Aly “Gater” takes on Heads Up Hustle
Aly “Gater” takes on Heads Up Hustle
Preface: Jeff Kurczak wrote the story below, I love it! Their family is one of my favorites as they are always having a great time, even though sometimes they are facing some serious adversity in these drag and drive events! Heads Up Hustle was a great opportunity for them to give Aly her first chance to drive in an event! I hope you enjoy this story as much as I have!
Once we made the decision to go to Head’s Up Hustle, we had to scramble to get Aly's Dart ready. And Nick didn't even have a complete motor for the Fairmont. The only one ready to go was Karen and her Mustang.
A bad torque converter kept the Dart out of Sick Summer so we needed a new one, fast. Mike at Trans Pro Transmissions quickly went through the trans and got us a usable converter to get us through the event. We stuck the new converter and 904 back in the Dart, gave it a quick test drive and loaded it up.
We were planning on leaving Thursday evening for Michigan but instead foundourselves now working on the new motor install in Nick's Fairmont until 1am. The car wouldn't fire but we think we had the problem narrowed down to spark plugs with too short of reach.
We decided we'd sleep a few hours and hit the road.
Nick was fortunate to have Butch offer to tow the Fairmont behind his motorhome so he caught a little more rest on the drive out. At our last fuel stop Nick ran to a parts store and grabbed the correct plugs and we continued east towards Milan. We got to the track, unloaded the cars. Nick and Butch got the plugs changed while Aly and I went to tech the Dart.
The Dart passed its first tech inspection and both the inspectors were Mopar guys and offered to answer any Mopar questions we might have, that would help us down the road. We went back to the pit to check on Nick and made it back in time to help him fire the Fairmont for the first time. We quick changed the tires on the Dart and headed to lanes before they closed.
I asked if Aly could ride with me on a shakedown pass since she had never been down a drag strip before. They let her ride along, we made a hit and everything felt good. Car ran a 14.71.
We came back around and she lined up against Karen to make her first solo hit ever. Aly decided to let the trans shift on its own while she got used to everything else.
She immediately went a 14.51 without my extra ballast in the seat.
By this point Nick made it up for his first pass and he and Aly got to line up together. Nick made an easy 12.50 shakedown pass and Aly made a 14.74 hit.
We start walking back to the pit and see what looks like the Dart bump-drafting the Fairmont through the pit. Turns out Nick ran out of fuel. More fallout from lack of sleep & last minute projects. Nick buys fuel from the track and gets the car fired then says it's running slightly hot. We decide to pull some timing and hit the road. Not even 15 minutes in he pulls over, car is well over 230°.
We check everything from the water pump forward and all seems right. We even cut the middle out of the thermostat to help improve flow. Temp kept spiking like earlier.
At this point we figure it's internal. Head gasket or intake gasket not letting water flow where it should. Karen ran Nick back and forth to Milan for truck and trailer/Fairmont recovery then back to our location on the route. We piled in the two cars and headed toward checkpoint 1.
Unfortunately we were so late arriving at the track, then leaving late combined with the Fairmont down time, both checkpoints were closed.
After the Fairmont dilemma, the rest of the drive was uneventful. We ate dinner on the hood of the Dart in a Loves parking lot in true drag & drive style then headed to the hotel and called it a night. Aly made it through her first day as a drag & drive competitor and she was pumped!
Day Two at Mid-Michigan
Day two had us at Mid-Michigan Motorplex. Andrew Hiestand made the drive up to hang out. Unfortunately he wasn't in his turbo boxtop but he was in an ultra rare G body Cutlass DIESEL! Definitely never saw one of those before.
On Aly's final pass on the previous day it sounded like the Dart hit the rev limiter so we figured we check the Pertronix distributor.
We thought we had it adjusted properly but her 1st pass told us different. We tried adjusting again and it still had an issue. We tried again and think it was set proper. Nick jumped in the saddle to give it a test. He pushed it through the lights once. Being used to his trans brake he got a bit aggressive with the throttle in staging.
He backed up and tried again. Manually shifting he went 13.98, the fastest pass for the Dart yet.
