Hot Rod Drag Week 2016: The Last Hurrah?

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The 2015 tale has been a tough one to write, and I'll apologize for that one more time. The thing is, the way Friday was handled really stuck in my craw, and I don't like being negative or critical of an event that I enjoy this much. I really don't enjoy being negative or critical of the people who put in long hours of preparation leading up to the event, and even longer hours during the event to make it all happen. I have tremendous respect for the Hot Rod crew, the Drag Week crew, and Lonnie Grimm the race director for the effort they put in to make this the highlight of our year!

Combining my disappointment with the end of the 2015 version, and the fact that the 2016 version was a 2000 mile tow, I considered sitting this year out. The problem was, Boone and I had both finished 3rd in our respective classes, so we were afforded an early entry, which is a privilege that is difficult to waste. I only signed up the one car, and informed Rachael I wasn't going to enter the Belvedere, and that I would be at the Bakersfield March Meet when regular registration took place, so she was on her own!

Now, why "the last Hurrah?" in the title? Maybe it's just me being overly dramatic, I'm not sure, but I do know that nothing lasts forever. My brothers and I attended our first "Mopar Only" race in 1992, and thought we would run those types of events from then on. We went to the "Monster Mopar Weekend" event at St. Louis every year from '96 to '02, then just didn't go in 03...we haven't been back since. I started running NHRA Super Street in '99, and chased the Divisional trail hard from '02 to '08... then just stopped, and haven't been back since. We weren't even born in the Gasser years, we were too young and too poor for the KOS era, but Hot Rod Drag Week came around at the perfect time for my family and I to jump in with both feet and have a blast! It has been especially rewarding to share it with my youngest daughter Rachael for the last five years, but my Father's Day present from her this year was the announcement that I was going to be a Grandfather for a second time, so maybe it's her last trip on Drag Week!

At the beginning of last year's story, I put a link to the past editions, and Boone tells me the views on those have doubled and in some cases tripled in the last year. That's very flattering, but I suspect everyone was just bored with waiting for the next installment! In any case, I hope you find these somewhat entertaining, even if just for the pictures.

two hours from March Meet registration and I'm not really sure I want to hit that "purchase" button.... FWIW, you still have Silver State Challenge and Speed Weeks at Bonneville you could take a stab at

No March Meet for me in 2017. A little foreshadowing, but we had a REALLY good 2016 Drag Week, so Dale and Boone are fired up for next year already...we will see.

Since I didn't do a "build up" thread this year, I'll attempt to catch everyone up as quickly as possible as to what transpired the other 50 weeks before we really start preparing for Drag Week.

Drag Week wouldn't be the same without you Billy! But I understand it is a huge commitment time and money wise. Life's priorities change, and sometimes it's just good to experience different things. Have fun whichever way you decide to go.

Jeff

billy, does the lead in pic indicate you are in the process of building a hot [street] rod ?

I believe that is one of the brothers, I forget which one. If you line the Brothers up I could pick out Billy and Dale, I would have to guess on the others lol.

It was great meeting the family Billy! Your tales are once of the major drivers that convinced me to give Drag Week a shot.

Yep, Hemi Joel's tails of riding with Jay Brown also really had my interest.

I have to say that reading Billy's tales got me to want to try it, haven't yet but hope to.
Before his tales, I didn't realize there were classes for the "average", guy, meaning the 10-second and slower crowd, I only remember HR articles about the unlimited type cars, I've never had a HR subscription, so only flipped thru the pages, or occasionally bought a issue.
I got to meet Billy at Spring Fling one year, and at Phoenix last October for HR Drag Weekend, when I ran that.
I look forward to reading his tales, as all of us here do.

Good to see the 2016 tale being spun.

One of the reasons I went this year was because of 131. I was there with Eddie in 06 and loved that track. But DW has changed alot since then. What was once a collection of guys with cars they claimed are street cars that would fall apart a few miles down the road has become a collection of extremely high dollar purpose built cars.

My goal this year was to go and compete with what I believe is a very bottom dollar built car but this year I would be prepared. Have a chassis cert and license. Give it my all. It turned out to be a geat time.Such an experience that I do not think can be beat. This may have been my last hurrah also

Somehow I had missed this thread - been anxious to read it. Saw some of the live feeds but didn't attend in person at all this year. With dad passing in May I just couldn't get up the gumption to go on my own.

There are two different kinds of Drag Weekers..........those who go to participate and have fun and those who go to WIN their class. The latter now and really always has been about purpose built cars for this purpose. Sure some guys get lucky and win their class with not so serious efforts, but that is usually because some of the purpose built stuff falls out.
Each class has an ET range where you need to run to win. If you build to do that, more than likely it's going to be a serious effort piece and keeping it together a week will be hard work and require some luck. When these cars fall out, the more regular cars move up.

Ray mentioned Eddie. He is a prime example. The year he won the overall title, he was not near the fastest car there, nor even the fastest in his class. Just happened to be the fastest car that survived the week. Guys have learned a LOT since then and know more what it takes to keep one of these heaps together for a week. And that recipe is money, lack of sleep, hard work, ingenuity, never give up attitude and lots of LUCK and spare parts. Lutz put a strut on his this year on the side of the road. Maschmeier changed a cam on the side of the road in the middle of the night one year. That's dedication. Think about it..........most racers go home from the track if they break ANYTHING. These guys break any and EVERYTHING and fix it on the side of the road. It's damn HARD work to go fast for a week and drive over 1000 miles

And Ray can say whatever he wants, but a 9 sec N/A smallblock car is NOT a low dollar car. He may think it's a budget car, many would not.

Another thing we see now is guys choosing classes that are more or less "index" classes because of the chassis limits. Street Race big block power adder is an example. No funny car cages are allowed, so that means the class has an 8.50 cap because of chassis rules. Most of the "hitters" in that class have low 8 and high 7 sec rides if they really let them eat. So their goal for the week is take it easy on the equipment, keep it together and run as close to 8.50 for the week as possible. Doug Flynn is a prime example. Backyard built Nova, mediocre at best chassis, fairly heavy, but has a 1000hp best of the best big block on spray. With a tiny shot of nitrous it goes 8.50s like nothing. Has been teens with only a slightly bigger tune. With better shocks, a little chassis work and a healthy dose it would be a 7.50 car

Monte, don't forget all the hours that go into prepping the car BEFORE Drag Week, and more likely then not, the long drive to get to the home track. Most are a walking zombie before the event even starts.

You know as well as anybody Jeff..........THAT aspect is strictly lack of preparation..........LOL!!!

When you wait until the month before Drag Week to get ready, that's what you get...........LOL!!!

Myself, if I was SERIOUS about doing Drag Week, my car would be ready by spring and test it all summer. For whatever reason most don't seem to approach it that way

That's what I did with my new car in 2014...I knew it needed to be on the road by May, and it was. I still came in 4th! but fortunately they split the class and gave me a free ride the next two years

Yaa Monte but it wouldn't make for a GOOD story if you did it your way and wouldn't be able to write about it for MONTHS. LOL

As Frieburger said at the Drivers meeting in 2015: "Welcome to the biggest gathering of cars that did not run 48 hours ago" LOL.

You obviously never looked at my car. From my Dr Diff axles, past my $15 guages to my ebay water pump, radiator and fans. Its as absolute low dollar as it can get. I did buy some new wheels this year though. Billet specialties because they were cheaper than the rest

Yep, 9 sec smallblocks powerplants are available at the corner store...............LOL!!!

Hey, I resemble those remarks.


2017 is going to be different!

Dude, its a hemi. They come stock with like 500hp

Its not a Chevy, Monte.LOL

Not many more low budget than Ray.Does great with what he has.

LOL.....Ray seems to be averse to the fact that while maybe he thinks it's low budget, it takes money to do this.

Lets start from scratch and duplicate Ray's deal. Lets go out and find a decent early A-body. Then cage it, tie the frames, maybe mini-tub it(not sure his is), put a glass hood on it and do enough body work to make it not look like a beater. Install a narrowed Dana with some aftermarket axles. Its got split monos and Cal-Tracks, probably decent rear shocks. What about the brakes, are they drums or Wilwoods? I believe he recently installed a rack and coilovers on the front. Does it have light brakes on the front?

The motor. Solid foundation or not, you don't just drop a late HEMI in an A-body and run 9s. So it's a decent piece. You need a good enough trans to hold that power and the right converter to make it run the number. Doesn't it take some decent ignition stuff to make the late HEMI compatible since you can't put a distributor in it? Got to have a fuel system. Sure your shifter, fans, water pump, gauges and other stuff may be Craigs list or Ebay finds, but the foundation is solid. Might not be a $100,000 purpose built race car, but you can't duplicate it for pocket change and lunch money either.

Lets compare it to Billy's Valiant. Those real early A-bodys are pretty light. It's a solid car with ladder bars and slicks. Healthy small block. Runs mid tens. Ray's deal run 9s on drag radials and probably weighs more. It's no bargain basement junker.........LOL!!!

Monte,
Please refrain from comparing my Valiant to Ray's Black Pearl. I get head-aches and chest pains every time I do it myself!!

I know Ray is very budget conscious, as is Squirrel. It requires more discipline and patience to build a car like that. The other thing it requires is experience, know how, and the gumption to take on parts of the build that force them out of their comfort zone.

I think many of us on here of a certain age take for granted all the knowledge and experience we have gleaned from twenty years of this stuff...and how much money that can save us over a typical checkbook build.

Dale and Boone got stupid when they decided to take the Duster about three months before Drag Week, so there was no time to shop for deals or barter for parts. They dropped 23K in that clapped out shell to make the show...just a point of reference.

Jeremy,
So sorry to hear of your Dad passing, if you had mentioned that earlier, I failed to see it. Seemed both of you enjoyed DW15, and I'm glad for the opportunity to hang out with him at the track.

Even as Dale and Boone were attending the Mopar Race at Tulsa in November of 15, it was clear Boone wanted to move away from the Barnyard Viper, and that made Dale and I nervous. Boone has no qualms about selling stuff when he's ready to move to the next one, but we didn't want to see it leave the family.

As I was contemplating how I was going to make room for the Barnyard in my fleet, my buddy Darryl decided he wanted to sell his 69 Dart. This is a great street car that has completed two Drag Weeks, and has a great fitting chrome moly bar, which wraps around a very nice bench seat interior. Like Boone, when Darryl decides to change directions, it happens fast.
"How much are you wanting for the Dart?" I asked Darryl. His sell it now price was 2k less than I felt the car was worth.
"I'll take it." I told him, with finality.
"You will? What's Holly going to say about that..you've got too many cars already..."
"Leave that to me...can we do that thing where I pay you but don't pick it up right away?"
That brought on serious laughter from Darryl, "Sure, sure, but if she asks me, I'm not lying to her!"

I had already bought tickets to The March Meet in Bakersfield California, mainly as a way to entice Boone to bring the Barnyard out to Phoenix more than anything, and I had told him I wanted the Truck, and we would figure something out when he arrived.
"Your all-aluminum Indy low deck engine for starters..." Boone began negotiations.
"Not. Gonna. Happen!!"

I was dreading the phone call to Boone when I bought the Dart from Darryl, because that greatly depleted the funds set aside for the Barnyard.
"I'll take it", Boone told me with finality.
"You'll take what? The Dart? What are going to do with it?"
"Put a big block in it. Run Nines."
"It's a nice small block car with a bar!"
"What are you going to do with it", he laughed, "I want to be there when you try to explain to your wife that the Barnyard and Darryl's Dart are being added to the three other toys you already have!!"

So do small block Chevy's. At least that's what the owners tell me.

dang, treed by ksj! LOL

Thanks for the story Billy!! Looking forward to more.

I believe Ray ran S/G on the NHRA tour for awhile, hence the statement that his drag week car is low buck!

Great looking Dart, Billy, please carry on.

Dale killed another piston in the 440 at the Tulsa Mopar event in November, and decided to swap in the 547 Mega Block wedge that he had traded for right before we left for DW15.
This is about the 4th or 5th used race engine deal Dale has pulled in the last couple of years, and while the other ones worked out great, he was due to get bit. Upon fire-up, it was clearly on seven cylinders, and a compression check revealed a couple more that were down considerably, so he pushed it into a corner for the long winter.

I had unloaded the Valiant into the back yard, and the Belvedere went under the carport, and became a storage unit.

Boone, Dad and Mom came out to visit for Christmas/New Years, and we took on the huge project of bathroom re-models, and a dumpster to clean up the back yard, so car stuff was secondary, but I did manage to get the Barracuda, and the Valiant on jack stands.

It was surprisingly early in 2016 when the announcement for the dates and tracks were released by Hot Rod for Drag Week. Like Ray, I was intrigued by the opportunity to not only move US131 from my "Tracks I've visited" list to my "Tracks I've raced at list", but also the opportunity to add the two Ohio tracks to that list as well. The downside was the 2000 mile tow to the starting facility, but since I had an early entry, I knew I was going.

I received the early invitation on Feb. 27th, and the announcement was made that registration would open at 9AM. Saturday March 5th, while Boone and I would be at the March meet, as a point of reference, open registration for 2015 wasn't until April 26th, so things were happening quick.

With a week to go before the March Meet, I decided perhaps I should try to figure out why the trans-brake had quit on the Valiant. This was especially important considering I was entered in D Gas, a four tenths pro tree, 10.60 index class, and I certainly wasn't going to hit that tree on the foot brake.

I dropped the pan, and had my son push the button. It didn't take long to figure out that the solenoid wasn't getting power. Once I began investigating the wiring, it became clear that I had lost power to quite a few different areas, so I removed the passenger seat to allow me to look at all my spaghetti wiring under the dash. About an hour in, I discovered the single fuse holder I had used to splice a hot wire from the working race car wiring to the long dead factory wiring. It had previously hung down for easy access, but when Aaron was re-wiring the ignition box in Indy during DW15, he had wire tied it up out of the way. I pulled the cover and found a blown 20 amp fuse, replaced it with a 25, and we had a working trans-brake once again.
"So", my son shook his head, "This car has been sitting in the backyard for five months, two of those on jack stands...because you had a blown fuse?"
"Well, sometimes diagnosing the problem is the biggest hurdle!" I tried to rationalize.

With the change of ownership on the Barnyard, we had to rectify the situation of the "borrowed converter", so Dad and Boone backed the 727 up, and Dad pulled out his JW billet 9", and they slid in an Ultimate 9" that I had picked up in a trade from Dale a few years earlier, so I guess you could say I picked up the Dodge "less converter". I also had to supply green accelerator pumps and blue bowl gaskets for the twin 750s as they were leaking fairly good when Boone fired it up after the converter swap.

We arrived at Bakersfield's Famoso Drag Strip Thursday to get pitted and tech in. Friday morning was our first shot at the track. The chip was at 3600, and the Valiant tossed the front end up fairly high on the leave, the 1.413 was the best 60' for the 428 to date, and the 1/8 mile was 6.582-102 compared to 6.596-103 on our gold standard 10.39 pass at Indy. In short she was on a good pass, I was looking over as we pulled past the big block Dart at 1000' when I heard a noise and saw a flash of white. I looked forward at my naked 950HP holley and hinges, the hood was gone! My reaction was to lift, and coast to a 10.52-114 while I wondered how my steel hood with stock latching mechanism had just left the car!

We really enjoyed the March Meet, hanging out with Jay and Fred, meeting Gary E, and eating all of Chassisman's food, but I had more questions about Drag Week 2016 than I did answers by the time we returned to Arizona.

The family called repeatedly to update us on their attempt to get entered when preregistration opened. Darren, Dale, and James had all got in. John and Opal had not, along with several other friends who have attended in the past. It was tricky to find the link, and quite a few people were disappointed as it filled up in eight minutes.

Mom and Dad loaded up the Dart at Darryl's once we got back, and I began the painful attempts of explaining to my beloved why they had left and the Barnyard was still in Phoenix.

In addition, Boone started pirating my parts locker. That 230 400 block? Yep, those MW ported Indy SR heads with Racer Brown rockers? Gone, Pro-Gram cross bolt caps? You were never going to use them, 1000cfm Demon? Indy low deck intake? 4150 Big Shot plate? Like a dang kid in a candy store!

So Billy, what are the future plans for the Barracuda and the BYV?
I envy you for all of the toys, but would not look forward to all of the future work getting each one ready in that Oven you live in.
Jerry

Billy, is that the same barracuda your brother and Wade had?if so, I came real close to buying it. I missed dw16 as the Ogles trunk monkey. With loosing Jason, they busted their tails getting the two cars back together. I spent dw watching dw live feeds from my wife's hospital room. So this year was biter sweet. If you're interested, I still have a low deck indy tunnel ram collecing dust.

Jerry,
It should be pretty obvious from reading these stories...I'm not really any good at the whole "planning" part!

The Barracuda checks that "I've always wanted a full chassis, strut, 4 link car" Box. It's cosmetically challenged though. I'm having a difficult time moving past that, and just putting it together with all the parts I have, and racing the thing.

I took the Barnyard Viper to the Cruise on Central in April, a couple of car shows, drove it to work, and gave friends rides in it, but I hadn't really planned to take it to DW16, because I wanted to make several upgrades to insure it was solidly in the tens on it's next outing.

Disaster struck in July however, when it was sitting on the street in front of my house and Rachael ran over it in her Ranger! She was taking our dogs to the groomers when the Husky jumped from the back area to her lap.

Bill,
You know how Drag Week is, while I did talk to Dillon and Charley a few times, it wasn't nearly as much as I would have liked. I think Jason would have been proud of the effort they put in! Dillon explained your absence with a painful look on his face, finishing with..."it hasn't been a good year for Team Ogle".

This is a different Barracuda, Dale picked this car up around 2003 as a roller in Texas, for a friend who wanted a S/ST car. I did mange to buy an Indy low deck tunnel ram this year, now I just need to send it to Monte for a couple of foggers.

The body damage to the Barnyard wasn't horrible, but she caught the header with her front wheel. Anything but the headers! She says her insurance will pay, but I didn't even know where to start, so I shoved it in the back and decided to revisit the issue after DW16.

Meanwhile, Boone was using me up like his own personal checkbook: "I want one of those Andy F A-body engine plates" OK. "Have you ordered my 440 Source 512/400 stroker kit yet?" Yes Boone, it's on the way. "You put that Hughes cam on a 110 lobe center right? With lightweight EDM lifters? Yeah, Boone, anything else?

Crazy as it sounds, Late June to early July is typically when the Gebhart Brothers tend to look around and say, "How many spots did we sign up for Drag Week!"
That's when I saw the pictures of the 24 Dodge on Dale's face book page.
"Boone traded his 75 Scamp, and some parts for it", was the answer I got from Dale. I knew as soon as I heard the news, the Dart project for Drag Week was dead...and I had just ordered a set of Hooker fender-well exit headers for him!

Boone has always talked about a 30's Mopar coupe, and this was going to change his focus completely. He called me a week later, "Hey..um...I sold the Dart."
"You what?"
"Yeah, I flipped it, just the way I got it from you."
"You kept the parts, what are you going to do with all the BB-A-body specific stuff?"
"I think Dale and I are going to put his old Duster together for little Billy".
"Why would you get involved with that!" I was exasperated.
"Dale is motivated...he's going to buy all the stuff from me, and all the parts to finish it, I'll just be supplying my motor, and help, then I'll have a ride for DW16!"
"That thing's an absolute pile! Did you make a profit on the Dart?"
He told me how much...It shouldn't bother me but it does, I always trade the stuff I have to my little brothers for exactly what I have in it, and they constantly turn the stuff and pad their pockets.
"You know that 24 is a two or three year project, maybe more right?"
"I know...but this is the one!!"
"For Dale and I's sake, I hope you're right!"

The 62 Valiant
As I began to prepare the Valiant for a fifth Drag Week journey, fixing or building a new hood was the first hurdle, but it wasn't my only concern. After the 128 mph at Indy, the mph had seemed to fall off, so once again I wondered about the health of the front clutch pack in the 904. The constant battle with engine temp was still on my agenda as well, as it seemed worse on the last drive of DW15.
I wanted to change up the scoop, and to that end had ordered a reverse tear drop, and a Pontiac SD scoop from VFN fiberglass, but were told they were 10 weeks out! My fiberglass guru agreed to make a mold from my last good 62 Valiant hood, and I took it to him about 6 weeks into my wait for the scoops. He finished making a mold and popping out a hood quicker than VFN got the scoops to me, so he used another mold he had on hand to add a RTD scoop.
I was happy with the initial mock-up, but when I attempted to mount a 16" ram-air breather, it became abundantly clear that it wasn't going to work! The Valiant hood slopes off so fast towards the front and the sides that a scoop to cover up a large diameter breather would take up most of the hood!

Digging through my shed, I found an 11" K&N filter with a 5" element. I was taking the car back to my fabricator, as he had agreed to mount and paint the hood for me, and I figured that would be better than the tiny 6" breather I'd been using with two stacked 2" elements.

So, it was back to the old scoop, as more of a necessity than by choice. The scoops finally arrived from VFN a day before Brian called and said the car was ready to go.

With the hood on the car, it was time to deal with all the other issues that I had ignored for the last 10 months. Chief among those was the decision of what class to run. The ladder bars limit my choices to Modified, or Pro Street, and neither of those classes are broken down by small block or big block, so I'm at a disadvantage already. The fact that I've been able to snag a 2nd place plaque, and a third place plaque out of my four trips had more to do with the number of finishers than it did with how competitive my combo was in the NA classes.

So I asked myself, "even if I showed up at the 2016 edition of Drag Week, ran 10.30's all week in Pro Street NA, and squeaked out another 3rd place plaque would that make me happy or satisfied"?
The answer, being completely honest with myself, was a resounding "NO".

That 9.86 in the Shootout had proven to me that the Valiant was a legit 9 second street car, and my goal for 2016 would be to prove that to the rest of the world. So, the nitrous would be on for the whole trip, and I would be in Modified Power Adder...a class full of 7 second turbo monsters that were going to eat the Valiant for breakfast...oh well. Now that we had settled on a class and a goal, the first hurdle to jump was to get the cage certed.

Pics: the new hood.

I checked the Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park schedule, and saw they had a "Drift and Drag" event coming up on August 20th. A quick call to Division 7 chassis inspector Ed Brady confirmed that he would indeed be in attendance at that event, so I had a workable plan.

I jumped up early that Saturday morning with the intention of getting the front end aligned, as it was towed out a good deal after the wheel stands in Bakersfield. None of the local shops had time for me however, so that was a bust. I decided to drive the Valiant the 32 mile trek to WHP, and as soon as I got it up to highway speeds, there was a healthy vibration which felt as though it was from the back of the car. The drive took well over an hour as I had to stop five times and cool it down from 230 degrees. Shortly after I arrived at the track a late evening thunderstorm rolled in that threatened to cancel all racing anyway, so I decided not to bother pulling the exhaust off. I cleared tech, and Ed told me to make a few runs, and he would certify the cage once I was done, insinuating that if it failed he didn't want to send me home without getting to run!

With the exception of unloading all my tools and lowering the tire pressure, I entered the lanes exactly as I had drove the car to the track. The F250 in front of me bounced the suspension hard enough to dislodge all the dirt and mud he had collected in the wheel wells for the last month, so after I finished my burnout, I sat and waited for them to sweep the mess up. I was about the 10th set down, and nothing to this point gave me any confidence in the track so I decided to leave on the foot brake at about 1800 rpm. She spun fairly good for the first 30 feet, and when I shifted to second I could feel the return of the vibration that plagued the drive out. Just past the eighth mile the vibration had worsened considerably, and I was convinced one of the Quick Time Pros was out of balance, as I've made enough passes on slicks to recognize the symptoms. Right before the finish line, the passenger side rear mini-quicklatch that we had used to secure the new fiberglass hood on all four corners, let go and the back of the hood on that side lifted about two foot, immediately sending my heart into my throat at the thought of losing yet another hood. I rode the brakes hard, and the hood settled back down. The time booth gal handed me a 10.98-122 slip, and I drove straight to Ed's area to get my cage certed...I couldn't get this night over fast enough.

Pics: Old breather and hood, new breather and hood.

I had removed the x-bars from the back of the Valiant when I converted it to a street car (they attached at the same basic point as the down bars, and both sets went all the way in the trunk) since, by the rules they were redundant. They had measured .134 thick with my caliper, so the sonic check shouldn't be a problem if that tubing was used throughout the car, but any cage installed in the early nineties is a roll of the dice in my experience.

I held my breath as he tested all the main tubes, and ran his fingers around all the top welds, since my cage has no gussets.
"It's all good Billy, so you can lay down some nines on Drag Week this year", Ed announced with a big smile on his face. He loves Hot Rod Drag Week, and follows it on the internet every year.

On the drive home, the temperature hovered between 210-230, and the passengers side rear quicklatch came loose every time I exceeded 60 mph.

When I woke up Sunday morning the 21st, I had thirteen days left before "hell week" began with my trip to Tulsa, and my confidence in the Valiant's readiness had just been shaken to the core. I ordered a new Milodon high volume water pump and high flow 160 degrees t-stat from Summit that morning, then I drove the Valiant to my oldest daughters house to babysit the grandson. It seemed to be pulling harder than ever toward the center line, and I noticed a flare up on the two-three shift at half throttle! This was really going south in a hurry.

The trans fluid was about a quart and half low. The Strange 1350 front yoke doesn't have a plug in the back, and fluid runs down the splines and onto the ground anytime the car is resting at an upward angle...like in my driveway, or riding on the back of the two car trailer. The bad news was, if it was low on Sunday morning, it was low on my trip to the track the night before, so I certainly wasn't doing that front clutch pack any favors. I pulled the radiator out, and took a hole saw to the support areas which extended in front of it, looking for any help in cooling I could find.

I stumbled upon what was probably the biggest culprit of my worsening cooling problem quite by accident. With only seven days until "hell week", I was finishing up the install of the new water pump. I tightened the alternator down with the belt as tight as I could get it, so I could use the belt to grip the water pump pulley while I tightened the four bolts down. The first one was barely above finger tight when the water pump pulley slipped in the belt. I pushed down hard on the belt and tried again, but the pulley slipped easily, while the belt gripped solidly to the alternator and engine pulleys.
I removed the belt and inspected it closely, the sides were burnt quite severely, and the inside of the pulley groove was polished to a brilliant shine. I went to a wider belt, which rides high in all the pulleys, but nothing was available in between, as the O'Reilly's salesman explained that the choices in V-belts were drying up considerably...yet another reminder that my car and I are quickly becoming dinosaurs!

The quicklatch problem was remedied by replacing the latch piece, I had banged it around some trying to remove the hood by myself and it felt completely different than the other three, or a new one, but this didn't leave me extremely confident in them.

When I loaded the old girl on the trailer for the trip to Oklahoma, I still hadn't addressed the alignment, or vibration, or transmission issues, but this was the first Drag Week trip that I drove it on the trailer in Phoenix under it's own power, and I wasn't sure that was a good omen, or a bad one!

The 67 Belvedere
The Belvedere wasn't making the trip to Hot Rod Drag Week 2016, period, exclamation point. The 2015 results had pretty much closed the door on a no-bar car qualifying for the quick 32 in Street Machine eliminator, and Skippy had asked Rachael to marry him on New Year's eve, so if she wanted to make the trip again, he could pay for it.

I hadn't touched it at all since pushing it off the trailer and into the carport following Drag Week 2015. I didn't feel comfortable replacing the drive shaft without checking out the 727, and the poor 440 is very tired...it pushes oil out of every orifice when the nitrous is applied!

Then, the grumblings started from Oklahoma about the first of August, "There's no way we are going to have enough cars running to fill all four of these entries, so you better get the old girl ready for one more circuit!" I could read between the lines though, what they really meant was, "without the Barnyard pulling a trailer, we need a dependable drag week mule"!

At around that same time Rachael informed me that she was definitely going, she had the vacation scheduled and she had a plane ticket to Tulsa on Thursday night of hell week.
"The Belvedere will only be entered if one of the other guys drop out", I explained to her.
"I don't care, I'll be a trunk monkey then, but I'm going!"

My original idea was to drag the Belvedere back to Oklahoma untouched, and have my brothers help me swap out the transmission, but as Hell Week approached I was very concerned about the workload they had left on their cars, so I changed it up a bit.

I always attempt to be ready to leave for Oklahoma on Friday evening, as soon as I get off work...and it never happens. I typically get loaded up on Saturday, and head out that night or early Sunday morning. With the old 12 valve '93, and the two-car tag trailer, I'm limited to around 62 MPH, so it's usually a 24-26 hour trip and I pull into Dale's yard early Labor Day morning.

I decided to do the trans swap in the comfort of my own carport instead, and avoid the mess at Dale's for a few more days. The CRT 727 with RMVB was yanked, and the old 727 with forward pattern Trans-go TF-3 was installed. This was the same transmission that had cost Rachael and the Belvedere a DNF on day 1 in 2013, so I hoped Dad got it right this time. Rachael was appalled to realize I hadn't swapped out the slightly burnt shifter cable at the same time, but I explained that it wasn't completely ruined. She mumbled something about me going under the car if it failed during the week, but I was too busy wrapping it with black electrical tape to really understand her.

I fielded calls all weekend from the brothers about when I would arrive to help them, and they were really not happy when I didn't roll out of Phoenix until Tuesday morning, the sixth of September.

I was hoping now that winter settled in you'd have time to start on this again....

James and the 70 Challenger

James has been Dale's co-pilot for the last 3 years. He was signed up for the last two years with his 70 Challenger (my old race car). After not finishing the car last year, Dale vowed it would make it in 2016, and had basically been ignoring his Gremlin over the last few months. From an outsider's view they seem to be stuck in a constant cycle of "we need to upgrade that" on nearly every component of the car, and that has bogged down any real progress.

With less than a month to go, James hurt his back at work...once he was on worker's comp, and under a doctor's care, they informed him that he wouldn't be allowed to take his vacation that he scheduled six months earlier. He rushed himself back with just two weeks to go, but re-aggravated the injury on his third day back, and was out. He implored Dale to finish the Challenger and take it without him, but Dale declined, so both the Challenger and James were sidelined for Drag Week 2016.

The Ruster Duster

Darren and Dale purchased this car from a friend of mine in 1984, it was their first car. Dale was just 14, but before he turned 16 he had bought out Darren, and the car was solely his.

When I dropped a 440 in my 73 Cuda, the Duster ended up with my low compression 340 to replace the slant six. After a series of 340s and 360s, I convinced him to go 440 in 1995. After just two years as a BB car, with a best of 10.74 (street car with a plate) he sold it rolling for the money to buy his first back halved, ladder bar race car, a 70 AMX he still owns today.

Twelve years later, he got a call from the guy he sold it to, asking if Dale wanted the car back because his Grandpa wanted it out of his field. The opportunity to get your first car back was one Dale couldn't pass up, so he grabbed a trailer and brought it home. He decided then and there it would be his son's first car.

I tried to talk him out of the idea. It had been sitting without tires and wheels, so the bottom of the quarters were in the soft, moist Oklahoma dirt and were rotted away. It still carried all the dents and scars from Dale's formative years, as well as all the mistakes he made on his first foray into hot rodding.

I had located several rust-free AZ bodies, and tried to convince him to just take a few parts from the original car to build his son a new Duster, but he was not deterred. Until Boone presented him with the opportunity to take it on Drag Week 2016, I really felt like the car would be destined to languish away in his backyard, always on the back burner. Now they had five months to turn it from a scrap heap relic into a functional 9 second street car. Dale's old personalized plate for the car was "Sizzler"...it seemed appropriate now because it was on the front burner, and the fire was turned up high!

My Brother in Law just got a book self-published, and sent me a nice hard back version with a cool glossy jacket. I'm really jealous, I really want to write a book, but it's always been one of those things about five years in the future. Now I've spent half my day reading articles on the 'net about self-publishing, e-publishing, and the whole process.

If you think getting people to agree on how to build a 600hp 440 is hard on this site, wait 'til you try to get opinions on the process of writing a book!

it might be a challenge to get a book published, but one thing can not be disputed, you have the ability to write a great one !

From the very beginning of the Duster revival project, time and money were stacked against them, and it was obvious some shortcuts would have to be made if the car had any chance of making the show. Dale had installed the Direct Connection kit for moving the springs into the frame rails years ago, but retained the stock slant six Duster leafs. With a 440 for power, Dale recalled that it wasn't the most stable package.
"I found a set of SS springs", he told me on the phone one night as we were having a long distance planning session, "I think they are the 3400 pounders, but they are cheap and the owner brought them to me."
"I'd rather have the Hemi A-body spring. What are those, the 002 and the 003?"
"I get that", he agreed, "but I just need to get this rear-end taken care of as quick as possible. Do you think I need to back brace the 8 3/4 housing?"
"Duh", I laughed into the phone, "Boone wants to go nines right? You need to do everything you can to help it survive! What third member are you guys putting in it?"
"Found a '71 3.91 in a bunch of parts we bought, it's got the 7290 yoke and a sure grip, so it will work", Dale surmised.
"A factory third member with a cone type. Are you crazy?"
"Look, I'm running out of money fast, and I've got to get this thing put together!"
"I understand", I made a decision not to beat him up at that time, "but you know those springs will have it sitting high like an eighties bracket car."
It was his turn to laugh, "It IS an eighties bracket car! With the exception of a big radiator, exhaust, and a tag, that's pretty much exactly what we are throwing together here!"
"What are you doing for rubber?"
28 X 13.50 Hoosier QTPs on ten inch Pro Stars", he recited.
"Still with the Pro Stars, eh?" I had sold him all my old ones ten years ago, and he still seemed to end up with them on every car he had.
"I like to think of them as 'timeless'!" He defended his choice, "I still had a spare set of fours for the front anyway".

Jay Brown, who you know from Drag Week, had a book published a few years ago with his FE engine dyno testing. He's on his second or third printing. I know he learned a lot from the experience. He would be happy to talk to you about it I'm sure. You can e-mail him though his business - jayb@fepower.net

Billy Do you think I have a chance of living long enough to read your book?

Thanks, Kevin.

Ross,
That is a fair question. I think the Road Runner keeps you young and you have good years still in front of you, but as slow as I have been writing lately, it makes me wonder if even I would see it through to completion!



Dale often spends 50-60 hours a week at work, and he was also tasked with building all the motors they would take on Drag Week 2016. The 512 for the Duster was the first to get his attention. Then he had to assemble Darren's 512 for the Charger, and finally try to find time for the Gremlin engine.

Part of the difficulty has always been getting parts in a timely manner, especially with this many projects in the pipeline. Dale makes twice as much money as the rest of us, but steadfastly refuses the use of any credit cards, having learned everything he needed to know about such temptations in his early twenties. So, occasionally the flow of needed parts is stymied by the flow of income into his account. He's a patient, disciplined man who plans accordingly, but his brothers do not possess any of those three qualities, sometimes this leads to problems.

"I need a CSR shield, so we can install the engine and trans in the Duster, and start getting all the other stuff fabbed up", Boone complained on the phone.
"I thought Dale was buying everything for the car?"
"That's the plan, but he has a pretty large list of stuff to order already, and he says the shield is two weeks out. I can't wait that long, and I know you have one that you bought used six months ago with a fresh cert. Just mail it to me."
"Yeah, that's not going to happen. New ones are available now, just order it!
He talked me into ordering it on my card, even though I explained to him that I felt I had paid the Barnyard Viper off in full. It was probably good that I did, as the process of getting the low deck, raised Indy exhaust port 512 with the 2" Hookers and an AndyF engine plate did not go as smooth as they felt it would.
Dale took great pride in the fact that he had installed his old 440 without cutting the "shelf area" on his Duster's inner fender wells, but that wasn't the case with the new combo. Another problem area was the radiator. They wanted to run the big 55GPM Mezziere electric pump. The thick engine plate combined with the long water pump, and a thick aluminum radiator featuring a huge shroud containing two electric fans meant it was impossible for the radiator to fit in the stock location. The time constraints for completion dictated that alternate plans would not be explored, it was time for the family to "get their hack on"!

they'd thought they died and went to heaven if they had my old Sho Gun remote pump set up....

Had one of those on a 73 Cuda I raced for a while, Jay. Not sure it would flow enough for a street deal though.

The Gremlin
Other than engine work/swapping, the Gremlin was untouched from Drag Week 2015. So Dale had a grand total of five passes since he had added lighter springs to the new front end setup, and now he would be running an engine about 75 lbs. heavier. The 547 that he picked up along with cash for his 572 Hemi, had turned into a complete nightmare.
Once Dale got the World iron block tore down, he decided to move from the 4.395 bore, straight to 4.500 effectively building a 572. He wasn't exactly comfortable with the spray bar oiled Jesel rockers, so he went with his oldest set of Indy -1 castings, that he has had around since the nineties.
He found himself waiting so late to order a cam that he was limited to whatever solid flat tappet grinds Comp had on the shelf, and he ended up with a 290@.050, .650 lift dinosaur that probably had two inches of dust on the box before they mailed it.

The fact was, the Gremlin was a more of a plan B, safety net deal in Dale's Drag Week 2016 approach, and the 572 was more of a "what parts can I toss together in 2 weeks, and make this happen" last ditch effort.

