On a good note Dale said the mother and baby birds are doing well.

At that point, all the cool picture taking opportunities were over, the daylight was fading fast, and we were roughly 80 miles from our motel. We huddled around and discussed whether to drive back into Jacksonville and find a nice restaurant, or continue on the route and hopefully get to the motel before the cluster of eateries in that area closed.
In typical Drag Week fashion it was unanimous to continue forward, everyone was loathe to backtrack, even for food! We continued south on US-67, and the next 50 miles was pure automotive nirvana as the temp dropped, and the smells of rural USA wafted through the window to the strum of the 428 happily hammering away at 2800 rpm.
I sat in the passenger's seat of the Valiant dreaming of a nice meal, a hot shower, and a bed-time that didn't end with the letters AM! But alas, this is Drag Week, and the road portion of this trip still had a few throat punches left up it's proverbial sleeve!

We had finished up our 2 lane US67 part of the trip and I let Aaron know that we had to turn left after the underpass to jump on I-255, which would allow us to skirt around the east side of St.Louis. Just as we drove below the underpass I heard a loud whap, whap, whap, sound that led me to believe the header collector bolts had come loose on my side, but when the front end dropped and I saw Aaron struggling with the wheel I knew what it was.
"We just lost a front tire", I groaned.
"Am I clear over there", he asked quickly
I spun my head around to look, "Yeah, take it all the way to the shoulder, it looks pretty wide", I instructed.
Rachael parked behind us, while John and Robert pulled in front. I don't carry a spare for the Valiant. John only carries his 275/60 drag radials, and I have a pair of 235/70/15s on police wheels that we bring in the Belvedere. I asked Skippy to bring me the jack and one of the police wheels while John started loosening the lug nuts. That request meant Rachael and Skippy had to empty nearly all the contents of the hastily loaded trunk. It was almost comical when we tried to slide one of the 235/70s under the 62 Valiant's front fender. These cars left the factory on 13 inch rims, and any 15 inch tire is pushing the limits. I run tiny VW style 165/80s on my 15X4 wheels, and my body guy trimmed front of the wheel opening to allow those a little more room!

We were in the process of trying one of the 215/70's off the front of the Belvedere when a young local named Dylan stopped by with his mom to see if they could help. Once I showed him the situation he grinned and offered, "I got a fox body Mustang at home with Weld skinnies on the front, the tires are pretty shot but I bet they'd fit, would you like me to bring one back? We are only about five miles up the road."
"Fox bodies usually run a short tire on the front", John agreed, "I bet they would fit."
Dylan jumped back in the car with his mom and left, while we continued to search for an alternative. Drag Week teaches you to never rely on one possible solution, or wait for it to show up, you have to try any and all methods available to get back on the road!

I'm really enjoying this story Billy>

Never a dull moment with you guys

Our next visitor was Jason Tabscott in his mid-nine second N/A small block 75 Camaro. He had been changing all four tires and wheels at each track, so he offered up one of his lightweight M/T Pro-5 and front runners to allow me to get to the motel. I was actually relieved when the tire was a little too tall and rubbed the leading edge of the fender as I really didn't want to be responsible for scratching up a four hundred dollar wheel! We even attempted to use his 13" trailer spare, but it wouldn't clear the Wilwood disc brakes!
We were in the process of helping Jason get his trailer back in order so he could leave, when Dylan returned with the Weld wheel from his mustang, this time accompanied by his dad.
Sure enough, it bolted right up, and cleared everything, but the tire was dry rotted to the point of cracks in what little tread was left.
"How are we going to get this back from you?", Dylan's dad asked the question the kid was too shy to broach.
"You guys coming out to the track tomorrow", John asked.
"Well...I'd like to", Dylan's voice trailed off as he looked at the ground and kicked a rock off the curb, "Mike Myers with the Corvairs is a friend, and he invited us to hang with him...but-"
"I'm sure Billy will throw you some cash to get through the gate", John volunteered, "Then you can get his cell number, and call him once you arrive".
I numbly reached for my wallet, fished out a twenty, and handed it to Dylan. "Yeah", his Dad laughed, "That should work, we'll see you tomorrow!"
We exchanged cell numbers while John torqued the lugs, and Skippy started putting the Belvedere's trunk back in order.

