After Dale returned, they decided Darren would drive across town to pick up a complete 8 3/4, that he had agreed to purchase previously, but for whatever reason had never picked up. While he was gone, Dale, Boone, James, and Dad would once again be doing all the manual labor to repair the truck.
Honestly, it was more than I could take. After Darren left, I addressed the guys and pretty much told them if they were going to let him ruin their Drag Week, it was on them, but I was heading for Topeka. Rachael and I loaded up our coolers, and left about twenty minutes later. We took the same road Dad had sent John on, and after about four miles of potholes, twists, and switchbacks, I started hearing a clanking sound in the front of the Valiant. I pulled off on a private driveway, and crawled under the front end, only to notice the adjustable aluminum shock was attached at the lower point, but had torn loose the upper mount. When the car was originally modified for a v-8, the shock mounts were recessed to allow the headers to go right over the top of the shock mounts. They had tacked it in place about ten times and never fully welded it, and after twenty years, it finally let go.
"Top shock mount is broken on the driver's side", I told Rachael as she walked up from behind the car.
"What does that mean?" She looked puzzled.
"It means I have to tuck my tail between my legs and go back to Dale's house!"
"Oh, this should be entertaining!" She laughed as she walked back to the Belvedere.
I called Dale and told him to move the Gremlin off the pad, and have James warm up the welder.

When we returned to the yard and started working on the Valiant, Rachael disappeared into the house, and started throwing leftovers and whatever else she could find together for one more meal before our road trip began in earnest.
So, once again, we eventually found ourselves sitting around Dale's table discussing, what the evening had in store for us.
"We realized", Boone started, "after you guys took off, if the Dakota didn't make it, we had five guys for two cars!"
"Dad could've rode in the trailer!" I decided after careful consideration.
"Thanks Dave, thanks a lot! Nice to know who's on my side", Dad laughed and shook his head.
"So,...What's the plan, when do we know if the Dakota is going or not?" I was using all the brevity I could muster, but it was a subject that had to be broached.
Dale and Boone looked at each other a second, before Dale answered, "Midnight...I think we would have to pull the plug at midnight, and get moving".
"Yeah", that should probably be our line in the sand", Boone agreed.
Dale laughed, and jabbed me in the arm, "Did I tell you about the call I got earlier from Michael Beeler?"
"No, is he having problems with his Dart already?"
"No, he called to ask if they had to follow that stupid route sheet, or could he just drive straight to Topeka!"
Everyone around the table burst into laughter. "Drag Week newbies!" James shook his head.
"What did you tell him?" Dad asked.
"I told him, that's the way the game is played, if he didn't follow the route, why did he waste his time and money to even enter!"
After we finished eating, Dale and James flopped out into the living room floor, and were snoring heavily in unison within a matter of minutes. I told everyone to just leave them for a while as we had plenty to do outside.
James came back out about fifteen minutes later and said Dale's kids were messing with them and had woke him up. I went back in the house to confront them about it, and found Dale face planted across Kelly's bed, so I shut off the light, closed the door, and told everyone to leave him alone.

Boone tore into the back of the Dakota, while Dad worked on the water pump, and leaking t-stat housing.
"What was the deal with the water pump?"
"It was just pouring water out the weep hole, it was shot", Boone answered me.
"Can't believe Dale just passed out like that", Boone added.
Then he got pretty comfortable on the moving blanket under the Dakota, and I think he may have stolen a few winks himself.

So awesome!!!

What the hell would you guys do if nothing went wrong?

Billy as always this is another great read.

When you describe the thrash the week before Drag week I am reminded of something a old freind used to say "Why plan ahead, there is always the last minute"

