Good one Clark! Nothing we took even remotely looked like a chair.

We pulled back out on US-31, and called Boone to explain how to get to the checkpoint. Darryl called immediately afterwards, and Rachael took the call.
"He says the motel is thirty miles out of route, and he is just going to find another one because he doesn't want to back track that far!"
"That can't be right, but they seem to be running us quite away over just to go to that cruise-in spot. Ask him how far the motel is from the track!"
"4.5 miles".
"Then tell him to drive to the track and finish the route, and then go to the motel".
"Yeah, he said that makes sense, he'll do that!"

This is what happens when you get tired and road weary after a long day, and you are looking at road instructions on a sheet and taking advice from smart phones...it can get convoluted in a hurry! We made it to the Barnes and Noble for the cruise-in without a problem, (of course it had been over for hours by that point), then everything went sideways in a hurry. Maschmeier and Gilpin drove by in the Camaro, so we dicided to follow them, and that turned what should have been a 1/2 mile cut-off into a 4 mile drive-around! Then they came to a dead stop in the middle of an intersection, which Rachael clearly knew was a left turn, so I made a left turn on the inside of them, and now they decided to follow us! 3 miles or so later, I made a wrong turn, then drove about 2 miles before I figured it out, so we pulled into a closed gas station to take a breather, and get our bearings. The Camaro continued on, but as we sat there in the Satellite, with the engine shut off, punching the motel address into Rachael's phone, I heard the throaty, lumping monster coming back towards us. They pulled in, parked, and Travis walked over to my open door, "what are you guys going to do?"
"I think we are within a couple miles of the track, but I'm not going to spend twenty more minutes searching for it in the dark, so we're going to find our motel and call it a night". I smiled as I looked at his weary face, and realized they were at the end of their rope as well.
"Yeah, I agree, I think we'll do the same, see you guys in the morning!"

Basically, now, when I look at it on Google maps, we missed the track by about three miles, and then back tracked and drove 8 more miles than we needed to find the motel, but at the time it felt like it cost us twenty miles and an hour of time to get it all straight!
Exhausted, I called Darryl, and woke him up to get our room numbers, he was barely coherent, but I sent Rachael up to get the key, while I called Boone and directed them in.
She came back with one room key.
"We have two rooms, why only one key?"
"This is to the other room, he just stuck it through the door, and closed it again!"
"Well, OK, I guess whoever is staying in his room will just have to beat on the door when they get here!"
Rachael grabbed our bags and headed on up to the other room, while I waited for the guys. When they arrived, Darren and Boone parked beside me near the front of the motel, but not Dale, nope, he had to rumble all the way around, and park on the far side. There is always one in every crowd who has to announce his arrival at two in the morning!
I helped Dad, Darren and Boone grab their bags and escorted them to Darryl's room, then returned to our room only to realize Dale and James had snuck in there already and beat me to the shower. I didn't set an alarm, we were going to be late to the track tomorrow, just like a marathon, pace is everything!

There was a large contingent of Drag Weekers staying at our motel, and even though I didn't get up, I think I heard everyone of them leave. Finally I jumped up, got my shower, and after dressing, started rousting the rest out of bed.
I took my stuff out to the car, and met Dad at the continental breakfast.
"Is everyone else moving in your room?" I asked him.
Well, Darryl left like an hour ago, but yeah everyone else is getting around."
"I saw Eli parked at the entrance to checkpoint #2 last night, what was up with that?" I asked. Eli Gould is from the same 1000 population town in Northeast Oklahoma that I grew up in, that my parents still live in, and his brother attends the same church as my dad, so we were keeping tabs on their effort in Daily Driver.
"Yeah he was still there when we arrived, HEI coil was overheating, and they just have to wait for it to cool off. Pep Boys is supposed to have one waiting for them at the track this morning."
"I saw Ray's Barracuda was here last night."
"Yeah, I think he pulled out even before Darryl!"

Darryl called me shortly after we finished breakfast to let me know the first session was starting. He must've called me from within sight of the starting line because he was one of the first 10 sets of cars down the track, and had his one and only hit down the fabled Indianapolis Raceway Park track before 9:30am! His 11.181-120.1 was almost a mirror image of his run at Bowling Green, so he called it good.
I think he would have been one of the cars driving out the gate as we were coming in if his starter hadn't locked up in the pits! Once again, the traveling Pep Boy's Speed Shop trailer came to the rescue.

