Last year's debacle had us gunshy, but this year's tech line seemed to move along pretty well, I was re-connecting my horn wire, when the Track tech guy approached. I told him I was good to 10.00, he looked at a few things, and signed me off. First hurdle completed. I was still messing with the horn when it was my turn in front of Kieth Turk..."Lets see some lights", he hollered. I pulled the light switch on, and smiled.
"Nothin'" he gave a slidelong look.
I hadn't fixed the problem on Dims, but I looked in and the brights indicator was on..."You don't have four headlights?" I asked.
"Nothin', give me turn signals..."
I turned the key on and pushed down on the lever..but heard no flasher. "What the heck" I shouted in disgust, "all this stuff was just working!"
I started to go around and look under the hood, but Kieth motioned me over, "Just push it over in the grass..it'll probably just take a few minutes to figure out and I promise I'll come back to ya".
We pushed it in the grass, and the girls who were handling registration motioned me over, and took care of all that stuff, the numbers, goodie bag, stickers and everything else, so that all I needed was Kieth's sign off to be good to go.
Once underhood, I realized that when I was messing with the horn wire, I had inadventently disconnected the light harness from the bulkhead connector. Then I couldn't get the horn to sound, and wasn't about to have Kieth back over until it was right.
"Rachael, go borrow me a test light from someone..." I implored.
"I don't know who to ask or what to say", she tried to get out of the task.
"Start down that row", I pointed at the pits, "Throw your shoulders back and ask for a test light...You've got boobs dear, it won't take very long, I promise!"
She was back quickly with a brand new test light, "First trailer", she laughed with an embarrassed smile.
We managed to get a working horn, and called Kieth back over. "Headlights right?" he questioned, "Let's see them".
I flashed them on and off. "You're good!" he grabbed my paper and signed off.
Last year I managed to get by him without the brake lights working...but this time I felt cheated! I had everything working and didn't even get to show it off!

Back in the pits, Rachael and I found that we had lost one of our spots. Some ole fart with an old shivvy race truck had pulled his rig in with a "For sale" sign on it, Thinking a free entry to the track was a good chance to show it off, and get some buyers. So we had to pit nose to tail, and crowd our buddies with the big trailer, who turned out to be the aforementioned Bill Fowler, his co-driver, and the Mustang. While they didn't seem too enthused about being hemmed in by a Valiant, I noticed they enjoyed the company of the bubbly 22 year old rookie driver in the Belvedere!
With the cars prepped to make a pass, Darryl started getting anxious, "When are they gonna start running? I figured they would have cars on the track by now!"
"I don't have a clue", I shrugged my shoulders, "I've never been to Registration day on time before..."

Rachael's Belvedere and Ross' RoadRunner in tech line:

Last year I managed to get by him without the brake lights working...
IM TELLING Keith and Tonya.Good luck next year. Also telling Keith that you said that all helicopter pilots are idiots.

Rachael's first time down the track came a little after noon. I went up with her, brought her into the water, and told her when to end her very tentative burnout. Her first reaction time had a numeral in front of the point, and the car ran a lazy 14.35 at only 95 mph, but it was a good starting point. Slightly less than 10 minutes later I had her back up on the line again same routine. She cut the reaction time in half (not a major feat, but a move in the right direction) and went 13.76-92 mph.
I called Dale...no answer. Tried Boone, and he did.
"Where is Dale, and what are you guys doing?" I asked.
"He's right here with me, we are trying to get Darren's Charger ready to drag out there".
"You've got less than two hours...better hustle! I need to talk to Dale about the Belvedere".
"What's goin' on out there?" Dale asked as Boone relinquished the phone.
"Rach just went 13.76 at 92, first pass was 95... I thought you told me this thing was running 13.20's at 105?"
"Yeah 102-107, is she getting full throttle? It's a little tough down near the floor, and make sure she's running it to the stripe before she lifts..."
OK, I'll check...Are you coming out? Deadline's at two pm!"
"Yeah, we'll be there", he answers deadpan.
I walked Rachael down to the end of the track for a look around, then decided to try the Valiant. I wasn't looking for anything earthshattering, just wanted to shakedown all the new suspension parts, and tires. It left hard and straight, I short shifted both times at around 5800, the engine sounded great, no missfires, and just seemed to run out of steam at about 1100ft., 11.77-112. I climbed out and told Rachael to get another one. She fired the car and headed to the lanes, and I started walking up when Clark (Bad340fish, Moparts and BlueCuda340, Bangshift) approached and introduced himself. We talked for a few minutes, then I excused myself with, "I've got to run up to the starting line and help my daughter".
Clark pointed towards the track, "That's her running right now, isn't it?"
"Uh...yeah, yes it is!", I noticed her opponent's win light was on halfway through the run, so that meant she went red, and a 14.04 at 99 flashed on the board. That told me she figured out the finish line, but something went wrong on the starting line.
When she returned to the pits, she slammed the door and started walking away towards the bleachers.
"HEY..what happened?" I yelled at her.
" I Redlit! YOU weren't up there! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE UP THERE!" She threw the keys and the timeslip at me, and stomped off.

