HA! Top picture is the old "All Mart" parking lot at Nothing AZ

I thought it was here.. SR74 and US-60..

No Chris,
Jay is correct. We had to stop and let the Belvedere cool down...got a little warm pulling that big hill, also got warm on the way back, just a few miles from there...must've not liked my tune-up at that altitude or something...

I had ran some previous 13.0 passes on motor in the Belvedere, but Vegas would be my first attempt on nitrous, and as soon as I hit the button, I knew why Rachael had struggled so mightily to run the number on Drag Week 2014. That was the weakest N20 hit I ever felt in my life as I went 12.54-110. I called Dale immediately after the run, explaining my dismay, "I backed it down to a 60 N20 jet because that's what we had in the Satellite with the 3.55s and it felt like an animal".
Dale chuckled, "Totally different cam profile though...that ole' Crane Fireball was on a 112 with a ton of duration, no way that little Comp Magnum is going to react the same!"

I went back and put the nitrous jetting back to where it was with the 2.76 gears. Since the Belvedere still has the 5/16 pick-up and fuel line, with only a Carter Mechanical pump, I had always advised Rachael to let off the bottle just past the 1000' mark. I decided to run it out until it tried to nose over, just to find out where that was. Another problem I discovered by driving the car myself was the soft launches, the distributor just has too much curve, and by the time you back the total down to 30 for the spray, it's just plain lazy! I grabbed the bottle at the 60 foot clocks, and shifted both times at 5600. About 100 feet before the finish line with the ole girl at full song, I thought to myself, "This is about as fast as I want to go in a no-bar car!" Time slip read 11.55-120.1 and my first thought was "Oh, heck, I owe Rachael an apology!!"

On Sunday's run for the money, I backed up my previous pass with a nice 11.57-119, then totally screwed up in the first round by not turning on the bottle, oh well, we had a bunch of fun as always.

A couple of weeks later, I took the Belvedere out for a bracket race, and ripped off consistent runs between 12.81-12.85, and managed to get down to five cars before bowing out. On the trip back home that evening, Darryl called and mentioned that the bi-annual Cruise on Central was happening that very evening, so I double dipped for a very entertaining Saturday, although I have no idea how I ended up surrounded by cowl scooped chevies in my favorite parking spot!

As I type this, with a couple of weeks to go it's in pieces getting a new AAR hood and scoop, MSD ignition, AR Engineering Denso alternator conversion, and a new set of Drag Radials.

Dale, and the Gremlin

The Gremlin ended Drag Week rolling the beams in the final round of the Shootout, after reeling off passes of 9.14,9.12, and 9.08.

A couple of weeks later, he ended up with his first 8 second pass, and promptly melted a piston.

Luckily, he had two spare Venolias that came with the 440, so a quick, down and dirty piston swap had him ready for the Mopar race at Tulsa in November. At that event, he was running two cars, helping two other people with theirs, and trying to sell parts in the swap meet. This resulted in him running out of gas in the middle of a nitrous pass, and torching more than just one piston!!

He's been working hard on getting his 70 AMX set up with a new 6.0 Chassis, 572 Hemi, and Lenco, so money for the Gremlin has been scarce, but he finished the year Number #1 on "The List-Tulsa style", which is a group that races on a list format, but at Tulsa Raceway Park. They were planning a huge Top 8 shootout for the first of April, so Dale felt compelled to at least make an effort to show up.
The stock block, stock crank, Eagle rod 440 came out, and was treated to a set of low dollar, dish Icon pistons. The Indy SR heads were also a little roughed up, so he pulled a set of Indy-1s out of the corner, and also backed the 639 lift Howards solid cam four degrees from where it was previously.

For years, Dale's biggest down fall has been his willingness to upgrade his fuel and ignition systems. This time he heeded my advice, and added a huge 500cfm pump, and return style regulator while the car was apart. In typical Gebhart fashion, he had it ready for testing just a day before the big shootout.

He foot braked it and ran 10.40 at 130 on motor. "It leaves like a dog", he complained.
"Let's see...nine to one 440 with dash one heads, and a tight nitrous converter...I'm not surprised!" I countered back.

30 minutes later he called me back, "We've got problems!"
"What's the deal?"
"I just made a hit on one system, 9.08-146..."
"That's great right?"
"Well...yeah, but that initial wheelie it used to do for 20 feet, now it wants to carry it...quite a bit further!"
"Hmm, you better be conservative on the initial nitrous hit for a while until you figure it out", I warned.

