Rachael attempted another pass, and went 13.75-104, with a horrible 2.42 60ft time. When she returned, I called her on it, of course.
She put her face in her hands to cover the red creeping into her cheeks, "When I pulled into the water, I accidently shifted to neutral, and sat there at 4500rpm for a while, wondering why I didn't see smoke. I was so embarrassed when I realized what I had done, I just pulled up, staged, and went!"
"Good grief!" I laughed, "well, that's enough for today, tomorrow it's for real!"

Dale's daughter Kelly showed up at the track about 20 minutes before Boone and Dale went through tech, and she had Boone's insurance verification with her. In Boone's haste to get around that morning, he had left it on his kitchen table, and was pacing nervously until it showed up.
Boone and Dale's entries cleared tech/registration without a hitch, then it was on to the Dakota. Hot Rod had opened the tech lines to the wait-list, and drive up people who had stuck around all day in hopes of getting in, and a beautiful black Willys had pulled up behind the trailer. He had left what he thought was adequate room to unload the Dakota, but he was unaware that the truck didn't have working brakes as of yet. A fact my brothers really didn't want to share with those standing around in tech, so it was a balancing act of trying to muscle it off the trailer, as nonchalantly as possible, without wiping out a fiberglass masterpiece!
Once in place, the tech inspector looked at it dubiously, "Right turn, left turn, headlights", he worked his way through the list as Darren worked the hastily wired switches.
Finally he breathed hard, shook his head, and said, "You know what, Fire it up for me!"
Dale opened the hood, crossed the relay posts with a screwdriver, and thumbed the accelerator pumps, as the 499 thumped to life.
Still not completely happy, he came back with Tonya Turk. She put hands on hips, stared Dale in the eye, and said, "Look, we've got people on the wait list standing here to get in. I'd hate to turn someone away, if this truck isn't going to make it here tomorrow."
Dale returned the look, and stated, "Tonya, it'll be ready, it'll be here, and it'll make a pass!"
Darren got his credentials, and all those waiting were allowed in as well, including Dale's buddy Michael Beeler, with his purple 4 speed 70 Dart, and the father/son team of Ken and Wade Metzinger!

Once we got back to Dale's, he explained to me, "One of the guys that works at the track from time to time, offered us the use of his shop, and lift, to finish up Darren's truck, so we are going to take it over there."
"Cool, but can you help me a minute", I asked, You saw my 12.53?"
"Yeah, what was up with that?"
"Not exactly sure, but help me check WOT, I may have messed up the adjustment the other night."
I jumped behind the wheel of the Valiant, while he removed the breather, so he could check. I held the pedal against the positive stop in the floorboard, and he started laughing, "You barely even moved the secondaries!"
We adjusted it correctly, then he loaded up with Boone, Darren, James, and Dad, and they headed out in his 1 ton.

When I walked into Dale's house, Rachael had started cooking a huge supper for everyone.
"Why are you cooking so much?"
"They said they would all be right back".
"Yeah, sure," I laughed, "if midnight means right back!"

Another early casualty for the Mopar camp was Mike Chenoweth and his Hemi Road Runner that averaged 10.60's at 130 in 2010, but has suffered two early DNF's since then including no times recorded this year.

Tonya was channeling Keith. LOL.

Chapter 3: Drag Week begins!
Well. Kinda. You see, when you have home track advantage, the line between the end of thrash week, and the beginning of Drag Week can definitely be blurred a bit. Last year, at Bowling Green, we were in a motel Sunday night, with our rigs sitting in impound. We only had until a few minutes after the Driver's Meeting on Monday morning to decide what to take and what to leave behind.
This year we had our shop, our tools, our rigs, all at our disposal only seven miles away, until we left for Topeka. It's a huge advantage, and one we've had to lean on quite heavily on the two Drag Weeks that have began and ended in Tulsa.