"I'm going to steal Aaron, and head to our motel." Robert informed me, as they were staying in a different location than the rest of us.
So I was once again on my own as we resumed the last twenty five miles of our journey. I held the Valiant to 2500 RPM, probably a good ten mph under the speed limit, the whole time we were on I-255, because the rock hard front tire seemed to chase every nuance and undulation in the road. We rolled into the motel complex in Collinsville, where 90 percent of the Drag Weekers were staying, at around ten pm, and the desire to chase down a sit down meal was pretty much gone by then.
Rachael and Skippy grabbed us some below average White Castle, while I showered, then fired up the laptop to check Thursday's results leading into the final day.

Boone, Dad, Darren, James and Dale showed up about two hours later, just as I was falling to sleep.
"What took you guys so long?"
"We stopped and had Opal's Birthday supper in Jacksonville!" Boone informed me.
"Yeah, we thought about that", I agreed, "but we were too busy getting pictures taken".
"Huh?" He looked at me quizzically.
"Never mind, I'll explain it in the morning!"

"below average white castle"......... that's a good one !

Friday, Day 5, Return to Gateway Motorsports Park

Hot Rod Drag Week doesn't happen without the cooperation and efforts of four drag strips willing to take on the event, most notably the host track, which is going to have four days wrapped into the week, as well as supplying an impound area for all the rigs. As such, concessions have to be made, and one of those is to start Friday's action later in the afternoon to allow for (hopefully) a larger spectator count/gate for the track. While the gate receipts might prove this to be a sound business decision, it has been a disaster year after year for the timely conclusion of the actual race/event!

2011 Heartland Park Topeka. Started Friday afternoon, and didn't get a run for everybody before the late evening rains hit, and all the runs of the day were considered null and void, so essentially it was called and results tallied as a four day event.

2012 Tulsa. Fought rain all day, after late start, had to finish on Saturday.

2013 Bowling Green. By the time the race was finished, and the results ceremony was complete, it was 9pm.

2014 Tulsa. Rained out the afternoon, finished the quick 32 race at midnight, moved the remainder to Saturday, which caused issues with Tulsa's Saturday afternoon team bracket race.

Friday is the final day, so all your class cars who have a shot at moving up are going to be taking multiple runs. The Street Machine Eliminator racers with any chance of making the quick 32 are going to be making multiple runs. Then, all the Street Machine Eliminator competitors have to turn in their final time slips so a ladder can be built for eliminations. Follow that up with a five round race while they tabulate the class winners and have an awards ceremony after that and you have a very full day.

So it was decided in negotiations with the host track I'm sure, to start Friday five hours later than Mon-Thurs, then allow the host track to piggyback the final day of Drag Week by having their own drift and drag style street car event starting at 6pm.

Yeah, this is setting yourself up for failure! Come to think of it, not much different than my family's plan for Drag Week every single year.

Note: I'm not denigrating the Hot Rod staff, volunteers, race directors or the track workers in any way. All these people work extremely hard and genuinely care about putting on the best event possible. Just trying to provide context to the fact that they had one hand tied behind their proverbial backs before the day even started!

I can be critical of the late start on Friday all I want in retrospect, but in real time as I dragged my body out of the motel bed at 7:30 am, I was thankful for it because I still had to run into town to the tire store Darren had used earlier in the week in order to get new front runners for the Valiant.
"Front pocket...jeans on the chair", Rachael mumbled when I asked her for the keys to the Belvedere, then she rolled over and pulled the covers up under her chin, clearly not interested in getting up yet.
I made my way to the parking lot and popped the trunk on the Belvedere. The jack and all the tools I needed were right on top, since they were the last thing Skippy had loaded the night before. I removed the remaining good tire, and loaded it in the front floorboard with the blown one and headed out with the map Skippy had drawn up for me from Rachael's lap top, thankful to be in the big roomy b-body for a change!

As soon as I walked in the front door of Dobbs Tire and Auto, I was greeted by a stack of four Pirelli P4 185/65-15s with a "Clearance/Special" sign on them. My first thought was that they were a very strange size, followed immediately by the thought that they were short enough to fit the Valiant wheel well, if they didn't have any VW tires in stock.
Sure enough, after running through all the possible choices with the salesman, we came back to the ones on the floor.
"Ya know...we had so many Drag Week cars in here last Friday, and Saturday wanting oil changes, front end alignments and such, that we finally had to tell them we could only do tire work for them, because we couldn't get our regular clientele taken care of", the salesman explained as we conversed. It hadn't occurred to me that guys would show up early with that much still in question on the car, but I guess nothing from this crowd should surprise me. I looked across the parking lot as I waited on my tires to get mounted and noticed that quite a few Drag Weekers had decided to use the late start to skip the motel breakfast and congregate at Waffle House.

