You are doing GREAT Billy! We love all the details.
I'm in Illinois so my racing is done. I love living DW through your stories!!!!

Thank you, Don

John and I managed to get the fans removed, slid out of place, then installed the Belvedere's non-functioning alternator. Once we had the fans back on, I fired it up, and as expected, the voltmeter registered 13.5, so obviously I had something wired wrong on the Belvedere.
When I shut the small block off, John looked at me and shook his head, "That driver's side header gasket is shot!"
"Yeah, I know...the fel-pros last about a thousand miles, I bought some more, and also bought some Percy's multi-layer aluminum ones, but I haven't tried those yet."
"Well, you might as well try the Percy's, since you already know the results with the fel-pro. You are going to change it, right?"
"I've still got to figure out the Belvedere...I don't really have time..."
"I'll look at the Belvedere!", He cut me off, "you get that gasket changed!"

James walked over and started chatting at me about the fact that Dale kept running off and leaving him to try and prepare the Gremlin by himself.
"Where is he now?" I looked up at all the activity around us, we were literally surrounded by guys working at packing up trailers, or preparing to go up for some test and tune.
"That Buick guy came and got him...something about a carb problem."
"Covey? The Stage 1? He's helping the enemy?" I whistled, "he better hope Randy doesn't find out."
"He's been over there a while...I think Boone went over there too. It's the 70 GS."
"Yeah, that's him". I pointed towards our right, "I can't believe that Camaro is here, and in my class even! That thing's a legend!"
"The black 67? It's a pretty car", James agreed.
"No, no", I corrected him, "I'm talking about the winged 69 on the other side!"
"You...MoparBilly...are geeking out about a yellow 69 Camaro?" James shook his head with a chuckle.
"Not a yellow 69, THE Yellow 69! That's the CARS Camaro that Rick Dyer owned, that was one of the icons of the nineties street car racing explosion!"
"Ok, ok...I don't need a street car racing history lesson...just try and outrun him!"

As the long evening shadows descended into darkness, and the Drag Week cars were working through their time runs, every nut, bolt and issue we were dealing with on my two cars seemed to compound themselves. My attitude was on a similar trajectory, and I found myself being short, and impatient with everyone around. I was turning into a "have a snickers" commercial, and seemed powerless to do anything about it. There came a point, after it was completely dark, and we were using John's small generator and lights to do just about everything, that I decided to thin our group out to only essential personnel.
"Boone, why don't you take Dale's truck, and drop Dad, Rachael, and Skippy off at the motel. That way, they can get us checked in, and at least some of us will be ready to roll in the morning."
"Yeah, that sounds like a great idea", he agreed.
"And take all of our bags, that'll be one less thing we have to worry about when we finish up", I added.
Dad didn't say anything, but he had his bag in the truck, and was settled into the passenger's seat in about ten seconds flat. In recollection, he'd been done for about two or three hours, and I probably should have thought of this earlier for his sake. Rachael and Skippy had been nothing but helpful all evening, but they were constantly looking for direction from me, and it was becoming a chore in itself to come up with tasks I felt they could handle. I found myself longing for them to take more initiative, and that was only adding to my exasperation. I noticed Dale had joined John at the front of the Belvedere, so I made my way over to see what they were doing. I was shocked to find that they had my beautiful tape job all cut away from the alternator plug, and were re-splicing the wires.
"What the heck are you doing", I questioned, tossing my hands in the air.
"Fixing your screw up, apparently", Dale answered.
"I looked up Andy F's site on my phone", John chimed in, "and it says blue is sense, green is 12V switched, and red is the idiot light".
"Dang it", I ran my hand across my face, "We couldn't get his site to work, so I just went off an 85 Toyota diagram..."
"I told you like ten times, the plug had to be wired wrong", John reminded me.
"I know, I know." I spun away, and went back to the Valiant.
Once they finished up the Belvedere, they came over and kicked me off the Valiant as well, they were like a two man wrecking crew at that point, so I left them to it.
Boone came back, so I checked with him on the Barnyard Viper.
"We had the cooler plugged into the truck ever since we left Oklahoma, so it barely started all day. I've charged the batteries fully and I think it's ready to go now."
Boone helped me grab the set of drag radials I had decided not to use on the Valiant, and we rolled them over to where Darren was still playing with his Charger.
"You about done for the night", Boone asked him.
"Well, not really", He looked up at us from under the hood, "I was hoping to drive it to the motel tonight, and at least get some street miles on it".
"You think that's a good idea", I asked him, "shouldn't we get the tires off tonight, so we can get them mounted first thing in the morning?"
"Dale ran the valves again this evening", Darren shrugged, "and this is a fresh engine with no miles...I NEED to get some time on it! I'll worry about the tires tomorrow!"
In my current state, I really didn't want to start a fight, so Boone and I walked away.
"Ok Boone...Dale helped Darren on the Charger, Mark with his Buick, and now he's helping John finish up both my cars. Did he do anything he wanted to do to the Gremlin?"
"That's what he's got James for, right?" Boone laughed as we headed back towards my 1 ton.
"What was the deal with the Buick by the way?"
"He's on E-85, carbed, and they were trying to get rid of a hesitation at the launch, they must've done forty dry hops under the bleachers earlier."
"You're making that up!"
"No, they were throwing squirters, pump cams, everything at it, finally swapped on a 50cc pump. Eventually it was yanking the front end off the ground, so they decided it was good enough to start tomorrow with."
"Crud! I've seen guys tossed from Divisionals for stunts like that!"
Boone stopped, put his hands on his hips, and stared at me, "This ain't no divisional Dave, this is freaking Drag Week, and ya do whatya hafta do!"

