We were all enjoying the shade provided by the buildings in the fading sun, planning our next move, when the relative peace was interrupted with the staccato exhaust note of very big, very nervous BBC in the engine bay of Michael Wenzler's nitroused gen 3 Camaro. They had removed the hood scoop, the lexan side windows, and the lexan grille blocker for the drive, and it gave the mid seven second car a dicarded eighties Pro Stocker look.

I used the distraction to get the jump on everyone, and Aaron and I jumped back on US-41, crossed over the Wabash river, and headed out of town.

It was thirty-seven easy miles into Kentland, where the directions required us to make a left to exit from US-41 onto US-52. Every one of these deviations on the route sheet is accompanied with a mileage total, and for old school guys like me, that's how I know when to gas up.
"How far are we in?" I asked Aaron when he told me our turn was forthcoming.
"107", he informed me.
I made a left at the intersection, then an immediate right into a Marathon gas station, and pulled up to a pump. John and Opal followed us in, as did Darren and Robert. We were out of the car and walking around when the Belvedere went straight through the intersection at 50 mph, still headed down US-41, with the Gremlin following suit about 200 feet off their bumper. Boone and Dad made the left and entered the gas station, shaking their heads in laughter as I pulled my phone out to call Rachael.
"I know, I know", She said before I even spoke, "We're turning around!"
I filled up the Valiant, then instructed Aaron to move it out of the way, so Rachael could pull up to the same pump and I could get both in one shot. He gave me a strange look, but hopped inside and had it fired up with no difficulty, so I could tell he had been paying attention to the process. He moved it out just as Rachael brought the Belvedere in the parking lot from the opposite direction.

Dale, and Darren decided to get the jump on me out of the Marathon, and were out on the road first, with Rachael only a few minutes behind them. John and Opal headed out after them, and I pulled out with Robert following me, and Boone, who likes to be the caboose, catch-all guy, leaving last.
The fading sun was barely over the trees, John was a good quarter of a mile down the road ahead of me, and I surveyed a nice straight piece of asphalt in front of me. Aaron was already concentrating on the phone screen in front of his face, but gave a barely perceptible sidelong glance as the tach trickled up to 3K, and we were still in low gear. That was the cue I was looking for, and I hammered the 428 to full throttle. The Valiant jumped up on the tires, and the tach marched from 5K to 6K faster than Aaron could brace himself and say "Holy..."!
I popped second at 6400, third at 6200, and lifted a second later.
"That's way better than an energy drink", Aaron smiled and laughed, "instant adrenaline rush!"
"Yeah", I agreed, "This thing is so much fun on the street...I struggle to behave myself!"
"I see what you mean about the wide, flat torque curve...it's instantly there, then just pulls hard and steady all the way through! Robert's Barracuda pushes you back harder in the seat as the rpm climbs." He added.
We had been riding together for ten hours plus on this trip at this point, and had discussed the philosophies I have come to depend on when building a combination, so I had told him the reasoning behind each component on the Valiant.
"Yeah, I've rode in Robert's car, that thing has way more cylinder head, and cubic inches, and horsepower, than I do!"

I had lost sight of the others, and we drove into the little town of Sheldon, made a right to continue on US 52, and were greeted by orange signs which proclaimed "Road Closed, local traffic only!" We drove around, and immediately started looking for the county road short cut described in Rachael's scribbles on the sheet. The first one we came to was barely more than a one-and-a-half lane dirt road, and I made the instant decision that we weren't trusting any county roads to complete this trip. I was about to turn around and head back into Sheldon, when I saw Rick Prospero's green BB turbo RX7 on the side of the road talking with a local in a Ford truck. I pulled over a few hundred yards behind him and just waited, figuring that after the local gave him directions, I'd just follow the RX7 through this mess.
Surprisingly, the guy in the Ford pulled up to my window, as soon as he pulled away from Prospero. "Are you guys with him?" He asked, leaning his head out of the window.
"Yeah, pretty much!"
"Ok, I'll tell you the same thing I told him! Go back to that intersection where the sign was and take a right on twenty-four, you'll run into the town of Watseka, take a right on highway one, and it will take you back to 52. Basically, it's just the opposite two legs of a square", he held thumbs to index fingers to illustrate, "it's eight miles, either way, so it's not costing you any more miles from that sheet he had!"
We thanked him, and flipped directions as the RX7 rumbled by with a honk and a wave.

