After bidding a very fond farewell to zMax Raceway, it was time to head back west to Billy Meyer’s original supertrack outside of Dallas. I attended the inaugural race back in 1986, convincing my Air Force buddy Lee West that his Chevette could certainly last the one-way distance of 500 miles (it didn’t , but it made it 498 ½, so we hitched from there. (That is a very interesting story by itself; perhaps I can share it one day). Anyway, I returned in 1987, again in 1997 with Brent Cannon (we wanted to fly out and spectate at a race, and Shirley Muldowney was making a rare NHRA appearance there that year), and raced Dennis and Jimmy Gorney’s cars in both Super Gas and Super Comp in 1998 (I had won the Winternationals in their dragster that year). Dallas also was my first race in Funny Car in ’06. Additionally, I raced Top Fuel there in 2005. All this, and I’d never seen a win light in my lane!

Our trip to Dallas was pretty uneventful, though I do think we hit every bug in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, as the front of the coach looked like an entomologist’s lab project. My dad and his girlfriend Terri live in Arlington, about 40 miles from the track. Our plan was to get the RV washed (I really would rather have done it myself, but the bugs were pretty thick), park at the track, and pack up laundry and Jason to go spend the night with Terri and Grandpa. Our first project, the wash, didn’t go exactly how we planned it; the Blue Beacon had a wait of more than two hours, as many of the race teams had the same idea as us. Frank Dischbein, cylinder head dude on Doug Kalitta’s car, was in their rig next to us. I drove Frank’s Top Alcohol dragster for a couple of years, and he hung out with us in the motorhome and made the wait in line a bit quicker. Once we pulled in, I paid for the “deluxe” wash, including the Rain-X treatment (which apparently is designed to make the streaks from the wash slightly darker and your wallet $12 lighter). Hell, throw in another $12 and they’ll wash the PT. So, $59 later we discover just how much water can be blasted under the side awning, which apparently drains through the under-cabinet light fixtures onto the sofa. It was a real testament to Jenna’s flexibility to see her handle two pots under the lights and try to keep Jason from playing in the waterfall!

Once that emergency was handled we headed around the corner to “diesel-up” (more grammatically correct than “gas-up” in this case) at the Flyin’ J. Disliking the water spots and streaks after dolling out bucks for the wash, I hit the RV with the chamois. As I walked back to do likewise to the PT, it became apparent that someone overlooked washing it. Oops! After two calls to Blue Beacon and trying to explain that we were now two hours behind and couldn’t come back to have the paid-for work done, I wasn’t getting anywhere. Next time I’ll let Jason handle the phone complaints, as he has really been brushing up on his handset etiquette.

We got the laundry done (like I even remember how to do laundry!) and went out for some barbeque. We had a small party of about 41 folks there, as my dad invited anyone who could make it. It was nice to see many familiar faces, and many of these people have been great supporters this year, even when we were sucking pretty badly.

Bill and Karen Taylor in Arlington have become good friends of my dad and me since pops and Bill worked together at Bell. Bill arranged a shop tour of Ed Mabry’s chassis shop in Fort Worth the next day, and I really enjoyed myself. Ed once was a partner with and drove the Top Fueler of Vance Hunt WAY BACK in “the day”, and he has built cars for many of the stars of the sport. Though he now devotes nearly all of his time to Bonneville motorcycles, his scrapbook of drag race stuff was phenomenal. I tried to take photos of some of the best stuff in there, and there was plenty: the shot of Vance and Ed with a state-of-the-art ’58 Top Fueler reveals no supercharger, but six nitro-fed Stromberg 97 carbs atop a Crower U-Fab intake manifold. The cover of the ’59 Drag News (which predates National DRAGSTER and at the time was THE source for weekly drag results) -- at a whopping 20 cents per copy -- features Ed driving the now-supercharged (a top-mount as compared to the other dragster which has a front-mounted GMC 6-71 unit) Top Eliminator (nitro was still banned by the NHRA and “Top Fuel” technically wasn’t a category as of yet) Fuel burner at Inyokern Dragstrip. I raced many times there, at what was then the longest continually operated dragstrip in the world, until its’ closing several years ago.

Another photo that really caught my attention was one of a group taken (according to the notes scribbled on it) at a restaurant in Bakersfield in 1958. It features the Iskendarian brothers, Bobby Langley, Ed Mabry, and Tony Waters, among others.

Aside from the cool twin-engine, single turbocharged Triumph land-speed bike, I thought the coolest thing in Ed’s shop was his trophy from 1956. Awarded by the North Texas Timing Association for winning “Open Gas” at the Caddo Mills regional sanctioned meet, those races were the forerunners of today’s national events. Bill snapped this photo of Ed and me with that old, dusty, priceless trophy.

Qualifying went very well for us at Dallas, though I thought it was difficult to see well on the night run with the available track lighting. We ran our first ".0” in the 1000-foot era, a 4.099 that landed us fifth. We need to keep qualifying in the top half if we are to contend for the championship, as those precious few points could make all the difference come Pomona. We got past Jim Head and Gary Densham before falling to Tony Pedregon in the semis. I staged shallow for all qualifying runs (more rollout equals a quicker ET) and for the first two rounds to maintain lane choice. Though Tony clearly rolled in further than I in round three, he absolutely did his job and had a stellar light. My .099 was my best of the weekend, and I guarantee the rollout at Texas wasn’t what it should have been. One look at the “team” qualifying sheets (which list every run by each car, including all incremental times) and you could see a marked difference from almost all other events: real slow reaction times and super quick 60 foot clockings. Still, Tony beat us with a slower time, so it goes in the archives as a holeshot loss. Though we dropped one position –to third- in the points chase, we are less than two rounds behind Timmy for the lead, and we’re looking good.

The other highlight of the Dallas race is the annual DRAW auction. I purchased a long-play record album from the 1963 Winternationals and a brick. Not building material-type brick, but the ones that are awarded to winners of the Dallas race and laid in the ground near the starting line. While renovating several years ago, many bricks were replaced. I bought V. Gaines' 2000 victory brick, his first Pro Stock win. I gave it to V. Sunday morning after the driver intros, and I hope he likes it. He is one classy guy, and has been wonderful to me over the years. I hope someday one of you will buy all of the bricks from my wins at the Motorplex, and I hope it takes a wheel barrow to transport them all!

Next blog will feature the road to Memphis, so stay tuned!