I broke my hood. it tried comming off in shreveport.

Turbo Action shifter strikes again!

20 minutes later, with 25 minutes officially left in the "class cars" session, I idled around in the lanes for another shot. While the DD cars had already began filling thier lanes, there was only a few cars in ours, and none appeared ready to make a run. I clicked off the Valiant, zipped up my jacket, and with the door open, started putting on my belts. The lane director, a tiny lady easily in her seventys or eightys, with the brightest red lipstick I've ever seen, stuck her head between me and the door and said, "You can go when you are ready, and you can pick your lane!"
I let that proclamation settle in for a second, smiled and said, "Absolutely perfect! Thank you!" I thought to myself, other than possibly "You've got a single into the next round", that's the best thing a lane director has ever told me!
I drove into the right lane water box, did my burnout, and staged on a single. I failed to bring the RPM up anywhere near what I usually do, and it resulted in a lackluster launch, and I motored through with an 11.44-114.8. I was frustrated with myself for taking 3 shots and not getting a perfect run, but I also saw no need to keep beating on it when we were just one day from the end, and even a half-second gain wouldn't help my position. I had checked out the mystery camaro that was on my heels and it was a no-bar car, so anything sub 11.50 would keep him in 3rd, so second place was safe, and it was time to get back to Tulsa and finish this thing.

I parked the Valiant in our spot, and Boone started putting it back in street trim as Dale and I tended to the Belvedere. We swapped out N20 bottles, at right about the same time it was being announced that Monte Smith was done filling N20 bottles after today, and would not be going back to Tulsa.
"You better get up there and get this one filled", Dale pointed at the one we had just pulled out, "It's your last chance to get a free fill on Drag Week!"
"This is the 4th day, we've used one on the whole trip, and I've got two full ones, I'm not worried about bothering him for a free fill."
"That makes no sense, you'll certainly use it at some point!" he shook his head.
"I've got plenty for this event, I'm a big boy and I'm fully capable of paying for what I use!"
I'm sure at this point he felt I was overreacting, but this was something that stuck in my craw from last year when we brought 3 cars all on Nitrous, and Dale's idea was to show up Monday morning and drop every single empty bottle we could dig up, buy or borrow at Monte's feet, and expect to run on free nitrous all Drag Week, and go home with full bottles! I appreciate what NOS has done for this event, and I appreciate the fact that Monte follows us around with 10 mother bottles to help all the N20 cars out, but at a certain point you are just abusing thier generosity.
We had the car all squared away, then Dale and Rachael left for the lanes. Dale called a few minutes later and had Darryl bring tools to the lanes, something about the unit not working right. All the guys who had close battles going on in the classes had crowded the lanes at the last second, because the word was already out that rain was in the forcast for Tulsa the next day, so none of them wanted to make that drive back in 2nd place! This delayed the Daily Driver class' first hit even more. Rachael didn't actually get her first run down the Memphis 1/4 mile until an hour and ten minutes after my last, and nearly 2 hours after Darryl's last attempt!
She left the line decent, hit the juice and the car ran great through the remainder of low, and the bottom of second, then just seemed to level out like she had lifted off the spray. 12.54-94, not good, but certainly workable, she would still be solidly into the 32 car field if we turned it in.

Dale came back into the pits, obviously agitated, and started yelling at me about the bottle being empty, and Grand Prix didn't fill it right, only pressure, no nitrous...now he was getting under my skin!
"You think I'm stupid? That bottle is a hell of alot heavier than the one I pulled out! Don't tell me it's not full!"
"Then it's plugged up or something!"
"Did you check the darned filter?"
I hate N20 filters with a passion, I really do, sure enough it was plugged.
"Let's just turn it in and get the heck out of here", I pleaded.
"No way, we're going back up!" was the answer I received from both Rachael and Dale in eerie unison. That spidey sense was starting to tingle again!

Great story,Billy!! Keep it coming!!

