"What is your concern of re torqueing the heads Joel?" His concern was that MAYBE, be redoing them, it messed up the Copper head gaskets, and it would be leaking water into the oil? I crawled under the car and took a look at the oil sight tube, and it looked like the oil was clear, and not milky. It doesn't take much for it to look like a milkshake, so nothing was going on there. We looked over the water lines, and one of the lines coming off the head, had some white residue, like it had been leaking, but not enough for the engine to be down over a gallon of water. We took all the water we had, and filled the radiator as much as we could, and then Tony brought us enough from his cooler to top it off. With less than 80 miles to go, we figured we could make it to Indianapolis Raceway Park. Once there, we could stop at a parts store, and get a bottle of sealer, and put it in the radiator, and hope it held for the remainder of the week. The break was actually nice for a change of pace, and it was a lot of fun talking with Tony. Wanting to get to our Hotel outweighed the break though. "Lets hit the road!" Joel told me, and we crammed ourselves back into the Coupe. Water temp went way down, and the oil pressure raised up 10lbs from being cool again. We quickly got back on the route, and headed towards IRP. It didn't take too long, and traffic around Indy got worse, and worse. We came to a stand still at one point, and I had the door wide open to get some air moving through the Coupe. I'm sure the lifeless souls in their Prius's were wondering just [censored] we were doing, and how dare they drive such a menace to the environment? We survived, but the temp gauge was climbing once again. Figuring it might just be from sitting in traffic, but we would need to find a parts store ASAP. The temp didn't go down much as traffic started to move once again. Something was going on with the engine, and being this far from the home track, and Truck/Trailer, wasn't the best feeling. A little ways down the road we were somehow separated from Tony. His GPS route planner took him a different way ours did. How that happened, we have no clue? Shortly after that the skies opened up, and it started to rain. Not wanting to drive in the rain on basically slicks, and having flashbacks to 2018, Joel wisely pulled off the Freeway. Not 2 minutes later a concerned motorist pulled up behind us, and asked if we needed help? "No, we are just trying to avoid the rain." Joel, then limped the Coupe to a empty parking lot, and we got out the Route sheet to make sure we're on the correct path. We were, and as fast as the rain came, it was gone. I wiped down the windshield of the Coupe, and we headed back to the Freeway. We located a ORielly's Auto on the phone, and headed to it. Tony had got ahold of Joel, and said he would meet us there.

As we got closer to the parts store, it was quite clear, that we were not in the nicest neighborhood of the Indianapolis area. Joel pulled the Coupe into the parking lot, and I told him I'd stay with the car and look things over. Tony pulled in right behind us. As I was looking the HEMI over, I could not see anything that looked out of place. Tony walks up behind me, and says, "Did you see that? A drip of something just hit the ground." A ha... A clue. I crawl under the Coupe, and see where the leak is coming from. Joel had installed pushlock hose fittings on the oil cooler lines, and it looked like it was coming apart. I told Joel to grab some hose clamps inside, and just make sure he only got the essentials. "You think I'm an idiot?"... As Joel walked into the store, Tony looks at me, and asks "Do you want a beer?" It's hot, a muggy... Of course I want a beer! Tony extracts a ice cold Old Milwaukee from his cooler, and hands it to me. I like Tony.

While BS'ing with Tony, waiting for Joel, we discussed where he was in his class. I told him he was in 5th place, but not far out of 3rd place. It's too bad he took a bad pass on Day 1, since he forgot to take off his air cleaner. Had he taken it off, and made a normal pass for his truck, he would have clearly been in 3rd place. There was an outside chance he could still pull it off. "Why did you tell me that? Now I have to try!" I wonder what is taking Joel so long? Never mind it's Joel. Nothing usually goes fast paced with him. I told Tony I'd be right back, as I wanted to see if Joel was telling the parts counter guy how he looked like Blake Shelton. (Which I can 100% guarantee, had no clue who that was). "Joel do you have the hose clamps?" "In the box. They are already rung up, so you can grab them." I scooped them up, and headed back out to Tony, and the Coupe. I grabbed the needed tool, opened up the hose clamp to wrap it around the hose, and laid down on under the HEMI, and installed the clamp. As I tightened it up, water started POURING out of the fitting, down the hose, and my arm. Luckily it wasn't boiling... OH OH... That's not good. I quickly removed the clamp, and as I was doing so, I noticed the end of the hose rotate. I reached up with my other hand, and sure enough the AN fitting was loose. I got on my phone, and called Joel in the store. Told him to hold off on buying the Ceramic sealer, and we found the water leak. I grabbed the All16th's wrench we had bought on day one, and tightened the hose fitting back up. I'll have to blame Joel for that one, as I've never put a wrench on those fittings. Maybe Joel forgot to eat his Wheaties that day?

The reason Joel took so long inside the store, was he was going to install a new fuel pressure gauge, and was trying to get all the parts needed to mount a gauge on the cowl, so he could see what it was reading going down track. Once outside, and a box of parts in hand, it was determined that it was going to be too big of a pain to attempt. "Lets get to our Hotel" were the words I was waiting for Joel to say. First we had to stop by IRP, and our daily route would be complete. The next morning the drive from the Hotel to the track, could be accomplished anyway we wanted. The route had us take some nice side roads, with plenty of trees, and shade. We made it to the front gate, and Day 2 was officially in the books. Sort of... Only a few minutes upon arriving at IRP, a familiar Drag Weeker pulled in behind us. "Matt! how are you guys?" "Doing good." "What time did you guys leave Norwalk?" Matt said around noon. We left 3 hours ahead of him, and Lance. With a shocked expression, "And you guys are just getting here?!" "Yup." I'm pretty sure both Matt, and Lance, were happy we didn't call them again on Day 2. Joel then decides we need to borrow a 5 gallon gas jug from Tony, and it was only a few miles to our Hotel. Great... I guess I know where that is going. The trip to the Hotel was pretty simple, other than not having any spare room with a 5 gallon fuel jug in my lap. I still can't remember why we even needed it, other than Joel wanted to torture me? It was nice arriving at the Hotel before the sun set. We had heard there was a storm coming through later on, so we needed to adjust the valves right away. Joel made a phone call, and got us a Pizza delivery on the way. Thinking the beer Tony gave me earlier on tasted way too good, even for Old Milwaukee, I better see if I could go buy some more. A gas station was within easy walking distance of the Hotel, so I made my way to it. Not a single cold beer in the place. I could buy it warm, and find out a way to cool it down, but that wasn't really an option. I was then told a liquor store was just a couple miles down the road, and they would have cold beer. I told the clerk, no thanks. I've already walked 58 miles in the last few days. As I made my way back to the Hotel, more people had arrived, and one of the cars had a crowd of people around it. Most of them had Drag Week shirts on from years past, and they were way to clean to be participants this year. "Want a beer?" One of them asked. "You are a saint" I told him. "That cooler is full of ice cold beer, and since you have a wrist band on, you can take as much as you want." The guys had mostly competed in Drag Week in the past, and since they were local, they figured they would hang out, and meet up with old friends, and make some new ones. They had a stack of Pizza boxes on a tailgate of a truck as well. I grabbed a couple beers for me and Joel, and went back to our room to eat our Pizza. The A/C was a nice welcome for a bit. Daylight quickly turned to night, and Joel got busy doing his thing to the Coupe. I probably spent more time than Joel wanted me to, talking with people, and just hanging out. Hey, we are on vacation after all.

Wanting to make sure we got up early for the next day, I headed in, and took my shower. When I got out, Joel was just getting to our room, and told me to look outside. The skies had opened up, and the Coupe was getting a good soaking.