working on the 392 hemi for the hot rod today, found this. I'm numb. i'm done with this time wasting money pit...

Well looks like another year without the Hot Rod. Better get the battery charger on the GTX.

That's the strangest looking early Hemi crank I've ever seen.

I grabbed one of the three HF moving blankets I had brought and spread it over the roof of the Valiant, then had Pops help me set the hood on top of that. Once I had the pipes off the car, I turned my attention to removal of the spark plugs. I inspected the first one out and my heart sank, the electrode was a rounded off nub about 75% of it's original height, the ground strap was rounded off as well, so the resulting gap was about .060. These poor things were wore plum out, it was a wonder it would run at all.
Dale walked over when I had the third one out, picked one up and let out a low whistle, "Were you just trying to burn up your ignition box?"
"I guess so", I shrugged, "these have seen better days."
"You bring a Craftsman bag every year with like eight spare sets of spark plugs, and you try to run on last year's set...unbelievable", he smiled and shook his head.

There seemed to be lull in the competition, and I heard Brian Lohnes announce that they were out of cars in the lanes before the end of the first session. A few minutes later he announced that Clark Rosenstengal, fresh off his 7.80 in his 2010 Camaro was searching for a copper head gasket for an LSX!
"Wow", Dale commented, "Showed without his trailer, and now a blown head gasket, that's rough!"
"At least he has a good run in for the day already, so he's better off than some of these guys", I reasoned.
As if on cue the green 90 Mazda of Rick Prospero drove through the entrance gate and headed in our direction.
"What were they doing last night?" I questioned Dale as he looked up to watch the Mazda drive by.
"Swapping in his spare roller cam", Dale shook his head, "Fun stuff!"

Only one set of cars went down the track in the last seven minutes of session one, and then they called Street Machine Eliminator to the lanes.

I can't fool anybody on April 1st.

I thought the same thing about the crank but I am still trying to get the hook out of my mouth...

I searched through my box in vain for my plug gapper, so I walked across the pit road to the yellow 72 Challenger with the New York plates. It wasn't that I hadn't noticed the car before, it just seemed to be on the periphery of what we had been doing the first three days, and this was the first time I had the chance to take a good look. The car was extremely nice and the trio working on it were Italians with strong accents. The one who had introduced himself as Paul quickly handed me a plug gapper and explained that he had just picked up an extra one at the parts store this morning.

When I returned to the Valiant, a fit gentleman in a black t-shirt was standing next to the fender, and he stuck his hand out as I approached.
"I'm Rod Bloomer, nice to finally meet you in person", he smiled.
"Likewise", I laughed, and shook the offered hand.
As I worked my way through changing all the plugs, Rod and I talked about his rotating assemblies, how BPE came to be, his Barracuda, my Valiant, and his new venture with the small block heads. He was engaging, intelligent, witty, funny, and exceeded what I had expected from our occasional exchanges on Moparts or the E-mails from when I ordered the parts for my engine. It felt like one of those Sunday afternoons when you are in the shop with friends, playing with cars, enjoying good conversation and time jut flies by...except it was at the track and we were running out of track time! Rod had tried to excuse himself several times, "So I could finish up with what I was doing", but the conversation had continued. Finally Rachael came over and implored me to get to the lanes because we were down to the last session to make runs. Rod used the intrusion to head for the bleachers and it occurred to me that he hadn't had a chance to see much since he had been talking to me the whole time. I asked Rachael to bring me my nitrous jets. She found the box and I started sorting through them.
"So the SME session is over, did you run?"
"Yes", Rachael shook her head, "You're just like Pops, once you start talking with someone you just zone out and ignore everything else!"
"Well, I am his son after all", I laughed, "so I came by it honest!"

When I looked up for a second, I noticed Dale was under the hood of the yellow Challenger, and Darren was in conversation with Joe, Paul's brother who had been following the route in a Peterbuilt.
I walked over and handed Paul back his spark plug tool, and asked if everything was OK.
"It will be after your brother puts a tune-up on this thing for us", Paul laughed and slapped me on the back, "I was ready to order a new carb and distributor, but he tells me we can make this work!"
Apparently, the Castiglione's had went from complete strangers to part of the group in an hour and a half, which shouldn't surprise me on Drag Week!

I walked back over and took the 67 jet out of the nitrous port and moved it to the fuel side, then put a 73 in the nitrous and tightened everything up. Boone fired up the Duster and headed for the lanes just as I was checking everything for leaks.

