Whos copper barracuda? what class did he compete in?

I didn't get to look at it much, I had never seen it before. Very nice car, supercharged big block running low 11s.

I'll tell you what I do like though: a killer, a dyed-in-the-wool killer. Cold blooded, clean, methodical and thorough. Now a real killer, when he caught up on the story this morning, would've immediately asked about the picture of the Copper Barracuda that I snuck in with no explanation.

Anytime the oportunity to paraphrase Zorg presents itself, I take it!

When I first saw Terry Keifer's 67 Barracuda in tech, well, it's such a clean car, and I saw the turbo, and I expected better than low elevens. The car was solid, reliable and finished the week without much trouble, so I'm quite sure he wasn't worried about anyone else'e expectations other than the one he set for himself.

After Day 1, he was a distant 5th in Super Street Big Bock Power Adder, behind two seven second cars, and two nine second cars.

Despite the fact that Rachael and I arrived fifteen or twenty minutes before Boone and Dale, the Barnyard Viper followed us into the lanes. Boone is pretty quick at converting the truck over from pack mule to strip ready. I pulled up beside the 69 Chevelle of Darryl Yost, which appears to be your typical hot rodded SS 396. While the body and the stance say boulevard cruiser, the drive train, featuring a pro-charged 540, and a G-force 4 speed, align more with the full cage on board. He had a 9.82 on day one, but had made four runs to get it, so I figured I had a chance to get to the finish line first.
The Valiant still had a slight hesitation when I slammed the holley wide open, but it pulled quite nicely, and I shifted to second at 6400, hit third at 6200, and looked over my shoulder for the Chevelle. Reminiscent of my T-stop SST days, he just appeared out of nowhere as we hit the stripe, but I got the win light. I followed the Chevelle up the return road, and was handed a 10.39 time slip, that thrilled the heck out of me. I had no sooner let out a whoop, and started to pull away from the booth, than the beautiful rumble of the small block turned into a thud, thud, thud that sounded like it might be hitting on two cylinders! I shut it off and coasted over to the edge of the pavement, before entering the scale area, and stepped out of the car to have a look under the hood.

Rachael was only two cars behind me in the staging lanes, so she was staging as I stood there helplessly by the Valiant on the return road. The extra lift that the N20 provides to the front end of the Belvedere didn't appear until well after sixty foot, but the 440 sounded good, and the shifts were on time. I could tell she let off the bottle just past the 1K clocks, and when Lohnes announced 11.62 at 114.9, I was very pleased.
She drove up the return road, grabbed her time slip, and was studiously reading it as she blew right past me! If I'd have stepped out in the road, the Belvedere would have a new hood ornament.

Boone was in the next pair, pitting the Barnyard Viper up against Luke Duncan's Maverick with it's tunnel ram equipped, Eddie Miller built 302.

From my vantage point, they were tied together all the way down, with Boone getting the win light, despite running a hundredth slower. He pulled into the grass on the other side of the road, and walked over to the Valiant.
"Looked close", I exclaimed.
"Yeah, that was fun", he agreed, handing me his time slip. "I have to admit, there may have been some hollering and a fist pump, when my win light came on!"
"Your 11.21 at 120.3 beat his 11.20-119.7", I started deciphering the incrementals, "wait a minute, you had the tree, but he had six on you at sixty foot!"
"That's what made it such a good drag race", Boone laughed, "I didn't even know I had the tree, because he killed me so bad in 60 foot. I pulled even a little after the 330, then just kept inching ahead the rest of way down!

Billy, you guys are having too much fun. LOL

He smiles on Sunday and Friday most of the time. LOL

I dont remember what day it was but Rachael was down in lobby making like 6 waffles, she was alone. I said does your dad just get to come down and get served breakfast, she said yup. haha

"So...what do you think is wrong with it?" Boone motioned towards the open hood of the Valiant.
"Not sure, it sounded terrible, so I shut it off. Then I re-fired it and it sounded fine, drove about fifteen feet and just flat died."
"Fuel or ignition?"
"I think ignition, but why don't you go get a couple of gallons of pump gas, and we'll try that. Bring back the tow rope also, in case that's not it."
"Alright, be back in a few, but I'm not sure it's legal to tow you back."
"Why the heck not? I've seen it done about twenty times in the last few years!"
"Yeah...but those were racers helping other racers...we're considered a team, so it might be looked on that I'm your mule!"
"You ARE my mule", I exclaimed.
"Screw you", he smiled, "I'll be back in a bit."