We made it a mile down US-24, when Rachael and Skippy drove past us going the opposite direction in the Belvedere.
"She's lost again!" I told Aaron, and reached for my phone.
"They are turning around," he informed me as he turned to look out the back glass.
We drove into Watseka, and immediately noticed an inordinate amount of street rods and old cars cruising the main drag. We drove by a Steak and Shake, where a couple of guys sitting in lawn chairs out front waved us towards the large grocery store parking lot directly behind the restaurant. We could see a large car show in progress, which seemed odd for a Tuesday evening, but many of these mid-western small farming towns have week long festivals right at the end of summer.
"There's some muscle here tonight, we just have to rope one out!" I breathed as we idled on by, I really wanted to stop, but I knew everyone was hammered, and we needed all the sleep we could get tonight.
"Huh? What did you say?" Aaron asked.
Apparently he doesn't know Two Lane Blacktop line for line, while I find that disappointing, he is only twenty-seven, so I'll have to give him a pass.

In a couple of pics of the Grem.. the carrier on
back, the stick, sticking up (gas can filler) looks
like a shifter.. the first pic I seen it on I LOL..
I thought it was a shifter... it was appropriate
EDIT
It sorta reminded me of the Ratfink cartoons with
the gear shifter out through the roof..LOL

We cleared the outskirts of Watseka, and came up to the bridge over the river Iroquois, and it had a makeshift stoplight and construction barriers, because it was one lane only on IL-1. This is the same river which we couldn't cross because of bridge construction on US-52. Who the heck is planning bridge projects in the Illinois Dept of Transportation?

Two miles down the road, all my brothers started calling me with questions about the possibility of stopping to eat. The fact that they chose to make this a priority after we were all split up into three different groups, after we just drove through a town with 10 or 15 eateries, and after seven at night did not make me happy, or agreeable to much, and I made that abundantly clear.
Dale must've drawn the short straw, because he called me back about thirty minutes later to let me know that they had found a Mexican restaurant in a strip mall next to a Wal-Mart, right before we jumped onto I-57. I live in Arizona, so my first thought was that I probably eat better Mexican food off Taco trucks than we were going to find in a strip mall in Illinois, but I went with the flow.
When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was that we had lost John and Opal. Dale explained that he tried to call them once they made the determination to stop, but John didn't answer. Obviously, in this instance, John was smarter than I was.

Actually it was quite a nice place, and they slammed four four tops together to accommodate us banquet, long table style. Shortly after the drink orders, everyone had their smart phones out, checking the Drag Weeker face book page, and looking up the days results on Hot Rod's website.
Rachael sucked a breath in and commented loudly, "The guy with that white Chrysler had a wreck today!"
"The 79 300, Dan?" I asked, motioning her to show me the post.
Sure enough, there was a picture of the late B-body sitting at the second checkpoint, with the passenger's fender shoved back considerably.
"You are in second place now!", Dale pointed at me, "That yellow Cars Camaro didn't show in Indy!"
"Oh, yeah, I heard a rumor about that last night", Boone added, "The Black Camaro he was with was having all kinds of overheating issues right out of St. Louis, so the two of them threw in the towel."
"I was fourth after day one. How did I get around the other red Camaro", I asked.
Dale was squinting at his screen, "You went 10.39 to his 10.50 today...so you're average is 10.465 to his 10.490!"
"That's going to be tight all the way back to St. Louis", Robert chimed in.
"You're third in B-Gas, Boone", Dale continued, "That gold metal flake Falcon never made it to Indy."

Uh yeah, all roads into and out of Illinois sux, but the bridges especially! Wonder if the 300 guy ever found a grille, I have a couple laying around... Your stories are amazing, there really should be a book or magazine write-up on them! I will chime back in after the rain stories in northern Illinois.

"How about you, in Modified, Power Adder?" I asked Dale as he thumbed through the results.
"Well", he chuckled, "I jumped all the way from 9th in my class to 5th!"
"Just from picking up four tenths today", I questioned, "That's a big jump".
"No, the ET didn't help me at all", he whistled, "four of the cars with a faster slip in St. Louis, never made it to Indy! One more day like that, and I'll be in the lead!"

The waiter took our orders, the chips and salsa were passed out, and the conversations continued.

"I saw Blasco put down a 7.70 in the Dart today", Robert offered, "Where did that put him in Pro Street Power Adder?"
"Yeah", Dale confirmed, "7.706-184.35, and that means he's leading the class!"
Rachael handed me her phone, so I could play along, "You know, Pro Street Power Adder could've been the best class of the whole event, BY FAR, if the four guys already out would've had healthy, sorted out rides."
"Definitely", Boone agreed, "Mike Roy, three time winner, 7.56-188 best. Dom ran a 7.97 in the Viper Truck!"
"Fink went 7.90 in his old wagon, so you know he expected that 'Vette to be quicker than that. Then, Wischmann's old small block Mustang was an 8.50 hitter in Street Race, so he had to be shooting for a ton more with a big block Camaro", I added.
"Look", Dale shrugged, "It's still going to be a barn burner, Hunter went 7.63 in the '56, and McGilton ran 7.73 in the ZL-1. Anything can happen, and Leslie Smith's 67 Nova went low eight's at 180, just waiting for one of the top three to screw up!"
"Isn't Tina in that class", Rachael asked, "with her new Colorado?"
"Sure is", I nodded, "pair of mid-eight second runs, good for fifth so far".