The guys surprised me by returning at around 10:30 PM, but there was still work to be done. Rachael and I had used what was left of our afternoon to pack up the stuff we intended to carry in our cars, and were ready to roll in the morning. Reports were swirling at the track earlier that the Driver's Meeting was scheduled for eight AM, instead of the usual 9, due to the large number of entries, so I called it a night at Midnight, set my alarm for 6:05 AM, and crashed as they continued to work on the Dakota.

At the track, Monday morning left to right: Robert (6pak2go) Dale, John SR., and Sam (Sam64)

Monday morning was a real pain trying to get everyone around and moving. The main bone of contention settled around the fact that Darren's Dakota had to be trailered to the track. This meant we needed to get it there, get it unloaded, and get the truck and trailer out of the pits, before the driver's meeting. Otherwise it would end up in impound, or he could face disqualification, but they were all moving around with no urgency at all.
Rachael and I headed out first, and enjoyed the drive until we hit US169, and Owasso-Tulsa morning rush hour traffic. Have you noticed that when you are on vacation, you just assume the rest of the world is too? I was shocked at the sight of all those poor commuters on their way to work! When we arrived at Tulsa Raceway Park, John and Robert already had us a fairly decent swath of real estate carved out in the grass on the far side of the pits(away from the track), and that worked out perfectly.

We pushed the Dakota off the trailer, and Darren started working on it. I reminded him several times that we needed to get everything out of the 1 ton, so it could be moved to the parking lot, but he just ignored me. I tried unloading stuff out onto the ground, only to get told to leave stuff alone, so finally I just went up in the stands to wait for the driver's meeting. Boone, Dale, James, and I were sitting there for not more than 10 minutes when I saw Dad and Darren walking up in the bleachers, I looked out at the pits, and the 1 ton with the trailer was still in front of the Dakota.
"Boone, apparently these guys just don't get it! You're going to have to go out there, unload the truck, and move it outside the gate into the parking lot!"
"Alright", he shook his head, "I'll handle it!"

The Ogle Brothers had their pair of E-bodies ready to battle Monday Morning!

When the meeting was over, everyone dispersed to their vehicles, and the call to the lanes was made for the class cars. Dale had been working on the Dakota mostly, but now he turned his attention to his Gremlin. He had driven the car out to the track Saturday, and Sunday without a bottle in the car. His Nitrous bottle stands straight up, and attaches to the front cage down bar in the passenger's side foot well, basically directly under the dash, so he didn't want to advertise that going through tech and certification. Now he installed a fresh bottle, turned it on and decided to test both systems before heading to the lanes. He fired the engine, brought it up a little off idle, and tapped the button for the big hit, the motor jumped. Then he tapped the second small system, and the engine started screaming out of control, popping and banging! He cut the ignition and killed the engine but you could still hear the Nitrous spraying.
He then quickly turned the bottle off.
"Got some dirt in the solenoid?" Boone asked him.
"Yeah, Dang it, scared the crap out of me! I wonder how many valve springs I just broke! The playback on my Mega450 showed 8750".
"Plus you now have an engine full of nitrous!"
"Yeah", he ran his fingers over the back of his neck, "Guess I better get the plugs out of her".

I was the first of our group into the lanes, I had dropped the exhaust, pulled the air cleaner off, and added a couple gallons of 110, just in case. I brought it up to about 2500 on the footbrake, then nailed it, and was rewarded with a brief stumble out of the gate. The only rpm module I had was 6200, so that was in the shift lite. It flashed, but I wound it out to around 6700, then it seemed to quit pulling and I hit second. Same thing, at about 6700, it really fell off and popped quite a bit before I could get it into drive. It really was a terrible pass, all the way around, but the slip said 10.979-123.42. My goal all along had been to go tens every day, so this would do for a start, I was done for the day!

Twenty minutes later, Boone rolled the Barnyard Viper into the burnout box. When he launched, the truck moved nice and straight, and it seemed as if Boone shifted both times just as the engine started to pull off the converter, almost like he was just riding the torque curve for all it was worth.

