Moparts
Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience
Posted By: MoparBilly
Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/20/11 06:16 AM
The Setup: My brothers Boone, Darren and I attended Drag Week '06 with our Dad. Boone and I drove a 78 Dodge 100 SWB, with a 915 headed, hyd cammed, 493 which had been bolted in front of the 8" convertered 727 and 3.91 geared 8 3/4 just hours before. Dad and Darren "ghosted" us in a PT Cruiser. We took home 3rd place in the 12.00 Daily driver class despite busting a rear yoke, and tossing out the D-shaft. Like everyone else who has done DW, plans for "next year" started immediately, but the event moved east, then south, and we were involved, like most mopar guys, with multiple projects, and it never materialized.
When the route for 2011 was announced, the fire was rekindled. While I reside in Phoenix, my 3 brothers live within 7 miles of Tulsa Intl. Raceway, we have all ran the NHRA Divisional at Great Bend's SCRA Drag Strip, and competed at HPT.
The plan called for 4 brothers, in 4 Mopars..the ultimate drag racing road trip.
The principals We are a Family of 4 boys raised on God, Family, Hard Work, and Mopars...the order is completely optional. Now all in our 40's and time together becoming a precious commodity, we thought this would be a throwback to the days of our teens when we would thrash all week on our street driven rides, then head the 70 miles to Mo-Kan Dragway with our freinds for T&T.
A short introduction is in order so that the rest of this adventure will be easier for you to grasp. I'm the oldest, wisest and clearly best looking of the bunch. Looking at pics from '06 when I was 320 lbs. led to me joining Boone in his running hobby, resulting in the shedding of 60lbs. and a much brighter outlook on life.
Boone is the 2nd born, a mere 15 months younger than me and my roommate, best freind growing up. His strange moniker is a nickname given to him by me. Mom called us by our middle names, David and Danny, and we enjoyed watching the Davey Crockett/ Daniel Boone shows on TV, then re-enacting them. He is the runt of the family at 5'10" and 170, and easily the fleetest of foot. Incredibly intelligent, quirky, with a temper that is hard to ignite, but darn near impossible to extinguish.
Darren is 2 years and 8 months younger than Boone, but from 6th grade up they were nearly the same size. The consumate natural athlete 6'3" 230. In high school he was the 1000 yard tailback, the 17 point a game Forward, the second fastest 200m runner in the state of Oklahoma, all with absolutley no work ethic, and a total abhorrence to practice. Dad's Favorite, the girls' favorite...you know the type!
Dale was the baby, always eager to get along, to be along, 6 years my junior with many of the same features. Then we put a helmet and shoulder pads on him and he became an animal!! All the big Universities wanted him, but he just wanted to get married and work on cars. His dream of big time football died in the summer following his Senior year when the 727 in his 340 Duster exploded, breaking his right foot in 4 places. Simply the most mechanically intelligent and gifted person I've ever met. 6'1" 280 gentle monster.
The Cars: I purchased my 62 Valiant in '06 from a freind. He had bracket raced it extensively throughout the 90's, but it had been parked, broken, for about 7 years when I brought it home.
After freshening everything, another freind was racing it in '08, and hit the wall in a top-end mishap. In '09, after already deciding to convert it to street use, the driveshaft failed in a burnout, trashing the trans, and most of the floorboard. It sat, parked, untouched, until the announcement of 2011 DragWeek stirred me to get back to it.
Boone had traded his 493 and an enclosed trailer for a 67 Belvedere street car in late '09, also ready to make a move toward a more street driven car. equipped with a 440, 727, and 4.10 8 3/4 it yielded easy low 13's on street tires.
Darren's plan was to take a myriad of parts from stalled projects, and combine them in his street driven 400 powered 73 Charger.
Dale had been buying smallblock parts from a local roundy-rounder when he came across Stock Eliminator engine builder and racer Jimmy Lewis, the chance meeting led to a conversation about a 66 Satellite that Jimmy was looking to sell. His son had grown tired of it, originally a 383 4-speed, the car was equipped with an 8:1 cast crank 440 with a small hyd cam, and a 727. He made the purchase, and immediately began driving the wheels off the tired old girl!!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/20/11 07:16 AM
The Lead-up
In July, I was heading to Tulsa to join Boone in the running of the TATUR Midnite Madness 50 miler, and was dropping off the 70 Challenger R/T project I had recently sold. A conversation with Dale spurred the possibility that he would be interested in finishing the work needed on the Valiant, for financial help in attending the DW event. The added benefit would be that my rig would be in Oklahoma, allowing Drag Week to be a fly in, fly home deal. I loaded up the 2-car open trailer, and all the spare parts for the Valiant and dropped it off in Owasso.
Then began the process of weekly phone calls to all 3 brothers, parts orders, money orders, cajoling, prodding, encouraging, planning...and mostly frustration!!
Both Dale and Boone, showing thier old age and general automotive wimpiness had traded in the 4.10s both of the b-bodies were equipped with for 2.76s...2.76s!!! Boone's 67 was still running fairly well in the quarter, thanks to a stout 440, and 3000 stall, but it really killed Dale's 66 with stock converter, and barely adequate smog 440. Looking at the cutoff for previous years quick 32 in the Daily Driver class, we surmised that they needed to be in the mid-12 range to make the cut. Boone's car was running 13.30's, Dale's in the 13.90 range. Nitrous was the obvious choice, but both cars were struggling with fuel starvation in hot conditions, with nearly stock, manual pump fuel systems, not to mention the 235, and 245 street rubber tucked in the restrictive stock wheelwells would never handle it.
Progress on the Valiant was at a snails pace, and Darren had 3 cars stripped down, but had yet to start putting anything back together. His ability to clean, sand, and detail every small part is uncanny, but definitely not a asset in the current situation.
At 2 weeks to go I had already began intimating to local Phoenix buddies that we were going in 2 cars, I just could not see a scenario in which the Valiant or Darren's Charger would be done in time. I pre-entered the 66 and 67 in Daily Driver, and tried to anticipate our needs as the last opportunities for mail-order parts loomed close.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/20/11 08:44 AM
The Big Thrash
Both Boone and Dale work Mon-Thurs., but Dale had taken Thurs. off. I flew in on Friday after working a half-day in Phoenix, and arrived in Tulsa at 6:00 PM.
Boone's 67 Belvedere was finished out with new additions of an 850DP on a M-1, NOS big-shot plate system, new Carter mechanical fuel pump running to a t'd line with fuel pressure guage. The new Dr. Diff axles were ready for the abuse, and a pair of ancient 28X9 M/T slicks were on 8-inch Pro-Stars and ready to go in the trunk. One MAJOR snafu, the alignment shop on thursday had left the right front lugnuts loose...the American racing acorn style aluminum wheel was wallowed out, and the lug studs had loosened in the hub and destroyed the hub and drum. He had went to our home town and picked up a spare, very rusty hub, but we still had to deal with the wheel, and put it together.
Dale had decided that he could run low 12's with his 66 complete with low compression 440 smogger, a plate, and 2.76 gears if he only had the right converter. My attempts to explain that didn't exist landed on deaf ears, and he settled on a 10' 4000 stall that he installed 2 days before my arrival. It was painfully obvious immediately that it was too loose, and was a heat creator of the first order!!
It puked Tranny fluid out as we arrived at his house from the airport, and there in the pile of parts he had yet to install on it was a mondo-huge tranny cooler, and the requisite Big-shot plate system. A pair of 29.5X9 M/T slicks mounted on 7" police wheels were ready to load in the trunk.
My Valiant looked close to the untrained eye, but I knew an uphill battle was ahead. Boone had finished installing the interior, including the second plastic front seat. He had removed the old wiring going to the shifter, and installed wiring under the carpet, the leads were coming out near the shifter, and under the dash, but nothing had been re-wired..no trans brake, no nuetral safety switch, no rev limiter, no line lock. In addition the stock wring had never been tied into the race car wiring, so the car had no head lights, turn signals, tail lights, brake lights. only one set of the 4 8" electric fans had ever been wired in, and the denso 60' amp alternator had not been wired in. Dale had condemned my tranny cooler lines, and had new 3/8 steel ones he had yet to bend up.
Our biggest Challenge was the Cheetah SCS shifter. When my tranny builder had rebuilt my blown up 904 into a new case he got a little overzealous and cut off not only the front ears to clear the CSR Sheild, but also the back ear...the one that mounts and locates the Cheetah cable, so now a 5 minute bolt-in job was going to require fabbing a trans-pan mounted cable bracket strong enough to do the job.
"Thought you were gonna build my shifter bracket yesterday" I commented to Dale.
"Spent all day yesterday putting Darren's Stealth headed 440 together" he mumbled. "Dammit, you know he's not close, and now he's using up resources and time these other cars need" I shot back. He just smiled and shrugged, We'll make it...".
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/20/11 09:53 AM
It was good to put a face to a name.Had a blast and it looked like you guys were as well.
Posted By: JohnRR
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/20/11 09:58 AM
Good read ...
Posted By: dustergirl340
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/20/11 12:13 PM
Really nice write-up, thanks for sharing. I would LOVE to do Drag Week some day.
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/20/11 01:37 PM
Good read so far Billy... I know the dilemma of trying
to get a car ready but 4 cars... congrats to you guys
for getting them completed... hope to read the rest
of the saga soon
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 06:02 AM
Big Thrash continued I noticed the QA1 Stocker Stars front shocks and new torsion bars were still laying in the front of Dale's shop. The current torsion bars are about 9 turns apart to get the same ride height, so you are limited to about a 3/4 inch gap to bottomed out. The shocks are toast.
"What the heck, Dale?"
"Not gonna happen, your old shocks have the nuts welded on at the top, and we have to pull the fenderwell headers to get to them." Dale replied, "Pull those fans off and re-clock them so all the wires will exit to each other, and then to the side of the radiator..."
"You're kidding! I'm riding on a junk front-end but the fan wiring has to look good??"
"Priorities", he retorted with a smile.
When pulling the 8" Derales off thier brackets, I noticed they had a nice little instruction decal which explained the two I had wired previously, the two that never seemed to do much, had been wired backwards! While I grimaced at my own stupidy, it did give me hope that we could keep it cool on the road.
Boone was attacking his damaged wheel. It was decided that since they had a washer slot for a shank type lugnut, we simply needed to drill out the damaged acorn bevel, and resize the holes to accept the lugnuts...simple, but daunting, and time consuming with a few worn out bits, and a hand drill. Upon completion, he moved it to the rear of the car.
As we worked through the lists of needed work on all 3 cars, Darren continued to call with issues of his own. He was dressing the engine for installation when he discovered the 67 440 block had bosses for mounting the power steering, but they weren't drilled or tapped. Boone decided to go help him, so we drew up plans for parts runs Saturday morning, and cut him loose.
Dale and I called it a night at about 11 pm, deciding a good night sleep might be at a premium at this stage in the game.
Saturday, Topeka -24 hours. 7AM, quick shower, and back at it. We got the 67's hub turned by an overzealous kid at the parts store who left it woefully thin. Stretched the hole in my hood under the scoop to allow for the small diameter breather that was our only option. Installed the Nitrous bottle brackets and line in the Valiant. Wired the fans, nitrous, and alternator through the firewall, installed tranny cooler lines on both the Valiant, and the Satellite. Boone was the runner most of the day, making trips to parts stores, speed shops, and of course, Pizza Hut. We continued to get updates from Darren, "When are you guys coming over to help me??".
We fabbed the shifter bracket mount from a motor home shifter peice, hooked it up and tested many times to get it right.
The hours just continued to tick by, and I started lobbying for an early departure. "Tech is 8-2 tomorrow..I don't want to show up at 2, we need to be there early.."
"It's a 5 hour drive" Dale says, "We still have alot to do".
"We need to concentrate on getting to the track, and getting through tech! Then we will have time to work on making a decent pass, then we will have time to hit the open road."
I was starting this argument early because I know how Dale is. Always the last guy to show up at the track, the last to tech, the last guy in the lanes...drives me insane.
Sometime around 9Pm, we get a call from Darren..seems a fully dressed 440 with deep 8 quart pan and 727 won't slide into the engine bay without hitting the K-member. After a brief discussion, he decides to separate the tranny, rather than dropping the K-member. At midnight he calls, and admits defeat. Engine is in, tranny is not, fuel tank is not, fuel lines are not. He's going to bed, wake him up when we are ready to roll.
We make the decision at that point, that Boone will drive his car to Topeka, and Dale and I will haul ours on the open 2-car trailer. The Valiant fires to life for the first time since Nov. 09 about 20 minutes before we start loading. Boone helps us load the cars, then heads home to pick up Darren, shower and pack. Dale and I load half the darn shop in the truck. None of us are talking, just going through the motions, bone tired. Good decisions give way to just moving..we shower, pack and are ready to hit the road at 6AM.
Posted By: Chris'sBarracuda
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 06:28 AM
Posted By: Al_Alguire
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 06:54 AM
Sounds like the beginning of a great adventure to me. Cant wait to hear the rest.....
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 07:49 AM
Heartland Park Topeka, Sunday Tech, test and tune
We rolled into HPT at straight up noon, and straight into total chaos!! I was overwhelmed by the amount of cars and things going on in every direction. Our '06 DragWeek was much smaller. I began to wander as we pitted, if it would even be possible for me to enter on site, or if the 250 car limit had been reached. The only semblance of any organization was a massive snakelike single car tech line which was strung out throughout the whole facility.
After talking to a few people about the process, we realized the HR staff were just as overwhelmed as we were!! Get in the back of the tech line, and wait, someone will bring you a tech card as you approach the tech barn...that was it. We unloaded Boone's 67 and sent him to the line as our test subject. Meanwhile Dale's 66 had no working horn, and my Valiant had no working lights of any kind, so we unloaded them and went to work.
The line was moving terribly slow, and as seasoned NHRA vets, Dale and I realized there was no way on earth they could cut this thing off at 2.
"We've got time".
"Yeah..We'll just work on them 'til the line dwindles down then jump in."
"Wanna check 'em out?"
"Yeah, let's go see what they are looking at".
** Tech Tip **
It's always a good idea to meander up to the tech area of any new track or event and watch how they tech, and what they are keen on looking for...the process, the timing, and the individual inspectors. This can give you a better idea of how to approach them, and how to best get by with those 1,2 or 10 things on your car which aren't quite right.
** **
Boone went through without an issue, and came out of the tech barn, with his goody bag, and car numbers. 1 down, 2 to go. Darren wired my horn in, as Dale chopped out the original fuse box, and ran power into the stock 50 year old body wiring. Dims/brights, taillights, turn signals, all fired to life without a hitch. The brake light switch was trashed though, so no brake lights. Dale's 66 got a nitrous relay to replace his wounded horn relay, and we jumped in line behind the last 10 or so cars. The guy handing out tech cards was already gone, so Darren went to rustle up tech cards. He came back with a HotRod junior staffer, who said, "Hey, you guys were supposed to be in line by 2pm...
We cut him off with icy stares..."not that it's a problem, here just fill these out".
1st stop was the NHRA tech official. I managed to work him away from the interior of the car fairly quickly before he discovered the broken lower window net rod. One small victory at a time. Freiburger walked up next, twirling the famous "Go, No Go" guage in his hands, "What class?"
"Hopefully Modified," I replied, "Unless the tire is too wide and I'm forced into Pro Street."
He seemed pleased at the chance to put the guage to work, and crawled under the car to give the 315/60's a jab or two. "Yeah, those will work, looks like fun"
We tried to pull a fast one on Keith Turk, and nearly got by with the brake lights, but he wrote us down as having a taillight issue on his "naughty list" and said "Come see me tomorrow". The Valiant rolled across the scale at 2905 less driver... I was pleased with that after adding an extra seat, Dyna Mat, carpet, nitrous, and exhaust system.
Back at the trailer, we all 4 breathed a sigh of relief, teched in, ready for tomorrow(kinda)...the roar of cars running T&T, but all we wanted was out of the searing sun, a shower, and sleep. We left the cars at the track, disconnected from the trailer, and headed for the motel.
Posted By: dannysbee
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 01:02 PM
Sounds like how the process would take place if I was to go.
But sometimes it is the over coming obstacles and testing of stamina that makes an adventure rather than a event.
I am sure you and your brothers will treasury this memory. Thanks for sharing it with us.
I am looking forward to the rest of the story.
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 01:24 PM
Billy... I give you guys credit... I wouldnt do what
you did... I want some testing before I go... I would
hate to get there to find out I had a major problem
the first time down the track OR the first day on the
road.... I do give you guys a big
Posted By: 68 Roadrunner
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 02:04 PM
Cool write up. Waiting for the rest of the story!
Posted By: J_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 02:16 PM
...and I was just wondering what you'd been up to Billy! Good to hear the family is doing well.
Posted By: ZIPPY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/21/11 04:59 PM
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/22/11 05:24 AM
Interlude:
I'm always told I have darn near photographic memory, and it is a gift I cherish. DragWeek puts you on sensory overload however, and it's difficult for me to write this story in the cronological style I usually try to employ.
A few tales are just better told separate of the normal narration, this is one:
The Great Nitrous Bottle Debacle.
Dale and I are hard core nitrous abusers; Boone,and Darren are not, as such they don't have much experience dealing with the pushers, peddlers and dealers that ply in the trade. I've always had a plethora of old, tall skinny bottles, that I try to maintain regularly, including trips to Phoenix's premier handlers of pressurized bottles for regular tests and certs.
When we started this plan, I brought 4 of my bottles to OK with me, but as I've been away from racing for a while, they were out of date. Dale had 1, and we bought 2 more off Ebay. Darren found a small gas dealer who claimed he could get 5 of them certed and hydrotested, for 20 bucks a pop. When he went to pick them up he got tagged for a 5$ a peice "visual inspection" as well! We had two filled immediately with no problems. Darren brought them home and dropped them off. We sent Boone to fill two more on Saturday before leaving, and he came back empty handed.
"One was plugged with what appears to be Mud dobbers nests, and the other has a blown pressure disc", he reported. Sure enough both bore fresh certs. "How in the heck did they pass cert??"..."and where is my bottle nut!" Boone got a strange look on his face, "Dang it, he took it off, and I guess..." "Boone! you can never, NEVER trust a N20 filler with your bottle nut, geez!!!"
When we arrived at Topeka, Dale's 15lb NX bottle was mounted but that was it, he installed the rest of his N20 system Monday morning, only to find Darren had never re-installed the nut, Darren just shrugged, and said, "Guess I left it in the RamCharger". Dale luckily found one from a nearby chevy racer. He then proceeded to completely plug the N20 filter in 5 passes...another of the recently tested bottles that we had the valve replaced in, I guess a clean-out would have been extra!! Cheating is not supposed to be this hard! Moral to the story, if you are new to Nitrous use..hang on to your nuts!!!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/22/11 06:56 AM
Hot Rod had announced that lanes were closing at 5:30 and Pizza/beer would be served at 6:00 Pm in the tech barn. I realized I hadn't eaten since Pizza at 1:00 pm the day before, so we decided to join them. The Pizza went fast, not nearly enough, and we held ourselves to 2 peices each, barely enought to hold off the hunger, no that the adrenaline was wearing off. In typical HOTROD/ Freiburger fashion, there was PLENTY of Beer. We aren't really drinkers, but I had 2, and then polished of my brothers' which they took a swallow or 2 of. An hour later I jumped behind the wheel of the 1 Ton, and they dutifully bailed in with me as we headed to the Motel. Pulled in the lot, and Dale immediately headed for the McDonalds across the street. I hit the pillow, exhausted, as Boone and Darren took showers. They woke me an hour later, for my shower, and my first words were, "Why the Heck did you let me drive back here?? A CDL driver who's been awake for 36 hours, had 4 beers on an empty stomach,...GEEZ that was stupid!!"
Monday, HPT
One of my favorite parts during Drag Week, odly.. is the continental b-fast at each motel. You are guaranteed to find yourself conversing with other particpants you've never met before, and they are all just as revved up and excited as you are!!
We pulled into the Track at about 8:30, and backed the truck up to the trailer...we noticed most of the trailers were gone, and before we even got started preparing the cars the loud speaker crackled out instuctions, "All trailers and support vehicles MUST be in the impound yard BEFORE driver's meeting. Driver's meeting begins at 9AM"!!
We looked at each other in shock, then jumped in, unloading the truck, while hooking up the trailer...we hadn't even really thought about what would fit in the cars, what we were taking or leaving behind. Decisions were made quickly, and we designated Darren to drive the truck to impound, while we headed to the Drivers Meeting. We were told that the 3 hour window for passes, namely 9-12 each day would most likely be expanded due to the 177 cars in attendance, that was certainly welcome news!
