It was a very warm day, some might even say it was "drop top" weather! Then, of course, there was "early bird Ray", who did nearly every facet of Drag Week 2015 about twelve hours ahead of our crew. Here he is relaxing in the infield pits, already teched, as we were just starting our 3/4 of a lap around the track.

Not wanting to break with Drag Week tradition, even though Boone and Dale were ready to get in line some time earlier, they waited for Darren, who was blowing through St. Louis at well over the posted speed limit to arrive. Taking their place at the back of the tech line was a little tougher than usual, as a few stragglers hung out and waited for them to make their grand entrance, then snuck in behind them!

Behind The Curtain
Sometimes, it's hard to tell the story, within the story. Sometimes a story has so many plot lines, characters, points of emphasis, and interesting footnotes, that it becomes unwieldy, especially in the hands of a part time hack like me. Hot Rod Drag Week, quite honestly, deserves better. It also deserves better than the small group of journalists that are charged with covering it. Harried by deadlines, and the sheer logistics of the entire thing, working in multiple mediums, for multiple taskmasters, it's a thankless undertaking, and one that leaves them as strung out, tired, and road weary as the competitors themselves. As this is the eleventh running, and many of these journalists are veterans of the event, the production of content becomes formulaic. This is not a holier than thou type observation, as I am just as guilty in my own approach, both as a competitor and a storyteller. The thing is, every Drag Week is uniquely different, with it's own challenges, and rewards, from both the human, and automotive side.

Boone and I share another passion, and that is running, notably distance races. The parallels between competing in, preparing for, and understanding, say a marathon or ultra-marathon, compared to Hot Rod Drag Week, are numerous, and staggering. Event to Event, year to year, one of the things that raises the stature of a quality and popular race, is history. The history of the race, it's competitors, and their accomplishments must be nurtured to gain prominence whether we are talking about the U.S. Nationals, or the Boston Marathon. So, we were perplexed when we noticed that the results from each Hot Rod Drag Week would be posted on Hot Rod's website every year, then disappear in a matter of months, and no longer be accessible. We religiously track our races, and nearly all the results are on the internet, and archived. So, a couple of years ago, we began to accumulate as many of the Drag Week results that we could find, then reached out on websites to racers who might have yearly results from the specific Drag Weeks we didn't have. Eventually we were able to put together a comprehensive list, from every year, and we have enjoyed sharing tidbits from Boone's spreadsheets from time to time. This year, Hot Rod hired a new website and internet guy, and they also brought along a statistician for the event. Both contacted us early in their arrival to see if Boone's excel files would be available to share as I had posted some stats on facebook. Boone was only too happy to pass the info along, as we were just thrilled to see that someone under the magazine's umbrella saw the same value in preserving the history as we did. He also printed out some of these results in the form of a handout, which he distributed to the captive audience waiting in line for tech on Sunday.

If you've ever raced or attended a marathon, and you've been around the starting corrals before the first gun goes off, you've seen, or felt, the boundless, nervous energy that emotes from everyone about to undertake the challenge. Hot Rod Drag Week competitors put off this same vibe on Registration Day, and sometimes the decisions and conversations that happen early on, while in anticipation of the event, however casual and random they may appear, end up shaping and changing the very journey, and final outcome of said endeavor!

My case in point, presented for your consideration, is the tale of the Drag Week 2015 Odd Couple. Two men, who's lives (ok, maybe just their week) would be changed by the chance meeting of pulling their GM products onto the banked oval nose to tail, in the tech line on Sunday. Mike Grandinetti, from Nashville TN. decided to bring his 71 Firebird to DW15 after reviving it from a long slumber, dating back to the time he drove it in high school. Entered in the Street Machine Eliminator class, he had no lofty goals or low ET's in mind, he simply wanted to survive the week, and enjoy his old car. Lined up behind him was Daryl Yost's brutal pro-charged 69 Chevelle. Hailing from Bayfield CO., Daryl had suffered a DNF in Drag Week 2014, and was quite determined to finish in 2015. Their four hour wait to get teched allowed plenty of time to talk strategy, plans, and expectations for the week. Both men were running solo, and neither had buddies in the field so Daryl proposed that they run together, so that if either broke down, someone would be there to help out, and run for parts. The die was cast, the deal was struck, and these two strangers were about to embark on an adventure together that would become a staple of Drag Week campfire stories for years to come.

DW is the only "vacation" that makes you want to take another week off to recover.I went in 07 at the urging of 69 Lawndart.Took til 2011 to get my brother to go.Each spring we say we are not going to go.This year will be our 6th year in a row.Damm you Freiburger

I ran the Drag Weekend event a couple weeks ago, enjoyed myself, as I actually looked forward to the adventure. I talked to MoparBilly at Phoenix for a few minutes, told him it was because of his tales I wanted to run DW.

