This weekend my co-worker Mike and I made the 800-mile trek to Tucson to attend the Roadkill Zip-Tie Drags. This is the closest any ZTD event is to our homes, so we decided it was worth the trip. I loaded my 1980 Grand Prix on to my trailer and towed it with my 2001 8.1L Suburban 2500; he loaded his 1964 El Camino onto his trailer and towed it with his 2000 5.3L Yukon XL 1500. We wanted to arrive at the track in Tucson by 4pm Friday, so we split the drive down over two days and left after a late lunch on Thursday.
Four hours later we stopped in St George, Utah for our first refueling:
I was very curious to compare economy notes. I remember back when I bought my Suburban, and my Jeep friends said the 5.3L, 6.0L and 8.1L engines all got essentially identical fuel economy while towing a Jeep on a trailer. That seemed to be true from various word-of-mouth reports, but here was a chance for actual side-by-side figures to tell the tale. After some quick math, the results were in: 12.06 mpg for Mike's 5.3L, and 11.65 mpg for my 8.1L big block. I guess you could say he was off to an early lead.
We drove another two hours, then stopped in northern Las Vegas for the night. Friday morning we continued on to Kingman, AZ for our next gas stop:
This leg of the trip had many more uphill climbs than Utah (which was predominantly downhill all the way), plus now there were crosswinds to deal with. I also decided to up our pace a little, which meant our engines were working harder. These factors combined to shrink the economy gap, dropping Mike to 9.79 mpg and me to 9.60 mpg. Okay, fine, my curiosity has been satisfied.
We were right on schedule with no time to spare, so you might think I'd resist any unnecessary side trips... but if you thought that, you don't know about my passion for Chino Bandido. So we drove through Phoenix rather than around it, and stopped for a late lunch. Mike was initially unconvinced; Chinese and Mexican food blended together, with Jamaican influence mixed in? But it only took a few bites for him to agree it was worth the detour.
While eating, I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity and suddenly realized I forgot to bring the correct lug nuts in order to install the drag slicks that I did bring with me. In a panic, we began searching for an O'Reilly Auto store, then went there to see if they had any on the shelf. I lucked out: they had three 4-packs in stock, and I bought them all. (Will I ever stop buying lug nuts for this car?!?)
By now it was obvious we were gonna be late--we were in the center of Phoenix and surrounded by Friday rush-hour traffic. We finally got to the track well after nightfall, and that's when I learned it didn't matter that we were late; when they had started racing a couple hours before our arrival, the third pass of the day (remember that) resulted in a car crashing into the wall, then ricocheting into the opposite wall, then it caught on fire. There was debris all across the track, and the driver had to be life-flighted to the local hospital. This took hours to clean up, and they were still cleaning when we arrived. We had lots of time to set up camp, unload, go through tech inspection, and get into the staging lanes to wait with everyone else. Eventually the racing did resume; the track's plan was to keep running cars until Freiburger and Finnegan arrived with the whole caravan from Los Angeles.
Here I am tightening my shiny new lug nuts:
At 10:04 pm I finally got to the front of the lanes and made a pass. I did a big burnout to heat up the tires, but when I let off the brake and then the gas to roll forward, the engine died. Oops--I quickly re-fired the car at the tree. I recalled the tech inspector had not been happy about my car not having a driveshaft loop to go with my slicks, so I decided I would launch very softly just to feel out the car. I got out of the hole with a 2.216 60-ft time, mission accomplished... and then things quickly went downhill. This carburetor (which I am borrowing from Mike) isn't exactly tuned properly for Utah, and it turns out it is way out of tune for the lower altitude of Tucson. The car bucked, sputtered, and coughed its way down the track--I'm sure many on-lookers thought it was only running on 5 or 6 cylinders. At the top of second gear, it wouldn't even rev high enough to upshift; I had to lift off the throttle for the trans to go to third gear, then reapply throttle to continue down the track. I was horrified; I was embarrassed; I was fearful of the countless insults which I was certain were going to come my way. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up to the timeslip shack and saw I had managed a 14.697 @ 94.43 MPH. Gee, it felt so much worse than that. (I desperately wanted to do something about the poor tune, but Mike didn't bring his carb jetting kit with him--I was screwed.)
Pulling back through the pits, I heard the PA system announce that the staging lanes were closed because Frieburger & crew had just arrived. So much for my Friday night racing. I parked and went to the stands to watch Mike. His FiTech EFI system had no problem with the altitude change, so I figured he might fare better than me. However, he was on street tires... at full 35 psi street pressure... and his air shocks were at full pressure, also. Never having been to a drag strip in his life, he didn't know to drive completely around the water, and he never did any sort of burnout to even clean off his tires. At the green, he simply floored it. Did he back pedal, or feather the throttle, or do any other thing to try to limit wheelspin? Not so much. He spun his tires for what seemed like half the track, generating a 2.637 short time on his way to a 15.136 @ 93.14 MPH.
Once the racing was done, F&F started a long Q&A session with the entire crowd. That was cool, and the guys were pretty jovial. But what was even better were the two dudes not involved in the Q&A, namely Lucky Costa and Steve Dulcich. These guys were just roaming around, hanging out in the middle of the crowd just like they were any other regular car guys. And that's what they are! Mike was in heaven when he had a 15-minute conversation about his El Camino with Lucky--they were discussing mods he has already made, how he did stuff verses other ways to do things, plus throwing out ideas for other changes and upgrades, etc. Lucky was genuinely listening and paying attention, because he asked follow up questions about remarks Mike had made ten minutes prior. Dulcich was doing the same thing with other attendees. These guys are so approachable and so laid back; they are everything you'd hope they might be after watching them in their videos.