I pulled in front of Dale's house a little after 1pm on Wednesday afternoon, feeling as if I'd used up every bit of the respite from fatigue a three hour nap on the seat of the 1 Ton in a Texas rest area had afforded me. Dale had installed a new whistle in his ditch, and added a driveway at the end of his property which would allow much easier access to long rigs, in theory anyway. I quickly discovered that he hadn't bothered with grading out the new white crushed rocks covering the whistle. When the trailer tires came off the humped up rocks, my dove tail trailer used the end C channel like a grader's blade to drag the top 5 inches of rock into the yard with us. The rocks, in turn, destroyed all the tail and clearance light wire that usually sits undisturbed within that same C channel.
The second thing I noticed upon entering the yard was the large, mature shade tree at the end of his property. This tree has provided the work area and base of operations for my Hell Week adventures for the past five years. Apparently the ravages of Oklahoma wind had bested the tree sometime in the last twelve months, and the top of the tree was lying in the spot I usually park in.
I climbed out of the truck and slowly stretched out my legs and back, then ambled towards the shop. Boone, Dale and James were inside, working on the Duster.
After a little small talk, I asked where I could park the Valiant to start on the rear suspension. They agreed I could pull it onto the pad in front of the shop.
"What do you need to do to it?" Boone asked.
"Jim Sam told me the rear was an eighth out the last time he aligned the car three years ago, so I need to get that straight before I take it back to him for another alignment. Since James is here, he can cut the safety tabs off the ladder bar, then weld them back on when we have it done."
"He's building a pan protector for me first", Boone explained. "We put a big aluminum pan on this thing, and I need something to come down off the k-member and keep it from getting crushed by road debris."
"So", I laughed, "an armadillo killer, of sorts?"
All three of them chuckled at the name. Armadillos had entered into Drag Week lore a few years earlier, when Gary Putnam's Pro-Charged Fox body ran over one on the day 1 drive. The resulting damage hampered his effort for the remainder of the trip, and good armadillo jokes have been prevalent in DW bench racing ever since.

I unloaded the Valiant off the trailer and with Boone and Dale's guidance, drove it through the maze of cars until I could line it up with the pad in front of the shop. I grabbed my jack, and a pair of Dale's stands, and raised the rear of the car.
Every part of my body hurt, I really just wanted to go in the shop, sit in a chair and trade stories with the guys while they worked on their stuff, but time was at a premium and if my junk was going to be ready, I was going to have to be a little selfish. When I pulled the rear tires off, I immediately noticed that the sticky weights had been ripped off the inside of the passenger's side tire. I say "ripped off" because there was a scratch mark across the wheel just before and after the area where the weights had been dislodged.
"Well that explains the vibration I had on my last pass", I explained to James.
"What would've knocked those weights off? You taped them, I'm sure", he responded.
"Yeah, the gray duct tape and weights are still on the other wheel", I explained as I peered into the wheel well and let out a low whistle.
"Did you find the problem?" Boone bent down close behind me.
"Yeah, that bolt probably took out the weights when it decided to abandon it's post!"
His gaze followed my finger, and he shook his head, "the upper ladder bar mount on the rear is missing the bolt! Didn't it feel any different?"
"Yeah, it sure did". I paused to recollect, "it shuddered hard on the last leave, and didn't even attempt to pull the wheels, then it pulled harder to the center line than it ever has on the drive home, but I thought it was all in the front."

I pulled the driver's side ladder bar out of the car completely, and James cut off the safety tabs. Then we extended the front heim out an eighth, re-assembled it, and James welded the tabs back in the proper place.

"Can you put the tires back on so we can move it out of the way long enough to get the Duster out of the shop, and the Gremlin in?" Boone was standing over me asking the question, and was clearly surprised by my negative reaction.
"We discussed this before I even parked here! I explained quite clearly that I had a long list of stuff to do to the car!"
I stormed off towards my rig, with him following close behind.
"Look, plans change, everything is in flux right now. If we don't get that Gremlin in there now, Dale is just going to keep working on the Duster, and forget about taking the Gremlin. That can't happen, he busts his butt on everyone else's projects, and he deserves to take his car. The Duster is a long shot at best, but the Gremlin will go together easy, so we need to get him on it right now."
"I looked the Duster over as soon as I arrived", I gave him my best and honest opinion, "There's too much left, it isn't going to make it!"
"I agree", he shook his head, "but Dale won't give up. The Duster needs to go to the muffler shop tomorrow, so that's why it's coming out. Until it returns with new exhaust, Dale needs to be on the Gremlin, nonstop!"
"OK, ok, I get it. Is that why Michelle and Will have been here cleaning on the Gremlin for the last hour and a half?"
"Yeah", Boone smiled, "Had to call in reinforcements, and they know that the Gremlin has to go together tonight!"

We moved the Valiant, pushed the Duster out and Will, Michelle and Boone began guiding the Gremlin into the shop. Dale motioned me over towards the Duster, to help him cover the engine with a moving blanket.
"What do you think?" He asked in a low tone, motioning towards the Duster as he eyed the other three to make sure we wouldn't be heard.
"It's too far away, we'll have to kill ourselves to finish this car!"
"Then that's what we have to do! Little Billy has the week off from school, and he intends to ride shotgun with Boone!" His face was barely able to control the emotion boiling under his dark glare, "This car will go, I don't care about the Gremlin, the Charger, or any of your stuff, this is priority one!"
"OK, fine", I slapped him on the back, and bluffed with the best smile I could muster, "We'll make it happen!"
He walked into the shop and closed the roll-up door behind him.
I turned towards the Valiant, thinking to myself "this is an abbreviated week, but this is going to be a very crazy seventy-two hours ahead of us!"

With the Valiant relocated next to my trailer, I looked at the rear tires in relation to the wheel well opening and began to think something wasn't quite right.
Boone was working on his little Tow-Me trailer, and had all the tires, wheels, drums, and hubs removed. We've beat on that poor trailer for more than twenty years, so I supposed it could use the maintenance.
I called him over for a second set of eyes. "It looks like the passenger's side is shoved forward and is further out now, and I'm not sure why", I explained.
"Did you re-adjust the diagonal link after you moved the ladder bar?" He asked after a cursory look underneath.
"Uhh...Nope!"
We checked it with a tape measure, X pattern, and it was way off.
"You really didn't expect to just bolt the diagonal back in place..."
"You were rushing me! Besides, I haven't slept all night! I tried to defend myself.
"Well, get it back on stands, so we can adjust it".
"What are you doing to the trailer?" I changed the subject.
"The bearings were all loose, the brakes are shot, the tires are shot. Figured since this is the longest drive we've made to start Drag Week, I'd rather fix it here than on the side of the road".
James came out of the shop, clearly disinterested in helping Dale work on an engine, and joined Boone and I beside the trailer.
"At our shop in Phoenix, we've had to replace many spindles on semi-trailers that were ran for a long time with loose bearings", I explained to them, "the inner race will spin on the spindle and eat it up. I'd hate for you to put new brakes, bearings, and tires on the thing if the axles are screwed up."
Boone ran his fingers over the spindles a few times, then laid on his back to look at the bottom of the spindles. "The bottom is darn near flat! you're right these axles are shot. I wonder if Dale knows someone in town that has new axles in stock."
"Boone, do we really have time to be rebuilding a trailer? We really need to concentrate on the cars", I explained.
"I'll bring my trailer over in the morning", James volunteered.
"This trailer is the only one that will pull the Drag Week trailer", Boone complained.
"I did notice that the Duster now has a receiver hitch", I teased.
"More of my handy work", James confirmed.
"With those 3400lb springs, I think the Duster would pull it fine, but now I'm not sure how we will get it to Ohio", Boone shook his head.
"We'll be fine without a trailer on Drag Week Boone, just as long as we have at least one B-Body, we can bring everything we need!"

The Drag Week trailer has become as diverse and customized as the cars themselves. In the early years you had rented U-Hauls, Harbor Freight bolt togethers and pretty much nothing in between. Now they are limited only by a cubic feet rule, and the builder's imagination. Equally as diverse and imaginative, is how many of these small trailers arrive onsite for registration day. Some are standing on end in a pick-up bed, some are in pieces and have to be assembled on arrival. Watching all this equipment arrive is a spectacle unto itself.

James and I put the Valiant on four jack stands, and we removed the front tires as well. I was switching back to a new pair of 165/80s on the front to replace the 185/60s that had been pressed into duty last year. We adjusted the diagonal link, and amazingly the 9" looked like it was straight in the car again.
Boone gathered up all my rubber, along with a few of his and Dale's, and headed out for Robertson Tire in Owasso. This trip to our favorite tire store seems to be a rite of passage for every Drag Week.

I spent the time waiting for Boone to return by unloading all the stuff out of the Valiant, Belvedere, and 1 Ton that I had hastily tossed in before the trip to Oklahoma. I sorted through it with importance placed on the tools and supplies needed to do repairs to the cars this week, then I would have to sort through all of it again to pack it away for the trip to Ohio. It's an arduous task which could be much easier if I possessed even rudimentary planning and organization skills.

Will and Michelle bolted the tires and wheels back on the Valiant as the last remaining light from the sky was fading away.
"We really can't do much for Dale in the shop, he's down to small stuff on the engine, and all we were doing is trying to keep him awake!" Will explained.
It was obvious that James, Will and Michelle were ready to call it a day, so Boone hastily hooked up to a trailer and coerced them into assisting us with loading the Duster before they left.

I stretched out on my trailer and put my head in my arms as Boone tied down the Duster.
"You about done?" He asked.
"Yeah, now that it's quiet, dark, and everyone is gone, I'm really feeling it!"
"Are you going to sleep here or at my house?"
"I'll go to your place", I explained, "Dale appears to have a full house right now, so I don't want to put him out."
"You're gonna have to suck it up then", Boone chuckled, "because we have to get in that shop and keep Dale moving on the Gremlin!"
"I'll sit in a chair and talk, while you help him put it together. Will that work?"
"I would expect nothing less from you!" He laughed again.

When we entered the shop, Dale was putting the engine plate and water pump on the engine. He carefully placed the gaskets on both sides of the plate, with silicone on the multiple mating surfaces as well. We helped him hold everything in place while he started the bolts, then I eased back into a folding chair as promised.
He had the bolts nearly tight, then suddenly he stopped and let out a "what in the heck is going on"?
"The aluminum water pump housing is hitting the Milodon gear drive cover", Boone pointed out.
I had my head back and my eyes closed, but added my two cents anyway. "I thought you already had this engine in the car once?"
"I did, and it leaked water around the engine plate...that's why I was being so careful with the gaskets this time! Apparently I just cranked the bolts down that time, and since the engine had problems, never investigated it further."
I leaned forward and rubbed my face, "So...what are the options?"
"Space the water pump out", Boone suggested.
"I'd have to space the bottom pulley out too, and then change the alternator mount", Dale shook his head. "I'd like to avoid that altogether, I've got too much time into getting all that to work right the first time!"
"Pull the timing chain out of the 440...you know the stock cover will clear". I looked at the two of them, and began to worry this was a make or break moment, backwards was not a direction that interested them at all.
"I re-used the gear drive because I couldn't get the gear off the crank", Dale explained. "This engine was a nightmare to take apart. We had to chain the engine to the hoist legs, and use the hydraulic ram to remove the intake! Everything was glued together, and I was so aggravated by the time I got to the crank...I just left the gear on. I'm willing to go yank the stuff off the 440, but I'll be done if that gear doesn't come off!"

It took Boone and I nearly as long to find a puller in Dale's messy shop, as it did for him to return from the front garage with the cover and timing chain set off the wounded 440.
When he walked back in, I was trying to find a place to set his new fiberglass hood for the Duster.
"What do think of all my fiberglass?" He managed a weak smile, "You said there was no way I would get it all in two weeks!"
"Yeah...I'm amazed, I figured AAR/Stinger was just trying to get your dollars when they said it would make it on time. Looks like they were true to their word!"
"Hood, deck lid, and both bumpers", he pointed to stuff scattered throughout the shop, "and I'm thrilled with the quality!"
"Not a single piece installed yet, though", I retorted as I sat back down in my chair again.
"You get the gear off that crank yet?" He changed the subject.
"I'm just here to supervise..we need a bottle of nitrous to cool the crank, and a torch on the gear...it'll pop right off!"
"How about we just try the puller first?" Boone interjected.
I leaned back and closed my eyes again.

You know if you would show up at the Regular time this wouldnt happen.LOL

I was in and out for the next couple hours, sleeping in between small talk. Boone finally nudged me awake to get in the Coronet and head to his house.
"I wanted to help him get the engine in the car, and mated to the trans", Boone explained as we drove away, "he should be able to handle it the rest of the way".
"What time is it?" I finally questioned, only barely coherent.
"Three AM", he confirmed.

Thursday

I woke up around 8, took a quick shower and kicked Boone out of bed. We grabbed fuel in the car, a cup of coffee, and some breakfast at the QT near his house, then went to Drive Shafts Inc. to drop of a 1350 yoke for the Belvedere. We ordered a 3" steel shaft with a 1350 solid U-joint up front, and a 1350/7290 combo in the rear. That would be much better than the stocker 7260 shaft with the 7260/7290 combo that Rachael killed last year.

When we arrived at Dale's to take the Duster to the muffler shop, the Gremlin appeared mostly complete, but Dale wasn't around. His stepson Cody informed us that he had only went to bed about an hour before we showed up, so we decided not to bother him.
We mated the trailer up to the muffler shop rack, and just pushed the Duster straight back off the trailer.
"What does he want on here?" The muffler guy questioned us.
I just shrugged and pointed at Boone.
"I thought Dale called you", Boone looked startled, "I thought it was all hashed out".
"Well, he scheduled an appointment, and told me to just run it down the sides and turn it out in front of the rear tire, but I don't recall what size he wanted."
"Three inch, I guess", Boone decided.
"I'm out of three inch stuff", the muffler guy explained, "So you'll have to run down to Grand Prix and grab some mufflers and reducers if you want to go that route".
Boone threw his hands up, "Alright! We'll be back as soon as we can."
"Dang it Boone! I'd have brought my empty nitrous bottles if I knew we were making a trip to the speed shop today", I complained.
"Never fails to happen during Hell Week!" He shook his head as we drove away.

We dropped off the parts at the muffler shop, and ran by Wal-Mart for some more "Cherry red" paint cans, so we could make sure the Duster was all one color (sort of).
We went back to Dale's, and scuffed up the fiberglass parts for a quickie paint job. We nearly had them all sprayed when Dale walked out in the back yard to finish up the Gremlin.

"When are you guys bringing the Duster back?" Dale asked us straightaway. "I've got the glass guy showing up here in an hour and a half to install the new windshield and all the chrome trim!"
Boone explained the situation with the three inch exhaust and Dale went completely ballistic.
"I told him and I told you, I wanted three and a half! How hard is that to comprehend!" He paraded us around to the back of his shop, "I've got three complete three inch systems right there I could've modified or used parts from if that's what I wanted!"
Boone's mouth was ajar and he shrugged his shoulders with his hands uplifted, but he waited a moment before he spoke. "I didn't remember that, and you didn't write it down..."
"Well, I'm not paying for those parts!" Dale shook his head, "You can put them on a car of yours when we get back from Drag Week!"

When Boone and I returned from picking up the Duster at the muffler shop, the glass guy was already waiting in Dale's back yard. We rolled it off the trailer, and he started working on it immediately.

Dale had the Gremlin pushed back out of the shop, and we fired it up to break in the cam. I was looking at my phone to time how long the engine had been running when I got a text from Rachael that she was ready to be picked up at the airport in Tulsa. I stole Boone's Coronet to go retrieve her, and made Cody take over the duties as official time keeper on the 572's break-in procedure.

When Rachael and I pulled in Dale's back yard, the sun was fading from view fairly fast. They had already moved the Duster back in the shop, and the front end was back on the Gremlin. Just seeing the Gremlin in one piece, and the Duster with a windshield and all the front and rear window trim reinstalled, made me feel like we just might make it! Michelle had been installing the fan and shroud on the Duster radiator, but she passed those duties off to Boone, and turned to Dale.
"You promised me a ride in the Gremlin!"
"I did", he nodded his head, "and I do need to take it for a test drive and buy some gas, so we may as well cruise down to the station."
"You and Rachael need to grab some tools and help me", Boone suggested, never looking up from the radiator.
"Uh..actually I think we are going to load the Valiant on the truck and trailer that you just rolled the Duster off of, so it will be ready to go to Jim Sam's first thing in the morning for an alignment!"
"Good idea, but help me set this radiator in the car first, then I'll help you line the Valiant up on the ramps", Boone insisted.
Rachael tossed her hands in the air, and gave a disgusted grunt,"I'm standing right here, Boone!"
"Ok, you can help me put the radiator in...but girls don't guide cars onto trailers, that's a recipe for disaster!" Boone started laughing as Rachael gave him an elbow to the ribs.

With the Valiant loaded up and cinched down, we retired to the shop to watch Boone and Dale continue to work on the Duster.
I took a chair and struck up a conversation while they removed both valve covers, "So, I've only saw Dad for about five minutes since I arrived...".
"He's knee deep in helping Darren get the engine back in the Charger. He parked the motor home over there, so we haven't seen much of him either" Boone explained.
"When did the engine get assembled?" I shrugged, up to this point I really knew little of Darren's effort to make it.
"Last weekend", Dale laughed, "He brought it over here in his Dodge R/T and we pretty much tossed it together on the tail gate!"
"You had the block on an engine stand for a week before that didn't you?" Boone questioned, as he opened a box with "Pushrod Factory, Reed Springs MO" stamped on it.
"No...that was the problem, he brought over the rotating assembly, with the new rings and bearings first, then asked me to grind and gap the rings for him so he could assemble it".
"No way", I exhaled.
"Yeah! So when I explained to him that I had to have the block in order to gap the rings, he decided to bring the whole thing over and let me help him do it here!"
"Must've been eight people with their hands on that thing", Boone chuckled.
"Yeah, for sure", Dale pulled his glasses off, rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as if trying to recall a deeply buried memory. "The two of us, Darren, Dad, Cody, Will and Michelle. It was definitely all hands on deck, but it went together fairly quick".
"I want to build an engine someday", Rachael shook her head. "I miss out on all the fun!"
"Well then get over here and help me get these rockers back on the head", Boone motioned her over.
"But don't dent that pristine fender with your baby bump", Dale added.

I was falling asleep again in my chair, and if we were going to beat the crowd to Sam's Alignment and Brakes in the morning, I needed a good night's sleep.
"Boone, I think Rach and I will take the truck and Valiant to your house tonight. So we can get to Sam's early."
Dale looked up in surprise, "You're going to park the Valiant over at Boone's? In the ghetto?"
"I'll back it up in the drive...it'll be fine."
"So you're going to bail, and I'll just drive the Coronet home?" Boone shrugged.
"Yeah, I mean, Rachael and I have like three stops to make in town, and that way you don't have to be stuck with us."

We left Dale's around 11pm and even so, it was just after midnight when my head hit the pillow.

Do the brothers follow along with your recaps that you do here?Just asking.LOL.And will they ever learn that DW happens the same time every year?When I sat with the clan on Friday I was expecting to get invited to a bonfire,roast marshmallows and sing songs you were all in such a great mood. LOL

ksj,
Darren has threatened to sue me for libel on more than one occasion! When I told him I was thinking about doing a book, he gave me his lawyer's name and number. I think he was just joking...maybe?

Friday
I awoke to the sound of tree limbs rustling outside, and the rumbling of an impending thunderstorm. Rachael and I left without waking Boone, and arrived at Jim Sam's shop thirty minutes before he opened. He takes in alignment work on a first come first served basis, and three years ago when I was in this exact same situation, it took half a day to get the Valiant on the rack. I figured the best way to avoid that was to get there first. We almost had the Valiant off the trailer when the clouds opened up and it started raining.
Jim waved us over and then explained that it would take a few minutes to get all the cars out of the shop before he could take us in.
"It's a mini mopar car show coming out of there!" Rachael exclaimed as Jim carefully backed out a Challenger, a Charger, and a convertible Dart GTS, among others.

"The back eccentrics on the uppers slipped", Jim pointed out as he had the Valiant on the rack. "That's why she's towed out so bad, but everything else is tight."
"Yeah, had some high wheel stands." I explained. What about the rear? We tried to correct the alignment on it."
"Looks like it's straight in the car, but it's toed in a little on the passenger's side, so I'd say the housing is bent a little!" Jim commented as he spun the wrenches to make the necessary adjustments on the front. He had me out in less than an hour and refused any payment.

We had the Valiant back on the trailer when I got a call from Drive Shafts Inc. that the Belvedere shaft was ready to pick up.
"I'm going to have to break drive shafts more often!" Rachael exclaimed when the young man brought out our new drive shaft. He smiled and blushed, then gave us our bill.

"What was that about", I asked Rachael when we got outside.
"Did you see his arms when he carried that thing out? He was smoking hot! Then when he bent over! What a butt!"
"Oh good grief!" You're engaged and pregnant", I admonished her.
"Well, I'm certainly not blind! I can still admire", she laughed and blushed as she climbed in the truck.

Love the workbench

I am starting to wonder how many alignments Jim charges for. I know I have paid for one on my car and the other checkups have been waved off, same with my Dad's car.

Our final stop was Grand Prix, to top off all the nitrous bottles. The owner of the speed shop and I were discussing the March Meet while his crew was changing out mother bottles. Mike Cox pulled his 53 Ford Gasser in front of the store and walked towards the door.
"Here's a Drag Weeker! Do you know Mike?"
"Yeah...I guess Mike sold his Henry J, and went back to his trusty Customline." I shrugged, as Mike entered with a smile and hand extended.
"When are you headed for Columbus?" He asked as he motioned towards the Valiant on the trailer.
"We aren't even close", I laughed. "We still have two cars that haven't even had the engines fired yet! What about you?"
"I'm loading the Ford as soon as I get home, and we are staying at a friends in St. Louis tonight. It's a long pull, you know!"

I eased the Cummins powered 3/4 ton off the rocks and into Dale's back yard. I made it about thirty feet when I felt the rear tires spinning, and we slowed to a stop. I shut the truck off and stepped out for a look. The front tires were about three inches into the soft mud left by the morning rain, and the rears were simply skimming off the top layer.
"What's wrong?" Rachael asked as I reached for the drive shaft in the back of the truck.
"We're stuck, and I'm not going to tear Dale's yard up trying to get it out. We'll just wait for the ground to dry up some, and get it back here in a couple of hours."
We threw a plastic tarp under the Belvedere, which was still on the two car trailer, and crawled under to install the drive shaft. Once we bolted it in, I dumped in a few quarts of trans fluid, then had Rachael attempt to start it so I could check the fluid level on the fresh 727. The 440 hadn't been fired in a year, so I had to dump fuel in the 750 to get it to finally pull enough from the tank to run on.

With the sound of the 440 running in the backyard, Dale stepped out of the house, and motioned us inside for breakfast.

He should post that pic in the"clean room" discussion.

Thanks for the story Billy!

Good stuff, keep it coming.

Dale sat at the table, and looked out the dining room window towards the scattered automotive debris that covered an acre and a half. He had recently dropped 40lbs., which was already paying huge dividends health wise but this morning it only added to the worn down, disheveled look on his face. The profound lack of sleep, combined with the weight loss left his eyes sunken, with pronounced wrinkles at the edges of the dark circles surrounding them. His entire face was nearly devoid of color, but a smile still toyed with the corner of his lips.
"Why do we continue to do this to ourselves?" He pointed toward the plates, then to the scrambled eggs, biscuits, and gravy on the stove.
"I've always made it a point to tell people that we are smarter than we look, but the evidence is overwhelming to suggest otherwise...", I caught myself laughing at my own joke.
"Very sad, and very true", he took a sip of his coffee, "How much do you have left to do on yours".
Rachael set a plate of food in front of me, and asked if I wanted coffee.
"He's capable of getting his own", Dale retorted.
"Naw, he's really not", Rachael laughed then offered Dale a refill, before sitting down with her own plate.
"Oil change on the Belvedere, if the trans works right when we test drive it. The Valiant is good. Where are you on the Gremlin?"
"It runs", he replied, "but those 4.10s in the Dana are howling like crazy! Not to mention they are going to be way too low for that 572. Last year, I was trapping 150 with the 440 at 7500! I really don't want to spin a 572 that tight, and I have a brand new set of 3.73's sitting on the shelf out there with no time left to install them".
"Speaking of time." I took a moment before broaching the subject, "We need to agree on a deadline for getting out of here tomorrow, I can't do the routine again that we did before the trip to Bowling Green. This is the longest trip yet to a starting track, and I don't want to hear any scenario that has us arriving in Columbus thirty minutes before the cut-off of the tech line!"
"What did you have in mind?" He cradled his cup in both hands and looked me in the eye.
"Well, I've got a 62 mph rig, and no co-driver, so I feel that I need to hit the road by noon tomorrow at the latest!"
"I can help you drive!" Rachael threw her hands up in disgust, my inability to trust her behind the wheel of the 1-ton was becoming an increasingly sore subject.
"That's fair", Dale agreed, "but I'm not going to bail on the Duster".
"I'm just saying I may have to leave you guys behind then...If you guys leave later than that, you can run 75-80 if you choose to, and I simply can't", I explained.

We were all putting our dishes in the sink when my phone rang, it was Boone calling. We had a short conversation, then I briefed Dale and Rachael.
"He's showered and ready to leave his house, but he can't find his wallet. He went out to make sure he didn't leave it in the Coronet, but the door was open, and it appears someone rifled through all his stuff on the console and passenger's seat."
"I told you he lived in the ghetto!" Dale shook his head.
"Well, he can't imagine that he left it in the car, so he wants us to check around here...look in the truck, the shop, the Duster, otherwise he's going to stop at his bank on the way over here."

I walked out to his truck, and checked the cab out thoroughly, then I fired it up and tried to ease forward out of the mud. The yard had dried just enough to allow me to get the thing moving, and I pulled it around back so I could unload the Valiant.
I joined Dale in the shop, where he was searching for Boone's wallet on the shelves and in the Duster.
"The last time I saw it", Dale pointed to the roof of the Duster, where the AAR hood was now resting. "He left it up here on the hood."
I was leaning on the back of the car checking out the trunk area. They had a giant plastic fuel cell mounted as far forward in the trunk as possible, the outlets were plumbed with steel braided hose to a huge MagnaFuel ProStar 500 pump and filter, but nothing beyond that.
"The fuel system isn't plumbed yet?" I looked up at Dale.
"No...not wired either, fuel log/regulator up here in the front isn't fully plumbed yet...it's going to be a long day", he shook his head.
Rachael walked in with a big smile on her face, "I've got good news, and I've got bad news!"
"Out with it", I implored.
"I found Boone's wallet, but he left it out on the back of our trailer, so with this morning's rain, it's soaked through and through!"
"I'm sure he won't mind", I smiled at her as I pulled out my phone to call him.

Boone rolled into Dale's backyard well after noon, and made his way into the shop to check on the Duster.
"Darren called me a while ago and said he wasn't going to make it", Boone commented.
"He says that every year, probably just wants some of us to go over there and help him", I concluded.
"He's just frustrated, I think he stripped out one of the bolt holes that thread into the trans case".
Sounds about right, his 'magic elbow torque wrench' never has been calibrated for aluminum threads!"
Dale guffawed then added, "I resemble that remark!"

Boone started discussing a wish list of things he wanted Rachael to pick up for him, so I decided to excuse myself from the shop so I could finish up on the Belvedere. I'd been under it for about fifteen minutes when Rachael came out and asked for my bank card so she could pick up a few things for us as well. Boone came out a few minutes later, added something to her list right before she left, then made his way over to where I was working.

"What are you doing now?" He asked somewhat tersely.
"Figured I'd change the oil, and take it for test drive". I explained
"You know, if you would have showed up here Sunday night, with your stuff ready to go, we'd have had a much better chance of getting all our cars done!" He spun around and headed back to the shop.
"Wow! I'd have expected that response from just about anybody else in Oklahoma before I would have seen it coming from him", I thought to myself.

I spent most of the afternoon concentrating on my cars out in the yard and avoiding the shop entirely, mainly because I was still miffed at Boone's attitude. When the sun went down though, it didn't make any sense not to get in the shop and see if I could find something to do. Dale's son Billy was out of school, and fired up to help on "his" car, but I could tell he was driving Boone and Dale crazy as they worked on the front of the car.
"Billy, what do you say we figure out how to get this new fiberglass trunk lid mounted on the car", I motioned him towards the back. He was receptive to the plan so we broke out the new hood pin kits, and I turned the kid loose with a drill to make holes in virgin fiberglass! Since I live twelve hundred miles from my nephew, and his Dad only has him part time, I came to realize that this was probably the most involved I had ever been with him, and I really enjoyed it, despite the buzz of activity that was going on around us.

Made me chuckle. "If you would have showed up here Sunday night,wi th your stuff"

Made me chuckle. "If you would have showed up here Sunday night,wi th your stuff"

Donnie, the website was doing stupid things, and I thought I was going to lose my post, so I just submitted it, then edited it once I re-booted.

At around 11pm, I grabbed Rachael and told her it was time for us to bail. This would be our last chance to get a decent night's sleep, and I wasn't going to waste it.
"We'll drive the Belvedere over to Boone's, twenty-seven miles will be a good practice run", I told her as we jumped in. I explained to her three times that she had to remember this trans was forward pattern. Then as we were jumping out on the highway I pulled it back from second to first again.
She stuck her hands out and grabbed the dash as the car threw her forward. "What the heck, Dad!" she shouted.
"Just giving you an example of how catastrophic it can be if you revert back to a reverse shift pattern...".
"You are an idiot", was her immediate assessment.

"I'd forgotten how much I enjoy just driving this car", I looked over at her and smiled before we arrived back at Boone's place. "I can't believe I let this thing sit in my car port for a solid year without touching it."
"Yeah, 365 days for what? Eight hours worth of work? You bum!" She tossed her hands up in feigned disgust, but she had a smile on her face.

Saturday

The first thing I noticed when I drug my carcass out of bed Saturday morning was that Boone had never came back home. That was not a good sign.
Rachael and I pulled our laundry out of the dryer, packed our bags, and jumped in the Belvedere. We hit the McDonald's drive through for breakfast and rolled into Dale's around nine.
Boone and Dale were still working on the Duster, and both of them looked like Walking Dead extras. An hour later, Boone headed to his house to get a shower, and pack his clothes for the trip.
My cars were loaded, ratcheted down on the trailer and Rachael was helping me pack away all our supplies, when Dale asked me to help him break the cam in on the Duster. I looked at my phone to track the amount of run time we put on the 512, and realized it was 1:07pm...already an hour later than our agreed upon Noon deadline!

Dale was spraying water on the radiator, and the 512 was humming along at 2500, when the black paint on the fender wells above the headers started bubbling up, so we shut it down for a while.

Boone returned with all his stuff, along with some bad news.
"Darren just called and said the Charger is out, they started to fill the radiator and the water went straight into the pan!"
Dale leaned forward in the Duster, shaking his head. "I told him he should've used a different block!"
"OK, you told me he left water in last winter and the Indy heads were cracked, so he bought a new set", I looked back and forth between both brothers with my hands on my hips. "Now, you're telling me he tried to re-use the block?"
"He waited so late to get started on it...and the only machinist that could get it done in time doesn't have the ability to pressure test anything. We checked it out and it looked fine, he told Darren to take it somewhere else and test it if he wasn't comfortable..." Dale's voice trailed off.
"So, what's the plan now?"
"Dad is coming over to help me drive", Boone explained, "Darren and Sherri have already taken vacation and planned for this, so he's going to get cleaned up, packed, and just follow along in the Ram R/T like he did last year".
"Well, I guess Rachael and I better get on down the road then, because you guys sound like you're on the 'drive 90 and show up at the last minute' plan again."
"I'm not going with you Dad!" Rachael shook her head.
"What do you mean?"
"Dale is a zombie, he's been awake for 36 hours, little Billy doesn't have a license, and unlike YOU...DALE'S not afraid to let me drive his rig! So I'm hauling the Gremlin, and YOU are on your own!"
"Were you in on this double cross as well", I questioned Boone.
"I may have suggested it", he managed a weary smile, "not really sure, we're all kinda tired and all...".

Family being what it is, I stuck around until they were nearly loaded before I jumped in the twelve valve and headed out for Ohio. The 1 ton was on empty, so I stopped and grabbed 25 gallons of diesel two miles from Dale's place. I looked down at the receipt before I put it in my wallet, "3:14pm, Whew, three hours behind already!"

I can run 67 mph comfortably with the old Cummins, but I don't have weight bars or a sway bar on my tongue pull two car trailer, and above 62 it likes to shuffle around a bit. Traveling by myself, I'm a grinder, so I just put it on 62 and go until it runs out of fuel. That strategy got me to the Flying J at Sullivan Mo. a tick after 9pm. 331 miles at 13.5mpg, it's hilly Ozark country, so I was happy with that. The 24 ounce coffee was a good 6 ounces of hot chocolate, but that seems to delay the amount of time I can run on a straight coffee diet before it starts tearing up my stomach. The next leg took me through St.Louis and Indianapolis, until I pulled into the Speedway at Knightstown Indiana, 346 miles covered on that tank. We'd lost an hour crossing into the eastern time zone, so it was 4 Am local time. I'd been in constant contact with the brothers, and all of them seemed to be doing OK, they had been within twenty miles of catching me a few times, but they were all stopping more often than I was.
Ten miles later Darren blew around me, then Dale caught and passed me somewhere after we crossed the Ohio border. Rachael had been following Boone at a sane speed while she drove, but with Dale awake and behind the wheel, they were moving along pretty good. It was dawn before I entered Columbus, but on a Sunday morning the traffic was light.

Now, according to Google maps, from the time you exit I-70, onto Ohio 37, and then take a left at the traffic light onto US-40 and arrive at the entrance of National Trails Raceway, you will have covered two miles in roughly three minutes. Google didn't account for the other 350 Drag Weekers intent upon doing the same thing apparently and when I arrived in the small town of Luray, with it's one traffic signal, these outlaws from across the globe had brought the sleepy little town to a stand still. Worshipers seeking to arrive at the Luray Christian Apostolic Church were not thrilled with us.
I decided that sitting in a left hand turn lane while everyone filled the intersection going right on red from the other direction was a bad idea, so I went across the road and did a u-turn to come back the other way. Turned out to be a worse idea because the line was over a 1/2 mile long from that direction. It wasn't all bad, because I was catching cat naps between each time the line moved. An hour and a half later, I finally arrived at the entrance shack to the track. A small car ran up beside me to cut in line, and the driver flashed a card and lanyard at me, then he stuck his head out and explained, "We're the tech officials, and we need to get in there ASAP!"
I waved him by and thought to myself, "If those are the two NHRA track tech officials, how many cars have made it through registration since the gates opened two hours ago?"
I would have my answer soon enough.

Wow, Billy, you are on a roll! Keep up the good work!

After reading all the trials and tribulations that the "G Clan" goes through(put them selves through?) in a mad thrash right before drag week begins, I can't help but think of "dog years".
You know, a dog ages 7 years for one human year.
Seems like the way the G Clan does it there has to be some added wear and tear on the body and mind. I don't know what the correct ratio would be, but it sure seems like maybe they're getting 3 or 4 drag weeks worth of blood, sweat, and drama stuffed into one drag week.

Great story telling as usual Billy!!

There is a group of Drag Week participants who always arrive at each track on time, with a cup of coffee, clean clothes, and a big well rested smile. They stand around talking about getting to the motels before dark, then sharing pizza and beer in the parking lot while everyone else arrives. I don't think it would make for quite as interesting a story, but I sure would like to try a Drag Week like that just once!

As my stories have expanded every year, I like to think I try to tell as complete a story as my memory allows, and I try not to gloss over the gory details of what happens when you show up unprepared or things don't go your way. After six years of doing this, I've also been made acutely aware of the fact that writing and posting stuff on the internet about real people and real events does not take place in a vacuum. Generally the response has been favorable, but when you are critical of the processes or handling of certain issues, sometimes people may feel said criticism is unjust.

One such area is Drag Week tech. I think I've been honest in my reviews, but perhaps I should've been less vocal about it on certain face book sites and web boards. It's just that it chaps my hide when some DW rookie comes on the internet trying to get approval for something he's done to his car which may change the class he's put in, or asking about some rule in the NHRA rule book which only applies to Pro Stocks at National Events, and everyone always refers the poor guy to Keith Turk, which to me is like advising your friend who won five thousand cash in a street race to call the IRS and ask if he should report it on his taxes, or asking the prison warden if it's OK to bring in contraband!

One of the things that I've pointed out (many times, on many sites) was the fact that the Hot Rod Tech sheet only had one line for the NHRA tech official to fill out, which simply listed the minimum ET which the car was allowed to run. My argument was, "How serious do you think they are about enforcing the NHRA rules when this is all the sheet has on it!"

