Goldstone getting to run with the SME's really gets me. I tried the last day in Columbus to get a second run during the last session but was turned away by Sean Fling(I am in SME). I thought the last session was an all run. Really ticks me off that the leaders get a run of the sessions. But it isn't the first time it has happened. They stopped me a few years ago to let Sick Seconds make a pass in the middle of SME. Just shows who's butt Hot Rod kisses.

It was my understanding that the guys in impound had their own lane to make a pass when they chose...no butt kissing needed, rules are the rules.

and nice hang time Billy!

I think the impounded got there own lane starting in 2014.

Guys,
A little history lesson. When David Freiburger first devised Drag Week in 2005, he wrote, in quotation marks, "The only rules are, there are no rules!" He had grown tired of what fastest street car racing had evolved into, which was a rulebook loaded down with innuendo and minutia to try and keep as many cars as possible competitive. So he was planning an event tough enough to sort out the pretenders without a fifty page rulebook.

2nd: Hot Rod Magazine is a group of journalists who want content, internet hits, and good drama from Drag Week, nothing more, nothing less. The Drag Week staff is a separate entity tasked with a huge responsibility to pull off all the administrative and logistical nightmares that arise with trying to put together an event of this magnitude. Then you have the race and tech directors who are using volunteers and track staff to keep the nuts and bolt together and the train moving forward. These three heads do not always work in concert, so to assume any outcome is the result of a consensus would be folly.

As the fields have grown, there is a clear precedent, year after year, of adjustments made on the fly. For a veteran, the tone was set during the Driver's Meeting when Keith explained, "You guys pick what class you're supposed to be in, you know the rules, I'll only make adjustments if I need to". This was clearly code for: I don't have the desire or the manpower to beat people up with rules, so police yourselves, and I'll act if there are protests! I saw cars who moved up in class to Ultimate Iron and Unlimited, ETC that wouldn't have been allowed to do so in previous years.
Last year, in my story, I complained about abuse of the impound lane. In the drivers meeting Lonnie Grimm clearly stated that it wouldn't be used in 2016 unless he felt it was necessary. I know most of the week, the impound guys didn't get an express trip to the front of the line.

The one thing I would stress, to help everyone enjoy Drag Week as much as possible...Never assume "The rules are the rules", The rules are a moving target!

Dealing specifically with Friday, they made a move to run SME in the first session, so they could build the ladder, then they ran the class cars in the 2nd session, and never went to an all-run deal. It worked GREAT!! Unless you were a SME car who wanted to run later in the day...a little heavy handed. Next time have me distract Sean, and pull him over to the side, and then sneak in!!

Tough crowd.

Me thinks Jim knows he could drag the bumper till half track if he wanted to. Loosen up the shocks, reset the ladder bars, it would be like the 4th of July.

Rachael and I had barely stepped out of our cars in the lanes when Blake Hughes' 95 Sonoma staged up for a second attempt. Thirty minutes earlier, he had been on a great pass until something popped loose and he lost all boost. This pass was an exact repeat of the first, except this time when it went away before the eighth mile, stuff exited the pan, and the truck was, in Brian Lohnes' words, "bleeding out", as it came to rest near the wall at the thousand foot mark.
"Surely, they will extend the cut-off now", I shrugged at Rachael.
I was wrong. I'm sure some of the guys who hadn't ran yet were planning to make a conservative pass, come back to the lanes, and wait until time ran out to prepare for one hard run. All that went out the window as the countdown to two pm occurred while we all watched the scrubber tractor and the ramp truck work to clear up the mess. This meant the #1 and #3 quickest cars from the first two days were about to get one shot, and one shot only at US131. High drama, and serious pressure.

At 2:15pm Rachael staged up once again beside Scott Abbott's Road Runner, and once again he outran her, but his 11.90 and her 12.25 didn't help either of them.

