Oh yeah, we had to push it. Stupid truck. I had been referring to this thing as the “Evil Little Bastard” for several weeks now after it bit me or fought me on several occasions. It’s like it didn’t understand how many of it’s fun parts I actually sent to it. Come on little buddy, I’m the good guy here! This is the part nobody tells you about when they talk about driving a 6 second street car cross country. Oh wait, there are only like 5 of us in the world that know what that’s like. Here is what Day 1 of Drag Week was like for us.

IF YOU MISSED PART 1, CLICK HERE

IF YOU MISSED PART 2, CLICK HERE

IF YOU MISSED THE ENGINE BUILD, CLICK HERE

Woot woo, we did a burnout, we did a burnout! (Must say rhythmically as if you were a child.) And the burnout kicked ass honestly, but a crank position sensor adjustment issue meant the Fuel Tech EFI wasn’t getting a good signal down there at the end of the burnout and so it decided to stop running. Funny how it does that when it has no ability to know when to send a spark. Oh well. At least it ran, and after we got back to the pits and looked at our logs on Sunday night we knew we had something to get started with. We still had hours worth of work to do in order to be ready for the morning, and the girls had already left us, we hadn’t hardly eaten, and it was apparent we weren’t getting much sleep that night.

Sounds like the perfect warmup night for Drag Week!

Monday morning we get to the track, unload the truck out of the big trailer, and get all our stuff ready so that it can go get parked in impound. Meanwhile we unload the little trailer and stack everything in piles based on what stuff is. I’m a freak for organization, so laying stuff out in the “street” and “race” piles made me happy, along with piles for lubricants and fluids, parts, tools, etc. It would take the entire week to get the perfect load in the trailer, but isn’t that the norm for Drag Week?

So while everyone else at Drag Week seemed to be relaxing in preparation for the mandatory driver’s meeting, and the removal of their trailers, our band of merry men was thrashing on the truck to make sure the crank position sensor adjustment was correct, and that some other “communication” issues were sorted out between the ignition, data logger, and ECU. Running something at this level requires a bunch of electronics that need to talk to each other A LOT. When one is pissed at the other and decides to give it the silent treatment, that’s no bueno. We made lots of adjustments, reconfigured some stuff, and were about ready to start it at the beginning of the driver’s meeting. Thank god it fired up, and at least for a moment we were excited about making hits. Now if Freiburger would just shut up and stop talking, we could get back to work and start running down the track.

In the pits we once again tested out “launch mode” to make sure the truck would actually stage and then get it’s pop and bang on to build boost on the starting line. It did, and we were happy with the numbers and data, so it was time to put 7.5 lbs of boost in it for the leave and see what happened. A couple issues and adjustments later, and we were up for our first 1/8th mile pass. It turns out that the evil little bastard really must not like me, because it tried to get away from me as fast as it could. Since I was on the starting line, that actually worked out well for us, and the first 1/8 mile hit in the truck was a 4.000. That’s hauling ass. Oh, and with Larry lifting at about 800 feet, 5 seconds into the run, it ran 6.99 at only 164 mph coasting. I don’t think Larry loved me much when I pulled the smart ass routine on him and said ” Damn dude, it took you years to do that in the Chevy II, and this thing fell out of the trailer with a 6!”

The celebrating didn’t last long as we had to go through the process of switching from race mode to street mode and get out on the highway. Daphne and Sherry left with friends so they could try to get in at a decent time, and eat real food along the way, We couldn’t blame them, in fact we encouraged it, but man it was getting pretty lonely as we looked around the pits in Tulsa and realized we were one of only a handful of cars left at the track. Not only did we have to switch from race to street mode, but also take the time to actually load the trailer logically. After all, Lucas Oil had sent us a ton of oil, lubricants, contact cleaner, and all that stuff, but we certainly didn’t need to unload ALL of it each day. That first evening pissed us off, taking that long, but we were delusional enough to believe that the next day and night would be different. Not so much. It was 7 or so by the time we rolled out.

While Larry had driven the truck on the road at home for a few miles, and had driven about a mile and half into the track on Tech Day, neither of us had spent any time in it “on the road”. It is the loudest thing I’ve ever spent that kind of time in. Pistons, rockers, lifters, springs, compression, exhaust, turbos, oh my, the whole damn thing is just loud. Thank god for the GearVendors, because it lowered engine RPM down to about 2200 going down the highway. Still loud, but not as bad as it was at 3000 rpm. What’s funny though, is the fact that the noise is the only negative to driving or riding in this thing. Seriously, it’s a pleasure to ride in and drive. With the Ridetech Shockwaves out back this thing handles the load of the trailer no problem, is a simple air pressure adjustment away from the ride height of your choice, and rides damn smooth down the road.

