9/25 - 9am
That was another adventure. Gary and I and C and P left Friday around the time it got dark (we were supposed to leave at noon), but that didn't surprise me. What did surprise me was that the broken vehicle on the trip up to Kingman was the newest one in the pack...P's 1995 truck. It started making a wierd noise when we got close to phoenix, and it turned out to be a problem with the part that connects the driveshaft to the transfer case, and low oil level in the case letting it run dry and tearing up the bushing and seal. We left him in Phoenix where he has a good friend, and they did manage to get it fixed over the weekend.
The rest of us went on to our destination, and finally got settled in at a truck stop about a mile from the "action" at 4:30 am. C has an old bus that he converted into a nice motorhome (he's been living in it, behind his shop, since the his divorce last winter). It has all the comforts of home. After a few hours sleep we all got up and went over to the high school, which was being used as the pits for the races.
The drag racing was done on the main street right in front of the school, with bleachers set up on each side, an announcer, "christmas tree" starting light, barricades on each side, etc. For a group of amateur volunteers, they had a pretty nice setup! the strip was only 1/16 mile long instead of the regular 1/4 mile, mostly due to insurance requirements (top speeds were only a bit over 100 mph on the fastest cars this way, instead of over 200 mph)
On the way thru phoenix, my old chevy had a momentary loss of oil pressure, so I was concerned about it...I added another quart of oil, even though the dipstick showed it was still full, and didn't see the pressure drop again on the rest of the trip up. But when I was driving around town it did drop again, so I added another quart and decided not to try to race it, for fear of causing serious damage.
C's car mostly worked ok, we had to go buy a set of spark plugs becuase the ones in it got fouled--a long story involving a machine shop here screwing up the cylinder head he had them work on. But it was working well enough to race, he made two qualifying runs and made it into the 8 car field for eliminations. In the first round he was paired up with the other car from this area, which is a much quicker car, and lost.
The trip home was rather boring, nothing broke, so we made it home by dark yesterday.
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