First off, I have to warn you, this is more of a personal story than it is a report of all thing Drags Week 2018. Other folks such as Mopar Billy are working on more complete coverage of the whole event. And also, I’m stealing pictures off the web, I only took about ½ of them myself. So credit goes to whomever it is due.
My trunk monkey Jeff and I recently finished Drag Week in my Hemi powered 1931 Plymouth coupe. For me, that was a major goal achieved after years of dreaming, then planning, then building and doing.
Here is the last day of Drag Week, a hoorah in celebration!



This whole thing started many, many years ago with a dream to build an old school hot rod coupe. Back when I was still just a high school kid in the 70's, day dreaming in class. Later, in about 1993, I ran a across a 392 hemi engine out of a 1958 Chrysler Imperial, and ended up dragging it home. Now I had a start! Then I started seeking a 30-31 Model A body. But in 2003, I found this 1931 Plymouth coupe in Indiana, and I hauled it home, and that was a major milestone.

This is what I bought. A body shell, frame, grill shell, front axle and springs, and a dash:


I didn’t do much with it at first, just played around mocking it up with the hemi and a few stray parts that I was collecting:



BUT THEN ALONG CAME DRAG WEEK!

In 2007, my friend Jay brown asked if I would be his co-pilot/pit crew on drag week, and I accepted, having no clue what I was getting into. At drag week, you run time trials at a different ¼ mile drag strip each day of the week. You turn in your best time slip each day. The racer in each class with the lowest average ET for the week, wins that class. Reaction time doesn’t matter. But you have to drive the race car from track to track with no outside support, and no chase vehicle. Jay entered a 69 Mustang Mach 1 with a Vortech blown big inch FE motor. And we drove it from Minneapolis to Cordova IL, raced at Cordova, Great Lakes Dragaway, Wisconsin International, Cedar Falls, and back to Cordova. Best ET was a 9:32, and we came in 2nd place in class. Along the way, we fragged a blower impeller, swapped in a spare, broke the powerglide, pulled it, rebuilt it, (stayed up all night), blew a trans cooler, (hunted one down), broke a shock mount and lowering block, (Had it fabbed/welded at a local shop) dealt with leaky slicks, and jammed an oil pump and twisted off the oil pump drive shaft (pulled the pan and fixed it in a borrowed shop) Then drove it home.


Jays detailed and interesting blog of drag week is a must read! http://fepower.net/Drag%20Week/dw07.html
After going thru all that, I was hooked. It was then I started thinking about building my coupe for Drag Week.
I rode along as Jays trunk monkey again in 2008 and 2009 in his SOHC cammer powered 64 Galaxie, DNFing in ’08 http://fepower.net/Drag%20Week/dw08.html and winning class in ’09, http://fepower.net/Drag%20Week/dw09.html then in his SOHC powered 69 Shelby in 2011 where we DNFed, then again in 2013 where we DNFed.
Some video I shot of our 2008 adventure: part 1: https://youtu.be/6F15sxPM1UA Part 2: https://youtu.be/GZMcqQUN9nw Part 3: https://youtu.be/rwzxdlae2J0

With all the work on failed and broken parts, great ideas that didn’t quite pan out, as well as the taste of victory and a close, hard fought second place, I was stockpiling ideas of how I would and would not build my own car. By 2013, I started working on the coupe in earnest, with a 426 hemi that I put together out of mostly leftover parts from my old F.A.S.T. racing projects.


To be continued

The car has sure come a long way. Thanks Joel for letting me be a part of the experience.

Without your help Jeff, it still wouldn't be done.

Pretty cool Joel! But what happened to Jeffs hair???

The reason I chose to start with a 426 Hemi, instead of the 392 is that I could build it faster, cheaper and make more power with less effort. I had a 426 block, heads and crank that were already machined, and just needed cleanup. 392 gen 1 hemi parts are harder to get, and it’s harder to find someone with torque plates and stuff like that. Start from scratch 392 builds take lots of time. And time was of the essence if I was going to have the car ready for Drag Week 2013!
So I got the block honed and cleaned up and primered, and cleaned up the heads and had the seats touched up, and loaded in some new springs and got a new cam with much bigger bumps on it than I used for F.A.S.T, and got it all mounted in the chassis.




But even with the progress I made, it became apparent that having this thing done for drag week 2013 was unrealistic. Thus I backslid from drag week driver to drag week trunk monkey to Jay again for 2013.
Then, in early 2014, I was talking to Keith Turk on the phone. He is the gentleman who runs tech at Drag Week. He said he didn’t think a 426 Hemi would be allowed in the Hot Rod class at Drag Week. What? How could that be? The rules say engine families that were available in 1962 or before are allowed. A 426 Hemi is a member of big block Mopar B/RB family that came out in 1958. Or so I thought. So Turk called Freiberger, Freiberger said NO.
That was kick in the gut.

