It was Dale Gebhart in the Pro Street duster. His heavy trailer had pushed him off the road in a hairpin turn at the bottom of a steep downgrade in the mountains, and he crashed into a wall of rock. Out here in the parking lot, nobody knew for sure if they had been injured, but they said the car was pretty bad. Dale had been running high 8’s at 160 mph in unlimited. I felt bad for him and the whole Gebhart family, and hoped they were all OK.

Hilborn EFI tech Andrew Starr had found a spot in the hotel parking lot and was working on the failing valvetrain his mid 9 second Pro Street N/A 1956 Bel Air that was, of course, fueled by a Hilborn individual runner EFI system. The 565 in.³ pump gas Chevy was backed by a Hays Dragon Claw dual disc clutch, a G-Force 5 speed, and a narrowed Dana 60 rear end. He was running the "Hillbilly soft lock" a.k.a. clutch tamer and explained to me how it worked and that it was very effective at dialing in a little bit of clutch slippage at launch and preventing parts breakage. It was as good as the soft lock I was running he said, but adjustments were made the easy way with a knob under the dash.

Andrew was frustrated, as well as disgusted because these were all new valvetrain parts that he had put in as a preventative to improve reliability through drag week, and now the new parts were failing. He was solidly in 2nd place in Pro Street N/A, but the leader of the class, James McIntyre with his big inch hemi-powered 69 Camaro had fallen 2 seconds off his usual pace today at Charlotte, turning in a 10 second time slip. Would McIntyre get back his ET tomorrow? Would he drop out, or continue to slow down putting Andrew in first place? A close race for first in class makes it very difficult to drop out. Andrew didn’t know if he could get the big Chevy fixed or not. I offered to help, but he said he didn’t need any help. What he needed was parts. At roughly midnight, I decided it was time to call it a day.

It felt like my head had just hit the pillow when Jeff’s alarm went off at 4:30 Thursday morning. We hurried to get ready and out the door because we had a plan: it was going to be a long, hot drive back to Atlanta this afternoon. We had been instructed that today we would be following a prescribed route and stopping at 2 checkpoints. Although they weren’t supposed to open the gates at thunder Valley Raceway until 7:30 AM today, our plan was to be among the first in line at the gate. Then we could start switching the car over to race mode while we were waiting outside and be one of the first cars in the staging lanes. Hopefully a very early “one and done” pass, then hit the road for Atlanta.
There wasn’t much traffic between the hotel and the track and we got there before 6 AM. It was dark out and there were no signs instructing drag weekers where to enter. I found an entrance that was open and we went in. But it didn’t seem to go towards the pits or the staging lanes and we were kind of wandering around in the coupe when a pair of headlights approached us. The guy behind the wheel said follow me I’ll get you to the gate. https://youtu.be/95StFFj5aR0
There was already about 10 or 20 cars in line at the gate. We had over an hour until they open so, as per plans, we started switching the car over. Remove air cleaners, air down the tires, remove the exhaust, readjust the coil springs and shocks, remove the passenger seat, unload the trunk, take 6 turns out of the base pressure on the clutch. It was getting to be routine by now. The 2 most difficult tasks were cranking the adjusters on the rear coil overs and adjusting the clutch. Removing the exhaust and seat would have to wait to we were in the pit.
But within ½ an hour somebody came and unlocked the gate. I was under the car adjusting the coil overs when Jeff hollered “let’s go, they opened the gate early!” We hurriedly stopped our preparations and threw everything in the trunk and followed the other cars into the pits. As soon as the switch over was done, I found a spot in the staging lanes. Cars were still pouring in the entrance gate and filling up the pit spots, and there was probably 20 or 30 cars ahead of me in the staging lane.
All 3 of the leaders in the hot rod class were in the pits. Tim Hall in the international pickup was in the lead with an average of 9.948. Mark Fisher in the 32 Ford pickup was a close 2nd with a 9.989 average. Richard Abbott was in 3rd with a 10.067 average. My 10.275 average put me in 4th place. It was beginning to look like I didn’t have much of a shot at a top 3 finish unless one of my competitors were to drop out, or drastically slow down for the last 2 days. But yet with the good pass I made yesterday and the possibility that it could be improved upon, I had high hopes of improving my average today.
Exactly 30 minutes from the time the first car went down the track, I pulled the coupe into the burnout box. After the burnout, I took my time staging the car. I waited until the Christmas tree was green (remember, reaction times are meaningless at drag week), brought the Hemi up on to the two-step rev limiter at 5000 rpm, then dumped the clutch as I released my thumb from the horn ring/line lock switch and rolled the gas pedal down onto the floor board. The anti-bog strategy worked, but still the launch was a bit soft. When I shifted into 3rd, the RPM did not drop as one would expect so I lifted and got back into it and then when I hit forth it was obvious the clutch was slipping. So I aborted the pass and rolled through with a 10.62 at 111. https://youtu.be/1-UUPBWnIBI?t=49m23s

Thanks for the update Joel

During the early morning thrash........ the clutch didn’t get adjusted properly?