We took an almost 360 degree tour of the IRP grounds, before I found the main entrance, then unloaded our respective vehicles. The first session of class cars was already over, and they were running the Daily Driver class, so I reset the Drag Radials to 20lbs. and headed into the lanes with the Satellite. After Monday's debacle behind the wheel, I decided to leave the Satellite in Drive for my first run. I hit the bottle at about 30ft out, it shifted to second at around 5000 and we were moving, but valve float came before it shifted to drive. For those of you who have never experienced that while on the nitrous, um, it can be a bit disconcerting, it pops and snorts like a turbo car on the limiter! I let off the horn button and the gas at the same time, and it finally shifted to drive, then I just half throttled for a ways, and crossed with a 12.96-99. The 440 sounded rough in the shutdown area, so once I made the curve, I took a quick look under the hood to make sure it wasn't pushing out water or oil anywhere. Once back in the pits, I changed the plugs, but none of the old ones looked nicked up. I finally discovered it had blown the vacuum plug off the manifold, with that replaced, she returned to the normal 800rpm dead stick idle I had become accustomed to.

Boone asked me to help him with his fuel transfer. We had bought 15 gallons of 110 octane Rockett brand gas at Bowling Green with the plan of using it on the track for the whole trip. Boone took a line loose, drained all the pump fuel into another jug, then we dumped in some of the race gas. He had already uncapped the headers, and Dale had pulled the timing back into it.
He headed for the lanes, and Dale jumped into the Gremlin to go up for his initial hit as well.
"No hood?" I questioned him.
"Nope", he smiled, "Going to try it without this time!"

Boone soft soled it off the starting line, but after that it seemed to go much straighter than it did at Bowling Green, and the scoreboard showed 11:58-116.3.
Dale pulled in a few minutes later, and when the transbrake let go, the rear bucked hard once, and it smoke the tires for about 60ft., and went 11.90-118. As soon as he hit the stripe, Brian Lohnes announced that we had an hour and fifteen minutes left, and the track would be shut down, so we were up against yet another deadline!

Boone was happy to be one and done, and decided to take this time to get the cam break in oil out of the engine, and get ready to roll. The oppressive heat, the time deadline, and trying to get a decent hit out of each car made our visit to Indy feel more like work than fun.

"Looked like it went pretty straight", I commented to Boone as he looked for a barrel to dump his used oil in.
"Yeah, I put two more pounds of air in the passenger side ET Street, to try and compensate for the body roll, and it helped a bunch!"
I went over to check on Dale, still under the back of the Gremlin, "I think I broke the shocks on the drive last night, so I'll just have to go up there and ease it out of the hole".
"You knew how much trouble I had with those coil-over kits on my Valiant in 2011, can't believe you didn't swap them out!"
"I was working on the Truck, just ran out of time", he replied.
"Talking about running out of time, how about running the Satellite again for me?"
"Alright." He jumped up and made his way into the nearly empty lanes.
He waited until after the 60ft. to grab the nitrous., lifted momentarily to get the shift into drive, and it nosed over at 900ft., but I was happy with the 12.43-106.
I had that time slip almost to the tower to turn it in when I saw Darren rolling up to the line for his first ever nitrous pass. He hit the bottle right off the line, and the sportsman pros couldn't handle it, so the big barge started sashaying out of the hole, he let off the nitrous, shifted, and then was on and off the squeeze the rest of the way down the track for a 12.42-118.
Two cars later in the same lane, Dale pulled the Gremlin up, footbraked it to about three grand, then rolled into it out of the hole. It stuck, and seemed to move along real well until it flattened out at about 1000ft., but I knew he'd take the 10.98-122.5, and move on to St. Louis. I looked to the return road in time to see Darren blow around Jeff Lutz's 57, obviously in a hurry to get another hit!