We returned to the pits at about 10:15 AM. I still had no wiring to the line lock, or nitrous, or alternator. Boone decided to change oil as well as mounting the slicks. Dale had reworked his 700 and sandwiched the bigshot plate between it and the torker 2 last night after tech, but he still had to plumb the bottle, wire the solenoids, change his stock fuel pump out for Boone's cast-off Chrome Holley pump, and change to his slicks.
We worked for quite some time, when I could feel that Dale and I were getting perturbed. We had a ton to do, and Boone's 67 Belvedere should have been up to run fairly quickly, but he and Darren seemed to be messing around with trivial stuff. We had a small 12 volt powered air pump, and he was bringing the slick up to what he guessed would be correct, I say guess because the guage on the pump, and the little POS thumbnail guage Dale had brought were roughly 4lbs. apart.
I walked by to see what he was doing, and he turned, "I finally had to tick Dale off."
"What for??"
"He was trying to help me with the tires, I told him to work on his car!!"
"DAMMIT, BOONE!!" my voice raised, "don't you get it? We need you to make your run and quit messing around so you and Darren can help us get ready before we run out of time, that's the bottle in your car that I have to use!!
He spun, spitting mad, ripped the air pump off his slick, and jumped in the car. As he headed for the staging lanes, Dale walked over, "What was that?"
"Just Dave pushing all the wrong buttons" Darren retorted.
"Now he's furious, and about to make a pass for the first time in that car on slicks with nitrous"
"First pass ever" Dale came back
"What"??
"Yeah, I'm the only one who's ever ran it at the track"
"Well...call him up, and calm him down, OK?"
I returned to my car and changed my approach, I'd never been down the track with that carb, tranny, converter, tires..what the heck, I don't need nitrous or a line lock at this point, I slammed the hood and headed after Boone.
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/22/11 01:25 PM
As the saga continues... good read Billy... we'll
be waiting
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/23/11 07:43 AM
First pass When I stopped in the lanes, Boone was about 7 cars ahead of me, and seemed much calmer at this point, after some small talk, I started back toward the Valiant, and noticed oil dripping in the area of the filter, the filter adapter has given me trouble in the past. I thought, "just do an easy burnout, stage quickly, and get a run in...then we can look into it".
Boone did a quick, efficent burnout, and staged. he launched, then grabbed the nitrous at about 30ft out. When he did, the driver's front rolled up noticeably, and the back walked out toward the wall, 2nd gear, and a steering correction sent him back toward the centerline, then it just started a slow walk in the tailend, "Geez Boone, you don't have nearly enough air in those slicks" I thought. I heard him lift off the nitrous for a second as he shifted to third, gather the big B-body, then hit it again.
12.146-112.02. Freiburger had announced at the driver's meeting that we had 100 Daily Driver Class cars, but I thought that number would be good for the quick 32!!
I tightened the belts and pulled in the water, just a quick run-up to 6 Grand in 2nd then walked up to the line. Set the transbrake, but only went about 3/4 throttle, hedging my bet a little. When I let go the drag radials went up in smoke, no attempt at traction at all, the back washed out towards the wall, I lifted to half throttle and steered into it, then nailed it, I was already at 6 grand with the low gear set, and the ignition was breaking up terribly, so I instinctively hit 2nd. The car started pulling hard, but the body staring oscillating from side to side, hitting drive made it worse...you didn't feel it in the wheel, but the rear end was getting worse. I leveled out my speed and just prayed for the finish line to finally get there. 13.472-101.54...I was devestated, simply embarrassing..disgusting!! I walked over and talked to a few guys with Drag Radial experience, trying to comprehend what just happened. Went over and talked to Dale, "This is gonna be a horrible Drag Week, If this the way it's going to go", I lamented.
"No", he said, looking out from under his hood, "this is a minor setback", "that..." he stretched out his right hand, and my eyes followed his index finger toward the oncoming roll-back, perched on the bed was the beautifull Orange Fox body Mustang that was only moments earlier, behind me in the staging lanes, "is a horrible Drag Week"!!! The Mustang was crumpled on a least 3 corners..kinda changes ones perpective real quick.
Scott Abbot rolled up to our pits in his Orange/primer/body work 70 Road Runner, introduced himself as a Moparts member, complimented our trio of Mopars, then said, "What the heck is the deal with all the nitrous?? Haven't you heard of motor-only??"
"Sure Scott, but we're just trying to get in the show"! "Hows your 70 running?"
"Couldn't turn the first pass in...no roll bar, slowed it down to an 11.56", he said as he lifted the hood. The engine was a sea of turquoise, which tried to deceive the unwashed masses...we were duly impressed...with the E.T, and the workmanship.
Shortly afterwards, Dale grabbed his horn button, and the engine RPM jumped on his idling smogger, "Hehe, I'm ready".
He went to the line with about 30 minutes left in the session...12.86-106.8, with black smoke trailing. Back in the pits, "Need more nitrous jet", he surmised, his second pass as time was running out on our day was with 73 Squared in the Plate, 30 degrees timing, and 91 in the tank. 12.66-106.29.
"Our work is done here boys, let's load em up". No sooner had Dale spoke those words than a rental car started heading to our pits at a high rate of speed. Keith Turk stepped out with "naughty list" in hand and my heart sank.
"Boys, we get these issues taken care of.." he started. "Well, we are still working on wiring"...I stammered. "YOU GOTTA BE S***'in me", he was ready to attack. Dale quickly flanked him, "you mean the taillights? Heck yeah we got em' fixed!!"
"Well..my paper says taillight issues..."
"No Problem! this baby is ready to roll", Boone came up from the other side.
This wasn't the tech barn, this was our pits, 4 on 1, I started to feel we might pull this off..
Keith walked to the back of the car, we showed him the taillights, then the blinkers. "I didn't see the left one" he said. Darren stepped up and cupped his hands around it, "See there it's on!!"
He turned his attention to Dale's Satellite, "What about your lights"?
"I showed 'em to you the 2nd time yesterday and they worked, remember"?
"Show me again!!" As he put Dale through the test, he commented, "Did you know there is a difference between a Satellite, and a Road Runner??
"Goodness Keith, you didn't make THAT mistake!"
"Yeah, I didn't know, I went up to that guy with the 68 RoadRunner, and told him I had his Satellite on my list...and he went off on me!!"
We all laughed, "Mopar guys are sensitive"!
"You know Keith", I went on, "We had these cars fixed earlier today, and I told Dale we needed to find you, and he said let him chase us down!!"
"All you Drag racers are the same", he started in on a profanity laced tirade, "cheatinest suckers I've ever seen, We don't cheat in Land Speed racing, and we don't call people out, but you drag racers can't be trusted"
As he drove away, Dale crossed his arms and smiled, "Guess we don't have to chase down those brake lights now."
One more hurdle, then we were faced with the task of loading up everything we'd hastily tossed out of the truck that morning. Boone's Belvedere has 5 leaf springs that are basically shot, so his 245/50/16's will rub at the slightest inkling of weight thrown in. His own slicks and a few light bulky items, and it was loaded. The Valiant has a fuel cell, 2 batteries, and a bottle in the trunk..no back seat makes room for bags and other items, but a truck it isn't. Dale's Satellite has massive HD leafs, and the 235/70/15s don't come close to rubbing..2 floor jacks, the generator, power tools, jack stands, bolt bins, 2 sets of jack stands...poor thing had to be over 5000 lbs., with the slippiest converter of the group..this was going to be an interesting trip!!
We headed under the roadcourse tunnel, out to the open road, and shot this picture...
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/23/11 08:33 AM
The Valiant gingerly eased out onto Topeka Blvd., picking it's way tentavely amid the sea of commuters, in rush hour evening traffic. First time on a public highway in decades, the speedo cable was thrown away with the slant six, and the odometer only shows 47K. She's out of practice!!!
Darren is riding shotgun, and both our eyes are transfixed on the temp guage. 4 miles to the gas station in stop and go traffic, and it has steadily climbed to 225...not a good start!! We fill the 12 Gallon aluminum cell with 91 swill. When Dale put his Snap-on timing light on the car, it showed 50 degrees timing in race mode, and he pulled it back to 31 for the road. The numbers are just a reference to me, I don't trust a snap-on light, with a MSD Digital 6+.
The good news is the Denso 60 amp has no problem keeping up, and the 4 8" fans drop the temp quick with the car shut off. We leave at 190, but are back to 220 in the 3 miles to the first checkpoint.
The pic is of a Chief Drive In sign, but we are in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Dale and Boone tell us they are gonna shop, and give us a head start. We pull out behind a White Fox Body pulling a trailer. Now that I feel confident the electrical system will re-start the car at any time, I start shutting it off at long lights, and letting the fans do thier work. 5 or 6 miles down the road, we start out of town, and are running in less congestion, the needle is at 225, but starts to make a move in the other direction for the first time!! I look at Darren..."I think we have a chance!!"
6 miles later the mood in the car has lightened considerably, we are cruising along at 2500 rpm, the temp has settled in at 215, the window wings are directing airflow, and we have open 2-lane in front of us..
I conjure up my best James Taylor voice, "That Cuda had a Hemi and a Torqueflight, believe we sawed him off even if we did lose 3 hundred"!! Darren smiled and laughed. A mile later, he sez, "Pull over, sounds a little lean, I wanna check the jets". Ah..yes, Automotive nirvana at it's finest!!
Posted By: Chris'sBarracuda
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/23/11 08:37 AM
Great stuff.. Keep it coming Billy..
Chris..
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/23/11 12:33 PM
Posted By: 1967dartgt
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/23/11 12:48 PM
Awesome read!! Keep it coming, realy want to try this sometime.
Posted By: dragram440
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/23/11 02:13 PM
This is very interesting! I cant wait to read the rest.
Posted By: BBR
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/23/11 03:30 PM
Great read so far! I keep thinking about what I was doing during all of this. haha Keep it coming!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/24/11 10:53 AM
The jaunt down KS Scenic Byway into Dover put us 26 miles into the trip. Shortly after that, the big road, we eased onto I-70, and I found myself effortlessly hanging with the tractor-trailer crowd at around 3100 rpm. The temp was hanging around 205 unless I stayed behind anyone for very long...she liked to be out in the open air. Dale and Boone were alternating phone calls to Darren to check on location, once on I-70 they had a chance to stretch out those 2.76 gears, and were gaining fast.
"We take exit 300 to 57 north" Darren said, studiously reading the HRDW route directions
"What's the total miles at that point"?? I asked, with no speedo/Odo, and no gas guage, I was dependant on the sheets handed out to track fuel needs.
"80 miles, pretty much"
"Yeah, we better stop, I have no idea what to expect", I replied.
We pulled into the first large modern atation we saw off the interstate. It was filled halfway with other competitors, and halfway with people who just seemed to be enjoying the show!! This was a scene that would repeat itself the whole trip, the general public's enjoyment, curiosity, positive support was overwhelming; the car culture this country has enjoyed for a century shows no signs of wavering!!
The tank refused to take a full 6 gallons, shutting off in the 5.8-5.9 area, Boone was about the same, Dale at 8.4...the price of being the pack mule!
One of the 8 second monsters pulling a trailer pulled to the pump as we pulled out of the way and everyone was milling around conversing. The owner of the car asked Dale, "Geez, how fast were you guys going when you went around us."
"About a hundred" Dale laughed, "We saw you up ahead, and decided to buzz by you"!!
A local police officer had been walking among the cars, admiring them, and he spoke up, "Hope you didn't do that on my roads"!
Dale spun around and his face flushed red, "Uh...no, uh, that was up on the interstate..."
"Good", said the officer, "Not my jurisdiction"!
20 more miles into Abilene Ks. for checkpoint #2, a pic in front of a western wear sign. As we pulled into Abilene, it had the feel of a cruise night, with competitors parked at every resturant, hanging out talking. I waved at KSJ, Mike Crow, and several other guys standing around thier cars. We had pulled out of HPT with only 5 or so guys left at the track, and my brothers lamenting that we would miss "the show" of everyone making the drive, but wih 177 cars, and people seeming to be taking there time, we were in the thick of things.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/24/11 12:43 PM
We snapped our required picture in Abilene, and I let Darren behind the wheel. I have a light spring on the throttle, and it's a solid rod set-up with a custom pedal, toe hook, and solid stop...perfect setup for index/SST racing, not so much for long cruises!! The plactic racing bucket is also a little snug in the hip area...I was ready for a break. The passenger's plastic seat is not a match to the driver's, just a cast-off from a buddy, when I sank into it, I realized it had more hip room, and it was nice to stretch out my legs!! So far, I was very happy with my decision to add 25lbs. of Dynamat to the car, there was no heat coming through the floorpans at all.
The 3rd checkpoint was a Coca-cola mural in McPherson, it was dark by the time we pulled into the spacious parking lot in front of it. The mural is lighted by neon lights that change color, which is about all our pics showed! The parking lot had the feel of a late night cruise car show, and we spent some time checking out the cars and BSin'.
Denny Turzich's 69 Camaro rolled in with Jeff Lutz behind the wheel, pulling a trailer, and being followed closely by 2 Daily Driver entries. Now, I've always tried to adhere to Kyle Petty's famous quote about a nascar crewchief who got in trouble, "Daddy said people who live in glass houses don't throw rocks"! I'll just say that the 3 or 4 people around that car all had a job to do, and knew how to do it. Despite that, it didn't appear things were going well, and they didn't turn in a time at Great Bend, so I don't know what went wrong...it was certainly interesting theatre!!
Dale would tell me later, as we were processing the whole event in a phone call, "McPherson was my favorite checkpoint of the entire deal..just a really cool atmosphere."
We fueled as we were leaving town, and all 3 little brothers were complaining, "You drove by all the restruants, when are we gonna eat"? Crybabies!!
I took the wheel of Boone's Belvedere for the next drive, with a stern warning from him, "Watch the brakes, they aren't so good right now".
Not so good?? NOT GOOD AT ALL! It used up most of the first pump just to start slowing down, the second panic pump had me veering hard to the driver's side as I realized he had never adjusted up the right side front after we swapped drums. That combined with trying to get used to a reverse manual valve body, and a B&M rachet shifter...it took a few miles to get comfortable. The lowback buckets are out of a Ford and nicely re-upholstered...that was definitely an improvement.
We entered a small town, and I saw a competitor's 72 Chevelle in a DQ parking lot, and figured despite questionable lighting, the place may be still open. We went in and ordered at 9:47, the food was great, the staff was freindly. We realized when they were mopping and cleaning up as we ate and chatted with the Chevy boys, that official closing time was 10:00 pm, but they never complained! Love that small town hospitality...
I realized as we got ready to leave that I couldn't find my paperwork for all the Motels I had booked,so I called Travelocity, and got a woman obviously in another country.
We worked through with her strange accent and she was very helpfull in spite of it except for one detail, I couldn't understand the street name..it came out as Spence, or Peach.."Spell it", I asked.
"Won Sera"
"What?, no, spell it"
"P-E-N-C-H..."
"Ok, Ok, I'll figure it out, thanks for your help"!
As I drove into Great Bend, I realized the main drag is 10th Street, "One Zero" I thought to myself, "Lady probably thought I was a moron"!!
We drove by about 6 Motels on the way to ours, each one with competitors in the parking lot, still milling aound thier cars talking, and hanging out. When we pulled into ours several were drinking in thier lawn chairs and cheering when we pulled in. I was thinking, "I just want to shower, and pass out. They have way more energy than me".
We grabbed our gear, and I stuck the aluminum key into the 50 year old door locks, and locked the doors smooth as silk. "Amazing, something else I never expected to use on this car", I thought to myself.
Posted By: Scott58
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/24/11 02:51 PM
Billy-
I'm really enjoying this! Keep it coming!
Scott
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/24/11 03:21 PM
I agree that the CocaCola Mural and the number of people at the McPherson stop was awesome.Lutz killed number 2 cylinder.
Posted By: mopar400
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/24/11 04:13 PM
Great read!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/25/11 01:09 AM
Great Bend Ks. track day #2. The alarm went off at 6AM...it was 12:50 or so when I lost track, and fell asleep, 5 hours...not bad, actually. The b-fast nook was packed with people, and not one of the best as far as choices go, but everyone seemed to be in a good mood, and ready to roll.
There was a large, fancy, self-serv car wash across the street, It took credit cards, had about 12 different settings, and even had roll-down garage doors on one end to fight the persistant Kansas prairie wind. We slid in the cards, and had a little fun playing with all the options available. This was called tri-gloss wax??
Several people watching my car felt the problem was shocks, The Valiant just has the cheap coil-over kits that usually come with a base ladder bar kit. The eye to eye shock apprears pretty common, but is very short. We struck out at the first parts store. The second parts store was definitely more race oriented. When I asked about race fuel, the counter guy said, "Rich, the owner, is already out at the track with all the fuel, he can help you out there. We found a pair of 40$ gas magnums, they seemed about a 1/2 longer, but we hoped they would do. I also picked up a nice Longacre tire guage, no more guessing on that problem. Then I decided to grab some Redline water-wetter, couldn't hurt right?
When we rolled into the track things were moving along briskly, I've raced several NHRA divisionals at SCRA, and they always have an accomodating staff that knows how to get cars down the track. The brothers started changing to slicks, I headed to the midway area with an empty N20 bottle, and fuel jug...
Posted By: moparx
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/25/11 01:14 PM
billy, do you have any other shots of that "rat" dodge ?
Posted By: Bad340fish
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/25/11 01:35 PM
Quote:
billy, do you have any other shots of that "rat" dodge ?
That thing was cool, 4-speed with big block mopar in it. It certainly didn't look super comfortable inside.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/25/11 05:56 PM
Interlude: The "Rat Dodge" Since requested, I'll break into the chronological telling, to talk about the "38 Special", and Boone's growing feeling of inferiority story.
Darren and Boone were naturally drawn to the "Rat Dodge" when they realized it was indeed, Mopar powered. They listened to the owner's tale of how he bolted/welded/cut and grafted 9 sections of different cars together to make the body, carefully adding correct patina to many panels to match the look of others, after learning everything about the construction, Boone commented, "You wouldn't be interested in a trade"
"I'm always interested in a trade, what ya got"?
Boone hooked his thumb across the row, "the Belvedere over there".
"Oh, the yellow 66 Satellite??"
"No, the blue 67 Belvedere.."
"Oh, well, yeah...Man, I sold a 66 Satellite to fund this project, I really love those cars, that's something I could really sink my teeth into..."
Boone came back to our pit, "I don't get it..he wants Dale's beater!! Everyone likes your Valiant and Dale's beater! HotRod takes pictures of both cars and walks by mine muttering about a 'nascar style look' and doesn't shoot a single picture..WTH, it's a nice car"!!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/25/11 06:06 PM
I also got a kick out of Boone and Darren discussing, after carefull inspection of the car: "He's only running 13's and that suspension looks pretty archaic...How much power could we really throw at it"??
Posted By: Bad340fish
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/25/11 06:23 PM
Quote:
I also got a kick out of Boone and Darren discussing, after carefull inspection of the car: "He's only running 13's and that suspension looks pretty archaic...How much power could we really throw at it"??
That thing had some wicked sounding howl on the big end in Tulsa, I am not sure what it was but you could hear it past the 1/8th and into the shutdown area.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/25/11 09:18 PM
Dale joined me at the area between the fuel trailer and the guys that were hauling around Monte and his NOS supplied N20 free re-fills. I sent him over to get the 2 vouchers we were allowed for bottle re-fills, from the hotrod staff.
When he returned, I headed over to Monte with my tall skinny bottle that has seen a few days of outside storage in the AZ sun.
"Wow, that's an oldie!" Monte commented
"Yeah, but I keep the certs up"..it IS a particularly ugly specimen.
"It's warm, it'll take a little while to chill it"
"No biggie, I don't need it right now, I'll come back..do you need this voucher"?
"Naw, hang on to it..I'm just pumping gas 'til I run out" he said with a big smile.
I walked away thinking, "He's just as cool in person, as he is on the board, 10 years of dialogue on the internet and we fianlly meet face to face and I don't even introduce myself". Fact is, I was embarrassed with my car, and ulimately, my performance at this point, and that doesn't make me the talkative guy I usually am.
Boone had his slicks on and armed with the new tire guage, and our trusty 12 volt air pump, he was bringing them up to snuff. I took the line off my nitrous fuel solenoid, kicked on the Volumax pump, and drained the 91 into an extra 5 gallon fuel jug, then dumped in the C-12.
Dale had timing light in hand, Setting his and Boone's at 30 for the spray, and bumping mine to 50 again. "Why 50?"
"Well, that's where it was before...your distributor is hard to move..it wants to go back there...you said you didn't trust my light.."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, get your slicks on".