Mike Jovanis' 89 Mustang was currently second in SSSBPA, with an 8.32 and an 8.19, but his two previous attempts at US131 had been problematic with the boost controller malfunctioning; meanwhile class leader Rosenstengal had a 7.80 on the books for Wednesday, and third place had ran a 7.71 to really step up, so Mike needed a big number just to keep pace. Jeffrey Lutz JR, and his Civic had suffered similar issues on his only attempt earlier in the day, so when they staged side by side for a last ditch effort the desperation was palpable in the air. Both cars left hard, and continued to pull well through the eighth mile, fist pumps, and high fives were exchanged on the starting line as all interested parties realized they were going to get a good run at last. The fox body went 8.10-172, his best of the week. Jeffrey's Civic lost ten mph at the top end, but still managed an 8.64, just seven hundredths slower than his Tuesday pass.

When Rick Prospero and his son jumped in the twin turbo, green RX7 to leave Summit Motorsports Park less than twenty-four hours ago, they were leading Modified Power Adder by .23, and owned the third quickest pass of the week.
Since then, Glenn Hunter had ran a 7.51 to knock them from third, and Dan Saitz and his 88 Mustang put down a 7.60-184.5 to challenge for the class lead. I was in the next pair, so I had a front row seat for Rick's attempt, and I can't imagine what it's like to tune a mid-seven second car on small radials at a track you haven't been down yet.
As soon as the Mazda left, it was obvious they were conservatively soft. Painfully soft until about two hundred feet. They needed a 7.82 to maintain the class lead, Rick's only attempt went 7.954-186.6. So he would leave US131 a tenth down in class, and eighth quickest in overall average.

I pulled into the water box beside Bobby Ricci's orange third gen Camaro, a pair of ten second runs through the first two days had left him in a tight three way battle for third place in SRSBNA. As we exited our burn-outs, the starter gave him the cut-off sign and they pushed the Camaro back. The failure to get a run meant Bobby would have to accept his half-pass 13.50 from earlier in the day and end his chance to place in class. This is Drag Week; hours of tedium and grueling hard work, an endurance event, but it's punctuated throughout with brief moments where the intensity and pressure are ramped up to eleven, and you find yourself lifted to incredible new heights, or knocked over and left behind.
I purged the nitrous in the engine, while in neutral, and it sounded really crisp. I dropped it into low, and settled my hand on the shifter with my thumb resting on the button. I was in the left lane, and I moved to the left edge of the groove, almost expecting the car to move towards the center line. I foot braked to 2500 and waited for the tree. The front tires barely left the asphalt, and I grabbed the bottle as soon as the suspension settled, the shift light was on instantly, so I hit second. The Valiant was in the groove, the 428 sounded fantastic, and I let the shift light hang for a moment before I went to third. The shift light was on again at the thousand foot mark, but she was pulling well so I rode the button all the way to the stripe.
"YES! Finally!" I screamed in my helmet, a small fist pump, and a pat of the dash followed...that felt like what I expected a good, small hit to feel like in this car.

How much of a shot was that Billy?

It's generally advertised as a 190 hit, but most people consider those numbers a bit elevated. I think it's closer to 165-175. As a point of reference, I'm spraying more on the Belvedere's 440!
Those ten head bolt motors make me conservative...

Dale grabbed the time slip almost as soon as I opened the door of the Valiant, "3.97 to the 330, that's what I was talking about!"
"It was smooth, felt good! Congrats on a Drag Week eight, by the way", I added.
"Thanks! So 9.66-136, best ever for the Valiant?"
"Yeah, last year when it ran 9.86, I told everyone it should go sixties, or even fifties fairly easy...not quite as easy as I thought, but it was there!"

As we grabbed our time slips and pictures to head for the tower, John Faraone was staging up the Aussie Valiant Charger in the right lane, and Shane McClelland brought the Crusty Nova up in the left. At the hit, the small tire Chevy II went up in smoke, Shane pedaled it, but the pass was junk by that point. Faraone gingerly eased the silver A-body down to a 16.33-73.

"So, a ten second car posts a thirteen, and the day is an absolute failure, but a seven second car posts a sixteen...and it's a triumphant victory?" I shook my head as we walked in front of the bleachers.
"All about perspective", Boone laughed, "If you spent half the night rebuilding the engine, just having a time slip to turn in is a miracle!"