The shootout the next day yielded at very slick track, and he struggled with traction, only managing a 9.40 and 9.28 in qualifying. First round, he was paired with an 8.70 Camaro, so he upped the second hit considerably, figuring he'd need it to make up for a lousy launch...he miscalculated slightly...

"I had it under control", he explained, "until the rear tires left the ground and the rpm shot up...when that happens, you just naturally lift!"
"I immediately stabbed back in it when rears touched," he explained,"but fuel had sloshed out all over the windshield from the bowl vents, and it wouldn't recover fast enough. That's just something you don't consider when you see all these guys slam back to earth and you wonder why they weren't back under power!"
"How bad is it hurt?"
"I took it back out on the street, it seems to drive Ok. The crossmember for the rack is bent up, and hit the pan, but it's not too bad...I'm going to run the next round!"
"You lost, why a next round?"
"It's kinda a round-robin thing...now I'm in the losers bracket, but the four of us have to runoff for positions 5 through 8."

He won the next two rounds and finished the evening in fifth, The damaged rack skipped a few teeth on the drive home.

On 12/9/06, I had ran 8.929-146.50 to establish the quickest pass by a Gebhart. On 3/30/07, I had ran 8.972-149.05 to establish the top speed by a Gebhart. These two runs topped my previous best of 8.969-147.26 set way back on 9/08/02! All runs were made in my 70 Challenger with a 440 Eddie head motor and a two-stage O'Malley plate.

On June 22nd I finally got the call from Dale, and he was babbling on about toppling me from my perch with an 8.87-149.20 out of the Gremlin!

"Well good grief", I feigned disgust, "it only took you 13 years!"
"But I'm 6 years younger than you!"
"And I haven't made a serious pass since 2008, you know I have crap just laying around that can take that number back!"
"Bring it on, the Gremlin and I will be ready!" He quipped back.

I told my Wife about it the next day and she just shrugged, "Why should I care if Dale went faster than you have?"
When The Barracuda build begins in earnest next year, maybe then she'll understand!!

Dale's first, and second piston failures:

Custom machine work to fit the Icon pistons, and the new, er, very used short block

Looks very precision. Lol

Breakfast timing reading again!! Thanks for updates.

AS Mashmeier would say"Pistons are just a fusible link"

As the summer progressed, so did Dale's involvement with other projects, not just his AMX, but M Beeler's Duster, his step son Cody's Duster, Cody's friend Will, who bought Cody's former Aspen which Dale had a hand in building, as well as taking on my ex race car Challenger in a desperate effort to transform it into Drag Week/ Street car for our Drag Week Buddy James Gilliland! The place is starting to look like a halfway home for wayward racecars trying to return to street duty.

July 4th is always a big shindig at Dale's, and this was part of the group at his place.

When he helped Cody get his Duster somewhat street legal, and finished up the Stage 6 headed 440 for Will's Aspen, we started a pool on which one would get impounded first...
So far, so good!

So...the Gremlin wasn't getting much love, but the "List-Tulsa Style" group had a couple of events that he had to run in order to maintain his position.

He always drives it to the track with very little support equipment on board, and that has most guessing it to be a good deal slower than it is.

One night as he sat in line waiting to enter the track, a couple of younger guys in a Camaro struck up a conversation with the opening line of, "So, how fast have you been?"
"8.87 at 149" Dale answered.
They looked at each other and laughed, "No, no...we don't mean your fastest EVER, we mean in this car, the Gremlin, the one you drove out here!"
"Yeah...that's the one", he assured them.

The engine was proving to be really stout on both systems...but the car just refused to handle it, getting a little more unruly with each passing attempt. James managed to get his license in the car, and arrow straight 9.20 to 9.0s were there, but grab the second plate, and the boxy little monster had a hankerin' to go left!

Here's an example on Tony Fuller's video...That camera on a drone stuff is really cool. Sorry about the Camaro as the main character, but still worth watching.
Tony Fuller 918 Vs the world

Note to Dale: Stay off narrow tracks! Whew!! what a ride

Here is a bad cell phone video from the same pass, but it gives a different look at how violent the move from centerline to wall really was, and if you turn up the volume you can hear him lifting several times.
"Every time I grabbed the second system, I would reel him in, but the car would pull to the centerline", Dale explained, "I made a hard correction with the wheel at the same time I tried the 2nd hit again, and that's when it went to the wall and I had to lift."

Dales Gremlin

That dude in the Camaro evidently isn't worried about smacking the wall, his belts are so loose he could climb out without unbuckling!

Danny