DragWeek 2012 - My Adventure

[Dignlif]

you guys were right. the word that split it was "we're". it would appear that apostrophe's are a problem. I corrected the Monday update and now on to Tuesday.

[Dignlif]

Tuesday update

I woke up halfway rested Tuesday morning and after a shower went down to grab a quick bite and out to add some rear jet to my starving carb. I went up in the rear jets and headed out to the track once Chad finished grabbing some breakfast and returned his bags to the ‘backseat’ area of the Mustang.

We get to the track, unhook the trailer, and commence the unloading of everything from the trunk. That’s when I see the battery and remember the tie down situation. Crap.

I looked at the battery and tried to come up with a makeshift tie down. It was actually held in place really well with the aught (0) gauge wire connected to it on either side. I went up dressed in my big boy pants and jacket. When I got in the lanes I paused and put my helmet on. I proceeded to the director who pointed me straight in so I moved forward into line for the burnout box. Now having two runs under my belt after such a long break from bracket racing, my burnout wasn’t half bad and I lined up with the red sn95 Mustang and went to it. I stalled up to about 2500 on the foot brake and let it go when I saw the third yellow. I cut a .092 light and was on my way. Whoohoo I was smoking this guy (or so I thought) and my car was running awesome all the way through the 6000 rpm shift point. As I enjoy this much better run, all of a sudden I am startled by my neighbor in the other lane as he flies not moseys or meanders, but FLIES by and smokes me! I later watched the video and Brian made a funny comment about him flipping me off as he flew by. Turns out he had a 1.49 reaction time likely spooling turbos but then ran an 8.78 @ 160 mph. Yeah I had nothing for him beyond the reaction time.

In any case, my car went from a stumbling 12.09 @ 112 to 11.26 @119 so I was still thrilled. As I’m pulling back to our pit area the car suddenly dies…totally, like somebody forgot to pay the power bill. I coasted to a silent stop I went to the trunk and found the ground cable yanging out away from the connector on the battery post. I guess from all the adjusting and moving to make the custom cut wires work with the new battery, the solder gave way inside the terminal and let it go. After looking for a large cable crimper with no luck and talking with Jeff, I pulled the cable off the chassis grounding point, shoved the cable back into the terminal, laid it on the ground, and took a hammer to it thereby crimping it DW "side o' the road" style.

We were pitted next to Bill and Floyd in the 71 Mustang and when Bill got his 9 second pass, he was also ready to pack up. We did and moved on to our ‘short’ 229 mile trip to Gilliam (pronounced Gillum apparently as we were constantly corrected). Our first checkpoint was 66 miles away and we managed to catch up with Danny, Vince, and crew. We stuck with them through the rest of the days drive. When we got into a small town, Bill took us to an auto parts store in search of a relay. I went in search of stuff to tie down my battery and make it halfway track legal. Well, I kinda did. Now that I’m home with all my tools I can actually fabricate something that does a lot better job of holding it in place. In the meantime though, this had to do the job.

We caught back up with the guys at DQ and had a sit down lunch before continuing on. I rolled the dice and had something called the Dude sandwich. Uh yeah, ok, moving on. So we’re back on the road and headed to our next checkpoint about 34 miles away. This was a cool huge x large hat. It definitely made for a cool picture though it was a bit tricky getting in and out of that little lot.

To the best of my memory, we had a good trip from there until the infamous gas stop where Vince had some troubles pumping gas. Suffice to say he eventually got gas at a different station and we went on our merry way and eventually got to our hotel 11 or 12ish. As those who have been understand, the week just blurs together very quickly even if you are among the lucky who get 4-6 hours of sleep per night. For those who get less sleep, it is even worse. Another day done…Wednesday comes next.

[Dignlif]

The two Silver Legends biding their time to the days competitor intimidation.


My greatly improved timeslip...and the rocket ship that flew by me.


The first stop where we caught Danny, Vince, Tom and Tom


The cool hat


Freeway? what freeway?


New battery kinda secured


Old batteries along for the ride in the trailer

[TheSilverBuick]

The two Silver Legends biding their time to the days competitor intimidation.

I had a rocket ship blow by me too, on my best run no less. The guy sat at the light nearly two seconds longer than I an appears to have been going at least 40mph faster than me and accelerating!