Billy I know it's racing season,but I need a fix!!!😳😳😳

We were walking along the fence around the 330 mark, when Jeff Lutz idled his Mad Max Pro Mod Camaro into the water box of the left lane.
"Perhaps we should take a seat for this one", Dale suggested.
We made our way into the stands, and filed onto a bleacher about six rows up.
"Conservative, or swing for the fences?" Boone asked loudly enough for all of us to hear.
"He'll try to kill it. He had the pan off, and was rolling in new main bearings earlier, he didn't go to all that trouble after the night he had on the road just to roll up here and go 7.50", Dale extolled.
"I agree, he's on a mission this year...it's about more than just winning," I added.
"A mission from God!" Boone quipped.
"Definitely not a Cop motor though", Darren laughed
"It's the last of the V-8 interceptors?" Rachael added.
Dad groaned and rubbed his forehead, "Tell me again why you keep bringing her!"


Jeff wasn't under as much pressure to run a killer pass as Prospero was earlier. Anything quicker than an 8.18 would keep him in the overall lead, and anything quicker than a 10.79 would allow him to leave US131 with a better average than the rest of the Unlimited field. The truth was evident though, Lutz didn't come to Hot Rod Drag Week 2016 to win it, He came to smash all records set in the previous eleven events. He had watched with a broken car, out after day two in 2009, as Larry Larson ran the first Drag Week 200 mph pass in Muncie Indiana. When Jeff returned in 2010, he ran over 200 mph on 3 of the 5 days, and his 7.18 average crushed the numbers Larry had won with in 09, But Larry stepped up the Chevy II, and Jeff could only watch as Larry ran the first Drag Week 6 second pass to beat him with a 7.07 average. They had a repeat of that battle in 2012, which Larry won by the narrow margin of .009 in average, but the performance numbers were only marginally inching down year after year. The winning average had dropped from 7.07 in 2010 to 6.83 in 2013, so barely two tenths over four events after plunging a full second in the previous two.

Then came 2014. Larry had a new, much hyped S-10, defending Champ Tom Bailey was back, Jeff brought two flat black 57 Chevies, Doug Cline was back, Bryant Goldstone was debuting the Javelin, and Joe Barry was making huge strides with his 56 Chevy. Jeff's initial 6.69-225.2 from his lightweight, all fiberglass clone was the fastest official Drag Week speed if he finished, but Bailey's 2013 winning Camaro had went 218 before and ran a 6.54 to open up 2014, so Jeff received little fanfare. New car bugs bit Goldstone and Larson. Bailey leaned on his too hard and dropped out with the lead after day two, and finally Jeff was victorious at Drag Week, averaging 6.84-212 to beat Doug Cline's 6.87-210. His son had also finished in his old car, and pictures were all over the internet of the matching flat black 57s cruising around with trailers on the back. This should have been Jeff's greatest Drag Week moments and memories, but still he was a hundredth slower than Bailey's 6.83 average the year before. Then on Saturday, during a special all-run shootout for finishers, Larry rolled up and went 6.16-219 with the chutes out early. The truck had finished with an off-pace 9.46-150 average for 32nd place overall, and had a best official Drag Week time of 6.70-218. In one pass though, after spending the night thrashing on the S-10 in the trailer with all of their resources available since Drag Week had been completed, Larry re-claimed the quickest street car in the world moniker and effectively stole Jeff's thunder in one fell swoop.

That kind of stuff affects people in different ways. Jeff's answer was to show up with his championship winning pro mod in 2015 and lay down an incredible 6.05-251 on day 1. He was unable to complete the first drive, so everyone shrugged and wrote it off as a decent pass for a pro mod, but he had yet to prove it was street worthy. Tom Bailey had added a second win in 2015 to his accomplishments with his new pro mod Camaro, but had only lowered the five day average to 6.78-219 with a 6.35-224 best, so the opportunity was still there for Jeff to substantially lower the numbers in 2016.
Dave Ahokas and Tom Bailey had built pro mod style cars, specifically for Drag Week, but Jeff had taken a proven race car and tried to convert it to street use. Following his debacle with the strut at the side of the road the night before, many in the pits (and on the internet) still doubted if it could be done. This was the backdrop against which Jeff staged Mad Max on Wednesday afternoon at US131.

