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.
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