Now, you may look upon me as a scofflaw, or a rule bender, or even an outright cheater, but I've always approached tech at any event much the same way a batter faces a pitcher or a receiver goes up against a defensive back. As such, you want to scout your competition, so anytime I arrive at a track, I like to go up and watch a few cars go through tech and figure out what the procedure is, and what each inspector is looking for. All of them have specific favorites they like to check for, and all of them have a clock in their head as to how long they can spend on each car. Is the inspector a talker? Do they like to start at the front of the car, or with the paperwork, or with the safety gear? Knowing all this before your car is next in line is key to hiding the things on your car that aren't up to specs, and trust me, in 32 years of attending drag strips, I've never had a car that was 100% legal.

So, while most of our crew was unloading cars and gear, I made my way to the head of the line to watch. It appeared to me that the Drag Week staff was watching me with a wary eye as I was lurking around, but perhaps it was only my own guilty conscience. I didn't like what I saw. In years past they had one NHRA tech who was just running around between the cars in line checking the boxes on each sheet and handing them back to the drivers, then the final check was lights, horn, and the street stuff. This year everyone was required to fill out a full NHRA tech card in addition to the Drag Week sheet, and the two NHRA techs were doing full inspections after the cars cleared all the Drag Week street stuff!
This meant it would be harder to slide things past the gendarmes, if that was your intent. The second consequence was, that it would take longer to clear registration, on a day when they were getting a late start and there were a record number of entries. Sunday was shaping up to be a long, grueling, interesting day!

I just thought you guys figured if you didn't do it this way that you wouldn't feel like you were getting the full DW experience.

Btw...... I'm a buyer when the book comes out!!

It was great meeting you and your family at Martin MI Billy.

Dwayne I figured this was like a contest, to get them amped up FOR the contest!
Don

You might be on to something there.
Like a right of passage ritual...... Where you have to prove yourself worthy before being allowed to go to the next level....... DW itself.

and everyone always refers the poor guy to Keith Turk, which to me is like advising your friend who won five thousand cash in a street race to call the IRS and ask if he should report it on his taxes, or asking the prison warden if it's OK to bring in contraband!
ROFLMAO!!!

Not to take anything from Billy's great story but this is a good tale of one participant's adventure.

This post is a recap of the Hot Rod Drag Week experience by Hilborn’s EFI Specialist Andrew Starr. He drives a very nice 56 Chevy, but Mopar driver Scott Abbott and his wife Kim played a big part saving Mr. Starr's bacon on the road Day 2.

It does a very good job of capturing the essence of Hot Rod's Drag Week.

http://hilborninjection.com/drag-week-2016/

GREAT read! Scott and Kim are great people also. Have always enjoyed talking with them the last 2 years.

Yes! I got to know the Abbott's in the staging lanes at Bowling Green (2013?) when Scott won the Daily Driver (now Street Machine Eliminator) Top 32 race and Clark was fourth. We have seen them at every Drag Week since.

Bill

Awesome read, thanks for sharing Bill!!

Nick,

Glad you enjoyed it, I just stumbled across it on the Hilborn site.

It was nice to meet you on Drag Week this year.

Bill

Likewise, Bill! Curious to see if some of the regular DW guys here are going to enter in 2017.

I've been "recruited" for 2017. Unfortunately, as support for brand X. Still looking forward to it though!

Thanks Billy, Drag Week is on my bucket list.

Nick,
I am sure many will be there, but most will want to see the track listing first.

I sure would like to see Larson back in Unlimted.

After finishing five years straight Clark is planning to take the year off, however if it starts in Tulsa he might reconsider.

Bill

It doesn't...

GLD?

Not surprised but where does it start...

I've been sworn to secrecy.

Ask a Russian

If you really have the inside edge as to tracks etc for dragweek do you know when hot rod will release the dates and tracks for the 2017 event ?

Safe bet is the full week after Labor Day, which would make it the 11th through 15th this year. Not confirmed though.

Bill, it seems that Doug Cline/Joe Barry/Larry Larson are going on Rocky Mountain race week instead of Drag Week. I think that version has an actual payout for the winner, not sure if that is their motivation or not.

Joe and Michelle are hopefully taking 2 56s on RMRW and its in their back yard.Last year they skipped DW because they were not able to pull their son out of school.

Long drive up to Cordova this year!

Think this year I'll just go to the start in Cordova.Been 8 times and need a change.Think I'll enter RMRW as I've never been to Kearney or Pueblo.Jim,if you route has you coming through T-town and you need anything let me know.

You might be surprised that it is a little less than it was last year to Hebron.

Of course for you the tow is measured more in days than hours!

What are your plans for this year as far as the race car?

I was thinking of the Gebharts when I said it's a long drive...it's always a long drive for me.

I'm not planning anything different for the current race car. I have plans to build another one, but it may or may not happen.

I walked back to our pit area, and found Rachael looking through a brown leather satchel placed on the hood of the Belvedere.
"Where did you get that?" I asked her as I approached, quickly recognizing it wasn't anything our group had brought along.
"Someone left it out on the side of the road, before we came through the gate", she explained. "Dale and I saw it when we moved up in line the second or third time. It has a laptop in it, motel instructions, a bunch of other stuff, someone must be going crazy right now."
"Anything with a name yet?" I asked as I peered over her shoulder into the bag.
"Aha", she exclaimed, "this will tell us!" She pulled out the eight page technical questionnaire that Hot Rod gives to each competitor that details everything about your entry. It had already been filled out completely.
I read the first line, "1973 Opel Ascona, yep Rach, that's the little compact with the nitrous big block chevy from Sweden! I saw them near the front of the tech line, lets go give it to them."
She followed me to the front of the tech line towards the strange looking grey two door post Opel, and we walked up to a young man trying to hastily fill out a new questionnaire on the trunk lid of the car.
"Might be easier to turn in the one you already filled out", I smiled and extended the paperwork towards him.
He looked up with a blank expression towards me, but his face lit up when he recognized the satchel in Rachael's hands.
"Wow! Where did you find it?" He asked with a big smile on his face.
Rachael explained it as his partner walked up from the front of the car. They both breathed noticeably easier, and were genuinely appreciative, even though you could tell they were still overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task ahead of them. It felt good to know we had helped them avoid the first pitfall of the week, but the young Swedes, Magnus and Dennis, would face many more if they wanted to complete Drag Week 2016.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Thanks Billy!

It seemed at though the rest of our crew had their second wind, no doubt buoyed by the naps they had stole while trading off during the drive. I was hammered, and decided to put the Valiant in the tech line straightaway, then catnap in the car as the line moved oh so slowly. As late as three years ago the tech line was filled with anxious racers who would cut around you, and crowd in to try and get through as quickly as possible, it has since transformed into an all day parking lot car show, complete with canopies, lawn chairs, and drinks with umbrellas in them. The laid back approach is a godsend, for those like me, trying to catch up on sleep; or those like my brothers, trying to re-wire an entire car that hasn't seen direct current in fifteen years. Everyone mills about touching base with old friends, making new ones and generally making jokes about those who didn't make it. It's a good time really, if you are conscious, and I pretty much wasn't for the first two hours or so. When I finally began to gather coherent thought again, I stepped out of the Valiant and took stock of our situation: I had moved the Valiant forward in the line about 200 feet, Rachael now had the Belvedere in line, and the three little brothers were still gathered around the Duster, exactly where they had pushed it off the trailer when we arrived!
I ambled over and asked when they intended to join the party.
"It's only 11 or so...the back of the line doesn't cut off until 1, or is it 2...and we still have a ton of work." Dale commented without even looking up to acknowledge me.
"The darn thing fired up on it's own and drove on the trailer at home, how much more does it need to get through tech?" I implored, my voice raspy with irritation.
"Yeah, sure it did!" This time he did look up, "with the fuel pump hot wired to the battery, and the ignition box wires twisted together! Basically I'm trying to re-create what we did to the Barnyard Viper in four days, but I'm trying to accomplish it on Tech and Registration Day!"

I decided to return to the Valiant, I just didn't need that kind of stress in my life at that moment.

Hi Joel!

That's the last time you're going to see that parade car at Drag Week!

Its on the Internet so Im holding you to that.Just sign the Title over to me and we will call it good.

That's a beautiful car, glad to see it stretch its legs a little.


Glad to have the next installment Billy.

You would have to get in line... First would be his wife, then kids, then his trusted hard working trunk monkey.

Happy B-Day... trunk monkey

Yes, happy birthday to the Trunk Munk Extraordinaire! He kind of looks like David Spade with a haircut, doesn't he?

Swab and deboner... LOL

Sometime after noon, it became just warm enough to be uncomfortable sitting in the car looking at my eyelids, so I decided to stretch my legs, do some socializing, and check out the competition.
Glenn Bridger was back with his red 68 Camaro, and it was detailed to the nines, looking fantastic. We had battled last year for 2nd/3rd in Pro Street/NA, and he covered the Valiant and I by a few hundredths.
"Same class this year?" He asked me as he shook my hand with a big smile.
"No,I decided I wanted to spray it this year, so I'm jumping to Modified PA", I explained.
"Geez", he expounded with a surprised look on his face, "you better have a whole bunch of nitrous to play with those guys!"
"I can't possibly hang with all those turbo cars, and big blocks! I just want to go as fast as I can, and lay down some good numbers. What about you, any changes to the car?"
"No, exact same combination, just washed it off and brought it back", he replied.
"It looks awesome today!"
"Believe it or not, it looked this good on Registration Day last year too...by day three, not so much!"

I moved away, and headed towards a white Duster which had already finished the registration process and had a "D" on the windshield signifying it was a Pro Street NA competitor as well. One constant in Drag Week has been that if you stand still with your combination, and don't make improvements, you are backing up, I felt if I battled it out with Glenn again in the 10.50 range, we would be fighting for 5th/6th this year, even with the pair of 8 second monsters who had owned the class not in attendance. Jeff Atkinson had returned with the old yellow CARS Camaro, and that car ran easy 9.50's last year before bowing out because his buddy Jon Wischmann broke on Day 1. Both Jeff and Jon looked ready to put 2015 behind them, and Jon is a four time finisher, so I had no doubt they would make a full pull this year.

The white 70 Duster was beautiful, everything Dale had always dreamed the Ruster Duster would be when he was a kid. I chuckled at myself, "probably still wishes it had turned out this good". I looked over almost involuntarily to where Dale, little Billy, Boone, and Pops were working on the Ruster Duster. They had pushed it to the back of the line, and had the canopy draped over the front of the car. Darren and new girlfriend Sherri had his Silver Ram behind them in line, using it as an oversized jump box and tool bin. My eyes went back to the white Duster in front of me; big wheelie bars, parachute, aluminum wing, lift off 'glass trunk lid with a gas filler flap in the middle of it, steamrollers on bead lock wheels, 512 Wedge call out on the black six-pack hood and the fancy enclosed trailer it was set up to tow along. No way anything we brought could measure up to the quality of this car.

The thing to remember is that the experience is the the opportunity for both. $$ don't matter.

Many people who may read my stories or casually watch Drag Week as it unfolds may think it's roughly the same group of people and cars year after year, but the cold hard numbers tell a different story completely.

Over the past five events, we've averaged about 40% new entries every single year. Also, about 11% of the old competitors, show up with new rides every single year, so there is always plenty of new hardware to check out, and new people to meet on registration day!


2012-187 total entries 82 rookies
2013-230 total entries 93 rookies
2014-307 total entries 146 rookies
2015-305 total entries 118 rookies
2016-356 total entries 156 rookies

Think about that, they had 50 more cars to process this year, and 156 of them had never been through this gauntlet before!

The excitement I felt checking out Scott Hendrix's White Duster, reminded me of how I was last year when I first saw Terry Keifer's Bronze 67 Barracuda at St. Louis. Terry, and the fast back fish were back for another try, but even from across the parking lot something was clearly different. In 2015 Terry was running a single turbo through a carb on the 440, with the exhaust exiting just behind the driver's side front tire. This year the typical fender well exit headers with exhaust running just under the rocker panels that have been a dead giveaway of big block powered A-bodies for decades, were clearly visible under the 67.
"Terry, Terry, Terry! What have you done?" I thought to myself, as I spun away from the Duster and headed for the barracuda with the hood up. My jaw dropped, as I realized all the turbo stuff was long gone, replaced with a plate nitrous system!

top: 2015 turbo
Bottom: 2016 N20

That's great information, I kind of thought it was always the same group of drivers ever year. I really want to get a car together and run it this year if I can get entered...looks like it would be a good time.

Like a diamond set against a field of rubies and sapphires, the shiny natural aluminum body on Derek Mueller's 4wd 77 Toyota Land Cruiser was also demanding attention. I gave a cursory look, expecting to see yet another turbo LS, and was pleasantly surprised to find a nitrous assisted small block Mopar sitting between the gleaming fenders. Truly an amazing, out of the norm build that Drag Week is famous for.

Much like Mike and Lane Sporrong did in previous years with their Silverado "Pre-Runner". Derek and his co-driver were doing the full on 4 wheel switch-over every day, pulling off a big ole' set of off-road mudders to swap on front runners and slicks! My back stated hurting just contemplating the thought of doing that twice a day.

I was relishing the opportunity to finally see James Pranis'(572charger, Moparts) bad 68 Hemi Charger, having admired it on this site, and the pages of magazines for years. I have to say the car doesn't disappoint close up and in person! It has roughly the same effect on people as the Terminator walking through a police station with dark shades, black leather jacket, and sawed off shotgun!
I was walking around the B body, taking in the sheer brute force of it all when the sound of Dad's voice shook me from my reverie.
"I've got to run into town for some parts, you need anything"? He asked, holding something with wires hanging down in his right hand.
"No, not that I can think of, but what is that?" I gestured towards his hand.
He turned it palm up, and opened his fingers to reveal a broken turn signal switch.
"Came out of the Duster, Dale called around and found one, so I'm going after it", he explained.
"How did he get the steering wheel off?" I shook my head in disbelief.
"Borrowed a puller from either Jesse or Squirrel, I'm not sure which", Dad smiled.
I had to chuckle, "Yeah, those would have been the first two guys I'd have asked, for sure!"

Notable among the Mopar entries were the pair of twin turbo wedges, which have already proven their seven second mettle on previous Drag Weeks, the Canadian based 72 Swinger of Matt Blasco, and the Australian based 72 Valiant Charger of John Faraone. While the contrast in their cars, and personalities is readily evident, both seem to share a yearning to constantly push their rides to the limit in search of another tenth, or a couple more mph! This would be Matt's second attempt at Drag Week, and John's fourth, should they make the full tour, one of these two would be the quickest Mopar of DW 2016.

heh...that was me....

"There are walls made of paper, and walls made of stone. And some that are made out of livin' alone" is the first line of a song by the Steeldrivers. I sat back in the Valiant and looked at my NHRA tech card, and my Drag Week entry sheet with pen in hand, and rubbed my eyes. I had no intention of letting a wall of paper stand between me and my dream of a nine second Drag Week. The car was legal, cert was in place, as well as all required safety equipment, and I was a licensed driver...emphasis on the was. When I renewed my license in 2014 I had dropped the 7.50 portion because I didn't want to go take a physical (a requirement they have since dropped), and since the plan was a 10.00 street car, I just renewed my competition numbers and let the 4b code go. I would run the 6 passes and renew it once I returned to Phoenix, but I needed to get through tech today with a green light to 8.50.
Dale had just renewed his, and had a temporary sheet from NHRA, because their license printer was down and they were a month or more behind on printing new licenses. I decided to list him as driver and carry his sheet through tech, figuring they were going to be looking at those temp sheets all day long.. I practiced spacing the letters of "Dale" out enough to cover it over with "Billy" after the fact, and once I had it down I wrote Dale on the driver line as lightly as I could. I knew they would give the tech card back, so writing over it would be easy, still I was worried about getting a hold of the white Drag Week sheet again.

I saw that Ray (sixpackgut, Moparts) and the "Black Pearl" Barracuda had cleared tech, so I went over to see how it went for him. Like me, he intended to run nines this year, and while his paperwork was all in order, there had been a few minor things that didn't meet the letter of the law on the car. Ray is not as versed in such subterfuge as I am, so I had given him a few tips to make sure these infractions went undetected.
"Are you good to run as fast as you want?" I asked as we exchanged greetings.
"Yeah, I'm good to 8.50! You need to come over and pick up all that nitrous stuff you bought from me though, since I'm in an N/A class, it doesn't look good having two bottles in my pit!"
I had answered a facebook ad months earlier, and purchased much of Ray's N20 parts inventory, but we agreed to save on shipping and just have him bring the stuff to Drag Week.
"Cool, I'll do that, I'm just glad you reminded me the other day, as I had already forgot about it!"
Conversing with Ray always puts a smile on my face, even after the long trip. He just exudes enthusiasm, and it seems contagious, I headed back to the Valiant with a little more pep than I had earlier.

I moved the Valiant another 60 feet up in the line while I filled out my paperwork then decided to check with the brothers. They were still stringing wire throughout the Duster, with no end in sight.
"You gaining on it?" I questioned Dale and Boone, who were hanging out around the trunk.
"Taillights work, and the turn signals. Just finished putting the ends on all the battery cables." Boone explained as he handed Dale a couple more butt connectors.
"Did we get the brake lights, Boone?" Dale looked up as if clearing a checklist in his head.
"Yeah, just had to fiddle with switch on the pedal a bit."
"Ok, what do we need to move forward in the car? I want to finish out the trunk and be done with this part."
They looked pretty hammered by this point, and I moved on, not wanting to hold them up. I checked on Rachael, and explained to her that Darren would have to be with her when she went through tech, since we were using his entry.
"They will probably list him in the results", I explained.
"I don't care about that", She smiled. "Just as long as I get to make passes on all five days, I'll be happy!"
Well...at least one of us was going into this with the right attitude!

It was 4:15pm by the time I finally approached the head of the lanes, where Keith Turk was standing with the go/no go tire gauge, and directing people from the two lanes we had been in all day to the four lanes of cars in tech.
Just as I pulled up, he handed the gauge to Hemi Joel, and decided to take a break. I had no qualms about trying to influence Keith into putting me in one of the left two lanes, heck I may have even bribed him with a cold diet Coke, but I didn't feel comfortable trying to use my friendship with Joel to my advantage; in the words of Doc in Tombstone, "My hypocrisy only goes so far"!

He directed me into the right lane, behind his buddy Jay Brown in the 69 Shelby Mustang. This meant I would be teched by the gal who wasn't giving the drivers back the white sheet...not an ideal situation for me. I staged all my safety equipment on the passenger's side seat and floorboard, then sat the temp license on the tunnel facing that door. This meant if she wanted to examine it closely, she would have to reach past everything else to pick it up. I made it through the gauntlet of volunteers checking lights, horn, brake lights and signals with no problems, then pulled up to the NHRA tech official.
I felt sorry for her as soon as I handed her my paperwork. She had been teching cars for eight hours staight, and looked worn to a frazzle.
She checked the seat belts on the drivers side then made her way to the passenger's side. I stayed on the drivers side, and pointed out the cert, all my equipment, pulled back the padding to reveal the Snell rating on my helmet, and mentioned the temp license.
"Ok", she muttered then straightened her back slowly as if it pained her and set the clipboard on top of the Valiant. I watched as she signed me off for 8.50, then she handed back the yellow tech card, and put the white Drag Week sheet on her clipboard with a few others.

I pulled the car around out of line after my numbers were installed, and my registration/insurance info had been checked off by Tonya Turk and crew. I gathered up my banner, t-shirt, and goodie bag, then went and got Dad so he could sign up as co-driver, and get his arm band that would gain him access to each track, and the starting line area.
It was 5:30pm by the time I parked back in our pit area. Rachael was entering the tech area with Darren in the Belvedere, but Boone and Dale were still a good 30 cars back as the shadows began to grow long.
"This registration process is going to take more than twelve hours to complete!" I shook my head as I looked at Dad.
"Yeah, and they will still be working on the Duster when it drives under the canopy to get looked at!" he laughed.

Now through all the years I can't remember if you guys have actually done this - but it seems like a real missed opportunity to not save a bunch of the stuff that could be done inside the car for the trip and have someone ride IN the car ON the trailer doing dash wiring, gauge install, heck maybe even ride in the trunk and do that light harness stuff....

Billy, you over-estimated me. I could have been easily bought off with something cold from the snack bar.

Oh-oh. He's got the finger out. Now you're in trouble.

Jeremy,
It hasn't happened on Drag Week, but Dale has spent time rebuilding a Glide in the trailer on the way to a SST Divisional race back in the day!

Joel,
I figured you were the "by the book" guy, and Jeff was the outlaw...

For us, Sunday was a 14 hour ordeal of trying to get our four cars through tech and registration. I have tons of pics that share the story of two hundred cars sitting in the parking lot for an eight hour car show. For the lucky few who actually show up on time, prepared, and happen to be in the first hundred through tech, there also happens to be a Sunday Test and Tune.

Over the years, I've become quite jaded about the Sunday test and tune as it has become famous for the Drag Week ending engine and/or transmission failures that it has produced. Most memorable, but much less frequent are the wall slapping incidents that really put the screws to the unlucky participant's vacation plans!
2016's opening session was no different, with one very bad crash from a very unlikely source.

Jeff Pagano was bringing his 70 El-Camino back for it's third Drag Week. The big tire, ladder bar car has always ran Pro Street N/A, completing 2014 with a 12.54 average, and improved to a 12.03 average in 2015 with a best run of 11.73. He had stepped up his engine program for 2016, and was hoping to move into the tens. Still when you think of the cars most likely to get out of control on the big end, a high ten second, N/A, big tire car isn't the usual suspect.

While I was not even remotely focused on the test and tune cars, when you've spent as many days at the races as I have, you become accustomed to the sounds of sets going down the track. When that sound is interrupted by relative silence for a few minutes, the spidey sense goes off and you start looking around to see what has happened. Worst case is when you see emergency vehicles converging from both directions towards the finish line.

Reports circulated later in the evening that the diagonal link had failed or came loose as the car approached the finish line, causing him to lose control and contact both walls. Jeff was taken to a local hospital for observation, but was later released. As the owner of a ladder bar street car, I can attest that those parts take a ton of abuse, and I have been guilty of not checking mine over as often as I should, so this incident served as a grim reminder of what can happen.

Apparently some people do actually work out bugs and discover gains during the Sunday test and tune. The top pic was Ray's first hit, and the only time I think the car ran with the hood on all week. As much as I love the look, I guess it just doesn't work, because his second pass (bottom pic) and the rest of the week, was hoodless with the aluminum scoop attached to the carb.

David McKenna (OUTLAWD, Moparts) was making his first Drag Week, and was busy melting the tires on his 66 Plymouth on Sunday as well. With it's blacked out trim, this is a car that sneaks up on you, but the longer you take to check it out, the more you appreciate what a really clean, well assembled machine it certainly is.
We were way too over our skis to do that on Sunday, but we got the opportunity to pit near Dave and his Dad Monday, and enjoy some time to look his car over and bench race.

Good write up,Billy, as usual, thanks for doing it

A pair of Green small block Dusters were also making their Drag Week debut. Rick Trunkett's 72 featured a muted paint scheme with blacked out wheels, and almost had the low down dirty 12 second street car look down cold, until you walked past it and noticed the B3R decal that takes up the entire back glass, with the parachute hanging off the bumper. A peek under the six-pack hood revealed a massive single turbo.

Corey Pant's 74 Duster in contrast, possessed zero ability to sneak up on anyone. The in your face green paint is augmented with a bright silver 340 call out stripe that begs for attention at every angle. The J on his windshield meant he was in SSSBNA, and would be one of 13 guys trying to outrun Ray's Black Pearl.

Great Pics! Thanks! I had to break in the new drag radials...

Luckily I did line up for a couple passes on Sunday...on the drive down Saturday I was tweaking some of the WOT values in my VE table, but it was pouring rain during the drive so I never got a chance to lay into it. I forgot that I was fudging the transient fueling to try to get rid of the rich spike on the launch, so when I launched on the first pass, the thing nearly stalled twice because it had no "pump shot" at the hit...A couple clicks on the return road and the second pass was clean.

I don't think I ever saw Davids car with the hood open. Sano!

Yeah I was parked next to him at Norwalk, super clean setup!

Thanks Joel, Clark. I was battling for last in my class, so it was more of a 1 hit and split approach, which really cut into my socializing time.

It's been together a while and could use a little freshening up, but that normally involves making it faster, and I am not to motivated rip it apart to put a cage in it at this point in time.

it made little difference. there are 3 reasons I ran with no hood. My friend made the scoop for me at the last minute. I wanted to be as consistent as possible all week and last year I did the sealed hood so I went polar opposite

nice pictures. did you take them?

I know, I know...
Why does it take Billy so long to get started on his story, nd to make regular updates.

Partially, because I spend a great deal of time surfing the internet and social media looking for and collecting Drag Week pictures.

I only took 150 shots this year, and they are the ones that are grainy and out of focus!

The Hot Rod Staff, as well as Dominick Domato, and Will McDugle share many of their shots, but also many of the participants and amateurs as well.

Most of these are from ksj's buddy Bob Brehm, who pretty much shoots everything that moves, car or female, on Drag Week!

If I use ones with a yellow date stamp on them, those are courtesy of James Pranis' buddy, Scott Sprague, who is almost as prolific behind the lens as Bob!

Top pic: Find the gremlin...
2nd: ksj repping for fallen DW member Jake Brantner, and the Black Hat Gang at the same time.

Billy,

Where does Scott Sprague post his photos?

To say Bob is prolific is an understatement for sure.

Love the stories, keep it up!

Bill

thanks for the pics and the little story on my car gonna hope to make it back this year or next , had some problems with my car and my girls t-type

Hope you and Lisa go this year.I first tried to get Bob to go in 2010.Gave him all of Kyles 1320 DW videos.He still wasnt feeling it.He rode with me in 2012 and hes gone every year since.Not sure how many thousand pics he took last year. I know it was over 3k.I do know by Friday he took less than 350. LOL

Rachael parked the Belvedere beside the Valiant, Darren stepped out of the passengers side.
"Did you and Sherri get your arm bands?"
"Yeah", he raised his arm, "saw Clark make a test hit beside a Hellcat, looked like a good race."
"A red Hellcat? It's entered by David Kirwan, if you can believe that".
He gave me a surprised look, "The guy who usually brings the Starsky and Hutch Torino?"
"Yeah! Supposedly his boss' car, maybe they were like you and Rachael, and Kirwan had an entry and they really wanted to try out the Challenger instead!"
"Well, the Torino was always low twelves, high elevens, so it wasn't going to make a dent in the SME field, maybe the Hellcat has a shot."
"Didn't Clark change engines?" Rachael asked, walking around with goodie bag in hand.
"Yeah, from a Eddie head 360 to a 4" stroked W-2 deal", I confirmed.
"I think he's still in the elevens though," Darren added.
"Not surprising, he had that 360 combo scienced out pretty good, it'll take a little bit to shake out a whole new deal!"

I think I squared off with that particular Hellcat a few times over the week.

I had wanted tens right out of the gate with the 416, but between the car gaining 100lbs and me not paying attention to my fuel pressure data it didn't happen. It did the next time to the track after DW though.

The test and tune cars had went silent, and the sun had disappeared from view before the boys presented the Ruster Duster and the Gremlin under the lights of the pavilion for registration and tech. They managed a few halfhearted high fives among themselves when both cars cleared the gauntlet, but in all honesty, it was a joyless and suspenseless procession as all parties involved were simply too worn out to care at that point. The National Trail staff, the Hot Rod staff, the Drag Week staff, and certainly the 347 contestants and crews who would embark on this quest the following morning, were just ready to put what had turned into the longest day in Drag Week history, behind them.

Rachael and I had re-organized our junk for a third time. Our plan was to leave the 1-ton, two car trailer, and Valiant where they currently sat, and to take the Belvedere to the motel. Dale was going to take his dually, and Darren would take his truck, everything else would remain at the track.

Once again, I had prepaid for all the motels, but I had waited quite late in the process to do so. I was amazed to find a Days Inn with fairly inexpensive rooms within ten miles of the track still available, so we headed back towards Columbus' east side. Although the motel was just off the highway, it only took a block for a truck driver to realize this wasn't the best neighborhood in town. The confirmation was the fact that there wasn't another drag week car or rig in the entire parking lot.
We parked to the side, grabbed our stuff and headed towards the main lobby. A side entrance had a green canopy over it with the words "East Side Sports Bar" over it, and judging by the clientele taking a smoke break, and milling about outside the door, they were moving some drinks on a Sunday night!
"Way to go, Dave!" Darren chuckled under his breath.
His new girlfriend Sherri and Dale's son Billy were looking around with expressions of horror, but the rest of the crew took it all in stride.
The clerk gave us our room cards, and we made our way down the hall past the the rowdy bar crowd, and into our rooms. Things didn't feel right as soon as we entered, then Dale discovered towels thrown on the floor in the bathroom. Darren knocked on our door, and reported that their room door was ajar and the bed clothes were thrown in the floor, so we made our way back to the clerk with all our stuff, past the bar once again.
"I'm so sorry", the clerk explained with no surprise or emotion in his voice, "those rooms were marked as cleaned."
The two rooms this time were thankfully down an opposite hall from the bar, and were more than adequate for eight weary travelers. I showered second, and was unconscious before the next person turned on the water.

lmao....we stayed at that Days Inn Saturday night! fight in the parking lot in the afternoon, etc. we checked out Sunday morning, and stayed at a dive in Hebron Sunday night.

Still better than Americas Best Value Inn.From Saturday night til Monday A.M. the local Police visited 6 times.LOL.Thought I was going to have to post bail for Doug Garrisons sisters.

ABV was the dive we stayed at Sunday night, I think it was better than Days Inn. At least, there were other DW guys there to help out and keep an eye on things

You know, I consider Joel to be one of the cheapest guys I've ever met, but we have NEVER stayed in a complete dive. I'll have to thank him for that...

Day 1, Monday 9/12 National Trail Raceway

We tend to sleep in a bit, and roll into the tracks a little later than everybody else, but that isn't an option on Monday. The driver's meeting is mandatory, and thirty minutes after that all the tow rigs and extra parts have to be in the impound area. I had fallen asleep hard, but not with a clear mind. I was worried about yet another sorting session with all our junk and I was concerned about the Belvedere in the motel parking lot.

My eyes were wide awake at 4:30 AM, and I knew rolling over and trying to fall back asleep would be a waste of time. I slept in a pair of shorts, so I just pulled on a t-shirt, and slipped into my shoes without socks to go check everything out. Our vehicles were unmolested, so I made my way back to the room, took a shower and dressed, took my bags to the car, grabbed some coffee in the lobby, and finally decided I had waited long enough to wake the others without a full scale mutiny!

We rolled into the track with about forty-five minutes to prepare before the driver's meeting. The pits were abuzz with activity, and I was amazed at how many cars were there that I hadn't even noticed the day before. Something to be said for getting some sleep, instead of walking around in a deprived stupor!

Bill,
I wasn't ignoring your question, I was trying to find his pictures again! Gotta love the internet and social media, everything is so fluid. I can't remember if he posted a photobucket or flickr link on "Drag Weekers" or not, but I cant find them now!


I figured without the use of the Barnyard Viper, or the trailer she has pulled the last two years, it was going to be a fight to pare down the gear we were going to bring along, but the final sort went fairly smooth. We decided Darren could carry things that were non-essential to our cars, like the canopy, a cooler or two, the small barbecue, and food stuff. As long as he had no tools or parts, he should be within the rules.

Rachael was ordering Dale's Son around, explaining to him that if he was going on Drag Week, he had to pull his weight and earn his keep! We had rode her future husband Skippy pretty hard the year before so I think she decided a little rookie hazing was to be expected. We had all three tow rigs moved to impound before the start of the driver's meeting, and we had quite an impressive pile of junk left over that was going to find it's way into the cars by days end!

The driver's meeting lasted about 30 minutes. Three big takeaways were noted from someone who's been through a few of them. First, David Freiburger introduced Evan Perkins as the new Hot Rod Magazine Editor. It was clear he was going to let David, Brian, and the Drag Week staff do their thing, and get out of the way, so the tension of last year was gone, and I liked this new guy right from the start!
Second, Keith Turk explained that the racers were responsible for picking the appropriate class for their cars, and that he would intervene only if there was a dispute. Another positive in my book, essentially Drag Week is 350 Street Cars trying to complete an arduous journey, and no one enjoys getting beat over the head with a rule book.
Third, Lonnie Grimm was very specific in how the lanes were going to work, who was going to be in them, and that He and Sean Fling would be in charge of them from start to finish! "It is my goal to provide everyone an equal opportunity to get multiple passes each day", was the phrase he ended with. Once again, another positive, in my way of thinking, so far so good!

The meeting was over shortly after 9AM, and since the first two lanes were already filled, I figured cars would be heading down the track before I made it back to the Valiant. National Trail Raceway, however, hadn't scheduled the Ambulance to be on site until 10AM, so while we waited, the two hundred plus class cars packed every square inch of available staging lane.

All Turk needs in that pic is a Bible.

The first official pass of Drag Week 2016 was Dan Saitz's Turbo SBF 88 Mustang; yeah, a fox body with a small block Ford! Dan is one of the best heads up small tire racers the NMRA has to offer, so there was never going to be a question about his ability to throw a number on the board, but could he keep the monster alive for five days and a thousand miles?
Saitz's Mustang had an E on the windshield which meant he was in Modified Power Adder, the same class the Gremlin and Valiant were in. You could feel a collective gasp from all in attendance when the orange Fox opened the ceremonies by tossing down a 7.782-175.57 blast.
Fifteen minutes later Rick Prospero pulled to the line in his green Twin turbo BBC powered 90 RX7, also with an E on the windshield. Rick had won Modified Power Adder in 2015 with an 8.22 average, but fell short of the seven second times he had expected. Dale and I were in our pits when Rick and the Mazda lit up the boards with an astounding 7.53-189.
"You know if we can just stay within a couple seconds of them..."
"Yeah", Dale chuckled, "just to put a little pressure on them? Make sure they know we're right on their heels?"
"Yeah, something like that", I agreed, slowly shaking my head.
"Freiburger commented that he expected more seven second cars this year than ever before, and we've already seen two in the first twenty cars", Boone added.
"What exactly are you guys working on now?" I asked, as I realized they were once again playing with the wiring of the Duster.
"Installing the nitrous system. When we got through tech last night, we had all the lights and street stuff, the car starts and runs, but the solenoids are just sitting next to the plate with their pig tails. We have to wire them, put in a relay, a button, and a toggle, mount the bottle and run the line.
"Why don't you make a motor pass first", I shrugged, "You don't have any miles on it at all, we just broke in the cam!"
"I entered the Power Adder class because I intend to spray it!" Boone glared at me as if the mere suggestion was blasphemy.

Two of the first three mopars to record times on Drag Week were 66 Plymouth Belvederes owned guys by named David M., but that is where the similarities stop. Outlawd (Dave McKenna) ran an 11.66-114 in his 496 powered example to get his Drag Week underway. David Meyer approached the beams a little later in his Troy Trepanier built "Northern Bel" 526 inch twin turbo hemi powered version, a car that had already wowed on the national show circuit, and ran 199 in the standing mile. The 4900lb Plymouth eased out of the hole, then slowly built momentum, clocking 10.50-133.

Since it was obvious to me that Boone and Dale weren't planning to run until ten minutes of track time was left in the day, I decided to put the Valiant in the staging lanes. I was directed to the back of lanes 3/4. National Trail's lanes are narrow, but very long, and I realized there was no way all of us would run through before the supposed two hour cut-off. I decided to go watch from the starting line for a good view of the proceedings.

Scott Hendrix opened the show for the A-bodies with a 10.87-127.3, and unfortunately that was it for the gorgeous 512 powered Duster. I have no idea what happened, I don't recall them loading the car during the remainder of the day, so I'm not sure if the problem occurred at the track, or during the first drive.

Immediately following Scott down the track were the only two Plymouth A cars in Super Street Small Block Normally Aspirated, the gen 3 Hemi powered 67 Barracuda of Ray Meyers, and Cory Pant's LA powered 74 Duster. The Black Pearl worked the Duster over pretty good, 9.96-134 to 10.90-123 and both drivers were apparently happy with the outcome because those were the slips they turned in.

I picked the right time to walk up to the fence because Randy Heinselman's Plum Crazy AAR Cuda clone was up next. Vince Rasch, Mark Covey, and Randy have made a personal playground out of Super Street Big Block Normally Aspirated for the last two years, with Vince's Pontiac winning the class both times, while Mark and Randy swapped places for 2nd and third. For 2016 Randy decided the old RB 535 Victor headed wedge wasn't going to be enough, so he brought out a new all aluminum 528 Indy Hemi. Worried about dialing in the new combo, his wife Connie left her 69 Camaro at home and was riding with Randy. The Cuda looked phenominal, riding on new wheels and a tweaked stance, it had all the camera jockeys paying attention when he rolled into the water. The 9.87-137.7 right out of the box represented an improvement of six tenths, and eight mph over the wedge's best ever numbers, so you couldn't blame Connie for a little fist pump when the Plymouth lit up the board.

Vince has not missed a DW.Heckuva guy.

