Wednesday was really a nice, low key, no drama day, but you could see the metaphorical storm brewing in the sunset. Dale and Boone were definitely putting a concerted effort into finishing up their respective rides as soon as possible. Darren had to make a run to Dallas for work, so he was out of the picture all day, but he had been working Dad, Mom and Boone over on the phone to set up a last ditch effort on his Dakota, so I had a feeling things would get interesting the next day.
I overheard Boone complaining to Dale about the 4.30s in the Truck being particularly noisy, so I used that moment as an excuse to take a ride in it with him.
"Boone, I thought you had to run over to Darren's and do some laundry tonight?"
"Yeah, yeah I do, and I need to gather up some more of my tools over there as well", he mentioned.
Dale fired the Gremlin, brought it up to two grand, tickled the spray, and the 440 jumped. "That's two hundred" he smiled, then hit the other button, "and that's the hundred I'll stack on top!" The result was definitely milder than the first hit.
"I'll ride over in the Barnyard with you Boone, that way I can listen to that third member".
I realized as we drove over that it was my first ride in the truck. Last year had been so hectic at Drag Week that I
never even got the opportunity. "Boone, that's not any louder than the school busses we rode on as kids!" I laughed.
"Yeah, but those things were huge. Think it will last the week?
"Sure, no problem. It'll probably quiet down after a few miles anyway."

Once we were at Darren's, Boone started taking care of his errands, but I went right for the laptop on the counter! My internet withdrawals were reaching a near critical point, and I really needed a fix! Luckily, one of the first things I ran across was Bill Fowler explaining that he had a division inspector showing up at the track on Saturday to do chassis inspections! Seems Dale may be in luck, if the Gremlin could pass...

Bill's a great guy.With a BIG hat. LOl.

Thursday morning, I asked Dad to follow me to Robertson Tire in Owasso, and I took the 1 ton down for 4 new tires, because I knew I had no desire to drive that thing back to Phoenix at 50 mph!
We got back to the house just in time for breakfast, and that's when I gave Dale the news about chassis inspections at the Tulsa track on Saturday. That perked him up right away, "So, you're telling me there's a chance!" he did his best Jim Carrey impression.
"Yeah, a chance it'll have thin bars, the NHRA will black ball the car, and you won't be able to go on Drag Week at all." I shot back. Sometimes I simply can't help myself, why do I get such pleasure from watching my little brothers squirm?
As I expected, both Dale and Boone were on the Dakota almost from the onset, mainly working on wiring and plumbing. Soon, an older long bed pick-up rolled into the backyard, that none of us recognized. It was the painter, who, true to his word, hand delivered the bed sides and tailgate. Shortly after that the Fed-Ex truck dropped off the tires, and a huge fluidyne oil cooler. Darren showed up about an hour later, and it seemed as if he and Dale would spend most of the day plumbing and mounting the oil cooler and trans cooler in front of the radiator. I finished up Dale's lexan, and generally just milled about handing people tools and conversing, until I realized it was about thirty minutes until the tire shop closed, and I'd better go pick up the dually.

Billy, I get tired just reading about your exploits.

It seems that the actual event of drag week is a freaking vacation compared to the thrash prior to. I love it!!!

The bed sides, and tailgate on Darren's truck have precision, tapered pins which slide down in receivers to hold them in place, then the top pins have holes drilled to allow keeper pins to be installed. They worked great at the chassis shop, then the painter applied paint to both the pins and receivers, so adjustments were necessary. Taking files and sandpaper to brand new paint is so much fun, trial fitting and removing freshly painted, heavy steel parts, not so much.
Dale had the battery cable ran up to the front of the truck, only to discover the starter wasn't in the Dakota, and the converter bolts weren't in, much like the Charger in 2012, everything that was supposed to be already done, was going to have to be re-checked, re-tightened, or gone over! New project, same brother.
Darren left a little after sundown, and momentum waned from there, everyone was keenly self aware that this would be our last chance at a decent night's sleep, tomorrow everything would get ramped up...

Subscribed.

