The third time I woke up Monday morning, I decided I might as well roll out. The window in the spare room faces the back yard and through the curtains I could see Dale cleaning up after what had been a busy weekend for them. The week of preparation in Oklahoma was just starting for me, but Boone and Dale have a four day work week, so they'd been hard at it since Friday morning.
"What's going on?" I questioned Dale as I joined him in the back yard.
"Not much, I've got the guts out of the Dana 60", he pointed at the Gremlin, "But I couldn't get the pinion out, so Darren is supposed to bring his big impact if he ever gets up this morning."
"What's going on with his car?"
"We have the engine in it, but I have to order the pushrods tomorrow, he should get the transmission in today."
"So, you got the EZ heads on it, and that Indy 400-3 intake?"
"Yeah", he nodded, "funny deal, I ordered an RB valley plate from Indy, for James' engine and a B intake, for Darren's, and they kept asking me If I was sure that's what I wanted. Finally I had to assure them it was for two different engines! Then Darren brings his Indy valley plate over to put on his engine...and it's for an RB!"
"What the heck, Boone said Darren spent half a day cleaning on that thing!" I laughed.
"Yeah it was spotless", Dale agreed, "so I found out that we needed to take a half-inch off each side to make it work, but none of my machinist buddies had time to mess with it. I mentioned it over dinner, and my father-in-law volunteered to knock it out, explaining that he has a Bridgeport and lathe in his home shop!"
"You've been married to Jacque how long?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Eight years!" He shook his head, and laughed.
"And you never knew he had a fully equipped shop?" I questioned, incredulous.
"It's crazy! He's always poking around asking if I need any help, and I just figured he was only being polite, he had it back to me the next morning and it fit like a glove."
"...and...now you know", I mimicked the popular commercial.
"And now I'm going to be spending more quality time at the Father-in-law's house", he added.

Boone came rolling into the back yard in his beater Scamp, at about the same time Skippy made his entry into the scrum.
"What's the plan", I asked Dale.
"Well, since we have this much beef here at one time, I'd like to get the services of my truck back."
He pointed to the skid in the back of his 1 ton, with the four 55 gallon barrels of 118 octane Rockett brand racing fuel on it.
"We need to unload two of those here, then take the others over to Darren's shop", he asserted.
Boone whipped out a black Sharpee and wrote "Boone" on the white top of one barrel, he handed it to me, and I wrote "Dave" on one. Dale was next, and when he finished, he handed the marker back to Boone, but an idea had already formed in my head.
"Give that back to me", I begged Boone.
I grabbed it and wrote "Rachael" on the fourth and final barrel, and everyone started laughing in unison!

Before I forget, the ole Cummins drank 195.65$ worth of diesel to get us from Phoenix to Tulsa, so I'm up to 1812.05 so far. Those fifty dollar fill-ups were far easier than the ninety-five dollar ones were a few years ago!

We muscled the barrels onto the tail-gate then used a ramp from one of the trailers to slide them down to the ground. Before you ask, how does 220 gallons of 118 octane Rockett race fuel impact the Hot Rod Drag Week 2015 budget, the answer is zero dollars!

Since 2014 was the tenth running, Jack Day, President of Rockett, and a sponsor of DW since the beginning, pledged an unheard of 10 barrels of fuel to the winners, instead of his normal 2 or 3! Four were allocated to the winner of the Spirit of Drag Week, which was humbly accepted by my family and I. We had received a killer trophy to keep, the fuel voucher in a nice picture frame, and the traveling trophy. In typical Gebhart fashion, we didn't follow up on the promised fuel until right before Drag Week. Monday, Aug. 24th, Dale finally called Rockett to see if they could bring the promised fuel to St. Louis for the event. Within minutes he was patched through to Jack, and he explained to Dale that it was easier just to ship it commercially. Then he explained to Dale, when the talk of what fuel we needed came into play, that if he just made it all 118, we could mix it with pump gas to bring it down to the desired octane level for each car.
"That way you get the most bang for your buck", Jack joked, "Just send me an E-mail of what you want, and where you want it shipped, and I'll get it out to you!"
Dale told me later on the phone, "I think he should have said it was us getting the most bang on his buck!"
Dale sent the E-mail Tuesday, the 25th, and Tuesday the 1st the fuel was at the shipper's dock in Tulsa waiting for Dale to pick it up!

