Brian alluded to that a few times over the week on the live feed. They'd love to do some "spin offs" of Drag Week at different locals.... but wanted to concentrate on the route they're presently using as it seems the tracks have been more than accomodating for this.

We walked outside, and turned our attention to the Gremlin. I helped him remove the front clip, and then he asked for some fuses.
He was trying to track down a charging problem he had been dealing with since last year's drag week. If by "dealing with it" we meant ignoring it and charging the batteries before every foray onto the street or track.
"Last year, I was having an intermittent ignition problem", he explained, "then the voltmeter or the alternator shorted out, and that problem went away. I just replaced the gauge, so let's try it".
He fired it up, and flipped the switch for the alternator circuit, the fuse died almost instantly, and let us know the problem wasn't solved yet. Next he swapped out the alternator, which resulted in a happy 13.2 volts on the new voltmeter.
"What's next, fuel system all good?"
"Yeah. Since I got rid of the deadhead regulator, ran the return line, and went to the Moroso log, it's been perfect!"
"And the 5 Gallon fuel cell?"
"Still in there...really don't have any room for much else, we'll just have to make it work!" He smiled, "Did you bring that 2 stage plate? I need to check that thing out!"
"Back to that again? Why be so greedy?" I teased.
I dug out an NOS Double Cross plate that I had picked up off Ebay a few months ago and handed it to him.
"That's what I was afraid of", he commented as he admired it, "It's basically as tall as stacked Big Shot plates, and I really don't have room under my hood for that and the air cleaner both". I bought some Ys so I can run two stages through the same Big Shot, and I'm going to try that. I also found a wiring diagram that allows me to shut off the first stage as you go to the larger second stage..."
"Oh, I really don't like that", I cut him off. "First, you're going to be limited to what one set of bars can flow, and second...that's a terrible idea to switch from one to the other. Just run the first stage and stack the second on top!"
"You think that's better?" He gave me a sidelong look.
"I just think if the first stage is working properly...why shut it off completely and hope the second hit works?
"Yeah...well, it'll be easier to wire up I guess."
"What's the plan on tires?
"I mounted up those 33X10.5 Goodyears, on the wheels I got from you...By the way, did you know one of those was bent? I had to have it straightened!" He exclaimed, hands gesturing.
"Well, they were on the Valiant when Jordan bounced it off the wall, so I'm not surprised!"
"Oh! OK...well anyway I tried them over the 31 tall ET Streets, and the car ran the same MPH at the same RPM!"
"Seems like you are gear limited on the bottle, but if your converter can't handle the extra load, I guess it's a moot point! We've done pretty well with ET Streets on the drive, you think you really want to do it on a pair of tall slicks?"
"I probably need some 4.30's..."
"Agreed, but it's not going to happen this week is it?"
"Nope", he laughed.

Love it...waiting for more...

Breakfast is now normal again
Thanks for sharing the story's year after year

Dale and I continued knocking out a few small things on both the Valiant, and the Gremlin, until Boone and Darren finally returned with the Dakota. Dale directed them to park it under his biggest shade tree, and we decided to just work on it on the trailer, so they disconnected the truck, and moved it free.
The first thought that ran through my head was, "This is a complete waste of our time, we need to concentrate on the four cars that ARE going on Drag Week!" What I said was, "Where are the bed sides and tailgate?"
"The painter wasn't done with them yet!" Darren exclaimed, tossing his hands in the air. "He said he'll bring them down to us on Thursday...I guess we will see!"
They jacked it up and put the back half up on stands, and Darren pulled off one wheel and tire as I took a closer look at the interior. There were no seats, carpet, gauges, in fact the dash was a complete disaster of wires that were spewing out like grass through a crack in the sidewalk.
I crawled under the rear-end, rolled on my back, and took everything in. No plumbing of any kind on either of the shiny new frame rails. No brake lines, no fuel system, no wiring, no battery cable...nothing, and we were sitting at roughly 8 hours short of a week before the tech line would shut off. This was not going to go well, at all.