The food started to show up, but I was still mining the results for nuggets of information.
"Dad! Bad news!"
Dad looked up from his plate, he had been extraordinarily quiet tonight.
"The little Willy's pick up you were eyeballing so much, never made it to Indy either", I informed him.
"Dang it! I really like that thing." He conceded.
I looked over at Boone, "Charley Ogle went 11.26 at 123.9 today! That has to be the quickest he's went on Drag Week?"
He consulted his stat sheet quickly, "Yeah, by quite a bit!"

I was seated with James to my right, and the waiter set a large platter in front of him piled high with loaded, fajita style, nachos.
"Oh boy", I quickly commented, "James is going to be the last one done eating by a bunch!"
"Why do you say that?" He looked at me with a guarded grin.
"Haven't you ever heard the old saying, slower than a one thumbed man in a nacho eating contest?"
Laughter erupted from the table, "You starting already?" He shot back.
"I've been saving up the thumb jokes all year, James", I assured him.

"How's the Barracuda Vs. GS455 battle going this year", Dale asked, having already stowed his phone, and working his way through his meal.
"Covey and the GS have a pair of 10.19s, while the purple AAR ran 10.43 and 10.50. Randy's going to be mad at you!"
Dale looked up, as if suddenly remembering something, "Did I tell you he's got an Indy single plane on that big Buick?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's running an Indy Dominator intake with flanges modified to match the Buick head, I guess no one casts a big enough intake for them...thought that was odd when we were working on it."

Oh yes, the Fun Wash a couple blocks from my house, I use it all the time! I wish I could have made it to GLD for the runs, but that darn work thing kept getting in my way...

We didnt see the elephant until about 1 or 2 am, at that point I had changed the trans, we got lost where the bridge was out and had maneuvered through a corn field, I lost my wallet, we blew through the toll booth and we had not had anything to eat.

We had about and hour and a half invested in our supper, but everyone walked out of El Mexicano satisfied, and ready to roll. Darren was the leader of the pack, followed closely by Dale and James in the Gremlin, with Rachael and Skippy giving chase in the Belvedere. I fired up the Valiant, backed out in front of Boone, turned on my lights, and...no headlights. I pushed and pulled the switch several times...nothing.

I circled back into the parking lot, and shut the car off. Robert was still there, as was Boone and Dad in the Barnyard Viper. After about fifteen minutes of messing around, then searching through the Valiant, I realized about 90% of my electrical tools and stuff were in the Belvedere, so I called Rachael, and told her to turn around and come back.

The good news was, once again, I had electrical expertise in the form of Robert and Aaron, on location. The bad news is, with guys like this, you don't just run a jumper wire and head on down the road. You have to test, diagnose the problem, and eliminate any weak or potential problem areas.
"Where's the fuse box?" Robert asked, with Aaron already probing around under the dash with a test light.
"Uh...I yanked that out and threw it away", I reluctantly explained.
I could see Aaron's hand with the test light in it recoil, almost involuntarily as Robert groaned, "So what kind of circuit protection do you have?"
"Well, I did the race car wiring first, then I ran a jumper wire from that over to the factory wiring, and stuff just started working, so I left well enough alone!"

Rachael pulled back in the parking lot, and the headlights on the Belvedere were two very dim orange orbs that couldn't have possibly been providing enough light to drive by!
I instructed her to leave it running, and opened the hood to find the plug dangling from the back of the alternator. Apparently, with all our attempts to get it working properly, someone had broken the clip feature which holds it in. I stuck it back in place, and the lights began to brighten considerably. The 440 sounded like garbage though, piston slap, rod knock, lifters?
"You here that Robert?" I asked in a hushed voice, as he was standing right beside me.
"Yeah, but I wasn't going to mention it...doesn't sound all that healthy!"
I shut the hood, and gave Rachael a thumbs up. Things always sound worse when you are tired and road weary, we would re-visit that problem in the morning!

We tested, and determined the switch was good, determined that the wiring from the firewall to the lights was good, determined that the wiring from the switch to the dimmer switch was good. Finally it was narrowed down to a short in the wiring from the dimmer switch to the firewall plug.

