Boone and Dad rolled in to our location about twenty minutes later, so we sent Rachael and the old man ahead in the Belvedere. Darren showed up with the Charger about twenty minutes after that, and Dale gave a honk as they stayed on I-40 and kept rolling. He pulled directly onto the trailer and shut it off.
"It was actually doing pretty good!" He smiled when he jumped out.
I loaded up the Satellite behind the Charger, and went to the c-store to get one more 24oz coffee for the road. They had both of them tied down when I got back. It seemed to tow much better, until the coffee starting wearing off. We ended up passing the big rig with James behind the wheel on the other side of Memphis. The sun, fatigue, and the need to get rid of the 48oz of coffee all caught up with me at Jackson Tennessee. I pulled into a Loves, with Darren and Boone in the 1 ton right behind me, but James kept the hammer down. We had put another 183 miles away, but I was a shot fighter.
I came out after paying for my fuel, with another coffee, and Boone was making himself comfortable behind the wheel of my truck. "I got some sleep on the last pull, why don't you ride with Darren for a while". I didn't need anyone to twist my arm!
I woke up to the sound of Darren laughing.
"What's up?", I looked around to gather my bearings, a sign proclaiming 12 miles to Nashville was my first clue.
"Boone is getting abused by that trailer, it's the tail wagging the dog!" He explained.
I looked ahead, "Good Greif! It didn't look like that while you guys were following me did it?"
"Nope, not even close"
It took me two calls and fifteen miles to get him to pull over and let me take over again.

Dad and Rachael were already at Beech Bend, and had already put the Belvedere in the tech line. That's the first hurdle of Drag Week. The car must be in the tech line by 2PM., doesn't matter if they can't tech you in until 5, doesn't even matter if it passes tech, they'll let you fix the problem before you run Monday, but it must be in that line! 1 down, 4 to go... I was breathing a little easier.

Dale and James pulled into Beech Bend Raceway Park about forty minutes after Rachael and Dad arrived, and a good twenty minutes earlier than us. Dale swears they pulled in at 12:05, everyone else in our group that I have interviewed are much more vague, and only feel comfortable putting it in a two hour and a half hour window between 10:30 and 1:00 pm! We were a pretty ragged group by then, and the drive though all the LS crap, then through all the Drag Weekers all the way to the return road where they had directed Dale to put his rig, felt like an interminable procession.

Boone's Barnyard was already unloaded, so he went straight up to tech. I grabbed everything I needed to wire up the horn, and headed into line with the Satellite next. There were two lines for Daily Driver class, and two lines for The Class cars, so when Dale and Darren came around I motioned them into the appropriate lanes. When we went in 2011, Dale had wired the N20 relay to use the horn button for activation, and since he did this after tech, the Satellite had been without a horn ever since. So I sat in line, with a big ole starter button, a curly cord off a dead switch from years gone by, a handful of butt connectors and a universal stripper/crimper tool. In a matter of minutes I had used the tool to nip the inside of a knuckle on the opposing hand, and was bleeding all over the interior! In an hour or so Boone, Dale, and Darren had disappeared down the hill and started up the line towards the tech area, I had moved forward 3 spots. In the next hour I had kicked it in neutral a few times and moved maybe another 3 spots. Finally, my line started to move, and I hit the key...Click, click, click...apparently the battery in the Satellite was so weak that sitting in line with the door open and my foot on the brake pedal for 45 minutes was enough to drain it! This is not the NHRA, there is no honor in a Drag Week line, so the remaining cars drove around me before I could even get out and open the hood! A gen two Camaro that had already went through the gauntlet gave me a jump, and I pulled up into the very back of the line.
Boone finally walked down to check on me, "What the heck, we all finished up forty-five minutes ago?"
"I'm just a lowly daily driver, so we don't get the express lane service like you big guys."
Darryl and Tony came over and were talking to us, and Boone mentioned, "Dale pulled it off, he got the Gremlin teched down to 8.50!"
Tony looked surprised, "That thing has a current cert? He has a license?"
Boone and Darryl tried to swallow their tongues, and I certainly didn't want to lie to Tony, but they are in the same class..."Uhh, he's had his license for awhile, and I'm sure the car has certed before,...I'm not sure about current".
"The Javelin is certed, but I haven't had a chance to get a license" Tony shook his head, "Maybe once Firebird re-opens, I doubt I'll need better than 10.0 for this trip though!" he smiled.
"Dale shouldn't either, but it's nice to have it", I added. Dale's best computer simulations have shown 10 teens with this combo, but I had told him to try to get the 8.50 box checked, and apparently in the few minutes he had spent with the tired track tech inspector, he had been convincing. It's sure a much easier process to deal with Finnegan for 90 seconds on which class you want to run, and a local tech guy for 2 minutes on how fast you can go than it is to post pictures and threads all over the internet boards for the whole world to sort through your junk....just saying!!

