Featured Hot Rods Project X project headed to the Duct Tape Drags

I'm not too familiar with tow vehicles. I've used my 95 Caprice wagon for towing locally and it's worked fine, but for this trip I tried this Duramax deal. I gotta say I'm really impressed. It's a towin machine! We get to track about 6 PM and it was already dark. Should have planned that better. We off load the car and lock up the trailer and head back to the hotel. Now I wasn't expecting too much from a $64 a night hotel and this didn't disappoint. We pull in and go into the office just in time to hear a young lady nearly in tears on her phone to her significant other pleading, right in front of the person at the desk, " They opened the door and I gagged at the smell. It was so bad! Can't we find another room please? I can't stay here!" I shoot my friend a glance and mouth "I hope we don't get that room". Fortunately, we didn't get that one, well I don't think we did. Then again , maybe we did. Anyway, we go on to the room and it smells of stale cigarettes and maybe , vomit? But after a few minutes, we acclimate and it's not too bad. It was clean(ish) at least. I did order 2 beds and it had just one but fortunately my buddy brought his sleeping bag and air mattress so he was probably going to have a better sleeping experience than I was . After a quick inventory of the accommodations I notice there's no toilet paper so I run back to the office and get some and ask if we could get a room with 2 beds. The clerk says they are sold out and maybe tomorrow night they can switch us. Not the end of the world . I go back to the room and take a shower. No shampoo. Bar soap only. Note to self, get shampoo tomorrow from the office. The next morning, I'm awakened by a strobing light in the room. As I laying there I'm thinking "what is happening? where is that coming from." It turns out the room is on the east side of the hotel and below the freeway. As the trucks pass between the rising sun and the room window it momentarily blocks the sun and creates a strobing effect. Weird. Just adds more character to the place I suppose. As we walk out to the truck, we notice this partially stripped car parked nearby with plates that expired 5 months ago and sitting on the ground. It made me question my judgment even more.

 

Man oh man! Now I understand Fridays mood. JK

 

Loving the garbage camo inside the camper shell. Haven't even gotten to the race part and I'm already hooked on this story.

 

We get to the track and the place is filling up. There's not much happening until evening so we set up our spot and check out the place in the daylight. We brought out vintage String-Rays to get around on and it was one of the best decisions we made. The place is big. I would have run out of steam real quick on foot. We are in the "Uncle Dan's Tri-Five Showdown" so I've got until 6 PM. I didn't take pictures of most of the stuff because you can get on YouTube and see it all. The car was getting it's share of attention. Lot's of people taking pictures and video.

 

Tucson is one of those towns where you don't want to stay in any hotels that are on the freeway

 

Sure Now you tell him. LOL
Dan

 

heh...I thought you could tell by looking at them. But that's probably a skill that takes a lot of road trips in old cars to develop!

this was my favorite, it's been torn down since I stayed there in 2018. In Gila Bend, along I8.

 

prob should have even been cheaper than 35!--

 

Man can you imagine what the place looks like with a black light?!?

 

Reminds me of a hotel that was shut down in Des Moines, Iowa because some government agencies went in and really checked the place out. There was over one hundred different simon stains on the bedspread alone and the blanket was even worse. The mattress was full of bedbugs but the room actually looked decent. But the article made me have second thoughts about renting a room, I don’t go for the cheapest option anymore, I guess I like thinking I’m getting a cleaner room but I don’t know…

 

Hope your itching to race just not the other kind of itching...

Yeah you knocked that Tribute right outta the park...high fives and a seven racing in the competition. They were a natural for the 1/4 mile...

 

With 6:00 approaching I uncap the headers and check the tire pressure. Because these are new wheels and are not drilled for screws to prevent the tires from slipping on the rims, I decide to run 20 psi. If they were screwed I wounld probably run 10, but the last thing I need is to spin the tire on the rim and tear the valve stem out. I already had changed plugs and checked timing back at home. I fire it up for the first time with open headers. Sounds goood!. I grab my helmet and head over to the staging lanes. Things are about to get real.