I’m sure all will be revealed.......

Back in the pit, “are you going to take that one?” asked Jeff. “I don’t know. I don’t like it. It’s going to kill my average.” After the 10.17 at 137 mph yesterday, I was really feeling that the car had a 9 in it today. According to the Wallace calculator, 137 was enough mph to go 9.70s. So the 2nd half of the track was under control. I just needed to get the first half sorted out. Launching at part throttle and rolling into it had all but eliminated the bog. But I probably need to be more aggressive and just mat it upon launch to get the car up on the tire and get the 60 foot down. “I’m going back for another pass” I said to Jeff. I could see on his face, he knew that meant another long hard, hot day. "Your call" was his response.
I had taken the same 6 turns out of the clutch adjusters this morning that I had the prior 3 days. As the thickness of the sintered iron clutch disc wears down, it is necessary to compensate by tightening the spring adjusters. I figured that all the stop and go traffic on the street had taken its toll on the clutch. So, I decided to tighten the clutch 2 turns for the next pass. Was that enough? Who knows, it's just a guess. Also hearing from the racers who keep track of such things, the density altitude was over 3000 feet. Each time I had leaned out the main jets, the car had responded with more mile-per-hour. I reckoned at 3000' it was time to lean them out another step.
While we were in the pit making the changes on the car, Freiberger announced over the PA that Tim Hall who is leading the hot rod class with his small block Chevy powered International pickup was in need of a head gasket. I moseyed over to his pit spot which wasn’t too far from mine and took a gander. They had the heads off, and there was a blur of activity. I couldn’t help but contemplate what it would mean to my standing if he dropped out. 3rd place gets you a one week head start on the race to register for next years event. But that’s not going to happen, I figured. Couple of things about running a small block Chevy: yes, it will probably break, but you can buy all the parts you need to fix it from a vending machine in the lobby.
Once the hemi coupe was in the staging lanes, I felt like I had some time to walk around a bit catch up on all the scuttlebutt. But I wasn’t going to get too far from the car, not after yesterday’s hard learned lesson! Most importantly, I learned that Dale Gebhard and his trunk monkey were both okay after yesterday’s crash in the mountains. So that was great news! More good news was that Hemi Squirrel had decided to stay in the race and made the drive to Bristol. The bad news was that Andrew Starr was unable to continue with his stick shifted, Pro Street N/A 56 Chevy, thus forfeiting his second-place standing. I heard several more stories of the harrowing drive through the mountains yesterday. I was sure glad that we took the freeway!

Tom Bailey in his Pro-mod style Camaro was still leading the unlimited class, and the event overall, with a 6.685 average ET. In a street car, for crying out loud! David Schroeder was holding down 2nd place overall with his big inch, nitrous fed, 1966 Corvette. He had run well into the sixes on Tuesday and Wednesday, but his 7.30 pass on Monday drug his average down to a 7.039.
Mike Finnegan with his Blasphemi 55 Chevrolet was doing battle with Jared Scott in his Falcon Ranchero in the Gasser/A class. Both cars are the epitome of cool with their roots blown Hemi’s and stick shift transmissions. Scott had averaged 9.115 the first 3 days, Finnegan holding down 2nd with a 9.276. Finnegan was trying desperately to achieve his first 8 second pass, and yesterday at Charlotte, he came oh so close with a 9.007.

As I was getting closer to the tower, and thus closer to my next pass, suddenly it dawned on me. How much fuel did we have in the race tank?!! Where was Jeff, I didn’t see him anywhere around? I opened the trunk and looked for the dipstick and it wasn’t there. I was starting to feel a sense of panic as I was way too close to the burn out box to be wondering how much fuel I had. I quickly called Jeff on the cell phone and thankfully he answered. I said where’s the dipstick? Did you dip the tank today? He said “don’t worry about it there’s enough.” “Did you check it?” I asked again. ”Don’t worry about it there’s enough.” That did not give me a great deal of confidence, but I wasn’t going to leave the car and walk all the way back to the pit for the dipstick. “You better get up here, I think they’re going to be sending me down the track pretty soon.”