As we admired his 11.261-118.75, I looked at the numbers in the opposite lane, "Dang, Boone...Eddie and the purple Duster kicked your butt!"
"Yeah, I guess he did, at that!" he smiled.

dang! my junk can beat Eddie to 60 ft. shame it's all bad from there on.

Even with a few small on track mishaps, Monday was moving along quite nicely, and there was a stream of guys coming out of the tower with route sheets in hand, having turned in their time slips and ready to hit the open road.

In this pic, Dale, Darren, Robert, and James (BBR), are waiting for their shot at the track.

Darren pulled into the water box about five minutes after Boone had ran, in fact Boone, John, and I were standing in our pit spot, checking out his time slip, when we heard them announce Darren's name. The Dakota left pretty hard, and ran strong through the eighth, but then started to lay over. It began to sound like those old injected alcohol engines that went fat on the big end, and didn't have a high speed lean out. He got in and out of the throttle several times, trying to get it to quit laboring, then lifted at about 1100ft and coasted through with an 11.070-109.38.
"That thing was so fat it had fuel dripping out of the pipes!", John shook his head.

Dale idled the Gremlin into the box, and struggled through a small burnout. He doesn't have an ignition retard for the nitrous, so he has to set the total he wants before the run, and the engine isn't really fond of trying to do a burnout at 18 degrees total!
When he launched out of the left lane the car made an uncharacteristic hard left toward the wall, he wrestled it back into the groove, but every time he tried the second nitrous stage, it would become ill handling again. The board lit up with a 9.54, but as soon as he lifted, blue smoke bellowed from the back of the car.
"Maybe his little nitrous mishap this morning wasn't harmless after all?" I questioned.
"Naw", Boone kept a close watch on Dale all the way to the return road, "Dissipated too quick for oil...tire rubbing maybe?

Darren backed the Dakota into the pits, and Dale just nosed in beside him, jumped out and grabbed a jack. He stuck it under the rear, lifted the car up and crawled in front of the driver's side ET Street.
"Ripped the front ladder bar mount right out of the frame!" He exclaimed, "so it slid back, and kicked the passenger tire into the fender."
"So that's why it smoked at the finish line." I deduced.
"No, that's why it wouldn't stay in the groove all the way down the track! It broke at the hit, and made me work my tail off to get that pass in!"
"You...are an Idiot", I shook my head.
"Yeah, but I'm a fast idiot", he grinned.
"I've got to get this thing to the muffler shop, before he closes", Darren interrupted, "We need to get moving."
"Well, let's get our slips turned in, and get the route sheets", Boone suggested, and the four of us grabbed our time slips and headed toward the tower.

When we returned to our pit spot, John and James were under the Gremlin, with a ratchet strap. Dale joined them, and they decided to attach the strap to the broken ladder bar mount, then hook the other end to the trans mount and pull it back into place.
"That should get you home", John decided, "Then James can weld it up for you."

One of these vehicles finished Drag Week, the other didn't even get started. Bryant Goldstone's beautiful Javelin barely missed completion in time for Drag Week 2013 so he had to bring his silver Chevelle for another trip. The excitement of having it ready for 2014 faded pretty quickly when it developed a rod knock in the BBC on Sunday.

Robert was the first in our group of Daily Driver competitors to get a shot at Tulsa Raceway Park in his Ram R/T, and went 15.11-88.9

Wade,
Everyone knows Isky ductiles are indestructible.

Chris,
Really didn't notice the Demon, after all it was just your typical 10.00 normally aspirated small block A-body...

Darren was the first one out the gate, headed to a muffler shop eight miles away, with a big block running straight out of the headers. Boone got a call about ten minutes later, Darren had made it about a mile, was out of fuel, all the water had puked out of it, and he couldn't get the trans in drive!
"Drag Week 2012 all over again? I questioned (that year he had made it four miles from TRP before burning up the starter on his Charger, and ending his trip).
Dale went to rescue him, in his wounded Gremlin, while Boone, Dad, and I loaded up the rest of our stuff, and prepared Rachael for her first run.