The amount of cars pounding the strip had slowed to a trickle, but quite a few of the Street Machine Eliminator guys who were close to the bump were making multiple runs trying to find a spot in the quick 32. The quick 32 bracket race requires you to subtract a tenth from your 5 day average, so if you have a no-bar car limited to 11.50, you want to average 11.60 in order to set yourself up for eliminations. Veterans of the class like Ross Dudley and his '68 RR, and Scott Abbott with his '70 RR, had nailed it on Monday, carding an 11.67, and 11.64 respectively. The problem became clear when they checked first day results though, and they realized that an 11.60 five day average wasn't going to make the bump! Ross' crew was obviously pleased when he laid down an 11.51-120.8, but Scott was forced to try it once again in his Orange beast, and finally settled for an 11.57-120.5. Despite their best efforts, they still drove away from Indianapolis with Ross in the 36th spot, and Scott at 38th...Rachael was 49th, by comparison.

Turk was busy this year.Decision depended on whether he had a Diet Coke in his hand or not. LOL

When Boone came back, he pulled the fuel jug out of his Truck, then chuckled and shook his head as he handed it to me.
"What's so funny?
"I had to explain to Sean Fling in the Staging lanes why I was heading up the return road backwards", Boone expounded, "and he thinks you need the fuel to make weight on the scales!"
"Why would he think I would try to skirt the rules?" I laughed, knowing that Sean has read my stories in the past.
After we dumped the fuel in, the small block fired to life and sounded just fine, so Boone headed back to the pits. I jumped in the Valiant and rolled up on the scales.
"You're good", Matt smiled, and gave me a thumbs up, "3140 lbs."
I pulled off the scales and idled down the return road, made it to about the eighth mile mark, when it suddenly started missing, and sounding like it was barely hitting on two or three. I shut it off in disgust, and coasted over to the right, hopefully leaving others room to get by. Here I sat holding the best time slip the Valiant had ever produced normally aspirated, and I couldn't get back to my pits! I pulled my phone out to call Boone again, when I looked up and noticed a track worker coming towards me on a four wheeler with one of those rollers attached that you see them use to clear the Top Fuel cars off the track with. He spun around, and bumped my rear tire, then checked to see if the height would work on my car. Talk about customer service, he pushed me all the way down the return road, through the lanes, and all the way through the pits to my pit spot!

While it seemed much longer, the time from my pass down the fabled track, to my embarrassing shove into our pit spot, only covered thirty-five minutes, and Dale was just heading up for a pass in the Gremlin. John had the back of the 67 Valiant jacked about four feet into the air and I could see that he had already switched to his street tires, but he was under the transmission now. I walked up beside the car and questioned him on the problem.
"This thing has one of those US Car Tool drive shaft loops that bolts to the trans cross member", he explained without coming out from under the car, "and the flimsy piece of junk was flexing so bad last night on those bad roads that I thought it was going to grab onto the shaft and rip it out of there!"
He rolled out from under the car, "but, the bolts are all tight, nothing seems out of order, and the drive shaft is only scuffed...it's just not approved for rough Illinois county roads!"

Dale launched the Gremlin, and I didn't hear him pedal it, so that was a good sign. He was on a single, so I heard the announcer call out 9.08.
"He'll want another one...no doubt about it", Dad declared.

Thanks for keeping the story alive, Billy!

Oh there's more to come I was on the phone with Billy's Dad today and he had a few after Drag Week stories to tell.

Okies FTE DW win. LOL

When I bought the Valiant in 2006, the first thing I did was add an overhead electrical control panel, and a MSD Digital 6 plus. At that time, it was a pure bracket car with no passenger seat, so I laid on my back, and tucked all the new wiring under the dash. With two seats in the car, it's pretty much impossible for me to get to.
Robert, as an electrical engineer, and Aaron, as a low voltage tech (I don't even know what that means) were infinitely more qualified to chase down my current problem than I was, and more importantly they were willing!
"We can have all the major components tested over at the MSD trailer", Robert explained.
I showed Aaron how to remove the factory glove box, and lid to open more space to work with, he's half my age (and size), and twice as flexible, so it appeared as if he would have no problems getting to everything. Then the two of them started talking about a circuit that was opening up due to heat etc. and my head started hurting, so I had to walk away.
Robert took the coil off, and headed in the direction of the MSD guys.