Mark definitely appreciated the help.

Boone and I took the Belvedere, and drove towards the back gate to the facility. We made it through just as an employee showed up to close and lock it for the night.
"You better call Dale, and tell him to exit out the main gate", I told him.
It was around 12:30 when we arrived at the motel, and got parked. Rachael answered her phone and let us in the room. Boone volunteered to let me shower first, so I did so quickly, and was passed out in bed before I even heard him turn on the water.


Monday, Day 1 Gateway Motorsports Park

I managed to sleep until 5:15, and was actually happy to get that much in. I showered again, dressed, then woke Rachael, and found out where our other room was.
Dad opened the door on the second knock, and let me in. Dale, James, and Darren weren't moving.
"Join me for breakfast?" I asked him.
"No...I better stay here and make sure these guys get up, and around...I'll be down in a little bit!"
"There was already a loud, boisterous group of Drag Weekers making quick work of the continental breakfast, and I joined in and was finally able to procure a table. Rachael joined in a few minutes later, and basically took over waffle making duties for everyone.

Boone and I were the first ones finished, and took our bags out to the Belvedere. Collinsville, Il. is eight miles from the track, and the area we were at has 5 or 6 motels all clumped together. It was veritable hive of Drag Week activity, as DW t-shirts and cars were everywhere, preparing to assault the track.
"We might as well head out", I looked at Boone, " those guys will be along eventually."
"Agreed, we've got plenty to do, and who knows what traffic is going to be like."
We climbed in, and were about to fire up the 440 when Skippy came out of the motel and walked over to us.
"What are you guys doing?"
"We're going to leave for Gateway right now, so if you are ready, jump in", I told him.
"Ok...I'll see what Rachael wants to do", he nodded and headed back to the lobby door.
About 90 seconds after he disappeared, the 440 roared to life, I dropped the 727 into low, and we pulled the Belvedere out of the parking lot.
"I guess the next time I tell the young man 'right now', he may comprehend my meaning!"
Boone was taking in the sights, and merely chuckled in response.

Top pic: Shawn Fink 2013
Bottom pic: Shawn Fink 2015

The Monday morning traffic snarl only affected us for about a half-mile before we made the exit for Gateway, and the left into the facility only took one light, but the newly working temp gauge under the dash of the Belvedere was sitting at 210 when we parked at our impound spot.
"That doesn't make any sense, it's really cool this morning."
"Yeah", Boone agreed, "it was running nice and smooth, shouldn't be that warm."
"Well, here's what I want to do...let's cram this car full of junk we are taking on the trip, then I'll take the Valiant and you follow me down to the pits, so we can start setting up our pit spot."

By the time we parked the Valiant, unloaded the Belvedere, and returned to the impound area for another load, the rest of the group had arrived, and were trying to put eight hundred pounds of junk in Boone's trailer. While he ran off to deal with that, Rachael walked up and punched me in the shoulder.
"You ran off and left us, you jerk!"
"I told your boyfriend we were leaving right now...I didn't say anything to him that would suggest we were going to sit around and wait on anybody!"
"That's just rude!"
"C'mon Jay, how many Drag Weeks have you been on? We got no time for diplomacy!"

We had our pit spot pretty well established, and most of the stuff out of the impound area by the time they started calling for everyone to report to the bleachers for the driver's meeting.
Darren already had the back of the Charger off the ground, and was removing the tires when we headed towards the meeting.
"You coming?" Boone asked him, as he grabbed a drink from the cooler.
"I'll be up in a little bit", Darren confirmed without looking up from his task.

