, Dale pulled alongside. I put in 1.5 gallons, knowing I was going to race gas when we got to the track.
"I need some 91 to race on", Dale commented. He had been fueling with Boone on his card, so I was on the hook this time, Dale doesn't believe in credit cards, or saving money; it's a religious conviction, or something like that.
"Just put in 5 gallons", I implored. "You'll be going back to 87 when we leave the track.
We headed off to the track, with Darren navigating, since he had asked directions to get us back on course. 6 miles later I gave him a concerned look, "How much further"?
"The clerk said it's 15 miles to the track"
"And you chose to tell me this after I only get a gallon and half of fuel"?
"Haha, drive easy big brother, drive easy"!
We fell into the convoy about 2 miles later...this was cool, we were actually arriving at a track when everyone else was! The entry was a small gravel road, we stopped at the back of a single line of about 15 cars on the right side. Apparently at Amarillo Dragway, both lanes lead in at the beginning of the event, about 15 more cars drove by us and formed a line on the left side...Oh well, it's Wednesday morning, and I'm driving into a drag strip I've never been to before...no complaints!!

Good job Billy... sounds like you guys had some long
drives and late nights

I just spent 3 hours typing, taking us through the race at Amarillo, and starting the drive to Tulsa. I opened a new tab to upload a few pics to Photobucket, and it locked up. Tried to clear out of photobucket and lost everything..I'm agrivated, and the wind is out of my sails!! Sorry guys..and I thought the trip had some frustrating moments!