The trip to the motel included pulling the Valiant to the shoulder on I-75 to allow it to cool down from 240. Of course, Boone and Dale both hassled me about it, constantly reminding me that they run without t-stats, and never overheat.

We checked into the motel, then walked over to the Golden Corral. It was nice just to all sit down together and decompress a bit.
"So Dale, heard you spent some seat time in the Dakota last night. Are those front shocks as bad as Darren claims?"
"Yeah, it's got those drop spindles on the front, and when you add in those dead shocks, it's a miracle it still has an oil pan!" He smiled, knowing I was working Darren.
"Why did you have to drive?"
"Boone begged me to, he was following Darren, and called me because he was swerving all over the road!"
"Dang near went head on with a truck!" Boone chimed in.
"Guy hits the rumble strips once or twice, and everybody freaks out!" Darren smiled, refusing to be ruffled with a full plate of food in front of him.
I hastily grabbed my phone and sent a text to all the interested parties that our plan was to sleep here and head out later. The text I got back from Darryl simply said, "You need to pick up the pace to catch that Falcon."
I hadn't even thought about checking the results up to this point, but now I was curious.

We agreed to leave the motel at midnight, and I was up and had a shower at Eleven, but it was tough to get Rachael, Dale and James up and moving. I decided to take my bag out to the car, and see if the other guys were moving around yet. Dad and Boone were moving, but Darren was still in their room. When we walked outside a light flashed several times in the sky.
"Was that lightning?"
"Yes! I told these guys there is a storm coming in, and nobody wants to move!" Dad was clearly perturbed.
Four of our five cars are wearing M/T ET Streets, and hard rain is kryptonite to those tires.