Dale was swapping out bottles in the Gremlin, so I talked to him for a minute, and asked him what he hoped to accomplish by making another run.
"Well...it only ran 147", he shook his head, and stuck the time slip in my face, "that bottle was done on the big end...whole pass really, the second plate had no punch. It'll go eights with a fresh bottle".
"That's the quickest pass you've ever made on Drag Week, and you want more..."
"I went 9.04 last year", he cut me off, "and it's been eights plenty since then, no reason it won't do it now!"
"The 9.04 was during the Saturday shootout, not Drag Week, that time slip represents your quickest run."
"Not after this one I'm fixin' to make!" He smiled.

James and Dale headed to the lanes, as Robert returned with the coil.
"Tested out great", Robert explained to Aaron and I, "they really put it through it's paces, it was pretty cool! So this isn't the problem, we need to pull the distributor next and try it out!"
Robert looked a little flushed, and I wasn't sure if it was the brisk walk through the pits, or watching the test procedure!
I started to pull the distributor, while they discussed whether or not we need to pull the box all the way out.
"He's got quite a bit of this hard wired", Aaron explained, "and what isn't, is just butt connectors and black tape!"
Robert had a disgusted look on his face.
"It's just wiring!" I tossed my hands up, "What's the big deal?"
Now they both just glared at me like I was from another planet.

Dale left with the front end hiked on the Gremlin, then immediately hit the second plate, it dropped the front hard and smoked the tires, jumping out of the groove. He hesitated, then smacked it again, resulting in a 9.99-146. I knew if he returned to our pits, he was done, but I feared that he would drive right back up for another shot!

Robert and I headed towards the MSD trailer, with the billet distributor in hand. I also had Dale's BB distributor, with hopes of getting a new module put in it.
"Did they say that they had a Digital 6 plus in stock?"
"Yeah", Robert nodded, "I asked about that when I brought the coil up."
"I'm thinking I should just buy it, if they are leaving at two pm, we may not have time to get the box out and get it tested."
We walked into a small enclosed trailer, with neat, white, aluminum cabinets lining both sides. The technician popped the distributor into his machine, and started turning knobs and adding rpm. The thing was actually making music as it threw out blue sparks across a board. Robert had worked his camera out of his pocket and was trying to discretely record the test, but I was starting to feel uncomfortable and awkward. Watching your buddy get all excited and short of breath like that, I felt like I was the third wheel!

Once the test was concluded, the tech determined it was fine, so I purchased the box, and gave them Dale's dizzy. They were in a hurry to load up and get on the road, so they agreed to have it ready for him when we arrived in Union Grove.

Back at the Valiant, we decided to switch the boxes. I remembered that the distributor lead snaked between the two firewalls, and there was a connection in between. I started slowly removing the inspection cover so I could fish out the wire, and disconnect it, when John walked over to see what I was doing. I explained it to him, and he jumped in to help with the job. He handed me the cover, then reached in to grab the lead wires.
"You guys can stop pulling the box out", John boomed, "I just found the problem! Billy put a butt connector splice in the distributor lead, and it pulled apart as soon as I touched it!"
Aaron raised up from where he was crouched under the dash, and Robert looked up from the door opening.
"You have to be kidding! He spliced a MSD distributor lead? They come with fancy connectors and shielding for a reason!"
All of them were looking at me like I had three eyeballs.
"It worked for eight years, and three Drag weeks..." I mumbled and shrugged my shoulders.

Lol, good reading!!

We used the long distributor lead that came with the new box, and I handed Aaron a cordless drill with a step bit so he could enlarge the hole in the inside firewall. The small hole didn't allow the connector to fit through, which is why I had spliced it in the first place. We decided to hook everything up, and just give it a shot before we put everything back in place. The 428 fired easily, and sounded like it's old self again, so we tasked Aaron with re-attaching the box, securing the wires, and screwing the glove box back in place.

Dale had the timing light hooked up to the Gremlin, and was prepared to return the 440 to street driving status, but when James hit the starter button, all we heard was the whir of the starter motor, the drive never hit the flex plate teeth.
"The drive is broke, you need a new starter", John diagnosed from his back under the Gremlin, after Dale and James jacked up the front and put it on stands. I rustled around in one of the totes Rachael carried in the Belvedere, and dug out my new in the box spare that I've carried in every Drag Week since 2011.

Jeremy (furious 70, Moparts) and his Dad, have spectated at multiple Drag Weeks, and they joined in on the fun at Indy. I always enjoy hanging out with them, even though there never seems to be enough time to really enjoy the visit! They were cruising, in the big purple beast, and were also making the trip to Union Grove.