I've compared Drag Week to running a Marathon on multiple occasions, and if that analogy holds up, day two at the track is similar to the five mile mark in the famous foot race. Everyone was excited Monday morning, but now the approach seemed more measured, and even though presumably just as many cars needed to make runs, the lanes weren't nearly as crowded. Doisher and Dodson had to wait for 118 cars to make it back around for a second try on Monday, but on Tuesday they were back to the water box after just 54 others had made an initial run.
Drag Week veterans like Radar Watkins with his big Fury, and Ross Dudley in the yellow 68 Road Runner, don't let the ebbs and flows effect them, they came up a little later than usual, but made solid runs within a tenth or so of their Monday runs, and were still ready to head for Byron before the first session ended.
Mark Hill's orange early Barracuda showed the true potential of the low deck big block on board, running it's first Drag Week ten second pass, a nice 10.95-127. Another rookie, Ross' Canadian buddy in his 69 small block Dart, Ron Maguire, decided to take a second whack at the track and made it pay off with a nearly half-second improvement to a 12.25-110.

I decided that since my brothers still hadn't arrived, I would use the time to go over the rear suspension again, as I had promised my "friend" in the Ford pickup the previous night. I jacked it up as high as I could, and slid the stands under the frame rails, then lowered the rear until the slicks were barely off the pavement. I shook it back and forth, checking all the bolts in the back, and they were, of course, all tight. There was a popping noise in the front, however, so I crawled under in front of the tire and grabbed the diagonal link. To my horror, I could move it back and forth a half inch or more in the front. The link was tight and secure in the bracket, but the nut which held the bracket to the rod end was backed off considerably on the over long pivot bolt, allowing the movement!
"Well...CRAP!"
"What's going on under there?"
"Nothing Rach, just your dumb dad trying to get us killed!" I knew I was blushing as I crawled out from under the car and grabbed all the pertinent tools I needed.
"This car won't move another inch until I've tightened every nut and bolt on this rear suspension!"

Some how, Billy, I knew you were going to find a problem under there when you mentioned the seat. At least it didn't require a welder.

Frank Perkins' Day 1 Drag Week experience was great, with a stout 9.91 from his small tire, leaf spring 69 Valiant. I'm sure one of his goals quickly became to run in the nines every day, but an opening pass of 10.08-134 at Gateway put that in jeopardy. Since he was making the trip with fellow Canadian Ross Dudley, who famously gets on the road pretty early, He probably had to call in a favor for a second pass. Late in the first session, he made another run, but a close 10.02-134.59 would have to do! Sometimes goals get adjusted on the fly, so a nine second average for the week would have to do! Then again, owning the sixth quickest normally aspirated Mopar ever on Drag Week isn't a bad consolation prize either.

Despite three or four minor lapses for track clean-up, the Gateway staff managed to get 154 passes logged in the first hour and forty-five minutes. The information was passed down from Lonnie Grimm that the first session would close in exactly forty more minutes, and as soon as the announcement was made, you could feel a perceptible push towards the lanes by some of the guys who had yet to make a run.

The crazy young Swedes with their short wheelbase Opel Ascona backed up their first seven on Monday with an impressive on the edge, skating around 7.91-171 mph blast to whet our appetite for some Matt Blasco and the Dirty Drag Week Dart action. When the power from Matt's boosted wedge hit the rear tires however, the little Dodge decided to live up to the "Swinger" moniker, dancing from the center stripe to the wall as Matt struggled to keep the front tires heading down track! The 10.73-82 on the scoreboard did little to explain what a crossed up mess and great save that run actually was.

Street Machine Mag had some great coverage of it, both in and out of the car.

https://youtu.be/HHCC89QaDAM

Thanks, Clark
I hadn't seen that yet, Street Machine Magazine always does a great job covering everything Drag Week!

While my brothers were still sleeping, and everyone else was throwing down numbers in the first session, Aussie John Faraone was using fellow Drag Weeker Geoff Dugopolski's shop for a little Tuesday morning check-up on his Valiant Charger's 572 wedge. Apparently, nothing is "routine", on a seven second street car!!

As the first session neared completion, many guys were making improvements over their Monday runs, while others were inexplicably slower. Paul Cornman's Demon made two hits, but could only manage 9.50's after starting the week with a 9.35, he would return later in the day for a 9.49-141.9 pass. The defending class Champ in Street Race Small Block NA, Jason Tabcott and his 70 Camaro, found his mojo at Gateway, with a 9.36. after an opening 9.48 Monday, so Paul would leave St. Louis with a scant eight thousands lead.

Terry Keifer's 67 Barracuda improved, as he continued to acclimate himself to the new twin turbo, blow through carb setup, turning in a 10.71-129. Scott Abbott's 67 Belvedere showed strides as well, and while the 10.26 was a nice number for the small tire B-body, the big normally aspirated, millennium headed Hemi was really starting to get attention by carding 137.6 mph.