Friday's parts delivery included 5 sets of Bosch plugs, various fittings, new shocks for Boone, Darren's new wheels, and his new steering wheel.
"Good grief Boone", I scolded, "You can't put those on a Gasser!"
He had just pulled a shiny new double adjustable aluminum QA-1 shock out of the package.
"Hey, that thing is for a coil-over application", I observed.
"Yeah, they didn't have anything long enough in the Stocker-Star front shock selection, so I ordered these".
"Those are not going to be Squirrel approved!" I continued to pick on him.
"I lost Squirrel's approval when I didn't paint my aluminum radiator black, so I'm not painting these either", he laughed.
Boone really struggled to keep the Barnyard in the groove last year, and it was a bit unwieldy on the street as well. Replacing the wore out 2800lb Super Gas A-body Super Stock leaf springs on the rear with a pair of brand new 3000lb 002/003 SS leafs had helped a great deal, but he still had to deal with excessive body roll on launch, and dive under braking in the front. I had recommended clamping the top two front leafs together, but he and Dale had decided to spend money on shocks instead.
Of course, as with everything, it wasn't a straight-up bolt on deal, and required yet another run to the parts store for adaptable hardware to make them fit. While I helped him, Dale was busy learning the ins and outs of mounting the ET. Streets on the new double beadlock wheels. In a word (or two), time consuming! The real fun was when he nearly had the second one done and couldn't find the last beadlock bolt, it was great theatre!

Boone and Dale disappeared for yet another test drive of the Barnyard, and came back with glowing remarks about the new additions.
"Wow", Boone shook his head, "I would've never believed a simple shock change could make that much difference!"
"Yeah", Dale agreed, "and the adjustments definitely make a difference, it changes the characteristics with just a few clicks."
"I think I can handle her at a buck-twenty now", Boone asserted.

Darren was working on Friday, and was once again working the phone for help. He had mom running all over town to get his insurance for the Dakota. Then he requested that Mom and Dad take it down to the DMV to get it registered! He's had the darn thing in Oklahoma for six months, has been planning to take it on Drag Week since pre-registering it the last of April, and now on the last possible day, he's asking other people to get the insurance and registration?
Then he started in on Boone about getting a glass guy out to install the back glass, and taking it to the muffler shop for exhaust! I overheard Boone telling him, "Let's just get the registration and go from there", then Boone laughed and hung up.
"What did he say?"
"He said he couldn't believe we were just blowing him off when all he needed was a little help to make this happen!"
"Good Lord!" I shook my head, "I don't know how you guys continue to put up with that!"

This meant everyone working on the Dakota had to shift gears, we had parts and people draped all over this thing on the trailer, so, now we had to clean up all the loose parts and tools, bolt the old slicks and wheels back on, and secure it to the trailer so it could make the trip to the DMV. Just before they fired the 1 ton to take it out of the yard, Dale decided the tailgate might not ride in place, so he and Boone removed it. Then I realized that Dad had removed the tank straps to paint them, and the aluminum gas tank was just sitting in the bed! I literally picked it up as Dad and Mom drove out from under it.

Twenty minutes later, Boone had a startled Dad on the phone trying to explain that he had somehow lost the tailgate and the fuel tank!

I had planned to take the Belvedere out to the track Friday night for the test and tune, but Mother Nature had other ideas. Shortly after Mom and Dad returned with Darren's Dakota, dark clouds rolled in, and the wind kicked up considerably. We all went from thinking about the next project to cleaning up and putting away all the tools and parts. Rachael arrived from the airport Friday night, and James Gilliland, who rode with Dale last year, drove in from Caney Ks., so our band of Drag Weekers was complete.

I spent a fitful few hours in the pop-up with the thunder and lightning booming, but eventually fatigue took over, and I managed a good night's sleep. Once again, I was the first up, and moving around. Saturday proved to be one of those fall days in Oklahoma where grey skies and rain would hang around constantly. It would go from a drizzle, to a sprinkle, then a light mist, than back again. You know, perfect weather for an all day automotive thrash!

Rachael, Mom, and two of Dale's daughters decided to go visit my Grandmother in Broken Arrow, so they left fairly early. Dale and James got up, cleaned out the Gremlin, removed the nitrous bottle to make a little more room for a passenger, and headed off to the track in an attempt to get a chassis sticker. I went out to the Belvedere, grabbed a white scotch pad, and some purple power soap, and used the drizzle to go over the semi-flat black treatment on the hood and lower sides. Four months earlier I had waxed the entire car, and of course, now I had white swirl marks all over the organisol black. An hour of elbow grease in the rain, and it appeared that everyone on Drag Week might not know what an idiot I was!
Dale returned about an hour later, just as Boone showed up after a trip to Grand Prix with new lug nuts for Darren's fancy wheels.

Getting close to Rachael showing her cousins how its done. LOL.