First class guy, first class company, first class product, a huge thanks to Jack Day, and Rockett brand racing fuel!

"We're going over to Darren's to unload these other two barrels...you coming with us", Boone questioned.
"Naw, go ahead, I've got a few things to sort out here." I paused, then turned to Skippy, "Go ahead, and go with them, they might need help." He gave me a wary look, but complied. I figured it would give him a good opportunity to interact with the Uncles!

When they returned they had Dad in tow with them.
"Where did you come from", I asked him.
"I've been sitting over at Darren's all morning waiting for him to get around...I got up at 6:30 AM, and he hasn't even took a shower yet!
I looked at my phone, and it was well after ten.
"I haven't even had breakfast yet!" Dad looked around, "where are we going to get something to eat?"
If it were up to Dad and Dale, we'd spend three hours of each workday at a restaurant, and I wasn't going to let that happen.
"Listen, I just unloaded all of that meat Rachael sent with us into Dale's meat freezer, but a package of the hamburger patties, and some of the brats were starting to thaw. I'll bring them out, and you can cook them on the grille!"
He wasn't thrilled, but he agreed.
I noticed Boone out of the corner of my eye, moving around like he was ninety.
"What's wrong with you?"
He put his right hand back on his love handle, "I was catching the last barrel as we slid it down the ramp, and as it hit the ground, I pulled or wrenched a muscle in my back...I can barely stand up!"
"That's not good, we've got a rough two weeks ahead of us!"
"I need an Asian masseuse" he retorted, "...and a happy ending!"
Well, at least his sense of humor was undamaged.

Dale and Skippy came through the side gate carrying the hydraulic press from the front garage, and they set it up next to the preferred work station in the back yard, which was my old 16 foot wood deck car trailer. Dad's flatbed Dodge was also littered with projects, it's amazing what passes for a workbench for a bunch of backyard, shade tree mechanics. They started attempting to remove the axle bearings from the Gremlin's Dana 60 axles.
Dad finished up the burgers, and brats as Darren made a grand entrance with his 727 in the back of his silver Ram R/T, perfect timing as usual.

"Why are you changing the sealed axle bearings", I asked Dale in between bites of lunch.
"They were seeping oil from the rear end, which is a sure sign they are shot."
"Mine was leaking all last year on the driver's side", I added, "Remember, that was the axle where I nearly lost the wheel on DW12!"
"You're on borrowed time for sure", he agreed, "better order a set for yours tonight as well.

In the early evening, Dale's daughter and future son-in-law returned from their crazy 4 day trek to Oregon and back to trade Dale's 572 cross ram Hemi, for a 547 tunnel ram Wedge. Before you ask why he would do such a thing, there was 5 figures coming back as well. Dale really wants a Hemi for his AMX, but every time he gets one, someone else wants it worse! Between installing the 727 in Darren's Charger, and wrestling the 547 into his crowded garage, the rest of the day went by pretty quickly.
Darren headed off for home, with Dad in tow and the rest of us huddled around Skippy's laptop, using Dale's phone for a hotspot, and placed one more Summit order. We headed off to bed by 9pm, so "Hell Week" was starting off very...civilized!

I'm sure this is not news to most of you near my age, but the days of going to bed early to get extra sleep, don't always work out like they used to. I have about a 50% success rate, when it comes to trying to get 8+ hours of sleep. Sometimes I wake up, and am able to get back to sleep, sometimes I wake up after 5 or 6 hours, and any attempt to lay back down is complete folly.
Tuesday morning at 3AM, I heard Dale and Jacque getting ready for work, and couldn't get back to sleep even after they left. So I got up and raided their refrigerator for leftovers! I had a nice plate all laid out and micro-waved when Dale came around the corner and scared me to death!
"Startle you?" He laughed, and grabbed himself a bowl of cereal.
"Yeah! I thought you left!"
"That was just Jacque, I go in a little later", he explained.
"What's with the slacks and the nice polo?" I teased him, "You clean up good!"
"As I've climbed the ladder, they expect me to be more professional...they get mad when I go down on the floor and start wrenching on something myself!"