We sat there on the bleachers listening to David Freiburger introduce new Hot Rod Editor in Chief, David Kennedy and I wondered how this would effect future such gatherings. With DF turning much of his attention on Road Kill, and other hands guiding the flagship, how long would Drag Week continue? I mean, we have been attending Nostalgia Drags for thirty years which basically celebrate a legendary 7 or 8 year period in our Automotive history. This is the 11th Drag Week, and Hot Rod has done twenty Pour Tours...how long can this keep going without losing impetus, or spinning out of control?
"Hey! What are you thinking?" John looked past Opal and chuckled at me, "thought we lost you for a minute there".
"Oh...nothing, I've heard it all before!" I smiled.
The mic passed from Kennedy to Lonnie Grimm, then Keith Turk, and finally we were ready to get to our cars.

The first car to light up the scoreboard was, of course, our very own Ray Meyers (sixpackgut , Moparts) and his satin black, gen 3 hemi powered, 67 Barracuda notch back, I'm pretty sure he was the first through tech also. I don't know if he's paying off officials, or if it's the rented muscle he brought this year in the form of Drag Week veteran Zac Ravencraft, but it seemed like he was first in line all week long! His 10.08-134 kicked off Hot Rod Drag Week 2015 in fine style. Three sets of cars later, an eight second fox body tossed it's factory windshield all over the 1000' line, and we had our first down time of the event. I'm pretty sure Ray had turned in his time slip, and was motoring towards Indy before the glass was cleaned off the track!

Roughly 40 minutes after Ray started the festivities, Paul Cornman's Green 71 Demon pulled to the line. He was the defending Champion in Street Race Small Block Naturally Aspirated, but the class was loaded in 2015 with 27 other competitors shooting for him. He won the class in 2014 with a 10.02-134 five day average, so when he opened the 2015 attempt with a stout 9.79-139 I felt confident that he was capable of repeating his win.

Boone and I both decided to jet up before our first runs, Dale was waiting for a fresh nitrous bottle, Darren was swapping tires, and both Rachael and John were in Street Machine Eliminator, so they had to wait for the second session. So, even on opening day, even though everyone was at the driver's meeting before cars went to the lanes, we were going to be late to the party!

I had my head under the hood of the Valiant, but Gateway Motorsports Park has a very good speaker system, and I heard Drag Week Announcer Brian Lohnes' voice raise perceptively as he described the 8.08 run made by Matt Blasco's 72 Dart.
"Have you checked that car out?" Robert came over and asked me after the Dart returned to the pits a little later.
"No...I kinda ignored it because I didn't want to get my feelings hurt when I saw a BBC under those turbos!"
Robert chuckled, "No need to worry, it's a Predator headed deal!"
"Well, in that case, lets go have a look!"
70 and up Darts are some of my least favorite Mopars, and this is a particularly hideous example, but it exudes cool, and mean in equal parts, and I absolutely love it. Matt and his crew were nice guys, laid back, and very friendly, so I enjoyed the visit. I also noticed "Montana" Dan Nissen was hanging out with them and lending a hand. Dan has raced chevys at every drag week he has attended, but he shows up on all the Dodge truck, and Sweptline sites with regularity. He describes his condition as "Automotive ADD". The C on the window put the Dart in Pro Street Power Adder which was absolutely stacked in 2015.
"Tough class", I commented.
Dan smiled as he stood beside me, "and this car is only going to make it tougher!"

Those boys did good this year. Shame about the transmission.

Lots of people have transmission trouble on Drag Week, the shame was in the timing of it all. But, that's later in the story...

Matt (Efidart, Moparts) finished off Monday with a 7.87-184.9 shot that left him in first place. Two bona-fide 7 second players, Shawn Fink's nasty new black 'Vette, and Mike Roy, who's Maroon 71 Monte Carlo had won the Pro Street Power Adder class 3 of the last 4 years, never even turned in a time slip, or left the property. Trailing him in 2nd was the absolutely bucks up, no expense spared, white 2013 ZL-1 Camaro built by Larry Larson for Drag Week veteran Tom McGilton, with a 7.94. Trust me, when the soft spoken Canadian drove out the gate, headed for Indy, he had everyone's attention.