[greenXpress]

But you had him at the 60' mark.........there's always a Silver lining with a Buick.

[Dignlif]

Wednesday Update

oof, it's getting harder to remember everything. I really need to get this done. Here comes Wednesday.

We started the morning as usual for Drag Week, early up, quick food grab at the ‘continental’ breakfast, and head to the car. We got to the track unloaded, swapped the rear tires, Chad went to the stands and I installed the temporary battery hold down stuff. Once that was in I put my pants and jacket on and got into the staging lanes. Bill and I had talked about changes I could make to the car to slowly improve my time. First up was tire pressure so I went up from 9 pounds to 12 in the rears (32 x 17.5 ET Streets). On the first pass my car ran 11.29 @ 119 so it gained 1 mph but slowed 3 hundredths.

Back in the pits I upped the pressure to 14 pounds and jumped back in line to make another pass. This time it ran 11.28 @ 121. This was still two hundredths slower than the last track but I had gained 2 mph. I figured I shouldn’t risk hurting something for minimal gains after that pass so I started the rear tire swapping and packing up. Once Bill got his good pass we once again on our way.

Off to Memphis… 355 projected miles with 26 steps worth of directions. This time our first photo stop was 159 miles away utilizing 12 of those steps. At some point in the trip, it became apparent that my over drive wasn’t working anymore. I was forced to drive without it and let me tell you, THAT SUCKED!!! I had forgotten about driving at freeway speeds without my Gear Vendors and it certainly reminded of what a great purchase that was for my car. Uh it also affects the gas mileage big time apparently as I ran out of gas on the side of the road. Luckily I had one of my 5 gallon jugs full of gas so it was easy to get it into the fuel cell and start up again.

We took off again to try and catch up with Bill when I noticed the water temperature going over 220 with no sign of slowing so I pulled over and killed the engine. It had been running around 180 since I got the fan and it’s controller dialed in. Chad got out and I grabbed the fuse holder for the fan and it came back on from me wiggling it. I thought that was strange but whatever so we started to leave, then the smoke came. Crap. I pulled back over, shut the car down, and ran around back to shut the master power off to eliminate any fire starting voltage. The fuse holder was melted. With neither my stash nor Bills containing another fuse holder, I cut the bad one out, used a butt connector to reconnect the wire to the relay, and hoped for the best. It worked fine and didn’t give us any more trouble.

Having talked to Rick from GV earlier about what the overdive was doing, he suggested the unit was low on fluid. As we went along, we looked for a place to get the car a bit up in the air to better access the filler hole. Bill remembered that Keith Craft was in Arkadelphia so he and Floyd figured out a good place for us to head to their place from our planned path which would also be easy to get back on track from. We visited the site and everyone was really nice there including the man himself who was busy putting valves into a head as he talked to us. We saw some wicked engines and a super sano work environment. No pictures of the inside as I figured we were already asking for a favor of using his lift and I didn’t want to potentially annoy him or risk exposing some super-secret process or project he had going on. Keith wound up being really cool though and allowed my car to go on the lift. With my new pump in hand, it was a simple exercise in adding fluid and we could once again be on our way. We headed back to the designated path where we left it, gassed up, had some late lunch, and got back on the road. We were now ready to head out with no further issues woohoo…or so we thought.

The further I get from that week the harder it is to remember the details but when we got to the Central Lanes Bowling Alley in Hot Springs AR, we met up with a bunch of guys taking a break and relaxing. So we did the same. I was talking to Randal about the fuse holder and he relayed that he had the same issue earlier. Since we were going to be kicking back for a bit, I asked him if he’d mind reaching down into the foot well and putting the new fuse holder in I’d picked up. I could have done it but it was painfully obvious how much easier a time he had fitting down there than I did. Gotta do something about that! Anyway, new fuse in so now we just hung out and talked for a bit enjoying the cool air and conversation.

The second photo stop of the night was about 111 miles away. We headed out following Doc, Jeff, and Randal for the next leg. It soon grew dark and we were following tail lights. At one point we were taking an exit and Jeff slowed and then pulled to the right. I wasn’t sure what was going on but didn’t realize he was stopping and kept going. We soon pulled off at a Valero and when Jeff got there, it turned out he had run out of gas and that’s why he was pulling over. He had some though so dumped it in and made it to the station where we were waiting. Somehow this stop turned into a social call and we stayed there for a while. We did eventually leave though and onward we went.