We sat at the dining room table for forty-five minutes or so, not even mentioning the cars, just talking about life, work, the grandkids. These are the moments you steal on a trip like this that you cherish later. Drag Week makes you hyper-sensitive to the here and now, living in the moment, and appreciating the moment! Throw in family, friends, and hot rods...well, that's as good as it gets.

Pretty much all Skippy and I had done on Monday, was to unload the cars, all our gear, and disconnect the truck from the trailer. So we needed to get a plan going while we were there alone. I decided if I was going to be spending a bunch of time wiring, I needed to be comfortable, so we removed the hood from the Belvedere, and pulled the springs off the hinges so they would lay down. The next project I gave the young man was removal of the driver's side front seat, and dropping the steering column at the dash, so I would have access to all the wiring I needed to get to under there.

Nitrous delivery had been a problem the last time out in the Belvedere, and while I was sure it was the solenoid, I had decided to upgrade the feed line from -4 to a -6 in the process. I gave that job to Skippy while I started sorting wires. That led to me teaching him the process of removing the back seat bottom cushion, the kid was definitely getting a classic car 101 session to start his day in earnest!

Dad showed up a little later, and he talked to us for a while in the back yard before retreating up front to work on Darren's Charger.
"Where's Boone at?" I asked him.
"Oh...I don't know...he said something about running by Grand Prix for some part before he came over here." Dad gave me a chuckle then added, "He might not be able to move this morning, though...bet he stiffened up pretty bad last night.

Boone showed up around noon, and produced two large boxes of Pizza Hut's finest, as he crawled out of his Coronet looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame!
"This is why you will always be my favorite brother!" I commented, as I helped myself to the first pizza.
"Saw Darren over at Grand Prix!" Boone related, as he pulled up a chair, and labored to sit.
"What the heck was he doing there?" Dad asked as he grabbed his first piece from the open box, "He was supposed to deliver his load in OKC this morning!"
"I guess one of the other guys took it for him, because he has a load heading out to Illinois or something..."
"So what has he been doing all day while I've been working on his car", Dad cut Boone off in mid-sentence.
"Just Darren being Darren, Dad, why are you surprised!" Boone threw his hands up in mock disgust.

As we continued into the evening, it became apparent that a late thunderstorm was a very real possibility, so we cleaned up all the work areas, buttoned up all the cars, put away all the tools, and prepared to get wet.

Boone and I were checking out the Barnyard, once we finished up.
"What did you do last weekend on the Truck", I questioned.
"Well, when Dale last drove it at TRP, we noticed the axle was wrapping up bad on the launch, and nearly pulling the rear tire off the ground on rebound. I knew it needed new and better rear shocks, but I had forgotten that the pinion angle was screwed up, and the wedges I used to correct it the first year eventually broke, so I just removed them."
"So last year it was binding up the shocks, and wrapping up the whole time?"
"Yeah, that's why my 60's were so inconsistent. So we welded on new perches to correct the pinion angle problem, and built custom brackets to mount these QA-1s."
I looked under the truck, "Good grief, the bottom mount is really low!"
"That's because Dale ordered shocks that were too short", Boone exclaimed.
"They look too long to me", I muttered
"Too short! They don't have enough travel to allow the SS springs to bow, so we had to mount them vertical, instead of at an angle like the originals".
He seemed pretty adamant about that diagnosis, so I decided not to argue with him. "What do you have left?"
"All this street driving with a spool has worn the old M/T's pretty good on the inside, and I've got a vibration, so I think if I take them and have them flipped on the rims, then re-balanced, I might be able to get one more Drag Week out of them," He related.
"Yeah, I have to mount new tires for the Belvedere, swap the ones from the Valiant to Dale's wheels..."
"He has new front runners to mount also", Boone interjected.
"So, tire shop day tomorrow?"
Dad had walked over, and jumped in "your Mom is coming down tomorrow, and I want to put two new tires on my flatbed before we go to St. Louis, so we can load up all the stuff on it and make one trip!"
"Sounds like a plan!" I agreed.