I caught Boone looking for parts in the shop later on and asked him, "What went on up there? I thought it was supposed to be closer to finished than that!"
"Yeah...it was, long story short...I think Darren made both the chassis guy and the painter mad the way he jerked this project around."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, they had the back half finished, and painted, about two months ago, and he pulled it out, so he could do the stuff he wanted to do. Then he took it back and wanted a bunch of additional stuff done, and put them on a tight schedule. Basically all he did was pull the 4 speed, and mock up in the automatic in 3 weeks, then wanted them to finish it in 2 weeks! Didn't go over very well...Dale is probably going to have to make a trip up there and mend some fences when this is all said and done."
"There is no way we can do all that stuff...to Darren's standards no less, and have that truck ready for Drag Week!"
"No way, you're right...but if we don't make progress, he'll take it home, push it off in the field, and not touch it for a year."
"Why is that our responsibility?"
"Let's just take it day by day, and see what happens", he shrugged.

We retired to the kitchen table for a late snack, and strategy session.
"We must get a Summit order in" Darren started, "There is no way I'm going to Drag Week with those terrible Super Tricks on the Dakota!"
"Good grief Darren!" I stared at him, "You can't get new wheels in less than a week. Most of those are drop shipped from the manufacturer...it took me three weeks to get my Centerlines!"
"Oh, I'll have new wheels...you just watch", he challenged. "Dale, just look up wheels that can ship today on there."
There meant Dale's smart phone. A truck which needs tons of hours poured into it is sitting on a trailer, and four guys are at the table with one smart phone trying to order parts. It was more than I could take, so I excused myself and went to bed.
"I have to get a new steering wheel too!" I heard Darren add on as I walked away.

The Dakota truck looked better than I thought it would!

Labor Day morning was pretty much the same as the two previous, as I was the first up, was showered, and outside before anyone else was moving. I decided to remove the 750 DP from The Belvedere and give it a once over. Much like the 950 on the Valiant, I wanted to record all the particulars, and have a good baseline tune-up in the books.
The activity in the back yard actually ramped up quicker than I expected though, as Boone showed up fairly early, then Mom and Dad arrived. Dale also got around at a pretty good hour for him, and it looked like a productive day might be on tap.
"Did you get an order in?" I asked Dale, as he ambled over to help Boone with the Barnyard. Apparently breaking in the new cam was the first order of business.
"Yeah, finally", he shook his head.
"Did you get wheels?"
"Yep, rear wheels for the Dakota, and a new steering wheel on the way."
"What did he settle for?" I couldn't help myself, I had to know.
"15 X 14 Billet Specialties Double Bead Locks...to go with the 33 X 18.50 MT Et Streets we ordered last week." he laughed.
"Oh dear Lord!" I gasped, "He's going to have more in rolling stock than he paid for the whole dang truck!"
"Yeah, pretty much..." He cut off more comments as Dad walked over, and poking fun at his golden child would not put him in good mood.
"I guess Darren wants me to start on the interior", Dad gestured toward the Dakota, "He said something about some dynamat and carpet?"
"Dad, all Darren bought was some sound deadener, I think he's planning on using the dynamat and carpet you bought for your car!" Dale laughed.
"Sounds about right", Dad shook his head, "He's already got my billet torque converter, and my ignition box." He headed off towards his trailer to retrieve his parts to put in Darren's truck.
"Why is Darren using Dad's converter? I thought he pulled the 727 out of the Charger."
"Yeah", Dale looked at me sheepishly, "He didn't think the converter in the Charger would have worked behind that 499, so he begged Dad to let him use the billet 9 inch".