"I'm squaring Boone's plate at 73 like mine, it was rich at Topeka", Dale was tossing that out there, I could tell
"Sounds good, we got a tale wind today, maybe you guys can lay down a number".
The guys in the Orange 72 Chevelle we'd met at DQ the night before walked over, and one said, "We forgot to air up our air tank, and I need a little air for the air bag.."
"Well, we have a little 12 volt pump"
"We don't have a cigarette lighter"
"We don't either, we cut the plug off, and are just using the leads on the battery, the one with the knot tied in it is negative"
They came back a few minutes later, "That thing works great! Lighter than an airtank, and you don't have to re-fill it!"
"Yeah, it's been a lifesaver so far.." I added.
Boone made it through the lanes first. He caught a great light, and grabbed the nitrous, his comments are as follows: "It was stuck good, I short shifted to 2nd and it was moving. I looked over and realized I had Scott's RoadRunner by more than a car...HaHa motor only huh..oh boy, here he comes..I short shifted drive and pressed the N20 button harder, but his primered front end just kept coming, then the big 70's orange door pulled along side, and we hit the stripe as one, I stared at my win light and it never came on...dang it, that stroker pulls hard"!!
11.76-115.2, Faster than his 493 truck he took in '06 (11.81), faster than his 67 Coronet he drove to Indy in '94 (11.77), so he was very pleased, except for the part about Scott driving around him by 2 thousandths, despite a healthy margin on the tree...that was going to sting for a while.
Posted By: 11secondC
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/26/11 12:36 AM
Good right up, but man your killing me here...
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/26/11 04:59 AM
11secondC,
Man, I hear you! Ya know the typical novel that you read in a week took the author like 6 months to write! Well, I'm no author..I appreciate feedback.
I enjoy the freedom this board allows, I've wrote articles for other venues before, and had to plan, and outline, and compress... here, I just light up the keyboard and fire away. Perhaps I'm being too tedious, too detailed, too much minutia..I don't know.
I've done stories of some of my running adventures on running world and had other runners say "I felt like I was right there beside you the whole race", to me, thats a compliment. The thing about DragWeek is..there's nothing else like it. Period. To convey that I feel like I need to relive it moment-by-moment. Unfortunately I still have to go to work everyday, Babysit the grandson, eat, sleep, and try to keep my very understanding wife from killing me for spending more time on the PC than I do with her, after being gone for 9 days!
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/26/11 05:30 AM
Quote:
11secondC,
Man, I hear you! Ya know the typical novel that you read in a week took the author like 6 months to write! Well, I'm no author..I appreciate feedback.
I enjoy the freedom this board allows, I've wrote articles for other venues before, and had to plan, and outline, and compress... here, I just light up the keyboard and fire away. Perhaps I'm being too tedious, too detailed, too much minutia..I don't know.
I've done stories of some of my running adventures on running world and had other runners say "I felt like I was right there beside you the whole race", to me, thats a compliment. The thing about DragWeek is..there's nothing else like it. Period. To convey that I feel like I need to relive it moment-by-moment. Unfortunately I still have to go to work everyday, Babysit the grandson, eat, sleep, and try to keep my very understanding wife from killing me for spending more time on the PC than I do with her, after being gone for 9 days!
Fear not Billy... your doing a great job... I am a
past DW person and I also know all of the up's and
and downs of that week long ordeal... I WILL be there
again next year to again partake of the pleasures
and defeates of a HARD week long race... I am totally
enjoying the saga............. continue on
Posted By: Dart451
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/26/11 12:37 PM
Posted By: 1967dartgt
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/26/11 02:20 PM
I think you are doing a great job and wouldn't want you to change all the details. Just love it.
Posted By: moparx
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/27/11 02:16 AM
thanks for the update on the "rat dodge" billy !
keep up the great saga !
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/27/11 06:55 AM
Armed with my new tire guage, I pumped the Goodyear 315/60 Drag Radials all the way to 24lbs., desparate to stop the "isolating", or "wobbling" of the body from Monday's pass. I pulled into the burnout box, ran it up to 6, and came out fairly agressive, it felt decent. 3500 against the trans-brake. Rattled the tires hard, no attempt at anything remembling traction, I lift to half throttle, slowly open it up, at 5800 it starts popping and breaking up, shift to second, and the body starts rocking side to side again, I short shift to third and try to ride it out, at 1000' ft I have to level out my speed, and just try to get to the stripe without wrecking or completely lifting..what a freaking joke, this is as frustrating as anything I've faced before. 13.30-101.15. I told Boone upon my return, "I've managed to turn a 10 second racecar into a 13 second street car, unbelievable"!
Dale turned out a 12.44-112.48, followed by a 12.469-112.04 and called it good. The three of us went to the tower, showed them our pics of the previous days check points and turn in our timeslips. For our trouble we received a map and mapquest type instructions showing a 3 checkpoint, 336 mile jaunt to Amarillo!
We set about changing back to Street tires on the 2 B Bodies, and resetting everyone's timing back to driving mode.
"You want to try those other shocks", Dale asked.
"If not now, when"?? I shot back "We'll be too tired, and it'll be dark by the time we get to the hotel, then it's morning, and get to the track..."
"Yeah, this deal moves much faster than I expected" Dale explained
"177 cars, and a 4 hour window to make runs, I don't think it's like anyone expected, this is a different DragWeek than any in the past".
"Everyone is rolling out, if we don't load up and hit it, we won't get to make the drive with everyone else", Darren piped in.
"I could CARE LESS about driving with everyone..I wanna fix this thing and make a decent lap at some point..."
I didn't want to take it out on them, that didn't serve any purpose, but they could sense how far over that slippery slope I already was.
The eyelets on the new shocks were correct width, but the rubber bushing and bolt sleeve were too wide, so each shock got considerable time on the angle grinder. Upon finally bolting them in we discovered the passenger side lower shock mount appeared to be bent, or mis-aligned. you had to grab the shock and physically shove it into place.
"The old shock on this side was toast, and appeared to be binding, maybe it took more of a hit in that accident than you thought", Dale surmised
"Or the driveshaft explosion", I added, thinking aloud. "I should have pulled this entire rear suspension out and checked every single component..."
We dropped her down, and pushed on the back a few times, it felt a little better. We started to load up, and took a look around. Joe Barry had his 56 still up in the air, the hayseed boys with thier straw hats and overalls were changing a head gasket on the 4 door catalina (aluminum headed BBC with ports the size of a fist!!). The orange camaro I posted a pic of was having problems with the disc brake setup on thier Dana 60, a seemingly stock appearing 95 Mustang was on a roll-back. We checked with everyone before rolling out in case something we had might make repairs easier.
When in Great Bend for Divisional races we always stopped at the China Buffet before leaving town, so we didn't buck tradition. With stomachs on the full mark, we rolled out of town around 4:30...it was going to be a long night!!
Bang,...bang, bang...Ugh, we had bottomed out the suspension quite often on the drive from Topeka to Great Bend, but with the 1/2 longer shock it was much worse...darn near just crossing paint stripes. I had added the watter wetter earlier, but today seemed to be worse than the first drive, the temp charged to 220 fairly rapidly, as we drove into the small town of Larned, I saw several competitors pulled over under shade trees appearing to be just allowing thier rides to cool.
"What're we gonna do" Darren asked, "It's climbing"
"I don't know yet".
By the end of town, and sitting at 225, I made up my mind and pulled over with Dale and Boone in tow.
"What's up", Dale asked as he approached.
"Runnin' Hot, let's put some timing back in it"
"It's at the same place it was"
"Yeah, lets try more"
He loosened the holddown, but couldn't budge the distributor...finally got a wrench but still couldn't get it, then just leaned over to two hand it....
"AyyAyy", he screamed, and yanked back in pain. The fenderwell exit headers had claimed another victim. I iced up a rag in the cooler as he finished up, his forearm was going to have a momento of this trip!
"42"
"From '31' to '42', that's all the options I get"?
"Yep, until you get a motor with the distributor where it's supposed to be"!
Several caravans of DragWeekers had went by, with us giving them the "Were OK" thumbs up...surely we were last by now.
Back on the road, the temp seemed to level out at 210, and the engine sounded a bit happier.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/27/11 07:37 AM
The previous picture was Checkpoint #1, 53 miles in. The pillow I had stolen from Boone's car was working miracles in the Driver's bucket, supplying a little cushion, and keeping my hips from sinking into the sides, and getting sore.
A local was looking at my car at the checkpoint and suggested that my return spring holder was pushing against my upper radiator hose, and chaffing it. In between his stories of "Hopped up 318s", and his 73 Challenger he had in his younger days, he mentioned that hard plastic would be a good buffer. I slid the lid from my vitamin water bottle in between, and he seemed genuinely pleased.
Fuel in Minneola, then on to check point #2 in Liberal Ks., Dorothy's House!! The pics were to be taken in front of a small playground called "Land of OZ"
I don't know if we were just punch drunk from the road, or if The Wizard just brings out the kid in you,but we ran around taking goofy pics. and acting like children there for about 15 minutes...not a care in the whole world.
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/27/11 03:01 PM
.... good read Billy.... there seems to be a
problem on all the DWs on temp with a few cars
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/28/11 06:48 AM
We pulled away from the "Land of OZ", and I noticed the ignition was acting up again, missing and breaking up over 3K, with the tach flickering. It only did it at night with the lights on, and for a little after initial start-up.
"We rushed the wiring on this thing, and I ran all the alternator wires through the same firewall grommet as the distributor wires, I think when the alternator is working hard we are getting interference in the signal to the digital 6", I commented to Darren.
"Yeah, it's definitely worse with the lights on", he confirmed.
It just didn't seem happy, the lifters seem to chatter more than ever, Little noises were popping up. There was a storm brewing ahead of us, with lightning flashes, the air was cooling off quick, and the car seemed to run worse, I started to develop a theory that it had to be lean.
We stopped in Guymon Ok. to fuel up, and my gas mileage victory over Boone was even larger.
"I think I'm bad lean, I got into detonation passing a few of those Semi's, and it didn't like it when the air cooled off" I said to Dale.
"What jets are in it"?
"I, do, uh not know.."
"WTH, what size is it"?
"I borrowed it from Darryl, supposed to be some Chuck Nuyten peice, like 1000 CFM", I didn't like the way this conversation was going.
"How many passes did you make on it"?
"I did a nice burnout with it, before the driveshaft broke...and this trip", I surmised
"Guess we should take a look" he agreed.
I backed across the parking lot to an abandoned station with nice canopy lights, Boone and Dale drove over also and we set up camp, and started tearing the front off the carb.
A big guy in his late 60's walked over from the hotel across the street, and started up a conversation. Talking to Darren mostly and looking at the cars. I heard him comment that he had been watching the cars drive by all day.
"My son called and said you guys would be comimg through,
You might know him, he's got the 59 Jag in Hot Rod magazine this month...".
"Yeah!! we saw him at the start of Drag Week, back in 06, he was at Cordova just spectating, and we drove behind him for a ways leaving the track"!
"He's crazy about that darn car, and he was excited about all the DragWeeker's coming into his old stomping grounds...I just live up at Kingfisher, I believe you guys will come by there tomorrow on your way to Tulsa, so let me give you my phone number, I have a shop if you need anything."
I couldn't help but think how the world of racing, and hot rodding seemed to get shrunk down and condensed on this week long celebration. Bill Fowler pulled up shortly afterwards, pulling his silver 71 Mustang convertible on an open trailer, he had heating issues within 10 miles on the opening drive, and now was just going from track to track, and making a run or two for the fun of it.
Darren, Boone, Mr. Henderson, Bill and his co-pilot stood around BSing while Dale and I checked the front of the carb out.
"82s, geez, that's like stock for a 750", Dale said as he peered down the throats, "and this certainly ain't no 750".
I dug some 88's out of the box, and we screwed them in.
"This will get us down the road, we'll change the back in the morning." I told him.
"Yeah, let's wrap this up, it's fixin' to get nasty out here". It was starting to spit a little rain, and the lightning was getting closer, we loaded up and headed out.
Several people at the station had commented, "I can't believe they are sending you down 136...that's a bad road!"
Now we had pulled up at a stop light to make the left turn onto 136, and a guy came running out of the Pizza Hut parking lot adjacent to the intersection, braving the weather to shout a warning at us. "Be really carefull on 136, there's a bunch of sharp turns...really watch the one at the State Line"!
We started off down a wide, rutted, redgravel asphalt two lane road, silhouetted against fierce lighning strikes, 5 minutes later the winds kicked in, and the sky opened up.
Darren is a clean freak...the guy pre-sprays his work clothes with Castrol Super-clean. When we started this trip, I told him I'd like to get a bottle of Meguire's quick detailer for the car...His eyes had lit up and he walked to the counter with about 4 chemicals and an armload of blue paper shop towels and microfiber towels of every color, darn near 40 bucks worth! This was one of those times I'm glad he did. He had liberally sprayed the windshield with the quick detailer before we left Guymon, claiming it would work as well as Rain-X...I have no wipers!
The wind, and the rain was coming at us from the passenger's side of the car, so Darren had to close his window wing and window. I had to leave mine open about 3 inches, and even at that, Darren was wiping fog off the inside of the winshield. The windshield gasket has spent 50 years in AZ, and it was not up to the task of keeping out the driving rain...we had drips coming in at about 5 places. I was running about 45 keeping my tire on the centerline, so as to stay in the high part of the road, out of the ruts to minimize hydroplaning the 315/60's any more than I already was. "Slow Down, were hydroplaning"! Darren pleaded frantically.
"Haha", I replied, "What's the worse that could happen, We've got a spool out back"!
Posted By: DusterDj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/28/11 08:07 AM
Awesome write up....
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/28/11 02:46 PM
We played the wind and rain last year... I was wiping
the inside of the 52 ford PU windshield(no defroster
or wipers)... didnt realize we were on the out skirts
of a tornado in Ohio
Posted By: 75dartcustom
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/28/11 03:50 PM
This is such a fun read. I can't hardly wait for each segment as it comes. I've gotta make it a point to get a car together enough to do both Power Tour and Drag Week. I honestly don't care if I'm the slowest car on Drag Week either!
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/28/11 05:26 PM
Quote:
This is such a fun read. I can't hardly wait for each segment as it comes. I've gotta make it a point to get a car together enough to do both Power Tour and Drag Week. I honestly don't care if I'm the slowest car on Drag Week either!
Its alot of fun... but a lot of work also... but you
will remember your time there... I've been twice but
was riding shotgun but next year I ride WILL be ready
Posted By: sixpackgut
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/28/11 08:30 PM
Mopar Billy, very good write up. is there more commin?
I would have loved to help you guys had i known
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/28/11 09:06 PM
More to come.The "Tulsa Experience" should be good.
Posted By: topfueldart
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/29/11 03:56 AM
Another anxiously awaiting the next installment!!!!!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/29/11 06:26 AM
Thanks for the kind words and support guys..I know this is moving slower than a plot in a soap opera, but stick with me!
When we had turned onto 136, there had been a 4th Gen Firebird, and a Fox Body Stang in front of us, but they had dissapeared down the road pretty quickly. I was figuring we'd hit Amarillo about 1AM, so now I was certain we were the caboose in this deal. The rain started to let up, as well as the wind, but 136 lived up to it's billing, I was slowing to 25 around most of the turns.
We drove through 3 small towns in Texas, in one of those we saw the infamous Green Nova...you know the one, with the beater look, and the poverty caps, and Faux whitewall tires, that runs really quick. He was under it, with the back on jack stands, working on something. I saw a local in a rat rod 50's chevy p/u there helping him, and embarrassingly we drove on through. This is the one and only time in 2 Dragweeks, I haven't pulled over unless I was given a thumbs up to go on...not proud, just tired.
We got to the final checkpoint a little before midnight, a large cowsign in Panhandle TX. A car was in the parking lot, running, with it's light shining on the cow, so we could find it, and take our pictures...at midnight, bizarre..I have no idea if it was an organizer, or a local, or what. The next 40 miles went by pretty quick, I was prodding the old girl along pretty good, for the short while we spent on I-40 to the motel, I let her stretch out a bit, passing Semi's (with approving thumbs up, light flashes, and horn blasts) at 3500rpm. The 2 b-bodies behind me with thier 2.76 gears were not duly impressed. We parked at the end of the motel parking lot, in front of us was a large field with abandoned old barns flanking a small dirt path. We decided against that arrangement, and found 3 separate parking spots in between other patrons Suv's and trucks... Probably not a problem, but a little camoflauge would help me sleep easier. Yeah right, My head hit the pillow at 1:30 AM, and the alarm went off at 6:00AM, those 2 events felt like they occurred simultaneously.
Amarillo; small Texas track, big fun!
Finally, we seemed to be getting our sea legs...we got our bags to the cars, and into the continental b-fast in record time, the best spread so far, so we were loading up. I saw a guy at the next table, by himself, with a Drag Week shirt on so I started a conversation.
"Are we having fun yet"?
"Yeah, I guess", he looked really wore out. "Long night last night".
"Yeah, we didn't get in 'til 1"
"Later than that for us...broke a brake line out on 136, lucky you don't need brakes out in the middle of nowhere. We nursed it into a little town, then some local in a rat rod came to our rescue...took us to his place and welded up the fitting to make a cap so we could cap off the back brakes.
With a pang of guilt, I realized this was the guy in the green Nova. "Bummer!, glad you could make it in".
"This was supposed to be the time of my life", he reflected, "This is a tough event".
Plan the work, work the plan. Boone headed off to Wal-Mart to grab a few things, the rest of us were headed to the track. We had drove 134 miles on our last leg, I was sitting at a light 2 miles from the motel when the big Volumax fuel pump started changing it's tune. "We're running out of gas"!
"Over there", Darren pointed
We cut across 2 lanes, and pulled into a gas station, Dale pulled alongside. I put in 1.5 gallons, knowing I was going to race gas when we got to the track.
"I need some 91 to race on", Dale commented. He had been fueling with Boone on his card, so I was on the hook this time, Dale doesn't believe in credit cards, or saving money; it's a religious conviction, or something like that.
"Just put in 5 gallons", I implored. "You'll be going back to 87 when we leave the track.
We headed off to the track, with Darren navigating, since he had asked directions to get us back on course. 6 miles later I gave him a concerned look, "How much further"?
"The clerk said it's 15 miles to the track"
"And you chose to tell me this after I only get a gallon and half of fuel"?
"Haha, drive easy big brother, drive easy"!
We fell into the convoy about 2 miles later...this was cool, we were actually arriving at a track when everyone else was! The entry was a small gravel road, we stopped at the back of a single line of about 15 cars on the right side. Apparently at Amarillo Dragway, both lanes lead in at the beginning of the event, about 15 more cars drove by us and formed a line on the left side...Oh well, it's Wednesday morning, and I'm driving into a drag strip I've never been to before...no complaints!!
Posted By: dragram440
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/29/11 01:47 PM
Posted By: 68 Roadrunner
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/29/11 02:24 PM
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/29/11 02:30 PM
Good job Billy... sounds like you guys had some long
drives and late nights
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/30/11 06:16 AM
I just spent 3 hours typing, taking us through the race at Amarillo, and starting the drive to Tulsa. I opened a new tab to upload a few pics to Photobucket, and it locked up. Tried to clear out of photobucket and lost everything..I'm agrivated, and the wind is out of my sails!! Sorry guys..and I thought the trip had some frustrating moments!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/30/11 06:34 AM
I've raced at just over 20 Drag Strips, and been to at least 10 more...I really enjoyed Amarillo Dragway. There will be people who will complain about it, and say HotRod made a mistake by scheduling it, I would strongly disagree.
The staff running the track were friendly, accomodating, and they cared, the spectator count was amazing for a Wednesday morning. One old timer commented, "I haven't seen this many people at this track in 10 years!! Like the movie Hoosiers, get out your tape measure, and measure it; A quarter-mile long, and wide enough to make corrections. Just like Home, let's race!! There was no need for "5 mph in the pits" or "15 mph on the return rd." signs, any more than that and you were likely to lose something off your car. The track surface presented a challenge, Small Track Charm, loved it.
Dale and I made our way down the row of cars, and backed in to start unloading, luckily we had left a gap just big enough to squeeze Boone in because the spots beside us filled in quite quickly, it was going to be tight quarters.
Can't do it again tonight, I'm gonna start taking shortcuts because I'm tired...I'll try again tomorrow.