With the weather kicking in, Boone, Skippy and I decided to make a trip to the stores for supplies to get us through the next few days. We hit Wal-Mart for drinks, paint, and sand paper, then O'Reilly's for brake clean, and more wiring stuff, and I added another 95.10 to the expenses column.

By the time we got back to Dale's, he was already in the house, and clearly didn't intend to do anymore work, Dad was already gone, and Boone decided we were done for the night...this was a really odd week, so far!

When Skippy and I got moving Wednesday morning, it was with a purpose. We pulled the 15X8 Centerline Revolutions off the back of the Belvedere, and set them on the back of Dad's flatbed, along with the corresponding new 255/60 M/T Drag radials. Dale's tires were already off, so I loaded up his front wheels and old tires along with his new front tires.
Next I grabbed his old 15X12 Pro Stars with the worn out M/T ET Streets on them, but Skippy stopped me, "Dale wants the new Mickeys mounted on the Pro Stars that have his 33 by 10.5 slicks on them, something about those wheels will fit the ET Streets better".
"Fine with me, but we have to pull all these wheel screws out, so grab my speedwrench!"
He stood there looking at me, saying nothing. After three days, I've figured out that means he needs more instruction, "It's in the Kobalt box, should still have the right socket on it from when I removed mine".
That set him in motion, and once we had them stripped of all the screws we tossed them alongside my wheels off the Valiant. We were pulling the wheels off the Barnyard when Mom showed up, and Dad arrived about fifteen minutes after that.
"Where's Boone", I asked Dad, since it seems those two communicate nearly every morning.
"Think he said something about the tag office, and checking on the new plaque we're having built for the Spirit of Drag Week Award", Dad answered off hand, then turned to Mom, "Bonnie, call around and see who has the best price on these tires", and he read off the numbers from the rear tire on his truck.

Once we had the tires all loaded up, I decided to pull the fronts off the Valiant as well, those 165/80 Nexens had 3 Drag Weeks on them already, and were wearing pretty good on the inside, so I decided to flip them as well.

"Since it's just the four of us, should I cook breakfast?"
"No Mom, maybe we'll just drop off the truck and tires, then go get something", I determined, not wanting to give up an hour and a half of the morning that easily.
"Ok...well, Hibdons Tires plus is 5 bucks cheaper per tire than Robertson..."
"We're going to Robertson Tire Mom", I cut her off, "All the tires on my truck and trailer are from there, because no one in Phoenix has the selection or service they do, it's not worth ten bucks when I know those guys will take care of us!"

At Robertson Tire, they explained to Mom and Dad that the tires they wanted for the truck were at another location, and wouldn't be there for an hour or so, but they started on all the other stuff right away. It took Skippy and I about 15 minutes to sort through every thing with the salesman, explaining all the mounting, dismounting, saving, throwing away, keeping, flipping, and balancing.
I was hesitant to leave for breakfast, because even though he wrote all the instructions directly on the tires, I wanted to make sure there was no confusion.

There will be confusion, I can see that coming.

Exactly what I was thinking.................Beadlocks for the win.........LOL!!!! Do it yourself and do it RIGHT...........LOL!!!

Love these posts, can't wait for the next one.

I see lunch for sure and possibly dinner before leaving the tire shop. lol

Don

One of my favorite sayings:
"Cheer up! It'll get worse"
Lol!

Mom had explained to the salesman that she needed the truck ASAP, so she could take her lawn mower trailer and get some mowing done, and we could wait on the other stuff, but since her tires weren't there yet they started on the pile right away.
They had one tech mounting and dismounting the big stuff, they had another handling the front runners, and smaller stuff, then they had a third, smaller, younger tech running the balance machine. I stood just outside the shop door watching intently, and occasionally they would ask me questions about tire pressure and stuff, so everything went pretty smoothly. About 45 minutes into the operation I began to feel sorry for the older fellow on the big stuff, and the kid on the balance machine, as lifting all those monsters began to take a visible toll. I helped them load the finished jobs, and discarded tires back onto the truck, just to try and keep track of everything. With 80% of the job done, I noticed the kid on the balancer looking to other work stations to round up all the sticky weights they had in the whole shop!
Confident that they had it under control, I made my way back into the waiting room, where Mom began to berate me for delaying her breakfast. Then I overheard the salesman having a heated phone discussion with a supplier, and was able to gather that our tires for the truck had been misdirected, and another truck would have to be sent out. With that information in hand, I agreed that we should probably go to Waffle House and get Mom her pecan waffle!