I went over and helped Dad, as the Barnyard's 508 fired to life for the first time. I didn't really want to work on the Dakota, but I figured if I wanted to visit with the old man, that was the price to pay. I sprayed the raw steel floor section with etching primer, as Dad tried to tape off the holes with some aluminum tape that looked thinner than foil.
"I've got some of the thick stuff in my truck Pops, let me bring that to you." I offered.
"Yeah, I guess, this junk has 3M written on it, but it's useless!"
As I walked by the Barnyard, Dale yelled at Boone to shut it down. "We've got one header turning red, before the rest".
"Did you ever dial in those twin 750s the way the Mopar Bible tells you to?" I poked Dale in the ribs.
"Someday, I'll get to that!" he smiled, then laughed.
Pops was happy with the tape I had and soon the floorboard started to come together, and he was ready to put down some dynamat. Boone and Dale had wrapped up the Barnyard break-in procedure, and took the truck for a test drive.
"There went my dynamat helper!" Dad exclaimed, "I'll wait until Boone gets back, he's real good at getting it to lay down smooth".
"Well then, what next?"
"Need to pull the pedals out, the chassis guy moved the throttle pedal over too far to clear that new tunnel, and now it's practically under the brake pedal."
"Geez, Dad", I shook my head, "That's going backwards, we're supposed to be putting the thing together not taking more stuff off!"
"Well", his face started turning red, "You can't drive the darn thing with both feet on top of each other!"
"Fine, fine, we'll pull the pedals out..." I resigned myself to the inevitable.

Dale and Boone took forever to return from their shakedown trip, and I sent Boone over to help Dad, while I cornered Dale. "How'd it go?"
"I like it", he nodded, "Definitely revs better now!"
"Sound's more docile, I think", I added.
"Yeah, 110 lobe center, still pings a bit on pump gas though, I can't figure that out, must be right on the edge."
"Speaking of that, why are you putting the Dakota on E-85?"
"Big compression race engine, we didn't really have a choice if he wants to drive it on the street".
"What was the cranking compression?"
"Don't know, never checked it".
"So you talked Darren into 1400 bucks worth of E-85 carbs, and never even checked it?"
Dale laughed, "Well...he wanted new carbs, and the guy he bought it from said it was like 13 to 1, so that's what we are doing."
"You've never ran anything on E-85 before have you?"
"Nope, I guess we'll all learn on the fly!"

I walked away muttering to myself, speaking of learning on the fly, I decided perhaps it was time for the 428 small block's maiden street voyage. I jumped in the Valiant, and fired it up, then eased out of the back yard and onto the street in front of Dale's house. It had been nearly 2 years, and you forget what a ladder bar, spool, bias tire car drives like on the open road. "This is not a street car", I spoke to myself, "This is an overgrown go-cart!"
It was roughly 4 1/2 miles and 3 4-way stops to the closest gas station, and by the time I arrived there she was already sitting at 210 degrees water temp. The return trip, after filling the cell, saw the gauge just off 250 by the time I was safely in the back yard.
Boone was the first to my door, "How was it?"
"Not worth a darn, can't control the water temp!"
"What's different?"
"Well, I have a bypass hose on this one...that's it, but I had problems keeping the other one cool also."
"How did it run?" Dale chimed in.
"Spongy at the bottom of each gear, and off idle, great once it gets in the rpm."
"That thing was a pain to set the idle, that timing curve sucks! We should just lock it out, that might help the cooling problem as well", he surmised.
"We've got to do something", I ran my fingers through my hair, "before I burn down a brand new engine!"

We put Dad on the charcoal grille, since Mom had driven over to Darren's to pick up the pop-up camper.

I remounted the 750 holley on the Belvedere's M-1. The only real surprise I had found was a PV in the secondaries, which didn't correlate to the jet size back there. I was always accused of running the nitrous too rich because the car used to belch black smoke at the hit, but I think this was more likely the problem. I also dropped the N20 tune-up down about 8 sizes, figuring with the 3.55s in place of the 2.76s, it wouldn't need as much. A quick drive around the neighborhood was enjoyable, the gear change made it feel the part of a hotrod instead of a cruiser, and the 440 felt crisp and responsive.