We were two and a half hours into the class car session when Lonnie Grimm made the call for a hard cut-off. That didn't surprise me so much, as they had cleared out rows 1&2, and were about half way through lanes 3&4, so those of us left in the lanes just figured to wait where we were until they finished the session of Street Machine Eliminator. Instead, Lonnie demanded that we clear out of the lanes to allow the SME cars to fill them! I was so angry when I returned to the pits.
"This is a bad move! Now everyone is going to crowd up around the lanes in an attempt to jump in as soon as they open. I just sat up there for an hour, and when the all-run session opens, guys who already ran can jump back in the lanes ahead of me. This is ridiculous, Lonnie has lost his mind!"
I slammed the door then looked at Rachael.
"You better get the Belvedere up there, because who knows if he'll do the same thing to SME as well!"
Dale looked at me like I was crazy. "The lanes are only 5 wide here, he really didn't have the option of leaving you guys up there and still give the SME cars a chance to fill the lanes!"
"Aren't you the guy who complained in your story about the SME guys not getting a fair shake?" Boone gave me a wry smile and a shoulder shrug.
I felt like they were playing me, but I couldn't contain myself, "It was a dumb move! It'll be a free-for-all the rest of the day!"
Their laughter did nothing but fan the flames, so I sat in the passenger seat of the Belvedere until Rachael drove it to the lanes.

Rachael was the first Mopar in SME to run, and she was lined up next to a Cobra, which I was looking forward to her outrunning. Unfortunately, something was amiss with the nitrous, and she only managed a 13.19. Not a good start for our first day, one turned away in the lanes, and another a second and a half slow!

A couple of other Drag Week regulars in no-bar mopars followed right behind Rachael, as Rodney Munchiando went 11.83-112.9 in his 68 Dart GTS, and Ross Dudley followed in the next pair with a 12.04-111 in his yellow 68 Road Runner. The number led me to believe that Ross had chosen not to spray the 440, since he knew 11.50's weren't going to get anyone into the quick 32 anyway.

Rachael pulled into the pit, and we swapped bottles just to be on the safe side, and checked everything out. I sent her back to the lanes as quickly as possible because as I had predicted all the class cars were creeping towards the mouth of the staging lanes, and parking as close as they could get. Rachael struggled to move through them as they clogged the pit roads and even blocked people in to get as close as possible even though the all run session hadn't been opened yet.

Meanwhile the mopar front scratcher triumvirate of James Reeves, Jason Trotter, and Patrick Culkin had so much fun on DW2015, that they invited three more of their crazy friends to join them. So in addition to the GLH, the Daytona, and the Shadow, Warren Hill brought his 87 Shelby CSX, Marybeth Kicsenski (thankfully known as Talongirl on the web, much easier to say) in her blue 95 Talon, and Teri Skrab in a 92 Spirit RT! All six made successful day 1 passes, but I had my doubts about testing fate with that many spooled up little twenty year old transaxled Mopars!

Marybeth struggled launching her Talon, because of the Drag Week requirement for sticky tires. Jason Trotter, who now wheels the Daytona actually raced the Talon in Drag Week 2013 to mid twelves at 110-112. Now the Mitsu has the power to run 124 mph!

Sharing the track with Marybeth was Greg Huizenga's 83 Jeep Cherokee which I posted an engine shot of earlier in an attempt to see how many of you were paying attention! There was so much going on beneath the Jeep's lowered body; a C-10 chassis, a turbocharged Gen 3 Hemi, and I believe a 4L80e trans. He clocked an 11.54-119!

Warren Hall's 87 CSX debuted on Drag Week with a 13.38-105 beside Tom Taylor's blue 79 sbc powered Nova. Tom's Nova has ten successful Drag Week journeys to it's credit, progressing from 12 flats in 2006, to 10.28-131 in 2015. Tom's first run of DW2016 looked to be another low ten second shot, but the small block let the smoke out at 800 ft. and the X-body coasted to a 10.55-123. Watching that car out of the event so early was a grim reminder of just how often things can go wrong and dash any hopes of finishing.

The Jeep has a manual trans. Had a chance to talk with them the last morning, as they were in the same hotel.

CP-Carillo's Ed Urcis is usually found at NHRA Division 7 races on the west coast behind the wheel of a D/ED in Comp Eliminator, but on Monday afternoon he was running his 2015 Corvette in SME, and making a pass beside Rachael in the Belvedere. She provided little competition for the ten second C-7, but we would take any eleven second run and move on!

You are correct, Jeff
I try to go off memory, instead of research and it always gets me in trouble! 6.1 Hemi backed by a TR6060.

Right before Rachael made her pass, the lanes were opened up for the final all-run session. The lurkers poured into the breach like Wal-Mart shoppers on Black Friday, considering the large numbers of Mustangs in competition it was a wonder Sean Fink and other pedestrians weren't harmed in the sudden rush. I glumly walked back to our pits, watched the Gremlin and the Ruster Duster drive by and realized I would be the last of us to make a run despite being the first one in the lanes earlier.

I drove the Valiant up to the lanes, and was once again directed to 3/4. Dale and Boone were in 1/2 which would run out first. The track was quiet, as they were working on an 04 Silverado with a ladder rack at the last turn-off.
"We're being held up for a mule truck?" I looked at Dale.
"Mule truck went 12.77 at 109, and the engine went away at about the thousand foot mark!" Dale laughed and shook his head.
"Another one of those 100,000 mile 5.3 ls engines with an Ebay turbo, I'm guessing", Boone added.
Everyone around was attempting to be calm, but looks of desperation and anxiety were not in short supply. At this point in the evening it was pretty clear, the cars currently in the lanes had one shot at a decent number!

Kirwan in the red Challenger HellCat, and Randy Juliani in his 66 Coronet were the last two Mopars to round out the SME portion. The Hell cat would leave National Trail with an 11.32-121 opening day slip, and mrrandyj's Connecticut based Dodge would lay down an 11.74-113.7.

They rolled out the tractors for a little starting line maintenance while the rest of us chewed our bottom lips and wondered if we would ever get a shot at the track.

As I mentioned earlier with Tom Taylor, previous success at Drag Week doesn't mean you won't draw the short straw on your next attempt, Drag Week is a fickle and cruel mistress.
Coming into 2016 Matt Blasco and his 72 Dart were the 19th fastest car in Drag Week history with their 7.70-185 blast in 2015's Pro Street Power Adder Class, with one bad day preventing him from an all 7 second finish. Matt had problems on his first hit in 2016, only logging an 8.79-140 earlier, and I was hopefully expecting him to return to the lanes any time now.

Meanwhile, twenty five minutes into the final session Ev Bernardo pulled to the line in his 90 Mustang. Ev was 12th on the fastest car list with a 7.45-193 way back in 2010 with an Unlimited 68 Camaro.

Just as Ev began his burn out, Brian Lohnes announced that Elana Scherr had reported that the Blasco Dart was out with terminal transmission failure.
I looked at Boone, "dang it, that was over quick!"
"All the upgrades to improve on last year...and done in one shot", he shook his head.

On Ev's first pass, Brian explained that the Mustang belonged to one of his customers, and the motor was a mix of parts sourced from previous projects. It launched and got up on the turbo so quick he had to pedal once, then it really started to make steam, and the small tire car was moving hard to the 1/8th. The nose dipped noticeably at nine hundred feet, and a smoke cloud formed under the car. The slight wiggle of the rear bumper let every experienced fence jockey know that Ev was driving through his own oil. He fought it away from the left wall twice, but it finally got into the concrete once just after the stripe, and again three hundred feet further down, but Bernardo never once quit fighting for control, and wrestled the fox body all the way around the final turn-out.
"He did everything he could!" Dale critiqued
"Wow...that went from good to bad to worse in a heartbeat", I added. The 9.18-118 was of little consequence at that point.
We headed back to our cars in the lanes, looking at a protracted clean up, and a narrowing time window to get a good pass in.

Four sets of cars after the clean up, Dale idled the Gremlin into the water box of the left lane. The 572 sounded much cleaner than last year's 440, namely because he hadn't pulled out as much timing, the plan was to hit this engine with considerably less N20.
As he was suiting up I had attempted to talk him into moving the hit further out, or running NA, but he wouldn't hear any of it.
"Look, the last two years, my opening time slip on Monday has been a 9.59. I have no intention of turning in a 9.59 to start this year!"

He left with the front wheels slightly up, but as soon as the N20 hit, it blew the tires off, and slammed the nose back down. He pedaled it once then stood back in it, it seemed to level off at 1000', but the boards flashed a 9.83-152.54.
I looked at Rachael, "He'll drive it right back up to the lanes, I guarantee it! That's eight second mph., he just needs to figure out the launch!"

Boone was up two sets later in the same lane, and he did a burn out across the starting line.
"What was that all about?" I asked Rachael.
"I don't think they have the line lock working yet", she explained.
"They've done nothing but wire on it for two days straight!"
Boone grabbed the nitrous about 60 feet out, and the 512 started shooting ducks, but he held the button to it all the way to the 1000' mark, and ran 10.68-126.7.
"Well...it wasn't nines, but it's a start", I shrugged at Rachael as we headed back to the Valiant.

Five sets after Boone ran Jamie Hochbaum pulled his Modified Power Adder silver 2010 Challenger into the left lane water box for his second attempt at Drag Week. Last year he failed to make it past day two with a best of 12.05-152, if you are wondering why I haven't mentioned it before...well, it has a turbo LS under the hood.
The right lane was occupied by Dave Schroeder and his Canada based, nitrous huffing, big inch 66 Corvette tuned by Monte Smith. If you remember my story from last year, Monte and the Schroeder brothers used Friday afternoon and Saturday to make huge strides with the car. They were hoping to capitalize on those gains at 2016 Drag Week.

While the Challenger sat on the line and spooled, the Vette left good, with a respectable 1.14 60', and was running 165 at the 1/8. Jamie finally let the Challenger go as the Vette went past the thousand foot mark. The board lit up with 6.85-199.5 but the chute never blossomed. Jamie had the Challenger humming at the 1/8 mile mark as the back of the Vette started bouncing on the big slicks, and Dave was obviously in serious trouble. The rear of the Vette hopped towards the centerline, shoving the front end towards the left wall and forcing the car to make contact at a hard angle, catapulting him into the right lane, where the car came to rest. Jamie cleared the traps with a fine 8.31-167, dropped the laundry, then had to navigate around the wounded car sitting cross ways in his lane. Luckily the time differences between the beginning of each run gave Jamie plenty of time to make the needed adjustments and navigate the shut down area.

Little more info on the Ev incident.Met Ev in 07 and traveled with him Michael Crow,and Larson, Houston Alford and James hughes.Last day Ev was winning his class and on his first pass on Friday he grenaded the tranny,driveshaft and 3rd member at 11:10 a.m.. lanes closed at Noon.He was leading his class and all the second place guy had to do was run a 12 second easy pass.He had a spare transmission but nothing else.He got towed back and we were all waiting there with tools,jackstands to see what we could do.Mike asked Ev what the driveshaft length was.Come to find out the one in Mikes 73 Cuda would fit.Under Mikes car I went.The rest of them started the tranny swap.As it came time to put in the 3rd member we found out it was going to need rebuilt so that was next.11:50 a.m. the swap was almost complete so I went to make my pass for the day.As I got to teh lanes Mr Second Place was just waiting to make his pass.He asked me if Ev was going to make it.Glad I had my helmet on as I told him"Doesnt look good."Made my pass and saw Ev heading to the lanes.I hauled butt back to the staging lanes and pulled up to Mr second place.As I did that Ev also pulled along side.The look on the guys face was priceless.Ev ran a high nine to secure the class win.
As for this year the car he had used to belong to a customer.It was a father and son project that unfortunately father and son had a falling out.The father sold it to Ev and wanted to see the car compete on DW.Evs first pass he had trans Brake issues.The second pass it was actually a broken water pump housing that caused him to get loose and into the wall. he did a heckuva a great job keeping it in his lane.Really sucked as He would have given Clark a run for his money.

The boys from Canada picked up the Vette this past Saturday. It was hurt pretty bad.

Flashing back to last year, when Billy mentioned we were struggling with the car.......well that's an understatement. This was likely an old Super Gas car or something. While it worked great with the 648, the 867 has been a struggle. The car is just unhappy. I was in Canada testing with them last summer and finally told them "it just won't work". So I hauled the car down here and dropped it at Chris Terry Race Cars for some much needed updates. Full double frame rail from 4-link to motor plate down tube bars and plenty more bracing. The first pass at Drag Week was the FIRST pass on the new chassis. I had it set really soft to just go A-B and it went 6.85, which was a best for the car by a lot. On the crash, Dave threw the chutes, but they had put new cables on and left too much wire hanging out of the sheath and it never turned them loose. Car has carbon brakes and he was on them hard. Once they got hot and grabbed one time.......it was over.

Looking at it now, it's a good thing we added the double frame rails to the car, or it would have been junk after the crash. Back on the jig at Chris Terry's, the car was perfect from firewall back. It just needed a new front clip. The body was the biggest concern, as that is a real Corvette, plus wheel wells and rear of body were modded pretty heavy. Richard Earle at Suncoast made us a rear tail for the car, so we just hacked the whole rear off to nearly the wheelwells and grafted a new tail on. That was much easier than trying to repair the crashed up stuff. Also whoever built the car originally had done some not so nice things in the rear and we fixed all that. We also installed new carbon tubs and replaced all the rear tin with carbon. New heavier 4 link bars, new heim ends and Santhuff struts this time.

They still have plenty of work to do, as they are building the front cradle to mount radiator and mounting the nose themselves. So as usual, will likely show at Drag Week AGAIN having no chance to sort the car first

Thanks guys, the input is much appreciated, as I can only scratch the surface of most of the stories that arise as Drag week unfolds.

They were fifteen minutes into the clean-up after Schroeder's accident when it was announced we were fifteen minutes from closing the back of the lanes. Since it would take longer than that before cars were sent down the track again, it was obvious that all of us remaining would only get one shot at the 1320. I kept peering towards the mouth of the lanes, waiting to see the Gremlin roll back in, but it never did.
Right before they gave the signal to resume sending cars down. Lohnes made one of his public service announcements at the request of a racer seeking parts help. "Dale Gebhart in the white Gremlin is looking for an intermediate shaft for a 440 mopar."
"That's the shaft that meshes with the cam, then drives the oil pump and the distributor", Freiburger explained.

I saw Darren walking from the back of the tower, so I stepped over to have a quick word.
"What happened", I asked him as he was walking up to the fence.
"Snapped the end off that drives the oil pump, probably should have changed the oil before he ran!"

The sound of cars firing up caught me off guard, so I spun from the fence and ran over to the Valiant. I tugged my jacket on and zipped it up, then folded myself into the car. The pair ahead of me disappeared under the tower, and I caught Lonnie Grimm's attention as I started pulling up.
"Lonnie! Can I pull over there out of line until I get ready? I don't want to hold anyone up!"
He gave me a thumbs up, and motioned me to the side.
This pass was too important for me to rush up there, and not be fully strapped in and mentally ready.

As an interesting side note to little Billy's Drag Week that he was sharing with his Dad, three uncles and cousin...he was also sharing it with his Step Dad. James Rawlins was well known to all of us long before he started dating Dale's x-wife, as gear head drag racers in a small town are a pretty tight knit group. They get along just fine, and both of them have stayed in their lanes when it came to raising the young man, so there would be zero tension on that front. James was riding shotgun with his boss, who brought a screaming yellow 2013 Zl-1 Nickey Camaro, which was pro-charged and nitroused.

As luck would have it, when I gave Lonnie the thumbs up to get back in line, I was paired with Jay and the Yellow Camaro. Just what I needed, more pressure. All those Chevy boys I grew up with in Oklahoma and street raced in my formative years, would all hear about this one, guaranteed!

Jay gave me a strange look as we approached the water and the first thing that went through my mind was, "I wonder if he thinks I pulled out of line just to get paired with him?"

I did my burn out in second gear, went to nuetral, cleared the engine, then purged the nitrous in the motor. I didn't like the way it hit, so I purged it again, then dropped it in low and staged. I'd decided I wasn't going to attempt using the trans-brake, so I could concentrate on getting on the nitrous at the correct time, with my hand on the shifter.
I left soft, the car left soft, but when I hit the nitrous, it started tiptoeing the front tires across the tarmac. Once I was in second the engine started popping in the exhaust. In all my years of running spray, and hearing other cars sound that way, this is the first time it had ever happened to me, but it was pulling hard so I stuck with it until just after a thousand foot. As soon as I lifted off the juice the engine cleaned right up and sounded fine to the stripe.
I hadn't seen the Camaro all the way down, but he was beside me pretty quick in the shutdown area, so I figured the victory wasn't a huge one.

The bottom pic is by Will McDougle and is courtesy of 1320 Video. I never crop a logo off a pic, but it in this case it was necessary to center the pic and make it fit this web site.

I have to say, I felt for Dave Schroeder when I started hauling the Valiant down to make the turn off. I've raced at 29 different tracks, and I'd list the National Trail shutdown area in the bottom two or three. My perception was that it was rough, short, and downhill, to be fair though that was the fastest speed I'd ever slowed from in the Valiant, and it doesn't have the best brakes! I was a little disappointed in the time slip, but it was a nine, and we would try to improve from there. I've got to admit though, when Dale was stuck with that 9.83, I was hoping to leave National Trail with the quickest run in the Family.

I parked in our pits and went over to check on the Gremlin, Dale grabbed my time slip as soon as I walked up.
"You didn't get me did you!" He laughed and handed it back, "but you did outrun Jay, that's a plus".
"What's the plan here, and when did it break?"
"I felt the engine sort of free up at about a hundred feet before the finish line, so I looked down and saw the pressure dropping. I just clicked it in neutral, and shut it off at that point. This is ridiculous with 4.10's and a 31 tire, I was at 7500 just past the thousand foot!"
"Did you find any parts?"
"Yeah...called Jegs, they have two, so I sent Darren after them, then we've been calling him about every ten minutes and adding things to the list!"
"Why didn't you send Rachael?"
"No time. Darren can run 90 all the way over there if he wants to, and she needs to pack, plus air up the tires, and who knows what else".
"Well...we should have her meet him when he gets back on this side of town...she can bring the parts back, and Darren and Shari can track us down some real food", I decided.
Dale looked around at the thirty or forty stragglers still in the pits and shrugged, "yeah, I suppose, you never know who is watching or taking notes!"

The call to turn in time slips as soon as possible came over the loud speaker once again, so Dale, Boone and I headed that direction. As we walked towards the entrance to the tower, Lonnie Grimm was standing just outside the door. I swear he looked right at me, then keyed the mic to his handheld radio.
"Keith Turk to the tower please, we need to check the tech sheets to see if a racer exceeded his ET limit!"
My heart was immediately in my throat, and my guilty conscience was working overtime in concert with my healthy imagination. I was still walking into the tower control room with my brothers, but my mind was completely disengaged from my body.

The last time Lonnie saw the Valiant run last year, I had admitted it wasn't legal to run under 10.00.
He saw me get prepared to run, and I had no gloves or a neck collar. We only have one pair between the three of us, and they were still in the Gremlin.
Was he talking about me? Could my paperwork withstand a thorough investigation? Was I about to be DQ'ed, or forced to take a 20ET/50mph and have my run disallowed?

I was sweating, I felt physically ill, my mouth was dry.
"Calm down man", Boone whispered, "You look like you're about ready to faint!"
Keith and another Drag Week staffer entered the room and went over to the corner to look through two boxes, one containing the white Hot Rod entrance sheets, the other had the yellow NHRA tech cards. They quickly pulled one of each and began comparing them. I was only two people away from turning in my slip, so I was away from the group, but Dale was back towards the door, and I could see him crane his neck to try and peer at the papers they were looking at.
"This is you on the left?" I heard a voice in front of me and snapped around to see who was talking. It was Tonya Turk with my time slip in her hand, although I had no recollection of handing it to her.
"Yeah...yeah, that's it...car 18." I stammered, trying to focus.
"9.91...That's pretty good for you isn't it?" She asked as she wrote out my official Drag Week card.
Dear lord...everyone was in on it, I had just walked into a full blown ambush!
"Yeah, best ever." I agreed.
"Congratulations", Tara Fling smiled at me as Tonya handed me the slip.
I just smiled and backed up so Boone could turn in his. My throat had just quit working and I could find no words. I turned to exit, and it felt like every eye in the room was on me.
Dale grabbed my shoulder as I passed, and put his lips to my ear, "I swear those are your sheets they are going over..."
I bolted from the room, and gasped in fresh air like a man emerging from a deep dive. I waited for the brothers to join me at the base of the tower and we headed back toward our cars. We walked in silence for about a hundred yards before I spun towards them and tossed my hands up.
"If they were looking at my stuff, why didn't they detain me?"
"They probably want to be sure before they say anything, they will just call you into the tower tomorrow when we get to Norwalk", Boone surmised.
We walked a little further as I was lost in a sea of points and counterpoints going off in my head.
"Not buying it", I shook my head. "That's not Keith's MO, you guys know that, he's never backed away from confrontation, if he had something he'd have walked out in that room and said, 'Hey Sugarbritches, get over here and explain this to us!, you know he would!"
Boone and Dale were laughing at me now, full on, uncontrolled laughter.
"Dude, get a grip, you are way too worried about this!"
I crossed my arms over my chest and walked the rest of the way back without acknowledging their existence.

Once back at our pits, Rachael showed me a facebook post from Duane on her phone. It was a photo of his computer screen during the live feed of the Valiant and the Camaro on the line. The caption read, "Great pass Billy and James!"
"Yeah, it would have said, 'the Mopar got sawed off by a showroom stock Camaro' if I had lost!"
Duane was Dale's classmate since first grade, and a competing Chevy gear head since they started playing with cars at thirteen.

For the first time, I actually paid attention to the driving route supplied to us by the Drag Week staff. "Two hundred and thirty-five miles, looks like quite a drive. Rachael punch in National Trail to Summit Motorsports Park and see how far it is straight through."
"They are ninety-four miles apart!" She laughed as she looked up from her phone.
"People are already posting on the Drag Weekers facebook site that there is one road that is completely blocked, and the detour adds even more miles. There are also pictures of guys following horse drawn buggies down a narrow two lane."
"Wow, this could get very interesting", I shook my head.

We noticed Monte was helping the Schroeder brothers get everything loaded up in their huge trailer, so we walked over for a visit. Usually Drag Week is so hectic that there is barely a moment to wave and say hi, so it was nice to take the time for a proper bench racing session.

As the afternoon goes by, these hours become like musical chairs in reverse. The guys who fire their machines up and drive out of the facility are the lucky ones. The ones still left on the grounds look at each other and wonder, "Are they going to make it out of here or are they going to make the walk of shame to the impound to get their truck and trailer?"

By the time Rachael came back with the parts to put the Gremlin back together, I had the Valiant packed up and ready to hit the road.
By the time Darren and Shari showed up with chicken and pizza, the Belvedere was packed up and ready to hit the road.
Dale fired the Gremlin a few minutes later, whacked the throttle a few times, studied the gauges for a minute then shut it off.
He shrugged when he walked around to put the hood in place, "Oil pressure is about twenty pounds down from where it was before that pass."
"But you changed out the break-in oil, with all that zinc additive, and who knows what other crap you added." I looked hard at him, trying to gauge his concern.
"True, and it didn't have any metal in it...it'll probably be alright."
"So...now you're at seventy pounds?"
"Yeah!" He laughed.
"One of these days I'll convince you to quit running gear lube in your engines!" I teased him, with a shove.
The dusk was truly upon us, but I felt we would be rolling towards Norwalk very shortly, then, to my surprise, Dale and Boone started working on the Duster's wiring once again.
"Good grief", I threw my hands up in disgust, "what is it now?"
"I really don't feel comfortable with him running down the road without an oil pressure or water temperature gauge", Dale explained, "and we need to wire a toggle for the fans."

I decided to walk around and check on everyone else still trying to leave before I ruffled some feathers.

Pic: Rachael never passes on the opportunity to kick an Uncle when they are down.

The extended cab Silverado with the ladder rack, was still in the pits, and parked beside him was the 98 Firebird that he was racing when the engine let go. I noticed earlier that the Pontiac had stopped at the end of the track when the truck was having trouble, but I didn't know if they were acquainted before Drag Week or not. Fast friendships and alliances form during the week based on like interests and sometimes necessity. There were four guys working on the truck, and two women sitting in lawn chairs. I was shocked when I got closer to realize the engine was stripped down and they were changing out a couple of pistons and rods!

Next, I checked out a SBC powered Fox which had made the last pass of the day. It had spent most of the day with the front on jack stands while they worked underneath it. It was in that position again, but the lone person working under it was sound asleep.

Joe Bouska's 7 sec nitroused 638 powered 67 Camaro was pushed into the trailer. He had a nitrous backfire on his first pass right at the hit, then had ran a mid nine second motor only run to stay in, but had decided to call it quits...word was they only had one good run on the combo before showing up Sunday.

Dad, Darren and I were standing around talking about the days racing for lack of better things to do, waiting for Boone, Dale, and little Billy to finish up with the Duster.
Dad was explaining how impressed he was with the Hellcat and I interrupted him.
"Why did you say tens? I watched that red Challenger make several passes and they were all in the 11.30 range!"
"Not the Challenger, the Hellcat Charger, it went 10.46", Dad explained, "it was that granite color, very understated".
"When Jim Sam was doing my alignment on the Valiant he explained that his new Hellcat Challenger was running 10.39 with a pulley swap and a few other small mods, so I guess I knew it was possible, but I never even noticed that a Hellcat Charger was on the grounds."
"They can hide in plain sight!" Dad explained, "Reminds me of the 66 Hemi Satellites...now everyone could see a 67 GTX coming from a mile away, but the Satellite could sneak up on them!"
Then he went into the re-telling of the entire story about his brand new 66 383 4 speed Satellite, and how he should have had a Hemi, but he went to a family dealership and asked for the largest engine available but they weren't up on the performance offerings. Darren and I rolled our eyes at each other, knowing we had no chance to get a word in for the next fifteen minutes.

It was dark, and the guys with the Mustang were loading up all their stuff in an enclosed trailer and throwing in the towel. A few minutes later they walked over to us and explained that they had paid for the Hot Rod VIP package which included a motel room at all the host motels. The package was not refundable, so they asked if anyone in our group would like to use it.
I figured trying to use something like that would be a hassle when you aren't the person that paid for it, and besides, I had rooms already, two per night, so I declined.
Darren's girlfriend Shari, however, looked like a drowning woman who had just been thrown a life preserver! She had spent just one night in a room that I had picked out, sharing it with my snoring Dad, and that was enough for her to realize that this was a change to score a major upgrade for her vacation with Darren.
Andrew was extremely accommodating, giving them information on each motel along the way, then also providing his cell phone number with the instruction to call him immediately if any of the motels gave them any trouble.

They seemed to be wrapping up the work on the Duster, and I started to actually think we wouldn't be the last ones out of the gate. Boone pulled out 5 feet of steel braided hose that I had seen him affix a fitting to earlier in the evening.

"What's that for?" I asked as he headed towards the engine.
"Going to drain the race fuel so I can put the pump fuel back in", he explained.
"Why not unhook the line at the pump?"
"I don't want to spill fuel in the trunk, we're just going to pull it off the return".

I was standing in the front of the car, while little Billy was inside to turn on the pump. Dale was holding a five gallon jug on the ground next to the passenger's front tire with a flashlight shining in it as Boone held the hose from the return side of the regulator in the jug.
"Ok Billy, hit it", Dale instructed.
As soon as the pump engaged, I heard a weird sound that reminded me of a cow pissing on a piece of tin. I looked immediately to see if gas was pouring onto the intake or the firewall, but couldn't spot any obvious leaks.
"Hey, something doesn't sound right", I stammered trying to get their attention.
Both Boone and Dale were staring into the jug.
"It doesn't seem to be flowing very much", I heard Boone mumble to Dale and realized they hadn't heard me or the sound.
"Billy! Shut it off!" I yelled, and waved my hands at the windshield.
Boone and Dale looked up as the pump clicked off, and asked what the problem was.
"You just filled the engine full of gas, that's the problem", I exclaimed.
"The sound I heard was fuel shooting out of the vent tubes and hitting the lid on the breather!"
"How could that happen?" Boone asked looking shell shocked, "It's a return style regulator, it should work whether it's going to the tank or a jug!"
Dale had the breather off and confirmed my diagnosis.
"What now?" little Billy asked.
"Now you pull every single plug out of the engine, disconnect the ignition and roll it over to get all the gas out!" I explained while chewing the side of my tongue off to remain civil, another freaking hour wasted because Boone is so tight he's trying to save fifteen dollars worth of race fuel instead of just dumping the pump fuel on top of it and heading down the road, which is what I do on both of my cars.

I walked a ways into the darkness trying to calm down, we've been through this routine before, when you get this far behind before drive #1 it is difficult to recover. Every minute we spent at this track was a minute less sleep we were going to get before racing tomorrow. I heard the Silverado ladder truck fire up, and everyone in that group was hollering and sharing high fives.
"Good grief, they can rebuild an entire ls engine in the length of time it takes us to wire up gauges in a Duster", I moaned as Dad walked up behind me.
"T Toad Hurley seemed pretty happy when he left here with his hood!" Dad expertly changed the subject.

When I showed off my new fiberglass hood for the '62 on Moparts, Aaron had pm'ed me about the possibility of getting my fiberglass guy to pop him one as well. I had explained that wouldn't be a problem, but asked how we were going to get it from Arizona to Michigan. He agreed to meet me in Columbus for DW day one, and as George Peppard used to say on the A-Team, "I love it when a plan comes together".

A truck drove up to the Silverado camp and a guy got out and started talking with them. I couldn't hear the words, but I noticed the truck had a National Trail logo on the door.
"That's the guy who's in charge of closing this place up", I explained to Dad, "We need to get this buttoned up and get moving!"

"It's not as late as we left on the trip from Tulsa to Topeka", Dad shrugged.
"True, but that was in your backyard, and you guys knew every inch of that drive, this time we'll be traversing Ohio back roads we've never seen before!"
"We won't be babysitting the Dakota", Dad added, trying to be as optimistic as he could.
"I'm not so sure the Duster is going to be any better!"
"Well...at least it will make for one heck of a story", he laughed and slapped me on the back.
"Yeah, but I'm not the orator you are...not like I'm going to have everyone standing around in a circle hanging on every word."
"You do alright, don't cut yourself short! Besides that you're a great keyboard jockey!" He laughed at his own joke before I could respond.
"Thanks...I think."

I drain the tank sometimes. I take the supply line off the bottom of my Magna fuel return regulator and the Prostar 500 pump will fill a jug in NO time!
What did they do????

Good thing you were there or they would be rebuilding the ruster duster's engine in the pits.
Which would be.... THE PITS!!

Don

Don,
It's a Moroso fuel log regulator, and it remains a mystery why that method didn't work.

We were ten miles into our journey when we found a Speedway station for our first fill-up, and it was already obvious that this was going to be a different trip than previous drag weeks. Darren and Shari were long gone, they chose to drive straight to their new accommodations in Norwalk rather than follow us on a wild goose chase. This would be my second Drag Week solo in the Valiant, because Dad decided to ride with Rachael. This came as a bit of a surprise to my brothers and I because he rode two legs of DW14 with her and swore he wouldn't do it again. He rode the final leg of DW11 with me in the Valiant and I thought we had a great trip, but I think he chose the comfort of the big B body with full exhaust and reclining seats over hanging out with his first born in a ladder bar early A. For the past three years, Dale has had James and his TomTom device on board to keep him and the Gremlin moving in the right direction, and fueled up with his very limited radius. This year he would have neither, and that made him a liability in just about any position in the caravan. Boone usually has Dad with him in the Barnyard Viper which was always super reliable and they had the trailer with them, so they made the perfect caboose to trail along and pick up the stragglers. This year with Boone and a rookie 13 year old navigator in a freshly built Duster, they were the ones who needed looking after, a role Boone was not accustomed to at all.

We pulled out of the Speedway with Rachael in the lead, followed closely by the Valiant and I. Boone was next with Dale as the caboose. When Rachael is the lead dog, she drives with all her attention on the road ahead, those behind can keep up or not, but she isn't going to adjust her speed based on anything that may occur behind her. Fifteen miles down the road , we had a half mile gap between Rachael and I back to Boone and Dale's headlights, but I decided not to worry about it, Boone would call if anything came up. We ran OH-16 for forty miles, a nice little shoulderless divided four lane that meanders alongside the Muskingum River. It probably was a very scenic drive, but the moonlight did little to allow more than a perfunctory glance to the roadside. OH-16 merged with US-36, and we followed the Tuscarawas River for eight miles. I was studying the Belvedere's lights in the darkness, and was convinced that they were dimming again. I certainly wasn't going to yell at her, as I had a year to fix that alternator plug and hadn't touched it, but I needed to stop her and get it plugged back in before she ran out of juice. We had to make a full stop to turn left on OH-93, and I used that moment to accelerate past Rachael and then pull onto the wide gravel shoulder opposite the driveway to the Agland Co-op.

She pulled the Belvedere up behind me, as I crawled out of the now silent Valiant. Instead of going to her window to talk with her, I went straight for the hood latch, as soon as I popped it, she killed the engine. I raised the hood with my right hand and reached down to plug in the alternator with my left. I had it in place when I heard the trunk pop open, and she walked up with the jack handle that we use as a prop rod.
"You need this to hold the hood open", she explained.
"I was just plugging the alternator back in", I took the handle from her and put it in place, "let's see if you have enough juice to re-start it.
The 440 cranked a half a turn before the solenoid started clicking. Dad stepped from the passenger's side and asked if I had the cables.
"No, but I have the battery charger...didn't we load the small generator up in the trunk of your car?"
Rachael had a look on her face that told me she was expecting me to be upset, and I was determined to keep it as upbeat as I could this early into the trip.
"Yeah, it's back there, I'll grab it!" Rachael exclaimed, the smile returning to her face.
"I'll get it", Dad corrected her, and moved towards the still open trunk lid, "you're in no condition to be lifting that heavy thing!"
"I'm pregnant, not helpless", she laughed at him, but allowed him to bring it up to the front of the car.
The little generator sounded like it was going to spill it's guts with the charger on forty amps, so we backed it off to twenty and the three of us grabbed some drinks from the cooler and walked to the back of the car.
"No biggie", I told them, "this will give Boone and Dale a chance to catch up with us".
The words had barely left my lips when my phone rang, I reached in my pocket and fished it out, it was Dale.

"I called Darren but he's already at the motel, and I think the generator is in his truck", he explained.
"He's already at the motel? We're barely sixty miles in!"
"Yeah, I know", he laughed, "but we need cables or something, that 50 amp single wire alternator isn't keeping up with the Duster, so when we pulled over to dump more fuel in the Gremlin, it wouldn't fire back up."
"Well, I don't know where the cables are, but Rachael has the generator in the Belvedere, and I have the smart charger in the Valiant".
"Great! Can one of you bring them back to us?"
"No, no we can't", I laughed, "because we are using them at this very moment!"
"The alternator plug again? You had one thing to fix all year..."
"Yeah, right", I cut him off, "Tell Rachael where you are, and I'll send her and Dad back as soon as I get them rolling".
I handed my phone to her and explained what was going on to Dad. A few minutes later the Belvedere fired to life and Rachael determined they had to back track about ten miles to help the guys. I decided to go on solo, and I could call them if anything came up.

I was only up the road about twenty miles when I entered the small town of Baltic Ohio, population 795, with one stop sign in the middle of town and a large mill sitting precariously close to the side of the road. I pulled up next to a couple of the large hoppers, and shut off the engine. The gentle, rhythmic hammering of the mill was comforting. I noticed the lights were still on in the garage of an old style gas station across the street. A young man was working under a pick-up truck on the lift, and a young woman was sitting there talking with him, looking at him as if he was her whole life. They were so content in their own little world that they paid me no attention at all. Ah young, small town love, thirty years in my past but I remember it like it was yesterday.

I took a couple of pictures then jumped back in the Valiant, and pulled up to the single stop sign. There were at least ten different large patches of fresh rubber laid down on the asphalt leaving the stop sign and crossing the intersection.
"My buddies left me bread crumbs to find my way", I chuckled to myself as I drove out of town.

Thanks for running with the story Billy.

I successfully navigated from OH-93N to US-250E, and then onto OH-21N in the span of about two miles, then had a thirteen mile run into Massillon Ohio to find checkpoint #1. OH-21 in the dark, with 50 year old lighting was interesting in that it was a fairly small two lane with mature trees and foliage crowding the road. I was happy to see the lights of Massillon come into view. I'm pretty good at the highway changes, but the in town directions screw me up when we are hunting down a specific stop, so once in town, I pulled into the first gas stop I could find. I fueled up first, 7.06 gallons, the math said 12.39 mpgs on that leg. I walked in and grabbed a 24oz coffee/hot chocolate mix and showed my route instructions to the clerk. She pointed me in the right direction, and I jumped back in the Valiant with a quick glance at my phone, 1:50AM, this would not be my last cup of coffee on this leg of the journey.

