Last week and a bit of this years Texas trip

 So now we are two weeks down, and start to hope we haven't forgotten anything we had to do...like go to Walmart for more trinkets for home, make sure all our UPS/FedEx parcels have arrived ready for the trip home, because this time in 8 days...we need to be heading for the airport, and what a week we crammed in...Sunday was spent helping Charlie sort out his broken 3 w..had to get motor parts off to his engine builder, then spent the afternoon helping him with what he needed to take to the upcoming Pate Swap Meet..Loaded his trailer with his old Dodge track roadster, did a few touch-ups the pickup, like fitting a correct pair of 'glass rear fenders to the 34, rather than the A models that were on it...Monday was basically a catch up day of shopping, washing, and finishing loading ready for the swap...

 This is a pretty neat swap, if you decide to be there at the start, and take a swap site....or two or three....This year, they expanded the grounds to accept 9000 sites...(do the maths..9000 x $30 ...that's a bunch of money taken ...but where else can you get that scope of people and parts in a 5 day swap!....By taking the site, you can get in Wednesday...No Public, so we were able to cruise the rows in Les Ws pickup truck as it slowly started filling up..of course, with each row being about 1/2 mile long, and about 10 rows deep..it was hard to be everywhere to see the parts going up for sale....And indecision is a killer...something that you think...yes..no..maybe...turn your back and if it was desireable, it was gone! We didn't have the luxury of having a container pre-booked in Texas, as I have done in the past...If I had, there would have been many more parts secured...wheels and tyres was a good example....too big, too hard to move back to LA...yet the prices were all reasonable....me being an old drag racer...I spied an air shifted 5 speed Lenco, with scattershield, flywheel, clutch....$4000 ono....that would have been a great reseller I think back here...

 Most , but not all of the old Fords were overpriced, or maybe I am not just up with how the prices change from year to year...seems like any 32 steel coupe was over $30G, and Model A coupes seemed to have jumped from below !0,000 2 years ago, to more like $12-15, 000 this year. As you can see, the weather was great, and lots of water was consumed, and to give you an idea, once Thursday and Friday had the influx of buyers, and I was hauling my little wagon, I got to see 1/2 the rows closest to the Speedway on the Thursday, from 9 thru to 5, and Friday, I just about got every other row done by 5!.....it is so big, that I think IF I ever get the chance to go back, I would take one of those bigger U Haul trucks, and some type of bedding to sleep the night, as that is the only way you can guarantee you will see it all!

 Here's Les, moving on from the $32,000 steel 5 W project...seeing this shot reminds me of another problem...see the Porta Loos, or Kennys Kans, well they dropped them everywhere, not like last time I was here...so I'm thinking, if nature calls, and I have to get rid of the bad Burritto, I will be in luck.......not so...if they were near someones stand, a padlock was attached for exclusive use...there were a couple of times when my back teeth were floating, that I just managed to find a scarce one without the lock.....

 We had already planned not to go to Pate on the Saturday or Sunday, so come Friday arvo, that was it!..hope you had bought all the bits you needed, and thanks to Steve Coade for being there, and organising a U Haul trailer that we filled on Friday night, so he could hi-tail it back to LA on the Sunday...thanks again, Steve..
The other hiccup we had during Pate, was we noticed a water leak coming from about the bellhousing area on Les Ws Chev 1500..thanks to good friend Tim Cruze, he arranged some people in downtown Fort Worth to get it repaired in two days, so we could use it on the weekend.....trans had to be removed so the freeze plugs in the rear of the block could be changed...true to their word, and a not so good/not too bad considering invoice, the pickup was finished by 6pm Friday!

...So, first test for the truck, a 3 1/2 hour drive west to a race track just north of Shreveport, Louisianna, where our good friends, Camp and John Stanley were racing the "Worlds Fastest Cadillac" doorslammer, along with about 100 other teams....it was a spectacle, some had 550+ cubic inches and screw blowers, and ran 3.5 sec at 215 in the 1/8th mile...now that's a bunch of HP...probably 3500 HP!..then the nitrous cars had 6 and 700 cubes, while the really big mountain motor turbo/nitrous/elec injection had over 900 cubes..