The motel complex at Collinsville features about 6 different Motels clumped in the same area with an equal number of fast food joints and eateries. When I returned with my tires for the Valiant, the entire area was a hotbed of Drag Week activity. It was probably the same routine as every other Drag Week morning, but I am usually sleeping in when everyone else is headed to the track.

good to see you back at it, Billy!

btw the first pic in the post above, is Cordova....I was staying at that hotel, my car was parked to the left. The second pic is indeed Colinsville, I swapped gears in my car right about where the silver truck is parked.

Squirrel,
I usually try to use the pictures accurately within the time frame of the story. The problem this year is that I collected so many cool pictures from all over the internet, and I'm running out of chances to use them as the story winds down!

heh...yeah, there was a lot of neat stuff to get pictures of, if you remembered to take the pictures! Filling mine with water with the hood sealed

I had the Valiant all buttoned up and the rest of the family was ready to head towards Gateway, when I received a text from John that read "Guess I melted something, car is dead!"
Opal and John's Valiant was parked across a field from where we were, so I just walked over, while Darren and Rachael drove around the block to pull up to their location. The multi-meter showed the battery at full power so the problem was definitely in the wiring.
John and Darren made fairly quick work of the diagnosis. It was discovered that the main power through the bulkhead connector had been burned out, and someone had just jammed the biggest wire they could find into the hollowed out socket. It was actually a miracle that it had nearly completed two Drag Weeks in that condition!
John ran a completely new wire, separate of the bulkhead connector, then with a shake of his head and a wry smile, asked to borrow a butt connector from me. The inside joke was that he had been badgering me all week about the excessive use of butt connectors throughout my car's wiring.

Opal jumped in the Belvedere with Rachael, and they headed off to Wal-Mart to re-stock the coolers, while the rest of us headed to a car wash to clean some of the week's road grime off our rides. We arrived at the the track just in time to hear Freiburger and Lohnes drop the bombshell that nine Drag Weekers had been eliminated from competition because they had been caught miles off the route, cruising down a major interstate Thursday afternoon!

"All of those competitors that were eliminated will still be allowed to run today, this is not a 'vote 'em off the island kinda deal", Freiburger explained, and with that they moved on to the next announcement. Which kinda left many of us in limbo.
"What if you're in a class, battling for fourth or fifth, and the top two guys just went out", Boone questioned. "You won't know you were in a battle for a top three spot until the awards ceremony!"
"Could happen", I agreed "but I'm glad they didn't out of them over the loud speaker, they've been kinda heavy handed over the years with some of that stuff."
Dale laughed, "So you're telling me I have a chance!"
"Maybe...if all nine were Modified Power Adder cars", I joked.
"Hey! I was fifth after yesterday, so I only need a couple of them out!"
"You know, when I saw only one checkpoint, that close to the start of the route yesterday, I suspected quite a few would jump off route, but I sure didn't expect nine to get caught!"

Twenty minutes later, word spread through the pits that Romano and Hunter were included in the nine.
"The 55 and the 56? Geez, those guys have been on the cover of the magazine, they are like Drag Week royalty!" I exclaimed.
"Remember that conversation we had about the rules only taken seriously when they have teeth", Boone reminded me, "Everyone knows that a guy got black-balled from Drag Week in '06 for loading his car in a trailer, and that became like touching the third rail. If they enforced the route deviation rule on those two guys, that sends the message to everyone else that they are serious!"

When you hop on the Interstate because its raining rather than drive down a 2 lane Hwy and the Hot Rod magazine passes you then yes you are busted.

Dale had been fighting with traction all week in the Gremlin, and he blamed most of it on the new front end, so with a little down time to start Friday off that meant he had time to think about changes. Next thing I knew he had the front clip off, and the car jacked up in the front.
"I'm going to swap out the 450lb. front springs for some 350lb ones", he explained.
"Great! You brought a spring compressor..."
"No", he smiled, "but I've got plenty of help, and a bag full of stout zip ties!"

Kevin

In 2013 I believe that was an early start day that was plagued by timing system problems from the rain the night before. I know I squeaked in a 200mph pass during those troubles lol.

Bowling green seemed to be full of electrical demons from the timing system to the intercom.