The Valiant gingerly eased out onto Topeka Blvd., picking it's way tentavely amid the sea of commuters, in rush hour evening traffic. First time on a public highway in decades, the speedo cable was thrown away with the slant six, and the odometer only shows 47K. She's out of practice!!!
Darren is riding shotgun, and both our eyes are transfixed on the temp guage. 4 miles to the gas station in stop and go traffic, and it has steadily climbed to 225...not a good start!! We fill the 12 Gallon aluminum cell with 91 swill. When Dale put his Snap-on timing light on the car, it showed 50 degrees timing in race mode, and he pulled it back to 31 for the road. The numbers are just a reference to me, I don't trust a snap-on light, with a MSD Digital 6+.
The good news is the Denso 60 amp has no problem keeping up, and the 4 8" fans drop the temp quick with the car shut off. We leave at 190, but are back to 220 in the 3 miles to the first checkpoint.
The pic is of a Chief Drive In sign, but we are in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Dale and Boone tell us they are gonna shop, and give us a head start. We pull out behind a White Fox Body pulling a trailer. Now that I feel confident the electrical system will re-start the car at any time, I start shutting it off at long lights, and letting the fans do thier work. 5 or 6 miles down the road, we start out of town, and are running in less congestion, the needle is at 225, but starts to make a move in the other direction for the first time!! I look at Darren..."I think we have a chance!!"
6 miles later the mood in the car has lightened considerably, we are cruising along at 2500 rpm, the temp has settled in at 215, the window wings are directing airflow, and we have open 2-lane in front of us..
I conjure up my best James Taylor voice, "That Cuda had a Hemi and a Torqueflight, believe we sawed him off even if we did lose 3 hundred"!! Darren smiled and laughed. A mile later, he sez, "Pull over, sounds a little lean, I wanna check the jets". Ah..yes, Automotive nirvana at it's finest!!

Great stuff.. Keep it coming Billy..


Chris..

Awesome read!! Keep it coming, realy want to try this sometime.

This is very interesting! I cant wait to read the rest.

Great read so far! I keep thinking about what I was doing during all of this. haha Keep it coming!

The jaunt down KS Scenic Byway into Dover put us 26 miles into the trip. Shortly after that, the big road, we eased onto I-70, and I found myself effortlessly hanging with the tractor-trailer crowd at around 3100 rpm. The temp was hanging around 205 unless I stayed behind anyone for very long...she liked to be out in the open air. Dale and Boone were alternating phone calls to Darren to check on location, once on I-70 they had a chance to stretch out those 2.76 gears, and were gaining fast.
"We take exit 300 to 57 north" Darren said, studiously reading the HRDW route directions
"What's the total miles at that point"?? I asked, with no speedo/Odo, and no gas guage, I was dependant on the sheets handed out to track fuel needs.
"80 miles, pretty much"
"Yeah, we better stop, I have no idea what to expect", I replied.
We pulled into the first large modern atation we saw off the interstate. It was filled halfway with other competitors, and halfway with people who just seemed to be enjoying the show!! This was a scene that would repeat itself the whole trip, the general public's enjoyment, curiosity, positive support was overwhelming; the car culture this country has enjoyed for a century shows no signs of wavering!!
The tank refused to take a full 6 gallons, shutting off in the 5.8-5.9 area, Boone was about the same, Dale at 8.4...the price of being the pack mule!
One of the 8 second monsters pulling a trailer pulled to the pump as we pulled out of the way and everyone was milling around conversing. The owner of the car asked Dale, "Geez, how fast were you guys going when you went around us."
"About a hundred" Dale laughed, "We saw you up ahead, and decided to buzz by you"!!
A local police officer had been walking among the cars, admiring them, and he spoke up, "Hope you didn't do that on my roads"!
Dale spun around and his face flushed red, "Uh...no, uh, that was up on the interstate..."
"Good", said the officer, "Not my jurisdiction"!

20 more miles into Abilene Ks. for checkpoint #2, a pic in front of a western wear sign. As we pulled into Abilene, it had the feel of a cruise night, with competitors parked at every resturant, hanging out talking. I waved at KSJ, Mike Crow, and several other guys standing around thier cars. We had pulled out of HPT with only 5 or so guys left at the track, and my brothers lamenting that we would miss "the show" of everyone making the drive, but wih 177 cars, and people seeming to be taking there time, we were in the thick of things.