When I had parked on the pad, I immediately started removing the front tire, so James would have access to the shock and mount. I was surprised at how hot the aluminum Wilwood hub was when I touched it, after only about a 10 mile drive. It bothered me so much that after we ate, I went out and broke it down, checked and repacked the bearings, and reassembled it before replacing the tire. Dale finally walked back out into the yard, and started helping Dad at the front of the Dakota, so when I dropped the Valiant back off the jack, I went to see what was going on.
Dale was wiring up the electric fan.
"That wasn't working?" I looked at them incredulously.
"No, we mounted the fan, but hadn't wired it yet"
"Well...what did you guys do last night at Robert Cowden's shop?"
"Good grief man! We re-wired the whole back of the truck, plumbed the tranny cooler lines, hooked up the shifter, mounted the seat, and the seat belts, hooked up the water and oil gauges..."
"None of that was done when you went through tech?"
"Uh...well..." he looked at Dad and they both starting laughing.
"Why did you re-wire the back of the truck? We had cobbled the stock harness back together..."
Now it was his turn to cut me off, "You KNEW I wasn't going to leave it like that! I wanted to tie in the fuel pump wiring and I also wired in a flat plug, so he can pull a trailer".
"Priorities, I suppose. So what did you do when you brought it back here?"
That's when Pops and James modified and re-hung the pedals, then we had to hook up the linkages and bleed the brakes."
"It just never ends", I sighed.
"Nope, not with this truck it doesn't, he still has a box with over eight hundred dollars of new Autometer gauges in it, and they aren't even going to make the trip!"

Darren returned roughly three hours after he left, and upon questioning they learned he had swung by his house to grab some things and do some of his laundry. Needless to say, since that was time that could have been spent with the new rear in hand, it didn't go over extremely well.
Once torn apart on the tailgate of Dale's 1 ton, it became apparent we were in for a long night. We had a 742 style case with ate up 5.13 gears on a 35 spline spool, and we had a 489 case with good 4.56 gears on a 30 spline locker. After disassembly of both diffs, it was discovered that someone had badly botched adding MW caps on the 489 case, and it had shims made to go between the case and caps, not good!

Darryl called me for the tenth time that day, asking me if we were rolling yet. He was on vacation in Michigan, and it sounded as though he had spent all day watching the live feed, and following all the message boards. I just had this image of him sitting there swaying back and forth like a drug addict needing his next fix. I knew, after participating the last two years, this was going to be rough on him to miss it.
"You need to get somebody rolling towards Topeka", he reasoned.
"Yeah, I know, this is crazy!"
"Have you heard from Robert or John?"
"Yeah, a text from Opal at 4:50, that they were stopped and eating dinner, nothing since."

Finally after talking it over, we decided to send Dad with Rachael, in the Belvedere. The hope was they would get to Topeka and secure our motel rooms, then we could get there later, and already be checked in. A second benefit would be that Dad would be gone, and wouldn't have to get upset if his four boys had a battle royal in the backyard...or somewhere on a back road between Tulsa and Topeka. Once that decision was made, I gave Rachael one of my credit cards, and went to bed in the pop-up one more time, figuring I might need anything I could get at this point.

Rachael and Pops made checkpoint #2, roughly forty miles into the 257 mile trip at 9:35pm. Charged with navigator duties, his seventy year old eyes and the Belvedere's forty seven year old dome light, made reading the route sheet a struggle for the patriarch!

I stumbled out of the pop-up, grabbed my cap, and my cell phone from my pocket, 10:45pm splashed across the screen. I went out to check on the guys. Darren was tucked up under the Dakota cleaning out the housing, or taking a nap, or both, it was unclear at that moment. They had a battery charger hooked to the Dakota as well, so I bent down to see if Darren's eyes were open, and asked him, "What's the charger for?"
"We haven't hooked up the alternator yet, it's some denso unit with like six wires coming out of it."
"Wow, so you're gonna just charge it and go?"
"Guess we'll see how far it takes us!"
"You have the whole E-85 thing figured out?
"Doesn't look good in Kansas, probably going to take every jug we can find with us and just load up as much as we can!"
"Optimism, in the hands of certain people, is a very dangerous thing", I thought to myself...in my best Rocko the Wallaby impression.

I crowded up to the tailgate, as Boone and Dale were trying to put the finishing touches on the bright yellow third member, that was going into the bright silver housing. As I write this I'm cursing at myself for not getting a picture of that handsome combo!
"Where's James?" I asked, as I pulled a drop light closer to see what they were doing.
"He's taking a nap like you were, someone has to be ready to drive when we leave here!" Dale answered.
"Every time you torque the caps, we lose our backlash", Boone shook his head.
"Guys, you are going to have to set it loose, and let it tighten up when you torque the caps! Those stupid shims are a bad bandaid!" I insisted.
"One complete hole?" Dale asked.
"Two", it was obvious these guys were into the red on this deal, and not quite as sharp as usual. Boone took it over to Darren after they finished it up, and the two of them stabbed it in and started bolting it down.
"Dale, we agreed on Midnight...it's 11:25, and this doesn't look good. I'm going to go ahead and leave now, and let you guys sort this out."
"That's cool, go ahead, we'll be along shortly!"
"Alright then." I fired up the Valiant, and slowly eased out of Dale's neighborhood. Drag Week protocol is that you gas up as quickly as you can when you leave the track. That way you can use the route sheet to track your mileage, and know when to stop for gas next. Well, that's if you have no fuel gauge or speedometer anyway, so seven miles later I was topping off the fifteen gallon fuel cell.