The flat black, brick shaped pro mod left hard, then rattled the tires at 80 feet in a move that set the front out of the groove towards the wall. Jeff used all of his considerable racing experience to gingerly nudge the front back in the groove, he never lifted through the tire shake and by the time he passed where we were sitting it was clear this was a stout run. I have no specific recollection of rising from the bench, but we were all on our feet, gazing at the scoreboard, when Brian Lohnes started screaming "193 at the eighth! 6.10 at 243! Let him hear it folks, the quickest pass in the history of Hot Rod Drag Week!"

Even though we aren't particularly Jeff Lutz fans, we were almost giddy to see him lay down a big number after his monumental struggle just to make it to the line. We were talking about the pass as we prepared to exit the stands, when we heard Lohnes announce that the last car down the track would be Jake Brantner's Malibu, in a memorial pass with his ashes packed in the parachute. We froze in our tracks and returned to our previous seat.

Jake's 80 Malibu had blown the collective minds of the Drag Week staff in 2011, when driver Scott Smith dominated Street Race Big Block Power Adder with a 7.82-189 quickest pass. This car along with Tim Reed's seven second Pinto, prompted Hot Rod to make "Street Race" an 8.50 cert class, and they created the Super Street class to accommodate the type of machines Jake was fabricating in his Missouri based shop. He lost his life in a senseless robbery/murder earlier in the year, and the racing family and friends he had fostered at Drag Week and street car events, though devastated, had tried to provide comfort to his wife and daughter. The fact that they chose this event for such a memorial, showed how strong that bond had become.

I didn't know Jake personally, but I couldn't help but equate it to the loss the Ogles were trying to overcome as they toiled to keep their big block E bodies in the event to honor the memory of Jason, or the pink and grey wristbands we wore in memory of Steve Bowyer. It was difficult to correlate the emotions I felt watching the cloud of dust when the Malibu hit the finish line to the one I had just experienced watching Lutz run.

From the time Lutz staged, until Jake's final pass was over, eight minutes had elapsed. Quite a bit of emotions and intensity in eight minutes, and I had shared it with my three brothers, my dad, my daughter, and my nephew. I looked among the group as we walked towards the tower to turn in our slips in quiet unison, and thought, "I'm a very lucky human being, and there is no place I'd rather be than right here in this moment!"

Thanks Billy for sharing more of the story

Happy Birthday Rod! Took five hours to write that segment, and I knew it would, which was why it's taken so long to find a block of time to do it. With the loss of Monte, and Fred recently...the emotions get flowing and it's hard to find the right words at times. Last weekend I did the Spring Fling swap meet on Saturday, and the Long Beach swap meet on Sunday with johnnyrotten...took me all week to recover!

We all had our official time slips and route sheets in hand and began to walk back to our pits. I glanced at the total of 237 miles and it hit me that I still wanted to stop by the ScottRods shop and checkout their fiberglass Willy's rollers. I had a hankering for a 33 Willy's Gasser, but had my doubts about whether a couple of 250+ lb men and a full cage would fit in one.
"Hey, ScottRods is only ten miles from the track, and we are going to get out of here at a decent time..."
Before I even finished the sentence, Dale and Boone had exchanged glances and started laughing at me.
"Their shop is ten miles from Summit Motorsports Park!" Dale shook his head, "we are in Martin Michigan, nowhere close!"
"Dang it! That was yesterday! I was so wiped out tired that I completely forgot! Why didn't one of you guys remind me?"
"That's why we laughed, yesterday we were afraid all day that you would still drag us over there, despite how bad everything was going, but you never mentioned it", Boone shook his head.
"So we kept telling each other not to bring it up, and sure enough you missed it and we were happy to dodge that bullet", Dale added.
"You dirty dogs! I really wanted to go, I called them the week before and everything!"
"To be honest", Boone shrugged his shoulders, "We wanted to do it also, but we were too far behind to risk it."