As soon as I walked into the tower, I realized that I had left my camera with my pictures from last night's checkpoints in the car, so I called Rachael to bring it up to me. That saved me the trouble of walking back for it, and had the added benefit of allowing me more time to soak up the air conditioning. With less than ten minutes of time on the clock, Darren finally approached the starting line again. The big Charger belched a little black smoke when the nitrous hit 30ft. out, but it stayed straight and hooked up. The 440 sounded very crisp all the way through, and I startled a few people in the tower with my fist pump, and "YES!", when the 11.62-119.9 flashed on the board.
Rachael arrived, and I finished the process of showing the pictures, turning in the slip, then getting both a written official hot rod slip, and the driving directions to the next track. We were halfway down the tower stairs when Boone met us on his way up, time slip in his hand, and a nasty burn mark on the inside of his forearm.
"What the heck did you do?"
"Darren came around for that pass as time was running out, and called me to say his car wouldn't start! So I looked under it and saw the neutral safety switch wire hanging down." He shook his head, "He had to get out and lift up on it just to give me room to get to it, and then it's right next to the exhaust... it got me good!"
"Did you bring your pictures?"
"No, Dang it!, Dad has them on Darren's I-pad, and he'll have to show them for Dale and Darren both so I better call him to come up here!"
"Yep! go sit in the AC and wait for them, that will make you feel a little better!"
Rachael and I went over to check out the HOT ROD Indy shirts, and my phone rang, it was Darryl.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"It's not!, I'm sitting in the middle of I-70 not moving at all!" he exclaimed.
"What the heck is happening?"
"We are in a one lane construction area, and a couple of tractor-trailers got tangled up, pretty bad, so they shut us down. I think they have a detour set up now, but those of us who were already on here are just stuck!"
"Wow, well we are just finishing up, haven't even started packing yet." I informed him.
"I hit some rain over by Terre Haute also", He added, "pretty good down pour, so tell your brothers to be careful!"
"Alright, talk to you a little later", I hung up. Considering the sticky, hot miserable day we had been through so far, afternoon thunderstorms shouldn't surprise me in the least, but we have two cars on ET Streets, so I was hoping for dry roads!

I started walking back among the cars and trucks.I knew we had DragWeekers behind us but they were no where to be found.I was wearing a DW shirt.Trucker rolled down his window and asked"You with those car guys?" Yes.They drove along the shoulder back to the last exit.THANKS!.After an hour of sitting we went back the wrong direction to the nearest exit. and circled around.Have to adapt.

That day we pulled into the hotel at 4 pm.

As everything was winding down, and we were loading our stuff, we did take the time to visit with Furious70 from Moparts, along with his Dad, and also Milner351 from Bangshift. Crazy as it sounds I am often far better at remembering forum names than first names! Speaking of such, here is a picture taken at Indy of Mike (Mr P Body, Moparts) and Dale (Quick 52, Bangshift) packing up to leave in their ride!

Eddie. Purple Duster. Indy. 8.69-155.9.

This time, we loaded up with care to even out our cars. Darren was complaining that the Charger couldn't handle much weight in the trunk, but since he was by himself, I decided to load some of the heavier tool bags in his passenger floorboard, and it worked out great. Rachael and I left first, and stopped at a station for the two most important essentials: fuel, and ICE!

Tom and the Bu'/One of Illinois finest.

We headed six miles up Raceway Road, until we hit US-40 west, which was stop light to stop light, and after a few phone conversations with the brothers, we decided to find a nice air conditioned restaurant and get out of the heat. Chili's wasn't my first choice, but since it was across the street from a Napa, and a block down from an O'Reilley's, it was agreed upon to stop there.
Once we cooled off, everyone was in good spirits, rehashing the days events, and planning what looked to be a fairly easy 210 miles in front of us. Dale wanted me to go over to Napa afterwards and look for some shocks for the Gremlin.
"You know what we went through with the Valiant, everything's going to be too long! What coil-over springs are under there?"
"110s"
"Which is great for holding up a bracket car on a drag strip, but as soon as you throw in a passenger, some luggage, and an extra 35lbs. of fuel, then drive down a rough public street.... they don't have a chance!"
"I know, at first I thought the shocks were broke, but after closer inspection, it's just completely destroyed the rubber bushings on the top mount!"
I looked over at Darren, "Why were you having trouble staying on the nitrous?"
"It's a column shift, reverse pattern, and I usually grab the shifter overhand to pull down. That put's my pinkie finger on the end where I taped the nitrous button on. Couldn't hold onto it, so I shifted underhand the second pass, that way I could use my thumb."
"Should've put a full throttle switch on it", James interjected.
"Say's the man with no right thumb!" Boone laughed, "You're just going to have to race without it James, you have to have thumbs to use nitrous, it's in the rulebook!"
"Shut up Boone!" James smiled, "Everyone else notices the thumb and they never say anything, you guys have been busting out thumb jokes since Saturday!"