 We were talking to one guy with a dragster, 700 cubes, three stages of nitrous, and a custom made SINGLE 4 barrel carb!...the carb was 2200CFM!.....Then there was a hiccup for our friends, on the last qualifier to get in the show, it broke a conrod, the subsequent explosion split the Lexan windscreen in two, broke the carbon fibre front in a few places, and the ensuing fire was scary, but out instantly thanks to onboard fire protection.....so we spent the rest of the night being fed margaritas and cold beer, got taken out to the startline to see the cars leave, Dougie even got taken up the tower so he could chat away on the loud speakers....it was a fun day/night, and even though we got lost getting there, we eventually had found the dragstrip.. had to get directions from a small town cop, got stopped at the gate by the ticket gals who just wanted to hear us talk "aussie", talked with the teams from Qatar, that were filming/beaming the race back live to the middle east, met lots of new friends, and we made it in one piece back to our motel that night..hic.

 Sunday was a bit of a different day, a pleasant 3 1/2 hour drive back to Fort Worth ended up taking nearly 10, because of all the stops we made...our first hold-up was just after about 11am., as there was a truck-rollover, and it took the two lanes of traffic over an hour to get past it..then we started googling more shops to look at, we wanted to go to a Western style shop, so first we tried was Bass Pro Shops east of Dallas...massive shop, but not much for us to buy......then across from Dallas to Fort Worth to find a Cavendars Boot Barn...well, another snail-pace drive in Sunday arvo traffic..(this is when I took that pic of the Trinity River I mentioned in the first part of these stories)..anyway, got to the shop, spent an hour, bought some parts, looked at the time, nearly 4 pm, and thought...we should go around the corner and take another look at the 32 coupe we saw two weeks ago....find the number...ring ring..Hello!...come around guys!

 So cool seeing a coupe, that this guy bought back in 1957, the title was with it still, and there doesn't appear to have been any damage to it ever in its life, no obvious repairs, so a great little car, that has now since changed hands, it was reasonably expensive, or reasonably priced, depending on which side of the fence you are on....

 I say this every time I go to USA...I wonder if this is my last trip to the States....I've been 14 times now, and everyone of them has been great, I've been in January, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September, and never had a bad time there....and as far as where I would go...it would have to be Texas, people are friendlier, more courteous, like most of them say, "welcome back anytime!"
Thanks for this trip must go to Les for pushing me to go along with him, and to Charlie Duran, who always makes us welcome at his home, and to Doug who came along, all good company....and if any of my US friends are reading this..thanks for making this another of my "trips of a lifetime!"

2nd week of our Texas trip..

 The Roundup sorta officially finished at 6 Saturday afternoon..but there were lots of parties at venues around Austin...we had decided to do dinner with friends, Kenny and Elsa from Houston, so went downtown to the restaurant...well, 1/2 hour later and the skies opened up..This shows how the weather can be so fickle around this time of year...two perfect days at the Fairgrounds, then it buckets down..We went around to the Austin Speed Shop party, but didn't bother getting out...too many people..nowhere to stand...so back to good 'ol Motel 6...
Sunday morning...what a difference...Sun was beating down already, as we headed back to Fort Worth..but I wanted to do a detour to one of my bucket-list places...LUCKENBACH...it's a little spot on the map, miles from nowhere, but any Saturday or Sunday, the place is packed for the music and atmosphere....stayed an hour...had the Cherry Lemonade...ate the sickly Funnel Cake..bought the trinkets, and away for Charlies house, cruising up the interstate through Marble Falls, Hico, Stephenville, and home.....Interesting that it was a picture-perfect day...then two days later, we heard that Stephenville and nearby Dublin had been hit with two tornados...it's a freaky place, as the weather can change in an instant, this time of year.
..So...we had a few days before making the trip back down south...so over to visit Sid and Tim Cruce at their holding yard in west Fort Worth...Tim has a tilt tray towtruck and that comes in handy, knowing someone that can pick up any cars we buy...this trip though..we didn't bother buying any...Tim and Syd had already started to pack their trailer for the upcoming Pate Swapmeet, so we relieved them of a few parts....

