With a good night sleep, and the early alarm going off, it was time to get up and head to the track. As the week moves along, Joel is a little more sluggish to get up and moving. I'm always the first up, take my shower, and head off to see if breakfast is ready. As I walked down to grab a bite to eat, you could already hear fellow Drag Weekers in the lobby area, telling stories, and getting a full stomach before what could possibly be a long day. The hotel we were at, had breakfast out early. What a relief. We had missed it most of the week, as we wanted to be one of the first in the staging lanes every day. As I'm gathering up my plate of food, a little kid asked me where Joel was, as he wanted his autograph. I told him he was still in the room taking Tuba lessons. With a confused, and sad look on his face, he turned and walked away. i quickly ate my food, thinking Joel would be here soon, and he'd be eagerly on the move, and want to get to the track. I tossed my plate in the garbage, and made my way back to the room, to grab my luggage. Joel was still slow moving, but at least he was moving. "I'll be waiting by the car. Lets get moving, as pit space at Byron is tight." "I'll be right down" said Joel. As I walked out to the Coupe, I noticed the sun was already coming up. We were quite a bit later than usual, and our Hotel was farther from the track than, the last few days. This worried me a little, as Pit spots fill up fast normally, and as the Trunk Monkey, the further you are from the staging lanes, the more walking there is. I've had enough of walking at this point. After waiting 10 minutes for Joel to arrive, we can finally make our way to the track. Joel fires the Coupe up, and says it's going to be a good day. "I can feel it, and I have Hope in my soul, which is better than Soap in my hole." "There is something wrong with you." I replied.

We made it to the track no problem, and as we are pulling into the gate, it's pretty obvious that the place is filling up fast, and most pit spots are already taken. Luckily for us, we are not pulling a trailer, and can maneuver easily into a spot close by. We see Mark Fisher just a head of us, and give him a wave. Clock is ticking, and I get busy doing my job right away. Joel is running the carbs dry from pump gas, and within 20 minutes we have the car switched over to race mode. I tell Joel to hurry up, and put the car into the staging lanes. Off he goes. As I start making my way to the staging lanes, I walk by Mark, and he is talking with someone, we say a quick hello, and with a confused, and panic look on Mark's face, he tells the guy he's talking with "I GOT TO GO!" I think Mark was in shock with how fast we could get the car switched from Street to Race. Simply, Joel had done his homework, and the things he's learned on others cars, has paid off.

As I'm walking the staging lanes, and chatting with a few people, my phone starts ringing. I look at it, and it says "HEMI JOEL" This can only mean, more walking for me. "Hello?" "Jeff, can you grab a screw driver, and a 7/16 wrench??" "Sure, be right there." i jog back to our pit area, and grab a screw driver, and a 7/16 wrench, and jog back to the staging lanes, and find Joel. Turns out the Rube Goldberg throttle linkage has slipped some. "Oh, I need a flat tip screw driver as well." I just give Joel the look, of are you kidding me? So make my way back to our pit spot, and grab a flat tip screw driver. My phone rings again, and once again, it's Joel. "Can you bring the GoPro also?" "NO! The GoPro's are your responsibility." and I hung up the phone, and made my way back to the lanes. When i arrived, Joel was holding Court with other racers in the Hot Rod Class. He was trying to explain to them the coolness factor of 8 carbs, out weighed the reliability of simple dual quads. I handed Joel the screwdriver, and walked away. This was a conversation he, and I, had many times...

As cars started running down the track, the crew of Hot Rod class entries were putting Joel's carbs and linkage back together. I stopped by to collect the tools, and head to the front of the lanes to watch Joel's pass. Things are moving quickly, and Joel pulls the Coupe into the burnout box. The burnout doesn't produce a ton of tire smoke, but it will do. Joel stages the car, and slowly brings the RPM's up. When the light goes green, Joel dumps the clutch, and the car looks very lazy leaving the starting line, but he stays in it. He does his job shifting the gears like a seasoned veteran, The scoreboard lights up, and Oh boy... 10.88 @ 122mph. Not only is the ET way off, so is the mph. Knowing Joel had high hopes today, I had a bad feeling that we would be trying for another pass. I was really liking the one and done, hit the road routine. But if that is what Joel wants to do, I don't get much say in it, and we will be staying. i make my way back to the pit area, and wait for Joel.