“between farm fields with an engine noise”
Aly gave it another shot but it stayed at 14.1.
We called it good, packed up and hit the road towards checkpoint 1, ice cream! We were early enough that we were with other racers at the checkpoint, which was nice.
When we left the checkpoint I again jumped in Karen's Mustang, Nick and Calie jumped in with Gator in her Dart. Over half way to the to the next stop the kids pulled off the 2 lane road onto a side road between farm fields with an engine noise.
Aly pulled the valve covers to find a pushrod went through a rocker on the driver's side. We put out a few calls but figured we'd be hard pressed to find a small block Mopar rocker arm or even a welder that late in the day on a Saturday. CT Performance was the next stop and I was told they'd have a welder so we pulled two rockers, two pushrods and the plug wire for that cylinder and ran it on 7.
The folks at CT Performance were awesome. They made quick work out of welding the rocker up and letting us pull the car inside to work on it. He said he didn't know how long it would hold but it would get me down the road.
We hit the road to the next checkpoint happy to be on 8 cylinders again. A little while later the noise came back. The weld let go. Aly pulled it apart again and put it back on 7 cylinders. About this time John-Paul called to see how we were doing with the rocker situation. I informed him of the fix and the breakdown again.
I told him about the tech guys at Milan and how they were big Mopar guys and offered to answer any questions. I said if someone would have a rocker arm, one of those two would be the guy. A short time later I get a call from the tech guy/Mopar man, Rob, from Milan. He asked what I need and said he'd call me back. About 20 minutes later Rob calls me and says he has what I need and tells me to head to Milan and he'll meet us there.
We get there as the sun is setting and Aly gets right to work pulling the valve cover. Rob shows up and promptly hands me an entire driver side rocker assembly and matching pushrods from a motor in his garage.
We bolt the parts to the motor, screw the valve cover on and fire it up. Perfect!
Rob refuses to take anything for his time or parts but tells us to pay it forward. I love the car community!
We hit a drive-thru for dinner and head to the hotel to "dine" on the Dart hood to keep the drag & drive tradition going. Narx spots us and comes out for a quick conversation and selfie. Always good to see his smiling face.
“new personal best and a goal of hers”
Sunday morning we grab some coffee and make the short drive to the track. All is well with the Dart so don't want to change anything mechanically so she can see improvements to her launch and shift points.
Aly heads up for her one and only test pass and she cracks off a 13.77 at 97.75mpg, a new personal best and a goal of hers to run a 13.
We head up for first round and the ladder puts her against the second fastest car in her class. The only chance of advancing to the next round would be if her opponent broke, and we don't wish that on anyone.
Aly does a solid burnout, gets staged without a problem and we wait for the lights to drop.
She hits a .477 on the tree and the little Dart is off!
The 1-2 shift sounds good and the rpms climb again. She hits the 2-3 shift just right and it looks like her and the car in the left lane are side by side as they motor towards the stripe.
After what seems like an eternity, the win light flashes and it's the left lane that came out on top.
But in Aly's loss it was her best pass to date. From the reaction time, to the 60 foot, to the ET and MPH. I was pumped! I've never been happier during a round loss.
Narx was on the PA conveying our victory in that loss, and with congrats and fist bumps from others along the way I headed to the pit to congratulate Aly on hitting her goal and a new personal best!
“We did it”
We did it. We put together a car from a mix of new and used parts, drove it roughly 370 miles, a portion of that on 7 cylinders.
We overcame some mechanical issues on the road. Made multiple passes for 3 days and improved over 1 second solely from Aly's driver improvement.
Heads Up Hustle will forever be in our memories as the place where Aly started her drag racing and drag & drive hobby lifestyle.
Thanks John-Paul and the whole Heads Up Hustle crew for a solid event and thank you Michael Narx for a great job on the mic and always keeping our group in mind.
Until next time...
Postface: Being able to call Aly's first event was an honor and I am sure that she will continue to make the Dart quicker. I look forward to seeing them soon. Until then, you can keep up with their adventures here (Jeff Kurczak, Nick Kurczak) and on IG as Kurczak_drag_drive_usa)
Photos provided by the Kurczak Family
