As Boone jumped under the lowered canopy and started in on the Barnyard, I turned my attention to Dale, and Hunter with the 68. "How did the TNT go last night", I asked casually, looking at Dale. "Not worth a darn!" Hunter blurted out, "just 17s, felt like it was only running on 4 cylinders!" Dale gave me a sheepish grin, and chuckled as he looked at the dead plugs arranged on the fender, "Probably more accurate than you know, Hunter!" "I managed to get all six runs I needed for my license", Dale continued, "So the Gremlin got a pretty good workout!" "You're that worried about getting legal? You buffaloed the guy last year into signing off on 8.49, and this year it's at your home track!" "Well, it's been a long time coming... I just need to get it done", he sighed. "What about the trans? That glide was your Achilles' heel last year, and the one in there now has some laps and miles on it." "I'm a little concerned, just don't know if I'm going to have time to rebuild it", he shrugged. "Hunter, go in the shop and find an old chrome 14" air cleaner...you can't drive this thing 5 hours back to Arkansas without an air cleaner!" The kid came back a few minutes later with one. The element looked like the guts from an oil filter, the other ones he dug out of the shop on subsequent trips were too tall. Finally Dale sent him after the element off my Belvedere to see if it would fit. "Ok, that'll work, bolt it down", Dale ordered. "We'll pick up a new one for your car later", he looked at me, "I have to get him rolling"!
I made my way back to the Valiant. As much as I wanted to chat with Boone and Dale, I had stuff left to do as well. The 950HP I had borrowed from Darryl was leaking out of both accelerator pumps, and the front squirter stream looked to be way off. I pulled it off, and brought it over to a table sitting under the shade tree next to where Dale was working on the Coronet. He had a cool little plastic and aluminum carb stand on it, that made disassembly of the 950 much easier. I had my notebook out, so I could write down all the particulars of the carb, and get a baseline on my tune up. Dale can't resist an open carb, I could've set down a fresh pizza on that table and got less of a reaction. He was over my shoulder and poking at parts before I got the thing separated. "That's a 30cc arm and pump cam with a 50cc pump on the front", he grabbed a tool and started pulling the arm free, "See, it's too wide, and it's not even riding on the cam...I just need to grind this area flat and it will work"! He headed off towards the grinder as Hunter glared at me hand on hips, as if to say, "You just stole my mechanic!"