Posted By: drag345
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/30/11 10:43 AM
Awesome job MoparBilly
keep up the great work can't wait!!
more pics please if you have any.
thanks for taking the time to share!
drag345
Posted By: 68 Roadrunner
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/30/11 02:18 PM
I hate Photobucket. Nothing but problems!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 09/30/11 03:22 PM
Amarillo was different.First time Ive heard stuff hitting the bottom of my car at 1000 ft.People were super nice and It was good to help out a track thats trying to survive.All the tracks this year were great and attendance was better tha any DW Ive been on.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 01:02 AM
By the time we had our stuff unloaded, Boone showed up and started adding his load to the pile. I crowded the Sporongs a bit to make room for him, they were a father/son team running the "Baja Chase Truck", a 2005 Silerado, with big balloon mudders all the way around, then when they arrived at the track they did a 4 wheel change to slicks, and skinnies, yielding mid 11 second ETs. Very cool truck, very cool guys, we enjoyed chatting with them at Amarillo, and the rest of the trip.
I lowered the drag radials to 22, jetted the back of the carb up from 82 to 89, wired the nitrous button up, and moved the distributor pickup wires to a new hole about 1/4 inch away from the alternator wires in an attempt to alleviate the ignition break-up problem. The guys completed thier slick swap, and Dale pulled the timing back on the 2 B-Bodies, also raising both cars from a 73 to an 82 N20 jet, to make up for the higher elevation.
Boone convinced me to remove my "Plymouth" front license plate off the Valiant, and bolt on the "Drag Week 2011" one we picked up in our goodie bags. I was doing that when a local was talking about how much he liked my car, and something in his voice registered, I gave him a good look.
"Hey man, thanks for the warning about 136 last night, that really made a difference, it was tricky in the rain"!
"You recognized me"?
"You were at the Pizza Hut in Guymon, right"?
"Yeah, that was me...I just couldn't believe they were sending you that way, I didn't want to see any of these awesome cars get tore up, glad I could help".
Dale came back from his first run, complaining about leaving it in low too long, or something, a 13.12-103.01 in his hand, "I need a 12, I have to move up on some of these naturally aspirated cars, they will really struggle in this 3800 ft air". After 2 days he was 39th, and worried about his chance to qualify in the quick 32.
Boone was almost ready to go up, and I looked at one of his slicks, "That thing looks low", I commented
"Yeah, It's starting to lose air faster than the first two days, I intentionally put 2 lbs more in it, but it's already down..I better the pump with me to the lanes", he declared.
They were ancient 28X9 M/T ET DRAGs that were mounted tubelss, and had been holding a car up (unsuccessfully) at my Dad's shop for at least 5 years, it was a miracle they held air at all.
Dale came back from his 2nd run, really upset, "Decent launch, but it just laid over at half track, 13.61-85. I think it ran out of fuel, 5 gallons wasn't enough, it's running away from the pickup"!
I gave him the rest of my race gas...C/12 in an 8 to 1 pig, what a waste of good fuel, at least that would keep him off me.
Boone rolled up the burnout box beside Mike Crow and his all-world, all conquering, Former Drag Week Champ, 73 Red Barracuda, with it's stick shifted, high winding small block, a true mid 10-sec terror! Ok, I know, he has his mild street motor in it now, but as a second generation storyteller, my Dad taught us early on, "Never let the facts get in the way of the telling of a good story!"
Mike and his Barracuda grabbed the hole shot, and had Boone by a car when he hit the nitrous and the Belvedere rolled up on the suspension, and began to give chase in an odd snakelike procession down the track that told me, "There is no way those two slicks are at the same pressure right now". It looked as though Mike would hold him off, but the Barracuda slowed to a 12.30 at only 94, while Boone streaked by at 12.03-108.64. That's one Boone will be re-telling around the camp fires for many years to come!! We'll have to get Ksj to let us in on what happened to Mike, as the car was considerably faster at every other track.
Posted By: Curt
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 02:46 AM
WOW.. Thank you for spending the CONSIDERABLE amount of time writing this up... I am enjoying every word of it.
Thank You
Curt
Of course if this was a movie you would have given the pizza boy the "Drag Week" lic plate.... then he might have cried a little...just a little..
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 03:03 AM
Mike had the smaller motor with the Doug Nash in it.He rows all 5 with the small motor and missed 5th.
All in our group were one and done and on the road to Tulsa.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 03:06 AM
I made my way through the lanes, as I approached my burnout, Freiburger took notice of the Drag Week tag, and dropped to the prone position to get a good angle with the tag in the burnout shot. My conversations with several drag radial guys had convinced me that the trans-brake was a no-no, so I purged the nitrous in the engine, pulled the Cheetah SCS into low, and staged on the footbrake to 3000. I launched at 3/4 throttle, and was rewarded with good transfer and decent traction. WOT, and short shift to 2nd at 5800, grabbed the N20, felt a little push, nothing spectacular, drive at 5800, and it immediately started wobbling so I let off the nitrous. The wobbling worsened as I gained speed, and began bottoming out the longer shocks, so I just leveled out my speed, and hoped to get to the finish line. 12.42-110.86. I can't tell you how many times I've run 11.0something in this car at a race and been disapointed, I expect 10's, but in the context of this week, and everything I'd been through up to this point, a 9/10th's improvement felt very rewarding!
Hot Rod Drag Week 2011 Day 3 Amarillo Tx. I'll try this out, I'm not a multimedia guy, this is Hot Rod's 28 minute video from Amarillo: Boone Vs. Mike at 6:59, Me at 16:28, and Dale at 17:38
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 03:48 AM
Dale was on his 3rd pass, had jumped the N20 up to 81-92, and the Satellite fell on it's face to a 14.15-79, Ugh!
"The bottle is empty, gotta be", he decides.
"Take mine, I'm done" I offered
"Gonna have to have something to wrap around the bottle so it will fit in my fat brackets"
Boone handed him a jacket, and Dale jumped under the hood, as Darren bolted it in.
"What are you doing now", I prodded
"Taking the N20 jetting to 91-102".
"Are you nuts, it's a cast crank, stock motor, and you don't even know what would have happened on the last increase"!
"I still want a 12, one way or another"!
He headed up to the lanes, I told the Sporongs next to us, "He's cutoff after this pass, If he can't get it done in 4 passes, too bad"!
David Freiburger came over to our pits with his little recorder, and asked me about the particulars of my car, how long I've owned it and such. It's nice to be noticed, even if the car wasn't performing well. But anyone who's read my drivel on this board for 10 years knows I'm a very introverted, private person who would never seek attention at all.
Dale was 2 tenths better to the 1/8, but it laid over again, and he had let off the N20, 13.15-104.
"I let a great opportunity get away here", Dale moaned as whe headed to the tower to turn in our slips.
"And my 12.42 covers your 12.44 best", I reminded him
"Still got you on average", He smiled.
"You guys are pathetic slow", Boone chimed in.
We showed our pics. of last night's checkpoints, then Tonya Turk took our timeslips, and handed us the instructions for the drive to Tulsa, all 403 miles worth, Whew!!
Posted By: rt66jim
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 04:01 AM
Billy after watching that vid at Amarillo. I can see what you mean. That thing was a handful down about 1000'. Nice driving. And nice writing. Jim
Posted By: a493demon
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 04:18 AM
that looked fun on the top end.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 04:35 AM
We headed back to the cars to prepare for the trip. Boone had already changed out his slicks, and loaded most of the stuff going in his car, we were starting to get a pretty good routine going. He grabbed his and Dale's bottles, and headed to Monte's trailer. I hooked the pump to my Goodyears to bring them back up to driving pressure, then re-installed my breather, and started loading bags behind the roll cage in the back-seat area.
Dale was working on changing out the slicks, and then crawled further under the car to inspect something, I heard him mutter a curseword, then a slow laugh. He crawled back out with a funny look on his face.
"What's wrong under there", Darren beat me to the question.
"When I launched on the 2nd pass, I heard something weird. The top shock bolt came out and the shock is resting against the frame, pinching off the fuel line...No wander it kept laying over every pass after that"!
Boone came back empty handed, "Monte was loading everything up, getting ready to leave, he said he'll have them ready at Tulsa".
"I think I'm gonna change my oil", I decided.
"Good Idea, 400 miles ahead of us", Dale agreed, with an affirmative head shake from Boone. I had ordered Lucas oil before the event, and had it shipped to OK., but I told them to hold off on changing it because I was sure I had just changed it before the driveshaft failure. They were all in agreement I should have changed it before we left.
I took out the plug, and 5 1/2 quarts of the most vile, black disgusting stuff poured into the pan...it had the viscousity of chicken broth, it seriously looked to have zero lubricating qualities whatsoever.
"How many passes were on that engine", Boone asked with raised eyebrows.
"100 or so".
"That's the freaking break-in oil"! Dale laughed, "You tightwad, lazy bum".
"Really guys, I swear..."
"Save it", Darren cut me off, "You should be kicked"!
New filter, and 8 quarts of 20/50, and the smallblock purred to life. We stopped to get gas at a station 2 miles from the track, amid a throng of other DragWeekers.
"We finally get to run with everyone else," Darren was excited. We did the big-gulp exchange as we crawled over the side bars..you don't get in with your hands full, just doesn't work!
We drove the 10 miles to I-40 with Darren intently watching the guages, the temp did it's usuall steady climb until hit 180, then it just stopped. Darren glared at me, "15 lbs. more oil pressure and 180 degrees...you are scum, this ole girl deserves better"!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 04:52 AM
"Good Idea, 400 miles ahead of us", Dale agreed, with an affirmative head shake from Boone. I had ordered Lucas oil before the event, and had it shipped to OK., but I told them to hold off on changing it because I was sure I had just changed it before the driveshaft failure. They were all in agreement I should have changed it before we left.
I took out the plug, and 5 1/2 quarts of the most vile, black disgusting stuff poured into the pan...it had the viscousity of chicken broth, it seriously looked to have zero lubricating qualities whatsoever.
"How many passes were on that engine", Boone asked with raised eyebrows.
"100 or so".
"That's the freaking break-in oil"! Dale laughed, "You tightwad, lazy bum".
"Really guys, I swear..."
"Save it", Darren cut me off, "You should be kicked"!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 08:22 AM
We jumped out on the big road, I-40, and ran up to 3200 rpm, that put us running along with traffic pretty well. The semi drivers were doing the slow down and make us pass, then speed up and go by trick, so they could get a good look at the cars. I don't mind, of course, but when they are taking a phone pic with one hand, hollering on the CB with the other, and then trying to give you a thumbs up...well occasionally they borrow a little of your lane! You just need to be prepared to share is all. We were slowly gaining on a pair I recognized from our 2006 outing. Clarke Rosenstengal's 95 Camaro was yellow back then, and ran in Pro-Street but was limited to 10.0, now it's blue has an upgraded cage, and is running Modified normally aspirated. Trailing him is James Fall and his big tired red 74 Vega. These 2 met in 06 when Clarke punctured one of his Sportsman Pro's because the diagonal link came loose. James was pulling a trailer with slicks on it, and loaned them to Clarke, so he could get to the last track, they've been Drag Week buddies ever since.
We were about to pass them 60 miles in, when they exited off the road, We ran on until Shamrock, where we jumped off I-40, and came to our first checkpoint. We hadn't seen anyone for quite a ways, but as we approached the Checkpoint, we saw quite a few at the different stations and eating establishments. The first Checkpoint was an old Conoco Station which had been restored, and turned into a rest area/Texas historical spot.
We shot some pictures, hung out for a bit, and I talked to one of the guys who had been giving me advice on the Drag Radials, he seemed to be doing the entire thing just spectating, and so far I had seen him 3 days in a row with a crisp black X275 Tee on every time, so I figured he really liked the 275 xtreme drag radial stuff...I'm quite the Sherlock Holmes on occasion. We were 100 miles in, so we went up the road a half mile and pulled in for fuel. I filled up while Darren went in for refreshments. He came back out, and I realized the earlier big gulp was calling my name, so I went in for a nature call.
When I emerged, the Valiant was gone, along with Darren and Dale, only Boone was standing there with a funny smile and 2 B bodies, "You get the Satellite", he laughed.
"Where is my car"?
"Left here as soon as you walked in the store"!
You'd think after all these years I'd know not to turn my back on those two...
Posted By: tboomer
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 01:21 PM
Great reading,Billy!!
Posted By: Just-a-dart
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 04:11 PM
Please keep going, Great read
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/02/11 10:33 PM
83 to Wheeler was a hilly 2-lane, and I tried my best to find a driving style to maximize the 4200 stall, 2.73 gear, 4500lbs. and cruise speed of 55-60. The egg under the throttle technique, the speed up and coast technique, all to no avail, nothing but a trans heating, gas burning pig I determined!
We headed west on 152, which turned into Ok 6 when we crossed the state line. We didn't catch the dirty car thieves until we were nearly into Elk City, which was the home of our next checkpoint, The Route 66 Museum. I decided the Valiant did look pretty good cruising down the open road. Once at the Museum, we quickly took our required pics, I took my place behind the wheel of the Valiant, and we headed off in search of dinner. The Pizza Hut about 3 miles up the road filled the need nicely, as we had a window seat that allowed us the opportunity to watch our competitors cruise by. Darren and Dale's escapade in the Valiant had put them both in search of a solution for the long shocks.
"We've got a couple options, either shorter shocks or we change from 12" to 14" springs", Dale started in.
"I like the idea of 14" springs".
"Well, Darren called Grand Prix, and they can only get them in 150 lbs., you have 130s".
"When can they have them"?
"He said 7:30 in the morning, hopefully...or certainly by noon", Darren added.
"Naw, I don't like that, I'd like to have something for the track".
"I can get shorter shocks shipped to the store by my house", Dale offered, "But they are Ranchos, so they are more expensive".
"Yeah, Let's go that route", five words to seal my fate...
Posted By: 1967dartgt
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/03/11 12:41 AM
Keep them coming.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/03/11 02:00 PM
They ran us north on 34 for 15 miles to kick us over far enough to miss OK City, then east on 33, at which time my navigator reverted back to his day 1 inability to read the mileage. We were in Custer City, at a point where Darren was arguing it was still twenty miles away. We pulled into a very small gas station, that only had 87.
"We are 108 into this tank of gas, but I'm not running 87", I decided
"I can make it to the next town", Boone added, "But we better not push our luck with Dale's car".
20 miles up the road we came into Thomas OK., and found a much larger station, complete with 5 or 6 fellow DragWeekers and the Hot Rod staff in a Chrysler minivan. Dale pulled over to the side as Boone and I made our way to the pumps. The Hot Rod guys had apparently been shooting pics of incoming cars for a while, and were loading up to head out.
Wes Allison, photog extaordinare, walked up and said, "You 3 are running together"?
"Yep" I said, wondering if he was looking for a rule infraction or something, "four brothers, three cars"!
"Ah..OK", he said. I saw the 'possible story angle' light go off in his eyes. The remaining competitors pulled out of the lot, and the Hot Rod group gave chase. Dale came over and said, "I'm going ahead, you guys can catch up", and took off behind them.
As we were driving through the next town, Boone pulled up beside me, phone to his ear, "It's Dale, he says Hot Rod is taking pics of him driving down the road. Why would they take pictures of the Satellite?"
"Freibuger loves beaters, Boone, anything with patina, that's being ran hard". I was thinking of David's speech at the driver's meeting, "If we pull alongside to take pics, most people either hit the brakes, and we only get the front, or nail the gas and we only get the back! JUST CONTINUE to drive normal". I was wondering which of the 2 sins Dale had perfomed first!
Posted By: BBR
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/03/11 04:07 PM
Amarillo
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/04/11 01:51 AM
Thanks BBR! Nice shots!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/04/11 03:51 AM
"They want us to catch up", Boone informed us.
"That's not gonna happen, you've seen how long that takes"!
"Says he's only a few miles ahead, and they are driving slow".
Boone sucked in behind me as we cleared the town and went back onto two-lane road. Five or so miles later we came up behind a line of cars, a couple of which were dragweekers, following a dump truck, we topped a hill, got a good look, and I hammered the Valiant up to 4200 and shot around the group, as I cleared the dump truck, I saw Dale following the Hot Rod guys, he left me room, and I slid in, followed closely by Boone. We ran along at the speed limit for about
30 minutes as the sun began to fade, at Kingfisher we saw a group of car guys with signs, and a big Dodge 4 wheel drive on a grassy nole. The Hot Rod mini-van pulled off the road, "Kieth Turk was back there" Darren commented. We continued on through town, and it was dark soon after.
Twenty miles up the road, I saw Clarke off on the right, up a driveway, with the hood up on his Blue Camaro, and James' Red Vega pulled up behind him, they didn't look like they were having fun, and there was no thumbs up. I saw a wide spot in the road about half-mile further down and pulled over.
"What are you doing"? Darren asked
"We have to go back and see if we have anything that could help them".
"Dang-it! This the first leg we were actually making good time..."
Dale and Boone walked up to the window. "I'll go back and see what's goin' on", Dale volunteered "I'll call you guys and let you know if we need to stay and help them".
He flipped the Satellite around, and went back. We opened both passenger side doors, waited for traffic to clear, and answered nature's call. Darren answered his phone, it was Dale.
"He says we should come back, they need help", Darren relayed.
"Ok, let's go", I said. Boone shut his door, and Darren spun half around from the oncoming traffic, alarmed. "DANG IT, BOONE!! I wasn't done, now I got it on my shoe!"
"What do you mean you aren't done, we were done before you answered the phone"! I laughed.
Now he was really getting mad, "It takes a while"!
"No, no it doesn't, you've got issues, you need to go see a Doctor"! I was pushing all the right buttons.
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/04/11 04:02 AM
I had to walk quite aways so no one would use that situation as a photo opportunity.
Shake it more than twice..............LOL
Posted By: moparman63
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/04/11 08:31 PM
lovin this thread.was good meetin yall on dragweek.especially when you guys came up with an electric water pump for me in tulsa.cant wait to do it again in 2012.probly wont be the fastest mopar like i was this year.but it will still be a blast.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/05/11 05:59 AM
We pulled up in the driveway, and off in the grass, It appeared to be a long drive, with about 5 different houses sharing it, all built off to the right of that road. The first house was a good distance down, so we didn't feel as though we were parking in someone's yard.
Clarke had the passenger's side valve cover off, and it appeared as though he was checking the valvetrain, his sidekick, and James were each hold ing small flashlights.
Dale walked over, "thinks he nicked some lifters".
"Well, we can definitely supply some light" I added.
We pulled the generator out of Dale's car, a drop cord out of Boone's, and an aluminum bell, big bulb, clip light out of my car, and had it looking like a photo shoot in short order. Darren had a snap-on case out quickly, one of 2 or 3 he had brought...he's a bit of a tool junky, so I had no idea. Out came a borescope with removable screen, and the next thing I know, they have it shoved down in between the rockers and I hear Dale say, "See Clarke, it's the back 2, they look lower".
"Would be the back", Clarke lamented, "Better get it apart and see what we're dealing with".
I'd never really paid attention to what a dominator carbed big block engine looked like in a 95 Camaro, but I now know, it's not a fun deal!! The back of the carb nearly rests against the windshield, the rest of the engine from that point back is under the cowl. It was so tight the carb had to be removed separately, to get the intake off.
Clarke realized that neither he or James had torx bits, and we didn't either. Dale looked at his watch, "It's 8:30, O'reillys closes at 9:00, and we are only about 10 miles from Guthrie".
Clarke made a list, and Boone took off in the Belvedere. They drained the coolant, and had the intake off, when it became evident that a lifter swap wasn't gonna get it.
I heard someone say, "It ate the cam, one of the rollers is completely gone"! 20 years ago, I would've shook my head and made some degrading comment about his choice of engines, but I like to think I'm a kinder, more progressive Mopar Man now, or maybe it was his close proximity to long, heavy tools that tempered my judgement.
"Was leading my class..third year in a row I haven't finished, cam and lifters, then bottom end, now cam and lifters", Clarke was really bummed, "3 different engine builders".
We had seen quite a few different groups of competitors drive by, but no-one else stopped. An elderly man drove up in a 3/4 ton Pick-up, and asked if we needed help.
"You live down this drive?" I heard Clarke ask.
"Yes, yes I do".
"You think you could store my car in your drive for a few days 'til I get back here with my truck and trailer"?
"Not a problem, young man, let's go down to the house and get a tow rope".
Clarke jumped in the truck, as the rest of us stood there, kinda stunned. I guess that's how a Drag Week Veteran does it!!
Boone showed up, as Clarke and his buddy unloaded thier personal belongings, and stuffed the removed parts and tools back in the Camaro. James started loading up his stuff in the Vega, and we did likewise. Once they dropped off the car, I realized 3 of them wouldn't fit in the Vega.
"Clarke, you guys want to ride with us, we have plenty of room", I offered.
His buddy was ready to go, but riding to Tulsa in a Mopar was just too much for a proud Chevy man. "Naw, We have someone coming back for us, he's just a little bit up the road".
"Ok, no problem".
"Thanks for the help though, thanks for stopping, appreciate it"!
I felt a little less guilty for driving by the green Nova earlier.