There were still a couple of kids hanging out at the checkpoint when I arrived, at 2AM on a September Monday night!
"There have been guys pulling in every ten to fifteen minutes all night", they explained to me as I sat waiting for the brothers. I didn't have to wait long as they rolled in about ten minutes later and we were all back together again.
"If Boone only runs those two big electric fans sparingly", Dale explained, "the alternator can keep the battery charged up".
"What temp is the engine at without the fans on", I asked.
"Well, I can see the gauge move a little, so then I kick them on until it drops back down", Boone tried to explain.
"The sending unit is just black taped to the radiator hose", Dale added, "we didn't have the fittings we needed for the Meziere water pump".
I ran my hands through my hair then tossed them up beside my shoulders, "Good grief! So...when the gauge moves?"
"Yep", Boone gave me a toothy smile, "that's what we're rolling with!"


PS. I didn't pay attention to the mural in any way, and now looking at the map I realize we were only about eight miles away from Canton, home of the NFL Hall of Fame...another missed opportunity!

Massillon is a pretty cool little town. It's where my Mom was born and raised. Been there many times on vacations. Always felt like "home".

In their haste to catch me, the brothers and Rachael hadn't stopped for fuel yet, so when they pulled into the first station after the checkpoint, I continued on in the scout position. I found myself on US-30W, which looking at google maps in hindsight, would've taken us directly into the town of Mansfield where the second checkpoint was located. The Hot Rod Drag Week staff however, decided to include a little back road adventure in an attempt to add sixteen miles and about thirty minutes to the overall route.
What follows is the tale of how that excursion cost the Gebhart contingent twenty-five miles, an hour and forty-five minutes, and one heated argument.

US-30 is a nice divided four lane, that allowed me to sip down my coffee as the 428 happily pounded out the tempo at 3000 rpm. We covered the twenty-five miles to Wooster effortlessly, then took the OH-3 exit towards Loudonville. OH-3 was divided four lane for the first four miles or so, then merged into a small country two lane with mature trees once again removing the moonlight. I backed the small block down to 2700 rpm and hunched over the wheel to get a better view of the road ahead. Fifty-seven miles into our supposed seventy-two mile trek between checkpoints I came upon a problem; the route sheet called for a right onto OH-97W which was to take us on what was planned to be a breathtaking and scenic jaunt through the Mohican-Memorial State Forest. The road was closed, with large orange and florescent barriers across the entire entrance, and a detour sign pointing back in the direction I had just came from, so I pulled the Valiant over on the shoulder, shut it off and leaned back in the seat to wait for the others.
Rachael parked behind me about ten minutes later, and I explained the situation to her, so she pulled out her phone and started looking for alternative routes. Boone and Dale showed up another fifteen minutes after that, then we all huddled around Rachael's phone and the decision was made to drive the four miles back to Loudonville to take OH-39 which essentially made a loop around the state park we were supposed to drive through.

We arrived at Mansfield around 11:00 or so, the same time Larry Dixon, and Crusty Nova arrived. Everything was closed. You guys got there as the Cafe across the street was opening for breakfast LOL. Wish I would have got the picture of Crusty Nova leaving there, as the burnout pulling a trailer was epic.

We were all of one accord in front of the road closed sign. Ten miles later, not so much, our Waterloo was the small town of Perrysville Ohio which sits near the intersection of OH-39, and OH-95. I was too tired to continue to lead, so I ended up as the caboose when we left. We were diligently following the OH-97 detour signs until we entered Perrysville, a town of less than 800 which is six streets wide and fourteen streets long. The hangup was that they had just finished putting out detour signs all through town to clear a route for Tuesday morning's Parade. The competing detour signs turned us all around and it felt like we covered five miles and about twenty turns to get from one end of town to the other.

Perfectly situated at the intersection of the two Ohio byways was a Marathon gas station, which featured two entryways from each road, two separate islands of gas pumps and a strategically located convenience store turned at just the right angle to handle traffic from both directions. Everyone pulled up to a pump except me. I always plan to be as close to empty as I can when I arrive at the track, and based on my first stop, I felt I could make it.

As soon as Boone shut the Duster off, he ran over to the Belvedere to tell Rachael how many times she had screwed up coming through town, and which way she should have done it. She was tired, and in no mood for his complaining so she lit into him, followed shortly by Dad. We had a full blown yelling and pointing argument going in the parking lot, with early morning commuters looking around like a bomb had went off. Dale casually pulled himself out of the Gremlin and started pumping fuel as if nothing was going on. I followed his lead and made my way to the C-store for another 24 ounce coffee/hot cocoa mix.
When I came out they were still at it, and I determined if someone didn't intervene they were probably going to drive back to the other end of town just to prove each other wrong.

"I don't really care where we've been, I just want to know if we can get from this station to the second checkpoint!"
The combatants exchanged a few more barbs and unpleasantries until I made it clear that all I wanted to know was if we were taking OH-95 to the left, or continuing straight on OH-39. Then I explained to Rachael exactly how many gallons of gas I wanted in the Belvedere, so she could arrive at Norwalk with only a few left in the tank. I retired to the driver's seat of the Valiant, and closed my eyes until I heard them all fire up to leave, then I followed them out onto OH-95 which would take us to OH-97, and the comfort of being back on the route sheet. Ten miles, in an hour and fifteen minutes...wonderful.

The remaining twenty-five miles to checkpoint #2 went by easily until we arrived right in the heart of Mansfield. A series of one way streets near the park that was our checkpoint might be easily navigated in a comfortable sedan when you are wide awake, but when I found myself making a hasty exit from driving up a one-way backwards only to realize I was driving up another one backwards, I pulled into a small parking lot to get my bearings, with Dale in the Gremlin right behind me.
We jumped out and stretched our legs, as we studied the route sheet. We could hear the sound of the Belvedere and the Duster echoing off nearby buildings, but couldn't see them.

"Left onto South Diamond, left onto east Park, left at South Main, left at South Park", Dale read from the sheet pointing as he went.
"That's just a big circle", I retorted, "we're going to end up in front of this building we are parked beside!"
I walked twenty yards to the end of the building just in time to see Boone and Rachael enter the Parkway from the opposite end.
I went back to Dale and explained, "All we have to do is drive across that grass and jump the curb, then we will be there".
"Or, we could drive around this route, come into the park the same way they did, and not hang a header on a curb, rip the exhaust off, and be working under the car for the next two hours!"
I slumped my shoulders, "I'll follow you then".

When I was in the planning stages for Drag Week 2016, I decided to throw in one "fun" motel. Something a little off the beaten path, not corporate in any way. It was unfortunate that I chose it for Norwalk on Monday night, because the ambiance and experience was to be wasted on six weary travelers who didn't arrive until seven-thirty in the morning.
I had chosen the Willard Country Inn, because the town of Willard was almost directly between Columbus and Norwalk, but the Drag Week route planners weren't done pulling our chain. What should have been a 26.8 mile drive to the motel from checkpoint #2, was in fact 46.2 miles after they headed us out of Mansfield on an easterly path towards Ashland on US-42, before we went back north. We were running about forty-five down the congested little two lane when the driver's side front quicklatch let go, and the front of my hood started raising on that side every time the wind caught it just right.
"If that happened on the track at a buck-twenty, my new 'glass hood would be toast", I thought to myself.
We stopped to fasten it back down, but the nut was gone from the bottom of the pin, and the only way to fix it was to remove the grille, so it would have to wait until we arrived at the track.

Day 2 Summit Motorsports Park, Norwalk, OH

The motel was everything I had hoped for, a friendly family staff, spacious and well appointed rooms, one was done in a cowboy motif while the other was train themed. We managed to each steal about a hundred minutes of sleep and a shower in the two hours we stayed there. Little Billy was the lone exception, as he kept crawling back in bed at every attempt to get him to shower. Finally he was told we were leaving and was only given the option to change clothes, it was pretty pathetic considering Boone had informed us that he slept in the Duster from the first checkpoint on.

"I'm going to find a tire store", Dale announced, "if I switch to the 33-10.5 W slicks, the extra roll-out will help with the gear problem, since I'm obviously not going to get a chance to swap out the 4.10s for the 3.73's".
"What if we hit rain later on?" Boone questioned, rubbing his eyes.
"It's not going to rain this year", Dale laughed, "and do you really think those lines on the ET Streets make a difference?"
The truth is, the Gremlin has never been in the eights on the MT 31-14.5 ET Streets, every eight second run has happened on the 33" slicks.

Sure hope you guys make it this year!

I entered 1 car, as did Dale and Boone. We may bring more and try to get in, only time will tell!

We had twenty miles to go to reach Summit Motorsports Park. When we pulled out on US-20 for the final part of our journey we were greeted by a large contingent of Drag Week participants already headed in the other direction, following the route to Martin Michigan. It is not unusual for everyone to try and get a jump on the drive the second day, it's almost a knee jerk reaction to what is a long Monday for everyone.

I have long looked forward to visiting Norwalk, and this fine facility that my friends in NHRA circles have raved about since the Bader's made the switch from IHRA in 2007. In a sleep deprived stupor simply going through the motions wasn't really what I had imagined, but that was what we were facing regardless of my dreams.

Ray Meyers and the Black Pearl had opened the day's festivities, collecting the first time slip of the day with a stellar 9.86-135, a full tenth quicker than his Monday's pass. No doubt he was first to turn his in, and first with a route sheet in his hand, needless to say, we didn't meet at all on Tuesday!

Shortly after Ray, Randy Heinselman in the Plum Crazy AAR with the 528 Aluminum Hemi would lay down a 9.76, also a tenth improvement, but his MPH was down two. He got greedy and stuck around for a second pass later in the day, and was rewarded with a stout 9.63-140.6!

Watching the live feed later on, it was understandable why so many competitors were already on their way to Martin by the time we arrived. The first hour of class car time runs had went by in near flawless fashion, with only Mike Burroughs' shredding and tossing of a Gilmer belt from his Pro-charger to slow up the action.

Corey Pant's small block 74 Duster improved by eight hundredths and a mph over their Monday run, carding a 10.82-124.5, likewise for Dave McKenna (OUTLAWD) who's 66 improved four hundredths, so they were both one, done, and on their way to US131.

The surprise for me in that first hour was the sighting of Ross Dudley's yellow 68 Road Runner among the class cars. He's always ran Street Machine Eliminator, and I know he had an R signifying that class on his windshield in Columbus, but you are allowed that first day to switch classes, and he clearly had a K on there in Norwalk. My guess was that he determined the cut-off for the quick 32 was going to be well below the 11.50 limit for no-bar cars, so he might as well move to a class so he could get the early shot at the track. Ross installed a small N20 plate a couple years ago to get him right on the 11.50, but this year he was back in the 11.90-12.00 range so I suspect he was running NA.

Great story as usual MoparBilly!

Right on the money Billy.

Turns out the 9.95-129 that Derek Mueller and his small block Mopar powered, aluminum bodied Land Cruiser ran on Monday, was going to be the highlight of his 2016 Drag Week effort. Shortly after leaving Columbus they ran into valve train issues that would plague them for the remainder of the trip. Thanks to the concerted effort of many other Drag Weekers, they were able to limp it into Norwalk, and he managed a 7 cylinder, no nitrous 12.32-107.5 to keep his hopes of finishing intact, although the road ahead looked bleak.

Drag Week was once again, unkind to the big Hemi B-bodies. For the third year in a row, Rick Callahan would endure a DNF. Last year, the performance fell off each day until the black 69 Road Runner couldn't continue. This year he laid down a 10.28-133.35 at Norwalk, which was the highest Mph ever for the big elephant on Drag Week, so I have no idea why he didn't make it to Martin for Wednesday.

Norwalk had to be especially frustrating for James Pranis and his Charger. His first pass was aborted very early in the run, then he was one of only two cars who weren't allowed to run at the end of session one. James would bring the black monster back around in the final fifteen minutes of the day for a 10.00-136.9, but the Hemi was clearly not performing to it's usual standards. To make matters worse, his girlfriend Lisa's V-6 Buick fell off to a 10.84-122 at Norwalk, after recording best ever drag week numbers of 9.23-148 the day before. I'm sure the decision not to continue was a tough one, but their DW-16 came to an end at some point Tuesday evening.

My Dad and I ran into Ralph at the hotel the night before Martin, I believe he said Rick's Hemi lost a roller lifter.

Lonnie ended session one for the class cars at 11:00 Am, and they had been on the track for 2 hours and 18 minutes. From the tower position that Lohnes and Freiburger were announcing from, they had a great view of the entire facility, and Brian had been commenting on the racers arriving and leaving all morning. In the ten minutes of down time between the end of the class cars and the beginning of the SME session you can clearly hear Brian on the live feed announce that the Gebharts are just now arriving. From my perspective, I thought we rolled in a little earlier than that, but as I stated before, we weren't particularly on point Tuesday!

There were three hours of track time left, and we weren't the only people up against it. The Mopar turbo-mafia with their stable of front scratchers seemed to be caught up in a thrash of their own. Obviously I didn't take the time to check in with them, but it was clear more was going on than usual.

Of the 115 Street Machine Eliminator entries that registered on Sunday, only 106 made runs on Tuesday. After waiting two hours for their turn to hit the Summit Motorsports Park tarmac, the SME guys printed eighty time slips in roughly thirty-five minutes, not only a credit to them, but the track personnel as well.
One interloper, Matt Grant, managed to successfully sneak his Modified/PA 2007 Mustang through the SME staging lanes and blasted an 8.468-165.97 in the middle of the 10.00 and up class, thoroughly confusing announcer Brian Lohnes, and everyone watching.

The parade of eleven second Mopars in the SME class started with Rodney Munchiando's black small block 68 Dart GTS with an 11.77, and was followed up by Randy Juliani's 66 Coronet at 11.79, Scott Abbott's 70 Road Runner at 11.60, and the red Challenger Hellcat with an 11.20-125. Clark Lamb's 68 Barracuda has turned in 20 official Drag Week time slips in the previous four years, but the 11.12-121 at Norwalk was the best ever, so the stroker small block build was beginning to show dividends. It took Charlie Ogle two hits to get an 11.15-123, as his gold Challenger belched smoke and struggled to an 11.83 on his first run.

I cropped and zoomed in on Clark to try and figure out what he' s looking down at as he hits the 60' mark of the track. Is he texting his wife back in Tulsa? Going on Facebook live? Perhaps he's got the laptop in his lap and he's adjusting the timing and fuel curves on the fly? Whatever it was sure had his full attention!

It doesn't leave particularly hard, and it has radials on all four corners so you don't have to steer much. I had done the hard part already so I was watching it on the live feed.

Actually the tach is mounted in one of the large rally dash holes, your picture makes a good case for a shift light in a higher location lol.

You had me believing that for a moment.

After the first eighty cars in thirty-five minutes of the SME session, I began to see guys coming back for a second run. That meant there were at least twenty-five cars in that class that weren't ready to enter the lanes when the group was initially called, with Rachael and the Shelby Dodge Auto Club guys among them.

Like his Uncle, Dillon Ogle had to return for another attempt after smoking the tires and getting his dad's Yellow Cuda completely out of shape in the first sixty feet. His second attempt was a 12.05 at only 98 mph, but he elected to take it and move on towards Martin. Susan Slater's Scat Pack 2015 Challenger ran a 12.35-111 to match the 12.36 she had turned in at National Trail, and Craig Douglas' 2015 Hellcat Charger went 10.40-132 in a heads-up race against Jay Williams' 2013 Nickey ZL-1 Camaro which lost with a 10.71-132.

Rachael ran an 11.97-113 on her first attempt in the Belvedere, and she was ready to go turn in her slip, but I told her to run again.
"Dad, I have no shot at the quick 32, and nothing to prove, so why do I need a better run? We took an 11.95 yesterday", she explained, as she waved the time slip at me.
"The best five day average for the Belvedere is 11.96, on the first year you drove it. You know the brothers and I are probably going to still be making runs when they cut off the back of the lanes, so you might as well take another crack at it, because I want a better average this year!"

I had the quick latch repaired and the grille almost screwed back in place when Darren finally arrived at the track and offered to help me.
"I thought you would be out here before us since you actually got some sleep last night!"
"Would've been", Darren explained, "But Dale called and asked us to drive over to your motel and pick up little Billy's phone and charger."
"That was a good little drive, I'd have just left it there and asked them to mail it to him".
Darren laughed, "Good idea, but he was the one who took the checkpoint pictures, so Boone and Dale needed that phone to turn in their time slips".
"Wow, that could have been interesting", I shook my head.
We looked up as all six of the angry little Mopar four cylinder cars headed toward the lanes nose to tail.

Only three of the SDAC group made it down before a third gen Camaro in the other lane dropped trans fluid on the first 120 feet of the track. Ordinarily you would expect that to upset guys who hadn't made it to the lanes yet, but we were hoping it meant Lonnie Grimm would extend the amount of track time available because of the clean-up.

In the relative quiet while they worked on the track I heard Boone yell at Billy to shut off the fuel. I looked up to see him once again standing next to the passenger's fender with his fuel jug, and the drain line once again attached to the return on the log style regulator.
"Did you fill the engine with fuel again?" I asked as I walked over, and noticed that the breather was off the carb.
"No", Boone shook his head, "I had my eye on the vents, and told him to shut it down when fuel shot out."
"Find another way, Boone", I growled through clenched teeth.
"I just don't understand why it won't work that way, it shouldn't be a problem."
"I don't know why, and I don't care why", I threw my hands in the air, "It's not working, so do something different!"

Rachael came back with a 12.36-111, so I told her to go back up for a third run, but she said she would follow me up, when I had the Valiant ready to go. It was only about twenty minutes after the call for the third all-run session went out that Rachael and I headed to the lanes, but it had already thinned out dramatically when we drove up.

I was a Molotov cocktail of nerves, sleepiness, sugar and caffeine when I rolled into the burnout box. As I staged, I decided to foot-brake the Valiant so I could have my hand on the shifter and my thumb poised on the nitrous button. The track was getting warmer and a little greasy at this point in the day and the Hoosiers weren't completely stuck at the launch. The Valiant body-rolled hard toward the passenger's side, and when I touched the button, it lifted the front tires and set them down well out of the groove. Suddenly I was headed for the center line, so I lifted off the nitrous and shifted to second as I cranked the wheel hard left to get it back straight in the groove. I grabbed the bottle again, but it popped and cracked all the the way through the top of second and the bottom of third, even when I lifted off the nitrous at eleven hundred feet, the engine never cleaned up to the finish line.
"What a pathetic, pathetic pass that was", I thought to myself as I drove up to the time-slip booth. 10.137-127.59 was not what I was looking for, but I didn't have time for major changes, so it might have to do.

Rachael walked up with a glum look on her face and handed me a 12.58-109.8, and a mumbled explanation that it just wasn't pulling hard.
"Let's see", I scratched my head as I looked at all the assembled numbers, "You went 11.93-115 yesterday, then 11.97-113, 12.36-111 then 12.58-109 today..."
"Yeah...and I wasn't like, lifting or anything, because it just doesn't feel real strong!"
My tuning abilities are questionable at best, I was far from being as cognitive as I needed to be, and my driver's input was vague, but even I could figure this one out.
"You need a fresh bottle in that pig!" I explained to her as I handed back the slips.

Fifteen minutes later, Boone pulled up in the Duster, and did a burnout across the starting line. He backed up to stage, then backed through the water box, parked next to the fence, and shut the engine off.
"What was that all about", Dad asked me as we were leaning against the fence to watch from our pit area.
"Not sure, but he never got out of the car, so it must be a problem with something inside."

My run had been a single, and Boone was staged by himself as well, but Dale pulled the Gremlin around beside Jeff Floyd and his 66 post Chevelle. We've known Jeff and his Dad, Gerald, for the better part of twenty years, since Gerald had ran his own machine shop and raced a 55 Chevy out of the same area we grew up in. They had been in constant contact with Dale, throughout the entire process of preparing for their own father/son adventure on Hot Rod Drag Week.
Dad and I hadn't expected a close race until half track, and we hadn't expected a smooth, non-violent leave for the Gremlin either, but that's what we watched. The board lit up 11.18-117 for the BB/NA Chevelle, and 10.13-140 for Dale in the Gremlin.
"What the heck was that?" Dad tossed his hands in the air.
"No nitrous, for some reason", I shook my head.
"That's all that 572 has?"
"That's all it has when it's running on 118 octane fuel, and the timing backed down! It left like a pig, and was rolling black smoke out from the eighth on, so it wasn't happy."

Boone pulled back into the water, and did a terrible burnout which barely rolled any smoke from the Hoosiers.

"Monte Smith relayed the story to us that this Duster was an old race car that the Gebharts sold off years ago, then it sat in a field for a long time until they had a chance to buy it back. They threw it together and here it is, with the field-borne nature of the car showing in those thin quarter-panels", Brian Lohnes announced.
"Yeah...those rusty quarters look like she has her skirt lifted up a bit, exposing some chassis!" David Freiburger added. These two make a bunch of street cars doing time runs way more entertaining than it would be otherwise.

The Duster pulled the driver's front tire, and made a small move towards the center line. Boone over-corrected to the point that he was out of the groove on the wall side before man-handling it back to the middle, he was late shifting to second, and early shifting to third. Yesterday it had popped and cracked from the moment he was on the bottle, this time it made it to eight hundred feet before it started mixing up cylinders, 10.13-130.
"So all three of you ran 10.13! Are we done?" Dad asked as we walked back over to our spot where Dale had just parked the Gremlin.
"Not by a long shot, Dad, the next twenty-five minutes of track time are about to get real interesting!"

Dale had only removed his helmet, and flagged me over to help him with the hood.
"What happened", I asked him as I lifted the hood up far enough that he could dive into the carb area with a small wrench.
"This stupid linkage isn't really long enough", he explained as he loosened it to make an adjustment. "So if I adjust it for comfortable idle position on the drive, it won't quite reach full throttle. I forgot to put it back when we arrived, and it wouldn't engage the micro-switch, so no N20!"
I started on the hood fasteners, as he jumped back in, and started putting on his belts.
"You going straight back up?"
"Yeah, I want to see if it works, at least!" He stuck his head out of the open door as he backed up, "Are you going to get another run?"
"I'm going to add some fuel jet on the N20 plate and see if that cleans it up any, then I'll try another one", I explained.
"Better hurry, not many cars up there, they may call it at straight up two o'clock!"

Rachael fired up the 440, let it idle then tagged the button on the shifter. The 440 snapped to four grand almost instantly.
"Oh, yeah...that's much better! I'm going to run up there and kick Uncle Dale's tail now", she added with a giggle as she headed towards the lane in pursuit of the white Gremlin.

Dale and Rachael pulled up to stage at 1:39 pm, exactly four minutes after Dale had staged for his first run. The nitrous applied at .01 after WOT on the Gremlin, and it blew the tires off and turned towards the tree. He lifted, gathered it up and directed it back to the groove, but when he jumped on the pedal again, it didn't engage the nitrous. Rachael had him at sixty foot 1.79-1.93, he was even with her at the 330 clocks when he lifted slightly and slammed the pedal once more, the nitrous hit and the engine changed pitch significantly as the Gremlin lurched ahead of the Belvedere. Dale's 330-1/8th interval was 2.11 to Rachael's 2.51, so he put four tenths on her in that section of the track.

The Gremlin tossed a 10.127 on the board with a booming 154.07 mph, and apparently Rachael was watching the Gremlin instead of paying attention to her own run.
"Lift Rachael, lift...it's on a good run", I implored her from the fence to no avail.
"11.41-114", Boone shook his head, I don't think she got off the bottle until she was in the traps!"
"You going to try another one?"
"I doubt it", Boone shook his head, "I wanted Dale to re-jet the carb on the Duster, but he's too busy trying to figure out the Gremlin, and I don't see a point to running again with it popping like that".
I don't understand why Boone always defers to Dale on the tune-up, he can build a 727 trans blindfolded so he should know his way around a Holley.
"I upped the fuel jet in my plate from 61 to 63...we'll see if that helps, and I think I'll try the trans-brake this time", I explained.
"My .13 covers yours right?" He asked with a wry smile as I walked back towards the Valiant.
"Yeah, your five to my seven, but that's about to change!"

Since it appears that all the G clan action starts after most of the other competitors are already on the road........ Without Billy's blow-by-blow account....... We wouldn't know just how much fun they're really having

stick around with them some time. it's a blast

Even though Brian Lohnes announced that we were "Down to all Gebharts, all the time" in the waning moments of track time, we weren't alone in making multiple passes in the final session.

Andre Miller has brought his baby blue 92 CK1500 Chevy short bed to Drag Week four years in a row. Running in the 11.60-11.80 range, he had no problem making the quick 32 in SME the first two years, but like most of us with no-bar cars it wasn't an option in 2016 as the number to make the field dropped into the 11.30 range. Andre didn't allow that to deter him from setting out to have the lowest possible average he could. He ran about nine passes in forty minutes until he recorded a perfect 11.500-119.2.

Dustin Gardner was absolutely abusing the transmission and converter in his 3rd gen back halved Camaro. It was driving through the converter so bad that it prompted David Freiburger to sarcastically ask after a poor launch, "Does that thing have a CVT trans in it?"
Dustin's answer was to make five runs in an hour, all mid 10.40 range at a tick over 130 mph, and somehow the trans fluid stayed in it!

Danny Roberts' rescue green 80 Malibu was the 2015 Street Race Small Block Champ. It averaged 9.52-141.8 to hold off Jason Tabscott's 75 Camaro which had a close 9.54-141.6 average. For 2016 Tabscott had returned with a new 70 Camaro, and the battle was on again. The Malibu left Columbus with 19 hundredths in the bank, but struggled mightily at Summit Motorsports Park, making quite a few half track runs before finally settling with a 9.55-137 that gave 9 hundredths back to the Camaro. Danny would leave Norwalk with his lead intact, but we were left to wonder if the effort to do so might come back to haunt him later in the week.

Finally we have Randy Franklin and his teal 64 4 speed Buick Skylark. My speculation is that he was in the stands with his buddies and one of them mentioned how many passes Andre had ran in a short time. Randy must've said something like, "Hold my beer and watch this", then proceeded to pound on the Buick for the last twenty minutes of available track time. He turned in a best of 11.68-116.8

Rachael drove right past our pits and straight back to the lanes. Seven minutes after she ran a too quick 11.41-114, she followed it up with a too quick 11.44 at only 97, completely off the gas for the last 300 feet! Now she was just abusing that poor 440, and we still didn't have a good number.

I staged the Valiant for my second run at 1:53 pm, and matted the throttle to put the small block against the 4K rev limiter. My right hand was inverted, palm out, with my thumb extended and pushing on the trans-brake button. When I released the button, my arm jerked up at the elbow as my hand rotated at the wrist, the end result of all this motion is that my hand ended up at side glass level, and it looked like I was giving the starter a thumbs up as I cleared the tree. The upward motion of my hand is mimicked by the front end of the Valiant, so I'm caught with my hand equal distance in the air from the shifter and the steering wheel. One side of my brain really wants both hands on the wheel while the other side knows we need to be on the shifter, and applying the nitrous. I located the shifter right before re-entry and grabbed the nitrous, then shifted to second. It pulled well through second, then started popping again in drive, but I ran it to the stripe anyway.
"It didn't feel like a nine", I thought to myself, " but it had to be better than the first run."
The time-slip read 10.22-130, which was a major disappointment, but I would have to sit down and dissect the intervals to figure out what was going on.

I sent Rachael back up when I arrived at our pit spot, but it was an anti-climactic finish to her day as she forgot to turn on the bottle and sputtered to a 13.06-93.

Dale and the Gremlin made their third attempt with just three minutes of track time remaining. He took my advice and rolled the timer for the the nitrous out a full second. The car left nice and straight and the transition to the bottle was smooth, even though it seemed to take forever. It was a nice, clean, straight run that lit up the board with a 9.18-155.

"Best MPH ever, for the Gremlin?" I asked Dad, and Boone as we stood at the fence.
"Pretty sure it was", Boone shrugged. "Did you ever put those sub-frame connectors in the Belvedere", Boone asked changing the subject.
"No", I smiled, "I had that set of Global West tubular ones forever, then I decided I wanted the laser cut US Car Tool ones that form fit along the floor board, so I ordered those, but haven't installed them yet."
"It's too late now...", Dad started laughing before he even finished his sentence.
"What do you mean?"
"You saw that 11.44 at only 97 Rachael ran", Boone questioned
"Yeah, but I just saw the score board, not the pass", I explained.
"She had that driver's side front tire just pawing at the air when she left!" Dad had his left hand a foot higher than his right to illustrate.
"Yeah", Boone agreed, nodding his head, "She had the old Plymouth twisted up like a pretzel!"
"How did that happen...it doesn't leave that hard."
"It does when she mashes that nitrous button at the hit", Boone laughed, "it was brutal!"
I hollered at Rachael to bring me her time slips, then thumbed through them until I found the run in question.
"1.549 sixty foot, good grief, she tried to kill it!"
"What is normal?" Dad asked, as he peered over my shoulder.
"Low 1.70's, occasionally a high 1.60 if she's on it quick, but this is ridiculous!"
"You should've drove it out the back Rach!" Boone laughed, "career best numbers right there!"
"It felt really good, I never get that many passes in a row, so I was just getting comfortable at the tree", she shrugged.
At my request, she brought me the log books from my satchel so I could crunch the numbers.
"OK, 7.029 at the eighth on that run. Her first run on DW15 she was late on the nitrous, but ran out the back door to an 11.41 at 122. That back half was 4.006, and the mph at the eighth was nearly identical. So it's perfectly reasonable to say the old girl could go 11.03-122 on a great pass!"
"But instead, you're turning in the first pass of the day that she made two hours ago", Boone shook his head.
Rachael shrugged, "I wanted to turn that one in and load up, but I guess Dad just wanted me to show him what the Belvedere was capable of!"

We decided to head to the tower and turn in our pictures and time slips, so as not to keep the Drag Week staff waiting any longer, since they had to make the trip to Michigan as well. I noticed people coming towards us with ice cream, and immediately looked over at my brothers.
"I haven't got my world famous Summit Motorsports Park pound of ice cream for a buck yet, perhaps we should do that first..."
"Naw! We'll get that after we turn in our slips", Boone and Dale answered in unison, so I followed their lead.

We walked out of the time slip room about ten minutes later with our official Drag Week time slips, and route sheets in hand. I looked at the back: 259 miles, ouch. Then I looked at the front and realized it was only 64 miles to the first checkpoint.
"OK, that's doable" I thought to myself, "once we get there, we can regroup and figure out if we can make it all the way tonight."
We walked around to the ice cream booth, with a couple in front of us, but as we approached a smiling young lady was standing in front and proclaiming they were closed for the day. I was about to protest, but took one look at the three elderly ladies removing their smocks and stowing their dippers. I realized they looked as exhausted and worn out as we did! Rachael sprinted to the nearest concession stand and bought four of their premade frozen waffle cone treats (at substantially more than a buck a piece) and we made do, but I felt like I can't really cross Summit Motorports Park off my list without another visit at a later date.

I tossed the trusty Harbor Freight moving blanket on the asphalt next to the drivers side of the car, and got down on it to install the side pipe. The Valiant was providing shade, and I decided to rest my eyes for a few minutes. The adrenaline of racing the car was long gone, as was the two hours of sleep from this morning. I jerked awake as Rachael kicked my feet.
"Dang it Dad! Wake up!" She stood over me with hands on hips as I rolled on my back to look up at her.
"You've been installing that one pipe for twenty minutes so Boone told me to check on you!"
"No...I just closed my eyes for a second..."
"Get moving, I want to get to the motel in time to actually sleep tonight", she spun on her heels and continued to pack the Belvedere.
"Hey", I yelled at her, suddenly remembering a question I had for her that had slipped my mind, "Did you give that empty nitrous bottle to Monte for a re-fill?"
"Yeah", she answered, "but he was packing everything away, so he said I could get it back in Martin."
"Good, one less thing we have to load up!"

We pulled into the 7/11 BP gas station in Monroeville, nine miles from the track, and everyone fueled up on pump gas, sodas, and ice for our coolers. It was 4:15pm, and for a change, we weren't the only Drag Weekers on the road. It felt like we might actually catch up to the timeline of the event if we could drag ourselves another two hundred and fifty miles without falling asleep at the wheel or breaking anything.

Our late night/early morning opening drive on nearly deserted roads from Columbus to Norwalk had left me fairly confident that my overheating issues were going to be held in check. The eight mile drive on US-20 to Bellevue OH at 4:30 on a warm, muggy afternoon, dispelled such notions in short order. Traffic on the divided four lane was heavy, so it was difficult to get the space I needed to keep air flowing through the radiator. To make matters worse US-20 necked down and became Main Street in Bellevue, and we arrived in this town of just under 10,000 as everyone was finishing their day, and in their cars. The stop light to stop light grind was pushing my water temp past 230, so I started looking for a place to pull over. I was behind everyone else, but I decided to let them go, figuring Dale and Boone would have their own issues with the heat at some point as well.

Like the proverbial oasis in the desert I spotted Cold Rush Dairy Bar ahead on my right. It was old style drive up/walk up place that had no inside dining. Instead it had ample parking and a pristine cut grass lawn with picnic tables. I pulled into one of the angled parking spaces and shut off the Valiant, but left the electric fans running. I grabbed one of the pillows from my seat, and the Harbor Freight blanket, tossed them on the cool grass and took a little nap while I waited for the car to cool down.

Rachael called ten minutes later to ask if they needed to come back, but I told her it was only fifty miles to the first checkpoint, and I would catch up then.

"I think the guys want to find a place to eat somewhere around that first checkpoint", Rachael informed me.
"Are you sure that's a good idea, then everyone will want to go to sleep", I reasoned.
"You're overruled, so Pops and I will scout out the area when we get there."

Checkpoint #1 was the basketball arena on the campus of Bowling Green University. Apparently we arrived about two hours before an event of some type, so they gave us a back parking lot to stage our cars, work on them, cool them off, or just hang out. When we were ready to pull up and take our picture in front of the Falcon statue, they would allow one car at a time.
It sounds like a hassle, but it really worked out well and went very smooth. When I arrived, there were about ten cars in the back lot, and only one had the front end on jack stands, so everyone seemed to be doing well.

Rachael had chosen the Buffalo Wild Wings across the street as our destination for lunch/dinner/supper. Wouldn't have been my choice, but when you are the caboose you consider yourself lucky if they wait to order until you arrive!

"Finally", I declared, "Our first sit down meal of Drag Week 2016!"
Rachael shook her head, "No...we ate at Applebee's after registration Sunday night".
"We did? I can't remember that at all!"
"Your story is really going to suck this year if you've already forgot Sunday", Boone admonished me.
"No", Darren shook his head, "He'll just make up some funny lie about me as filler to make himself look great and everyone will believe him!"
"You should remember Applebee's", Dad interjected, "You were the one who paid!"
I pulled my wallet out and located the receipt in question, "Well...you're right, Pops! So I'm getting a double order of wings tonight because the big guy is eating free!"
"Thanks Dad!" Dale gave him a shot in the shoulder, "If you'd have kept your mouth shut we could have got him to pay again!"
The waitress came around to get our order, but little Billy had his head on his menu and was half asleep, so Dale ordered for him.
"What is wrong with that boy?" I asked after our orders were placed.
"He's a wimp", Boone explained, "I gave him the route instructions when we left the track, and he read the first line, then was snoring five miles later!"
Dale showed me a picture on his phone, "This is what he looked like when we pulled into The Stroh Center parking lot a while ago!"

Almost as soon as our orders were placed, Rachael, Dale and Boone started looking up the results for the first two days on their phones.
"Where are Dale and I in Modified Power Adder?"
"Um, Dale is 10th, and you are 13th", Rachael stated while she scrolled up and down the list, "out of 19 cars in the class".
"Wow...that's a kick in the teeth! What about Boone, in SSBBPA", I inquired.
"He's 7th out of 9 cars right now", Dale jumped in, "and he's 3rd out of the four Mopars in the class".
"David Meyer in Northern Bel went 10.50 to Boone's 10.68 yesterday, so what did it run today?"
"Well, Boone improved to a 10.13 and the TT 528 Hemi improved to a 10.10, so you still haven't caught that 4900lb beast", Dale answered.
"Is that what it weighs?" Boone shook his head, "the Ruster Duster scaled 3250 after my pass today".
"Not bad. The Valiant was 3090 today!"
Dale looked over at me, "You got rid of the steel hood, the latch mechanism, the hood hinges, drilled holes in the radiator support, and only lost fifty-five pounds?"
"Yeah, 3145 last year, but I ran NA, so now there is a bottle in the car, and the driver is probably ten pounds heavier...hopefully twenty if those wings ever get here!"
"So, which Mopar is ahead of those two in that class?" Dad asked, clearly not interested in our discussion about car weights.
"Not just our class, the quickest Mopar period right now is Rick Trunkett in that green 72 Duster, 8.87 and 8.83 so far", Boone explained.
"Why is he in Big Block", Darren shrugged, "I thought it was a small block with a single turbo?"
"He's over the cubic inch limit, I'm pretty sure it's an R-3 block, 440 inches", Dale answered.
"But...what about Faraone in Unlimited...with the Aussie Charger?" Dad asked with a shrug, "pretty sure he's quicker than eight-eighties".
"He's really struggled so far", Boone explained, "8.76-182 on Monday, but only 9.59 at 87 today!"
"Wow, how does one just misplace 95 mph from one day to the next?" Darren started laughing at his own joke before he could get out anything else.

Dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings was throwing away an hour and forty-five minutes of drive time, but we felt better, and it was definitely cooler when we made it out to our cars with the day's sun a fading memory. Eleven miles up the road we stopped for fuel, the Belvedere and the Valiant took fifteen and a half gallons between them, and my receipt read 8:43pm. I reminded myself that we hadn't left the track by this point Monday night, so this was progress.

We scooted around the western edge of Toledo on I-475 until we headed due west on US-20. It was a four lane surface street with multiple stop lights though four miles of dense suburbanite shops and restaurants until it devolved into a wonderful little dead straight country two-lane through lush Ohio farmland. The remaining forty miles to Checkpoint #2 seemed to reel off effortlessly for Rachael and I. When we pulled into the crowded and busy parking lot of Phantom Fireworks however, Boone and Dale weren't behind us. There must've been around twenty Drag Week cars on the premises and apparently it was encouraged and possibly even expected that you did a burnout through the intersection upon your departure. I just assumed that the large amount of people with red solo cups were trunk monkeys, or with the Swedes in the rented Cruise America motorhome.

The green 90 Mazda RX7 that was leading Dale and I's class had the front end off and parts scattered everywhere. He had made multiple passes at the end of the day just like us, trying to keep pace with the 7.53 he had ran on Monday, but his best for Tuesday was 7.76, and now they seemed to be battling other issues.

Rachael and I took our required photos and moved out of the way. Dale and Boone limped in about ten minutes later, and needed to borrow the generator and charger for the Duster battery again. It was a little warmer tonight and he had ran the fans almost constantly, so with the addition of the headlights the 50 amp alternator just wasn't keeping up. I was feeling restless, and didn't want to sit there and wait while they charged the battery, so I agreed to run ahead of the pack again. I fired up the Valiant, studied the route map, then did my burnout through the intersection of US-20 and US-127 to appease the Gods of Failed Drag Weekers Past.

I'm not sure what the route planner's aversion was to driving in Michigan, but we continued to head due west on US-20, through the remainder of northern Ohio, all the way into Indiana. I pulled into a BP at the outskirts of LaGrange, a town of about 2500, more for a big 24 ounce coffee than for fuel.
From the text Boone had sent me, they were only about ten miles behind me and doing fine. I was enjoying the fact that I could clip along at a leisurely pace without trying to catch Rachael, or strain my eyes in the rear view to see if the brothers were keeping up, and was pretty sure they would catch me before I had to guide them to our motel.

Ten miles later I turned right onto US-131 and headed north into Michigan. It was a beautiful night, the Valiant was purring along, and the cool moist air rushing into the car via the window wings was just what I needed to stay focused on the road.

The group caught me about twenty miles south of Kalamazoo, and our motel was just south of Kalamazoo, about three miles east on I-94, and fifteen or so miles south of the track. As motel choices go that was about as good it gets with me.

There had been lightning in our windshields nearly the whole time we had been driving north and we unexpectedly caught up with that storm front we had been chasing just three miles south of our turn off for I-94.

I was following Dale when he suddenly reduced speed, so I shot around him to pass, and noticed he was pointing at the road when I went by. It wasn't until the back of the Valiant gave me a little wiggle that I realized the roads were wet. By the time we made it to the I-94 it was truly raining hard on us and we had to navigate the three miles of busy interstate without getting ran over by 75 mph traffic. I managed to muster about fifty out of the Valiant, but the last time I looked back, Boone and Dale were crawling down the shoulder.

I had the rooms checked out and our luggage retrieved from the Valiant before the brothers rolled into the parking lot. It was after midnight, but still a darn sight better than watching the sunrise through our windshields. We settled in quickly and agreed to sleep in to around eight or nine, figuring rest was more important than an early start at the track.

"Did Darren find his motel OK", I asked Dale before he started snoring.
"Yeah, they took the interstate after we left Buffalo Wild Wings, he's probably been in bed for hours by now!"

Day 3, US131 Motorsports Park, Martin Michigan.

I jerked wide awake at 5:30AM, and made my way over to the motel window. It was raining outside, which is usually not a welcome sight for a drag racer on the morning of a race, but I desperately wanted to sleep in, and anything that would push the race back an hour or two was OK by me.
My alarm seemed to go off fifteen minutes later, but when I went to shut it off it was clearly 8:30AM. This gave me just enough time to shower, pack my stuff and make it down for the last fifteen minutes of the free continental breakfast, and missing that was not negotiable!

Dale had asked me to bring my logbook down to the breakfast table and we looked at my limited amount of nitrous run data together. I only had six runs, three with the trans-brake, three foot-braking.
"The sixty foots are nearly identical, but the 330' E.T.s are better on the footbrake runs", I pointed out.
"I think it's wrong to assume the sixties are the same. The car clearly leaves harder on the brake, but it takes you so long to find the nitrous button that your trans-brake 60ft. times are identical whether you run N20 or not. Not the case on the footbrake, where the nitrous runs are quicker...so you are getting on the nitrous around 30 feet out and exiting the 60' at a higher speed, which is worth almost two tenths by the 330, and that's two tenths that we seriously need!"
"Yeah, I suppose, it's more fun on the brake though", I mumbled.
"Then put a darn full throttle switch and timer on it," he shook his head while still studying the numbers. "It's really not running well in the back half though...what do the plugs look like?"
"Umm, don't have a clue".
"What?"
"I haven't pulled one yet, but it's the same set I ran last year".
"I'm going to take you out back and shoot you! You want to complain about it popping, but you can't take the time to pull one plug? When we get to the track, I want you to screw a brand new set in it before you do anything else! Understand?"
"Yeah, I get you, new plugs, more nitrous...blah, blah blah!"

The first two days had went pretty well for Ray Meyers and the Black Pearl 67 Barracuda in SSSBNA. The only two competitors in the class that had ran faster than him Monday were out, and he had thirteen hundredths in the bank over his nearest competitor. Ray once again opened the session at US131, but he spun and only went 10.03. Fifteen minutes later second place in the class, Jeff Sias' 90 Mustang coupe with a stick, laid down a moonshot 9.79-136.70. Stuff just got real, and Ray wasn't going to get out the gate so quick on hump day, he still had some work to do!
Despite a nice opening pass Dave McKenna(OUTLAWD), decided to stick around for another run at US131 as well. His 66 was printing out effortless 11.60's.

Maybe it was an act of mercy from the suspension Gods...You see how far Lutz made it through MI...

As OUTLAWD alluded, Lutz, and a few of the other big hitters as well, were struggling to make a pass, any pass within the constraints of Wednesday's track session.

David Freiburger and Brian Lohnes open each Drag Week live feed with a "state of the race" address which, due to the rain, was a little longer than normal. They chronicled that 38 cars were out, but many of the quickest cars up to this point were dealing with serious issues, or hadn't even made it to Martin yet. Leader Jeff Lutz and his "Mad Max" 69 Camaro Pro-Mod had lost a wheel bearing that had resulted in the wheel snapping off the threaded portion of the strut spindle when it departed. 2nd place Bryant Goldstone, with his 6 second Javelin, was actively searching the pits for emery cloth to use on his BBC's crankshaft. Rick Prospero, whom we had seen working on his 3rd fastest 90 RX7 at checkpoint #2, had still not made it to the facility. The whereabouts of John Faraone and his 7 second Aussie Charger were unknown as well. Pictures of Michael Wenzler's nitrous huffing, Willie Rells chassied, 87 Camaro were being sent in with it sitting at checkpoint #1 as the sun rose. Clark Rosenstengal's 7 second 2010 Camaro was on the premises, without it's hood or trailer. Clearly, the next six hours of time runs at US131 Motorports Park were going to define what Hot Rod Drag Week 2016 would become.

Another thing revealed in their adress: The day 2 bump for the Street Machine Eliminator Quick 32 was sitting at 11.27!

Early in the first session for class cars US131 was showing off some teeth, as Shane McClelland's Crusty Nova and Brad Dyer's 72 Nova both did huge wheel stands, and a couple of other competitors tossed driveline parts out. Corey Pant's green Duster and Ross' yellow Road Runner were probably the first Mopars ready to hit the road for Indy, as they made good runs within the first thirty minutes of track time, and turned in those slips.

Many racers either start suffering on Wednesday, and see their average begin to fall apart, or they figure stuff out. It was as if Rick Trunkett looked around and decided to step up and take the "Quickest Mopar" plaque for his own at Martin. The Duster already had a pair of 8.80's, but upped the ante with a little more power down low and the R-3 small block responded with a great 8.56-162.8. David Meyer and the TT528 Hemi in his 66 Belvedere continued to trend in the right direction also, following up his 4 tenths improvement on Tuesday, with another two tenths on Wednesday, and his first nine second run. He turned in the 9.90-146.2 that he carded on his only attempt. Randy Heinselmann seemed to be happy with his wedge to hemi switch, as the 70 Cuda continued to lay down good numbers, leaving Martin with a 9.73-139.

Ray made it back around for a second hit in his Barracuda just an hour and five minutes after opening the proceedings, that's a stark contrast to the two previous days which saw the lanes stacked full early on. His 9.851-134.87 would ultimately prove to be the Gen-3 Hemi's best run of the week, but it still meant he would give up 6 hundredths of his lead in SSSBNA to Jeff Sias' Mustang, which had won the class over Ray in 2015!

Last year, I relayed the story of Pro Street Power Adder, and explained how a battle of seven second machines for the top three spots in that class turned into Tina Pierce taking second in her eight second Colorado, and third falling to 9.60s. In the first session on Wednesday at US131 Motorsports Park, the PSPA hitters decided to prove they had the toughest class in Drag Week 2016, and put their stamp on the top ten overall as well.

It started with Mike Roy and his famous maroon 71 Monte Carlo, which, after owning the class for years, suffered a rare DNF in 2015. The big Chevy had already started the week with runs of 7.69, and 7.66, but improved at Martin with a stout 7.60-187.2! Next up was Les Smith and his tangerine 67 Nova; like Roy, he had a DNF for 2015, but was solidly in the sevens to start the week, and took a huge step up at US131 with a 7.68-184.05. The class leader was Glenn Hunter, who was bent on avenging his DQ on the last day of 2015. His stunning red and white 56 Bel-Air turned in a 7.66 and 7.55 to grab a tenuous advantage, but that could all slip away if he couldn't match the numbers his rivals were throwing down. He answered the challenge with a best ever 7.51-185.57. Jon Wischmann was a previous Drag Week class winner who also suffered a DNF in 2015 and was looking for redemption. He was trying to keep pace in Pro Street Power Adder, and his 7.70-185 was also a best for his 67 Camaro, and meant he would leave Martin in a virtual tie for third with Smith.

The good numbers weren't just limited to the PSPA class, Devin Yankey's 67 Nova Ultimate Iron entry improved by two tenths to an 8.02-172 and was poised to take the class lead if Goldstone couldn't get the crank right in the Javelin. The Swedes in their tiny Unlimited class Opal Ascona put down a perfect front-wheels-a-foot-off-the-ground-for-the-first-sixty-foot launch, and ran 8.03-167.91, achingly close to their stated 7.99 goal, and were left to wonder if Lutz and Wenzler's misfortunes would leave them in the class lead. Wenzler would answer the call before the end of the first session and lay down an impressive 7.61-178, after driving straight through with no sleep.

The hits just kept coming in that first two hours, while four of the quickest cars of the event were either thrashing in the pits or hadn't arrived, and it had to be killing them to know a perfect opportunity was passing them by. You would think that sense of urgency would have extended to the Gebhart family, but strangely, it did not. We rolled in at 10:45 AM and parked all five of our cars evenly spaced on the absolutely beautifully manicured pit grass. The perfect weather, and the picturesque surroundings, combined with a decent night's sleep and a hearty breakfast had us in a laid back, enjoyable mood bordering on euphoria. We unloaded the stuff from our cars and began working on them with the silent understanding that all of us would most likely be making hits in the final thirty minutes of available track time.

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.

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?"

I'm only seeing pictures from the track, to the gas station at the entrance of the track. Nothing more to see here. LOL.

That's awesome.

Thats great!

I let Rachael take the lead as we left Martin, and it wasn't long before I was at 3200 rpm just trying to keep her in view. We covered a hundred and five miles, including state routes and a few stop light to stop light towns in just a tick over two hours. Google maps claims you can do it in an hour and fifty-seven minutes without traffic; there was traffic, and plenty of it.
We pulled into La Paz Indiana, and fueled up both cars while Rachael went in and grabbed us some Arby's. She brought it out and handed Dad and I our orders, then plopped back behind the wheel of the Belvedere.
"We don't have time to sit down and eat?" Dad shrugged his shoulders at me as we both cleaned our windshields.
"I guess not Dad", I shook my head, "She must have a hot date in Indy!"

It was 11 miles to Checkpoint #1, a restored Mobil Gas station in Plymouth Indiana, our instructions had the line, "building is locked but everything can be observed from the windows" on it, but apparently the proprietor had heard about what was going on and had the place wide open, with a bunch of friends gathered, and was enjoying all the cars coming through like it was a major holiday! He invited us to drive a block off the route to check out his old time garage, malt shop, and barber shop as well, but we decided to move on.

I called Boone, and he explained that they had stopped to switch cars, then lost a phone, then stopped to eat, and basically they were already fifty miles behind us.

According to the time stamps on the pictures, Boone, Dale and Billy arrived at checkpoint 1 a full hour later than we did, but even so they did the full tour of the place. Then the Duster wouldn't start (fans were on full time because the new bumper blocked the lower half of the radiator) so the owner of the station had them push it down to his old time garage a block away, and charged the battery while they perused that establishment as well.

We covered the fifty miles to Checkpoint #2, A bull statue at the Mr. Happy Burger in Logansport Indiana, in just over an hour. Rachael had missed at least one of the turns out of the right, left, left coming into town and we got crossed up for a few blocks until we saw other Drag Weekers and just followed them. I pulled up relatively close so I could get a decent picture in the dark, but Rachael parked back further. She was walking towards me, the two or three other Drag weekers, and a crowd of 15 or so locals when I made a joke about her getting us lost.
She was instantly belligerent and yelled, "If these podunk little towns would take care of their street signs, I wouldn't have to drive around like an idiot! One of those poles didn't even have anything on top of it!"
I was as furious with her in a flash as I was last year, and I promised myself that wouldn't happen again. I spun on my heels, marched directly at her, and grabbed the back of her arm as I met her.
"Come with me...right now", I blurted out.
"Hey...that hurts!"
"I'm sure it does", I relaxed my grip as she turned and followed me across the street, out of earshot from the crowd.
"Some of those people in that crowd probably grew up here, and are proud to call this place home. They take time out of their day to come here and greet the Drag Week cars, and the first words out of your mouth is to denigrate their home? Does that represent the Spirit of Drag Week? Does that represent this sport, your home, your family?"
"No, I...no it doesn't", She looked away, then looked at the ground.
"Then get over there, play nice, and be your normal, jovial self...and get your pictures so we can get back on the road!"
The directions for leaving Logansport had a left-right-left-right sequence as well, but Rachael showed me an alternate route on her phone that was a mile or two longer but would only require one turn.
"Sure, we can do that if you like", I agreed.
We hadn't driven a mile when my phone rang, I dug it out and it was Pops.
"Yeah Dad, what's up."
"Listen. Rachael is driving off-route, and she won't listen to me. The Motor-home that's been driving the whole route is following us, and she is going to get us disqualified!"
"OK Dad! Tell her to pull over on the shoulder immediately, and I'll take care of it!"
"Alright Son, I'll tell her!"
"Great, my Dad is calling me on the phone to tattle on my Daughter! Which one do I put in time out? Do I need to separate them? I've truly entered the Twilight Zone", I thought to myself.
The Motor-home drove around them, and I pulled in behind them, got out and approached the passenger's side. Dad held up the route sheet and was pointing at it as soon as I walked up to his window.
"Don't worry about the Cruise America Coach Dad, that's just a bunch of Swedes that wanted to follow along."
"Ok, but we're still off route..."
"I understand that, but only for three miles", I pointed at his sheet for emphasis, "then we will come out on this line where it says Indiana 29".
"So we'll be good on the route from there?" Dad confirmed with his finger.
"Yeah, but let me go get the confirmation sheet for the motel, that way we can just drive to it when we get close", I smiled at him and patted his shoulder, "For the first time in the history of Drag Week, I finally got one that's on the route, before we arrive at the track!"
After I gave them the motel information and got back in the Valiant, I finally exhaled. Rachael had remained completely quiet during the entire exchange, and hadn't made eye contact with either of us. I didn't think she had that kind of self-control, but I was thankful for it; then again she might have been planning our deaths!

We rolled up to the Baymont Inn and Suites in Indianapolis a little after midnight, and Rachael was snoring in bed thirty minutes later. She had pretty much carried her bag to the room, showered, and crawled between the sheets, without muttering more than five words. I was beginning to suspect that her actions and mood of the entire evening was based on nothing else other than pure exhaustion!

I took my shower then called Boone to see where they were at. They had just left Logansport, so I gave them the exit number for the motel and went to bed with the phone near my head.
I'm not sure if Boone's call woke me, or if it was the rumbling of the Gremlin entering the parking lot. I pulled on a t-shirt, and went to open the door at the end of the building to let them in, so they wouldn't have to walk around to the lobby.
"It was nice of Rachael to leave the lights of the Belvedere on for us to find our way in here", Boone shook his head as he entered the door.
"You're kidding!"
"Nope", Dale laughed, and set down his first armload just inside the door, "we were trying to figure out which parking lot went to this motel, and there was the Belvedere with it's lights on!"
He headed back out to the Gremlin, so I looked back at Boone and shrugged, "What took you guys so long?"
"Dale lost a bolt out of his ladder bar, so we spent some time at a gas station repairing that. Other than that it was a pretty smooth trip".
I gave Dale and Billy the spare key card to Dad's room, then Boone and I returned to ours. I fell asleep almost as soon as he started his shower.

2nd pic: Duster oil change residue, next morning...

Day 4, Lucas Oil Raceway, Indianapolis, Indiana
We were sticking with our plan, sleep in late, show up, make our hits in the last hour, and hope that was good enough.

Dave McKenna (OUTLAWD), Ray Meyers (sixpackgut), and Ross Dudley (ross) were sticking with theirs too. Ray and Dave squared off in the third set down the fabled 1320. Dave treed the flat black Barracuda, then put his 66 through the traps at 11.63-114.9. Ray and the Black Pearl drove around the grey Belvedere early on, but his 9.96-134.2 wasn't going to be good enough to hold off Sias' Mustang, so he would be back for another.

Ross pulled his Road Runner alongside Dennis Taylor's Retro Nova a few pairs later. Ross was good with his 11.95-111, but despite running nine seconds quicker than the pass he turned in on Wednesday, Taylor would come back for more after going 8.15-171.

Dale, Boone and I were gathered at a small round table in the continental breakfast area, tossing down synthesized juice and carbs. Dale looked pretty hammered, and I was trying to get an explanation as to how we arrived at the motel several hours ahead of them.
"It started when Boone lost his phone after we stopped to switch cars", Dale explained.
"I was following Dale in the Gremlin and I was driving the Duster again, when we went over a set of railroad tracks and I saw something black fly off the roof of his car. Several miles later I decided I better try to call him and figure out if it was anything important, and as Billy and I rummaged through the Duster looking for my phone, that's when it hit me that I left it on the Gremlin!"
Dale nodded in agreement as he swallowed another bite, "So, at that point, he's following Darren and I, but he can't call us to pull over, so we were another five miles down the road before we stopped."
Boone furthered the story as Dale forked another section of his double stacked waffle, "We talked Darren and Shari into returning to look for the phone, while we stopped in the next town and had supper at KFC."
"KFC?" I looked between the two of them, incredulous, "That's the best you could do?"
"Billy's choice", Boone explained, "He was pretty adamant as soon as he saw the sign, so we just went with it".
"Where did you guys stop and eat, that was so much better than KFC", Dale asked with a knowing smile.
"We didn't, Rachael got us Arby's to go, but you knew that already. Dad must've said something", I discerned.
Dale laughed, "Yeah, he said she was moody, driving off course, wouldn't stop...he didn't sound too happy with her, when we were talking in the room."
"She really got under his skin yesterday", I explained, "I thought I might have to make Dad ride with me for a while, but we made it."
"We have to thank her for the homing beacon she left on that allowed us to find the motel though", Boone laughed.
"What do you mean?"
Dale stuck his hand up to cut Boone off, "So we took the exit like you said, then we turned right at the first street, but there are three motels and four restaurants around here, with all the parking lots intertwined, so we pulled beside each other to figure out which one we were supposed to be in."
It was a race to see who would get to the punch line apparently, and Boone took the lead at this point.
"So I told Dale that it looked like a Drag Week car sitting in the far lot with it's head lights on!"
"We drive over to investigate, and it's the Belvedere...headlights on, driver's door open about a foot, just sitting there!" Dale finished with a flourish.
"Wonderful", I exhaled, "That had to be a good two hours after we arrived!"
"Probably two and a half, because we had more issues after the second checkpoint", Dale continued.

billy, do you know [or anyone else for that matter] any details on that "rat" 46-48 plymouth "coupe" ? is that a shortened sedan perhaps ? what about power plant info ? times it ran ? thanks all !

moparx,
That's Matt Donovan's "41 Pontiac", it's been shortened 21 inches, and the front clip has been pie wedged. It sits on an S-10 frame with a 388 SBC for power. He's ran 11.6 with it previously, but a blown head gasket kept him in the 13's for Drag week '16. He has ran Drag Week in the past with a beautiful 70 GTO Judge.

My phone case has a magnet built into it, it's a pretty handy feature. However it causes as many bonehead moves as it prevents. It's kind of a helpless feeling when you see your wife drive off with your phone stuck to the side of her car.

"What happened to you at the second checkpoint?" I implored Dale to elaborate, but the waffle had his attention again.
"We actually weren't at the second checkpoint too long", Boone took over the discussion, "it was a pretty crazy scene there, so we left pretty quick!"
"What do you mean", I asked, deciding not to explain how it went for us, as I was in full information gathering mode at that point.
"There a was a local police car in the parking lot, and an officer in full gear, so we assumed he was on duty, but he was clearly a car enthusiast. Still, we were on our best behavior when we pulled in. Then crazy Nick climbed all the way to the top of the bull statue to take pictures. Right after that Clark pulled out in his seven second Camaro, and does an eighty foot burnout leaving the place, so we decided not to hang around too long and tempt fate!"
"Yeah, but it was Nick Plewniak and Jeffrey Lutz in that little Honda that saved our butts an hour later in a gas station parking lot!" Dale jumped back into the story, as he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.
"How was that?"
"Well, Darren and Shari baled on us after the second checkpoint, so Boone and Billy were leading and I was following along in the Gremlin", Dale explained.
"He was slow as heck and I had to keep waiting up for him", Boone interjected.
"I just chalked it up to being really tired at that point", Dale shrugged, "but I could barely keep the Gremlin in my lane at anything over about fifty mph, it just seemed like it was taking way more effort than usual."
"We pulled into a station beside the Honda a few miles later, so I could try to wake up, and Nick noticed that my passenger's side slick was rubbing on the front of the wheel well", Dale shook his head.
"Between the three cars, all we had was my little 2 ton Walmart floor jack", Boone laughed, "which wouldn't even raise the Gremlin up high enough for Dale to get under it!"
"So I looked under, and the bolt on the front of the ladder bar is gone. Then Nick crawls under enough to see the backside, and finds the bolt lodged between the bracket and the bar, but we still have to shove the rear end back far enough to get the bolt lined back up and worked through the brackets and the rod end."
"Mind you", Boone jumped in gesturing with his hands, "all this is taking place with the car supported on this spindly little jack with 12 inches of travel, and not a jack stand to be had!"
"Nick, all 5'5" and a buck thirty, crawled under the car, and is using his leg to push back on the rear end with all his might, while I tried to reach under enough to fish the bolt through", Boone continued, "It was pretty sketchy!"
"I was holding onto the car with a death grip", Dale smiled,"just so scared it was going to fall off the jack and pin one or both of them!"
"Once we had it in place, then we had to figure out how to secure it, since we didn't have any nuts or washers that would fit, and Nick came up with the idea to use zip ties. He put small ones on the threads, and bigger ones around the whole bar end, and that's how we made it to the motel."

pretty cool that particular "pontiac" has been cut down to give an approximate side view from a distance of a 40's "plymouth ! [at least to my old, blind eyes] "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery " . i like that car. i'll bet it's a blast to drive ! sounds like a simple, fun, easy to maintain combination, while saving the hulk from the scrap heap.

I'm still wodering if there is going to be some follow up on the metal in the oil........or is that just "normal" for drag week.

Dwayne I was wondering if in a few more runs down the track we would get a look at what's inside the engine?
I would be "concerned" for sure!

Don

Boone plotted a course to the nearest auto parts store, to pick up supplies to do an oil change, and Dale scanned through his phone for a hardware store. That left Rachael, Pops, and I on our own to head for the racetrack.
"I've got it entered into my phone, if you just want to follow me", Rachael suggested.
From her first turn, I felt we were going the wrong way, but it wasn't until I saw the Speedway looming in front of us that I realized her mistake. I quickly drove the Valiant past the Belvedere, motioned for her to follow me and pulled into a nearby gas station.
I jumped out and approached her door with a shake of my head and a smile, "Jay, we are going to Lucas Oil Raceway, not Indianapolis Motor Speedway!"
She grabbed her phone and changed the desired location, "Aha...and that is in the exact opposite direction!"


Ten minutes into the Class Car session, Jason Doisher's turbo ls powered Mercury wagon bled fuel all over the burnout area, when an injector o-ring failed. Fifteen minutes later David Pearson's 70 Charger broke something in the driveline at the launch, and had to be pushed behind the wall. At almost 9:00 AM, nearly forty minutes into the session Matt Grant's low eight second 07 Mustang put out a huge fog bank of oil smoke from the 330 on, as it struggled to a 10.0 run, and came to rest at the emergency turn-off. It appeared to have an under hood fire when it stopped, but thanks to Matt's quick thinking, and two diligent track workers they extinguished it quickly. Minutes before that it had been announced that the first session would end at precisely 10:00AM, but the resulting clean-up took forty-seven minutes. Lonnie Grimm's adjustment was announced five sets into resumed racing, as Brian let everyone know that the cut-off was extended to 10:30.

The next pair up was David Meyer, in his "Northern Bel" 66 Plymouth and Ray Meyers in his "Black Pearl" 67 Barracuda. Ray has an uncanny knack for working his way back up for a second hit when he needs one that defies the odds, but whether it's muscle (his co-pilot is huge) or money (perhaps a well placed twenty to a racer or track official), he's certainly not going to divulge his secret to me! Both of them ran near best numbers, and were ready to start their final journey to the home track.

Hot Rod Drag Week 2016 Indy by Jeff Bradley, on Flickr

We rolled into Lucas Oil Raceway a little after Ten AM, found a pit spot with plenty of room to spare, just off the main entrance where Boone and Dale could easily find us and began unloading our stuff onto the ground. Nearly as soon as we started, I heard Brian Lohnes' voice rise perceptively as he announced that Jay Meagher's 2JZ powered 97 Toyota Supra was on fire and sliding in it's own oil just past the finish line. A quick chute deployment and great driving kept the dark green, seven second, small tire monster off the wall, but the oil trail started at about the 1000 foot mark and extended all the way to about five feet from the sand trap.
We had both cars unloaded, and the pipes off the Valiant by the time Boone and Dale showed up.
"It's awfully quiet", Boone commented.
"One of the Supras oiled the track, pretty bad", I explained.
"They were still in the first session?" Dale shook his head, as he grabbed my floor jack and began dragging it over to the Gremlin.
"Yeah, from what I've been told, they already extended it once, and were about fifteen minutes away from calling the Street Machine Eliminator cars up, when it happened."

It was a forty minute clean-up, and the announcement was made that the first session cut-off had been moved back all the way to 11:30AM, virtually guaranteeing that no SME cars would see the track until Noon. The natives were getting restless, and even Hemi Joel found time to get away from his Ford buddies and come by to check on us.

The first set down after the clean-up featured Dave McKenna's 66 Belvedere.
"Is that OUTLAWD?" Boone asked, looking up from draining the oil out of the 512.
"I thought he was on the 'early run, one and done' program", Dale chimed in.
"Up until now, he has been", I agreed, "but this is Indy, home of the Big Go, so maybe he wanted more than one run down the fabled track."
"Then he got a front row seat to an extended oil clean-up" Dale laughed.
"The Drag Week Gods are fickle, I'm sure if that's the worst thing that happens to him all week, he'll take it", I shrugged.

I had changed the bottle in the Belvedere for Rachael, changed the oil on the Valiant, and was pretty much just standing around at that point, when Boone noticed me fidgeting.
"Are you going to try and get a hit in the first session?"
"No, they are calling for a hard cut-off at 11:30, and the lanes are stacked full after that clean-up, so it would be a waste of time. I'll just wait for the final session with you guys!"
"Good point, I guess...you've already made that drive back to the pits once, and you weren't very happy!"
"I think I'll grab my camera and get some pics...we never seem to get quite enough!"

I walked over to David Pearson's 70 Charger first, as I had heard the call go out for an 8 3/4 third member earlier. We had a 3.23 we brought as a spare that I would offer if they could make it work. When I made an inspection of the parts they had on the ground beside the car though, I realized we couldn't help them. What they really needed was a correct length axle! The first 1/4 inch of male splines on the axle, and the outside 1/4 inch of female splines in the third member were sheared off. With no more contact than that, I was surprised the 13 second, 4000lb machine had made it this far!

I was hounding my trunk monkey, my Dad (welderboy) to make a pass all week. He hasn't made a pass in anything in a while, but decided to grab the keys at Indy. I have made a few changes to the car since he's last driven it, EFI, all new wiring/switches, so between the changes and the wait, I think he was a little off his game. Ended up doing a weak burnout and spun the tires off the line, then pedaled it. Not the greatest pass of the week. Front seat to the cleanup wasn't too bad, chatted with Joe Berry and a couple others.

Thursday is an interesting day strategically for Drag Weekers, and even more so when it comes around on such a fabled and well prepped track as Indy. Some guys are nursing cars that are clearly going away, and all they want is a clean pass, and enough duct tape or baling wire to hold the thing together during the last drive. Others are just figuring their stuff out, and are looking for good numbers on a track that will hold it. Then you have the Aussies, Danes, Swedes, and New Yorkers who are looking around saying "We're at Indy baby! Can you believe this? Lets make some memories."

Glenn Hunter's 56 Chevy laid down a beautiful 7.56-184.7 that took the drama out of the battle for Pro Street PA. The other three guys could all run 180, but they couldn't get in the fifties, so Glenn only needed to worry about the drive back to Columbus. Devin Yankey's grey 67 Nova left on a great pass, but fell off on the big end, running 8.16 at only 148 after carding 172 earlier in the week, but this was his first drag week, and he had second place in Ultimate Iron all to himself, so he called it good as well. Dennis Taylor and the Retro Nova were a perfect example of what makes most racers conservative on Thursday, he already had a nice 8.15-171, but he desperately wanted a seven second run, so he turned up the wick and came back for another shot. His 8.031-176.9 was clean, and looked great, but something broke on the pass and for the second year in a row, he would be a DNF! Immediately you were left to wonder, could he have made the drive and turned it up on Friday, where breaking after an 8.03 wouldn't have cost him a completed week.

I think the pictures show a level of concern. Boone had already told us there was a squeak in the engine on occasion, so after he drained the oil back into the jug and we took turns looking at the residue, a discussion took place.
"If this was a big block chevy, Boone, I'd say you need to park it!"
"It's a Mopar", he laughed, "She's just making her own clearances!"
"I agree, but I don't understand...I ordered the narrow bearings from 440 source, so your engine builder, or in this case your crankshaft, wouldn't have to chamfer them to clear the radius."
"I told you guys earlier", Dale shook his head, "I was so tired when I put that thing together, I don't have a clue which bearings they were!"
"Then my vote is that POS TCI converter is ballooning, and taking out the thrust bearing", I concluded.
"That's a diagnosis I can support one hundred percent", Dale smiled, "the engine builder is off the hook!"
"Yep, blame the tranny guy", I piled on
"You guys suck", Boone shook his head. "I'm going to run her until she blows up, then trash the engine builder on Moparts as soon as I get home!"
"1996 wants that converter back, Boone, just saying!"

Jim (Squirrel) Forbes would get his opportunity for a wheelie pic alongside the black 55 chevy the very next day after I did, as the leader of A Gas squared off against the leader of B Gas. The 62 Chevy II A/FXer would tiptoe off the line, doing everything except dangling the front tires, but it was no match for the Chisholm and Stasiak machine. Although Jim has a 9.98 ticket from Tulsa a few years ago that he couldn't turn in, the 10.16 at 133 from Indy this year will stand as his official best pass ever on Drag Week.

..... that last tidbit was the most "mopar guy" you've typed in a long time!

I even took off the hood, bumper, and pass. seat to make that run. And bumped the timing up to where it should have been all along.

When Magnus Frost rolled into Lucas Oil Raceway, I can only imagine the thoughts he and his co-pilot Dennis were sharing. A couple of Stockholm street racers preparing to lay down numbers at the home of the US Nationals. In what universe are such feats even possible? These are the gifts that Drag Week gives us on a regular basis, once you've drove your stuff seven hundred and fifty miles on American two lanes to get there.
These guys just didn't dream of showing up though, they had goals, and a seven second time slip was near the top of that list. It was hard to imagine the little Opel Ascona could make a more perfect run that it laid down on the Indy 1320, with an achingly close 8.018-169.74.

Jay,
That statement could be taken in about ten different ways, and unfortunately, I have to plead guilty to all ten! Sometimes you just have to wear it. As the audience for my Drag Week stories have grown, I've made a conscious effort to tone down the Mopar bias, but somehow I don't think that's what you are referring to. I'm a Direct Connection Performance Bible thumper from way back in 1982, so those roots go deep, I'll probably take my love of purple shafts, ductile rockers, orange boxes, long burnouts, and stock 727 parts to my grave!

The true nature of my Mopar heart was on display this year when I had to watch two very nice Mopars make excellent runs all week, and I could take no joy in it whatsoever. Just when it seems the SBC swaps into anything that rolls has finally began to stop, along comes the LS to replace it as the new engine swap darling. It's like a cruel joke has been played on us, and the gorgeous silver '10 Challenger of Jamie Hochbaum, as well as the stunning green '70 Javelin of Kenny LaFlower were shining examples of that trend. Jamie ran an 8.47-153 at Indy to make third place in Modified PA a close race going to Columbus, and despite transmission issues, Kenny's Javelin went 10.32-130 to remain just outside the top 5 in Street Machine Eliminator.

For the remaining class cars trying to get a run in just before the 11:30 Am cut off, there was a nervous moment when Tony Karamitsos broke the 12 bolt in his 69 Camaro and rolled to a stop. Luckily it only took six minutes to get him off the track and resume racing. The last two Mopars to make a hit in the final throes of the three hour first session, were Rick Trunkett's green 72 Duster and Paul Castiglione's yellow 72 Challenger.

Paul's 11.24-121.8 was his best of the week, and right in line with where he had been. Rick's ET in the single turbo R-3 Duster was 8.71 which was good, but the MPH was down almost twenty at 144, when he had been 165 earlier in the week. They didn't seem to be overly concerned in their pits, but it was clear they were ready to head for Columbus.

anybody can hit the "easy" button Billy... Part availability is making that a more obvious choice for many. I still suspect your motivation in joining the brotherhood of small block mopar had a little something to do with the rest of your family not "hijacking" your parts anymore

They took about six minutes to sweep the track, so the first pair of Street Machine Eliminator competitors to get a shot at the track went down at 11:40. In the first pair, Susan Slater managed to get her '15 Challenger Scat Pack into the twenties, carding a Drag Week best 12.27-113. Rod Munchiando's Black Dart GTS with stroker small block ran an 11.86-113 a few pairs later. The SME crowd seemed to making up for lost time, sending down twelve pair in the first ten minutes until Dale Knapke's awesome little turbo 2.3 ford powered Triumph busted the rear end when he dumped the clutch. The Indy crew used individual wheel dolly jacks to scoot the immobile car off the track in five minutes, and they were off and running again.

In three consecutive pairs, Jim Cefalo's 62 Chrysler 300 went 15.41-87, followed by Dillon Ogle in the yellow Cuda at 12.90-100 which was a complete throw away pass that would require him to return. Behind him was his Uncle Charlie, who made the most of his opportunity, running 11.26-122 and keeping his Gold Challenger in Quick 32 contention.