The two experts determined that I was lucky I didn't melt the whole mess together, or burn the car down. Since I already had a fused light circuit on my painless panel that was powering the gauge lights, they decided to tap into that relay, then jumper to the headlights.

A few minutes later we were rolling down I-57, and I commented to Aaron that the lights were much brighter than they had ever been in the past. He rolled his eyes, chuckled, and shook his head, but refused to comment.

We jumped off of I-57 fourteen miles later, but before we could cover the 1 and a half miles to US-45 North, we lost the headlights again, fortunately we were right at the entrance of a BP Station. We fueled all the vehicles, and my suggestion that we replace the blown fuse with a higher amperage rated fuse was shot down by the electrical Nazi's that I had unwittingly teamed with for this trip! The solution they came up with was to unplug the inside two headlights, and run on the outboards only.

Looking at the time stamps on these pictures of Darren and Dale at the same station, they had about an hour and twenty minute lead on us at that point.

We covered the twenty miles due north on US-45 fairly easily, and ended up closing the window wings, and rolling the windows up about 80% to ward off the chill in the night air. The route had us jog west for five miles on I-80, then we found ourselves on I-355 North, a toll road, to get us around/through Chicago. Even at that late hour, with virtually no traffic, it was amazing how much heat Chicago's concrete holds in, as both our engine temps, and our willingness to open the windows back up could attest to.

Rachael's driving was becoming erratic as we worked our way from toll booth to toll booth, so finally I flagged her over, and demanded that she let Skippy drive the rest of the way.

At 12:15 AM, I got a call from Dale, stating that they were at the second checkpoint, and needed the address to the motel, so they could punch it into their navigation.
"Anyone else there?" I asked.
"Just Joe Barry's 56, and a van full of the Hot Rod guys!"
"Ok...get us checked into both rooms when you get there."

We jumped off the toll roads, and onto poorly lit, narrow, undulating two lanes canopied by lush foliage for the last twenty-two miles to the checkpoint, If Aaron hadn't been there calling out rights and lefts, I certainly would've been lost, as tired as I was. Once at the Fun-Wash, Aaron and I had to wait another twenty minutes or so For Boone, Rachael, and Robert to show up. Learning from the Indy fiasco, Robert decided to load up Aaron on the spot, and head off to their motel, rather than risk another long drive following me around. It was 2:25 AM when we left the second checkpoint, and we still had thirty-three miles to the motel.

The motel parking lot was jammed full of drag week cars, and after one circuit through, I started eyeing the truck stop across the street for parking. My phone rang, and Dale explained that he had been talking with the motel manager for the last hour, he was a huge car enthusiast, and he would help us with parking. They met us outside a few minutes later, and found us all spots. The Valiant ended up about five feet from the front entrance, which was actually about four feet further than I wanted to walk at 3:30 AM!

Dale's first words to me once he showed me to our room was, "Man! Those four-tens I just put in the Dana were growling like crazy that last thirty miles, I don't think they will finish out the week."
When Boone walked in our room, his first statement was, "I think the eight and three quarter has had it! The four-thirties were howling so bad, they will probably just toss teeth all over the starting line tomorrow!"

Day Three, Great Lakes Dragaway, Union Grove

For me, this was the day I most anticipated, when the schedule for Drag Week 2015 was released. A chance to visit, and race at a fabled old track, that I had heard about my entire life.

GLD didn't disappoint. More impressively, the Illinois and Wisconsin race/real street car fans didn't disappoint. It was packed, it was a party, rockin', crazy atmosphere; it was a Wednesday morning for goodness sakes!

Crowd was awesome!!!

You won't see a track this busy with spectators at 8:30am on a Saturday much less a Wednesday.

One of my favorite pictures of DW15 was the fans at Union Grove

GLD was crazy. It took longer than I expected to get there on my back roads route to avoid the rush hour, and dad and I were greeted with nary a place to sit that the view wasn't blocked by the Sat truck!
The one day we didn't pack a lunch I stood in line for 45min for burgers! Was great vibe to the place for sure.

You are correct guys, when you look at all the spectators around Ray's car, you have to realize that Ray gets to the track super early, and was in the first pair down the track.

The practice of being the first or second pair down with stock suspension, and small tires, bit him on Wednesday, as he struck the tires and went elevens to open the day's festivities. He would have to wait about 45 minutes to get a second attempt, and put down a 10.21 that would have him bound for Cordova Il.

Mr cool and the black pearl

Darn work! I heard the next day how packed it was on Wednesday, I knew I shoulda blew off the day...