Boone was putting the final touches on the Valiant exhaust when Rachael pulled out alongside Scott's RoadRunner. Scott's last pass had been an 11.47-120 that he used to hold off the little tubo'd 2.0 stick Bedford from England. Now he needed something above 11.50 to turn in, I was hoping Rachael could stay close and we could get on down the road.
If you look at the picture in the last post you will realize the ignition wasn't up to the task! It rolled black smoke until about the eighth mile, then made a loud pop, and Scott started pulling away. I turned and walked away. Boone and I had a discussion about nitrous that ended with him saying, "I'm DONE with this!" and throwing his (my) ratchet and socket that he was using to tighten my pipes up out on the ground.
"You mean you're done, as in you're mad at me, or as in you are finished with the job, and my exhaust isn't going to fall off driving down the road?"
At that moment Scott pulled up to our pit, "Did you see all that smoke?"
"You mean all that black smoke in the first half?"
Scott bent his chin down and looked over the top of his glasses at me...it's his Dude, I'm serious look! "No! All the white smoke in the shutdown area, that thing is hurt!"
"Uh, no I walked away when I saw it fall over, great, here we go again."
Scott looked past me towards Boone, "These your tools laying out here in the road?"
"Yeah", Boone deadpanned, "I was done with 'em".

Although the Belvedere didn't run out through the pass, don't forget that Rachel absolutely schooled me at the light with a .004 RT on that last pass at Memphis! That girl has some talent, no doubt about it. Give her a consistent ride and she will be a tough competitor in the brackets.

Rachael backed the Belvedere in beside my Valiant at about the same time Dale made his way back from the lanes, he bent down and looked under the passenger's side fender, and grumbled, "Didn't expect that, blew the same side as last year!"
"You're kidding! Are you sure?"
"I'm sitting here watching water run out of this header", Dale confirmed.
We gathered around and drew up a game plan. Darryl and Rachael would go to the parts store for silicone, copper coat, brake cleaner and other items we needed, while the three of us would tear it apart. Scott and George loaned us some of the heavy duty tools we needed to handle the job. Mike and Lane came over and kicked in some steel wool, and moral support, and we jumped into it.

Considering some of the guys who were still sharing the pits with us on this wonderful thursday evening, our problems didn't seem so bad. Brad Barkley's red 240Z was up on 4 jack stands with the tranny coming out.

They lost bearings in the huffed BBC on Thursday last year, so I'm sure they were thinking "no, not again", just as we were!

Larry was hanging out as well, with the third member in pieces. New ring and pinion being installed.

Who jumped in to replace the head gasket? Its a good thing you brought those two trunk monkeys with you or you may just be getting back to Phx about now. I think I have a photo around here of Billy supervising the job and looking for more pizza at the same time.

Find the pic.

You will clearly notice in this pic that I have a head gasket in my hand, not pizza! Luckily I had just removed myself from my "Supervisor's lawn chair" before this one was snapped.
Notice Boone is watching the flock of birds flying across the track, this is why I must supervise, these guys have very short attention spans!

I will readily admit that Rachael and Darryl's decision to return with not only the parts we needed, but with two boxes of Pizza Hut's finest as well, may have been the moment that saved our Drag Week!

Unfortunately, Sean and Tara Fling's 2012 Drag Week ended in Memphis. As if the hood incedent wasn't insult enough, the mod motor suffered terminal damage.

You know as well as I do that Sean has PLANS for next year.

Billy you can clearly see in that photo that you are standing there asking yourself How in the world did I end up with this gasket in my hands and Boone is looking up to see if the sky is falling[he seen you holding the gasket]

I had tried to hold off on reading this years "experience", knowing that I'd be glued to Billy's ramblings for a few days if I started.... well, I lost the battle with my willpower Monday night, and spent my entire day yesterday scrolling through this thread on my blackberry while I was supposed to be working. Billy, you've missed your calling..... shoulda been a writer. Now I find myself, like most of us here, stuck waiting on "more".

reading this, just like last years "experience" thread, makes me wish HotRod would come calling on the Northwest. This event seems to be the experience of a lifetime for us hotrod guys. I can't help but think that Woodburn, Bremerton, Pacific, and Spokane are situated in locations that would be perfect for something like this....... And that my Satellite is right in the wheelhouse of being a suitable weapon of choice for this sort of flogging. Questionable part is: Do I have what it would take to pound out a week like this???? Man, I'd like to find out.

As Jeff Lutz drove out of the gate at Memphis, he had the lead in Average E.T., they were calling for rain on the last day, and his main rival and nemesis had his car up on jackstands with the third member in pieces. Except for the 400+ mile drive in front of him, he had to be feeling pretty good!