I finally cleared tech with a weak mmeeap from the horn, and then had to go to the registration tent.
"Gebhart", the lady said as she checked off my name and handed me my numbers, "Thought we had processed all of you guys already!"
It was after 4 pm by the time I joined everyone on the return road, and the last of the LS Fest was wrapping up eliminations through intermittent sprinkles. Dale and James were working over the front end of the Gremlin adjusting the tie rods, adjusting ride height, and setting toe. Darryl was standing by, "Well, I wanted to make some test runs tonight, but this weather doesn't look promising!"
"Nope", I shook my head, "I think this LS thing just screwed us out of our Sunday test and tune!"

You clearly have a knack for telling a story ..

You should look into doing a blog or a twitter account for 2014


Your family looks like a great group to be involved with ..


I bet you could get a lot of sponsors to help with the project ..


it is exactly what kind of press they would like to have to promote their products..



Hats off to you sir

I expect everyone other than you and your daughter to be tMopars In the Park on nov 2nd in Tulsa.Just saying.If they have to do more than ONE event a year maybe they will catch on.LMAO!

"The Javelin is certed, but I haven't had a chance to get a license" Tony shook his head, "Maybe once Firebird re-opens, I doubt I'll need better than 10.0 for this trip though!"


What I meant is I doubt that my car would be faster than 10.0, it needs some time at the track to get the tune right. You guys are troopers though, damn I love reading the story even though I was sorta there.

I agree with BigDad,great story telling,about a experience that most won't get to have,{I hope to in the next couple years}.I met Billy and Darryl at the Woodley Park show,both very cool people.
As for the sponsorship,I would agree to that as well,the Viper got alot of attention,saw pics on several people's Facebook including Hot Rod's.
I look forward to these writeups,keep them coming Billy!

Quote:

---

You clearly have a knack for telling a story ..

You should look into doing a blog or a twitter account for 2014


Your family looks like a great group to be involved with ..


I bet you could get a lot of sponsors to help with the project ..


it is exactly what kind of press they would like to have to promote their products..



Hats off to you sir

---

Darren was re-assembling the front bumper and grilles of the 73 Charger, while Rachael, Darryl, and I were carefully helping each other apply the Drag Week windshield banners on each car. Dale finally finished up the Gremlin, and then had moved on to help Boone with the Truck. One of the tech guys had pointed out that the #1 plug wire was hanging loose on the Barnyard, so apparently Dale had never put the 10.8 wire back on the plug after setting the timing at the house. This led to excessive pinging on Boone's test drive, and Dale had just backed it off. Now they decided to re-time it for the race fuel it would see Monday morning.

Boone was behind the wheel, apparently waiting for Dale to tell him when to fire it up, when Darryl walked over and told me to grab my camera. I snuck over for a peek, and Boone was completely out on the wheel! I came back with the camera and went for this tricky shot which I didn't pull off quite as well as I liked. I tried to get a closer shot but he jerked awake, "Hey, what are you doing!" he complained, "I was just out for a second!"
"Yeah, is that why you have a permanent wheel mark on your forehead?" I laughed.

The sprinkles increased, and it became clear there would be no T&T for the drag week crew tonight.
"I'm going to go ahead and load my car", Darryl decided.
"Why? We've got room if you want to ride to the motel with us, and just leave everything here."
"I just figured I'd take everything to the motel."
I was too tired to argue, I've always felt stuff was safer at a race track than it is in a motel parking lot, but maybe all these LS freaks were making him nervous!
I looked over at Dale leaning against the Barnyard Viper's fender, and heard James complaining about nothing to eat all day, and realized at this point, we weren't going to make any more progress tonight. We needed to get some food, some sleep, and get back out here in the morning.

Getting everyone on the same page was a little more difficult than I thought.
"Where's the motel?" Darryl questioned.
I pulled out the Hotels.com confirmation sheet and gave him the address. The last two years I've always printed a map from each track, to the motel, but this year my printer went on strike before I finished.
"Ok, yeah, I think I know where that is", he sounded somewhat confident, and he had been in town a day longer than us.
"And stop if you find somewhere decent to eat at!" James added.
"What does decent mean?" Darryl wanted clarification.
"Not a chain fast food place!"
Well that certainly narrowed it down.

We decided Darryl would lead us to the motel in his rig, and the rest of us would load up in the Belvedere and Satellite. So we started towards that goal by securing all the tools and spare parts in Dale's trailer, and loading all the luggage in the cars. Dale decided to load the Gremlin in the back of the enclosed trailer, and we left Boone's Truck beside the trailer. We had most of this done, when I realized I hadn't seen Rachael in a while, I finally found her in the lounge of the Kodiak passed out asleep.
Once she was up, she went straight to the Belvedere, and jumped behind the wheel, Dale and James jumped in with her and they were ready to roll. Boone was about to join me in the Satellite, when he hollered at Dad, "You coming with us?"
"No! I've got to stay here and help Darren finish this Charger!" Dad retorted.
"We'll finish that stuff in the morning!"
"No...you guys promised him if he just loaded it, that you would help him when we got here, now you just want to forget about him!"
I wasn't about to stand around and argue this point, "We've got no more left to give, Dad, everyone is at the end of their rope, and we're leaving!"
We fired up the Satellite, and Darryl headed out the gate with us in tow.