They took about twelve minutes between session 1 and 2 to run the tractors and re-spray the first three hundred feet, so the Street Machine Eliminator group didn't get a chance at "Aeroquip Alley" as the large street sign in the burnout area refers to the drag strip surface at US131 Motorsports Park, until 11:45AM.
Charley Ogle went 11.22-120 in his Gold Challenger, followed by Rod Munchiando's 11.76-113 in his black 68 340 GTS. Dillon Ogle finally seemed to get a handle on his Dad's yellow Cuda, with a nice 11.97-113.9, after struggling the first two days. He was outran handily by John Pfister's bright red 34 3-window Ford coupe that was starting to really get people's attention, running 10.0 to 10.teens at over 130 with a 6-71 blown SBC. Randy Juliani continued the trend of one good run and done Mopars with an 11.83-112 out of his Coronet.

Then, in an unusual move, they let Bryant Goldstone roll his Javelin out of impound and join the SME cars. It was 12:05 when he staged up for a pass that he hoped would keep him in the lead of Ultimate Iron, and 2nd quickest overall.

Joe and Paul are good people. If I remember right, 2016 was the first Drag Week for the brothers? That Challenger was spotlessly clean.

Goldstone rattled the tires on the Javelin pretty good about eighty feet out, but managed to drive through it and pour on the power the rest of the way down. The resulting 6.87-210 was the pass of the day to that point, and more importantly, the wounded crank stayed in the engine. He tossed off a chrome trim piece or two, so the SME session was delayed for a few minutes.

When they resumed, Craig Douglas' HellCat Charger went a 10.37-132 that moved him up to 4th quickest in the SME field. Clark Lamb followed him in his Barracuda, and the W-2 stroker ran a Drag Week best 122.6 mph on it's way to an 11.14 that would keep him comfortably in the Q-32 hunt.

Jay Williams and his screaming yellow Nickey ZL-1 Camaro had to start feeling like he was being used as a Mopar pin cushion after Martin. The Valiant and I had outran him on Monday, then Douglas and the HellCat beat him on Tuesday, and Wednesday at US131 he watched as Jason Trotter and the turbo Daytona did the deed, 10.70-132.8 for the Camaro, 10.66-141 for the little red Dodge.

Rachael finally made it to the burnout box with just eighteen minutes left in the session. She was paired with Scott Abbott's 70 Road Runner and he outran her pretty soundly, with a too quick 11.44-121 to her 12.08-113.8. When she showed me the time slip I was preoccupied with my conversation, and had only picked up on the fact that she let Scott outrun her. He's beat the Belvedere twice with her driving, and once with Boone driving, and in all three instances the Belvedere ran short of it's potential. I should have realized it was time for another bottle swap, but I missed that important detail.

Dave Kirwan in the red Challenger HellCat was barely hanging onto a spot in the quick 32, and needed a good run to stay in contention as others improved. Fortunately for him, the US131 starting line still had plenty of grip, and the 6.2 picked up over a tenth to a solid 11.08-124.7. James Reeves and 9.99 Omni GLH had struggled mightily the first two days, but a good 11.04-130.2 made it appear that the black beast was rounding back into form, whether he could make a run at the 32nd spot or not though, would have to wait for Indy.

Like session one for the class cars, there was a lull towards the end of session two as only a few cars were left in the lanes. At 12:35 Brian Lohnes made the announcement that John Faraone and his 72 Valiant Charger had entered the facility. Seven minutes later the session was ended and the tractors went out to prep the track one last time. It was 12:55 before session three was started, and I was expecting two hours of track time. We had lost thirty minutes to the morning rain, and twenty-five minutes to track clean-up, so I was counting on the normal two pm cutoff to be moved to 2:55pm.

The first several cars down didn't instill confidence in the belief that we were about to see more big numbers. Jeffrey Lutz's SBC Honda Civic refused to come up on boost, and labored down the track. Blake Hughes' S-10 looked to be on another stout 8.70 run when it popped something loose and lost boost at the eighth mile. Dennis Taylor's Retro Nova left with a stellar 1.28 sixty foot time, then lost fire and coasted to a 17.23. Paul Castiglione and his yellow 72 Challenger ran an 11.53-119, which was an improvement over his earlier 12.56-105.
Twelve minutes in, Boone pulled the Duster to the line, and went 10.21-131, when he made it back to the pits, I could tell he wasn't going to attempt a second run.