I pulled into checkpoint #2 at 12:40 AM, so I was about three hours behind Rachael and Dad, I figured. I called Boone, to see how things were going. That's when he explained to me that the yoke on the new third member was a 7290, not a 1350 like Darren's driveshaft, and because they were switching from a 742 style to a 489, the old one wouldn't work either. Luckily, Dale had a 1350-489 yoke available, but it was under another car in his yard, so they were in the process of removing it as we spoke!
"Alright", I grimaced, "give me a call when you guys are moving!"

I was cruising along pretty good, enjoying the cool night breeze in my face, and wondering why that, in such air, the engine temp was hanging right at 210. It didn't seem to matter if I was driving through a small town at 35 mph, or cruising down a skinny two lane at 3200 RPM, still the same. The route took us through Welch Oklahoma, which was home for my Wife from the time she was three, until she was fourteen. I fired off a text to let her know, along with the obligatory, "Wish you were here". I really meant it this time though, as this was my first Drag Week leg, that I was solo in the car, and I was missing having someone to share the drive with. I drove into Oswego Kansas at around two in the morning, and located checkpoint #3. It was a corner park, with a rail car parked in it, but the driveway into the park was gravel, and ran literally beside a residence. I decided to pull off on the shoulder of the road to take my picture, rather than have the exhaust from my side pipes reverberating off the side of some one's house! I stepped out in the middle of the street to take my picture just as the local sheriff came around the corner in his police issue SUV. He stopped in the road beside me, checked out the Valiant, and said, "You must be one of the stragglers, everyone else came through yesterday".
"Yeah, I'm running a little late." I agreed.
He wished me luck, and drove on, so I decided to call Boone again and check on their progress.
"We are at the station, filling up all the jugs with E-85, then we will meet Darren at the first checkpoint. He went by his house to finish packing his clothes, and take another shower."
"So, you got the trailer all packed up and ready to roll?"
"Yeah, everything but the kitchen sink. It's going OK with you?"
"So far, but still 153 miles to go!"

Twenty-five minutes later, I was rolling through Parsons Kansas when I happened to look left and saw a bright red fox body Mustang with a trailer attached sitting in a grocery store parking lot with several guys working on it. There was a pickup shining it's lights on the situation, so I figured they had plenty of help, waved, and kept rolling. It was the first Drag Week vehicle I had seen on this trip since I left Dale's place. I stopped at the edge of town for gas, figuring I was 115 or so miles into the trip, and the Mustang growled by as I was pumping gas. Fifteen minutes further up the road, I noticed four way flashers on the right shoulder, sure enough, the Mustang again. I slowed as I pulled up on them, but they gave me the thumbs up and waved, so I continued.
Another 30 minutes down US59 North, and I was starting to feel the night close in on me, I had downed two sodas in the last fifteen miles trying to keep myself alert. I was driving towards a small hole in the wall town, and considered pulling over to rest when I saw the typical road sign with "welcome to Moran Kansas" on it, but at the bottom, hastily scrawled in red paint it said, "where stoker Big Block Fords come to die!" I got a shiver down my spine, in a "High Plains Drifter" sort of way, and decided to ease my way through town only looking at the dotted white line in the center of the road to guide me through. I dismissed it as a fatigued mind playing tricks on me until I talked to James (BBR,Moparts) the next day and he told me he had blown up the MudStang on the drive.
"Where did that happen?"
"Some little wide spot in the road called Mor.."
"Don't tell me anything else James", I plugged my ears, "I don't want to know!"