When I returned, I pulled the MSD distributor out of the Valiant, and took it over to Dale, who had begun the process of the removing the old carbs from the Dakota's Zeeker tunnel ram. He gave me a quick review of what the process entailed to lock it out, and I took it over to the table on which I had went through both carbs, to take it apart. Boone came over and told both of us it was time to eat, so we dropped everything and had our Labor Day picnic and bull session.

By the time we ate, and I put the distributor back in, fired the engine, reset the timing, re-adjusted the idle settings, and topped off the trans fluid, it was getting dark. Last year, most of our activities were in Dale's shop, which Boone had cleaned out in order to get the Barnyard in. This year the shop was practically out of play with Michael Beeler's purple Duster taking up the space, parts scattered everywhere, and only half the lights working. So our cars were scattered over the back yard, and there seemed to be a marked shortage of drop cords and lights. As such Boone and I decided to call it an early night, sensing it might be our last full night of sleep anyway. I decided to spend the night at Boone's house, and as we headed to his car, Dale had a drop light under the hood of the Dakota and was bolting up the new E-85 carbs on the 499.

Love living through your writing. Thanks

Tuesday morning, 9/2, meant America was back to work, which in turn meant we could go buy parts, and the delivery trucks could drop off boxes at Dale's house again. From this point until registration, every day would be like Christmas and some credit cards would be smoldering!
Boone and I walked into Grand Prix Auto Sports in Tulsa, and tossed 2 bottles onto the counter. Monte Smith would once again be supplying free N20 refills during Drag Week, but I've always felt it's best form to show up with full bottles to start the event, and the Gremlin, as well as the Belvedere would be using plenty all week. While we waited for that, we grabbed some race fuel, a couple handfuls of various fittings, and a spare fuel regulator. Our next stop was Harbor Freight, for some more drop cords, an NPT tap set, and various other tools, then we hit Napa, Wal-Mart, O'Reilly's, and Denny's! We showed up at Dale's with the back of the poor Mazda 323 nearly dragging the ground, and looked like the ladies coming back from an all day Saturday shopping spree when we started emptying out the car.
Mom and Dad were setting up the camper in the corner of Dale's back yard, and Dale was working on installing the battery box in the back of Darren's Dakota. Mom immediately drafted Boone into helping them, so I walked over to see what Dale was involved with. In much the same way that he did the Barnyard, he was using a Taylor stainless steel battery box, and running the cables through the bottom. He also installs a weather proof relay in the box to run the electric fuel pump, with only the activation wire running forward to the cab.
"How did it go last night?"
"Didn't get to bed until around 2:30", he laughed, "The bottom of the linkages on those carbs hit the intake, so I had to cut them off, then modify the linkage and return spring to fit...it definitely wasn't a straight up bolt on deal!"
"So...you got your runs in on Friday, and your physical filled out..."
"Yeah, I sent all that stuff in by Fed-ex this morning, so it will be there tomorrow, and she will fax me a temporary license."
"What are you going to do about getting the car certed?" I shrugged, "Or do you plan to put on some roll bar padding and try to get by?"
"Not sure", he shook his head, as he put the finishing touches on the L-bracket that would hold the relay, "I called Division 5, and I'd have to tow it up to Wichita to get an inspector to do it up there. I haven't called Division 4 yet."
The big project of the evening became assembling an 8 3/4 third member for the Barnyard. After Boone, finished helping Mom, he dug a rusty 742 case and equally nasty 30 spline spool out of the back of Dale's shop, and headed off in the direction of the bearing press in the front garage. He cleaned everything up as best as he could, then came back frustrated, holding up the old bearing he'd pressed off and the new one, which was obviously the wrong inside diameter.
"This install kit we got from Summit last week has the wrong bearings", he handed them to Dale.
After about 20 minutes of smart phone research, and a couple of parts store calls, Boone was off in the Mazda for another run to O'Reilly's.

Great story Billy!

Bearings in the "kit" are often for a stock carrier.... spool requires different bearing, but you know this now...

