Friday September 7
My goals for the week are ambitious:
1. Finish the week (so I can enter the stick shift shootout)
2. Make the quick 32 Street Machine Eliminator field
3. Run 10s at every track
4. One pass and hit the road every day
5. Beat the previous Jeep single pass record of 10.68
6. Beat the previous Jeep record average of 10.96
7. Maintain a sealed hood for the whole week
Fresh wash job, fully packed and ready to go. My trusty copilot Mike took a half day and we hit the road at about 2:00 in the afternoon. Only have to go 818 miles to the first track.
First roadside fix. The heater duct hose came off up under the dash. Kind of important with the rain we were driving through. Thankfully we had some duct tape (and swingout door bars). Mike got it fixed up while I was fueling up.
Stopped at another gas station down the road to meet up with some Drag Weekers and drew in a bunch of other car enthusiasts.
There's the guys we were looking for, Tracy and Todd. Tracy has the sweet '70 Olds 442 that's in some pictures later on. We decided to follow them to Atlanta and play the drive by ear. This drive shall be known from this point on as the Drag Week Death March.
Cool trailer of cars we passed.
Next roadside fix. Found the source of the wet carpet, the fresh air vents were leaking water. So, another opportunity for a duct tape fix. Glad we found this before we had to seal the hood for the week.
We continued driving through the night. Got about an hour's sleep at a truck stop in ??? at maybe 1 or 2 am? Then stopped again for a couple hours at an old school gas station at around 6am. This was one of the cool old vehicles we checked out when we woke up.
First food stop for breakfast.
And we made it to Atlanta Dragway sometime (maybe noon-ish?) on Saturday. Tracy wanted to make a couple test passes and check-in wasn't until 3pm at our hotel so we stayed for a while.
Only injury of Drag Week. Left the track with the intentions of going straight to the hotel and sleeping for about 12 hours. Well, the tailgate window was stuck in the down position. Can't access the motor or any of the wiring with the window down, huge pain in the butt job. In the process of removing the motor, the spring loaded lift arm got me. Finally got the issue troubleshooted and made it to a store for some bandaids.
Finally at the hotel. Took a shower, got some food, and checked out the other racers. Lots of wrenching still going on with registration less than 12 hours away. The tons of wiring stuff we packed came in really handy, there were a lot of people in need that night.