Boone was the first of our group to get a shot at the Gateway starting line, about an hour and twenty five minutes into the first session. I went up with him, to get a good look at his launch, hoping that the new rear shocks and proper pinion angle would straighten out the violent leaves exhibited before and hopefully extend the life of his 8 3/4.
The truck left smooth...and slow. It was evident at the first hit of the throttle that the new converter was too tight, as the engine loaded hard against it, and the Truck didn't start pulling until 60ft out. He left on the injected Nova, then got drove around, the board lit up with an 11.30-119.3, and Drag Week 2015 was over for Boone. Ok, not Drag Week, but, his hope for a ten second pass on Drag Week most certainly was dashed, as we weren't going to get there on that path!

I was only about 6 sets behind Boone in line, but the cars coming out of the impound area have priority, and apparently the whole bunch decided to make their runs right before Sean Fling motioned me up under the tower. Forty-five minutes after The Barnyard Viper's attempt, I pulled the Valiant into the water, did the first burnout on the virgin Hoosiers and staged against DW Dishman and his 71 Ventura. I was a little disappointed, as this is basically a street race every pass, and I was hoping to get something better to try myself against than a thirteen second Pontiac! On the bright side, I also knew DW was an experienced racer, so staging wouldn't be a problem.
I stalled it to about 2500 and left off the footbrake. The hesitation that had haunted me throughout DW-14 was back, but the car pulled hard after the initial leave, and felt strong all the way down. I was rewarded with a 10.53-128.3, that was initiated with a miserable 1.55 60ft.

This was out of Matt's Dart.

I was watching the run when it ate this part. I don't know the incrementals, but visually it was really moving before it let go.

Bill

Dale and the Gremlin pulled into the water for his first run of Drag Week. Also his first run on the new front end, the new Et Streets, and the new 4.10 gears. He stabbed the throttle, and did a nice, arrow straight burnout to the eighty foot mark, then calmly backed up in his own tracks, pulled up and turned on the top stage bulb. He accomplished all that without the aid of a person in front of the car, or a person behind the car, or some one to show him where the beam was, or someone to measure the wheelie bars, or someone to open the passenger door and turn stuff on. I was pretty sure a couple of the twenty somethings standing around me had never seen anyone do such a thing after an across the start line burnout.
The first kit is on a timer and full throttle switch, the second is thumb activated. The Gremlin jumped off the line and immediately pulled the front tires about 8 inches off the ground, then ole greedy thumb fed the second plate in at 20 feet out, and it struck the tires and the front end slammed down so violently that he freaked and lifted off the throttle. I'm pretty sure the twenty somethings standing around me have seen that move plenty of times!
He stabbed back into it and marched out the back door at 150.23, but the 9.59 was definitely not what he had in mind.

I think Boone and I were ready to stand pat on our first runs, but we knew Dale wouldn't, and they had already called Street Machine Eliminator to the lanes, so it looked like we were all pretty much locked into sticking around for the final, all run session.

The Street Machine Eliminator session was next, and 16 mopars were in the field, including the usual suspects, Clark Lamb, Clark Strong, the Ogles, Scott Abbott, Rachael, and John. Then the were the very unusual suspects, including three Dodge by Shelby front scratchers, and a 79 300! When I looked to the starting line and saw a pairing of the 300 and an Omni, I hid my Mopar cap under my Drag Week shirt, and hoped nobody noticed. When the Omni drove around the big Chrysler I was embarrassed! Then the Omni put a 10.89-130 on the board, followed by the 300's 11.59-116, and I stuck my hat on, pumped my first, and yelled, "Those are my boys!!"

The silver Shadow of Patrick Culkin was up next, and in the middle of his burnout, the car jumped out a little crooked, and then I saw the front fender jumping up and down as he rolled forward. It was obviously a broken axle, the bane of any powerful front drive car, but I was shocked when he opened the door, and motioned for his buddies to push it back. I felt that was a huge tactical mistake on his part, as he should have at least staged and took the tree, allowing him to take a 20.00/50 and move on to the next track. The problem now was, if he wanted to continue, he had to fix it and get back in the lanes before they closed out the day. I glanced at my phone, it was almost 12:30, and I figured the lanes would close at 3:00pm, so he had two and half hours to get the thing ready for another shot.

Rachael, rolled up in the water, and since this was her first run of the year, I coached her through her burnout. I had also instructed her to just run it all the way out on the bottle, instead of lifting off the spray at 1000', as I have had her do in the past. She launched the car very conservatively, and it seemed like she was past the 60' clocks before she grabbed the nitrous, so I was a little upset that the ET just wasn't going to be there. It did appear the Belvedere was scooting pretty good though, and when Announcer Brian Lohnes boomed out that she was almost a hundred mph at the eighth, I knew we were in trouble.
"Lift girl, lift", I whispered.
Nope, the scoreboard lit up with 11.41-122, a tenth quicker, and two mph more than the car had ever ran before. She would be happy, but we still needed a time slip we could actually turn in.