Those are some good lookin Mopars! thanks for putting together such a nice, well illustrated story, Billy

Jim,
I'm just a hunter/gatherer when it comes to Drag Week pictures. I'm thankful that so many top flight photographers and media outlets are so generous with their quality work.

In between all the rapid fire SME cars, they did manage to sneak in another impound Class Car. You would think after three hours waiting around, the SME guys could get an hour to themselves, but the car in question was one of the Danes, and they had a pretty large contingent with them. I just imagine poor Lonnie Grimm surrounded by 5 people in yellow shirts begging him with accents as bad as the Swedish Chef from the Muppets, and I can understand why he relented!

The beautiful Green and Gold 34 Ford Coupe went 8.47-155, and that time slip is going to look awesome on their mantle in Denmark, but they were only certed to 8.50, so Ian would have to run again if he wanted a pass he could turn in!

One thing the Danes had a handle on when they arrived in the States was their Drag Week trailers. They had solar panels, batteries, inverters; definitely high tech!

They also had trailer Security

Just to shine a little light on how much some guys spend on this trip.

The Nova below was in the 8s Naturally Aspirated. I was pitted next to him on Friday and chatted with him a bit, it is an extremely nice and clean car. He also made 100% of the drives on race gas, I don't remember the brand but he only ran one kind because he ran Sunoco on one leg and it ran poorly. He swapped carbs and Ran Q16 at the track. I think I could add up all my drag weeks and still not spend as much on fuel as he did!

Kurt Johnson in the BBNA dominating Chevstang runs race fuel the whole trip as well. He loads the trailer up with it at every track. That's what it takes​ with a 15 to 1 motor.
He changed the oil every day too.

Clark and Bill Lamb coaxed yet another consistent pass out of the Barracuda with a stout 11.13-120.6, to keep him safely in the Quick 32, and ready to make the final drive to Columbus. Randy J's Coronet ran an 11.80-113 that would put him almost even in average with Rod's GTS. Craig Douglas' HellCat Charger ran a 10.45-130.8, which left him in a tight battle with the 1980 Corvette of Brian Peterson from Denmark for fourth qualifying position in SME.

Lonnie Grimm's message that the SME session would end at 12:45, had just been relayed by Brian Lohnes over the PA system as Jesse Msdaffari's 83 John Deer themed C-10 squared off against Ernest Brown's 86 C-10 long bed named Heavy Metal Thunder. A titanic battle between a high 12 second truck and a high 13 second truck, what could possibly go wrong? Ernest got the tree, and just as Jesse pulled alongside at the 330 mark, the long bed started spewing something from the pan area. It wasn't until the eighth mile when Ernest started sliding around in his own stuff, that he lifted. He coasted through, and drove it all the way to the turn-off. Once again, we were in for a very long clean-up!

Good old Jesse.I "think"it was 13 and a check point was The Pony mens club.Jesse being a Man of The Cloth and Dragweeker got the checkpoint pic.He told me a Parishioner was following ALL of the coverage and asked him about that checkpoint.LOL.His reply was"I did not go inside". LOL

It was 12:45 before the next pair rolled into the water, and the announcement was made that they would run out the SME lanes before they began the all-run session.
"We are going to be racing until four at this rate", Dale threw his hands up in disgust.
"Would you rather they just call everyone to the lanes who hasn't ran yet, then close the lanes?" I asked him with a smile.
"No, definitely not ready for that yet!"

Scott Abbott went 11.87-110 in his 70 Road Runner, and I fully expected him to come back and try to knock some tenths off of that, but it would be the time slip he turned in for Indy.

Directly after Scott, James Reeves and his black Omni GLH began the stream of cars in the left lane from the "Mopar Turbo Mafia" crew or as I refer to them the "angry four cylinder, front scratcher team". He was paired with the bright red 34 Ford of John Pfister, a car that had really started to get my attention. It features a 6/71 style blower that's topped with a single split Dominator, arranged to mimic an old four port Hilborn type set-up, and it had been in the ten teens all week. James would keep his 11.16-121 out of the wounded 2.5, but I knew the red coupe would be back when he carded 10.28. The red 87 Daytona Shelby of Jason Trotter followed in the Omni's tracks and ran a stout 10.87-138 that would keep him well within the Quick 32 ranks, and punch his ticket to Columbus.

Billy, you doing any local racing. I haven't been out in years.

Chuck O',
I've got four cars that are toys, and trying to throw money and time at all of them, means not much gets done, and I'm getting lazy(er). In 2016 I did The March Meet at Bakersfield, three races at Firebird-WHP, and one in Tucson. This year, I've been to Firebird-WHP once. Mix in a few local car shows and cruises since all my junk has tags now.

I took the hemi Model A to Tucson last weekend to the reunion. I wasn't to sure the field mice hadn't eaten the Colt, so when I got home Sunday, I looked in the box. It was still there under about 4 inches of dust.

One of the benefits of the long oil downs for those watching the live feed at home is that they mix in little features and interviews that were shot earlier in the day. Elana Scherr did an excellent one comparing Hemi Joel's survivor 67 Hemi GTX drop top to David Meyer's custom 66 TT Hemi Belvedere. I've posted a screen shot, showing the time and video so you can chase it down if you wish, definitely worth the time!

Teri Skrab's Spirit R/T followed the Daytona with a 13.33-102, her best pass of Drag Week by a half second, so with half of the Mopar Turbo crew down the track, it looked as though they would escape with one pass each, and be on their way. The second half of the six car effort didn't go as planned however. The sticky tire rule plagued Marybeth in her AWD Talon all week, as it seems she needed tire spin to get up on the engine. She bogged horribly and went 13.62-120, then Pat Culkin, who's 88 Shadow had been in the twelves all week, stumbled to a 15.30-95. Warren Hall's Shelby CSX left the line so poorly that he took the short push-off road at about 40 feet out and looped back around to the pits!

James Sandlin's first pass of the day in his low thirteen second 2013 Ram wasn't what he was looking for, so he made his way back for the final all-run session as well. Dillon Ogle closed out the SME session, as just one of three or four cars that were able to get a second hit, and he laid down a very nice 11.83-113 to put Indy in the books. It was 1:05 in the afternoon when the second session mercifully closed, the call went out for the all-run final session, and finally some Gebhartmobiles could make their way towards the staging lanes!

Great pics Billy it is great to relive the whole week, when you are there it seems like everything is a blur!

Perhaps the biggest surprise for me walking the lanes was just how many cars (besides us) hadn't been down the track yet. Garry Ross Jr. had taken over the driving duties from his sister Addie in their Dad's Falcon Wagon, and he ran 9.71-137. After two years, and two different power adders Terry Keifer finally got a ten out of his beautiful Barracuda, with a 10.92-122.5. Derek appeared to run his Land Cruiser on the 408 only, deciding not to abuse it any further, settling for a smooth 12.39-107.
We had all our junk in the lanes, so it was just a matter of waiting our turn, and none of us could really expect more than one opportunity to get it right.

Up next was John Faraone's 72 Valiant Charger. The twin turbo, Predator headed Mopar had made the trip to Drag Week for the fifth time, and it took a last ditch 16 second run to keep him in competition the day before, so everyone was in anticipation to see if they had it straightened out. John is his own worst enemy on Drag Week, because he swings for the fences every single time he stages the car. He runs Methanol, so he was moved from Pro Street Power Adder to Unlimited a few years back when the rules changed. In 2013, with a finishing average of 10.71-143.8, he had a best run of 7.85-182 which stood as the quickest Drag Week Mopar pass until Matt Blasco's 72 Dart went 7.70-185 in 2015.
John has voiced his displeasure over this fact because he ran a 7.49-189, and a 7.43-192 in 2015, but those numbers aren't included since he was a DNF. There was also speculation, innuendo, rumors and accusations that he was "Tipping the Can" to get those numbers, but we may never know.

The burnout looked like all business, though his crewman backed him up about a foot and half to the right of the rubber he had just put down. The 4100lb beast left hard though, and the typical black smoke that the turbo guys belch when they are fat was nonexistent. In total, it was a beautiful run and the numbers bore that out: 7.65-182! He was one drive and one more pass away from once again owning the quickest Mopar pass on Drag Week!

Great story as usual, Billy!

For those of you who can't look away from a train wreck, here is the easy link to the video of Elaina interviewing me and David. Not that I have it saved in my favorites or anything...


https://youtu.be/roUjDqgDiv4

Joel,
If they've stuck with this story so far...it's safe to say they enjoy a good train wreck!

Just when it looked like we were going to get through some cars in a hurry, Colorado's Darryl Yost pulled up in his small tire 69 Chevelle with it's Pro-Charged 540 BBC. Now, last year Darryl's Chevelle featured a G-Force 5 speed behind said BBC, so it was understandable that it used up a little more than the 1320 on each pass, but for 2016 he opted for a power glide. Unfortunately he never got any advice on suspension tuning, so the thing is still as loose fore and aft as most 396 four speed Chevelles were set up back in the day. The resulting pass saw him miss the 1/8 mile foam blocks by inches, still at full song, tiptoeing down the center stripe. The 1000' blocks weren't so lucky, but he did lift and make it back in his lane after sending them to the great beyond. Maybe the Indy crew has more practice at the former, but I found it odd that they could consistently drag and spray the first 60' in six minutes, but it took eleven to replace two dead foam blocks! It was 1:41pm, and the prevailing consensus was that we would be shut down by three...I was starting to get nervous!

A couple of pairs later Drag Week went full on Freak Show when Greg Trapnell pulled up in his "three wheel motion" purple, injected, on nitrous, Holden Monaro beside Vinnie Barbone's outrageous 454 SBC powered Geo Tracker. This kind of crazy stuff only happens on Drag Week. Vinnie fed a plate nitrous system through his small block and delivered on his promise of a nine second Tracker with a 9.91-133. Trapnell let the Tracker leave first, then ran him down on a great pass, but a hot dog wrapper through the lights scrapped his ET. slip!

Finally we were moving towards the burnout box. For some reason, David Kirwan in the red HellCat Challenger was only two sets ahead of Rachael, and was making his first pass of the day as well. The 11.346-122.86 that he accepted and turned in basically bumped him out of the quick 32, following the 11.08 from the day before, his second attempt was an 11.37-119 just eighteen minutes after the first, and supercharged cars, even modern ones, notoriously dislike being hotlapped. Rachael made a clutch, picture perfect pass in the Belvedere, with an 11.57-119.2, so I breathed a little easier in my helmet. I was in the right lane, and as I eased into the water I looked to the left and realized I was paired with the red 34 HotRod of John Pfister!
"This is going to be interesting", I thought to myself. Pfister would be looking for a 10.00, so if I could lay down another 9.60, I'd be driving around him at some point.

I felt good, and relaxed as I started my burnout. I had a perfect plan to just repeat the second run from yesterday, "Light foot brake, leave with the front barely off the ground, grab the nitrous about ten feet out when the front end settles, short shift and let it eat!"

I came out of the burnout, stopped about twenty feet from the beams, turned on the nitrous, and purged the system into the idling engine. "Yeah, Buddy, that sounded good!" Once more for emphasis and I was convinced she was clean and ready to fly.

We rolled up to the tree, and he turned on his top bulb. I turned mine on and brought the rpm up a little as I was preparing to stage second, and wanted to be somewhat ready for the Pro tree. He didn't stage,"One thousand one, one thousand two..WTH!"
I looked over at him, and there he sat, giving me a big ole stinkeye!

Back in my Super Street days, you usually just pulled up and done your thing, time runs, or eliminations, and everyone was pretty respectful. But if it was personal, if there was some "juice" associated with a match up, guys would pre-stage, then wait for you to make eye contact, or make a gesture or point. This was no longer a couple of guys in different classes making time runs to turn in for day 4. He obviously wanted a race, and he was about to get one!
"Oh, heck yeah, it's on now dude!" I felt the rpm creeping up a good 6 or 8 hundred more against the converter than I had planned and my pulse jumped perceptively as I lit the second bulb. He was in, the tree flashed, I was at WOT... and I got treed...bad!

In heads up, pro tree racing, you train yourself to immediately look over at your opponent as soon as you react to the light so you can determine who has the tree, as that may determine how you race the stripe. When I glanced over he had a half car on me, very ugly!

I have to explain something, for those of you who might have never driven a ladder bar car that does wheelies on a regular basis. I've had three, The 73 Cuda, which sat up high, had no wheelie bars and was an absolute joy to drive, once I put good adjustable shocks on the front. Dale's 100 inch wheelbase AMX, that had wheelie bars, and the Valiant. Usually they go as high as they are going to on the initial hit, and if it's a good one, they may carry it out a ways before they come down, or the horizon of the track might just disappear for a half-second. It's great fun really, but on occasion...exactly three times in my life, the car rotates up initially, then you get this eerie foreboding sensation that the rear end is driving under you...that, that is not fun!

As soon as I glanced back to look down track, the racing surface and the walls disappeared from my view over the front of the hood. I realized I was on the nitrous...and must've been right from the hit, I couldn't recall when my hand had squeezed the button. I felt the car still rotating up, so I shifted to second and lifted off the nitrous, but never considered lifting my foot at all. It seemed to hang forever, time stood still as I stared at blue sky, but finally I could feel it coming back down...fast! I grabbed the button again to try to mitigate the impact.

When the front end touched back down, it bottomed out pretty hard and rebounded back up a bit, so I lifted off the nitrous just long enough to check the oil pressure as I feared for the oil pan. I saw a flash of red to my left as the 34 Coupe was pulling away, so I shifted to third, grabbed the nitrous again, and gave chase.

My 10.03-135 to his 10.16-133, but he'd killed me on the tree (he went .012 on a four tenths pro tree, in a street rod!) and took the stripe by a full car! Very, very disheartening. I tried to show Rachael my time slip but my hands were shaking so bad I was embarrassed.
"They aren't shutting the lanes off for another fifteen minutes", She tried to encourage me, "You can go back up and get your nine!"
"Oh, no...my day is most certainly done!"

Very cool!

There are a TON of subtle things done to David's Bel... spent a good hour looking it over at the hotel one night/morning



The 66-67 B's were out in force it seemed...

ice in veins Billy super street racer wouldn't have let that happen... guess we'll just call you pudding now.

I have too much respect for Billy to call him Pudding. It's Mr. pudding.

Mr Mopar Pudding?

WOW tough crowd today, no?

Don

That was an awesome looking wheelie. I'm glad nothing broke when your wheels were reunited with planet Earth.

Coming down hard causes lots of thoughts to run through your mind!

Don

Jay,
When I was racing Super Street full time, still racing local, and making about 120 passes a year, I became a slightly below average drag race driver. Now that I make about fifteen passes a year, I'm the duck that guys fight over to get beside in the first round!

Rachael and I decided to walk over and join Darren and Dad at the fence, so we could watch Dale and Boone.
"That was an awesome wheelie, man! Lohnes and Freiburger were bragging on you over the loud speaker", Dad crowed.
"It wasn't awesome in the driver's seat", I shook my head.
"Dude", Darren smiled and slapped me on the back, "Not one person is going to remember if you ran 10.20 or 9.60 on that pass...but they are sure going to recall that wheelie, that's how you make an impression!"
My phone went off in my hand, and I looked down to see the text from my wife. "Ben and I saw your wheelie on the live feed! They even put it on slow motion replay, Cool!"
I watched a set go down then checked my phone again. Two more friends had texted about the wheelie...apparently I was the only one who didn't like it!

Dale and the Gremlin left the line extremely soft, then I saw him lift momentarily and cram back on the gas. The nitrous finally activated at around a hundred feet out, then it ran hard to a 9.36-153.
"He didn't re-adjust the throttle again, so it didn't activate the full throttle switch", I shook my head.
"He's passing guys on the return road", Darren pointed, as Boone was backing up from his burnout.
"Yeah, he's trying to get back in line for another hit", I explained.
Boone left hard in the Duster, but it wiggled around at the shift to second. The popping on the nitrous didn't start until around a thousand feet this time, so maybe by the time Drag Week was over, they would have the carb dialed in. His board lit up with a 10.08-133.95.
"He'll be happy with that", Dad commented.
"Yeah...he'll save the attempt for a nine until tomorrow", I agreed.

Dale came into our pit area, already half out of the car, and asking for help with the hood. He grabbed tools and adjusted the throttle as I held the hood up, with Billy in the car going from idle to WOT. Lohnes had already made the call over the PA that lanes would close in ten minutes.
"It looked really smooth on the launch", I commented.
Dale looked visibly upset, which is a rarity for him. "When I was under the car putting the new bolt in the ladder bar, I realized Brian must've zeroed out the rebound on my rear shocks when he put the new front end under it last year! That's why it's been blowing the tires off and slamming back down...and I've been trying to fix it by adjusting the front of the car!"
"Why would he touch the rear shocks", I asked.
"Not a clue...probably meant to re-set them and just forgot, but I've been chasing it for a Drag Week and a half!"
I bolted the hood back down as he pulled his gear back on, fired the car, and headed back up to the lanes.

Dale was two cars behind John Faraone, who wasn't about to drive his Australian 72 Chrysler Valiant Charger to Columbus if there was still track time left to be had at Indy! The big slicks lurched hard until about twenty feet out, then the TT Wedge shut off clean and the silver beast coasted to a stop at 500 feet out. A track worker ran out and picked up a shredded cogged belt off the track which looked to be the size used on an MSD front mount distributor. By the time they pushed him off the track, it was 2:38pm, and the lanes were closed.

Dale still had the nitrous coming in later after the hit, and a conservative tune, so the Gremlin left very smooth once again with only a 1.40 60'. It began to pull really hard from there, and was 5.75-121 at the eighth, but there was a pop at about the 1000' mark, so the front dropped and he rolled through with a 9.15 at only 133.5 mph.
Dad groaned, "He didn't just drop another valve, I hope."
"He's still driving it", I answered, "but with Dale, that doesn't mean something isn't wrong!"

By the time Dale made it back to our pit spot, the last cars of the day had just cleared the traps and it was 2:50 in the afternoon. The Gremlin seemed to be on eight when he parked, but Dale had a very concerned look on his face when he crawled out.
"What happened up there?"
"Ran out of fuel."
"How the heck does that keep happening to you...this is the third time you've ran out of fuel on a nitrous pass in the Gremlin, and you got pistons on the other two", I shook my head.
"Got pistons on this one as well, hopefully not as bad, since it was a smaller hit, but she's hurt".
He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it on our pile, "I had one and a half or two gallons of 118 left, so I dumped it all in and was only expecting to make one hit."
I helped him pull the hood off and set it in front of the car, "This is an awfully big place, and with exiting on the opposite side, and driving all the way around the staging lanes to get back to your pit."
"Exactly", he shrugged, "and I was in such a hurry to get back up there, I never considered adding more fuel!"
"So how bad is it?" I blurted out, not really thinking.
"Don't know, I'm going to start by pulling the plugs and looking around", he gave me a sheepish grin.
I realized in that moment that he was internalizing the anger and disappointment he was feeling, something he's done his entire life, so I moved away from the situation so that he wouldn't have to keep trying to fake it in front of me.
Rachael, the taskmaster, was once again trying to get Boone, Billy, and I on point and organized so we could get our cars loaded up and ready to hit the road. She was putting stuff behind the seats in my Valiant when she looked up and suddenly asked the question, "Have we turned in our time slips yet?"
"DUH!" I threw my hands up, and looked around at everyone else, "We better go get that done!"



Pic. 1

John Hindley Sr. followed the entire route with us in 2014 when his son ran his 67 Valiant. This year he was in Indiana visiting family, so he came by and hung out with us at Lucas Oil Raceway! Definitely an unexpected bonus to our day.

Pic. 2
Darren and Shari applying warpaint. Sun screen is your friend on Drag Week...usually!

Pic. 3 & 4

Earl Shexnayder's Orange 2000 Mustang has a big inch Boss engine, and only made it twenty miles from Tulsa on Day one before falling out in 2014. In 2016 he had serious help in the form of Robert Robinson and his LUV mini-truck. Despite the fact that Earl's Mustang was hurt and slowing down every day, Robert helped keep him on the road, while battling Dale's Gremlin with his LUV for 7th place in Modified PA. Leaving Indy, the LUV's average was 9.257 to the Gremlin's 9.287. Their adventures included using duct tape on the inside and outside of an ET Street to keep air in it long enough just to make it to Indy!

That racer tape did its job.

We turned in our slips, picked up our route sheets, and returned to the pits to finish loading up all our stuff. A Division 3 official came by on his golf cart to explain that they were going to be letting racers in to claim their pit spots for the upcoming Division 3 Finals.
"I've seen rigs lined up since we came through the gate at 9 something, but you don't even do anything on Thursday", I shook my head, "I've ran 4 or 5 of them in Division 7."
"No, no, but we told them we would open the gates for pit parking at 1:00 pm, and we didn't realize your program was going to go over, so they are getting anxious!"
"Yeah, I understand that but I guess I don't get the need to show up a whole day early just to be first people through the gate", I shook my head.
"The sooner they get their pits staked out, the sooner they can start drinking, I guess", He laughed, "We are just asking the Drag Week guys that are doing major repairs to move over to the staging lanes."
"We are just finishing up", I explained, we'll be out of here in an hour or less."
"Ok, no big deal then, just know that they will be streaming in!"

A 3/4 ton pick-up with an open trailer and a well-worn Nova pulled directly beside us and stopped. His buddy with a Class C motor home, and an enclosed trailer pulled next to him and they got out as well.
"You guys gonna be here a while", one of them asked me.
"Yeah", I nodded, "Are we in your way?"
"Naw, we was trying to figure out how to save a few spots for our friends through this initial rush, but you're doing a heck of a job at that right now!"

I shrugged, and continued to prepare my car for the trip when five minutes later I heard the awful screech of metal on metal, and looked up in time to see a guy dragging his enclosed trailer over the nose of the Gremlin, narrowly missing pinning Dale between the two vehicles. He continued on for nearly two feet with people yelling at him and waving before he stopped. I was already around the Valiant and headed for his driver's door when he stepped out with one leg, looked back at the Gremlin, then put the truck in reverse and tried to back up to free the trailer from the car.
I slapped both hands on the door sill of the open window and yelled in his face, "If you move this truck another inch, I'm going to drag you out of it and beat you to death!"
He looked up at me slack jawed, with eyes as big as saucers, like he'd just seen an alien. The passenger told him to shut the truck off, just as I was about to reach in and do it myself.

This last part REALLY SUCKS..sorry to read
about this now Billy... I KNOW your brother
was PISSED

WOW just wow. That's a huge pit area, and this guy gets that close?
Don

unbelievable..... so with the AMC being a licensed and insured street car does that help in insurance matters?

How this even happened is beyond me. The Gebhart crew was in the middle of no where in the pits. We left fairly late and there wasn't a non Gebhart car within 50 yards or more of them.

The guy looked to be about 65, he got out of the truck slowly and walked back to look at his trailer, then glanced at Dale's Gremlin.
"I'm sorry guys, I guess I didn't see you."
"We're going to need your driver's license, insurance verification, and vehicle registration", Boone shot back, he already had his camera out and was shooting pictures.
"Now guys, let's not get the insurance involved, this is just a simple dragstrip accident..."
Dale, as I mentioned earlier, internalizes anger, and is usually calm and level headed, but he cut him off quickly. "NO! No it's not! YOU are in a street legal, licensed, registered, and insured truck, and you just ran over my street legal, licensed and insured vehicle, so don't even start that crap!"
"Well, I don't want this to go against my insurance, I'd rather just pay, I mean it's not that bad..."
"Get your information out NOW!" Boone was insistent, since it appeared the guy was going to be a jerk about the whole thing.
I was beginning to worry that it was going to be an "us against the trailer park situation", as the number of D-3 bracket racers walking over to see what was going on was increasing. The guy reluctantly handed over all his paperwork and Boone took photos of them.

Dad had wondered off somewhere, and was late to the party, so as soon as he saw what had happened he yelled at the top of his voice, "You stupid son of a, you just screwed up his whole week!" He was headed straight for the guy and Boone and I had to react quickly to screen him off.
"You think this hasn't messed up my weekend?"
Dad heard that and redoubled his efforts to get at the guy.
Dale looked up and pointed at me, "Keep him out of this!"
As if I needed a reminder, but the guy and the onlookers were oblivious to what we were up against. For 63 of Dad's 72 years on this earth, his answer to any conflict or confrontation has been a right cross, and if he got within arms length of this man, he was going to drop him like a sack of potatoes, of that I had no doubt. Boone and I had a good feeling things would escalate quickly from there.
A local racer walked up to Dale and explained, "We called the local police department, and they are going to send a unit out to take a report, if this guy doesn't want to cooperate."
"I'm sure we are going to be able to work it out", Dale gave a slight smile, "but I appreciate that, it might come in handy."

We had pushed the Gremlin back from the trailer, so the guy and Dale were looking over the damage.
"It really doesn't look that bad", the guy commented.
"The chrome around the windshield has been popped loose because you shoved the passenger's fender so far over", Dale pointed.
"This front-end is one piece and removable, with a fabricated tubing tree instead of a core support. All of that is bent, that in turn holds in the aluminum radiator, so the tabs on the tanks are bent, this radiator is going to leak and will need to be replaced. When was the last time you tried to hunt down 40 year old Gremlin parts?"
The guy shook his head, "I see your point, the best I can do is to give you three hundred cash right now, and we will settle up when you get home."
"If we can't agree to an amount then I'm going to turn it in to your insurance", Dale explained.
Boone and I had handed Dad off to Rachael, and she had him putting air in the Belvedere rear tires. Dale seemed to be handling the whole thing far better than I expected. When the guy moved his trailer to the pit spot he was going after it was clear to see what happened. He had been driving down the row beside us, and realized his buddies were one row over and back the other way, so the quickest route was a u-turn right through our pits!

Dale, Darren, and Boone were clearly in shock, and just had no idea where to start to get the Gremlin road worthy again. Luckily a pair of guys from the film crew which had been hired this year to handle the live feed, stopped by and helped out. Big props to these guys from J-Angel Productions, and MotorManiaTV.com for jumping in and lending a hand when it was needed.

ahhhh the "race car incident" angle. Thought he'd hold that card a little longer before he went "all in".

. Billy hats off to your whole clan for keeping a cool head.


and then?

Brian Kohlmann 31 Chrysler Coupe

Brian drove into the collective consciousness of Mopar guys everywhere when he was doing fire burnouts in his S/FX altered wheel base Mr. Norm's 65 Dodge. He showed up at Drag Week with a stunning orange and creme 31 Chrysler CM6 Coupe in 2013 with an early Hemi, with I believe, six strombergs and a stick. In 2014 it had a blower. After two DNFs he came back with his high school car in 2015, a low thirteen second 66 Chevelle, and got his first completed Drag Week. Then came the news that the orange Coupe had suffered a bad crash.

He rebuilt the Coupe in Green, with the outlandish plan of having a street driven AA/FA! Nitro on the track and pump fuel on the drives. His first attempt on day 1 came to a halt when the Bruno-drive on his Lenco transmission broke after the first burnout. He was once again saddled with a DNF, but he didn't give up. He made a successful half pass at Indy, and was trying to switch the car over and make at least one drive. Jim (Squirrel) had decided to hang around in the hopes of getting some road pictures of his A/FX Blown Chevy II cruising with a AA/FA, and Elana from RoadKill stuck around to document it.

When it became clear that Brian wasn't going to get the Coupe rolling down the road, we became Elana and Jim's back-up plan!

Elana did a quick blog on RoadKill.com about Dale's incident in the pits, along with one picture of the damage. HotRod.com shared it, guys shared it to the Drag Weekers page on facebook, next thing we knew it was viral. The guy who hit him asked Dale to please post that they had an agreement because he was getting flamed all over social media!

Jim came over and asked if we were about to leave, and decided he would hang out and drive with us for a while. He was about to find out that the stories of our woes were not exaggerations!

Brians coupe is totally nutso over the top! When it was orange, it was one of my favorite hot rods of all time. (it was 8 strombergs on a blower, then for his 1st Drag Week, 8 strombergs N/A to meet Hot ROd Class rules of no power adder) After he crashed at the RoadKill event at the silver DOme, he rebuilt it into the Fuel Altered Coupe in less than a year! Now it is for sure my favorite Hot Rod of all time! He completed one of the most epic thrashes in human history to make it to DW 2016, and it was still being assembled and completely untested when he arrived. Kind of Gebhardish, except he had been working on non-stop it for 10 months. It has a mechanical fuel injection system and magneto driven off the front of the motor, and that little fuel tank in the front for the Nitro passes. It has an EFI system and a distributor in the stock location for the gas on the street. That makes the switch over fairly simple; he pulls all the plug wires that are connected the magneto, ties them up, and puts on all the plug wires from the distributor. He was only running 50% nitro in the tank, now some dialing in has been accomplished he is ready to up the percentage. It should be THE car to watch in 2017, once the percentage goes up it will make ALOT of noise!

In my best Yogi Bear voice: Hey Booboo, do you think Mr. Ranger would mind if we borrow this giant pic-i-nic basket?

Tommy like!

We ran into David Meyers twin turbo Hemi Belvedere at the old gas station, a kodak moment for sure!

We've been to Lucas Oil Dragway in Indianapolis four times on Drag Week, and we also attended the Mopar Nationals there in '94 and '95, so we are far from locals, but you begin to get the lay of the land somewhat. The one thing we know for sure is that US-136/Crawfordsville Rd., the little two lane that runs past the entrance to the track, turns into a nightmare in evening rush hour traffic.
Armed with that knowledge, when I led our group left turn out of the track, I jumped the Valiant out into street with no concern to whether anyone would be able to follow me. I also knew I wouldn't be stopping at either of the two close gas stations on US-136, because it's nearly impossible to get out of them, once you're at the pumps. We made a right turn onto Northfield Dr., which took us into a warehouse area that features the shops of Schumacher Racing and others, but more importantly, got us away from the main flow of the locals.
We had only covered about three miles when I spotted a Casey's station with an O'Reilly's parts store across the street, always a consideration when looking for a good pit stop, so I pulled up to a pump, and texted Boone and Rachael to let them know. I was done fueling the Valiant when they pulled in, so I parked away from the pumps to make room for them.
As he had suspected, the radiator was leaking water when Dale pulled the Gremlin up, and shut it off.
"I'm going to run over to O'Reilly's, and grab several different kinds of radiator sealant, you need anything?" Boone asked me, as Rachael was pouring ice in my cooler.
"No...I'm thinking about going ahead, maybe scouting things out. I'm afraid the Valiant is going to overheat again, and I'd rather be pulled over, cooling it off than sitting here waiting for you guys to get the Gremlin fixed."
"This is definitely the hottest evening we've had on this trip", Boone agreed with a nod, "probably not a bad idea".
"You can also find us a nice place to eat", Rachael added.
"Bingo", Boone smiled, gave me thumbs up, and sprinted across the street.
"Where is Darren and Shari?" I asked Rachael, as I loaded my cooler back into the passenger's seat.
"They were staying at the track to help a guy with his alternator, I think Darren is taking it someplace to get it rebuilt?"
"See ya around, kid", I smiled and fired up the Valiant. I looked at my receipt, 6:16pm, another long night ahead!

SO comes to DW.Part 2.http://www.dragzine.com/news/james-goad-prepares-a-monte-smith-tribute-car-for-drag-week-2017/

We were instructed to take a right off Northfield Dr. onto IN-267 North. Essentially by running us north on 267 until we headed east on IN-32, they were taking us on a large loop over the top of Indianapolis proper, an even larger loop than I-465 which circles Indy already. Considering it was rush hour, they were doing us a big favor, and the lush green Indiana countryside was welcome scenery as well.

It was still very warm out though, and by the time I worked through the traffic trying to turn onto I-74, the 428 was pushing 220 degrees. My eyes would wander between the half-million dollar homes strategically placed on an acre and a half of prime Indiana farmland, and the temp gauge slowly creeping down to 210 for the next five miles or so. I rolled into thick traffic again at the overpass of I-65, which features a Loves Truck Stop nearby, and that bit of work pushed the temp back to 225. I cleared the bridge and eased around a left hand bend and glanced over to see three Drag Week cars on the left shoulder. It was the CBK team featuring James Karger's Fox coupe, Jason Doisher's Mercury (fox) wagon, and John Dodson's light blue 80 Malibu; three mid-eight second, small tire, LS turbo cars. The grove of mature trees on that side of the road was providing ample shade, and the guys had pulled off the road onto a freshly manicured grass bank. They weren't working on the cars, instead they had blankets lying on the grass bank, and appeared to be taking a nap in the cool shade. The scene was so idyllic, I wanted to turn around and join them but I doubted they would be keen on sharing a blanket with a fat Mopar guy!

Once I made the right turn onto IN-32, and started to head east, the sun was at my back, and the traffic was minimal, so the temp gauge settled back down to 210. The farmhouses in this area had asphalt driveways, pools, and multiple barns, shops, and outbuildings; definitely the high rent district!

Several miles later, I crested a hill, started into a low valley, and noticed triangles set out two or three feet into my lane. As I slowed and approached, I realized it was the Danes. The Green and Gold 34 coupe was broke down just past a narrow bridge, and they were unable to get completely off the road. They had Cristian Damgaard's massive 71 Impala behind it with his trailer, and the reflectors out, but it was still a very precarious position to be in, especially with the sun descending rapidly. As I passed, they gave me a thumbs up, and appeared to be working on the front tire, or brakes, or perhaps spindle, but I wasn't sure, I just hoped they could get out of there safely and quickly.

Once I crossed over US-31, and entered Westfield IN, my search for a suitable restaurant began in earnest. I passed by quite a few of the typical chains, but I was hoping for something a little more unique. I didn't see anything promising, so I continued on into Noblesville. Noblesville is the county seat of Hamilton County, and has nearly doubled in size over the last twenty years, obviously buoyed by Indy professionals looking to trade their urban digs in for a more upscale, country lifestyle. The options for eateries along this stretch of IN-32 expanded considerably, so I pulled into a Walgreens to ask a few locals. After the third glowing review for the Michaelangelos Italian Bistro across the street, I decided to walk over and check it out.
The host was a late twenties gal, friendly, and competent. I explained that I had a party of eight or nine, about fifteen minutes out, and she took me to a well lit room with hardwood flooring, nice furnishings, and a decent size TV with the preview for the Thursday night College Football game between Houston and Cincinnati already on. The waiter came in, also late twenties, friendly and competent. I helped him re-arrange the tables to suit us, and he asked if I wanted water for each guest. I knew the guys would kill the first glass before they were even seated, after such a long hot day, so this was a plus! After he had all the water, silverware, and placings set up, he asked if he should bring out salads ahead of their arrival. I agreed, so when the crew finally walked in, they were greeted with ice water already available, three large salad bowls with tongs in them paced strategically along the long table, and kick-off of an interesting game about to start. I leaned back in my chair, and extended my arms out, "Have a seat guys!" The looks on their faces told me I had nailed it this time!

Wow, a good place to eat on Drag Week? When I ask Joel if we are stopping to eat, I get "Nope, we don't have the time for that, eat the monkey chow I packed for you."

Monkey chow,,thats funny!, I'm envisioning Doritos, cupcakes, Mountain Dew etc.

That would be a step up... No name brand food, as that costs too much.

Duesenberg owners are funny.

That's how you get to own one.

I know! gotta save every penny

Bon appètit!

Not sure my stomach can handle anymore of that. Besides it tastes horrible.

You guys are a riot! I met the trunk monkey, but didn't meet his keeper @ Martin MI.
You put a big smile on my face before going out to work in yard/garden.
Thanks, Don

I don't know if you mean that's a characteristic of Mopars or not?!
I have seen that before now that you mention it. One time I put ARP flex plate to crank bolts that were too long, it clearanced it alright!
Jacked out all the thrust clearance on my first RBRE 451.
Boy did I feel stupid during the autopsy @ RBRE.
If it would've been something they did wrong Ray said they would fix it. NOT their mistake!!!
Life is full of lessons, some are more costly than others.

Don

Man I am jonesing for more of this EXCELLENT ADVENTURE! Way better than "Bill and Teds excellent adventure" LOL.

Anyway Billy and his band of brothers must be busy getting ready for DW 2017, no?

Don

Naw... Hell week starts one week prior to Drag Week. That gives them plenty of time to build 3 cars. LOL.

It took about fifteen minutes for everyone to get situated, wash up, and get orders made for food. Then we were able to decompress, and talk about everything that had happened, and what we had ahead of us.
"You've got A-Gas pretty much locked up, Jim?" Rachael asked, glancing up from her phone, where she already had the results of the day pulled up.
"Not really", Jim smiled, "Alexander in that black 41 Willy's actually ran quicker than us in Martin on Wednesday, so that's why we pulled the weight out today!"
"Even with a little cushion, anything can happen on Drag Week", his co-driver Dan interjected. Usually Dan is a man a few words, so a nice sit down meal gave us a chance to get to know him on this trip.