 We made the trip across to the far side of Dallas, to catch up with another of our Texan friends, George Owens..George lives out Forney way..complete opposite side from Charlies house, but the 2 hour drive to get there is always worth it...now here was a place where we could of used that tilt tray tow truck..George had lots for sale, including two good running GM cars, an early Pontiac coupe and a later Chev coupe..37 and a 48 from memory..(I don't know my GMs that well)....they were both very good condition, and not too bad at $12K Ponti,and $8K Chev, but in his barns, there were eaerly 283s and 327s, Flatheads of various years, 33 closed cab in pieces, early Ford front and rearends  scattered around...Doug even managed to buy a New Old Stock 34 Ford rear fender from him..like I say, once you have the connections, it amazes me what you stumble across in USA.

 So, come Thursday, it was time to do our Houston area trip, so we called by the local Enterprise rental car, and get our pre-ordered via the internet, "full size" for the 6 days....it was cheaper to get it for a week online..($290....the walk in rate was $85 a day!!)...anyway..we get there, and they say, "sorry, all we have left is this Hyandai ....unless you want to take one of those F150 crew cabs...you can have one at the same rate"......Hello..lets think about that for a micro second...now we knew we could buy parts on the trip, and not worry about how to get them back to Fort Worth....you get lucky sometimes...so 4 hours later, after the drive down Interstate 45, we called in to Bruces Rod Shop in Spring, just outside of Houston...well, if you ever get to meet the Burroughs family, get ready for some cool cars in their collection....thay have a showroom full on mostly 32s, as you can see in the pic. below.....And friendly...they say all Texans are friendly, and that is mostly true, but the Burroughs family go out of there way to talk...about their family, about their business, hot rodding in general, nice people! The rod shop covers many different buildings, some dedicated to building, some for finishing, some for storage, but a real eye opener if you get to Houston, its worth calling in!
After overstaying we left about 6:30...(daylight saving fools you)..we headed of to Kenny and Elsas to spend the night...

 We went over close by Spring to a really nice suburb called The Woodlands..that's where friends Kenny and Elsa live, and offered us the whole top floor of their huge house.......if I can use this as an example, of the difference in the economy and the price of homes in USA...this home is on the market at $450,000 and hasn't sold yet...5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, study, huge upstairs and downstairs lounges, huge kitchen, pool 2 car workshop, ...move this to Queensland and the price would be double in Brisbane..triple in Sydney...Texas is very affordable..

 The rain had started at The Woodlands...but we had a Motel booked over near the dragstrip, an 1/12 away, so we had to head there..Well, we get there, and even though it was overcast, there was only about 5 minutes of sprinkling rain, so we got to see all of the first day of qualifying at the NHRA Springnationals...as usual, we walked the pits, from one end to the other, a vast complex, but the amount of room the teams in the Pro categories take up was immense...16+ Fuel dragsters, 16+ Funny Cars, 16+Pro Stocks, then all the pro mods and Alky cars with their huge trailers....I can't even imagine the fuel bill just to get the tow rigs to an event, let alone the costs of the teams, the wages, the race cars are probably the cheapest part!!
 Went to our Motel, went back to the closest Dennys for dinner, and as we were leaving...the small world deal....we run into Robin Silk, the Kiwi who works at So-Cal Speedshop...he was driving John Reids 32 roadster...he was at the roundup, and we saw the car, but not him.....typical keen rodder, he was about to head back to LA next morning in his fenderless roadster..(wish we could do that here in Qld.)