I pulled into Princeton Kansas, just short of four in the morning, and found a gas station. I had received a text from Rachael a few minutes earlier, that stated they had the rooms, and I should park in the Denny's parking lot, and call her when I arrived. Just knowing we had one of the five cars safely in Topeka, made me breathe easier.
I called Boone to check on the rest of the group.
"Where are you guys?"
"We just finished taking pictures at checkpoint #2 in Chelsea."
"Boone! that's like only forty miles in!"
"I know, and it's been a rough forty! Darren took about thirty minutes longer than us to get to checkpoint #1, then when he finally showed up, he realized that he lost his cell phone, and wanted to go back home to find it. We told him if he turned back for his phone, we were leaving him!"
"Then why did it take so long to get to Chelsea?"
"The Dakota is using battery up like crazy, the lights were going dim really quick, so we pulled over and tried to wire up the alternator, by looking up details on Dale's smartphone. We figured out enough to full-field it, and hooked it in with his electric fan toggle."
"Alright, well, I'm about an hour or so out, Rachael and Dad are already at the motel, so I'm going to try and join them. Call if things go sideways on you!"
"Like it can get any more sideways?"
"C-mon Boone, this is Drag Week, you know it can!"

Rachael let me into the motel room, and I dropped my bag in the floor, undressed, and pulled the covers over me.
"What time do you want to set the alarm for?" she asked.
"10", I don't know if she said anything else, I was completely out in two breaths.

The alarm went off five minutes later, or so it seemed, but it was ten according to the clock...and my cell phone.
I took a shower, got dressed, then forced Rachael to get out of bed. When she went to shower, I sat down on the bed, gathered my wits, and called Boone.
"Where are you guys at?"
"Uh...we're about twenty miles from the track...I think. We'll just meet you there, we aren't going to bother trying to find the motel."
"Alright...be careful", I hung up. "Wow, he sounded completely wrung out", I thought to myself.

Rachael came out of the bathroom, fully dressed, but still using a towel on her hair and mumbled, "Mike Crow hit a deer last night."
"WHAT?"
"Yeah, Pops and I drove by this white car sitting on the shoulder, and I told him it was a Drag Week car. We stopped and I jumped out, and walked back to check on them. The front of the car was mangled, then Mike stepped out and said they were Ok, they just hit a deer. I offered to get them drinks, but he said they were fine and had someone coming to get them."
"Wow, it's the curse of KSJ..."
"What are you talking about?"
"KSJ, from Moparts, you know, Donnie, uh Don McGinnis, he had a new Challenger..."
She looked at me like I had two heads, tossed her hands in the air, shrugged her shoulders, and shook her head, "DAD, I don't get on Moparts!"
"Ok, fine, never mind!"

We met Dad in the lobby, grabbed a little bit off the continental breakfast, and headed to the track. Two miles later the Belvedere coughed a few times, died, and Rachael coasted to the side of the road. "Guess I cut that gas thing a little too close", she laughed as she grabbed a can out of the trunk. We had just cleared an entrance ramp, and she headed down it backwards at a good jog towards the station at the base of the ramp.
I looked at Dad, "Bet she doesn't come back up that ramp nearly as fast!"
He smiled, "I doubt it! Guess the boys will get to the track before we do."
"I hope so, Dad, I hope so."

I called Boone when we entered the gates at Heartland Park, and he told me they were pitted down by the garages, where we were in 2011, that made it easier to find them, as they were away from everyone else. We found out later that Hot Rod had purposely asked everyone to pit in the same general area, to make it a better experience for the spectators, but by rolling in late we missed that memo.

I decided to concentrate on getting Rachael and the Belvedere ready to run first, since the session of class cars had already finished, and the rest of us would have to wait for the open session. With three passes on Monday, I figured a fresh bottle of N20 may be in order, so I swapped them out, tightened everything up, and turned on the bottle. I heard a weird sound, and it stopped when I turned the bottle back off. "What was that?" I asked from the trunk, where I was still bent over the bottle.
"Don't know", James commented as he looked under the hood, "I didn't see any leaks."
"Trade me places, you turn it on, and I'll watch under the hood." The sound of the plate spraying for all it was worth was unmistakable, and cold, white vapor rolled out of the breather, "Shut it off, we just filled the engine with nitrous!"

Dale shook his head as we started pulling the plugs out of the Belvedere, "I'm going to go on up, and get my run out of the way, then I can concentrate on helping everyone else."
"Sounds like a plan", I agreed.

Three Mopar guys
All from the Tulsa area
All in Daily Driver.
What are the chances they know each other, or just pitted next to each other out of pure happenstance?

They had their runs in pretty early, in fact Clark squared off with Ross in the second pair of DDs down the track, but he came back for another pass a little later.

The gremlin belched black smoke everywhere on the launch, but I think it was more a product of the drive, than a bad tune-up. It launched hard and went straight, resulting in a 9.28-141.02 best numbers ever for the car.