When we returned to our cars, cudadon and his buddy were there to greet us, and we had a nice bench racing session. Anytime I think of Don, I picture a wheels-up blue notchback barracuda, and it was good to put a face and voice with all the posts over the years.


2nd pic: TRUNK MONKEYS! In their natural habitat...

Two links about Jake.Sure miss the hell out of him.I really got to know him when he was building DJ Johnson's twin Procharged Duster.Jake wasnt good at taking and sendine pics.DJ asked from time to time if Id go check out teh progress.Id make the drive and get pics etc.Could be middle of Summer and Jake would have Christmas music blaring on the stereo,or Elvis or Foo Fighters.Never forget a FB post I had asking how people had met me.Answers were work,school,racetrack for the most part.Not Jake.His reply was"I met Don in the bathroom at the local truckstop.Love at first sight". WTH LMAO!From then on Id alwas greet him as Truckstop.Elanna did a great job on these two stories. http://www.hotrod.com/articles/memorial-...mily-of-racers/ http://www.hotrod.com/articles/memorial-...mily-of-racers/

Boone, Dad, Darren, and I had visited US131 Motorsports Park on our initial Hot Rod Drag Week way back in 2006, but it was even less memorable than our stop at Norwalk the day before. We drove all night to get there, slept four hours at our motel, rolled in late, pitted in the lanes, made one pass, then loaded up and left. I doubt if we stuck around for more than 90 minutes that day.
So I had been looking forward to the visit, and was thoroughly enjoying our time at the facility. From the time we turned in our slips, until the time we rolled out of the gate to head for Indy, we spent an additional three and half hours on the grounds; and strangely, unlike the previous two days, I didn't really mind.
Boone was hanging the front bumper on the Duster, which sounds crazy to attempt mid-week, but the rules in Super Street require one, and if enough guys fell out to put him in contention, he wanted to be legal. I walked over to chat with him as he worked.
"Well, is the facility as nice as you remembered it from the last time?"
"That's funny", Boone laughed, "other than the trees behind the staging lanes...and the gate in, I don't remember our last visit".
"Me neither, really", I shrugged, "But we couldn't have asked for a better day than today, the weather was perfect!"
"We are doing better than our friends who put the piston and rod in the ladder rack truck, and hung out all afternoon at Columbus are right now!" Boone jerked his thumb to the pit spot behind us, and I looked over the fender of the Duster. The 04 Silverado wasn't getting any attention, but they had the 98 Trans Am up on jack stands and two guys were under it.
"What are they doing to it? Looks serious!"
"Rolling in a set of main bearings", Boone shook his head.
"Those two are hard core! Would we do that much to stay in?"
"Maybe, when we were their age", Boone laughed again, and shook his head, "But we're too darn old to attempt that kind of stuff anymore!"

Derek Mueller and his aluminum bodied Toyota Land Cruiser continued to battle valve-train issues, including a bad valve that required removal of a head at US131. The makeshift, socket for a push-rod cup contraption had obviously been replaced, because Derek launched the small block mopar with extreme malice, and the fogger activated, but it clearly had problems around half-track, and he slowed to a 10.54 at only 117.
Once again the Alberta based team was able to get enough help from other Drag Weekers to get the head repaired and keep going.

We re-grouped at the gas station near the entry to the track. Loaded all the cars up on pump fuel, and Rachael saw to it that everyone's coolers were stocked with fresh ice.
I don't know if it was the emotional ending to the day, or a bleed over from the laid back vibe we all seemed to be enjoying, but Dale decided it was an opportunity from him to get some quality time with his Son, in his old Duster. Boone took the wheel of the Gremlin for a while to allow this to happen.
Now, I wouldn't in any way want any of you to get the idea that my youngest brother would do anything irresponsible like put his 13 year old son behind the wheel of a ten second car on public Michigan highways, I just want to make that clear. Many times in these stories I've tried to convey that we attend this event to make great memories with our family, I think we accomplished that on Wednesday afternoon, to the best of our ability. Wasn't it Rod Stewart that sang "Every Picture Tells a Story?"