At the St. Louis Race two weeks ago, I’d changed the Slicks on the wagon to 33″ from 31″ 10.5Ws. I’d also taken the Thug to a friend in Louisiana to fix a trailer incident from two years earlier.

Yesterday I went and fetched the Thug back, all purdy again.

While the Thug was visiting in Louisiana, I ordered a set of 33″ slicks for it and I also ordered a set of 29″ front runners to replace the 28″ I was running on the wagon. The headers were catching on the gap between the door and trailer box when loading & unloading, and I’m hoping this 1″ lift will make the difference in that. This morning I jacked them up and removed the wheels.

I have bud from my softball playing days (I played on Discount Tires team for the last 6-7 years that I played) who manages a Discount Tire, and he mounted the tires for me.

Back at the shop, I cleaned a dozen years of scumotes (rubber, brake dust, dirt, weight adhesive) from the backside of the wheels. I never have a chance to clean the wheels when the tires get changed at the track. I duct taped the weights on and set the bead screws back in.

While they were off the car, it was a good time for an overdue Polishing,

They polished up pretty good for as old and nasty as they were. It took a couple of hours and half a bottle of White Diamond. I still need to clean the polish off the tires.

I’ll be leaving in about 10 days for a race in Eu Claire, Wisconsin and then Columbus, Ohio the following weekend. I still need to change the rockers from Jesels to TDs and swap out the belts in the wagon. On the Thug, I need to fix a timing issue (the timing keeps dropping – but the distributor isn’t moving), change a leaking transmission pan, change the plugs, make a new set of Taylor 409 10.4mm plug wires, and mount some real nice billet valve cover mounted wire Looms. Then clean up both cars and load them up.

Both races have a separate Saturday and Sunday races, so my plan is to run one car on Saturday and the other on Sunday.