We had drove about 1/2 way through town, and it was becoming increasingly evident that Darryl had no clue where we were, it was completely dark, and the intermittent rain made street signs difficult to read. Finally he came up to a large intersection and he motioned me along side. Boone just happened to notice a Cheddars restaurant across the intersection, and said, "that will work over there!"
So I told Darryl to follow us and we would re-group after eating. The six of us had a great meal, great conversation, and even though it took the pretty blonde waitress ten minutes, and help from her bus boy, to explain how to get to the motel, no one seemed to mind. We were just finishing up when Boone's phone rang and Dad was asking how to get to the motel!
"Where are you guys at right now?" I heard Boone ask.
At that moment, I heard the sound of an overcammed 440 coming to an idle through 3 inch exhaust, and I looked out the window, "They are at our intersection", I told Boone, "So just give them the same instructions, the waitress just gave us."
"I think I can pare it down a little bit" He assured me.

Dad, and Darren were already at the motel when we arrived, milling around checking out all the Drag Week cars and people in the lot. I grabbed my bag, and headed straight for check in, straight to the room, straight to the shower, and straight in bed, oblivious of what any one else was doing to get situated. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

2:30AM, I was wide awake, tossed and turned a few times and was luckily able to go back out. When it happened again at 4:30AM I knew it was futile to even try. I crawled out of bed took another shower, dressed, packed all my stuff, and walked out of the room. At 6:00, I called Dad, who was in the other room, and he answered on the first ring.
"You the only one up?" I asked.
"Yeah...I'm ready to go, should I get these guys moving?"
"Probably better, we need to give ourselves time to get organized before the driver's meeting."
"Ok son, I guess I'll take my stuff out to the car after I get them up."
"I'll meet you out there", I confirmed.

We walked out in the parking lot, and Dad pointed to a gold 71 Challenger in the corner.
"Did you see that car last night?" he asked me.
"Not really, I just went to the room".
"Those guys were out here under the dash...I think they practically re-wired the whole car last night!"
The sun wasn't up yet, but the Challenger was under a light, "stick car" I commented. "I like it Dad, but what the heck is a Fratzog?"
"I don't have a clue, son!"

WIKI:

Fratzog: Dodge's logo from September 1962 through 1981 was a fractured deltoid composed of three arrowhead shapes forming a three-pointed star. The logo first appeared on the 1962 Polara 500 and the mid-year 1962 Custom 880. One of its designers came up with the meaningless name Fratzog for the logo, which ultimately stuck.[15][16] As the Dodge Division's logo, Fratzog was incorporated in various badges and emblems on Dodge vehicles. It was also integrated into the design of such parts as steering wheel center hubs and road wheel covers.

If the fine city of Bowling green did not change the name of the street in mid stream I would have gotten us to the motel with no problem.

We finally got everyone up, organized, and ready to roll towards the track, of course everyone had to pick on me because the Courtyard didn't have a continental breakfast!
We ended up at a McDonald's, and halfway through eating it was announced that the "yellow impala" in the parking lot had left his lights on.
"Plymouth!" I groaned
The shift leader turned to the guy in the drive through window and said disgustingly, "I told you it wasn't an impala!"
As we left Mcd's, Dale jumped in the back seat of the Satellite, and moved James to the passenger seat. Once we got onto the undulating road leading to the track, I noticed he was moving around from side to side in the back seat. When the tell-tale sound of rubber rubbing on metal was finally evident, he beamed, "I told you, I told you those 255/60's were going to rub, but you wouldn't listen to me!"
"You are a sick Puppy", I exclaimed looking at him in the mirror, "Tossing your three hundred pounds around back there just to prove a point!"

Monday morning, with the 5 gebhartmobiles lined up against the back of the pits, plus Darryl's Dart, was a fine achievement, we felt. I believe this picture is the perfect place to move past this chapter, and start on the next journey!

Yes, I practically rewired it in the hotel parking lot. I have driven the car for the last 20 years, put an inspection sticker on it a week before bowling green, go through tech and the blinkers decide to go crazy. Ended up burning up a light switch before it was through. They were good at tech, said to fix it, and they would check on Monday to make sure all was good. Got it fixed, but there is a lot of red wire going every where now! I still have to straighten all the one color out! They came by Monday right after the drivers meeting to check, all was good. I had a ton of people ask me what FRATZOG meant, gotta love a unique tag.

Love your car.As most are to busy to stop and introduce.