Love these stories

After the first few hours of hanging around, taking in the sights, and the new cars, you begin to notice the people who were on the pre-entry list who aren't in line, or present for registration. Some made it known well ahead of time that they weren't going to make it, and in some cases, you hear tidbits of information, but many are left to bench racing speculation. 350 people signed up, and only 290 showed, then you sprinkle in 10 hardy souls that signed up the day of registration, and out of that pool, only a tick over 200 will turn in the final time slip on Friday. That's about a 55 percent success rate, and you wonder why the t-shirts have slogans like "Where the weak will fail", or "If you haven't done Drag Week then just shut up"!

Larson, and Miller were there, without their cars. The Reh family's two entries were not around. Ahokas wasn't there, nor Cline. Scott Smith's Malibu, or Todd Maschmier's Camaro...nope. Not that I was disappointed or anything, the Event is the attraction, the adventure is the hook, not individuals or certain cars. The new rules package was in place for 2015-2017, and I have no idea if that affected some peoples decisions, or if like the majority, they just ran out of time!

Here, thanks to Bob Brehm, is a photo of Larson, complaining to DF, and a photo of Miller complaining to KSJ...notice that David and Don have the same looks on their faces!

are we allowed to say "lmao" on here?

Did the small block survive??

ROFLMAO!Look at who LL and I were talking to.

"Larson, and Miller were there, without their cars. The Reh family's two entries were not around. Ahokas wasn't there, nor Cline. Scott Smith's Malibu, or Todd Maschmier's Camaro...nope. Not that I was disappointed or anything, the Event is the attraction, the adventure is the hook, not individuals or certain cars. The new rules package was in place for 2015-2017, and I have no idea if that affected some peoples decisions, or if like the majority, they just ran out of time!"
Millers time at DW had passed him by.LOL.LL and Dave agreed to disagree.LOL. Lack of enforcement of the rules last year would explain a lot of no shows.Bob Brehm will not be receiving a Christmas card this year.Took a pic of me with a gold chainer? LOL

Dom Vallejos, and the Ram SRT-10

Bang Shift SRT-10 Ram rebuild

Twin Turbo SRT-10 into the sevens

The Official stats for Dom on Hot Rod Drag Week read like this:

2012 Pro Street PA Day 1: 9.097-148.36, out of competition.
2015 Pro Street PA Day 1: 9.002-171.66, out of competition.

The first link is to the thread on Bang Shift where they tore the Truck apart and started over right after DW12. The second 1320 Video covers their passes at Gateway this year. It's amazing how many guys have made incredible runs on Sunday T&T, or the Saturday Shoot-out, but haven't been able to lay down the big numbers on day 1 through 5 of the event. Hopefully these guys can make it back at a future Drag Week and back up that incredible 7.97-183 from late Sunday night.

C'mon Brian,
Pretty hard to break something that doesn't make any power! Ok, more accurately, that I can't tune to make power...

I was out on the Oval when a slender guy on a bicycle, who I had noticed checking out all the cars, rode up to the Valiant and introduced himself as Moparts member longram60. He explained that he was racing NSS at the Black Sunday event, but took some time to check out the Drag Week cars. We had a nice chat, but it was frustrating that I was trapped in Registration, and unable to check out more of the main pits.
I noticed they had a generator and my battery charger attached to Darren's Dodge, so I went over to investigate.
"I've got the idle jacked up real high", Dale explained through gritted teeth, "because we didn't finish breaking the cam in at home. I figured we'd have time before tech, then he shows up at the last minute, and we just have to drive it around here. Now, he won't follow my instructions on starting it, and ran the battery down!"
"So, what took so long to get it together? You guys looked fairly close when I left..."
"He had those stupid sheet metal valve covers", Dale cut me off with a shrug of his shoulders, "and a 440 billet distributor with an adapter for the 400 block, and that combination wouldn't clear. So Wade Metzinger had to drive over to a buddy's house and borrow a set of covers and a distributor that would fit! I was ready to walk away and forget it, but somehow we got it here".

I must admit, as cool as it was to see the Charger, and Belvedere out on the not-so-high-banks, (I kept teasing Rachael that she had to represent!) the Gremlin...not so much!

Mike Chenoweth's big 70 Hemi Roadrunner, side by side with Jason Ogle's Big Block 73 Cuda, working through tech...

Billy, on a side note. Jason past away last week. His son plans on running it for him in dw next year.

That's terrible news Bill. He was a sweetheart of a man, my heart is aching for his family. If the Gebharts can do anything for Chuck, Jo, Charlie or Amy, please let us know, our prayers for comfort are forthcoming.

Thank you Billy, for your kind words. It has been a rough couple of weeks for the Ogle's. Jason absolutely loved drag week and was so happy to be able to take his son last year. As posted above Dillon my nephew plans on bringing the Cuda next year. Jason will be ther in spirit with myself and Dillon.
Thanks again

It was good meeting you and checking out your and all the family cars. It's amazing the wide variety of cars they have for this event.