I walked over to the NAPA, and explained to the manager what we were looking for, he was in his mid 20's, but really seemed to have a handle on things, and dug up a shock dimension book for us to comb through. We were looking at it when Kevin rolled by in the RX7 with the small-block chebby.
"Nice!" The manager exclaimed.
"Yeah, big inch small block! I don't know why guys build cars that small with big power, kinda crazy!"
"I've got a 240Z with a 540 BBC", he looked at me sternly.
"Cool...that's cool!" I tried to recover. Open mouth, insert foot... it's an acquired skill!

I returned from NAPA empty handed, and Boone came back from O'Reilley, much the same way, but he did have some info for me.
"The clerk told me you need to turn just after the energy place, go past the water tower, and you'll see the Post Office on the left." I had told him earlier that I needed to mail some bills that I had put off paying before we left.
"Good, I'll turn off there and catch up with you guys afterwards".
It still wasn't dark when we left Chili's, and it was still darn hot, before we made the eight stop lights to my turn, we had already lost Darren to vapor lock. I made my way to the Post Office, while the Gremlin and Barnyard continued on. Shortly after returning to US-40, it opened up into the scenic Indiana countryside and we were running along at a pleasant 55mph. The "pleasant" part lasted for about 15 minutes, then the ominous black clouds moved in and opened up on us in a torrential down pour! I popped over a rolling hill, and found the Gremlin and Truck limping along at about 20mph, Darren was following, as he had the only car with 4 way flashers!
"James' Garmin says there is a gas station up ahead about a mile", Dale told me over the Phone, so we sought refuge at a Marathon station to wait for the storm to blow over.

This photo was 3 hours later, and only 25 miles further down the road, than the previous one, yeah it was going to be one of those kind of evenings!

James was now at the helm of the Gremlin, as the strain of the last three weeks appeared to have Dale at the end of his rope! We covered the next 25 miles or so fairly easily, but then we had a major problem with the directions. HOT ROD wanted us to drive through downtown Terre Haute, but they told us to stay on US-40. US-40 actually cuts off on Indiana 46, and then hits I-70 avoiding Terre Haute. The problem was my navigator, Rachael, hadn't read the instructions to me line by line, and, like all these 20 something kids live their entire lives, just gave me the cliff notes! So all my backseat navigators in the three cars behind me, you know the ones that just want to follow along and not be forced to think, but then criticize every move you make, yeah those, they start blowing up my phone! So we all pulled into a Pilot Truck Stop at the intersection of 40 and 70 for a pow-wow. I drove the Satellite around back beside a beat up old Beamer, shut it off and slammed the door. I looked in the BMW, which had it's windows down, and a 50 something woman with fake red hair was completely passed out asleep! She didn't even notice the ruckus I had just made, New York plates..."yep", I thought, "road trip tired, I've been there before!"
They were fueling the Gremlin again, as I walked around front, and after a brief discussion, we decided to just get on I-70 instead of backtracking through town.
"Where is your co-pilot?" Dad asked.
"She saw the Fireworks store over there", I pointed, "and took off towards it before I even shut the car off!"

I don't have any pictures from this stop, because , frankly, I was a little miffed that it took place at all. I certainly wasn't in the mood to stand around and talk about it for another 30 minutes either, so when Rachael returned from her shopping spree, I loaded her up and we headed out. After a relatively easy first 60 miles of our cruise, I had unwittingly pushed the first domino with my hasty exit.

Be nice.Shes your daughter.That said working for Kroger will do that.Im still recovering from my 20 year sentence.LOL. Look at me. Your future is bright.

Great read!!!!

I'm really enjoying the read.
I was hoping to learn the secrets of hooking up with a late B Body.