At about 11 pm the pace slowed as we rolled into a small town and Bill came to realize that he had no brakes, zip, nada, zero! He was stomping the bass drum but nothing was happening. He told us over the walkie talkie and when he had scrubbed enough speed, he coasted to a stop in a motel parking lot. We basically took over this lot with all the cars that pulled over to help. I feel for the people checked in who were trying to sleep. Fairly quickly, the hood was off and the car was up on 4 jackstands with wheels off and guys crawled around trying to figure out what happened with the brakes. My copilot Chad, admittedly one of the group with a bit less car knowledge, found the source of the brake fluid leak coming out of the connection to the proportioning valve. On further inspection, Bill found there was no way to fix it right then other than to try tightening it and rebleeding the brakes. He did that with Randal at the brake pedal inside and the car was soon back on the ground and packed up. We reached the photo stop just up the road and two groups of our DW cohorts were still there to ensure we didn’t get shived or shot in the shady looking site at 12:30 am. (yeah the stop took about 80 minutes) With pictures taken at the photo stop, we bailed outta there quickly.

We stopped for gas before jumping onto I-40 toward Memphis and the next event transpired. We were at a station with the lights off but were trying the pumps. They didn’t work so we looked to the ones across the street. Bill asked if I had any food and I told him I had some peanut butter crackers. It turned out that he wasn’t asking for himself. He had a new friend. A stray kitten had come up to him so I crushed them up in the package and poured them out. I then cut the bottom off an empty water bottle and poured some water in it for him. Another freeway traveler yelled across the street that those pumps were working so we moved our cars over. The next time I looked up after pumping gas in my car, Bill was holding the kitten. It had tried to cross the street in pursuit and he went out and grabbed it. Bill was worn out and soaked in brake fluid and sweat from the previously mentioned stop but he was not so tired to ignore the needy. And so the kitten took its place sleeping on Bills shoulder as he piloted the 1000+ hp Mustang down the road. We eventually made it to the hotel at around 2:40 am and we were exhausted. I figured we could spare an extra hour so told Chad we didn’t have to get up until 7:30.

[Dignlif]

the roasted fuse holder


Don't give an inch!


in front of Keith Crafts place as we left - I would love to someday have an engine from his shop!


Bill getting some advice from Keith?


the Bowling Alley

[Dignlif]

Party at Valero


Bills car with no brakes


Little DW's exhausted savior


getting into the hotel after 2:30 am

[Dignlif]

Thursday Update

Thursday

Well it wound up raining while we were asleep so we could have slept in longer had we known. I went down as usual to grab a bite and met up with Bill and little DW who was drinking some milk from a bowl.

I made my way out and started getting the water off the car as others did the same. Not sure if the runs were going to be cancelled, we went to the track anyway. Bill went in search of a ‘no kill’ shelter but had not luck. He showed up the track with little DW and a weeks supply of rations plus a carry case. I could already imagine stopping our trucks on the way home so he could have a ‘potty’ break at the rest stops.

Brian announced that we would indeed run so we prepped the car and at the same time Bill was fixing his brakes with parts from a local parts house. We actually got to make a pass at 11:28 so the delay wasn’t too awful bad. The air was really heavy in water still and the car ran 11.40 @ 118. Between my exhaustion and the likelihood I would not be able to improve my time much due to the air (my assumption since I was sooo tired), I called it and turned in that time slip so we could pack it up.

While we were prepping and making our passes, little DW had been hanging out in the tower with Tonya as she documented our time slips. It was there that others heard ‘the kitten story’ and he eventually found a home with a DragWeek couple who are really great people. Having spent their honeymoon on DragWeek (I believe that’s the story), it seemed a natural for them to keep DW as at least part of the kitten’s name.