"Well, she is her mother's child..", I thought to myself.

I think I am getting blamed for something.......... lol great read keep it up.

love reading your stories. Keep em coming.

I had figured Darryl was going to hotlap the Dart into oblivion, but he only had two runs in, and when I asked him what he found out he just commented, "These Goodyear SST Radials aren't cutting it. Think I'll switch to the Mickey Thompsons I pulled off the other car tomorrow."
I found Rachael in the stands, and told her, "It's not like I'm doing anything up there..you know how to find the water."
"I know..it's just..it calms me down." She turned towards me, "I'm buying you a shirt that says I'm NOT MoparBilly...that way you won't be talking to everyone in the pits all day!"
"Well, it's going to be long week, you've got a car to run and so do I, so you need to be able to handle it. Let's go get one more run."

I brought her into the water, she did a decent 2nd gear burnout, cleared the converter, and I sent her up to stage on a single. 13.54-97 good enough, we'll get her on the spray tomorrow.
As I walked back to the pits, I saw Dale's 1 Ton dually rolling up to the back of the tech line with Darren's Charger still on the trailer. I looked at my phone, and the screen displayed 1:57pm, consistant as always!
"Where's Boone?"
"Stopped at O'reilley's to grab a few more things."
"Where's Darren?"
"Was still trying to round up all the parts we need to get ready, plus all the paperwork, but I figured If I waited for him, we wouldn't get here in time.
He took the tech card sheets from the official, and looked around for a pen. Rachael walked over, and took them from him, "I'll fill them out, I've been through this once already".
"What'ya got left", I questioned.
"Tons of stuff", Dale smiled, "just trying to get by tech, and registration, then we have until tomorrow to make it run!"
It's the nature of the beast that is Drag Week, the big picture of 4 tracks in 5 days, and all those miles boils down quickly to the next step, the next hurdle.
Keith Turk drove up next to us, rolled down his window, and stated, "I'm not teching that thing on a trailer...it needs to be off of there when you present it at the head of the line."
"No problem, we'll have it ready", Dale agreed.
" That'll be in about two hours", I laughed as I looked up towards the tech area.

I heard the signature Pop-Pop-Pop of a boosted ride about to let loose on the starting line...then quickly heard the unmistakeable screetch of metal against concrete, and saw many in the pits start running towards the track. I didn't want to see. Sunday up to that point had been an awesome day of reacquainting with old friends, meeting new friends and being surrounded by cool cars, but it seems to be a Drag Week tradition that someone nukes an engine, trans, or something else on registration day. I felt bad for Doug Cline, who had also tangled with the wall at the Pump Gas Drags in '08.
I looked under the hood of the Charger, there was no battery cables, no radiator hoses, no plug wires, no engine harness of any recognizable form.
"Good grief!"
"Tell me about it!" Dale shook his head as he started wiring the alternator, and laying out lengths that would be needed to get back to the firewall.
Boone showed up first, Darren and Jamie shortly thereafter, and the 1-Ton, Charger, and trailer was a beehive of activity as it slowly inched forward towards tech. Dale ran interference with the track official. "It's just an 11.50 up car...Here's his helmet....the battery is in the front...just a street tire car", anything he could do to get it signed off without drawing attention to the fact the seats weren't bolted down, and there were no seatbelts in the car yet.
With that out of the way, they kept after the wiring. Finally, Dale had Darren turn on the key so he could check the turn signals, a quick puff of smoke under the hood was the result, as apparently the positive wire for the coil was laying bare on the intake manifold.
We pushed the Charger off the trailer with two cars left ahead of us, and pushed it up to tech, the four brothers behind the car, and Jamie behind the wheel.
"Let's see some headlights, gorgeous!" Keith shouted at Jamie with his signature toothy grin.
"We got this in the bag!!" I whispered to Dale.
Passed tech, pushed through registration, picked up all the paperwork, numbers and stickers on the glass...so the brothers didn't go 0 for 3 after all! We pushed the Behemoth back on the trailer, and we all headed for Dale's house...now there was just the little matter of actually making it run!

Once at Dale's, we kicked around the ideas for our approach to Monday. Since we were only 7 miles from the track, did we pack the cars tonight, so we could hit the road straight from the track, or did we plan to come back and prepare after we turned in our slips for the first day?
Darryl was consistant with his approach, "We need to be ready to roll, it's going to be a long haul to Texas."
I went through Dale's shop, and found an old Cragar center cap that fit my Centerline front wheel where the dust cap was missing, and the spindle end was still exposed. I jacked up the front, shot the end full of grease, installed the cap in the wheel, and bolted it back on. The rear seal leak had never left more than a few drops at any one time, so I was just going to cross my fingers on that little snafu. Then I started digging through my truck and loading up both cars, including putting a fresh bottle in the Belvedere. It was well after dark by the time we were done, and I was feeling beat, so we left the Valiant where it was parked and Rachael and I headed over to Boone's place in the Belvedere to finish our laundry, and get to bed...tomorrow was going to be here soon enough. I was out by 10pm.