We drove through Guthrie, without seeing any other competitors, and headed off towards checkpoint #3. We were just coming into Perkins, the town where the checkpoint was, and had past through the first 2 reduced speed signs, when a local police officer pulled off a side street in behind us. We tightened up the ranks, nose to tail, and continued on. I was busy watching my speed, and arguing with Darren about the directions, and I missed Boone and Dale diving into the first gas station we came to.
"You gonna go back", Darren asked.
"No, the checkpoint has to be just ahead".
"Naw, it's like 10 more miles", he didn't sound very convincing.
We drove another 2 miles, and saw it on the left. The Drive-in was closed, but there must've been 15 cars in the lot, at least 8 of them DragWeekers. We pulled in, took our pics, and started talking to everyone. It was my first chance to get a good look at the Blown red 240Z, with it's Datsun P/u bed trailer...very cool! After about 5 minutes I decided to leave Darren there, and go back a 1/2 mile to get fuel. I fueled up and came back, and still no Boone and Dale. The HotRod crew pulled in and Wes Allison walked up, "Can you go back to that station and let me get a few shots"?
"The one I just left"?
"Yeah, you were too fast for us"
"I was waiting for my brothers".
"We got them at the other station up the road, why didn't you stop there"?
"Yeah...I missed it, let's go".
We drove back up and he got a few shots. In my mind, I was thinking, he's tried twice today to get all 3 cars in a tight shot either on the road, or at a stop, and we've managed to screw it up by not being together both times!
Boone and Dale arrived at the checkpoint a few seconds after I did.
"Hey, the HotRod guys took pics of us at the station, and wanted to know where you were..."
"I know, I KNOW"!
By the time we rolled through Tulsa, past the host motels, past the track, and to Dale's house, I was feeling the effects of a long drive, and a long day. I walked into his spare bedroom, and was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
Posted By: bwdst6
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/05/11 11:08 AM
Quote:
"Was leading my class..third year in a row I haven't finished, cam and lifters, then bottom end, now cam and lifters",
That’s why you don’t use a high lift solid roller for when you’re actually doing some street driving!!! Feel sorry for them, though.
Posted By: J_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/06/11 04:18 AM
Places the Gebhardt boys need to visit:
Silver State Classic Challenge
Bonneville Salt Flats (thinking LOTS on nos here...)
...anything else?
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/07/11 03:34 AM
Hello! Update Sir! I know what happens but still want to hear your version. LOL
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/07/11 06:00 AM
This was Sunday, tech day at Topeka, in the afternoon, we were plum wore out. Just had Boone send me his disks from his camera, so I'll have more pictures
Ksj, I'm gonna start on the "Tulsa experience" as you dubbed it tomorrow...don't want to short change the telling of THAT story.
Posted By: Hemi_Joel
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/07/11 04:10 PM
That's some great story telling, keep up the good work.
Hint: for your novel length posts, type it in Word, save it freqently, then when it's done, copy and paste it into Moparts. Then if Moparts crashes your post, you dont loose it. (been there)
I saw you guys at Topeka and said hello, but didn't know who you were. And you didn't know who I was, you probably thought that I was just another brand-X flunkie. Don't want to hi-jack, so I'll keep it brief: I was there with Jay Brown and his Cammer powered 69 Shelby. The car was just finished after a 10 month thrash starting from scratch. It had never been on the track, and only 15 miles of street drivng before we left for Drag Week with hi hopes of running 8's. But alas, we broke down and DNF'ed between Topeka and Great Bend. Jay has the whole story at fepower.net if anyone is interested.
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/07/11 06:40 PM
That Cammer has a sound all its own.
Posted By: Phil Saran
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/07/11 09:56 PM
Billy,
Your a great story teller. I've enjoyed reading it and look forward to whatever else you add to this.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/08/11 08:52 PM
Livin' on Tulsa Time For you younguns, youtube Don Williams.
I woke to the sounds of Dale's wife heading off to work, and his step son trying to figure out how to escape school for the day. He's a highschool Senior, typical gutted out honda, single seat, fart pipe, street rat type, except he lives in OK, with a Gebhart. So it's a rusty old 78 Aspen with a quickie black paint job, motorhome 440 with stealths, comp hydraulic, torker II, 750, A-body fenderwell exits, header mufflers, and then the gutted interior, and single seat!
"Cody", Dale said, "just go to school, check in, see how many days you've missed, go to first hour, then bail..and DON'T tell your mother I suggested it".
There was no continental breakfast, there was no Boone and Darren. I showered, dressed, and walked out into weather much cooler than we had the previous days, and ominous clouds overhead. Dale was on the phone with Boone, as we jumped into our respective cars, and headed to the track. We went to O'reilly's. "Why are we here", I asked as we parked, "I thought Boone was picking up the parts"?
"Yeah, I was hoping to catch him here...I still have to get some 91 to race on". That darn Boone, left me on the hook again! We went to the station to buy his gas.
We rolled into Tulsa Raceway Park, and it appeared most has already arrived, we found that Boone had saved us a spot. We pulled in and started adding our pile to his.
Jetting the carb up at Amarillo had helped the ET., but I'd went too far for the drive, the Valiant now had black soot on the quarter above the exhaust exit. I decided since we were waiting on track prep, I'd change the plugs. Boone and Dale both started in on the tire shuffle. I noticed Dale still had my bottle in his trunk, "I better go check on your bottles at Monte's trailer, I commented. When I made it over there, the 2 bottles were sitting outside, chilled, but still empty, and Monte had like 4 customers standing in line waiting with thier bottles. My assessment was that this was a job for Dale. "The bottles are sitting outside, and there's a line", I told Dale when I got back, "You better go make some noise". He stepped off immediately in that direction like a man with a purpose, I felt sorry for anyone who got between him and a free re-fill of nitrous oxide!!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/09/11 06:10 AM
Mom and Dad showed up, with Dale's 6 month old granddaughter in tow, and Darren had his new girl friend show up, which none of us had ever met, then Cody came in from skipping school, and slowly DragWeek seemed to take on a little different dynamic than the previous 4 days. It seemed more difficult to focus on the cars, and our routine. Fortunately, it was spitting rain, and it became apparent we would have a little time before anyone made any passes.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/09/11 08:07 AM
The NGK's were out and the Bosch platinums were going in when Dale returned. "No problems, they will let us know when they are ready", he said.
After the plug change, I walked over to the pumps and grabbed a few gallons of race gas. Dan Brant's 63 330 was fueling up, and it was my first opportunity to really look it over, absolutely stunning, but I've always thought that Mopars done in black with a red interior are the best!
While walking back to the Valiant, I did notice a rather large gathering at the front of the white 63 Fury which had been the fastest Mopar to this point, I thought it looked odd, that many guys peering under the hood, but I had work to do.
"Where's Darren", I asked when I reached the pit.
"He left with his New GF, Carla, something about getting something to eat".
"I think her name is Yoko", Boone added, "You know he invited her to tag along to Topeka".
"Before or after his car didn't get done"! I knew the answer, and I knew they didn't want to talk about it any more.
Somebody who had been helping Monte came over and told Dale he could pick up the bottles now, when he returned, we started on the Valiant. A guy walked up in a fire jacket, looked in and said, "Do you guys know who the local mopar connection is around here".
I looked at Dale, "Uh, yeah, we are...I mean he is".
"What're you looking for"? Dale added.
"Lost my electric water pump", Casey didn't sound particularly hopefull. "Fine on the drive last night, then overheated on the way over here".
"What kind is it"?
"What brand"?
"No, I mean is it the whole unit, or does it bolt in the stock housing", my mind was going over possibilities, Dad has one on his race car engine that bolts to the block, Dale has one but it uses a reverse flow plate....
"Yeah, it's the one that bolts in the stock housing".
"Darren's got one, I'm sure of it", Dale chipped in.
"You think you have one"? Casey's demeanor began to change. Needle-in-a-haystack? Yep, we can do that.
I called Darren, and asked if he could grab it while he was out. "Who's it for"? he asked.
"The guy in the White 63".
"He's beating you guys, who volunteered it"?
"Dale and I did, can you get it and bring it"?
"Yeah, I'll be back out there in 20 or 30 minutes, have they started running anything yet"?
"No you haven't missed anything, just hurry back".
I looked at Casey, "He'll have it out here in about 20 minutes".
"Ok, man, thanks"! A big smile, a handshake.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/09/11 04:43 PM
"I blip the nitrous and the rpm barely jumps" Dale was complaining about his Satellite.
"Well, it is about 30 degrees cooler out here, maybe the bottle pressure is lower".
They had just called everyone to the lanes, "We've got 10 lanes guys, fill them all up! I was the first to move in our group, and as I came around the corner, I jumped in the middle of the pack, about row 6. Dale and Boone came around next, and went all the way to row 10, against the fence, which was empty at the time, perks of knowing your home track, I guess. I walked up in the lanes, to check out how things were working, and saw a total disaster. At the line where the 10 lanes stop, the asphalt begins to neck down into the 2 lanes leading through a gate, into the water box. Tulsa Raceway Park had no personnel in that area, so it was just a free-for-all to see who got to pull up next out of the lanes. Combine that with the fact we were starting an hour or more late, and everyone was worried about the weather holding up, and it made for some anxious moments.
"I'm embarrassed to call this my home track", Dale was incensed, "They've got a skeleton crew out here, they are taking forever to prep the track...they are the slowest track in the world when it comes to getting cars down the track, and the anouncer is up there blithering on about how great the traction is, and how everyone is gonna break parts 'cause the track is awesome".
"Just relax, we're going to get our runs".
Things started moving, and Dale quickly jumped up into the line, Boone jumped in about 6 sets later. I walked up to watch them, as I was 5 cars back in my lane, and the fast guys were all muscling thier way in, so I figured it would be a while.
Dale torqued off the line, grabbed the horn/N20 button, the car fell on it's face, with black smoke rolling. He let off the nitrous, the car recovered then motored down to a 14.15-98. "Now he REALLY won't be happy", I thought to myself. 2 sets later the Yellow 'Vette of Doc Fox did it's now famous you-tube spin off the line, nearly hitting the wall. What you don't see in the video is that he was spewing his own anti-freeze on the track which led to the problem, and then he drug it all down the track.
"We are down for an extended clean-up, this is going to be a long day"! I told Boone.
He was about 5 sets back from the burn-out box, and had the pump on his bad slick again. "This thing is only good for about 10 minutes", Boone looked disgusted, "So I need to know when I'm gonna go, and they keep bringing the fast cars in front of me".
Dale came back up, already in the back of the lanes, "what happened"?
"Doc Fox lost antifreeze all over the left lane".
"Why aren't they running just the right lane"?
"Ask them, I don't know".
He stormed off towards the Christmas tree.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/09/11 05:00 PM
Dale was back, "They said HOTROD wants pairs going down the track, for the live feed, and the videographers".
"As opposed to watching a clean-up"?
"Hey, that's what I was told".
I walked back to my car, and decided to sit in it for a while and relax. Casey walked up to the window, "Did your brother get that pump"?
"Let me call him", I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
"Darren, where are you"?
I told Casey, "He's about 2 miles out, and he has the pump, where do you want to meet him"?
"I'm pitted just past the brick building, in the middle row".
Ok, I'll send him"! Darren was squaking in my ear, "No you haven't missed much, they are cleaning the track."
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/10/11 01:41 AM
Monte came up to my window next, and introduced himself. We talked about my car, the problems I was having, and he complimented the car several times...I felt like a schmuck for not introducing myself earlier. Then Dale walked up with a fitting in his hand, "This is my nitrous filter, plugged completely". He came back a little later, "cleaned it out, put it back in with those 102/91 jets, bumped the horn button at 1500, and it darn near jumped to 7K! Think I better go back to 73/73".
We were standing at the head of the lanes a little later and Dale said, "This isn't going to work, someone has to straighten out this mess."
"Geez Dale, you know this track, quit griping and do something to help, get some volunteers or something". I seen him a few minutes later at the back of the tower, talking with Tonya Turk, both gesturing and pointing at different spots in the lanes. Dale roped Darren and Cody into working the early part, there were 2 other guys helping as well. As racing resumed, the forwardmost volunteer was bringing the fast cars all the way up to the water, in front of those that had been waiting for all that time. Boone lost it, jumped in his face and started yelling at him.
"I was told the big cars had priority", the volunteer stammered.
"I don't know who told you that,(technically Boone, that's what Dave said in the Driver's meeting) but we are all street cars, and I paid the same entry they did(technically Boone, I paid your entry, but at this point, roll with it)"! "Once we are paired at that gate, you run them out"!
Boone removed the tire pump, which had been working hard the whole time, slammed the hood, and pulled up beside the little turbo v-6 powered convertable ChevyII. The Belvedere launched hard, pulled, black smoke rolling and seemed to be really moving. He was running right with the Chevy until it seemed to lay over around a thousand feet, then the numbers popped up 11.45-116.96 to Boone's 12.10-94.97! We instantly thought "WTH, did he lift or what?
Boone Vs. Chevy II at 7:56 I went back to my car, and began to move through the lanes, Darren and Cody looked like a couple of deer in headlights, apparently Dale hadn't impressed upon them how assertive and demonstrative you have to be when you are trying to direct a bunch of adrenaline crazed horsepower junkies itching for thier next fix!! They shut us off as I was at the front of the lanes, I jumped out and looked down the track to see the pretty blue 4 door Willy's gasser up against the wall, that was a major bummer.
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/10/11 03:27 AM
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/10/11 05:22 AM
Finally, I had the opportunity to make a pass, seemed like we had been there all day. It sounded nice in the burnout, purged the nitrous into the engine, and staged on the first bulb, and waited, and waited. The Blown 240Z was beside me, and they had been playing with the electronic fuel injection on the laptop. Whatever they did was screwed up, it was loping like crazy, and belching black smoke, and he wouldn't, or couldn't get in the beams. I motioned at the starter several times to bring him up to the beam. Finally he set both of his bulbs and I rolled in.
The tires were at 20 lbs, and I went WOT at the hit from 3000 on the footbrake. The Valiant moved out nicely, and I hit 2nd at 6000, as soon as I hit the N20, it started wobbling, short shifted to drive and let off the bottle, then it was bouncing bad enough to be bottoming out the shocks again, so I white knuckled it another 100ft then leveled out to the finish. 11.68-112.65 picked up almost 8 tenths, but only 2 mph due to the top-end problems.
Darren told me later that he and Dad were in the stands (he gave up on his lane director job!) and when I was at 1000 ft. Dad was yelling, "LIFT DAVE, LIFT"! Darren had to remind him I probably couldn't hear him, and other people were staring!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/10/11 06:08 AM
I pulled into the pits beside Boone. He had the hood up, and a sour look on his face. "11.68, I believe that makes me the quickest brother on DragWeek"!
"I was on an 11.50 before this head gasket let go", he retorted.
"Where'd you pop it"?
"'Bout 1100 feet".
"No, where on the motor"?
"Back cylinder on the passenger's side, it's puffing out against the firewall. Called Dale, he said we'd just change it here".
"Heck no, just drive it to Dale's house, I don't want to change it in front of all these prying eyes".
"What about screwing up the surfaces"?
"Fire it up".
He did, it was squirting a white water/oil mixture on the firewall in about a 3 inch span. "Naw, you ain't gonna hurt nothin', you took enough of it out that you don't have to worry about that"!
"Well, OK..Let's go turn in our time slips".
We walked to the tower, up to the second floor, showed them our checkpoint pics and handed in our timeslips. When Boone handed his to Tonya, she turned and looked him the eye, "You got a little animated down there in the lanes, didn't you"? Through his sunburned and windburned face no-one else in the tower probably noticed, but I saw him redden and wince, "Yeah, yes I did, I probably overreacted a bit". She handed him his official slip, and he couldn't get out of that tower fast enough.
Posted By: TexasStroker
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/10/11 10:16 AM
Very cool, thanks for posting! Any time ya'll make it back through Amarillo give us a heads-up and we'll get some cars out to welcome you. We all enjoyed having Drag Week come thru town and getting to meet the Mopar racers on hand; it made a lot of folks very happy with loads of nostalgia
Posted By: BBR
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/10/11 01:49 PM
Quote:
"LIFT DAVE, LIFT"!
He wasn't the only one yelling! lol
That run was scary looking.
Posted By: ross
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/10/11 02:29 PM
Billy this is great. I don't very often log on but in this case I had to get on here and tell you how much I am enjoying your tale. Every time I read an instalment it is good for about 2 hours of daydreaming. As I was dreaming and thinking of past drag weeks I was wondering what happened to your pickup from 06. You were running in the 11s with it. Take your time and keep the stories coming...Red Light Ross....
Ksj I know what you mean. I was sitting behind you in the lanes watchinng the same thing, thinking somethings wrong here lol...
BBR It was nice meeting you and Casey. Why don't you come all the way out of the closet, ditch the ford and get some Mopar muscle. If you don't it's ok, I have lots of disadvantaged friends. Ross
Posted By: dragram440
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/11/11 01:09 AM
cant wait to read more!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/11/11 02:11 AM
Boone needs to send Tonya flowers. LOL. If it would have been Keith in the tower Id be sending flowers to Boones survivors.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/11/11 06:27 AM
Dale's second pass sounded weird, and only netted a 13.35-101. He pulled back in.
"Missed second, overtached it and had to lift", he said. The shifter in the Satellite is factory in the floor with console, but it was originally a four speed car, and the automatic shifter is pretty loose.
"Where's Boone"?
"I sent him to your house, so he is limping it over there".
"He didn't load all the stuff he normally carries, my car is going to be stacked to the roof"!
"Well", I laughed, "It's only 7 miles"!
"Fine, you have to load it".
He headed off for another pass. Mom and Dad had left, Darren and Yoko were making a parts run. I loaded up my stuff, and then took a walk through the pits. I spotted a black 4th gen Camaro with Canadian plates. They had the back up on jackstands, and were just pulling the 3rd member out of the nine inch. They rolled it out on the ground and a crowd peered at the 6 or 7 missing ring gear teeth.
"Small pinion"? I asked.
"Yeah, we've got gears coming from Lester Gears here in town, we just need to get them set up".
Dale had just set mine up before we left, as I had switched from 4.30's to 3.89's, and I had ordered extra bearings just in case.
"I'm calling my buddies shop right now, they should be able to fix you up", said another bystander. I decided not to volunteer until I talked to Dale, it sounded like they may have it under control.
It was getting late, and people were clearing out, but with Day 5 at Topeka scheduled for the afternoon, the sense of urgency wasn't as pronounced as the days before.
Dale's 3rd pass was solid, and he was happy with the numbers 12.67-107.15. By this time he had resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to make the quick 32, the last couple of qualifying sheets had him steady at 38-40, otherwise I know he would have jetted up the spray and went for 12.4's.
"Well, I don't think 6 or 7 Daily Drivers faster than me are gonna go out before Topeka, so there's no use beating on it at this point". Dale lamented as we packed up.
"There's one", I added, pointing to the pretty Factory 5 33 Ford with the big "Drag Week 2011" sticker on the door.
"What happened to him"? Dale asked. "Figured that would be one of the last cars to have trouble".
"Broke something".
The BangShift.com truck had went and picked up a U-haul trailer to help the guy out, and they were getting ready to load the little coupe up. I've been pulling my racecars and hotrods for 25 years on open trailers, and the first thing you learn is long ramps, especially if the car sits low. U-haul trailers have notoriously short ramps, Factory 5 cars sit rediculously low. It was one of those moments you know something bad is going to happen, and you simply can't react fast enough to do anything about it, especially when 6 burly guys think they need a running start to load a 2500 lb. car.
It hit the trailer at good speed until the edge of the trailer slammed into the bottom of the body about 8 inches back of the leading edge of the doors, it had enough velocity and grunt behind it to slide another 6-8 inches up the trailer lifting the front wheels completely into the air.
Just a very unfortunate situation, that we have probably all been in involved in at one time or another, where well-meaning helpers get overzealous and stuff gets tore up, but I felt sick for the owner, broke car, not going to finish Drag Week, and now some body work and paint was going to figure into the week's expenses.
Posted By: BBR
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/11/11 02:17 PM
That guy was already in a bad mood about getting his paint all chipped up on the Great Bend to Amarillo drive. He was unnn-happy to say the least.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/12/11 03:06 AM
When Dale and I headed out the gate of Tulsa Raceway Park, I had no idea it would likely be for the last time. As kids we made the trek down for the AHRA Spring Nationals every year until I moved to AZ in '87. The first passes I made in a real racecar were at that track in '92.