And we’re off to the next town. This last leg of the loop returning us to Tulsa was set to be 415 miles but thankfully, a lot was freeway and my overdrive was once again working. 171 miles to the first stop. On average, we’d been stopping for gas every hundred miles and this remained the norm. Other than the never ending interior heat, the trip to the stop was less eventful. (as I remember it now) We did wind up leaving the track later though so it was dark by the time we got to the town for our first photo stop and wound up making a wrong turn. The crazy thing is that we wound up at a closed down Jake’s Fireworks which was the name of the business for our second stop. We got turned around and made it to the correct stop of David’s Burgers in Conway, Ar. We stopped briefly, took pictures of our cars there for proof, and headed out on the 236 mile drive to our final photo stop.

Things were going along fine until the rain started. We steadily lowered our speed and just kept it slow and steady. A couple of times I felt the back end float a bit on collected water in the road and it freaked me out a bit. We picked up some other guys along the way who were just coming back onto the freeway and for awhile they hung out behind me. We continued to slow as the rain gained momentum to the point that we couldn’t see much through the windshield. My sunroof was leaking a bit and I had to keep my window partially open to keep the windshield from fogging up. We finally slowed enough that the guys behind us wanted to go around so they did.

Within a couple miles, We came up to the group of cars on the side of the road and one of them was facing us on the shoulder. I pulled over just ahead of them, grabbed my BS hat, and we climbed out into the rain to help them out. We walked up to see the back of the car and the underside of the trailer as it was disconnected and laying on its side with the contents spread in the grass. It looked like the car had spun into a 180 and kinda sling-shotted/ flipped the trailer when the passenger wheel caught in the soft grass. One of the guys pushed the trailer back on its tires and we pushed it back onto the shoulder before reloading it. Once on paved road, we started loading everything from trans and torque converter to tools and other spare parts. It didn’t take long to find most of the stuff in the grass and fairly quickly the cover was back on the trailer and strapped down. While we were picking stuff up, the other guys were getting the car turned around and in front of the trailer. We rolled the trailer over to the car and they got it hooked back up. We double checked that they were as good as they could be for the moment and headed back to our car to hit the road again. Though we were now drenched from the down pour it didn’t feel bad, at least not to me. It had been so hot in the car that this had served to seriously cool me down.

I checked my phone and there was a text from Bill saying they hadn’t been able to stop quickly enough but pulled off at the next exit. I got my full harness on and headed back into the rain on the road. We came up to the exit and found the gas station where they were. We gave Bill and Floyd a breakdown of what we saw/ did, topped out on gas since we were there, and headed out.

We continued our careful trip to the final checkpoint, took our pictures in the rain, grabbed some gas again just to be sure and headed out to our hotels. It should have been easy but with the rain and a ton of construction it took some time. We eventually made it though and it was certainly a relief. That drive in the rain was really stressful. I don’t recall the time but it was somewhere in the am so although I wanted to hang out with the guys by the lobby, I needed to go sleep.

[Dignlif]

DW eating some bisquit


DW still grubbing it up


Floyd kitty sitting


I was checking the engine over and saw the missing header bolt. When I looked down at the mount for the sway bar on the frame rail, the bolt was just sitting there.


The wrong/ closed Jakes Fireworks


David's Burgers


The actual Jake's Fireworks stop


We finally made it to the hotel but many others still not there yet.

[Dignlif]

Friday and Saturday

Friday
I slept in until 8 or so and Chad was getting ready for his flight. He was flying out at 10 so needed to get to the airport by 9. He took pitty on me, or didn’t want another ride in ‘that damn Mustang’ and called a cab to take him to the airport. With my bud gone, I went and grabbed some food before heading to the track. I wasn’t in a great rush to get to the track with all the water still on the ground but I made my way there anyway.

I found a spot to pit and just started walking around talking to people and basically hanging out since it was still sprinkling and figured the day’s runs would be called. It eventually dried up a bit and they started trying to dry the track. Since it was looking like we might run, I emptied the car and swapped out the rear tires. As I emptied the car I found my racing/safety/fire (whatever they’re called) pants where I’d left them behind the rear seat. They were absolutely dripping wet soaked with water. Ok so I guess the sunroof leaks a bit more than I thought in super heavy rain. I’ll make sure to duct tape it shut for the drive home. I pulled them out and the wet jacket and wringed ‘em out and draped them over the seat to try and get some air drying. If we did run, I’d be wearing very wet pants and a slightly wet jacket. I left those to dry in the car and waited…and waited…and the rain started again in spurts and sprinkles…and so the day went but I did get to talk to a bunch of folks so that part was cool. Then they finally called the day BUT announced that it would be continued on Saturday. After calling home and discussing it with my ever cool wife, I decided to stay for the finish Saturday. We headed back to our hotels and I hung up my safety suit to dry properly in open air on hangers. A while later, Bill and Floyd picked me up in the truck and we went out to dinner with some of the other guys. I was still pretty run down so I hit the bed as soon we got back.