Glenn Hunter's Pro Street Power Adder winning 56 Chevy laid down an incredible 7.47-186 mph pass, that squarely put pressure on Matt Blasco and the Dirty Dart to try and keep up with. Tom McGilton's '13 ZL-1 Camaro, also competing in that class, couldn't achieve boost on the line and idled down on his first attempt, so answers would have to wait for later in the day. Schroeder's Vette was the talk of the morning however, with a straight, problem free, 6.60-214.3 that led everyone to really start believing this might be the year. Bailey's Pro Mod Camaro rattled the tires at the top of low and made a move to the center stripe. He gathered it in, and managed a 7.41-214, but like so many of us, they would have to come back for the all-run session in the afternoon.

The SME cars were well into their runs before the rest of our group filled out the pits. Rachael immediately grabbed the grille out of Darren's truck, and started preparing to feed everyone. The group looked surprisingly well rested as they methodically began prepping and unloading.
"10:55", I raised my arm to examine a non existent watch, "thought you were going for a record!"
"Considering we rolled into Noble a few years ago with mere minutes to make a pass, this seems fairly routine", Dale shrugged.
"How many passes have you made so far?" Boone inquired, as I helped him and little Billy push the trailer back from the Duster.
"Uhh...well, I'm pitted all the way back here, and the starting line just seems so far away...".
"What have you been doing?"
"Scouting the competition, getting the lay of the land, making crucial adjustments to the car...".
"Rachael!"
"I think he took another nap under the car...he was down there for a long time", she laughed.

Cornmans Demon..... that's straight up PORN right there!!!

The Street Machine Eliminator session went off very smooth, with most of the discussion hinging upon the possibility of an all ten second quick 32 field. The bump had been around 10.95 after day one, so many of the low eleven second guys were making multiple passes at Gateway, looking to find a way to scrub a hundredth or two. Lohnes couldn't help himself but to implore more people to bring their bracket cars to Hot Rod Drag Week when Kim brought the Primal Scream Satellite to the line. "This right here, is exactly what we need more of", he explained. With an hour and twenty minutes of track time, it appeared everyone had at least two shots at the track if they were ready, but I was still surprised by how many were still in the all run lanes as we went into the final session at straight up Noon.

Pic 1: Kim Prepares to go under the tower, beside Robert Lee's 2017 Mustang.
Pic 3: Cody Walker's Swinger went 12.32-106 at Gateway, and would head to Byron in 68th of the 123 SME entries still in. There were 9 DNF's already in the class by the end of track time.
Pic 4: John Stukey's Charger HellCat was holding down a top 5 spot with a 10.14, while 2015 Runner-up and 2016 SME Champ David Burke was in danger of missing the Quick 32 bump with his low eleven second 79 LeMans.

Still amazed you can remember all the small details

Billy is that good!

(I have to go back and watch the replay of the live feed, to remember the details)

Billy has said he has a photographic memory. Which unfortunately he has had to listen to me talk at Drag Week, and waste valuable space, with pure BS.

The replay of the live feed is an awesome resource which not only helps me establish my timeline, but in truth, changes the way we do the event! Prior to the availability of a recorded journal of all the track time, participants felt the need to hang around the track for fear of missing all the action. Now you can do your own thing, confident that when you get home, the option to enjoy it all again from a different view point will be there.

Top pic: For every minute of sleep that little Billy steals on Drag Week, the Duster rusts twice as fast!

Middle pic: The only victim of the Gateway SME session was this Camaro's T-top, which departed the car at the eighth mile mark and shattered when it returned to the track.

Bottom pic: If the look on engine builder Steve Morris' face doesn't tell you that Bailey's Pro Mod Camaro was done for Drag Week 2017 in the pits at Gateway, just take a close look at the chunks in the oil pan just under the driver's front tire!

What happened to Bailey's motor?

I think it broke a rod? I don't recall exactly. That billet motor sure has not been nice to Bailey.

I got a closer up pic of that oil pan....ugh!

Actually getting a little ahead of ourselves chronologically, but that's alright. Sick Seconds 2.0 was in the 7th or 8th pair of the all-run session and the final two hours of track time at Gateway was already building into one for the ages by the time Bailey followed Josh Lester's Olds powered Cutlass into the right lane water. Joe Barry and his "Creamsickle" 56 Chevy opened the festivities with a stout 7.06-201 that let everyone know the track was ready to take some horsepower. Following that pass, Janne Uskali assaulted the left lane in the Flying Finns' 67 Plymouth VIP with a beautiful 8.07-170 MPH pass out of the Brewer wedge powered C Body. Directly behind him in the water was Matt Blasko in the Dirty Drag Week Dart, and while the Canadian A body still had a significant wiggle at the 330' mark, Matt drove through it to a solid 7.71-186. Tom McGilton's ZL-1 answered Matt's run with an unreal 7.53-197 in the same Pro Street Power Adder class. To put that pass in proper context you need to understand that Pro Street at Drag Week is a fairly restrictive set of rules: back halved, stock floor pans, almost a nostalgia type build. Tom had became the first to run over 190 miles per hour just a day earlier at 190.5, so to see him lay down that 197 had all of us in attendance just shaking our heads in awe!