At midnight the Q&A session finally ended and the celebrities called it for the night. Like most attendees, we were camping out at the track; in our case, we were sleeping in our respective tow vehicles. I moved much of my cargo into the Grand Prix's trunk, then set up my mat and sleeping bag and hit the sack.
Four hours later we stopped in St George, Utah for our first refueling:
I was very curious to compare economy notes. I remember back when I bought my Suburban, and my Jeep friends said the 5.3L, 6.0L and 8.1L engines all got essentially identical fuel economy while towing a Jeep on a trailer. That seemed to be true from various word-of-mouth reports, but here was a chance for actual side-by-side figures to tell the tale. After some quick math, the results were in: 12.06 mpg for Mike's 5.3L, and 11.65 mpg for my 8.1L big block. I guess you could say he was off to an early lead.
We drove another two hours, then stopped in northern Las Vegas for the night. Friday morning we continued on to Kingman, AZ for our next gas stop:
This leg of the trip had many more uphill climbs than Utah (which was predominantly downhill all the way), plus now there were crosswinds to deal with. I also decided to up our pace a little, which meant our engines were working harder. These factors combined to shrink the economy gap, dropping Mike to 9.79 mpg and me to 9.60 mpg. Okay, fine, my curiosity has been satisfied.
We were right on schedule with no time to spare, so you might think I'd resist any unnecessary side trips... but if you thought that, you don't know about my passion for Chino Bandido. So we drove through Phoenix rather than around it, and stopped for a late lunch. Mike was initially unconvinced; Chinese and Mexican food blended together, with Jamaican influence mixed in? But it only took a few bites for him to agree it was worth the detour.
While eating, I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity and suddenly realized I forgot to bring the correct lug nuts in order to install the drag slicks that I did bring with me. In a panic, we began searching for an O'Reilly Auto store, then went there to see if they had any on the shelf. I lucked out: they had three 4-packs in stock, and I bought them all. (Will I ever stop buying lug nuts for this car?!?)
By now it was obvious we were gonna be late--we were in the center of Phoenix and surrounded by Friday rush-hour traffic. We finally got to the track well after nightfall, and that's when I learned it didn't matter that we were late; when they had started racing a couple hours before our arrival, the third pass of the day (remember that) resulted in a car crashing into the wall, then ricocheting into the opposite wall, then it caught on fire. There was debris all across the track, and the driver had to be life-flighted to the local hospital. This took hours to clean up, and they were still cleaning when we arrived. We had lots of time to set up camp, unload, go through tech inspection, and get into the staging lanes to wait with everyone else. Eventually the racing did resume; the track's plan was to keep running cars until Freiburger and Finnegan arrived with the whole caravan from Los Angeles.
Here I am tightening my shiny new lug nuts:
At 10:04 pm I finally got to the front of the lanes and made a pass. I did a big burnout to heat up the tires, but when I let off the brake and then the gas to roll forward, the engine died. Oops--I quickly re-fired the car at the tree. I recalled the tech inspector had not been happy about my car not having a driveshaft loop to go with my slicks, so I decided I would launch very softly just to feel out the car. I got out of the hole with a 2.216 60-ft time, mission accomplished... and then things quickly went downhill. This carburetor (which I am borrowing from Mike) isn't exactly tuned properly for Utah, and it turns out it is way out of tune for the lower altitude of Tucson. The car bucked, sputtered, and coughed its way down the track--I'm sure many on-lookers thought it was only running on 5 or 6 cylinders. At the top of second gear, it wouldn't even rev high enough to upshift; I had to lift off the throttle for the trans to go to third gear, then reapply throttle to continue down the track. I was horrified; I was embarrassed; I was fearful of the countless insults which I was certain were going to come my way. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up to the timeslip shack and saw I had managed a 14.697 @ 94.43 MPH. Gee, it felt so much worse than that. (I desperately wanted to do something about the poor tune, but Mike didn't bring his carb jetting kit with him--I was screwed.)
Pulling back through the pits, I heard the PA system announce that the staging lanes were closed because Frieburger & crew had just arrived. So much for my Friday night racing. I parked and went to the stands to watch Mike. His FiTech EFI system had no problem with the altitude change, so I figured he might fare better than me. However, he was on street tires... at full 35 psi street pressure... and his air shocks were at full pressure, also. Never having been to a drag strip in his life, he didn't know to drive completely around the water, and he never did any sort of burnout to even clean off his tires. At the green, he simply floored it. Did he back pedal, or feather the throttle, or do any other thing to try to limit wheelspin? Not so much. He spun his tires for what seemed like half the track, generating a 2.637 short time on his way to a 15.136 @ 93.14 MPH.
Once the racing was done, F&F started a long Q&A session with the entire crowd. That was cool, and the guys were pretty jovial. But what was even better were the two dudes not involved in the Q&A, namely Lucky Costa and Steve Dulcich. These guys were just roaming around, hanging out in the middle of the crowd just like they were any other regular car guys. And that's what they are! Mike was in heaven when he had a 15-minute conversation about his El Camino with Lucky--they were discussing mods he has already made, how he did stuff verses other ways to do things, plus throwing out ideas for other changes and upgrades, etc. Lucky was genuinely listening and paying attention, because he asked follow up questions about remarks Mike had made ten minutes prior. Dulcich was doing the same thing with other attendees. These guys are so approachable and so laid back; they are everything you'd hope they might be after watching them in their videos.
At midnight the Q&A session finally ended and the celebrities called it for the night. Like most attendees, we were camping out at the track; in our case, we were sleeping in our respective tow vehicles. I moved much of my cargo into the Grand Prix's trunk, then set up my mat and sleeping bag and hit the sack.