I awoke at 2:30 am to the sound of an engine firing repeatedly, running at 2500 rpm for 10-15 seconds then dying.
"That Racepump isn't priming", I thought to myself, and tried to roll over and stuff my head in the pillow. Finally the darn thing remained lit, and hammered away at 2500-3000 for 10 minutes solid before going quiet. I crawled out of bed, pulled on some clothes, and wandered outside to see what the heck was going on.
"Breaking in the cam", Dale commented when I entered the shop. "Couldn't do it at my house, the neighbors would have strung me up!!
Darren headed out to get some more parts out of the truck, and Boone gave me a shake of his head, "This was more than we bargained for...everything on this car was just mocked up, or hand tight...nothing was completely done, we've had to go over everything".
Darren came back in and they fired it up again. They had the garage rollup door lower than the exhaust, and I was starting to worry they were going to gas themselves out! They were all just walking zombies at this point and probably wouldn't know what hit them. I opened the door to allow some air to move through. I finally excused myself and went back in to finish packing my laundry and preparing to get started. An hour or so later Boone came in, "They are taking it for a test drive, I'm gonna take a shower and go to bed... come and get me when you're ready to leave for Texas."
So much for leaving from the track!

Rachael and I drove to Dale's, and started preparing to leave for the track. I opened the driver's door to the Valiant, and immediately noticed the keys were not in the ignition, checked the trunk lock, not there either, rumaged through my pockets, no. A huge lump began to develop in my throat, this is is NOT the way I wanted to start Drag Week!
Dale's stepson Cody, and his Wife were in the kitchen and I asked if anybody had pulled the keys, but no luck there. I searched the truck, went through the packed bags, nothing.
I was reaching panic mode, I've owned the Valiant since 2006, and I've always had only one set of original 50 year old aluminum Valiant keys, one to the ignition and doors, the other for the trunk. I've promised myself a hundred times that I was going to get spares made, so I wouldn't break those, and now I've lost them. I can drive the car without them, pretty much the only need to have the ignition on right now is for turn signals, but the trunk has the fuel cell in it, not going far without getting in there.
Rachael and I decided to head back over to Boone's to see if we left them there, and Darryl decided to take the Dart and head to the track. No luck at Boone's, but he gave us a huge box full of old mopar keys that he's collected over the years, "Who knows, maybe you will get lucky?"
Mom and Dad arrived at the track shortly after we did, and helped Racheal and I unload our stuff, about key # 30 of Boone's collection worked the ignition, and much to my surprise, locked and unlocked the doors as well, so now I felt a little better, but he had 10 times more ignition keys than trunk keys so we struck out in that regard. Soon, The announcement was going out for the driver's meeting to commence. "Everyone, drivers, crew, everyone to the meeting". So we dropped what we were doing and headed to the bleachers.

"Welcome to the largest gathering of cars that weren't running two days ago", is how Dave Freiburger officially kicked off Drag Week 2012. He then asked for a show of hands for first time Drag Weekers, and I was shocked by the amount, it looked like half the crowd. He finally went over the numbers. 219 had registered before the cut-off, when they started adding preople from the waiting list I think it swelled as high as 234, but only 187 actually made it.
When he broke down the car counts for each class I was surprised to realize there were only 3 cars in Modified NA, the number published on HOTROD.com had been 7 expected. We were about halfway through the driver's meeting when Darren came rumbling through the gate, and then drove through the pits twice trying to find where we were parked...a grand entrance for the Charger considering not another vehicle was running. I tried to remain inconspicous as everyone peered around to see where the racket was coming from.

I didnt get to talk to you until after the drivers meeting.Must say losing the keys ahd you on the limiter. LOL.

I've lost expensive tools, my wallet a few times, but I lose my ###### mind when I lose my keys.... I'm glad I have someone to share this sickness with.

I love reading your story's. I forgot my keys once, track was 3 hours away from home. Good thing Dizuster was with me. He picked the ignition and trunk locks.
Doug

Went over to Darryl's tonight to watch The NHRA race at Reading...dang rain, sure helps with the cliff-hanger aspect, was looking forward to that Beckman-Capps race, and Pro Stock.
Managed to steal the disc out of his camera, and right down all the passes he made, because I figured after I write the rest of my story we may not be on speaking terms!

Anyway he had some killer pics taken at Dale's during the last few days of preparation that I wish I would've had during the last thread, so I'll share them now, what the heck?
The last known photograph of my keys and working trunk lock!!

BOONE
Uh, any attempt at an explanation would be a monumental failure

This was my pit spot for the week preceding the event.

Not exactly a Hi-tech operation.

The Gremlin, naked...

I like this one of Rachael and the Belvedere, think this was right after she had waxed it.

Boone welding the brace on his hood.