30 miles into the drive, Dale was already dropping the route sheet, and his eyes were rolling up in his head, so now I was down a navigator.
Darryl called and said he was close, so I gave him the motel number, and told him I had called and they were expecting him.
I just kept trying to put miles behind me, but I was really tired, and feeling like we would never get there. Saw an Orange 70 Chevelle on the side of the road, flashers on, and the driver looking like he was doing something under the dash...I didn't stop, too hammered, all I wanted to do was keep moving.
We pulled into a convenience store about 40 miles from the track. Decided to go ahead and get fuel, but really I was just needed a very large coffee!
I stuck the screw driver in the trunk hole and turned it, but nothing happened, so I pushed on the trunk lid, and shook it, finally it came loose, but slammed up against the stops and something popped. After fueling, it wouldn't close, so Boone and Dale ended up pulling the torsion rod and roller on that side, we must've messed with it for 30 minutes before we managed to get it to shut properly.
I noticed Boone was paying to fill up the Belvedere and saw he put 89 in it. "You filled it up with 89?"
"Yeah, it'll run fine on it", he looked at me exasperated.
"Sure it will, but we're 40 miles from the track, and 3/4 of that will still be in the tank when she is spraying it!"
"Dang it! Didn't think about that...guess you'll just have to buy more race fuel to sweeten it", he said with a smile.
15 miles down the road, the Orange Chevelle was on the side of the road, flashers on, driver in the same position...felt like a Matrix moment.
The new suspension which had felt so good at the start of the day, now didn't feel quite right, but I couldn't figure it out. When I drove through construction and was getting sound reverberation from close proximity to the concrete barriers, I heard a clack, clack, clack, like you will hear when a bolt is stuck in the tread of a truck.
As is usually my luck, the motel I had chosen because it was only 7 miles from the track, was seven miles on the other side of the track from the direction we came in from. Doesn't sound like much until you are trying to finish off such a long day.
We pulled in, shut the 2 cars off, grabbed our bags, and went in barely saying a word to each other. Rachael who had driven all day, had finally gave Boone the wheel for the final juant, and she looked beat. Once in the room, we agreed that we didn't need to be the first guys at the track tomorrow, and we set the alarm for eight. The clock read 3:30 AM, wow, 25 hours from when I had first heard Darren's Charger fire to life! Seemed like a week ago.