Dale seemed to be returning from his inward self-exile, so I looked over at him and softly asked, "How bad is it?"
He shrugged, shook his head, and finished a bite of salad before acknowledging the question. "Pretty bad, actually. It's pushing oil out of the valve covers, it's burning oil...at least one piston is just creating blow-by and a couple others are hurt!"
"Should we park it somewhere and come back for it?"
"If it was day two, yeah, it would be done", he shrugged again and took another bite. "At this point though, every mile we drive is one more closer to the truck and trailer...as well as finishing, so I'll drive it until it comes apart, or we run out of oil to dump in it!"
"Is it driving alright though", I asked, "I mean in the front end."
"Yeah, it's fine once we got the radiator sealed up, but I had to pull over once and yell at all these guys!"
"What for?"
"They stuck me out front when we left that first station, so I was trying to figure out the engine, determine if it was holding water, and trying to read the route sheet all at the same time. Finally I just pulled over on the shoulder to let them by, but they all stopped behind me. I lost it, so I jumped out of the car and starting screaming at them to drive around and take the lead!"
"Great!...well, better your brothers than half the bracket racers in division three, besides, they do have co-drivers..."
"Exactly what I told them", he cut me off, then motioned towards the waiter for another glass of water.

We were there for a solid hour and change, but it was substantially cooler when we prepared to leave, and everyone was certainly in a better mood, so I felt like it was time well invested.

Bah!!!!!

That'll buff out

Rachael took the lead, and I pulled out behind her, with the other three cars behind me, but Rachael checked out on me in the first five miles, as she easily eclipsed the local speed limit by ten or more, so I began to look at my route sheet since I wasn't going to try to keep up with her.

"Right Turn onto Indiana 38 E (sign says toward Stony Creek farm)", was the first sentence of the next instruction on the sheet.
I successfully made the turn and put the sheet down without reading the second and third sentences of that instruction, a mistake that I have admonished co-drivers and fellow travelers for, many, many times on Drag Week. That mistake would bite me a few miles later as we were crossing over I-69 right before entering the town of Pendleton. The street sign clearly indicated that IN-38 would turn onto I-69, so I made a left onto the access road before consulting the route sheet.
"IN-38E becomes State Street through Pendleton. Continue onto State Street/ IN-38E for 54.1 miles", were the next two sentences. Had I read and comprehended that information previously, I wouldn't be sitting on the shoulder, preparing to back up this ramp the wrong way! Traffic was very light, so I figured the other guys would continue on the proper route while I backed up the shoulder and got back behind them with my tail between my legs. I was wrong again, they were all in full on "follow Billy" mode, so before I knew it, we had four hot rods sitting on the shoulder of the access road!

Dan jumped out of the "Plan II" Nova AFX, and volunteered to guide each of us back up the ramp, and hold traffic while we got back onto State Street. Once we cleared Pendleton, we were once again cruising across pristine Indiana farmland, dotted with equally pristine farmhouses. It was dark by the time we drove into New Castle, and at the first stop light, a local pointed out that I had a taillight out, so I pulled into a Marathon Gas station beside Jeffrey Lutz and his Civic.

As I feared, Rachael had shorted out the taillight by packing my trunk improperly, so I simply needed another 1157 bulb. Meanwhile Jeffrey and Nick borrowed Boone's jack to get under the little ground hugging Civic in order to remove a damaged belly pan that had been bent back while traversing a RR crossing. Dale fueled the Gremlin, and added oil again, he would go through 3 quarts on the 244 mile drive.

view from the other side

Checkpoint #1 was the Warm Glow Candle Outlet in Centerville OH. When we pulled in there for our pictures we had covered 95 miles of our trip, in roughly five hours, with around five stops along the way. Definitely not one of our best legs on any Drag Week. Rachael and Pops were waiting for us, but hadn't stopped for gas yet, so now we were going to be waiting for them to get fuel, so that was very frustrating considering the way they had ran off and left us.

Jim and Dan informed us that they intended to break off from our group and find a motel. Since racing doesn't start until the afternoon on Friday, many of the Drag Week veterans have begun to employ a strategy where they find a motel on the way Thursday, so they can finish the drive in the morning, rather than push all the way to the host track Thursday night. They bid us a safe trip and jumped directly onto I-70 while we went back across the interstate to allow Rachael a chance to fuel up the Belvedere. The station was just closing up, so Rachael ran inside to use the restroom as Pops and I topped off the Belvedere and Valiant from the same pump.

Dale looked like he was getting pretty tired, so I suggested that he and Boone go ahead and go, rather than waiting up for us.
"It's 51 miles straight down I-70 to checkpoint #2, so we'll catch up. You might as well go, because you might be dumping in fuel on the side of the road in forty miles anyway!"
They agreed, and were on their way before the clerk unlocked the door to let Rachael out of the convenience store.

Roughly what time was it when you rolled into the first check point? We changed a alternator there, and left around 9:30-10?

my picture of the candle has a time of 22:50 hours...not quite midnight, but not real far away either.

Ahh, the candle factory scene...
As we were getting close the the candle factory checkpoint, the amp gauge on the GTX was reading negative. I stopped and looked under the hood, and found that the big long bolt that attaches the alternator to the cast iron Hemi head had sheared off even with the head. I suspected that maybe this affected the ground if the other attachment points were corroded, and thus the no-charge situation. I tightened up the other bolts, started the car, and the amp gauge swung way positive.

At the checkpoint, we were asking around, trying to find a new bolt and some tools to remove the broken stub. Eddie Miller looked at it and suggested putting a nut on the busted end of the bolt for now to tie things together, then at least I could continue without using an easy out. Good idea. So we found a nut and did that, but then upon restarting, the system failed to charge again. I am the kind of guy who likes to go through a logical diagnostics procedure and pinpoint what exactly is wrong before I start replacing parts. Since we had previously solved what appeared to be a ground issue, we ran a wire from the negative terminal on the battery directly to the alternator case. That didn't work. Next I wanted to full field the alternator to isolate whether the fault was in the alternator or elseware. But I couldn't remember if this alternator needs 12V+ or ground to full field it. I tried to find the answer via google on my phone, but the internet connection was excruciatingly slow, google was being stupid, trying harder to sell me stuff than to provide useful information, and my cell battery was almost dead. By then, we had about a half a dozen or more very well meaning helpers, trying to lend a hand, and half of them insisting that they knew exactly what was wrong, and that I should do this or do that, or they'll go get this or that for me. So even though I appreciated all the help, (and I knew I might end up needing it), I was getting a little frustrated with the nonstop barrage. Add that to being mad at my phone, I had to take a step back and calm down and resign myself to letting a crowd of people poke at my car.
Eventually I got the info I needed from the web, and jumped 12V+ to the spade terminal on the original date coded alternator, and proved it was faulty. The crowd cleared away, and Jeff stayed with the car while a local guy gave me a lift to autozone, arriving right before they closed. They didn't have the right alternator on hand, and I thought about about staying in that town for the night and trying to find one in the morning. But then with a little more internet research, I found a later model alternator that would bolt in but required a wiring modification. Amazingly they had the long bolt in stock too. 45 minutes later, I was very happy to be back on the road with the headlights shining bright!

Don,
I doubt anyone could argue against the fact that Big Block Mopars have a tough bottom end, that can survive abuse. This quote from Boone however, has more to do with "gallows humor". Boone, Dale and I are not going to stop on Drag Week until the car won't move under it's own power, if that means parts get chewed up in the process, so be it. Darren...not so much. Which is why he has more DNFs than the rest of us combined. Hot Rod had a t-shirt which said, "finishing Drag Week is not a skill, it's an attitude"!




Yeah, ours have a time stamp of 10:50 or so...then by the time we left the station, we were onto I-70 at around 11:15.

Other than Dale pulling over to splash fuel into the Gremlin, the jaunt down I-70 was uneventful, but that in and of itself, was a problem for me. It was a reminder of how boring and impersonal a super highway can be, and I found myself fighting fatigue and sleep as we approached Fairborn Ohio. When we came to our exit, the other three cars headed off in search of Foy's Halloween Store, but the Valiant and I stopped at the first available convenience store for a 24oz coffee/hot chocolate combo. It was a little after mid-night when I parked on Main Street to get our checkpoint #2 pictures, and I was shocked at how many locals were still hanging out on a Thursday. Fairborn is an Air Force/College town of 30,000 so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was an interesting gathering. Hanging out for a few minutes, along with the coffee, gave me my second wind, and I felt ready to roll when we pulled out of there for our final ninety-two miles of street driving on Drag Week 2016!

I was worried Rachael would try to run off and leave us again, but she handed off the Belvedere driving duties to Dad, and he wanted to be the caboose. I ended up as the leader again, with Dale in the Gremlin behind me.

We pulled onto I-70 for another boring, uneventful twenty miles, but Dale started spicing things up for me pretty quickly, and I found myself watching my rear view mirror as much as looking out the windshield! The Gremlin appeared to be spending quite a bit of time on the rumble strips, as it became clear Dale was struggling to stay awake, but that wasn't the only problem. When drivers are fighting fatigue, speed control is one of the things that suffers first, and usually they slow down, but Dale kept speeding up when he would drift off. One minute we would be cruising along at 3K rpm with the Gremlin two hundred feet behind me, then the next minute he would be gaining speed, on a collision course with the Valiant's rear bumper! Each time I would whack the throttle to get away from him, and it seemed he would hear the change in the Valiant's exhaust note, and then back off, but I found the whole ordeal quite unnerving!

The Hot Rod Drag Week route planners really like to avoid the big interstates as much as possible, but the first foray onto I-70 had allowed us to skirt around the metropolitan area of Dayton Ohio, and this latest twenty had allowed us to avoid driving through Springfield Ohio. Their discretion was appreciated, as my appetite for stoplight to stoplight driving had been satiated by day two. With Springfield behind us the route returned to US-40, a much smaller divided four-lane which runs roughly parallel with I-70 from Indy all the way to Columbus.

At this point in the early AM hours we had US-40 to ourselves, and with Dale's erratic driving, that was a blessing. On the open sections between towns he was doing OK as we cruised along at 50-55, but when we would enter a small town and the speed limit would drop, he would nearly run over me. We made it through South Vienna and Brighton, but in Summerford there was an actual stoplight for the intersection with OH-56, and as we approached it, I realized he wasn't going to stop so I pulled the Valiant over into the left lane. As I suspected he drove past me and a car length into the intersection before he brought the Gremlin to a stop. A cloud of oil smoke enveloped the Gremlin as it sat there with the 572 searching to maintain a semblance of an idle.
"Good grief" I thought to myself, "That thing is really hurt!"
When the light turned green, I pulled up beside him, and he motioned me ahead with a sheepish half-grin on his face, his eyes glazed over.
I called Boone to come up with a game plan.
"We have to get him off the road, he would have plowed right into me if I hadn't moved over!"
"I'm with you", Boone agreed, "He's been keeping me awake, just hoping he doesn't end up in the ditch, so if you find a spot, we'll pull over for a while."

Three miles down US-40 was a large, well lit concrete parking lot oasis in front of Becks Hybrids, a big seed company. Since the parking lot was unused at 1:30 AM, we took up residence with our four Mopars. Almost immediately upon parking, Boone and Billy grabbed a Harbor Freight moving blanket and spread it out on the pristine concrete behind the Duster. While Billy made himself comfortable on the blanket with his pillow, Boone helped Dale remove the hood from the Gremlin.
"We could hang out here, maybe take a nap like we did at that checkpoint in 2014."
I was clearly directing the suggestion at Dale, but he took a moment to respond as he bent over the fender of the Gremlin and checked the oil on the ailing big block.
"I'm with Dave", Boone added, "It wouldn't hurt to get in a little rest, and it's nice out here right now!"
Dale raised up and shook his head slowly, "Guys...it can't be that much further and I'd rather push on and get to the motel!"
Boone and I consulted the route sheet as Rachael was handing out cold drinks and snacks to everyone. The fact that she was trying to get us loaded up on caffeine and sugar showed me which way she was going to vote.
"Looks like 41 miles left to go", Boone informed everyone.
"We can make that in less than an hour", Dale asserted, as he emptied his fuel jug into the five gallon cell.
"No", I shook my head, "Boone, Dad, and I can make it, but you will be in the ditch in ten miles!"
He took a long swig from the Dr. Pepper Rachael had handed him, and motioned towards her for another one.
"I can make it...honest, let's give it a try, and just pull over again if I get too bad!"
Boone just shrugged when I looked at him for a suggestion, so I agreed that we would keep rolling. I was reminded of losing a front tire with twenty-two miles to go last year and hoped that our luck would even out.

Eleven miles later, I pulled into a Sunoco station in West Jefferson. I had only drank water earlier, and I was ready for another coffee and chocolate, besides that, we were quickly approaching the point where we would jump on I-270 to skirt around the bottom of Columbus, so I wanted to make sure everyone was where they needed to be on pump fuel. Rachael and I went over the math, and I put another four gallons in the Valiant, and six in the Belvedere.

Dale seemed to have recovered, and the remaining miles clicked off pretty easily until we were about five miles from the motel. I was cruising along at about 3200 rpm when I lost my interior lights and taillights. I assumed it was the same fuse that had cost me my trans-brake last year, and since I had my brothers behind me and still had headlights, I continued on to the motel.

If we thought the Days Inn Reynoldsburg was a den of iniquity on Monday when we checked in, it was far worse on Friday morning at 2:30 AM! We parked next to the front entrance with our cars in a well lit area next to the main road, but I still wasn't comfortable with all the crazies still milling about. Dale, Boone, Rachael, and Billy all headed in with our bags but I waited behind to keep an eye on things while a pair of mid twenty year old gals were parked in a van next to us. Dad took a cue from me and loitered about at the back of the Belvedere. The women were jumping around in the van like they were all jacked up on meth, and I figured they would be going through the interior of our cars two minutes after we went in, so I waited. Finally a guy came out of the motel, and the girls grabbed their bags and followed him in, so I got out of the Valiant and walked over to where Dad was standing.
"You ready", I asked him, "I was just waiting for those girls to get out of that van parked beside us".
"I'm worried about that black guy in the bushes at the corner of the building", Dad motioned, "He's been on his phone since we parked, probably calling his buddies to come steal our cars!"
I laughed and slapped Dad on the back, "I saw him, he could care less about our cars, so let's go get some sleep!"
"What makes you so sure?" Dad gave me a stern look and didn't budge.
"Did you see the brown Crown Vic that pulled in loaded down with painted up gals right behind us?"
"No", Dad shook his head, "I must've missed that".
"Well, he's their pimp, or look out, or both. Two of them were let in the side entrance of the motel, and two of them went to those semis parked around back, so he's more concerned with them than he is our cars."
Dad smiled, "and you caught all that?"
"I put myself through automotive school as a graveyard cashier for convenience stores in the worst parts of Phoenix, Dad", I laughed, "seen it all before!"

I showered and crawled in bed without exchanging any words with Boone at all, and Rachael was already out when I entered the room.

Almost sounds like the Americas Best Value Inn we stayed at in Hebron.Squirrel stayed there.It was lets just say "Different".

I got to stay at both, at the beginning of the week. We found another city to stay in for the end of the week.

Driving tired is scary. It's kind of like driving drunk. You are so impaired, you don't know how impaired you are.

I'm glad you made it!

Day 5, National Trail Raceway, Hebron OH

As I wrote in last year's story: "Friday on Drag Week 2015 was like a bad ending to a really good movie". I then went on to complain about everything that went on that day from the opening cars down the track to the awards ceremony to finish up. In response to my complaints, Scott Abbott, driver of the orange/primer 70 Road Runner wrote the paragraph below. Now, I don't know if the powers that be at Hot Rod Drag Week read this thread, or if Scott felt compelled to send them an E-mail, but all of his suggestions were implemented on Friday of Drag Week 2016, with outstanding results!

Hot Rod Drag Week 2015: The Experience




The first part implemented was the announcement made during Thursday's action that the track at National Trail would go live at 1:30pm, not the previously scheduled 3:00.

#37 David Pearson Groovy Grape 70 Dodge Charger
Day 1: 14.02-102.1
Day 2: 13.64-104.2
Day 3: 13.96-102.3
Day 4: 22.35-66.7
Day 5: 19.00-79.3
Final Average: 16.596-90.95

David was well on his way to a respectable high thirteen second average before the axle spline problem bit him at Indy. The big Charger managed to finish the week despite the setback, with careful torque management on the rest of the journey!

There was a tinge of daylight working through the curtain when I woke up, but it was only 6:30 AM. I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep unless I checked on the cars, so I pulled on a t-shirt and my shoes to make my way out to the parking lot.
Tim Hall was obviously suffering from the same kind of anxiety I was, because he was in the parking lot checking on his nine second, Hot Rod class leading 47 International pick-up at the same time. His face brightened into a smile when he saw me come out and he extended his hand.
"Coming out to check on the cars too I see", he laughed.
"Yeah, we stayed here Sunday night, and we were the only DW cars here...it's a pretty rough looking area."
"I didn't have a room reserved for Thursday night, in case I didn't feel like making the whole drive", He explained, "and this is what I found, but I could tell it was pretty sketchy, so I didn't sleep all that well!"
Everything seemed to be in order, so I made my way back through the lobby, and grabbed a small cup of coffee on my way to the room. Odd considering I planned to lay back down, but my wife is addicted and has a pot on 24/7 at our house, so it's never a bad time for a sip or two.

I was still restless when I returned to the room, so I went ahead and took a shower, laid out my clothes, and packed all my things before crawling back in bed.
"It's 9AM", Rachael was shaking my shoulder, "last call for the continental breakfast!"
She had the last of her stuff in her arms, and Boone had already cleared out of the room, so I dressed quickly and joined them at a table. All of us were aware that they would start putting food away promptly at 9:30, so we loaded up several plates in advance, and Rachael was cranking out waffles as fast as the machine would allow. Everyone looked refreshed and well rested except Dale, he looked like he could've slept another five hours!
"You just going to roll the beams and take a 20/50 and call it good when we get out there", I asked him.
"No", his voice was coarse and he shook his head slowly, "did the math already and I need an 8.97 or quicker to beat last year's average, so that's what I intend to do!"
I gave a shocked look at both Boone and Dad, but they just looked down at their food and shrugged.
"The engine is hammered, the car is hammered, you don't have anything to prove...", I tried to reason.
"Look Dave", he stared right at me, "We don't set many goals for our Drag Weeks: have fun, spend time with the family."
"Yeah...that's the way we approach it," I agreed.
"We don't come out here and try to win class or impress everyone, it's just fun. We do however, try to run faster every year, and improve our average. Right? Isn't that what you are trying to get Rachael to do with the Belvedere?"
"Yes, yes, but I don't want you to drive over the crank and put the little beast in the wall either!"
He leaned back in his chair, and laughed, "She's got another eight left in her, I'm sure of it!"

We didn't roll into National Trail until around 11:30, and we heard the announcement that they were indeed going to start with a two hour session of Street Machine Eliminator, so we turned our concentration towards making sure that Rachael and the Belvedere were ready to go first.

#36 James Cefalo Black 62 Chrysler 300
Day 1: 15.30-88.2
Day 2: 15.01-89.6
Day 3: 15.17-88.3
Day 4: 15.41-87.4
Day 5: 15.41-81.6
Final Average 15.264-87.05

Eddie Miller convinced his customer James to bring his big C-body to this year's event, and if the big whale couldn't get enough attention on it's own, they lettered it up like Ray Brock's Hot Rod sponsored 62 Winter Nationals entry! I think James had the adventure of a lifetime, which is what Drag Week is all about.

A low compression motor home 440 fills in admirably for the long gone 413.

#35 Warren Hall 87 Black/Silver Dodge Shelby CSX
Day 1: 13.38-105.0
Day 2: 17.89-79.5
Day 3: 13.58-99.5
Day 4: 13.92-100.3
Day 5: 14.23-101.6
Final Average: 14.60-97.21

Warren had to think after Day 1, when he had a second and a half advantage on Teri's RT, that he would be higher on this list. One bad day on Drag Week though, affects everyone the same, from the guy trying to finish third overall to the guy just trying to outrun his friend in SME. To his credit, Warren recovered and finished, but Norwalk killed his average!

#34 Teri Skrab White 92 Dodge Spirit RT
Day 1: 14.81-99.3
Day 2: 14.40-100.2
Day 3: 13.83-100.7
Day 4: 13.33-102.2
Day 5: 13.83-104.3
Final Average: 14.045-101.38

An early nineties attempt by Dodge to build a four door front drive "Euro-luxury hot rod" is largely forgotten some twenty-five years later, but this model may well have marked the zenith of the 2.2 front drive development and beat the Taurus SHO to be named Motor Trend's "Domestic Sport Sedan of the Year" in '91 and 92. Only about 1400 were ever sold, so it may surprise you to learn this is the second one to complete Drag Week. Ed Kelly's red '91 finished 2013 with a 14.41 average, and a 14.07-100.6 best.

Teri took advantage of the two hour window on Friday, putting four passes on the little DOHC 2.2, but couldn't match her 13.33 from Indy.

The first pair of Street Machine Eliminator cars went down the track at 1:35pm to open the day's festivities.
"11:19 is the Quick 32 bump going into today", Freigburger noted, "So that's the number these competitors are shooting for!"
"It should be pointed out", Lohnes added in, "Each of the racers have completed Drag Week 2016 when they take the tree and break the beam, whether they decide to make another pass or not, so you may see a show of emotion when they return to the pits!"

The first pair down was Brian Peterson's Denmark based C3 '80 Corvette against Jeff Dean's Duramax diesel powered '77 Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Brian's 10.45-129 would slot the black 'Vette in the 5th qualifying spot while Jeff's Caddy belched smoke to an 11.58-115. The big white two door luxury barge would finish with an 11.62-114.9 five day average, good for 45th place in SME.

Dale pulled the front clip off the Gremlin, and removed the plugs. He borrowed a compression tester from Jesse Madaffari and ran through all the cylinders one by one. I walked over after sending Rachael to the lanes in the Belvedere, and looked down at the numbers scrawled on a piece of paper:

170----170
90-----30
30-----0
170----170

"Wow, that's pretty bad...", I stopped because I didn't know what else to say.
"Yeah", Dale laughed, "she's pretty used up, so I put 175 on the first hit and 200 on the second...hopefully that will get her there."

#33 "Hemi" Joel Nystrom Blue 67 Plymouth GTX
Day 1: 13.64-101.9
Day 2: 13.81-99.9
Day 3: 13.64-100.8
Day 4: 13.88-98.8
Day 5: 13.83-99.1
Final Average: 13.765-100.12

It's the 33rd fastest mopar on Drag Week, Joel's "parade car" as he calls it. It's so much more than that. She's a rolling, living, breathing, history lesson, a legendary automobile from a time when a company would dare to put a nascar race engine in a personal luxury convertible! 17 were built. Let that sink in...seventeen, and here she was, rolling down America's mid-west back roads in front of the unwashed masses, shocked Grandpa's trying to explain to their grand kids the significance of the car! Something akin to seeing Kim Basinger wearing cutoffs in a Wal-Mart...


#32 MaryBeth "Talongirl" Kiczenski Blue 95 Eagle Talon
Day 1: 13.78-124.4
Day 2: 13.63-124.0
Day 3: 14.09-94.8
Day 4: 13.62-120.1
Day 5: 13.60-117.9
Final Average: 13.748-116.28

As the 124 mph trap speeds indicate, this car is much faster than 13.70's, but she's used to launching on street tires, and the Drag Week mandated sticky rubber caused a serious issue. It's a fine line leaving with all wheel drive, and needing rpm to keep the turbo'd 4 cylinder spooled up and happy. The new rubber didn't allow the wheel spin/speed needed to accomplish that, so bogging and lag plagued MaryBeth throughout the entire event.

The fifth set down National Trail Raceway was James Sandlin's 13 Ram beside Craig Douglas' 15 Charger HellCat. James would finish Drag Week with a 13.30 to Craig's 10.38-133. That would put Craig in the 4th qualifying spot. Gary Tallen's 62 Tempest and Ed Urcis' 15 Vette had already locked into their spots, so with 10 cars through the traps 4 of the 32 spots were already filled.

#31 Jess Neal Yellow 73 Dodge Challenger
Day 1: 13.34-101.8
Day 2: 13.32-103.5
Day 3: 13.26-102.7
Day 4: 13.44-101.1
Day 5: 13.51-101.4
Final Average: 13.380-102.01

This was Pike's Peak racer Jess' second foray into Drag Week with his ratty but dependable 73 Challenger. The small block powered E-body improved nearly a half-second and two mph in average over their 2014 effort.


#30 James Sandlin Black 13 Dodge Ram
Day 1: 13.43-98.6
Day 2: 13.17-101.8
Day 3: 13.24-100.2
Day 4: 13.25-100.8
Day 5: 13.30-100.3
Final Average: 13.284-100.36

I talked with James on registration day, and while he hasn't done much to boost the horsepower of his 5.7 Hemi truck, he did do as much as he could to get it to leave hard. Lower gear, converter swap, and short tires on 15" wheels. I thought low 13's was pretty impressive for only having 100 mph on tap!

Looking at their comparable times, James and Jess might have had more fun if they had spent all DW racing each other!

The Street Machine Eliminator class was intent upon using every bit of their two hours, and despite breaking drivelines on an MG and a Cavalier they still managed to send 30 sets down the track in the first thirty minutes. Raywood and Connie Lejeune, a Louisiana couple who bring a pair of hopped up , late model 5.0 Mustangs were solidly in the quick 32. The 2015 SME Champion, Jeremy Wilson and his 66 Nova were slotted into the 7th qualifying position to defend his crown, but last year's runner-up, David Burke in his LS powered 79 LeMans, was struggling to stay in the field. Of the four guys near the bump, only Clark Lamb in his Barracuda had a solid run in the opening salvo, with an 11.18-119. Burke went 11.29-118, Charlie Ogle's gold Challenger went 11.39-119, and David Kirwan's first hit in the red Challenger HellCat was an 11.35-119.

Just forty minutes into the session, a couple of the first guys down the track were back for pass #2. Rachael pulled the Belvedere into the right lane water box at the 44 minute mark, with Burke in the LeMans beside her.
She treed him big time, and the Belvedere seemed to be running really hard in the first eighth, but she eased off the bottle at a thousand foot and ran 11.63-112, a perfect ending for her Drag Week! The 11.45 for Burke meant he would need a third pass if he wanted to compete in the quick 32.

Compound Turbos and Cummins 6BTs

While not a Mopar product, many of us have a great deal of affection for the 5.9 Cummins Turbo Diesels that have powered our heavy duty Rams for nearly twenty years. We've seen them hopped up with bigger turbos, higher rpms, injectors, turned up pumps etc. with pretty impressive results. Compound turbos are nothing new either, we've seen them on Super Stock pulling tractors since I was a kid. Now apparently, compound turbos on 5.9s for a stout street hot rod is a thing.

Robert "Bob" Berry has brought his crazy contraption to Drag Week the last three years. It's a diesel powered rat rod truck that he calls a 45 Chevy CK, but the bed is from a Studebaker, the front fenders from something else, and parts from every manufacturer you can think have been put to use. The 5.9 6BT with a single turbo averaged a 13.81-96 in 2014, 12.06-114 in 2015, but he stepped it up with compound turbos in 2016, and despite blowing the intake pipe off on the first day, claimed one of the coveted quick 32 spots in Street Machine Eliminator!

Robert Berry "Rust" 45 Chevy
Day 1: 12.09-113.6
Day 2: 10.66-125.1
Day 3: 10.83-120.2
Day 4: 10.64-121.7
Day 5: 10.78-123.9
Final Average 11.002-120.94

Jesse Harris pulled his Cummins out of a crew cab 4X4 that had ran a best of 11.0, and slammed it into a tubbed, back halfed short bed C-10 just days before Drag Week. Like Robert, first day teething issues left him behind the pack, but a string of ten second runs secured his place in the quick 32 as well. Not bad for a couple of inline 6 oil burners!

Jessie Harris Orange/White 80 Chevy C-10
Day 1: 11.59-127.5
Day 2: 10.94-125.0
Day 3: 10.29-129.8
Day 4: 10.42-128.9
Day 5: 10.35-130.3
Final Average: 10.724-128.34

#29 Patrick Culkin 88 Black Dodge Shadow
Day 1: 12.15-109.0
Day 2: 12.11-113.1
Day 3: 12.71-102.8
Day 4: 15.30-95.6
Day 5: 12.37-103.5
Final Average: 12.933-104.83

Pat brought a 90 Shadow in silver last year...it was better looking, and faster. I don't know if it was broke, or this is a new project that had issues, or what the real story is, but when you own two Shadows that can run high elevens and low twelves, that's impressive!

Top Photo: 2016 car
Bottom Photo 2015 car

Ouch!!

Billy you are such a tease, you know we are all waiting for the "and then it......."

I'd love to tell you all about it Rod...but I do have a timeline to follow, you know!


As the Street Machine Eliminator session entered the second hour, the number of cars coming back for multiple time runs dwindled, while the pressure and anticipation rose for the drivers on the bubble.
Jay Williams ran a solid 10.88-128 in his bright yellow 2013 ZL-1 Camaro to finish his week with a 10.75-132 Five day average, then promptly told his co-driver James (Billy's step-dad) that he was going to turn it in, and ask not to be included in the bracket race.
"We finished the week, and I proved to myself I could do it, I don't need to bracket race, I did what I came to do!" James re-told the story in our pits shaking his head.
"I don't understand it! We worked all week to secure the 13th qualifying spot...and he doesn't want to race!"
"I've seen it time and time again James", I explained, "Street car guys are usually street car guys because they don't like to race!"
"They love having a fast car, they enjoy driving it, making time runs in it, but they don't like competition...or they'd be racers", Dale added.
"No biggie", Boone chimed in, "That leaves one more spot for one of those guys on the bubble that are out there beating on stuff just trying to squeak in the field."

That extra spot was quickly claimed by a long shot, who made up several spots to leapfrog into 31st on his third run. Michael LoCascio and his 08 Pontiac G8 went 11.30, and 11.17, but his third pass of 10.99 was the one he needed to overcome the 11.62 he turned in on day 1. Clark's 11.18 was good enough to slot him in the 30th spot, but he came back around for an insurance run, and improved to an 11.17-120.
Burke's Pontiac LeMans used a last ditch effort, 3rd pass of the day 11.18-119, to finally move around Charlie Ogle for the 32nd spot. As Charlie alluded earlier, his stroker big block was going away, and the 72 Challenger was slowing every pass. He made his final pass of Drag Week 2016 beside his nephew Dillon, in Jason's 73 Barracuda. Dillon took the win 11.79-114 to 12.06-104.
We had all been standing at the end of the bleachers watching, and we were fairly silent as the Barracuda and Challenger made their way into the shutdown area.
"That was cool", Dale managed to get out, with his head turned away from us.
"Yeah...it was", Boone added
"Dillon represented Team Ogle quite well this week", I observed, and the brothers nodded in agreement.
Rachael suddenly spun away from the track and announced she was going to make another run.
"What for", I asked.
"I'm here, the car is here, we have time left, and the lanes are empty", she shrugged and walked back towards the Belvedere.

#28 Wayne Scofield Tan 69 Plymouth Valiant
Day 1: 12.45-112.0
Day 2: 12.23-113.5
Day 3: 13.29-106.8
Day 4: 12.30-111.3
Day 5: 12.57-110.4
Final Average: 12.571-110.82

In 2014, Wayne lived in Kansas and took a 69 Nova to Drag Week, where he finished with a 13.40-102 average. He then moved to North Carolina, sold the Nova, and didn't even bring this untouched original Valiant home to begin work on it until late October, but in ten months the injected small block was in, roll bar added, and the clean 69 came within a hiccup on day 3 away from low twelves all week.

#27 Susan Slater Blue 15 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack
Day 1: 12.36-109.7
Day 2: 12.35-111.7
Day 3: 12.36-112.9
Day 4: 12.27-113.0
Day 5: 12.70-107.9
Final Average: 12.412-111.08

With a couple of HellCats running around, Susan's 6.4 didn't garner much attention, but I thought it looked like a very fun car. She made multiple passes every day, and except for small blip on Friday, the Scat Pack was deadly consistant.

#26 Dillon Ogle Yellow 73 Plymouth Barracuda
Day 1: 13.04-105.7
Day 2: 12.05-98.6
Day 3: 11.97-113.9
Day 4: 11.83-113.1
Day 5: 11.79-114.5
Final Average: 12.141-109.21

Before Drag Week 2016, Dillon and his Uncle Charlie converted both E-bodies from 4 speeds to 727s, and had some issues to start the week, but the Barracuda and Dillon were stronger every single day. The average improved 4 tenths and two mph over 2015.

About 35 minutes after Rachael ran her "just-for-fun" final pass of Drag Week 2016, Ross Dudley pulled his Road Runner up for his first pass of the class car session, and decided to make a just for fun pass as well.
"Did he just purge the nitrous?" Rachael asked me as we watched from the stands.
"Yeah...he sure did, and he hasn't used it all week so maybe he just wants to go after your 11.30 best", I joked.
The big B-body torgued over pretty hard and ripped down the track to an 11.390-119.95!
"Well", Rachael laughed, "He might take that time slip back to Canada and show it off to his buddies, but he can't turn it in!"

Ross spun pretty hard on his second pass, and then had what appeared to be fuel delivery issues on his third, so his official Friday slip ended up as his slowest of the week, but that first run was a keeper!

#25 Ross Dudley Yellow 68 Plymouth Road Runner
Day 1: 12.04-111.4
Day 2: 11.91-112.0
Day 3: 11.94-111.7
Day 4: 11.95-111.1
Day 5: 12.14-110.5
Final Average: 12.003-111.38

Ross and his Road Runner have completed every Drag Week they have entered, a perfect eleven for eleven, and have only missed attending the original 2005 event.

#24 Rachael Gebhart Blue 67 Plymouth Belvedere
Day 1: 11.93-115.2
Day 2: 11.97-113.4
Day 3: 12.08-113.9
Day 4: 11.57-119.2
Day 5: 11.63-116.4
Final Average: 11.840-115.63

Rachael's final average was twelve hundredths better than her 2012 effort, and four mph faster than the Belvedere's best average in 2014. She said she actually enjoyed herself without the pressure to qualify for the quick 32.

#23 Rod Munchiando Black 68 Dodge Dart GTS
Day 1: 11.83-112.9
Day 2: 11.77-114.1
Day 3: 11.76-113.6
Day 4: 11.86-113.2
Day 5: 11.88-112.7
Final Average: 11.827-113.35

Like Ross, Rod has brought his small block Dart to ten of the twelve Drag Week events, only missing the first two. He's struggled in past years however, to put to together the consistent runs out of the stroker that he was able to accomplish this year. 2013's numbers were nearly identical, but he had a DNF in 2014, and was a half second slower in 2015. In 2007, with the original 340, the GTS was in the high 13s.

#22 Randy Juliani Primer Gray 66 Dodge Coronet
Day 1: 11.74-113.7
Day 2: 11.79-113.5
Day 3: 11.83-112.9
Day 4: 11.80-113.2
Day 5: 11.87-112.5
Final Average: 11.811-113.20

If the bright red paint in the engine bay is any indication to what Randy's Coronet will look like when finished, it will be stunning. The primer was a perfect, stealthy covering for Drag Week though. They announced at Columbus that this was the first car Randy ever owned, and it serves once again as a reminder of what great all around street machines the big block B-bodies truly are!

With their final averages separated by just a tick more than a hundredth, these two could have went fender to fender all week as well.

As the Class cars took their first shots at the National Trail surface, it was clear that a combination of track temperature, ambient air temp, and five days of wear and tear was causing many of the competitors to collect a time slip that was a few tenths off their average pace. A good deal of them were likely to come back for multiple hits, so I decided it was time to stop spectating and put the Valiant in the lanes. My plan was to get a nice, solid, wheelstand free pass on the first run, then come back and lean on it for a personal best.

I had a fresh bottle in, and a couple gallons of 114 Rockett brand fuel in the tank, so I felt the engine was on point and ready to go, I just hoped the driver was too. I pulled alongside a thirteen second Pontiac, so all I needed to do was concentrate on the process of getting the Valiant down the track in the most efficient means possible.

I staged on the foot brake with the tach needle firmly at 2800 and stabbed the throttle to the floor after the ambers flashed. It wasn't a real hard hit, so I suspected a little tire spin, but the front tires dangled about eight inches off the ground. As soon as the fronts tickled the tarmac, I grabbed the nitrous and the front felt weightless again for a brief moment, but never rose significantly. I clicked second and found myself charging smoothly down the middle of the groove with the 428 at full song. I let the shift light hang for a second, then put it in drive. The shift light was on again at a 1000 feet, but the small block sounded so smooth as the tach needle marched to 7K, that letting off the nitrous never occurred to me until we hit the stripe. I was working the brakes pretty hard to scrub speed when I saw the top end worker motion for me to take the exit first, even though I was in the left lane, so that allowed me to cruise around the curve at 25 mph instead of coming to a full stop to wait on the Pontiac.
"Was it a good pass, or did I give up too much in the first 60", ran through my head as I drove back up the return road.
"She was singing a song out there", was my second thought, "that had to be a decent run!"
I pulled my helmet off so I could concentrate on the time slip that was offered. 9.652-138.03...both were best ever numbers for the little 62 Valiant, so I knew in a glance that my Drag Week 2016 had just came to a very satisfying close.