 The Saturday morning, we were meant to go back to the NHRA race, but it was raing really heavy at our Motel..we waited an hour, the weather channel said tornados close by, and rain heading from the gulf over to the dragstrip area...so we decided to go back to Bruces Rod Shop anstead of getting wet all day...(as we later found out, the weather cleared and NHRA got all the runs in..like someone said, if you don't like the weather in Houston, just wait 5 minutes...)..so by 10am, we are back at the rod shop, and the sky above is picture perfect....we spent the next three hours buying anything that would fit in the back of our F series....and at 1, we hatched our next plan, to drive up to College Station.Bryan in the north west, where the so called "Blue Bonnet Rod Run" was on for three days...perfect weather for the 2  hour drive, but we did get lost a few times, had to slip into the local McDonalds carpark to get WiFi reception on our phones, and find the address, well, and hour later, we arrive at the car-park......WTF...one car there....and three vendors packing up...musn't have been a very good show, we had been prepared to stay the night assuming there would be some sort of car show/cruise night...but over a well neede Starbucks flat white, we decided to head back to Fort Worth as it was only 3 hours away. May as well sleep in our own beds..well, Charlies beds, I mean...So coming up on Fort Worth, we are near the I-287, which we know goes near the Kennedale dragstrip...we google it on the phone, and find there is a meeting there today......the fact that it was already about 7:3o by now didn't stop us..we had to show Doug how the little country drag strips work......

No rules almost!!..look at the people on the startline, the crowd don't just stay behind the fence, they mill around the cars , the burnout between them, they stand all the way up to about the middle of the race cars as they leave...no one seems to care....and Bet...money going everywhere....it is diffent from what we are used to in Aus.....anyway, by 9, we had seen all we needed, we headed up the hwy. to probably Whataburger for a late dinner before getting back to Willowpark...so our Houston trip didn't exactly go to plan, but new things were added that make it interesting, so all that is needed now is the push into the final week, which will take in Pate Swap as well as another dragmeet...more on this later.

A bit of a story on the Texas trip...

 




 Thought I might try something different, and talk about the recent trip to Texas....so we start off with just about missing our flight in Sydney...took so long to do the shuffle/shuttle from Domestic to International, that we were among the last 6 on board the A380 direct to Dallas/Fort Worth...16 hours later, into DFW, and Charlie Duran was waiting to pick us up, and start the three week adventure..first stop of course had to be at Heath Murrays shop in Fort Worth, to check progress on Les Ws sedan...Even though it was a proven running, driving hot rod...it had been built way back in the 70s, and some items needed attention,,,Heath installed a new Limeworks column, and went through checking other pieces..brakes, lights, etc...he knew we wanted to drive this sedan to the Lonestar Roundup down in Austin Texas, so it needed to be right!...As usual, Heath gotta done...so back to Charlies for the next day and get ready for trip.
So, Wednesday, we leave Willow Park for the short drive south to Granbury, where we would meet up with Mike Fee, and Dale Grau and his group of rod running buddies were all meeting there for dinner...we all stayed at the same motel, by this time, the group heading to Austin was about 20 of us...had a great dinner and as usual, meet n greet n talk hot rods for the night.....next day, the US guys were up and gone by 8 am....Les, Doug and I must have been in some other time zone, as we didn't get away until almost 9!!....And, we must have gone a different route...we took every country road that the GPS took us on to get to the Thursday kick -off BBQ...it was starting at midday.........we got there at 2pm.....not knowing the roads too well was our problem...got into a mess of roadworks somewhere near Austin....detoured over towards Round Rock...went up a few wrong roads, as the directions to Beyersville Hall was very sketchy....hardly any Texans knew where this place was.....we were within about 10 mile of it before we finally got the "go right here, take a left, up the road, ya cant miss it".......so off we go, and remember the old saying...never let a chance go by...well we did when the fuel gauge packed it in, and we trusted our instincts that we had enough fuel.....wrong!......ten mile short, the old 425 Olds gulped the last bit of go juice...Les went back a 1/2 mile for gas, and 20 minutes later, we were mobile....found the BBQ...ate what scraps of food were left...took some pics, met old and new friends, and 1 1/2 later...headed for our Motel 6, to get ready for the Fri/Sat Roundup...(re read this later, as my grandson is here, and I have to finish this later...)