Joel Nystrom (Hemi_Joel, Moparts), and his 67 Hemi GTX Convertible, followed Rachael into the water box, and followed her example of laying down a time slip quicker than he was allowed to turn in by motoring the luxury barge down the quarter in 13.42 seconds at 103 mph. While Freiberger and Lohnes were discussing whether Joel's pass was legal over the loud speakers, Kevin Rolph's red Mustang pulled up to do a burnout.
Brian Lohnes, being the consummate professional, transitioned right into "in his 67 Shelby GT500 Mustang", then lost his composure as soon as it rolled off his lips. "Wait a minute, is that real? Because if it is...they built virtually none of those cars!"
Yeah Brian, this is Hot Rod Drag Week, where a Hemi, and a 428 still strut their stuff wearing the 48 year old sheet metal they were born with!

Both Joel's and Kevin's cars are very real. Kevin ran all of Drag Week with 4.56 gears, and NO overdrive, or trunk monkey. Only thing he had a problem with? A burned out fuse. I had the pleasure of riding in both during drag week. OK so 1/2 mile in Kevin's car from trailer impound to the pits, but still...

John pulled his 67 Valiant up roughly five minutes after Rachael, and they were already calling people up for the open run last session. Five sets of cars after John's run, I saw the first class car pull into the water, and decided I better get back in our pits to get everyone prepared for a second hit.
After a nice 11.09-120.6 (his best of 2014 was 11.06, with a five day average of 11.22), I had expected to see John loading up the trailer, and preparing for the trip. When I walked up to him, he was leaned over the fender, pulling the bowls off the carb.
"Not good enough?"
"No", he glanced up, over the top of his glasses, "little more jet, little more timing, hopefully put it in the tens. How about you, going up for another one?"
"Yeah, might as well, looks like everyone else is", I determined.

I walked over to Boone, and asked him if he intended to make another run.
"Hadn't planned on it, but might as well, since we're obviously going to be here 'til the bitter end!"
"Would you have it any other way?"
"No, might as well get our money's worth!" Boone nodded towards the Blue Barracuda, where Clark and Bill Lamb were busy stuffing all their belongings back in the car, "looks like they are satisfied".
"Yeah! 11.38."
"Weren't they in the seventies last year...and didn't they have to put the same tired 360 back in it after they had problems with the new stroker motor?"
"That's the story, definitely running better now though. Adalie kicked his tail with the Wagon!"
"How's the falcon running with the spray?"
"She went 10.01-133, that wood grain really picked that thing up", I laughed.

The truth is, we have a bunch of fun on Drag Week, and what makes a really good run feel that much more rewarding is the torture you endure to pull off a successful trip. Some guys, year after year it seems, only get the torture part. When you consider that roughly a third of the cars teched on Sunday will not collect the six official Hot Rod time slips required to finish, it's clear there will be plenty of failures to talk about.
Honestly though, there are failures, and then there's getting kicked squarely in the teeth, again, and again.

Rich Frost, 93 Mustang

Rich Frost hails from Liberty Mo., and made his Drag Week debut at Heartland Park Topeka for the 2013 edition. Rich likes light weight, small tire, fox body notch backs with a whole bunch of boosted horsepower. He didn't make it to the shutdown area on his maiden voyage as the then orange mustang got out of shape before the eighth mile and bounced off both walls.
Determined to get back on the horse that bucked him, Rich showed up in Tulsa for Drag Week 2014, in a now satin blue Mustang and recorded his first two official runs, an 8.36-171 on opening day, then an 8.48-163 in Topeka, but was unable to make it to Noble for day three.

Undeterred, He was again present in Tech for 2015. His first run on Monday, the Fox Body left horribly soft, but threw a booming 177 mph on the board. His second run came about twenty minutes into the last session, as they were already counting down the minutes until the lanes would close. Rich was on a great pass, arrow straight, with a puff of smoke at 1100ft, then crossed with an 8.27-163. Then I heard Lohnes' voice pick up and get frantic, so I turned to listen.
"That is on fire down there! That car is being consumed in flame as it goes down the track! The fire crew is rolling right now, as he brings it to a quick stop!"

I tell you, I'll be rooting for Rich to hopefully have a successful trip in 2016, but if he chooses to avoid this like a plague, I can't say that I would blame him!

Will the silver Shadow make it back in time? Will the brothers Gebhart still be on speaking terms when it is over? Will Skippy run from the crazyness and take the bus home?

So many story lines, Thanks Billy for the fun read!