Joel wheels the Coupe into the pit spot, and i look at him, and ask what his plans are? "Lets hit the road. We are in survival mode still. Since we can't catch Mark, and 3rd place is way behind, I just want to finish. Besides, I want to get through Chicago ASAP." Alright! I was liking that. Kinda shocked that was the plan, but I liked it. I quickly got busy putting the Coupe back into street mode, and Joel went off to turn in his time slip. We were not messing around.

By the time Joel got back, I had almost everything switched over, and all the was left was to reinstall the rear spring rubbers, and some odds and ends. Way exited the Gate at Byron at 9:30am. A mile out of the gate we passed Mopar Billy's Valiant going the other way. "Did you see that Joel?" "I did!" "It's not like the Gebharts to be arriving to the track this early." "No it isn't!" About a half mile later, we see Dale and Little Billy in the Ruster. Was good to see they were having a good week. just a ways up, we spot a Casey's gas station. We are probably on fumes right now. "Ahh Joel, they only have 87 Octane here." "Well lets stop in, and get some coffee any ways." "I'm not holding it for you." Joel parks the Coupe, and walks in to the store. I figure since we aren't getting gas, I'll wait for the next place. A couple minutes go by, and Joel walks out with his coffee, and a smile on his face. "Saddle up!" It never gets old... To him. We climb back into the Coupe, and Joel says "Hold my Coffee." "Hold your own coffee." I tell him. So Joel put s the cup of coffee down by the shifter, fires the 392 up, and pulls away from the gas pumps. As he makes the left turn, I can see liquid flowing all over my side of the floor pan. "Joel, you have a problem." "Oh S#!t!!! So Joel pulls the Coupe next to the building, and runs in to get some napkins to wipe everything up. As he gets out of the car, a guy pulls up behind us, and says we are leaking something. "Yup, someone spilled his coffee." The floor pans in the Coupe are not water tight. That was a good thing,as it made it easy to clean up. The local that stopped proceeds to tell us about some old car that he used to have, and asked about the 392. We gave him a BS story about how it came out of a junkyard, and all we did to it was change the intake manifold on it. Joel ran back in, and grabbed another cup of coffee. "Can you please hold on to this?" Well he did at least say please this time. OK.

A block down the road, we spotted another gas station. It was next to a old car dealer, and I had spotted a couple Mopars on the lot when we drove past earlier in the morning. We filled the Coupes tank up with gas, and Klotz octane booster. While Joel went inside to pay, I walked over to the Used car lot. One 68 Charger. Looked like a decent project car, but not sure what they were asking for it. I headed back to the Coupe. We got back on the route, and started to put a few miles on, but the 392 didn't sound right. It was starting to ping under light load, and Joel heard it right away. We made a quick stop, and added in some extra octane booster. After a few more miles the pinging was still going on, so Joel found a side street in a housing development, and wanted to check things over. "Why here Joel?" "I don't want every Drag Weeker stopping and asking if we are OK. Lets just change plugs, and check the timing." Just as we were removing stuff from the trunk of the Coupe, we noticed the garage door, of the house we were in front of, open. Oh ohh... Thinking we are going to get yelled at by the locals, a mini van exits the garage, and backs out of the driveway. The Lady driving pulls up next to us. She asks "Do you guys need help? My husband has lots of tools in the garage, if you need anything." Both of us were kinda shocked, and just thanked her, and said we had everything we needed. She drove away, and Joel got back to work. "Kinda naive of her to offer up her husbands tools to some strangers shes never met, huh Joel?" It was a relief that she didn't come out yelling at us. With the repairs done, we headed back to the route. The route took us through some of the roughest Interstate I've ever been on. We took a beating in the car, but luckily nothing broke, and we were clicking off the miles. Illinois, fix your roads...

As we got to the last check point, we needed to check our fuel level, and see where we needed to be for the last day. I looked at Joel and said "You know what Joel, we haven't had any dinner bets on this trip." "What are you thinking?" "How about we guess where the fuel level is, and closest wins dinner?" "Closest without going over?" That worked for me, and we marked the stick we were using to check fuel level, and dunked the tank.