We gathered around the Gremlin, as Dale pulled out a universal side door mirror that he had ordered previously. This was the last piece needed to make it DOT legal, and would basically mean our four vehicles were ready to go. Well, ready to go, in Gebhart parlance, I mean three of them hadn't been down a drag strip in four months or more, and the Valiant only had about 30 street miles under it's belt, but hey, we were confident in those, so now we just had the Dakota left in our sights.
"How did it go?" I questioned Dale as he showed off his new 8.50 cert.
"A little scary actually", he shook his head, "A couple bars were really close, and I was nervous!" "Steve's sisters were at the track, greeting everyone", Dale continued, "It was great getting to meet them, and they gave us these", he held out a grey and red plastic wrist band with the words "Good Luck From Steve" on it. I noticed that He, as well as Boone and James already had them on, so I did so as well. Steve's death at Drag Week 2013 was something most of us had not been able to resolve or come to grips with quite yet, and I was hoping that meeting the family, and getting together with all our fellow Drag Week buddies would help with that process.
"Well, dang, now I wish I had went with you."
"They are going to be out there tomorrow as well", Dale assured me, "They are excited to see you and Rachael, and thank you personally. They're excited to see his old 67 Valiant as well, I think it's going to be huge for them to see that car back on the racetrack."

Around noon, we decided to unload the Dakota from the trailer, and push it onto the pad in front of the garage, where most of the work had been done on the Gremlin. Dad, Boone, Dale, James, and I wrestled it into position and then elevated it onto jack stands.
Boone removed the old Hoosiers and Super Tricks for the final time, and shoved them out of the way. The first time we mocked up one of the new wheels is was apparent that the rusty, unfinished drums on the 8 3/4 weren't going to work on the open 5 spoke wheel, so I took them into the shop, out of the rain, and gave them a nice gloss black bath.
Dale sat just under the bed, near the battery box, "I need to finish these cables, but we never had the right ends, despite Darren making at least two trips for them, this is frustrating as..."
"They, should have been in a Kimball Midwest box in the back of the trailer", Darren interrupted, finally making his entrance for the day. He peered into the trailer, then boomed out, "Where are all my parts! I had everything laid out right here in the..."
"We had a major storm last night, in case you didn't notice", it was my turn to jump into the conversation, "We had to put everything away!"
"Let's just dig up all the cable, and all the ends we can find, and get that part finished", Boone suggested.
The four of us, working together on one project, might get messy. Darren likes to bolt on major components, step back and look at them, but never tie up the loose ends. Boone likes to take one component or sub-system, and completely finish it before looking at anything else. Dale likes to work an area, such as back to front, and finish everything as he moves. I like to hand people stuff, laugh, joke, and tell great stories while everyone else does the heavy lifting. It's an imperfect system, so hopefully Dad and James could fill in the gaps!
"Where's Mom?" Darren asked, as he looked around realizing the PT Cruiser was gone.
"She took Rachael and the girls over to visit Grand Mother", I informed him.
"Huh, well...who am I going to send after parts?"
"And who are we going to get to fix us lunch?" Dad added.
I just shook my head and looked at both of them, "Some peoples kids!"
When the rear drums were back on, Boone pulled out the new lug nuts and hoisted the first billet specialties wheel into place. He dropped the third one he attempted to screw on, and it fell into the wheel with that signature aluminum on aluminum clack. The blood drained from Darren's face immediately and he lunged to the other side of the Dakota where Boone was kneeling.
"Get out of the way! I'll do that!"
"I got this", Boone growled
"They're MY wheels, I just spent a ton of money on them, if I want to put them on, I'll put them on!" Darren insisted
"If you can't trust me to put wheels on, then you can't trust me to do anything else, I'm done!" Boone countered
"Fine", Darren refused to back down.
"FINE", Boone shouted, then tossed the tools on the ground and walked away towards the Barnyard Viper.

Boone started sorting through all of his tools, and organizing everything that we planned to take in the trailer, I split off from the Dakota to help him, and make small talk. We decided it was a good time to swap in the new plugs while we were at it.
Darren's girlfriend Jamie must've been the parts runner, and when she showed up, she also brought Charlie's Chicken take out with her, so we all knocked off and ate picnic style, in the back yard. The time spent on the Barnyard, and a good lunch, seemed to take away Boone's anger and soon he was back on the Dakota.
Once Darren finished bolting the tires and wheels on, they stuck him under the 727 to finish up what he should have done three weeks earlier, namely the converter bolts.

Saturday afternoon saw the arrival of the Hindleys to Dale's back yard. John (Johnnyrotten, Moparts) was supposed to be my co-pilot for the 2013 edition of Drag Week, but work obligations had kept that from happening. In 2014 he purchased Steve Bowyer's 67 Valiant from his surviving siblings, and had talked enough about Drag Week that his wife Opal decided to make it happen.
She had contacted me early in the year, and I kept her up on all the info needed to plan the trip, and get them registered. She went to John's work and scheduled the vacation time, got the registration taken care of, all as a secret, so she could give it to him as an anniversary gift!
I had offered the opportunity to store their tow rig at Dale's so they could avoid trying to find parking at the Motel, then the impound thing at the track Monday morning. They rolled in with John's parents following them in a mini-van. All seemed in good spirits following their jaunt from Tucson, and excited about the adventure ahead. They unloaded the 67, and disconnected from the trailer, electing to leave the car, trailer, and most of their supplies and drive the empty truck to and from the Motel. I knew John had made all the necessary adjustments to his Valiant to handle the track portion, coming off his victory at MATS in the sportsman class, but was concerned about the street worthiness of the machine. He merely laughed, looked around at our motley assortment, and commented, "You're worried about mine?" He motioned at the Dakota, "Tell your brother that John Force wants his tires and wheels back!" It was good to see the long trip had not dampened his sense of humor!