We snapped our required picture in Abilene, and I let Darren behind the wheel. I have a light spring on the throttle, and it's a solid rod set-up with a custom pedal, toe hook, and solid stop...perfect setup for index/SST racing, not so much for long cruises!! The plactic racing bucket is also a little snug in the hip area...I was ready for a break. The passenger's plastic seat is not a match to the driver's, just a cast-off from a buddy, when I sank into it, I realized it had more hip room, and it was nice to stretch out my legs!! So far, I was very happy with my decision to add 25lbs. of Dynamat to the car, there was no heat coming through the floorpans at all.
The 3rd checkpoint was a Coca-cola mural in McPherson, it was dark by the time we pulled into the spacious parking lot in front of it. The mural is lighted by neon lights that change color, which is about all our pics showed! The parking lot had the feel of a late night cruise car show, and we spent some time checking out the cars and BSin'.
Denny Turzich's 69 Camaro rolled in with Jeff Lutz behind the wheel, pulling a trailer, and being followed closely by 2 Daily Driver entries. Now, I've always tried to adhere to Kyle Petty's famous quote about a nascar crewchief who got in trouble, "Daddy said people who live in glass houses don't throw rocks"! I'll just say that the 3 or 4 people around that car all had a job to do, and knew how to do it. Despite that, it didn't appear things were going well, and they didn't turn in a time at Great Bend, so I don't know what went wrong...it was certainly interesting theatre!!
Dale would tell me later, as we were processing the whole event in a phone call, "McPherson was my favorite checkpoint of the entire deal..just a really cool atmosphere."
We fueled as we were leaving town, and all 3 little brothers were complaining, "You drove by all the restruants, when are we gonna eat"? Crybabies!!
I took the wheel of Boone's Belvedere for the next drive, with a stern warning from him, "Watch the brakes, they aren't so good right now".
Not so good?? NOT GOOD AT ALL! It used up most of the first pump just to start slowing down, the second panic pump had me veering hard to the driver's side as I realized he had never adjusted up the right side front after we swapped drums. That combined with trying to get used to a reverse manual valve body, and a B&M rachet shifter...it took a few miles to get comfortable. The lowback buckets are out of a Ford and nicely re-upholstered...that was definitely an improvement.
We entered a small town, and I saw a competitor's 72 Chevelle in a DQ parking lot, and figured despite questionable lighting, the place may be still open. We went in and ordered at 9:47, the food was great, the staff was freindly. We realized when they were mopping and cleaning up as we ate and chatted with the Chevy boys, that official closing time was 10:00 pm, but they never complained! Love that small town hospitality...
I realized as we got ready to leave that I couldn't find my paperwork for all the Motels I had booked,so I called Travelocity, and got a woman obviously in another country.
We worked through with her strange accent and she was very helpfull in spite of it except for one detail, I couldn't understand the street name..it came out as Spence, or Peach.."Spell it", I asked.
"Won Sera"
"What?, no, spell it"
"P-E-N-C-H..."
"Ok, Ok, I'll figure it out, thanks for your help"!
As I drove into Great Bend, I realized the main drag is 10th Street, "One Zero" I thought to myself, "Lady probably thought I was a moron"!!
We drove by about 6 Motels on the way to ours, each one with competitors in the parking lot, still milling aound thier cars talking, and hanging out. When we pulled into ours several were drinking in thier lawn chairs and cheering when we pulled in. I was thinking, "I just want to shower, and pass out. They have way more energy than me".
We grabbed our gear, and I stuck the aluminum key into the 50 year old door locks, and locked the doors smooth as silk. "Amazing, something else I never expected to use on this car", I thought to myself.

Billy-

I'm really enjoying this! Keep it coming!

Scott

I agree that the CocaCola Mural and the number of people at the McPherson stop was awesome.Lutz killed number 2 cylinder.

Great read!

Great Bend Ks. track day #2.
The alarm went off at 6AM...it was 12:50 or so when I lost track, and fell asleep, 5 hours...not bad, actually. The b-fast nook was packed with people, and not one of the best as far as choices go, but everyone seemed to be in a good mood, and ready to roll.
There was a large, fancy, self-serv car wash across the street, It took credit cards, had about 12 different settings, and even had roll-down garage doors on one end to fight the persistant Kansas prairie wind. We slid in the cards, and had a little fun playing with all the options available. This was called tri-gloss wax??


Several people watching my car felt the problem was shocks, The Valiant just has the cheap coil-over kits that usually come with a base ladder bar kit. The eye to eye shock apprears pretty common, but is very short. We struck out at the first parts store. The second parts store was definitely more race oriented. When I asked about race fuel, the counter guy said, "Rich, the owner, is already out at the track with all the fuel, he can help you out there. We found a pair of 40$ gas magnums, they seemed about a 1/2 longer, but we hoped they would do. I also picked up a nice Longacre tire guage, no more guessing on that problem. Then I decided to grab some Redline water-wetter, couldn't hurt right?
When we rolled into the track things were moving along briskly, I've raced several NHRA divisionals at SCRA, and they always have an accomodating staff that knows how to get cars down the track. The brothers started changing to slicks, I headed to the midway area with an empty N20 bottle, and fuel jug...

billy, do you have any other shots of that "rat" dodge ?