That was the back drop which anticipated Bailey's second attempt at maintaining the overall lead in Drag Week 2017 at St. Louis. The Pro Mod 69 Camaro left hard (1.06 to 60'), and while it avoided the sudden move to the center that had forced him to pedal the previous run, it was still headed towards the cones by four hundred feet out. He wrestled it to within inches of the line, with the big slicks black tracking hard, until he finally had to lift (or the engine expired from the increased rpms) at a thousand feet. The chute was fully blossomed when the scoreboard lit up with 6.39-187 numbers, but Tom must've already knew it was hurt bad because he brought the machine to a full stop well short of the turn off at the end of the track.
That is the cruelty of Drag Week in a nutshell, one second you are laying down the quickest pass of the event, and in the next second you are searching for a ride back to Cordova so you can fetch the truck and trailer!

Since we decided to eat what Rachael had prepared, and had sat around trading stories about the drive, everyone seemed to migrate to the all-run lanes at roughly the same time. There were only about fifty cars in the lanes, and it was still a good hour from cut-off time so we felt fairly confident that if any of us had a bad pass, there would be an opportunity to come back up for a another run.


1st pic: Team Scrab brought their 92 Spirit R/T back around for a late day 2nd effort. The Shelby Dodge Auto Club members were rewarded with a 13.42-104.57 pass with Teri behind the wheel.

2nd pic: Kurt Stewart and his 91 Eagle Talon were among the SME cars that were concerned about a ten second bump spot for the quick 32. His day 1 pass had been an 11.02-111.9, so he felt compelled to push the little DSM 4G63T a little harder. The resulting 10.76-126 would have put him solidly back in the field, but the little turbo four gave up the head gasket at 1100 feet, spewing out steam and water that would mark the end of his DW17 competition.

3rd pic: Derik took his GMC down directly behind the Eagle, and before the track officials realized there had been a problem, but a little top end fluid was no problem for the fourteen second, ninety-six mph Jimmy!

4th pic: The top end crew rolled out right after Derik went down, so for the second day in a row Michelle would have to nervously wait in the water box for a track cleanup...

From 1997 to 2002, our family vacations went like this for six years in a row: We would spend Labor Day Weekend at Mo-Kan Dragway testing our Mopars to prepare for the second weekend in September, in which we would load up and head to Gateway in St. Louis for the big Monster Mopar Weekend. We would load up every nitrous bottle we could find, and throw everything we had at that world class facility for three straight days! Twenty of the eighty quickest runs I've made in my life, a full 25%, have been at that track, which is 1456 miles from my front door! During that time we would pull whatever it took to get beside each other in the lanes, often asking to move in front of one car or another, or allowing guys to drive by us. That led to match races which we can still remember like they happened yesterday, some of our most cherished time-slips and moments.

When Lonnie Grimm waived me forward out of the far left staging lane, and paired me beside Tracy Grim's post Olds as we entered the two lane that would take us under the tower and to the water box, racing one of my brothers was the furthest thing from my mind. Even when I noticed the Gremlin was in the right lane two pairs back I doubted it was even possible...but this is St. Louis, and all three of my siblings were in the lanes, so with a little luck, and a little mischief, history has a habit of repeating itself!

Pic 1: Darren walks into the lanes, and gives Dale a grin...the game is afoot, and he's roped Dylan in as his helper!

Pic 2: They walk by me to make their way to the front and count back cars.

Pic 3: Darren takes up a look out position at the corner of the tower, so he can keep an eye on the crew and relay back instructions.

Pic 4: Boone and Little Billy take up positions behind the Gremlin, so they can ask other cars to move forward if need be. At this point they've boxed in and taken control of a hundred feet of the staging lanes!

The big block in Michelle's Duster blew soot out of the pipes for the first sixty foot and struggled to an 11.96-113. She hadn't got the rpm up at all in the smokeless burnout, and by the look of Will's body language as he left to head for the time slip booth, he would be directing her straight back to the lanes. Clark Strong was up next in his Road Runner, and a nice 10.75-125 would keep him well within the quick 32 for SME.

Part of the luck we needed to make a match race between Dale and I a reality came in the form of Brian Kohlmann's fuel coupe that Squirrel and Dan were pushing into the water box. The track officials decided to run the little green beast as a single, so that moved the Gremlin from two pairs back to only one! A nice 1.27 '60 was negated when the 354 Hemi fell on it's face about 400 feet out. He eased back into the throttle, and rolled through at 11.09-111.