I got to ride for a few hours to start with, Larry being the nervous mother and keeping tabs of each and every sensor through the Racepak IQ3 Dash. Meanwhile I’m on the passenger side doing the same thing with the touch screen on the Fuel Tech FT500. But, after a while the tension wore off, maybe as much from sleep deprivation as anything, and we started enjoying the cruise, even if it was way later than we planned. Of course the girls called and announced their arrival at the hotel in Topeka when we were far far away, and followed it up with more news of the adult beverages they were consuming. Not cool. We “loved” them, but did not “like” them at this point.

And just to be clear, we didn’t like the people at Hot Rod who did the route either. While it was MUCH better than previous years, mostly because they stopped trying to explain to us how to get there in their instructions, there were some spots that I wouldn’t have driven Daphne’s Suburban into. And almost wasn’t able to drive the truck out of.

This first leg of the trip was okay, and we were cruising right along, but when we passed a gas station with Larry saying we’d be fine, my “your going to run out of gas you idiot” siren was going off like mad. Sure enough, we ran out. We had 20 gallons worth of new race fuel jugs in the trailer that we had gotten from Summit, but not a one of them had fuel in them. Luckily, the red California earth cookie EPA protecting ourselves from fumes gas can was full, although walking may have been more fun than figuring out how to use the damn thing. With 5 gallons in it, and nothing but VP Racing Fuels M1 to save us from here on out we hit the road. Did I mention that during this portion of the trip we saw our friend Mike Crow on the side of the road with front end of his Dart all smashed in after Bambi decided to play frogger with him? Oh yeah, no bueno. There were still some Drag Week competitors out of the road, but not many. We might have been in front of a handful, but that’s about it. Oh, and did I mention we ran out of gas again? Oh yeah. This time only a mile from a gas station and we were lucky enough to send someone, with our stupid gas can, to grab us a couple gallons. We didn’t pass any gas stations after that.

In a rental car you can pull into the parking lot next to the big mural on the wall. And in the dark you can pull through the other way if you don’t pay attention to the fact that there is not driveway, but rather a large curb. We were lucky not to be one of the folks losing fluids after crashing into it. We avoided it like the plague.

Earlier in the night, I had decided I would catch a few ZZZZZ’s and get my snooze on while Larry drove. No sooner had I closed my eyes and got comfortable than he punches me in the chest! WTF DUDE! Over the screaming ProLine Big Block, he says “NO SLEEPING! YOU HAVE TO STAY AWAKE TO MAKE SURE I STAY AWAKE!” (If you scream this as loud as you can, from inside your house, while your wife is outside in her car, whatever scraps she hears will be roughly the equivalent of listening to someone scream inside the truck.) Well crap. Here I was thinking I could get my sleep on a little. Following the gas stop above, Larson starts fading. Fast. Real fast. He’s leaning forward on the wheel, rubbing his face like a baby that doesn’t want to fall asleep, and randomly yelling something about being tired. We stop at a gas station for caffeine and snacks not too much later, and after laughing at are food choices, then start laughing at Larson for his “perfect” parking spot. He didn’t pull up to the pumps, but rather between them and the convenience store. And in typical Larson fashion he was somehow perfectly framed in the security camera screen, and the truck even looked good in it! F’ing Larson.

He said he was good to go, and off we went. Into the land of 2 lane highways, deer, and potholes. Yummy.

When Larson pulled into another gas station way before we needed fuel, for another caffeine fix and a little walk around the lot, I knew I had to take over. He’d been saying he was fine for hours, but he was not fine anymore. After some words of encouragement to get him in the passenger seat didn’t work, I finally pulled rank and told him that this truck is part mine so I’m driving that part, and if you don’t listen to me I’ll call your wife. Like the Devil in Charlie Daniel’s song, he “bowed his head because he knew that he’d been beat” so it was my turn at the wheel.

Sounding like a mother hen, he told me all the things not to hit, and expressed some concern about me driving it for the first time in the dark. I gave him the “I’ve been driving slammed S10’s that were way lower than this for decades. This thing isn’t low compared to most of my cars, I’ll be fine.” at which point he started dozing off. Approximately 4 miles after leaving the gas station. And remember when he punched me for falling asleep? Well when he nodded off, lost control of his head, and it rolled back slamming into the sharp edge of the carbon fiber seat, I only felt bad a little. This is what it’s really like to drive a 6 second S10 cross country! LOL

I rolled us into Topeka, dead as could be, and parked out front like we owned the place. Apparently the Larsons are celebrities there based on the welcome we got, while hearing about our wive’s escapades in the parking lot and their bar tending skills. Doing the math on the sleep, or lack thereof, that we were going to get before we had to be at the racetrack didn’t have me happy. I should have been thrilled by the 3 hours, since the next night would be a fraction of that, and yet we’d be the lucky ones as carnage was about to reign down on Drag Week 2014 in Topeka.

Did I say we were lucky. I’m an idiot. Tune in tomorrow to see why taking a shower on Drag Week ultimately almost killed us.