Interlude: The "Rat Dodge"
Since requested, I'll break into the chronological telling, to talk about the "38 Special", and Boone's growing feeling of inferiority story.
Darren and Boone were naturally drawn to the "Rat Dodge" when they realized it was indeed, Mopar powered. They listened to the owner's tale of how he bolted/welded/cut and grafted 9 sections of different cars together to make the body, carefully adding correct patina to many panels to match the look of others, after learning everything about the construction, Boone commented, "You wouldn't be interested in a trade"
"I'm always interested in a trade, what ya got"?
Boone hooked his thumb across the row, "the Belvedere over there".
"Oh, the yellow 66 Satellite??"
"No, the blue 67 Belvedere.."
"Oh, well, yeah...Man, I sold a 66 Satellite to fund this project, I really love those cars, that's something I could really sink my teeth into..."

Boone came back to our pit, "I don't get it..he wants Dale's beater!! Everyone likes your Valiant and Dale's beater! HotRod takes pictures of both cars and walks by mine muttering about a 'nascar style look' and doesn't shoot a single picture..WTH, it's a nice car"!!

I also got a kick out of Boone and Darren discussing, after carefull inspection of the car: "He's only running 13's and that suspension looks pretty archaic...How much power could we really throw at it"??

Dale joined me at the area between the fuel trailer and the guys that were hauling around Monte and his NOS supplied N20 free re-fills. I sent him over to get the 2 vouchers we were allowed for bottle re-fills, from the hotrod staff.
When he returned, I headed over to Monte with my tall skinny bottle that has seen a few days of outside storage in the AZ sun.
"Wow, that's an oldie!" Monte commented
"Yeah, but I keep the certs up"..it IS a particularly ugly specimen.
"It's warm, it'll take a little while to chill it"
"No biggie, I don't need it right now, I'll come back..do you need this voucher"?
"Naw, hang on to it..I'm just pumping gas 'til I run out" he said with a big smile.
I walked away thinking, "He's just as cool in person, as he is on the board, 10 years of dialogue on the internet and we fianlly meet face to face and I don't even introduce myself". Fact is, I was embarrassed with my car, and ulimately, my performance at this point, and that doesn't make me the talkative guy I usually am.
Boone had his slicks on and armed with the new tire guage, and our trusty 12 volt air pump, he was bringing them up to snuff. I took the line off my nitrous fuel solenoid, kicked on the Volumax pump, and drained the 91 into an extra 5 gallon fuel jug, then dumped in the C-12.
Dale had timing light in hand, Setting his and Boone's at 30 for the spray, and bumping mine to 50 again. "Why 50?"
"Well, that's where it was before...your distributor is hard to move..it wants to go back there...you said you didn't trust my light.."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, get your slicks on".
"I'm squaring Boone's plate at 73 like mine, it was rich at Topeka", Dale was tossing that out there, I could tell
"Sounds good, we got a tale wind today, maybe you guys can lay down a number".

The guys in the Orange 72 Chevelle we'd met at DQ the night before walked over, and one said, "We forgot to air up our air tank, and I need a little air for the air bag.."
"Well, we have a little 12 volt pump"
"We don't have a cigarette lighter"
"We don't either, we cut the plug off, and are just using the leads on the battery, the one with the knot tied in it is negative"
They came back a few minutes later, "That thing works great! Lighter than an airtank, and you don't have to re-fill it!"
"Yeah, it's been a lifesaver so far.." I added.

Boone made it through the lanes first. He caught a great light, and grabbed the nitrous, his comments are as follows: "It was stuck good, I short shifted to 2nd and it was moving. I looked over and realized I had Scott's RoadRunner by more than a car...HaHa motor only huh..oh boy, here he comes..I short shifted drive and pressed the N20 button harder, but his primered front end just kept coming, then the big 70's orange door pulled along side, and we hit the stripe as one, I stared at my win light and it never came on...dang it, that stroker pulls hard"!!
11.76-115.2, Faster than his 493 truck he took in '06 (11.81), faster than his 67 Coronet he drove to Indy in '94 (11.77), so he was very pleased, except for the part about Scott driving around him by 2 thousandths, despite a healthy margin on the tree...that was going to sting for a while.

Good right up, but man your killing me here...

11secondC,
Man, I hear you! Ya know the typical novel that you read in a week took the author like 6 months to write! Well, I'm no author..I appreciate feedback.
I enjoy the freedom this board allows, I've wrote articles for other venues before, and had to plan, and outline, and compress... here, I just light up the keyboard and fire away. Perhaps I'm being too tedious, too detailed, too much minutia..I don't know.
I've done stories of some of my running adventures on running world and had other runners say "I felt like I was right there beside you the whole race", to me, thats a compliment. The thing about DragWeek is..there's nothing else like it. Period. To convey that I feel like I need to relive it moment-by-moment. Unfortunately I still have to go to work everyday, Babysit the grandson, eat, sleep, and try to keep my very understanding wife from killing me for spending more time on the PC than I do with her, after being gone for 9 days!