Mom and the girls made their return, but Rachael only hung around about an hour or so before her cousins from her mom's side came by to pick her up. "Give me some money Dad, we're gonna hit a few clubs tonight", she smiled.
"Rachael, registration starts early tomorrow!"
"I know, don't worry, I'll be here in plenty of time!"
With that, she was off again, to who knows where.

John and I agreed to leave Dale's at 7:30 AM, so hopefully we could get in the Registration/Tech line early, as I explained to him that it usually took most of the day to get through, and this year would feature a third more cars than ever before. Once they left, I looked around, and realized Darren was still under the transmission...this was not going to end well!

When did Elvis get there? I see his Duster in the garage.

Love the detail and the back stories!

That MATS photo looks familiar

Boone and I scanned the top of Darren's aluminum tank looking for a place to put the fuel return Dale had just shoved through the bed. There was a washer with a bolt through it in the top right corner that appeared to be covering a hole. Boone removed the cap and tried to put his hand in, "Nope, we're going to have to pull it all off so I can get my arm in there".
"You mean those 15 little bolts, with the ring on the inside and the gasket, and the..."
"Exactly", he interrupted me.
I shook my head, "This thing is going to fight us every step of the way, isn't it?"
"Uh, Dale, do we have a bulkhead fitting?" Boone ignored me.
Dale went scrambling over to another car in the backyard, dug out a small plastic fuel cell, and started pulling a fitting off. That's where we were at this point, hours away from registration, no more parts runs, we would have to do with what we had on location.
After three hours of Darren cursing under the truck, Boone finally had to run him out of the way and put the bolts in the torque converter, one was cross threaded, and it wasn't clocked properly. Just as Boone was ripping Darren for his incompetence, the drama was deflected as a tall, lanky fellow none of us recognized entered the back yard, "Yeah, I'm the glass guy your girlfriend has been hounding all day..." he stuck out a hand.
"Wow! I am so glad you made it!" Darren greeted him, then showed him what we were up against with making the back glass work.
With Boone and Dale under the Dakota, the poor glass guy trying to install a back glass without access to the bed, and myself working near the tail, Darren and Dad turned their attention to installing the fancy new steering wheel. Boone yelled at him three times in a row, "The adapter you bought clearly says it's not for vehicles originally equipped with an airbag, so that horn is not going to work!"
Some how Darren managed to resign himself to the fact Boone was right without an argument, but we had plenty of time left in the week!

Dad and I wimped out at about 9:30 pm and headed off to bed, figuring sleep was a precious commodity at this point, and I was out by the time my head hit the pillow. I woke to the sound of Boone's Mazda firing up, and checked my cell phone, 3:30 AM. I pulled on my jeans, and shuffled out of the Pop-up camper, Dale and Darren were still draped over the Dakota.
"Was that Boone just leaving?"
"Yeah", Dale answered, "figured he'd better get home, and get a little sleep".
"Dave, can you fix the starter?" Darren asked, "Boone put it in crooked, the nose isn't in the tranny."
"Sure", I crawled under and looked up, and clearly it was not in the register, "He must've really been tired, he never makes mistakes like that!"
"Yeah", Dale laughed, "He was sleeping on the job, that's why we sent him home!"
I finished the starter, slid back to where Dale was working, and happened to look up at the silver third member, "Ok, I've seen 741s, 742s, and 489s...what the heck is a 985?"
I had to look it up, it's old, like late 50's, Dale commented.
I had been working with them for about an hour when Darren abruptly dropped his tools, turned to Dale and said, "I've been out here in this wet crap all day, my socks and shoes are soaked, I can't take it any more. I've got to get home, take a shower, put on some fresh clothes, and then come back."
Once he was gone, I turned to Dale and started leaning on him. "You need to go get some sleep, now!"
"If I sleep, this truck won't get done!"
"That's not on you, you've got your own Drag Week to think about, and if you don't get some sleep, it's not going to work out."
"I guess you're right", he ran his hands through his hair, crawled out from under the truck, and trudged off towards the house.
I shut off a few lights, closed the garage door, and decided to try and steal another hour or so of sleep myself if possible.