Saturday

I packed my stuff up in the room and loaded it into the truck. I had left the car at the track since it already had the track tires on it and I didn’t want to drive on those in the rain. I made my way back to the track it was still wet. We started the wait game again but eventually it cleared up and we started hearing about a noon time startup. Around noon or so I got into the staging lanes behind all the others already there and waited. The last thing we were waiting on was the lights or beams on the track not working properly and they wanted to get them fixed. I got to make my pass around 10 till 1 pm and it ran 11.47 @ 119. I wasn’t in contention for anything so I called it good and officially granted myself the sigh of relief coming from successfully completing my third DragWeek!

Now to load it all up and intermittently go watch cars making their passes. Like the terminally ill engine of Jeff and the injured players held within the two red cars of Doc and Jake. All were successful and stayed at the head of their class, Jeff even running a 9.99 pass on 7ish cylinders to keep the 9 second average alive to the end…incredible.

I got everything packed up and loaded with time to spare for the Awards Ceremony. There was a lot of good cheering for the winners and some jokes made on others. Doc brought out his hilarious jacket for Eddie Miller and had the place laughing again over it. It was all just about done when the raffle came up at the end. Brian called one winner for a complete Gear Vendors unit and he happily went up to retrieve it. When the second name was called I went into a bit of shock…Brian said I had won again. I won one of the GV drawings last year and now my name had been called again for the $3000 heavier duty model. I went up not really knowing what to do. I could certainly use the money of selling it to pay for this year’s great adventure. Instead I decided to let someone else enjoy the feeling of winning one and told GV CEO Rick to go ahead and draw another name. As I returned to my seat, folks shaking my hand, I heard Rick telling me he was giving me a lifetime warranty on the GV in my car. He didn’t have to do that and it was really cool of him. The ceremony finished up and we went about the customary signing of the Hotrod Dragweek banners that they hang in their offices.

It was already too late to leave so Bill contacted his hotel and booked us two rooms for us to stay Saturday night. We hit the road Sunday morning and started making good time home. When we got to Albuquerque Floyd noticed one of Bills trailer tires looking bad. The paranoia I’d felt with my trailer tires going bad and two of them blowing out came back. As we traveled further down the road, further inspection of the tires showed bulges that appeared to be belts separating in the side walls. It was eventually decided that Bill would replace his trailer tires with new as I had on the trip out. We stopped and had that done and hit the road again. We eventually stopped for the night to get some rest.

The next day (Monday) the drive went well and after a long day of driving, we eventually separated near Barstow where 15 and 58 meet. I made the right turn for 58 and headed to Bakersfield and 99 which would get me home. After almost 22 continuous hours in the truck, I made it home around 4 a.m. I was glad to be there and received a warm welcome. After a quick shower I headed to bed and simply collapsed.

I gotta thank Steve and Bob for once again being great friends and travel partners. Mike (Swede) it’s always cool seeing and talking to you and your boy, it was great meeting up again. I finally got to meet folks I’ve been talking with online and that was great! And finally Bill and Floyd thanks for all the laughs, advice, and general fun of hanging out. I look forward to meeting up at Famoso or other tracks in Cal. It was another great trip and I can’t wait until the next one. Yeah something is probably wrong with me and all the other guys that keep going back…until the next time - CYA

[Dignlif]

well said!


Award Ceremony


Micks car


Micks car


on the road home


such a long road home

[tsanchez]

Great recap, crazy week for sure.

[Bamfster]

Not only did you build a durable 'n reliable DW car, but you're a good writer too Rich. Very nice!

[TheSilverBuick]

Excellent write up and pictures Rich!