"It's got a little squeak in the engine I'm not particularly happy with", he shook his head, "we've got two drives, and two race days left, so I'm happy with that one."
"Saponaro is out, and the Retro Nova is struggling...you could be battling it out with Meyer and Northern Bel for a third place in class!"
Boone laughed heartily, "Look...Saponaro, Gallimore, Taylor, Trunkett, Meyer; the Ruster Duster might have the same letter on the windshield as their cars, but it's not in the same class! Not even close!"

I jumped in the Valiant and headed up for my first attempt, and planned for a good one and done number well into the nines. Eight minutes after Boone ran, Jacob Foster stood his 240Z straight up off the line, he nailed it upon landing and it went up again, the rack broke upon re-entry from the second wheelstand and he went for a wild ride that culminated with the Z inches from the wall at the thousand foot mark. At the same moment they were loading the car on the ramp truck, Jesse Madaffari was pulling Dennis Taylor back to his pits with a tow rope, so it didn't look good for him to improve on his seventeen second run.
During the ten minutes it took to get Foster's ride off the track, one of the Faraone crew was sharing pictures of the twin turbo wedge's torched Predator head, while Lohnes and Freiburger relayed the story of how they had seen the Aussie shoot fire out from under it on his Tuesday pass. They had apparently stayed up all night to replace the head and limp to Martin.
Darren was leaning up against the Valiant with me in the lanes, having rode up with Dale in the Gremlin.
I looked over at him and laughed, "Now we know how they lost a hundred mph from one day to the next!"
"Yep, burning aluminum instead of fuel can have that effect", he agreed with a nod.

The Crusty Nova was back to try again after his earlier wheel stand. Shane pedaled it once and ran an 8.30-161, which was in line with the passes he accepted on the previous two days, but he drove it back to the lanes anyway.
Dale idled the Gremlin into the water, did a short burn-out, purged both systems and staged. He still drove out of the hole a good distance on motor, and the short wheelbase box ran a seemingly effortless, perfectly straight, 8.97-151.
Next up was Jay Brown and his aqua 69 Shelby Mustang with the big inch SOHC FE. According to Lohnes, Jay had been thrashing in the pits to change cams, so they didn't know what to expect. The 9.10-149.4 wasn't going to be his best, but it would certainly keep him in second place in the Modified NA class.
Five minutes after Dale's run, I pulled around the corner to do my burn-out in the Valiant. When I looked over to see who I was running, I immediately knew my plan to foot-brake was out the window. The Chisholm and Stasiak 55 Chevy gasser was to be my competition. The single most dependable wheelie king at Drag Week year after year, which meant cameras would most definitely be aimed at us and I HAD to toss the front end in the air and hope someone got some good shots!
I stuck the throttle to the floor, and yanked my thumb off the button. The Valiant rotated slightly to the right and by the time I forced it back in the groove it was on the rev limiter in 1st. I found the shifter, grabbed second, and finally found the nitrous button. The 55 was out on me by five cars, and all the nitrous did was stop the bleeding. It felt good though, and used up second gear really quick, so I stuck it in drive and let it eat. It felt strong all the way to the stripe and never popped once, but the black 210 worked us over pretty good 9.56-138 to 10.13-134.
When I returned to our pit area, Rachael ran over to talk to me with a concerned look on her face.
"They just announced that the lanes will close in twenty minutes!"
"What? What happened to extending it past two for all the hold-ups?"
She shrugged at me and said, "I'm telling you, it just came over the loud speaker!"
"Alright jump back in the Belvedere and let's get in line for another run then", I instructed her, as I fired the Valiant and drove on up.

Nice wheelie pics, Billy!

big shot

I think I need to add a sneaky pete so I can get that wheelie pic with my car!

Nice job Billy!!

blown BBC and the rear axle shoved forward a foot oughta be enuff, Jim.

I rode with Jay from Norwalk to Martin. Jay had been fighting a bad cold since we arrived in Columbus. He was really under the weather. About 60 miles before we arrived at the hotel in martin, I heard a noise in the valve train. Jay said it was nothing, and was going to push on. I wear ear plugs when riding in Jay's car, and with them in I can hear things you can't otherwise. Ear plugs get rid of wind and White noise. Jay, not feeling well, and just wanting to get something to eat, and rest, kept going. The next morning when he fired the car up, it was obvious, the valvetrain was eating itself up. It took out a couple rockers, and both cams. What he got done that next day was amazing.