We returned about an hour and a half later, and I noticed all the race tires were on the truck, but both the rear wheels were still off the truck and it was still on jacks. As soon as we walked back in the lobby, the salesman's face visibly reddened, and he explained that the tires had finally arrived, but were the wrong size! I decided with a full meal on board, a nice walk around the block was probably better than sitting in the waiting room. When I returned, dad walked out to meet me, "The right tires will be here in an hour, and they said since they've held us up so long, they won't charge us for doing the other tires.."
"Good grief Dad", I cut him off, "They can't do that...that's a couple hundred dollars, they had three techs tied up on that stuff!"
Dad shrugged, "I'm just telling you what the man told me!"
When they were close to finishing up, I muscled mom away from the counter, and paid for the tires with my card. Then I looked at the salesman, and asked him to at least take the forty bucks cash in my hand to pay for the sticky weights.
"Can't do it", he shook his head, "We appreciate you guys spending all day with us, but three times to get the right tires just isn't acceptable in our books".
I thanked him, and we headed back to Dale's with my faith that good service, and good business ethics still exist in our country, even if it is a little harder to find these days!

Waffle House is apparently Drag Week approved, as this photo later in St Louis can attest:

Skippy and I rode back to Dale's with mom, in her PT Cruiser, while Dad was ahead of us in the flatbed. He disappeared around the back as we parked out front. I bailed out of the car and sprinted to the back yard as fast as I could, but it was too late, he was already flapping his gums to Boone.
"You tell him a word, and I'll punch you square in the mouth old man!" I shouted.
Dad turned and looked at me, slack jawed.
"Boone leaned back, crossed his arms, and laughed, "Too late, he already told me!"
"Dang it Dad! I was going to charge Boone and Dale for their share of the mounting and balancing...we could've charged Boone thirty, and probably got seventy-five from Dale!"
"I just don't understand why you boys do stuff like that to each other!" Dad threw up his hands.
"What do you mean, Dad?" I winked at Boone, "we do it to you all the time, you just never catch us!"
"Well...", his face reddened, "I believe it, you boys have been in my wallet since the days you were born!!"

Boone pulled out the new "Spirit Of Drag Week" traveling plaque, and beamed , "What do you think?"
I groaned, "He misspelled Steve Bowyer's name!"
"Ok, I was afraid of that...I'll take it back in the morning and get it fixed!"
"What did it cost to get that built?" Dad enquired as he looked over my shoulder.
Boone ran his hand through his hair and mumbled, "You don't want to know Dad, you just don't want to know!"

P.S., this pic is after the plaque was corrected.

That Atwell Hemi camshaft better not have a flat lobe.LOL.Class win is one thing.To get the Spirit award is a whole nother deal.Kudos.You guys earned it.You can be a blue oval guy or wear a bowtie but the only person to win their class and sprit award drives a Mopar.

Mom and Dad headed off to pick up brush at one of the rental houses, and then returned an hour later to pick up Darren's car trailer.

"We hauled one load on the flatbed, but there is just too much", Mom explained, "we need the trailer to get it all in one shot." So Boone and I cleared off the trailer and helped them hook it up to the truck.

I gave Skippy the task of putting the new rubber back on the rear of the Belvedere, as well as remounting the fronts on the Valiant.

I was helping Boone put the tires back on the Barnyard, when Skippy looked over and commented, "Rachael is flying in tomorrow, she's going to be mad when she see's that wiring strung out everywhere".
"I know, but I'll have it buttoned up in the morning before she gets here", I was stalling, and everybody knew it, but I have about a four hour per day attention span when it comes to wiring, then I just have to step away from it for a while.

Dale came in the backyard at about 6pm, and let out a deep sigh, "Ok...done with work for the week, told them I'm taking tomorrow off, so I'm ready to start Drag Week for real now!
"The new axle bearings arrived today", I informed him, "so I guess you want to start there".

