Since Dale has raced Nationals and Divisionals at Heartland Park many times, the guys know exactly where the shower facilties are, so Boone and Dale headed that way immediately. Darren decided to drive his Dakota over instead of walking, and as he opened the door to get in, I noticed that he had his license plate in the back window. "When did you put that up there?" I asked, gesturing at the tag. He laughed, "Well, that's another story...we came down the off ramp from 59 this morning and turned left on 56." "Yeah, I remember the spot". "This thing was overheating, so we pulled over on a wide spot just after driving under the bridge, and a Kansas Highway Patrol pulls up right behind me and turned on his lights. He walked up and asked why I had no visible license plate on the vehicle, and since I was about half asleep, I reached over in the floorboard, dug the plate out, and handed it to him!" "Oh boy, I bet that went over well!" "Yeah...not really! He wanted my license, the registration, the insurance verification and he wanted to compare it all to the V.I.N.! Luckily everything was in order, so he relaxed and just talked to Boone and I until we had it cooled down and were ready to roll again".
Darren parked in front of the building, and went in to get his shower, Boone and Dale came out a few minutes later and walked back over to our pit area, to finish packing up. "Boone, you don't look any better, you look plum wore out!" "James drove the Gremlin while Dale slept a little, then Dale had to spell Darren in the Dakota, then Dale drove the Gremlin while James slept. I've been up since we showed up at TRP Monday morning!" "That...is not good!" I stared at the route sheet. 320 miles away from the two pre-paid motel rooms I had in Norman OK. Those rooms might as well be on the moon for all the good they were going to do us!
We were packed up and ready to roll when Darren came out. He fired up the Dakota, then shut it off twice in a row, then got out and walked over to us. He stroked both hands through his hair and said, "She's got no oil pressure..."