 

We slowly creep forward until it's finally my turn. The car fires instantly and I pull into the water box. I do a small burnout to heat the tires and move forward. The car next to me is a blown 55 Gasser. I plan on making an easy pass...right until the lights begin to come down! I launch at about 5 grand and the car does this weird hop,hop,hop as the suspension loads and unloads. Then it digs in and pulls hard. I tree the gasser and manage to stay ahead of him until about mid track. The trans shifts great. 2nd, 3rd, 4th. It handles good at speed. The shutdown is loooong. I heard 1/2 mile and I believe it. I pick up the time slip and return to the pits. I'm a little disappointed with the results. Besides the poor launch it felt pretty good but the slip reds 12.4 . Not the high 11 sec ET I was hoping for. But it's a starting point nonetheless.

 

Maybe my "Butt Dyno" is out of calibration. I skipped the next session to let the car cool a bit and lower the tires to 17 PSI. They soon call the Tri 5s up and I return to the lanes. I think maybe with a bit less pressure, the tires will compress a little and not bounce as much. Soon I'm called up to the line again and do my burnout. The tree starts down and the RPM's go up. The launch is noticeably better this time and I grab second gear. "This is more like it" I thought. 6500 and I pound 3rd....and the RPM stays the same. The clutch is slipping. CRAP! I let off and then get back on it. It works now. I ponder the situation back to the pits and decide not to chance burning the clutch anymore. I don't want to work on this thing this winter. The 60 foot was better, and I believe with a little practice, I could whittle the ET down a tenth or two. That would compare favorably with the Magazine car. They ran a 12.3 the first time out with the original car. And that was at a much lower altitude. The density altitude was 5000 feet in Tucson. The NHRA correction factor for that is .9380. 12.4 x .9380 is 11.63. That seems pretty optimistic, but I'm surely within swinging distance of the real cars performance back then. I'm a little disappointed, but the car's not broken, so it could be much worse. We hang out until 10 or so and head back to the hotel. We get back to the hotel and I run down to the office to see if we can get a room with 2 beds. There, we run into a couple of Aussies. They came all the way to see the race. That's dedication! The clerk can't find their reservations, so the Aussies are on the phone to Australia to try and get the numbers from home. We talk for 1/2 hour as they try to get it cleared up. I offered our floor, but they wisely turned us down. They end up finding another hotel up the road. Odds are it was considerably better. The clerk says there are no other rooms so we're stuck with the one bed deal again. Well, it's better than sleeping in the truck, maybe.

 

There’s something about your car that validates my youth, I was in grade school in the sixties and we had car magazines in the library and that’s where my first exposure to Project X was. The version you have built is what I remember, that and the articles about GTOs and Super Stock big block Mustangs along with the stories of my cousin street racing his GTO was the spark for my drag racing interests over the last sixty years.
So thanks for the memories just never put a damn electric motor in it.

 

At least half a second slower in Tucson, than where there's good air. 12s in Tucson is pretty good!

Bummer about the clutch!

 

Watched that pass. Didn’t stay track side very long. Got inpatient with how long the staging was taking.

 

Saturday morning and as we walk out of the hotel, we encounter a guy digging around in the dumpster next to the truck. The early bird gets the worm, I guess. With my racing over, I'm sitting at our camp and fellow HAMBER Johnny Gee walks up and we talk for quite a while. He tells me about his cars and we have a good visit. He tells me about Jim "squirrel" Forbes being there, so I set out on my bike and locate him in the tech line. We have a nice talk and I check out his Wagoneer. There was some really off-the-wall stuff there. It was pretty fun seeing what other people could throw together. They had an autograph session at 3:00 with Frieburger, Lucky Costa and Deric from Vice Grip Garage. I got Deric's signature on my toilet seat lid and on the T shirt I was wearing.