It was well into the afternoon when we pulled into Dale's driveway, the Belvedere was in front of the garage on the right side, and I backed the Valiant up on the left side so we could decide what to do with the shocks. Mom and Dad were there, Darren and his GF, Cody, Boone already had the intake off. It had a family outing atmosphere more than a down and dirty wrenching session, I could tell progress wasn't going to be quick or easy.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/12/11 03:52 AM
The Rancho shocks were definitely shorter...and fatter, and have no shield, all things that matter when you are using a coil-over kit designed around a standard shock. We decided to pull the Strange double adjustables off Dale's racecar. That didn't work. I mentioned that possibly Dad and I should just jump in the Valiant and head to Topeka, taking it slow and easy, and leaving the rest of them there to fend for themsevles.
This came at about the same time Dale announced he had to go pick up his kids (a 70 mile round trip) because they were coming along to Topeka as well.
Add one Dad, one GF, 2 kids...first off that's 750 lbs. we haven't accounted for, and 2nd, WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR 4 BROTHERS ADVENTURE!! I was torqued off to say the least, I felt like crap, and I had zero patience for any of them!!
Dale walked out with a plate of hot wings, and I realized I hadn't ate anything since Pizza Hut the night before, amazing how cooked meat can help your attitude immensely.
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/12/11 04:00 AM
DragWeek food.As long as it makes a tird all is good.LOL
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/12/11 05:01 AM
I was under the Valiant pulling off the shock kits, when I heard Dale say "Now Boone, explain to me what happened on that run...you were down almost 20 mph".
"It launched, I grabbed the juice, it pulled strong through the gears, and it laid over when I hit drive...about a 1000 ft. or so, then it started popping at about 1100-1200", Boone relayed.
"When did you lift"?
"I didn't"!
"When did you let off of the bottle"?
"Uh, at the finish line...".
"Good grief"! Dale guffawed. "What were you trying to prove"?
"I was still mad"! Boone reasoned, "The idiot pulling those fast cars around me, slick wouldn't stay up, rainy weather, I wanted a good run"!
"And you got a popped head gasket"! I couldn't help myself.
Boone had bought the Belvedere turnkey, but we had changed the pan, so we knew it had studded mains, and TRW pistons. It had head studs as well, and when the head came clear it revealed flat-tops as expected. The blown 8519 was not expected, who goes to the trouble of putting in studs, and runs the cheap gasket?
"Guess I should've bought 2", Darren surmised looking at the replacement 1009.
The headers had thin flanges, and were prone to leaks, Boone had found an identical pair with thicker flanges, and had previously replaced the driver's side. He decided this was as good a time as any to replace the passenger's side.
"If I were going to a thicker flange, I'd run stock head bolts under the ports, I never had any luck clearing head studs", I warned him.
"I'll just grind down the stud, that worked on the other side", He decided.
Dale and I decided to cut the shock kit brackets to fit the rancho shocks...no turning back now. He mowed off the curved lip that fit against the shock, and started burring it to fit the Rancho.
"Finish this one, then do the other 3, I've got to go get the kids". He jumped in the Satellite and took off, yeah it really IS his daily driver.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/12/11 05:53 AM
The header didn't fit, they chased up some stock head bolts, AFTER grinding on the studs. Tick, tick, tick, it was getting late, we were all tired, and cranky.
I was on the fourth bracket, trying to size it up. Darren was on one fender, Boone the other, Pops watching. They were installing the intake when I heard Boone's voice raise, "I said WHAT THE HECK DID YOU SET THAT TORQUE WRENCH TO"!
"20, you B, why are you yelling at me"!
"I'm tired of you ignoring me".
"I didn't hear you, you're not gonna talk to me like I'm a POS, you POS"!
"I'll Kick Your Butt Right Now"
They were between the cars shoving each other, Darren grabbed Boone and shoved him into the Valiant (still on jack stands) "Get the heck away from my car", it was about to become a threesome.
Boone dragged Darren around the front of the Belvedere, as he did Darren let loose with an overhand right to the side of Boone's head, as he went down, he took Darren with him flipping him over the top. The dust roiled as they went after each other in the dirt.
"STOP IT RIGHT NOW", Dad was yelling, "Someone take me home right now, this happens everytime I'm around you guys.
I get to see my Dad 3 or 4 times a year, and these morons find a way to screw it up. They stopped, but no-one volunteered to take Dad home, he grabbed his bag and started walking down the street. Darren went in the house, and Boone, breathing heavily and bleeding from the side of his head, started working on the belvedere.
Darren came out later, jumped in his GF's car, and went looking for Dad.
Dale came back with his kids, "Where is everybody"?
I told him the story. "What the heck, I leave for an hour and a half, and you can't keep things under control"?
We assembled the shock kits and crawled under the Valiant to install them. I nearly had mine in when he informed me, "pull that top bolt out, it's the only short bolt, it goes on this side".
"No way, I've already got it in".
"GIVE ME THAT BOLT".
"YOU WANNA FIGHT"!
"Nope, I'm too darn tired...".
We looked at each other, laying under a car on the driveway at midnight, and started laughing histerically.
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/12/11 01:56 PM
Thats funny Billy about your brothers going at it...
my brothers(and me) use to do the same thing for years
but I believe we finally got over it.... good read
so far.... that GTS looks like my buddy from Mich here...
he was pretty UN-happy with it this year after putting
in alot of cash to make it quicker .... it went slower
Posted By: Dragula
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/12/11 05:40 PM
Quote:
The header didn't fit, they chased up some stock head bolts, AFTER grinding on the studs. Tick, tick, tick, it was getting late, we were all tired, and cranky.
I was on the fourth bracket, trying to size it up. Darren was on one fender, Boone the other, Pops watching. They were installing the intake when I heard Boone's voice raise, "I said WHAT THE HECK DID YOU SET THAT TORQUE WRENCH TO"!
"20, you B, why are you yelling at me"!
"I'm tired of you ignoring me".
"I didn't hear you, you're not gonna talk to me like I'm a POS, you POS"!
"I'll Kick Your Butt Right Now"
They were between the cars shoving each other, Darren grabbed Boone and shoved him into the Valiant (still on jack stands) "Get the heck away from my car", it was about to become a threesome.
Boone dragged Darren around the front of the Belvedere, as he did Darren let loose with an overhand right to the side of Boone's head, as he went down, he took Darren with him flipping him over the top. The dust roiled as they went after each other in the dirt.
"STOP IT RIGHT NOW", Dad was yelling, "Someone take me home right now, this happens everytime I'm around you guys.
I get to see my Dad 3 or 4 times a year, and these morons find a way to screw it up. They stopped, but no-one volunteered to take Dad home, he grabbed his bag and started walking down the street. Darren went in the house, and Boone, breathing heavily and bleeding from the side of his head, started working on the belvedere.
Darren came out later, jumped in his GF's car, and went looking for Dad.
Dale came back with his kids, "Where is everybody"?
I told him the story. "What the heck, I leave for an hour and a half, and you can't keep things under control"?
We assembled the shock kits and crawled under the Valiant to install them. I nearly had mine in when he informed me, "pull that top bolt out, it's the only short bolt, it goes on this side".
"No way, I've already got it in".
"GIVE ME THAT BOLT".
"YOU WANNA FIGHT"!
"Nope, I'm too darn tired...".
We looked at each other, laying under a car on the driveway at midnight, and started laughing histerically.
That right there is really funny and makes me think my family being isn't so different than others..LOL Super read and an amazing adventure.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/13/11 11:31 AM
Dad and I pulled out of Dale's driveway around 1am, drove down to the Quick Trip on Highway 20, and fueled up. By the time we arrived at the first and only checkpoint 20 miles later at Oolagah, the 24 oz. coffee was gone, and I was digging for my fire jacket. Unlike our other drives, it was very cool at this point, we headed on up 169 north with the windows rolled up, and the temp guage hovering at 175.
The fenderwell exit headers are 30 years old, and have been repaired many times. The engine is solid mounted, the exhaust has a single solid stud mount right near the turn-outs. 1000 miles of bad roads and a bottoming out suspension were beginning to take their toll. It didn't sound like we had a header leak, but we were getting a little carbon monoxide inside the car, so I was forced to open a window wing and freshen things up every 30 or so miles.
It would have been a straight up grind at this point, but Dad and I had plenty to talk about, so that kept me going and engaged. Chanute Ks. put us 109 miles down the road, so we pulled in for gas, another large coffee, and a large bag of Chocolate covered something. An hour later we hit Garnett Ks., and jumped off 169 north onto 31 north, which was a very narrow 2 lane, with switcbacks and 90 degree turns, with picturesque farmhouses and barns right next to the road. I'm sure it would be an enjoyable drive had it not been 4am, and I was completely gone, as it was, it was sheer terror for Dad! We've driven OTR trucks together, so he knows when I'm at the end of my rope, he was trying to modulate his voice, but it wasn't working, the front tire had dipped off the pavement more than once, and I was running about 45. I pulled off on a dirt road, did a semi-circle, and parked the Valiant on the right shoulder, almost back on the highway, and shut it off. I left all the lights on in case someone approached on either road, and we jumped out and stretched.
"I'm done Dad'.
"You're telling me"!
We walked around the front of the car to switch places, and the passenger's headlight went out.
"What the..." Dad started
It came back on!
"Nothing Dad, the ole girl was just winking at us"!
Posted By: cudadon
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/14/11 12:20 AM
Billy you always tell good story.
I am REALLY jealous of your family adventure. Sounds like a great trip.
A little fight between brothers, who hasn't done that? At least all of you were't rolling around the floor and knock your car off the stands, etc.
Keep iy going, and please do drag week next year
Don
Posted By: cudabin
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/15/11 05:43 PM
Hey Billy,
Don't stop now, I need to hear the next installment...
Cheers,
Arnie
Posted By: Dart451
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/17/11 11:27 AM
Posted By: Just-a-dart
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/17/11 01:01 PM
And then?
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/19/11 03:01 AM
Boone slammed the hood on the Belvedere at 2:00 AM, "I'm gonna run home and take a quick shower, then I'll come back by, and we'll head out", he told Dale.
He headed to his house with the Belvedere sounding like it's old self again and thought of the grim reality, 2nd trip from Tulsa to Topeka in less than a week, both preceded by a sleepless night spent working on cars!
One hour later he was on Dale's doorstep, ringing the doorbell in vain. Apparently everyone had decided to go to bed. He was giving serious thought to driving off and leaving them, when Yoko opened the door. He went about rousting everyone. Dale's daughter scolded him, "Shhh, you'll wake up Jackie, and she has to go to work in a few hours"!
"Like I give a darn, I intend to wake the whole house up, we've got to get rollin', now get up stairs and get your Dad moving"!
He was ushering them out to the cars, and it was decided Darren and Yoko would drive the Satellite, with all the junk from both cars, and all the luggage; and Boone, Dale, and the kids would ride in the Belvedere. Dale's son came out of the house with a blanket, half awake. "Where's your Dad"? Boone asked.
"Still laying on the bed".
"Get in there and tell him I'm leaving"!
They were rolling down highway 20 about 30 minutes later, stopping for gas before jumping onto 169 north. They pulled into Oolagah, and took thier checkpoint pics., then rolled on toward Kansas.
10 miles later, the left rear tire exploded, and Boone scooted to the shoulder as soon as possible, with Dale and the 2 kids screaming in his ears.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/19/11 03:51 AM
Boone stepped out of the car and surveyed the damage. Darren had pulled in behind him, and met him at the back of the car, "That thing's been smoking ever since we left the house, now I know what it was"!
"We've stopped twice, and you didn't mention it"!
"Figured you knew".
"You thought I knew the tire was rubbing, and was just going to drive it that way all the way to Topeka? You're an idiot"!
He popped the trunk, and pulled out the jack, when Yoko decided to put in her two cents, "This is rediculous! You've got two kids in that car, and we're out here on the shoulder, you need to get off the road"!
"Look", Boone was at the end of his rope, "I'm not driving this thing a mile on a blown-out tire." He looked at Dale, "What do you want to do"?
"Let's put a slick on, and get to a safe spot, then we'll figure it out.
The slick was rubbing too, so they slowly worked thier way to a dirt road, and pulled off. The decision was made to go back home, and grab a set of tires, and wheels that were originally on the Satellite, just 14" black steelies that were holding up the back of an Aspen in the pasture right at the moment. They loaded the blown tire, and it's unharmed mate into the Satellite and headed back to Tulsa, leaving Darren, Yoko, and the kids in the Belvedere. A few miles down the road, his cell phone rang, it was Dad.
"Where are you guys at? Dave and I just stopped at the Junction for fuel, I've been driving a ways, he's out of it".
Boone explained the situation, and then hung up and told Dale, "They are already at the Junction of 35 and 75"!
"Dang it", Dale shot back, "Wish we were, they are home free"!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/19/11 04:42 AM
Stopped at Beto Junction(75&35) and had an awesome cinnamon roll.Ididnt talk to you after Tulsa,you had quite the time.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/19/11 04:59 AM
The 80 mile trek to the house and back, coupled with pulling the tires off another car, and stopping for fuel, again, then mounting them on the car, ate up the better part of 3 hours. They had already gotten a call that the Valiant gang were safely tucked into the motel, before they headed back onto 169. 6 miles down the road, Dale pulled off again, "Boone, this thing is walking around, we better check these tires".
They were at 15 lbs., "Good thing I grabbed the air pump, it's been riding in the Valiant this whole trip", Boone was looking for a positive, he dearly needed a positive on a day like this.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/19/11 05:20 AM
Thanks KSJ!
I knew they had a name for that place, but I couldn't remember it! Board is giving me nothing but problems tonight, everytime I try to load a pic, it freaks out, almost lost a post the last time.
Thanks Ross, CudaDon, Et. al for the kind words, I'm trying to stay on task here, but it's a loooong tale!! I was trying to figure out how to bring the story of Dale and Boone's trip to Topeka to life, as I obviously wasn't there, so I interviewed them each separately, and decided to do the story in close third person from Boone's point of view, hopefully that works for everybody.
Posted By: 6packattk
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/19/11 11:17 AM
I have always wanted to go to DW and this is the next best thing I have ever read.Thankyou for taking the time to do it so well and it makes me almost be in the car with you guys.I have one brother cant imagine 2 more like him.Would of had homicidal tendencies by now....lol.Keep up the great job Mopar Billy
Posted By: cudadon
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/19/11 06:39 PM
Quote:
I have always wanted to go to DW and this is the next best thing I have ever read.Thankyou for taking the time to do it so well and it makes me almost be in the car with you guys.I have one brother cant imagine 2 more like him.Would of had homicidal tendencies by now....lol.Keep up the great job Mopar Billy
Those old B-bodies do have big trunks don't they!?
I think I could put 4 people in my 69 Super Bee trunk, like at adrive in or something. Don't ask me how I know. 
Drive ins.. oh oh giving away my age eh?
Thanks again Billy, and tell your brothers thanks for helping to make such a great story, couldn't have done it without them could you? Or could you 
Don
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 03:20 AM
I was going in and out of sleep for a while, then dawn began to appear as we were about 15 miles from the track, so I figured I'd better stay up so I could direct Dad to the motel.
"Did I tell you the story about Freiburger at Tulsa"?
"Nope Dad, haven't heard that one yet".
"There were 4 or 5 guys standing in a circle BS'in about the event, and Freiburger was just off to the side within earshot. One of the locals who obviously didn't know who he was goes into a rant about how...well, for a guy who supposedly loves cars, and loves hotrods, why did he create an event that seemed so bent on destroying them"! Dad started laughing, "It was hillarious, DF looked like he'd been shot, and just walked off...that guy had no idea why his comment had such an effect..it was great"!
"Boy o' boy, I don't think he's trying to destroy cars, I think he's trying to get guys to USE them, ENJOY them as they were intended..."
"I agree, it was just funny how it all went down."
"When did you last talk to the brothers"? I asked.
He relayed the latest tale to me, and I decided we weren't having such a bad go of it after all!
We cruised past the track entrance on Topeka Blvd., and made our way to the motel, he pulled into the parking lot, and parked in front of a room closest to the street.
"We will probably be on the other side, Dad".
He still had the engine running, "Ok, I'll pull over there".
"No..that's OK".
He pulled the shifter into reverse and went to hit the T-brake button, but grabbed the linelock button instead, the engine died instantly.
"What the heck was that"? he had a concerned look.
"That...has been converted to the Nitrous button, and apparently it's armed! The bottle is off, so you just flooded the engine with fuel", I explained
"Oh, well then, we're parked"!, he exclaimed as he shoved it into park, and attempted to extricate himself from the car.
I went into the lobby and got the room key. One of the couples we had met at that motel on Monday morning were already at the continental breakfast.
"You look rough", she greeted me with a smile.
"Yeah, we just got in".
"Ouch, rough trip"?
"Yeah, What time are they supposed to start today"?
"3:30 pm, but with the cloudy weather, we don't trust them, so we are heading out there around 11:00, just to be sure", She confided.
"Sounds like a plan, see you out there"!
"Ok, get some rest"!
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 03:53 AM
I can say that most of the people will bend over backwards
to help the other racers... its just like at the track...
you might be helping the guy that your going to race
the next round but thats fine as long as you get him
running.............. also Billy... whats going on in
the last pic with what I think is a shock and a grinder
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 04:20 AM
Once inside the room, Dad headed for the shower. I decided to call Boone, "Where are you guys"?
"Putting on tires, getting ready to roll"
"Geez, are you ever gonna make it"?
"Yeah, hope so".
"When you get to 54, just go over to 75 and head on up here, that 31 is a pain, lot's of switchbacks, probably cost you 20 or 30 minutes, I'd just skip it".
"Ok, we'll look at it. Where are you"?
"Just landed in the motel, we'll probably sleep about 4 hours, then get around".
"Ok, what time do they start running"?
"3 or so, get up here"!
I set the alarm for 11:30, dropped my clothes in a pile and bear hugged a pillow..I think Dad asked if I was showering, but maybe that was just a dream...
The alarm was superceded about 15 minutes early by the sound of a raspy, barely mufflered engine coming to life somewhere just outside our door. I sat up in bed immediately, years of racing NHRA Divisionals and Nationals had conditioned that reaction. My class Super Street, were usually 2nd out to start the morning. Stock is always first, and Stock racers are notorious and fastidious about getting thier cars to operating temp before they run. You could curl up in your trailer or truck and fall fast asleep without a care in the world, because you knew the next sound you were going to hear was 4 or 5 stockers firing to life within 50 yards of your pit spot, an hour before your call to the lanes!
Dad didn't budge, years of sleeping in crowded truckstops with semi's pulling in and out constantly meant he wasn't waking up until someone stuck him in the ribs. I turned off the alarm and took a shower.
We walked out of the motel into an overcast, cold day, the moisture just seemed to hang in the air. I thumbed toward the Denny's sign a block away, "Breakfast"?
"You Bet"!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 04:27 AM
Mr. P Body,
That was my first shock change at Great Bend, the inner bushing on the shocks were too wide for the brackets, so we had to cut them down. We had a small generator, and several power tools. The 4" grinder was a big hit! We used it ourselves, and must've loaned it out at least 4 or 5 times at the various tracks!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 05:09 AM
Did you stay near the Dennys at 29th and Topeka.Holiday Square shopping center area?Meadow Acres? If so you are a braver man than me.LOL
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 05:30 AM
The 80 some miles to Chanute Ks. went by pretty fast. Boone was worried about Dale falling asleep, so he wanted to stay awake and talk to him, it just wasn't much use.
"Got a wobble in one of those tires, limits us to about 70", Dale commented.
"Take it easy", Boone drawled, silently thanking God for the wobble, maybe that would keep Dale from killing them!
They fueled both cars in Chanute, and Dale bought a cheap convenience store pizza, took one peice for himself, and gave the rest to his kids in the Satellite. It must've set miss Yoko off, because 20 minutes later, Darren, who was leading in the Satellite called back and said, "We're stopping in Iola for a sit-down meal at the A&W".
"Geez", Boone said when Dale informed him, "You're driving like a maniac trying to save 5 minutes and they decide we've got an hour to kill at a restruant"??
Once inside, they ordered, and sat down to eat, Yoko began a running commentary on how superior Braum's Hamburgers are to A&W's, (She's a Braum's manager). "Immature, opinionated, and an egomaniac", Boone thought to himself, "I can see the obvious attraction"! He looked around in horror when he realized he was the only one in thier party who had ordered a Rootbeer float. "You guys dare to enter an A&W, and not get a float", he chided, "Simply un-American"!
"Dave want's us to take 54 to 75, and skip 31".
"No Way"! Darren was emphatic.
"Nope", Dale agreed "I've traveled every inch of the prescribed course so far, and I intend to finish it"!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 05:37 AM
A&W vs Braums? A&W.
