Rachael took the lead, and I pulled out behind her, with the other three cars behind me, but Rachael checked out on me in the first five miles, as she easily eclipsed the local speed limit by ten or more, so I began to look at my route sheet since I wasn't going to try to keep up with her.

"Right Turn onto Indiana 38 E (sign says toward Stony Creek farm)", was the first sentence of the next instruction on the sheet.
I successfully made the turn and put the sheet down without reading the second and third sentences of that instruction, a mistake that I have admonished co-drivers and fellow travelers for, many, many times on Drag Week. That mistake would bite me a few miles later as we were crossing over I-69 right before entering the town of Pendleton. The street sign clearly indicated that IN-38 would turn onto I-69, so I made a left onto the access road before consulting the route sheet.
"IN-38E becomes State Street through Pendleton. Continue onto State Street/ IN-38E for 54.1 miles", were the next two sentences. Had I read and comprehended that information previously, I wouldn't be sitting on the shoulder, preparing to back up this ramp the wrong way! Traffic was very light, so I figured the other guys would continue on the proper route while I backed up the shoulder and got back behind them with my tail between my legs. I was wrong again, they were all in full on "follow Billy" mode, so before I knew it, we had four hot rods sitting on the shoulder of the access road!

Dan jumped out of the "Plan II" Nova AFX, and volunteered to guide each of us back up the ramp, and hold traffic while we got back onto State Street. Once we cleared Pendleton, we were once again cruising across pristine Indiana farmland, dotted with equally pristine farmhouses. It was dark by the time we drove into New Castle, and at the first stop light, a local pointed out that I had a taillight out, so I pulled into a Marathon Gas station beside Jeffrey Lutz and his Civic.

As I feared, Rachael had shorted out the taillight by packing my trunk improperly, so I simply needed another 1157 bulb. Meanwhile Jeffrey and Nick borrowed Boone's jack to get under the little ground hugging Civic in order to remove a damaged belly pan that had been bent back while traversing a RR crossing. Dale fueled the Gremlin, and added oil again, he would go through 3 quarts on the 244 mile drive.