It was great to see the Mopar crowd represented this year....Your car was cool as $hit...

I was amazed you ran the carburetors you did....And that thing really runs good for a 392. If you ever need OEM G1 Hemi parts, just PM me...We use them to hold things down in the shop....

Thanks Drag!

After getting over my disgust, and weighing my options, I decided to switch over to the early hemi. Always the optimist, I thought I could get it switched over and done in time for Drag Week 2014, and I went ahead and registered for the event in the spring. Haha. As it turned out, it took me well over a year to plan the new motor, source all the parts, get all the block and crank machining, head porting, and assembly done.
I located a super rare, one of 15 built, 8 carb edelbrock crossram intake, and decided that unless it was a total dud, I was going to run it on the car because I loved the nostalgia of it, and the over the top ridiculousness of it!
Early Hemi good guy, Engine =Masters guru Nick Smithberg ported the heads for me, and also checked the flow on the intake and the Holly 94 carbs to make sure it was enough.

Stupid question Joel, but how long have you known Jay and Jeff?

That's a great question, Billy. Jay and I went to the same high school, but he was a couple grades ahead of me. So I may have met him then, but didn't know him yet. About a year after I graduated, I went over to his place and saw his stuff because of a mutual friend. I got to know him a bit then, that was about '79 to 82, but then I never saw him again until Drag Week 06. Hot Rod had set up a "F.A.S.T on Slicks" shootout between a Buick, Dave Dudeks Road Runner and Wayne Nelson's Vette, and the place they chose to do it was at Cordova during Drag Week. I went there to video the shootout, and Jay was there racing. https://youtu.be/TMuzPHxIpAA
I heard his name over the p.a., and wondered if that was the Jay Brown I had known. I found him in the pits, we talked about old times, he explained Drag Week to me, I told him what I had been up to in FAST racing. We exchanged numbers and hung out together a bit. He lives about 20 miles away from me. Then the drag week trunk monkey thing started in 07.
Jeff and I met thru Moparts. I never new him before, but we figured out we lived about 5 miles from each other. We arainged a meeting at Rock Falls raceway when I was there with my green 67 gtx. That was about 2002, and we've been friends ever since.

Great story Joel .
Finally some good drama on moparts
Will enjoy reading this post ... keep typing!
100% better than reading world news or
someones good or bad luck at the dyno .
Youre doin stuff with cars that a lot of our lifestyles
might not allow.- and all that with only 3 months of good car weather.
Is it snowing there yet ? Lol.
Look forward to seein more pics.
Damn it looked like fun.

What?

Oh, the Bueller spike? He always does that for Drag Week!

Thanks, I'm glad you like the story! It's fun to do, but it takes a lot of time because I'm a horrible typist.

Since I was registered, but not ready with the coupe, I ended up taking my 67 Olds 442 convert on DW ’14. The car has a mild 455 and a doug nash 5 speed, and ran mid – high 13’s. I knew there was no hope of being competitive, so my friend Kevin and I just went for the fun of it. Even when one is not competitive, Drag Week is an awesome event to be in. You spend a solid week immersed in car culture and racing, and get to hang with some of the most hardcore street car racers on the planet. Plus make passes on different drag strips, and do a great, back country road trip. It’s impossible not to have a great time!
We raced at Oklahoma City, Topeka, Tulsa, and Great Bend KS, then back to Oklahoma City



My old friend Dave Dudek was at his 1st Drag Week in 2014 as trunk monkey for Rick Callahan.

Staging lanes at Topeka

Kevin with the Olds




I first got to know Brian Kohlman in this trip and his Hemi powered 30 Chrysler. This is the same car that is now green and nitro powered in the first picture of this story!

Great stuff Joel.

Sidenote: gf5r 5 speed from orange 30 Chrysler lives in my 66 Charger.

It’s great to get a chance to Trunk Monkey before setting off on your own Drag Week adventure, thanks to Joel for inviting me along that year. Joel drove the 442 to and from Drag Week in 2014 too. Here we are at our first gas stop heading out of town.



And we didn’t make it out of our home state before Joel had to do the first on the fly repair. Note to Jeff - Joel can work on the car lol.

Kevin, I don't even remember what I was fixing there. I do remember that right before we left, I ditched the stock driveshaft and ujoints, and put in a heavy dooty shaft, yokes, and 1350 ujoints. When we loaded the trunk and hit the road, the new drive shaft was hitting the driveshaft tunnel on bumps. We had to turn around and go home, take the drive shaft out, then put a jack under the tunnel and push it up for clearance in the offending area. I started to feel rushed to get there in time.

On the last day of drag week, during the awards ceremony, I won a door prize of a $500 gift certificate for great vendors!

I will admit, Joel did a LOT of work on DW18, and on the road to just getting there. During DW18, we each had our things to do, and we worked like a well oiled machine actually. Now how Joel wants to tell the story of DW15-16, we shall see. LOL.