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 05:40 AM
That old B-body sure looks loaded down.. she's squatted
pretty good in the back end... I commend you guys on
your journey... did any of you have many/any street
miles on your cars before this magical journey
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/21/11 05:43 AM
That was the one, Ksj, Boone and I walked up there from the motel at midnight Sunday...interesting area for sure!
I spent my first years in Phoenix working for Arco convenience stores, was Assistant Manager pulling 2nds and graveyards at Baseline and Central in South Phoenix, check THAT area on Google maps!! Our big draw was Bud 12 packs for 4.99 if you bought 2 or more...
Mr P. Body.
The Yella Satellite is a Driver...every single day. The Valiant had ZERO street miles. The Blue Belvedere, was driven enough to find it's deficiency's and that was about it before the trip.
Posted By: Scott58
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/23/11 02:47 PM
I love this thread! Finish it off, Billy!
Posted By: DusterDj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/23/11 04:22 PM
Quote:
I love this thread! Finish it off, Billy!
Yeah, what he said. I watched you guys and fell in love with Drag Week. Can't wait to roll with you guys in 2012...
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/23/11 09:10 PM
When Dad and I eased the Valiant through the tunnel at Heartland Park Topeka, as odd as it may seem, a flood of emotions came with it, eerily similar to the feelings I had when I completed my first Marathon. I had left that exact same spot on Monday, having never driven the Valiant on a public road, now with 1250 miles under our belt, it felt like second nature to pull out into city traffic and go wherever a stab or steer might take us. "We've come a long way, baby", I congratulated.
"Don't call me baby, Son...that's just not right", Dad grumbled.
We jettisoned our meager payload into a small pile, near the general area that we had pitted in on Monday, as I figured that would be easiest for the others to find. Then I headed up to the pumps to buy race fuel. I stood there pumping gas and talking to another racer, just like we had at all the stops on the way, when I realized, this is 8.50 a gallon race fuel, and I'm not supposed to be filling up!
I was greeted by the track announcer when I returned, he and his wife had raced a 62 Valiant previously, and while we met briefly on Monday, it was so hectic, he never really had a chance to look the car over. Now we had time to converse, and go over the car, the modifications, and my trip.
Dad had walked up and started talking along with several other guys, when Kyle from 1320 video walked up in the group with his ever present camera on his shoulder.
"How did everyone's trip from Tulsa go"? Kyle asked.
"The blown red 240Z was having problems, when he stopped for E-85 at Kum&Go, then later he ended up on a church parking lot with a spun rod bearing", my Dad started in.
"Really", Kyle prodded.
No gentle nudge needed here, my Dad got both hands going, and raised his voice, while leaning into the group for emphasis. The master orator was in his element, with a story to tell, and an interested audience! I stepped away to take a phone call from Boone, knowing...they were going to be standing in that circle for a while!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/23/11 11:08 PM
The track announcer was none other than Mr. Ron Ward.Ron did an excellent job announcing DragWeek Sunday,Monday and Friday.Had it not been for a Dentist appointment during DW he was going to ride with us the rest of the week.Hoping next year he can go and maybe announce at all the tracks.
Ryan Curran also did a good job announcing at SRCA on Tuesday.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/24/11 12:58 AM
Boone flipped open his 9 year old samsung, and called his big brother, "Dave, what's goin' on"?
"Not much, we're at the track, but they sound pretty set on waiting until 3:30 to fire this thing up", Dave commented. "Where are you guys"?
"About 5 minutes out"
"Cool, guess stop by here first, and you can get the key to the motel if you wanna clean up".
"Alright by me". Boone hung up. "We'll go by the track, maybe unload a couple of things, and grab Dave's motel key".
"What else do we need to take care of in town"? Dale asked
"We need to do something with those slicks for sure".
"Yeah, we'll drop them off at a shop, and see if they can knock them out real quick".
They rolled into the track, found the pit spot, and unloaded some of the heavy stuff. It seemed most of the crowd was there, but everyone was just milling around, all relaxed...it was almost a surreal atmosphere compared to the rest of the week up to this point.
No matter, they still had work to do, Darren, GF, and kids went off to the motel in the Satellite. Dale and him searched for a tire shop, found one, and dropped off the slicks.
"We need these back quick", Dale told the guy
"Well, I can't promise anything".
"Just figure out where they are leaking", Dale countered, "I'm sure I can fix it myself If I know what's going on".
"What the heck was that"? Boone asked when they jumped back in the car, "We don't need you jacking with them at the track".
"We're out of time, Boone"!
They showered, and changed at the motel. Darren and his entourage headed for the track. Back at the tire shop, they picked up a set of slicks with yellow circles aound all the missing tire screws, which were all of them. They had been assured the stems were good, no leaks in the tread, just the holes in the rims/tires. The first O'reilly's had one package of 4, next was a harware store that had something that "might" work. The 2nd O'reilly's had 2 packages with the same part number as the first store, but both packages had different screws, from each other, and the first package! They jumped in the Belvedere and hit the key, it turned over but made no attempt to fire until Boone let off the key. 2nd attempt yeilded the same result.
"Wonder if we burned up the ballast resistor", Dale surmised.
"Possibly", Boone agreed, "Do we have anything to cross it over"?
Dale diappeared under the hood, "Try it now"!
It fired, "What did you do"?
"Just wiggled the ballast wires", Dale smiled, "Whew! let's get to the track"!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/24/11 03:23 AM
The brothers rolled through the gate about the time people started to head for the lanes. Darren had already started putting the slicks on the Satellite. I had dropped the exhaust off the Valiant for the first time, and lowered the tires to 20 lbs., ready for the call. I headed up immediately to the lanes, planning to get multiple runs to hopefully improve on my 11.68. Dale joined me in the lanes about 15 minutes later.
"That thing ready"? he asked
"Yeah, just like to get an 11.67 or better, so I can say I improved every day".
"If I can get a 12.60 something, I'm done...may put the street tires back on it and see what it'll run on those".
I worked my way through the lanes and ended up paired with the convertible Chevy II that had outrun Boone in Tulsa. I launched at full throttle from about 3200, and it rattled for a bit and then hooked, I shifted to 2nd at 6400, and could feel it already begin to wobble, hitting the nitrous only made it worse, the shift to 3rd made it unbearable, so I let off the bottle, and then lifted to about half-throttle. The new, shorter shocks meant it never bottomed out so the oscillation just continued to get worse. 11.71 at only 108 was what I ended up with for my trouble. I didn't see the Chevy II 'till he pulled by me about 200' past the finish line, so he must've waited at the tree for a second or two.
When I returned to the pits, Boone was livid. He was sitting there with the slicks on, and the air pump running full blast on one side. "It's leaking as fast as the air is going in... I knew those darn screws weren't going to fix it, Dale is a moron, and now he's up in the lanes without a prayer of making the quick 32, and here I sit unable to run", he was pacing like a caged animal.
"Boone, pull those slicks off, and put Dale's on as soon as he gets back".
"He's probably going up again, I doubt he even stops".
"No... look, he told me up there, one hit, and he's gonna go back on street tires, just get ready".
"Ok, ok, how far back from you was he".
"About 6 or 7 sets, he should be here pretty quick".
I was about to head up for another run when a Camaro owner came over nearly out of breath, "Heard you had a generator and an angle grinder"?
"Yep, sure do, help yourself".
"Was changing to my slicks, for the last time this week, and one of the studs is turning, so I have to cut the lugnut off"!
I heard the announcer call out a 12.68-106 for Dale as I headed back into the lanes.
Caution, the pic below is not for the squemish...this is Boone after 36 hours with no bed, and a hard week on the road!!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/24/11 05:56 AM
Thought about talking to him but saw that face Friday and thought better of it.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/26/11 04:19 AM
It had been overcast all day, but now it was starting to get a little darker, so right before I pulled into the water, I turned my park lights on. It was effective, camera guys love stuff like that, and I had several lenses turned my way in the burnout.
My plan was to short shift, so as not to upset the car, just try to be really smooth. It seemed that hard hits to the tire sent it into the wobble problem sooner. The launch was decent, I shifted at 5600, and hit the N20 at the same time, but managed to skip right to 3rd. I was so disgusted, I just let off the nitrous and rode it through 12.19-113.4, best mph of the entire week on a wasted run. I drove right past the pits and back to the lanes, Dale pulled up a few cars behind me.
The loud speaker crackled, "we need all Daily Driver slips turned in by 5:30, so we can set the field for the 32 car bracket race".
"Crap Dale, where is Boone"?
"He should be near the head of the lanes by now, but it's gonna be close, it's 5:12 right now, and they've stopped running cars for some reason".
We grabbed our slips and headed up the lanes toward the tower. We found Boone and the Belvedere about 4 sets back from the tower, he and the Nova he was paired with had moved towards the center of the lane. Boone had his passenger's side door open, and was standing in the opening, giving the stink-eye to a couple of fast cars that were trying to sneak up through the middle....oh boy, here we go again!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 10/26/11 05:47 AM
'We've got a little rain at the top-end, so we're just going to try and wait this out a few minutes", the voice came out on the loud speakers again.
"I've raced Nationals and Divisionals here before", Dale commented, "Once this stuff sets in, we are done, so much moisture just hanging in the air, and it's getting cooler".
"Those guys already got one shot," Boone motioned towards the white Chevy II wagon, "I heard them talking about being too agressive and standing it up, or something. No way they are driving around me"!
"We get that, Boone, just relax. Dale and I are going up to turn in our slips, try not to start a fight before we get back"!
We made our way into the tower, showed them our final checkpoint picture and handed Tonya Turk our timeslips. She gave us back our Official Time Slip for day 5 as well as our Official Final Average.
"That was a bunch of work for 6 peices of paper", Dale beamed.
"Yep, 12.52-106.9, sure wasn't what I was hoping for, but we made it"!
Posted By: furious70
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/02/11 02:55 AM
Is this the end? Are the brothers on speaking terms? Already planning for next year?
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/02/11 05:09 AM
Ah, no...it's not the end, just taking a break, waiting to see if anyone was even still paying attention. Today is my birthday, Darren called, wished me a happy a birthday, and told me his lawyer would be in touch, "Libel", or "Defamation of Character"...something like that!! I told him to hang on, I wasn't done dragging him through the mud just yet!! Boone is mad at me for not finishing it. Dale is in the midst of a four car trade/ parts swap/ labor for more parts deal that might take 4 months to get staightened out!!
Posted By: J_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/02/11 05:12 AM
Does your dad still race once in awile Billy? Those Tucson races were definately the "good ole days".
Posted By: Triple Threat
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/02/11 05:12 AM
Haha, We're paying attention still. Figured you might have been a little burned out on typing it all out.
Posted By: 68 Roadrunner
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/02/11 02:00 PM
Posted By: 6packattk
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/02/11 02:04 PM
Happy Birthday Billy,have a good one too...
Posted By: dragram440
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/02/11 02:09 PM
Waiting
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 03:39 AM
Dale and I walked back down to talk and hang with Boone. We'd been there a few minutes when they announced, "We are going to let you guys go back to the pits, and call you back up later if you want".
A few cars pulled out, and Boone moved closer to the line, still warily eying the Nova Wagon. Doc Fox came up and started talking to Rick in the Wagon, and made the mistake of saying, "Well, if all these Daily Drivers weren't up here hotlapping you probably would have got another hit..".
That set Boone off, "I worked on this all night to get here and try to qualify for the 32 car field, I haven't made a run yet, and I don't plan on wasting my first one like he did"!!!
Doc Fox looked stunned, Rick and his buddy looked liked it may get difficult for them to control thier emotions. I was glad for the fifty or so feet between the two groups.
"Sorry man, didn't realize anyone hadn't got a run yet", Doc replied.
"Yeah, it's been a long day, he's up on the edge, just wished they'd started a little earlier", I commented, and it seemed the situation was diffused.
Finally, they announced that all cars with a run could go back to the pits, they were just going to try and get a run for those who didn't have one, and then go directly into the 32 car Daily Driver bracket race.
We waited a while longer, but it was becoming increasingly clear that nothing was going to happen, the moisture was getting worse, darkness was closing in, and the temp was dropping quick.
The loud speaker finally crackled to life again, "Guys, we are not going to be able to get this in, so we have decided to call the event, and determine the winners off the first four days. Since not everyone got a run, we don't feel it would be fair to take anything from today. Impound is open, you can go get your trailers, and we will start the awards presentation in about an hour".
"This is stupid", I regaled "They should have used the results from today, and the five or six guys that didn't get a run should be DQ'ed as non-finishers"!!
"I agree", Dale added "THAT would be fair, they should have ran already"!
"Hey", Boone looked at us both with a wry smile, "You guys are JERKS"!!!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 04:41 AM
I made my way back to the lanes, where the Valiant sat all alone. Earlier I had accidently left the fans on for well over 30 minutes, so I had doubts it would start. It did, but just barely, and I idled back to the pits. By the time I returned from getting the truck and trailer, everyone except Dad had went up to the pavillion for the awards ceremony.
"Somebody has to stay here and keep an eye on the stuff". He concluded.
"Well we should probably start loading some of this up, it's really starting to come down".
We gathered up a few things that obviously didn't need to get wet, but we weren't making any huge progress. He convinced me to go up and watch the awards, and he would wait.
The finale under the pavillion was pretty cool, but just felt anti-climatic. Plenty of emotion non-the-less, the sponsors of this deal are intimately involved, much more than just writing a check, so they make it special.
On the first day DF had announced there were 9 cars in Modified Power Adder, and 5 cars in Modified N/A. Dale and Boone had both tried to get me to switch to N/A and forget about the N20, but I refused.
"The first place plaque in Modified Power Adder goes to Gary Satterlee, and his Fox Body", DF announced, "He won the battle of attrition since he was the only finisher in that class"!
"You idiot", Dale scolded, "You had a second place plaque if only you would have forgot about the nitrous and changed classes"!
"Yep", Boone agreed, "You left one just sitting up there".
"That's OK guys", I looked around the Pavillion, surrounded by my brothers, family, and a whole group of like minded individuals who had just went through the same wringer we had, "I got everything I came here for...and more"!!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 05:36 AM
We sat around the pavillions for a little bit after the Awards, and signed banners, talked with people, said our goodbyes, then shuffled out to our pit spot again. The adrenaline and excitement, the drive to see it through were all well and truly gone.
Dale started loading everything back in the Satellite's trunk.
"Man, don't do that", I pleaded.
"Why not, I've got a system now, might as well just put it all back in".
"Darn near your entire car hangs over the back axles of my trailer, and now you want to put all that weight out as far back as possible. We need to load all this heavy stuff into the bed of the 1 ton".
"Ok, fine, whatever. You get in the truck, and I'll hand it to you".
We packed the truck. Darren walked over with his arm around Yoko, "I ordered Pizza. The room I got at the Motel is a family room with table and chairs, a couch, so we can all eat there".
That was pefect, the cheapskate had bought one tank of gas in the Valiant, had no intention of ever paying me back for his share of the motel rooms Monday through Thursday, but now that he had a chick along, he's Mr. Big Spender!!
With everything loaded up, we moved to the cars...sure enough, the Valiant refused to start without a jump, then I nearly drove off the trailer twice despite having 3 "guides" yelling at me, I was just about worthless at that time. Dale loaded the Satellite without a problem, and we finally got the whole mess tied down and ready for the return trip.
When we made it to the motel, and there was only one spot, out front, on a curved curb, where I could fit the 50+ foot rig. With the glare from the Motel lights, the street, and all the rain I was virtually blind. Dad, Boone, and Dale were trying to help me, but it was slow going, because they kept moving out of my vision, and I would just stop. I was more worried about hitting something, or running one of them over, than getting parked. Dad quickly bailed, then Boone ran Dale off. "How can you take directions from him", Boone reasoned, "he's the only one in the family that doesn't have a CDL"!!
Onced parked, I grabbed my bag, went to my room, changed into some shorts, and dove under the covers. I didn't want Pizza, company, nothing, just sleep...awesome, beautifull sleep!!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 05:16 PM
Posted By: deaks
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 06:23 PM
Well done guys, great story and well done to you as well KSJ.
Mick
Posted By: WadeMetzinger
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 08:30 PM
Thanks for the story Billy, it's almost enough to make me not wish I could have gone with you guys... (I was going to take Abbey's and Dad was going to go too until Abbey turned up pregnant..) next time we'll go with you guys, if there is a next time....
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 09:13 PM
The next 2-3 years will be in the KS,MO,OK,TX area is what was said at the banquet.
Posted By: Chris'sBarracuda
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 10:57 PM
It needs to come out WEST and have Vegas be involved..
Chris..
Posted By: drag345
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/03/11 11:35 PM
Thanks again for sharing, great story
just one question
When does the movie come out?
drag345
Posted By: 1967dartgt
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/04/11 12:14 AM
Thanks for the story it was great. I really think it needs to come east.
Posted By: skep419
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/04/11 03:07 AM
Great story!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/04/11 04:50 AM
"Dave, you gonna take a shower"? Boone nudged me.
"You first"
"Already did, it's your turn"
"Let Dad go ahead"
"He's already out too"
"Who was beating on the door an hour ago".
"That was Dale, he had to get the kids back, and Yoko had to get back to work, so they loaded up in the Belvedere and left".
"OK, ok, I'm moving".
Unlike Boone, by the time Dad and I got dressed and out of the room, we had missed the continental breakfast. We decided to get some miles under us and look for something a little later. We got about 40 miles out of Topeka, and were well into our discussion of what we were bringing on 2012 DragWeek when I felt that telltale shake, and looked back to see rubber flying, and eased to the shoulder. I walked back to check it out, and realized a small SUV had pulled in behind me.
A chunky, short blonde, late 20's got out and said, "A piece of your tire hit my hood"!
"OK, I'm gonna ease this thing up to that dirt road so I can get off the highway to change this tire, and I'll give you my insurance info".
Once off the road, Boone and Dad set about unbolting the spare, and digging out the jack and 4-way...no easy feat with all the extra crap from the trip on board.
I got my insurance form, and went back to talk to the young lady. She intoduced me to her puppy, explained how she had went to college at Baylor, and had just moved back to Kansas, pretty much her whole life story. I felt bad because they nearly had the tire changed by the time I ran her off.
"We would've waited if you wanted to go back to her place", Dad piped off.
"What are you talking about"??
"She was looking at you like a noontime snack...how many times did she offer you her phone number", Dad laughed.
"She was absolutely hitting on you, man, you couldn't see that"? Now Boone was piling on!
"Poor girl just wanted her car fixed"! I protested.
"Little cowgirl just wanted a roll in the hay, and you didn't notice. Sad, Dave, sad". Boone shook his head.
"Are we ready to roll"! I jumped in the truck and fired it up, they slid in beside.
An old man in a beat up Cummins powered Dodge pulled up, "Ya boys got it under control"?
"Yeah, we're good".
"Had me a 66 like that, when I was young. 383. Dang, she was fast"!
Seems every little town in Kansas has a Sonic, and a Pizza Hut, neither of which struck our fancy. Apparently it worked for the team which took 1st in the new Gasser class with the 53 Ford, because we saw them pulled into one along the way. We finally pulled into a mom and pop Mexican Restruant in Independance, and had an awesome meal, as we hashed out our final plans to dominate the Gasser class next year.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/04/11 05:06 AM
Quote:
just one question
When does the movie come out?
drag345
Negotiations are not going well. Sure Christopher Walken has agreed to play ksj..that was easy and Gary Busey is on board to play my Dad. But Matt Damon will play Boone, only if I agree to let his Buddy Ben Affleck play me...and I'm not sure he can pull it off!! Darren wants Brad Pitt, but I'm thinking we only have a Steven Baldwin type budget here.
Dwayne Johnson will play Dale if we expand the role, and he gets to hit somebody...so we have to work that out. Kieth and Tonya Turk want "creative input" or something, and Freiburger wants to play himself!! Good Grief..maybe 2017!!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/04/11 05:13 AM
ROFLMAO!Got hit on and your DAD noticed and you didnt? FAIL.Busey as your dad?Yep he would have caught you getting hit on.Just saying. LOL.Ron Howard should be cast as me.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/04/11 05:39 AM
Epilogue The aftermath, where to start...
I had already made plans to fly back to Phoenix on Sunday, and come back to get my rig and Valiant over the Thanksgiving holiday. Dale had agreed to pay me back for his part of Dragweek with labor on the car, and the list that was maybe a half-page before the event was now a page and a half!
Before that could happen however, I had promised my niece, Darren's daughter Brittni, that she could use it at her high school Homecoming coronation. You know, the whole bring the girls onto the football field in a convertable. She is, of course, a third generation Mopar gal, so no late model drop top would do. That meant allowing Darren contol of the Valiant for a weekend, including getting it to and from the little town where she lives 72 miles to the northeast of Tulsa. I wasn't thrilled with the proposition...but you only get a few times in life to be the "good Uncle"!
