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!"
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