Drag Week Uncensored Part 1: What It’s Really Like To Drive A 6 Second S10 Cross Country!


Drag Week Uncensored Part 1: What It’s Really Like To Drive A 6 Second S10 Cross Country!

When normal people are standing around looking at a car, where something about it causes a wee bit of concern due to the extreme nature, impromptu repair, or what have you, I’m often excited at the prospect of getting to use one of my favorite lines… “What could possibly go wrong?!” That’s sort of how our entire Drag Week S10 project started, and for sure how Drag Week 2014 started off for us. This is the first installment from our Drag Week adventures. I had every intention of putting them up daily from the road, but as any of you that followed online know, that was not an option with the level of thrashing we had going on.

IF YOU MISSED THE STORY ABOUT THE ENGINE POWERING THIS BEAST, CLICK HERE

You know how they have BC, and AD, when referring to the year? Well this first installment is going to be BDW, for “Before Drag Week”, and will be a mashup of several days over the three weeks or so leading up to Drag Week. Ultimately I’m going to tell you what it’s REALLY like to drive a 6 second S10 cross country.

So the original plan was for me to roll into Larry’s shop a couple three weeks before Drag Week and we’d unmask the truck and get our assembly on before Drag Week, which is exactly what happened. Except with all kinds of other stuff thrown in to make it difficult and totally kill any chance we had at testing. I had driven from California, with a partially finished Drag Week trailer in tow, and upon arrival at 3 something in the morning had promptly laid down in the back of my Suburban for some sleep before Larry and the boys showed up to work. I should have really really enjoyed those three hours. They were about to get really few and far between.

IMG_1309

Before anything else could happen, Larry and I had to go over and pick up the freshly painted truck and all it’s body parts, clean up the paint shop since it had been borrowed, and then get it all back to the shop. Man did it look good. The next few days were spent bolting stuff on, that had already been mocked up previously, while waiting on some parts that were seriously behind and we’d never seen before. The group of guys that were thrashing on the truck was growing by the day, but for the first week, everyone was high spirits and confidence. After all, we were putting together the quickest and fastest truck, and street vehicle, in history! (We know we are only the quickest right now. This is back when we were assembling it and thinking positively. We will be the quickest and fastest.)

Thrash 1

With Larry’s wife Sherry making us breakfast, lunch, and dinner, she might as well have incorporated and become a real caterer. Her food kept us all going though and the thrash was on all day, and way into the night, every day for the weeks leading up to Drag Week. There were several hiccups that had Larry and I swearing, and sometimes throwing things, and that had my normally not clean mouth at an all time high.

But throughout the process, the one thing Larry and I kept doing, every night after everyone had left, was to climb in the cab of the truck. One of us sat in the Driver’s seat every night. I have to admit, it was more often me. And surprisingly that seemed to excite Larry more than sitting in it himself. While sitting in the seat, making engine noises, playing with the shifter, and spouting on and on about how great this thing was to sit in and see out of, we’d go over what had to get done still, and what the plan had to be for the next day. I’ll never forget climbing in tit for the first time. It was amazing.

Thrash 2

During all of this time, I’m still traveling to races, bouncing back home to check on Daphne and Dad who are working on another Drag Week project, and still helping Brian keep BangShift on the rails. Holy crap! To say I was spread thin would be the understatement of the year. Flat Stanley is one fat little bastard, compared to how I felt.

And despite the fact that we had some kind of setback, large or small, each day, we kept plugging along. I’d be gone, and calling Larry non stop for updates. Or he’d be sending me a message saying we need an XYZ5000 and I need it overnighted. (Trust me when I tell you, FedEx got a lot of our money, those bastards.) But for all the drama and stress and delays, we ultimately made at least one more step forward than we did back, which meant we were going in the right direction.

I tell you this part, because I hope you can take something away from it. Normal dudes sit at home and have some problem and think they are the only ones who have ever run into this. NOT TRUE!!! We had a truck that was built around these parts, specifically outfitted for specific components, and completely mocked up before paint and powder coating, and we still saw some of those things that just make you want to scream. Most often it was because of a product change, or that a dimension provided wasn’t quite right because we didn’t have the part when we built the truck, or in several cases, something about the part was custom which meant that until we had the real one we could only make provisions that we hoped would accommodate the finished piece. All of this made us love the parts from Meziere, ARP, Pro Torque, Rossler, and the rest of the gang who’s stuff just fell into place. 97% of our parts practically fell into place as a matter of fact, but when you are building a truck in 9 months, that would normally take 18, those final three percent can be a bitch!

Thrash 3

It’s now Friday before Drag Week. The truck has only fired once. Yep, only fired once. The thrash is on, I have to fly that night to Bowling Green for LSFest, Sherry takes me to the airport, and after announcing on Saturday mid day, I’m supposed to be on a flight to Tulsa so that I arrive on Saturday night when Larson gets there. That was a great plan, but all went to hell before we ever got to the arrive in Tulsa part. Friday’s flight was fine, Saturday’s event was fine, it was the drive to the airport in Nashville where it all went south.