 

Ok..he's asleep now...did I mention how cool the sedan was to drive...with three of us, and luggage for a week, the buggy spring front/semi elliptic rear drove like a dream.....the torque of the Olds saw us many times just leave the Muncie in top gear, and just lope away...a lot to be said for a big cube 4 speed car...and even though we ran out of gas with the dodgy gauge...it still didn't seem that expensive to run, even with dual quads...so..where were we...the group we had met in Granbury had all booked into the same Motel 6, only a short drive to the Travis County Fairgrounds...and as usual...world-wide...parking lot chats around the cars happened every morning and afternoon. Now, I'm going to jump ahead in time with these following photos, as we have seen this week the terrible floods in and around the area we were at...we were lucky to miss this rain event in the three weeks we were there...check the last two pics..you can see that Arch in both pics...same place, Trinty River in Dallas...a few weeks apart...

So..once the Roundup started on the Friday, we were there at 10 am to hit the swap meet area first, then spent the next two days looking at the cars...events like this never cease to amaze me at the following they get...vendors who drive 500 to 1000 mile to sell their bits, but entrants from one side of US to the other...all here for a two day event!..The swap was good, not like the Pate which I will talk about later, but to be able to see all the swap inside a huge shed was a bonus...no sun burn!...a big for sale are outside with about 100 cars on offer..then the 2 or 3000 entrants scattered around the grounds...was a good time of year to be in Texas, not too hot, not too cold..but there were already signs of what happened this week....Tornados were reported on the news nearly the whole 21 days we were there.....back to the Roundup...anything good in the swap was snatched up in the first 2 hours each day...but us aussies still pounce on items compared to our US friends...the fact that if they want something..there's always another swap next week or so...even simple things like pulleys ..so hard to find good genuine ones over here...(will continue later...little fella is up again..)

forget this pic....out of sequence...but it just shows how much old Ford parts are still around...mention what you are chasing...and you usually have a phone #, a map, or something to go track down these gems...one yard we went to many years ago just had a bunch of shipping containers sitting amongst all the wrecked out cars.....there was probably 100,000K of rare parts hoarded away inside....no one would ever know unless you were told....anyway..back to the Roundup...we walked for miles around the Fairgrounds, which helps when you are eating out every night....the food hasn't changed in all the years...excess of everything..and we hit up all the different ones we could find..Waffle House, Whataburger, Dennys, Crackerbarrel, Ihop, Applebees, Del Taco, R&K Café was our favourite in the first week, just good home style cooking...bill was usually about $40 with the tip for the three, or sometimes 4 of us, and what we left would have fed us all the next day...

So...the first 6 days.....Monday for arrival, go to get the 32 sedan, back to Charlies for our accommodation out at WillowPark, Tx, Tuesday, some WalMart shopping, some old cars to look at, some R&K for dinner, Wed..road trip to Granbury, Thursday, some back road rod-running to Austin, and Fri/Sat at the roundup...next instalment will be what we did the 2nd week.

So there you have it...21 days in Texas..

 So...there you have it....my three weeks in Texas with les , Doug, Charlie, and many more new and old friends....just some last minute things to do...

 Like go to Bass Pro Shops to buy just about anything you can think of in the sports/outdoors area..

 Beyond that huge glass wall...Lake Ray Hubbard...you can drive your boat up to the store, or get there by car like we did..

 multi story...boats for sale inside and out...

 themed/static displays/shooting galleries, food n drink, they have it all..

 heading back from Dallas to Fort Worth..

 missed the shot...new roads/bridges/overpasses going up everywhere in DFW

 last shop..Cavendars Boot City......a gazillion boots for sale, likewise clothing...

 found a Mussie for sale up the road....'67, 6 cylinder...maybe I coulda-woulda-shoulda...I can see Mrs T in this..

 same yard...an old deuce coupe..been in the family since 1957....but it changed hands on thius day....talk about a last minute purchase..

 same place..an unfinished roadster for sale..

 also, unfinished 40 coupe for sale...

 Fort Worth.....see you again one day..

 Monday we leave...last minute delivery from UPS..

 had the upholstery that Les was waiting on...

 Travis Coiunty Fairgrounds/Lone Star Roundup....thanks for the good times..