Dale and I made our way back to Darren's Dakota in Boone's absence.
"What's the deal with the back glass?" I asked.
"When Brian put the cage in, the area where it goes through the back of the cab is very close to the glass, and at the time he hadn't yet put solid mounts between the cab and frame. Then it went to the painter's shop, and he dropped the rear off a jack pretty fast and the glass shattered! He has a new one around here, I just don't know who is going to install it!"
"Not us!", I shook my head, "Had enough glass installs doing the Barnyard last year."
I pointed at the 4-link bars, "What's with all these bolts running in different directions?"
"Same kind of deal, the chassis guy built the 4-link, then the painter completely disassembled everything to paint it!"
"How do we know if he put it back together properly?" I shrugged, "The bars might not even be in the right places!"
Dale laughed, "Cross our fingers, I guess!"

Dale had started taping up a new wiring harness for the frame, against my argument to just use the stock one. I watched Dale wire the Barnyard from scratch last year, and I knew it was far too time consuming a project to go down that path with the Dakota. Luckily Darren made his appearance at that time, and bailed me out.
"The factory harness is too short", Dale complained.
"No, no it isn't", Darren pointed out, "You'll see when we get the bed sides back, the taillights have fairly long pigtails that make up the difference."

Darren spent the rest of his afternoon bending and installing new brake lines on the 8 3/4 housing, and taking inventory of what would be needed in the coming days if he had a prayer of getting the thing in one piece.

When Boone returned, Dale and Dad turned their attention to helping him finish up the 4.30 geared third member. In fact they basically took over, while Boone started the process of removing the 3.91s from the Barnyard.

I decided to take the Valiant out for another jaunt to see if the locked out distributor cured it's ails. This outing proved to be much better, only hitting 210, but on the way back, after ripping through 1st and 2nd, the trans seemed to flair up going into drive, just as I lifted. The 904 has been in the car through my two previous Drag Weeks, and I was concerned, but I simply brushed it aside, as darkness was closing in, and the guys were busy trying to finish up their own projects.

"Dang it", Boone exclaimed, as he rolled the 3.91s out from under his truck, "there's a pretty healthy chunk missing out of one ring gear tooth, and this thing's always been perfectly quiet!"

I slept in Mom and Dad's pop-up camper Tuesday night, and Mom had breakfast ready for us by the time I had my shower.
Dad and I drove into town on a parts run which included a 4X8 sheet of lexan for the Gremlin, and a 180 degree t-stat for the Valiant.
By the time we returned, Dale was putting the day's parts deliveries to good use. He had already installed new QA-1 shocks and springs on the back of Darren's Dakota, and was working to get the second stage of nitrous on the Gremlin.
Boone rolled in a bit later with Dale's new kitchen stove ready to unload. He works for Whirlpool, and they have a great employee purchase deal, so any appliances for the family go through him!
Boone helped me with the lexan next. After we used the remaining side glass for two templates, we told Dale's stepson Cody to get the cracked back glass out of his Duster racecar, so we could cut that out too. I was pretty much in charge of fitting and finishing the two side windows for the gremlin after that, and it confirmed to me that every penny I paid on Lexan installs over the years, was money well spent! It was well into the afternoon by the time I got the one in the passenger's side done, and somehow I had managed to get a slight scratch in it. When Dale complained, I handed him back his original Driver's side glass and told him just re-install it. He grabbed the yellowed, dingy, scratched up piece and held it next to the freshly installed one, "Wow, I didn't realize how nasty these old ones really were! I think you need to finish them both!"
"Yeah, but I'm going to save the second for tomorrow", I begged off. Then went to put the t-stat in the Valiant. Boone dropped the Barnyard off the jack with the new/used 4.30s in place about the same time I fired up the Valiant to check for leaks, so we decided to run down to the car wash together, and give them both a thorough cleaning, probably the last they would get before Drag Week would begin in earnest. On the trip back, I ripped it pretty hard through all three gears, and the 2-3 shift was great, so that made me feel better.