Cruising down 65, with not much time to spare, but enough that I’ll make it and have time to pee before getting on the plane, the average speed of my Chevrolet Cruze went from 10 north of the speed limit to 5 north of stopped. Oooppps. This was not good. After several miles of this, I realized I needed to be looking at some other options. Several phone calls to my airline, and others, resulted in finding out that while the Nashville International Airport pretends to be a real airport it is in fact NOT. My flight was the last one available. Okay, I could have flown to Chicago or Washington an hour after my flight, but then it was all done. DONE DONE. No more flights on a Saturday after around 6:30. Are you F’ing kidding me? What kind of rinky dink deal is this?

So I start looking into keeping my rental car and just driving the 9.5 hours to Tulsa. $554 dollars they told me. Screw that. Turns out I’ve got no choice. I have to make it to my flight. I’ve passed the accident that cause the freeway to be all jammed up by this time, and am cruising along at 85 or so, but now it’s on. Some dude in a Toyota pickup thought it was on as well, and he and I were doing triple digits on occasion as we headed to the airport.

Coming into the rental car return lot it was anyone’s guess as to whether I would make it or not, and after literally sliding the rental into the return line, jumping out and running away saying “Put it on the same card!” I hauled as much ass as my fat ass would, all the way to the ticket counter kiosk for my boarding pass. Oh yeah, despite Southwest offering mobile boarding passes almost everywhere else, that stuff doesn’t work in Nashville. Again, not a real airport. But I digress.

The Southwest chick sees me, knows I must be going to the final flight of the night, and am late. She asks, I print boarding passes, and she says she’ll call the gate and tell them I’m coming but that I need to hurry hurry hurry. I hurry hurry hurry hurry, just for good measure and run, gasp, run gasp, speed walk, stumble, sprint, hurdle, my way to the gate. Where there are three lovely people sitting at the desk when I go by at it at Mach .00001 on my way to the door.

Which is closing. Nope, has closed. 7 seconds. That’s all I needed. The dumb chick at the counter never called. They didn’t know I was coming. The FAA won’t allow them to open the door again. I watch my plain drive away without me. What the F$&#!

No time to waste. Back down stairs to the rental counter. The same car that I rented and was going to be $554 dollars, is now $250 out the door, leave it in Tulsa. I’m off, and make the drive in less time than Google says, with only one 30 minute nap along the way.

Meanwhile, back at Larson Race Cars, things are going just as well. The thrash is still on, the truck has just made it’s only voyage under it’s own power, for about 6 miles, and they are thrashing on let minute stuff to get it ready to leave.

And I get to Tulsa before it does….

Part !! tomorrow! How it got there, and Larson’s grand standing just about give me a heart attack!


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16 thoughts on “Drag Week Uncensored Part 1: What It’s Really Like To Drive A 6 Second S10 Cross Country!

  1. Brad Hatfield

    About time Chad! We have been chomping at the bit for this for about a week and a half now.

    Awesome stuff! Doing dragweek (best car event Ever!) riding shot gun with none other than LL is just sureal.

  2. Scott Liggett

    Chad, I would love to road trip with ya, but you are becoming the Typhoid Mary of commercial airline travel. Never will get on the same plane with you. Sorry, dude.

  3. Tom P

    Wow, Chad. I could see right away at Tulsa the first day that you were doing some epic thrashing. I had no idea the scope of it. Amazing you guys even got there.

  4. Tom P

    By the way, in that top picture it looks like a cop on the grass just to the right of the windshield support. SLOW DOWN! (hope i’m not too late)

  5. TheSilverBuick

    You got me hanging on the edge here!

    (BTW, when my Skyark’s clutch quit on me in Denver, it was a pitiful $85 rental fee from Denver to Missouri one way (where I rode with Doc and Jeff to Great Bend). I made money on that venture with a 40mpg eco-car over my Skylark, lol).

  6. John T

    I love a good Freudian slip…. this is lifted straight from your text, unembellished, and I’m glad it was so memorable for you…ah, mammaries….`I’ll never forget climbing in tit for the first time. It was amazing.’

  7. Rod Behring

    You must be hilarious to BS with! The airport story makes me feel like I am there. I apologize but I was laughing about it while reading. You should read “the steakhouse incident” – while I find it hilarious, it’s also graphic and could make some people uneasy.

  8. NICK LEONE

    I flew into Nashville with my bag in the over head compartment.
    When I returned to fly out I had to check my bag at the door of the plane.
    Same plane both ways.

  9. Steve Chase

    “as long as you make more steps forward than backwards you’re on the right track” I love it! it could be (our) Galore Racing’s motto…making more steps forward than back since 2010 lol

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