I told Skippy to pull my axle, and hopefully get Dale to change out the sealed bearing on mine, while he installed his, then I went back to my wiring dilemma. I had the MSD box mostly wired, and I was attempting to bring all that wiring, over to the alternator and distributor, pick up the water temp wire, and bring everything back towards the back of the engine along the inside of the passenger's side valve cover.

I was called over by Dale an hour later. "We have the wrong axle bearings for yours", he informed me.
"How is that, it's a small ford end, and 31 spline axles."
"They are 33 spline, Summit shows the one you need, but it lists it for the 8.8.
"Weird, so one more overnight order from Summit then?"
"Guess so."

Skippy had been helping Boone with something, but I called him over. "Look on your phone for AR engineering, I thought I had the paper for the color schematic in my bag, but now I can't find it. The search went to "website not found", which happens to me from time to time, so I told him to just punch in 85 Toyota alternator. He came back with a nice diagram, and showed it to me. "Ok, I got it! Blue is sense, Red is trigger, green is lamp."
"Yep, he agreed. So I grabbed the connectors and tape and got after it until darkness set in.

Truly enjoyable read, especially for those of us who will NEVER get to attend one of the Drag Weeks in person. Thanks Billy it is almost like being a part of it all.
Jerry

We placed another Summit order that night, then hit the sack again before 10pm. It almost felt like we were acting like a Sports Team who waits until late in the season to turn it on, kind of a "We've been here and done this", confidence that was surely going to bite us if we didn't hit our stride soon.

Thursday morning was beautiful, and everyone seemed ready to get some work done. Dad and Mom arrived fairly early, then Mom took the flatbed and lawn mower trailer, to go back to Fairland.
"Where is the car trailer, Dad?"
"Oh...we parked it over at Darren's next to his brush pile."
"Aren't we going to need it to move some of these cars around?"
"Well, I'm sure somebody will", he got a big smile on his face, "which means they will have to go over there and unload it first!"

Dale crawled under the Gremlin, and started working on the Dana 60, then quickly changed his mind. "Let's just pull this thing out from under the car", he decided, "I'd rather build it on the bench than laying under here all day."

"Come here and check this out", Dale waved me over to where he had just removed the pinion. "No wonder this bearing burned up, some moron just let the old shim pack fall into the oil feed channel". He was pulling them out as he explained, "Heck, looks like he just shoved 'em in there".
"Probably worked fine all those years as a bracket car, just didn't like being put back on the street", I nodded.
He had three spools on the bench, the one that came out looked to be standard weight, and the other two appeared to be lightened quite a bit more. I was comparing them when he commented, "I'll probably just re-use the one that came out. The other used one I bought from you, and the new one is for the AMX, but it appears to be a different series."
"Don't you need a different one, going from 4.56 to 4.10", I questioned.
"Naw, Summit Tech assured me that these Motive gears were compatible with what I already have."
Setting the pinion depth, he ended up using all the shims that came in the set-up kit plus several of the old ones. He had to re-use the old ring gear bolts, because the new ones appeared to have a shoulder to them that bottomed against the spool before they were tight. I could tell all these little problems were beginning to frustrate him, but when he put his checking bearings on and dropped the spool in, he really blew a gasket. "I knew I should've bought Richmond gears! These fit the other spool! I guess we should consider ourselves lucky we have one, or I'd be crawling through the phone to strangle that Tech!"
"How much more were they?"
"About ten bucks!" He chuckled, as he rubbed the back of his neck, "gotta cut costs where you can!"

I decided to fire up the grill and cook some more of the meat Rachael had sent with us. If it sounds like I didn't spend much time on the wiring Thursday morning...well, you'd be right, eerily similar to my writing...when I want to, it goes well, when I don't, it just doesn't!

Boone and Dad were in a similar state of mind, they would go around front and work on Darren's Charger for thirty minutes at a time, but invariably they would find themselves out back talking to us, or harassing Dale. Finally, just before noon, the delivery trucks started showing up, and we not only got our overnight order, but the order I placed Friday, from Phoenix finally showed up!

Typical DW for the clan.Just need a photo guy like Bob Brehm.He takes better pics. Just saying.