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/04/11 05:49 AM
Good to be the Good Uncle.Shes cute.Sure she's Darrens. LOL.Note to self at DW '12.Stay away from Darren.
Posted By: MMiller
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/05/11 02:34 AM
WOW, thanks for sharing your story about Drag Week. I've never been to any of those places, but I felt like I was there, riding with you guys, the way you told us the story. Thank you very much. Maybe after I go on Ultimate Adventure with the guys from Petersons 4WOR, I'll put together a car and do DW......
Michael
Posted By: drag345
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/05/11 08:33 AM
Moparbilly I hope you don,t mind me asking in this thread but are you still going to try & sort the car out on radials?
or are you just going to go back to what you had run previously or just use it as a street car.
Do you think the shocks are still part of the problem?
I will be sure to be on the look out in 2017 where all good DVD's are rented
I just hope that top cast doesn't blow the budget
drag345
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/05/11 04:41 PM
WadeMetzinger,
It was great getting to talk to your Dad again in Tulsa, he is a proud Grandpa to be sure!! Would've loved sharing the adventure with you, but a huge congrats to you and Abbey! Life will never be the same!
J Body Dad is supposed to be racing at Mokan this weekend. He sold his Challenger, and bought a back-halfed Gremlin, but never quite made his 440 fit, then he bought an altered, and didn't finish it. Dale just traded for a small-tire Duster, and he had been coveting that Gremlin. So Dad now has the small tire Duster, his old 440 with a set of Eddie PRMs, and 727. We're hoping for easy, low maintenance 10.50's.
Hemi Joel Sure wished we would've been introduced, I've worshiped your car for many years! My buddy and engine builder is a hardcore FE guy, and was rooting for Jay. Very disapointed when his Mustang didn't show up at Great Bend.
Red Light Ross Ok, you asked about the truck we took in '06...Boone traded the stroker 493 and a car trailer for the Belvedere he took this year, the 727 is in Cody's Aspen, the 8 3/4 third member is in Darren's charger. Here is the last picture I took on my Drag Week Vacation!
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/05/11 05:40 PM
Nice read Billy
thanks
Posted By: Bad340fish
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/06/11 03:26 AM
Thanks for the read. I actually met Dale today in the staging lanes at MoKan.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/06/11 06:33 AM
Epilogue Continued...
So the Valiant ended up at Darren's house, awaiting the trip to homecoming on the 30th of September. I had requested that Dale pull the 58 bucks worth of race gas out before Darren got the car, but a phone call to him only got a sheepish answer, "Yeah, I told Darren about that".
A couple days later, I heard from Darren, "Hey, I drove the Valiant down to the car wash, and I had to go to the QuickTrip to get change...And this girl was hitting on me, and wanted my phone number!! This Car's a real chick magnet, you need to sell it to me, it's only going to get you in trouble".
"Did you save the race gas"?
"What...no, it was just down to the car wash. This thing's got a bunch of overspray, I've really been cleaning it, it's gotta look great for Brittni"!
I called Dale the next day, "Darren's driving my car all around, what's the deal"?
"I don't know, Cody and I went to Tulsa last night. My Satellite ran 12.52 on the street tires! Can you beleive that? All that time jacking with those slicks...if we go next year, I'm doing it on one set of tires. Cody and I welded subframe connectors in the Aspen, he's solidly in the 12's now, 12.42 on one run, he want's me to hook up the Nitrous..."
"So when are you gonna work on the Valiant"?
"Well...Dad said he wants Darren to leave it in Fairland after homecoming so he can get it ready for the Mopar Race in November".
"Dale, that's the whole month of October it will be sitting at Dad's shop, and you won't touch it...it needs to go back to your house"!!
"Did you tell Dad he could race it at the Mopar race"?
"Yeah...but YOU need to prep it"!!
"OK, ok, I'll be in touch".
That was a blowoff, and here I was 1250 miles away from a Car that I'm excited to dig into, and I can't touch it. My brothers are not exactly motivated to cooperate, especially when they are reading my tales on Moparts!! Calls to Boone revealed he was completely back into footrace mode, as he prepared for a 100K jaunt at the Pumpkin Holler 100, I actually don't think he's even fired the Belvedere since our return.
Dale called me the next time to discuss the impending closing of Tulsa International Raceway, he was fairly distraught. After discussing that for a lengthy time, he abruptly changed the subject, "Have you heard from Darren"? he asked.
"Several calls about cleaning the car, overspray, the chrome, the engine compartment, blah, blah ,blah...why"?
"He drove it to Fairland last night"?
"What?...he was supposed to trailer it, that's 80 miles, on the Turnpike"!
"I had his trailer all week, took it back to him last night, and he was already gone".
"Why'd you drive it"? I had called Darren.
"It IS a street car right"?
"With 3.89 gears, a spool, a huge electric fuel pump, an agressive solid cam, not to mention it's not yours".
"Dale left me no choice, he had my trailer".
"Be carefull, dangit, no burnouts on the football field".
Arguing would do no good at this point, Darren has a history of breaking family racecars...he's a street car guy, and despite being around it for twenty years, he juat never paid attention to stuff like trans-brakes, electric fan/waterpump cars with out an alternator, cars that overheat at an idle, cars that start without a key...etc.
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/06/11 08:29 AM
Posted By: Just-a-dart
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/06/11 05:09 PM
Great job, thanks for taking the time to tell a good story
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/13/11 05:14 PM
I called Dale around 7:30 at the Homecoming game.
"Is my car in one peice"?
"Yeah, I just had to walk out of the bleachers and tell him to shut it off. He was sitting in line outside the field just letting it idle, and blipping the throttle occasionally".
"What for"?
"Just showing off, I guess, they still have 10 minutes before they come onto the field, and I was worried he would let it run the whole time"!
"Good grief! Did he find a way for her to hold on"?
"Yeah, got a barn door handle at the hardware store and 2 self tappers to the trunklid, worked great"!
"Dang it...not funny"!
"Just used a glass handler's tool with suction cups on the back glass, man you are on edge", Dale laughed.
"No joke, keep an eye on him", I hung up, this was going to be a long weekend.
I called Dad later that night.
"How did it go"?
"Great, just great, Son. Brittni looked wonderfull, we got lots of pictures, Darren had your car really shined up and looking great".
"So is he leaving the Valiant at your place"?
"Ah...no. I don't know where he went, he's not here.."
"OK Dad, I'll talk to ya later".
Now I really didn't feel good about this...
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/13/11 09:05 PM
Saturday morning Dale calls me again,
"Cody called me last night and wanted to know if you were cruising the Valiant in Grove...I told him Darren had the car. He said it was ripping up and down the main drag".
"Great, just great".
Grove is a resort town on the lake, and just happens to be where Yoko lives and works, so I didn't have to use my imagination to figure where he had spent Friday night..with my car!
Late Saturday afternoon my phone went off, I looked down and saw the call was from Darren, and I knew I wasn't going to like this call.
"Hey man...I broke your car...and neither of our brothers want to come help me, they just want to yell at me..."
"What did you do"?
"Well...I was driving back home, and I pulled into Claremore to get gas...and you know it's been running rich, and those plugs are fowled...well it didn't want to roll over, and it kicked back on the starter..."
"It should never kick back, you saw me start it a hundred times with the painless panel, you roll it over first, then hit the ignition"!
"Oh, is that what you were doing? Well..I just turned the ignition on then rolled it over, then I called Dale to come pick me up, and he just wants to blame me...that ain't gonna help anything".
I talked to Dale a couple hours later.
"Yeah, I took him the truck and trailer, and helped him load it, then I had to take the kids back to Fairland".
"What did he break, was it the starter, the ring gear on the converter, did he break the case on the tranny, what"?
"I don't know, didn't really look at it".
"You guys are killing me, I'd like to at least know".
"Well, I'll have him bring it over before next weekend so I can start on it".
Posted By: Scott58
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 11/14/11 02:07 AM
LOL, I just love this thread, it just keeps getting better and better.
To survive Drag Week and then have the car broken by your brother....madness!!!!!!!!!!!
I do have a lot of sympathy for Boone on the last day, I talked to him briefly after he finally made it into the lanes after his long thrash. After all that, and we just sat there as the track got a little wet, and we sat there, then they ran a few cars and like two in a row oiled the track down, and we sat there, and then finally it started to rain in earnest. Man I really wanted to race that night!
I can't wait for the sequel: Drag Week 2012 - the Gebhart brothers strike back!
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 12/20/11 08:07 AM
Just wanted to congratulate Scott, and Ross for thier inclusion in this months HOTROD mag!!
Went and picked up the Valiant over T-giving. It hadn't been touched, and a quick inspection revealed about 7 teeth gone off the ring gear. So I decided not to mess with it until I returned to Phoenix. It was in the 40's in Oklahoma, and it occured to me that I should drain the water out of the car before the trip back, but somehow it never got quite done.
My son and I loaded up and headed across OK, TX, and NM on an all night run, and pulled into Gallup for breakfast. When we got out to the truck and trailer I noticed water coming out of the Valiant sitting on the trailer....below is the pic of the icycles hanging out of each freeze plug. I haven't even put it on jack stands since I made it home.
Posted By: cudadon
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 12/21/11 01:38 AM
Damn that hurts to see that. I hope the FREEZE plugs worked as designed! Good luck, at least she's back in your loving hands.
Don
Posted By: ross
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 12/24/11 01:06 AM
MoparBilly Thanks for the congrats. It is a bummer about your block and I hope it is ok. Be sure to continue the story telling when you are repairing it. Merry Christmas Ross
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 12/24/11 02:56 AM
Get to work.261 days until DW 2012(provided its the same week its been the last 7 years).Now they just need to announce WHERE
Posted By: DusterDj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 12/28/11 10:42 AM
Quote:
Get to work.261 days until DW 2012(provided its the same week its been the last 7 years).Now they just need to announce WHERE
I second that...
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/28/12 06:11 AM
225 Days Billy! Update!
Posted By: cold85
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/28/12 01:54 PM
My buddies are trying to talk me into going, they say they have a blast one drives a 68 camaro the other drives a ugly white firebird that won a class last year I think.
Posted By: DusterDj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/28/12 03:43 PM
Quote:
My buddies are trying to talk me into going, they say they have a blast one drives a 68 camaro the other drives a ugly white firebird that won a class last year I think.
Strap on your Nike's and "Just Do it" Hope to see you there...
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/29/12 02:54 AM
Well, with the announcement of the route, the brothers are fired up again, and in DJ Duster fashion, they are biting off more than they can chew!!!
So here is where we stand, kinda. Sorta.
Darren: After he read the part about breaking my car and leaving me hanging, he called me up and called me a liar, cursed at me, told me to never write about him again, and then hung up. We haven't spoke since, but reports are Yoko is history and he's back with his previous GF of 7 years, who is an absolute sweetheart and far better than he deserves, but...I digress! He has made progress on the 73 Charger with the stealth headed 440, so he should be ready to go.
Boone: Boone, Dale, and I completed a 3-way trade shortly after DragWeek 2011. I gave Dale a basket case 70 Barracuda Gran Coupe, (all body work done, new paint, but needs everything else) for his 66 yella Satellite and boot. Then I traded the Satellite and a stroker BB to Boone for his blue Belvedere. Boone has requisitioned Dad's old bracket race truck we built him 10 years ago, with the plan of playing in the "Gasser" or "match bash class". It's a 65 step side Dodge 100 that we used to run under the moniker of "
BARNYARD VIPER", it went 12.0 with a 383, 727, and 5.57's in an A-body 8 3/4.
To meet the 60's theme we need to change the name a bit, the leading candidates so far are "Barnyard Bullet", "Barnyard Bully", and "Barnyard Basher"...we could use some Moparts help with this one!
Anyway, the plan is a roll bar, fuel system uprgades etc. Then I'm supplying a 440 block, 4.300 X 4.350 steel rod rotating assembly, my old slightly ported Eddie RPM's, my Cal custom valve covers, my isky ductile rockers, and my Weiand tunnel ram with 2 750s...(I am so getting screwed on this deal!!)
Posted By: Darryls-Demon
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/29/12 03:17 AM
Notice Billy did not say a word about him having a car ready for dragweek.
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/29/12 03:33 AM
Dale: Ok, this poor kid is so far over his ski's, and he doesn't even know it!! He's got the Barracuda, but he also traded my Dad out of a Back-halved Gremlin he's been wanting for a long time. He has them both at home now and is working diligently on both!! I asked him today..."Which one are you trying to take on Drag Week?"
"Both, that's the way I'm approaching it, I haven't decided yet..". Of course he also has taken on the job of building Boone's engine...this is going to get interesting!
Me: I'm really conflicted about the direction I want to go with the Valiant. Repair it, change tires, and try again. Go through the small block, and swap the J heads out for the W-5's on the shelf. Or switch to the Indy Maxx 512 lowdeck with Indy -1s, get the car certed, and really make some noise!! All of those decisions however, may end up being for DW 2013. I'm a realist, (OK, that's a flat out lie, a simple look at my available parts list proves that.) but with all my brothers are trying to accomplish, I'm likely to take the path of least resistance. I've already ordered new wheels for the Belvedere, and I'll be mounting M/T Drag Radials (no more switching at the track) get rid of the rediculous 2.76s and put in 3.55s, weld in a set of frame connectors, add HD leafs, and good rear shocks, upgrade to disk brakes up front, and go run trouble-free 11.60's all week in Daily Driver. Did I say "Trouble-free"??, hah!! From the mouths of Fools....
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/29/12 03:38 AM
Actually, I'm just gonna ride shotgun with Darryl!! That's truly the path of least resistance!!
Posted By: Darryls-Demon
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/29/12 04:37 AM
Quote:
Actually, I'm just gonna ride shotgun with Darryl!! That's truly the path of least resistance!!
Billy you just need to pull the engine and trans out of the Valiant do the repairs and put back together, two weekends and its done.
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/29/12 03:08 PM
Billy have you figured out the loss of control while
going down track yet
Posted By: 9 Sec Phill
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/30/12 03:24 AM
Does anyone have the rules for the gasser class? I would realy like to see them....Thanks...Phill
Posted By: MR_P_BODY
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/30/12 03:36 AM
Quote:
Does anyone have the rules for the gasser class? I would realy like to see them....Thanks...Phill
Look on Hot Rod Drag Week site... they break down
each class
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 01/31/12 08:12 AM
Phil,
These are the "proposed rules", with a final comfirmation due any day. Last year was won with a low 12 second average...expected to go nuts this coming year. We would like to just have fun make some friends and maybe get the old bucket of bolts in the tens...
MATCH BASH
•Match Bash is for retro-style doorslammers of the early ’60s. Body styles are restricted to ’28-’67 American cars and trucks, and Anglias. To qualify for this class, a car must have the appearance of an old-time Gasser, straight-axle, or altered-wheelbase car as agreed upon by the Drag Week tech committee. This includes a nose-high stance or solid front axle conversion, a drastically altered wheelbase, radiused rear-wheel openings, retro lettering, and period-correct wheels. Match Bash entries may not have a lowered stance, billet wheels, wheels more than 16 inches in diameter, modern graphics, or modern-looking scoops, spoilers, or wings. For approval prior to the event, send photos of the car to
DragWeek@hotrod.com. •The following are not allowed: A chassis fully constructed of round tubing, Lenco-type transmission, strut front suspension, fenderless configuration.
•The following are allowed: Fiberglass body components, engine setback, driver setback, rectangular tubing framerails.
•Must use American engine families from ’67-and-earlier model years. EFI may only be used on traditional stack-type injection manifolds or on traditional-appearing supercharger hats. The only power adder allowed is a non-screw-type roots supercharger.
P-Body,
Haven't figured it out yet, but I believe the tires are the culprits.
Posted By: Lil Demon
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 02/01/12 02:31 AM
WOW Billy - what a read and what sounds like an amazing time. I would love to participate in something like that - but it's not gonna happen.
Hope all is well with you.
Posted By: ksj
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 02/01/12 03:18 AM
Posted By: moparmanjames
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 02/01/12 05:46 AM
Nice read Billy, and as for the Truck, I have several name suggestions all incorporating your "Barnyard" theme...
a: Barnyard Alfa-[Edited by Moparts - Family Friendly Site - Keep it clean]
b: Barnyard HMIC (head mopar in charge)
c: Barnyard Barracuda
I can't believe they edited c-o-c-k, it's a rooster
Posted By: quickd100
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 02/01/12 12:01 PM
Quote:
Phil,
These are the "proposed rules", with a final comfirmation due any day. Last year was won with a low 12 second average...expected to go nuts this coming year. We would like to just have fun make some friends and maybe get the old bucket of bolts in the tens...
MATCH BASH
•Match Bash is for retro-style doorslammers of the early ’60s. Body styles are restricted to ’28-’67 American cars and trucks, and Anglias. To qualify for this class, a car must have the appearance of an old-time Gasser, straight-axle, or altered-wheelbase car as agreed upon by the Drag Week tech committee. This includes a nose-high stance or solid front axle conversion, a drastically altered wheelbase, radiused rear-wheel openings, retro lettering, and period-correct wheels. Match Bash entries may not have a lowered stance, billet wheels, wheels more than 16 inches in diameter, modern graphics, or modern-looking scoops, spoilers, or wings. For approval prior to the event, send photos of the car to [Email]DragWeek@hotrod.com.[/Email]
•The following are not allowed: A chassis fully constructed of round tubing, Lenco-type transmission, strut front suspension, fenderless configuration.
•The following are allowed: Fiberglass body components, engine setback, driver setback, rectangular tubing framerails.
•Must use American engine families from ’67-and-earlier model years. EFI may only be used on traditional stack-type injection manifolds or on traditional-appearing supercharger hats. The only power adder allowed is a non-screw-type roots supercharger.
Looks like my bucket of bolts would fit right in. Dave
Posted By: SCATPACK 1
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 02/07/16 07:30 AM
Me: I'm really conflicted about the direction I want to go with the Valiant. Repair it, change tires, and try again. Go through the small block, and swap the J heads out for the W-5's on the shelf. Or switch to the Indy Maxx 512 lowdeck with Indy -1s, get the car certed, and really make some noise!! All of those decisions however, may end up being for DW 2013. I'm a realist, (OK, that's a flat out lie, a simple look at my available parts list proves that.) but with all my brothers are trying to accomplish, I'm likely to take the path of least resistance. I've already ordered new wheels for the Belvedere, and I'll be mounting M/T Drag Radials (no more switching at the track) get rid of the rediculous 2.76s and put in 3.55s, weld in a set of frame connectors, add HD leafs, and good rear shocks, upgrade to disk brakes up front, and go run trouble-free 11.60's all week in Daily Driver. Did I say "Trouble-free"??, hah!! From the mouths of Fools....
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smilie_help.gif" alt="" />
So Billy, was reading this old post while waiting on the current post to get completed (seems to take longer and longer between updates. I don't think your heart is in this one like the first 2 or 3 stories) BUT I was wondering what was the issue with the Valiant that made it wobble so bad on the top end. What did you have to do to get it to run straight again?
thanks and you should have been a magazine writer too. GREAT reads.
Jerry
Posted By: MoparBilly
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 02/07/16 08:05 AM
Ha!
Now you're going to get everyone confused Jerry!
It's not really a matter of my heart not being in it. It's just more difficult to find blocks of time to work on it this year. In past years, I could come home from work at five, eat supper with the Wife, and send her off to bed around 6:30, then I had 3 or 4 uninterrupted hours to plug away on the story. This year we babysit my seven year old grandson until my daughter gets off work around 8:30 or 9:00 at night, and that really cuts into the creative storytelling time!
I didn't fix the Valiant's problems completely, I just did a better job of masking them with a band-aid!
First, and most important, I went to a big dumb bias ply tire in the back. Then I put really nice adjustable Qa-1 shocks on all four corners. The real problem is, that the rear-end is an 1/8 out of square under the car, so I need to drop it down, cut the safety tabs off one of the bars, adjust the heim out 1/8, and then weld the tabs back on...but I have yet to do that!
Thanks for reading, and I apologize for the delay!
Posted By: rt66jim
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 02/07/16 08:46 PM
Billy, that small of job would only cost me a 12 pack for my welder/fab guy and a few hours. On second thought it might be a 24 pack. He likes his beer.
Posted By: SCATPACK 1
Re: Hot Rod Drag Week 2011: The Experience - 02/08/16 01:41 AM
Billy my friend, o apology necessary I am a grand dad too and have our 9 year old granddaughter since she was 4. Would not take anything in the world for that time. I do understand completely the delay and I do not blame you in the least. I would not take anything for the time I get to spend with my granddaughter.
Had a blast and wish we could have chatted more.Cya next year Billy.