HOT ROD Drag Week 2017, powered by Dodge and presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive
Strictly speaking, the Spirit of Drag Week award is defined as someone who “most demonstrates a do-or-die attitude while helping others, showing good sportsmanship, and spreading the good will of Drag Week,” and this year we’re heavy on the latter. One of our favorite components of Drag Week is the international racing family that has developed over the past 13 years. These folk will do anything for each other across any number of borders and postal codes, and this year’s winner emphasizes how far that good will can spread.
“Montana” Dan Nissen is known for his big-block Chevrolet C20 pickup nearly as well as his selflessness in previous Drag Weeks, and that was apparent for 2017’s race when he introduced the “Week Wagon,” a 1983 Chevrolet Malibu destined for a greater cause—he didn’t know exactly what yet, but the ultimate idea was to auction the rolling chassis toward charity.
This ex–U.S. Forest Service Malibu wagon was actually the second purchase of Dan’s, as the first ended up being better suited to rusting back into the earth than racing. His brother, Mike, found the car listed on Pocatello, Idaho’s Craigslist for $350, and they were able to negotiate the former V6 Malibu wagon to $250 before dragging it back home to Havre, Montana. Even through the patina, the original Forest Service livery was still visible, so the car came with a built-in theme while fulfilling the beater-muscle-car look he liked in Aussie Harry Haig’s “Stevo” Chevelle, the orange-and-rust rapscallion with the turbos out the hood that ran Drag Week the past two years.
The idea was to build it low-buck with spare parts, with the venerable Jeep quick-ratio box and rag jointless steering-shaft upgrades complementing a front-end rebuild with new Speedway Motors control arms and refreshed steering assembly. Out back, Trick Chassis tubular links with heim joints replace the stamped-steel factory arms, which connect to a braced Ford 9-inch that spins 3.50 gears with a spool. Comp Engineering shocks serve duty on all four corners.
Progress started slowly on the wagon, however. Dan’s day job (and often night job) is working on high-voltage power lines as a lineman. It’s an unpredictable gig that often requires him to venture out into the Montana tundra in a bucket truck to save the day, and the conditions in the summer of 2016 meant that the wagon wasn’t going to make it to Drag Week that year. Instead, Dan rode along with Richard Guido, one of his close friends inside and out of Drag Week. Richard is known for his subtly belligerent, stick-shifted 1965 GTO as much as his relentlessly positive attitude (his brother, Bob, is a recipient of the Spirit of Drag Week award—it runs in the family). He’d take the six-hour trip from just north of Calgary, Alberta, to work on the wagon in Montana periodically.
Naturally, things still came to a crunch, and it was again Richard (along with his father) who came down just two weeks before they had to be at tech to help slam the last bits of the Week Wagon together, along with the help of fellow Canadians PJ Nadeau, Matt Blasco, and Dillon Merkl. The refreshed, 496ci big-block Chevy out of his C20 was buttoned up, and the last details for the livery—designed by Jeff Greer of Laser Works of Grand Island, Nebraska, and cut by Dylan Bergos at A Fine Line Auto Body in Malta, Montana—were put together, which playfully mocked Smokey Bear and the U.S. Forest Service. The Week Wagon was given a few miles worth of testing before being packed on a trailer for Cordova, Illinois.
Things looked promising on Day 1 of Drag Week. The wagon had repeated its 10.97 from the previous day’s test-’n’-tune, and Dan was just tinkering with the jetting. However, less than 30 miles into the day’s drive, the Week Wagon’s TH350 began to puke fluid. At first, they resealed the dipstick hoping that would keep the ship from sinking, but it began leaking again as the convoy made it to the first checkpoint at the Blue Moonlight Drive-In. This time, it was clear that the cooler lines were leaking at the transmission fittings, but no one had a wrench that could get into the space. Thankfully for Dan, a local plumber saw his plight and ran 16 miles round trip to grab a set of crowfoot wenches to tighten the fittings. With everything holding tight, the convoy made it to the next hotel by midnight. By Tuesday, things were looking up, with the Week Wagon churning out a respectable 11.03 before winding down the route from Madison to Byron, Illinois, with little drama.
Drag Week’s masochistic reality returned on Wednesday as the mystery TH350’s Second gear decided it was no longer a part of this world, resulting in a beleaguered 12.24 at Byron as the car shifted “like a Powerglide,” according to Dan, with the manual valvebody. Drag Weeker Greg Hurlbutt became a dispatcher for parts and help though social media, and he quickly lined Dan up with Michael and Phillip Roemer of Holeshot Parts and Performance in Waukegan, Illinois, to open up a two-post lift while simultaneously locating a spare transmission to throw in – these are the same guys who worked together to get Spirit of Drag Week 2017 winner Jeff Oppenheim’s new hood after his fiberglass unit melted when his El Camino caught fire. The Roemers essentially handed Dan and Greg the key to the shop that night, and the crew (consisting of Greg, Jeff, Phillip, Travis Ray, and Steve Haefner) worked with their Canadian cohorts to replace the temperamental TH350 that evening, making it the hotel before 10 pm.
By the time they got to Union Grove on Thursday morning, Dan knew the second transmission was toasty, but at least it had all three gears. Plus, they were back in the low-11s, just a few tenths of Monday’s baby-faced runs; by Drag Week standards, things were certainly looking up for the Week Wagon. Dan had one more drive to Cordova before making his final pass.
After a real night’s meal between Dan and his Canadian compadres, Friday was like a homecoming for the mint-green machine, with one last pass to complete Drag Week before auctioning the car to its new owner. The Week Wagon’s cause is supporting someone who’s a part of the Drag Week family—without having raced it. Scott Taylor, an Australian magazine editor who writes for Street Machine (and hosts Drag Challenge, a Down Under version of our hell week), is a good friend of the HRM staff and Drag Week racers after having covered the race for a number of years.
When Dan found out Scott was in need of a specialized van for his son, Alex, who suffers from cerebral palsy, he decided reach out to Scott and offer the Week Wagon as a charity program. Dan saw it as the ultimate way to spread Drag Week’s goodwill beyond hurling transmissions and engines back together. As soon as Dan posted the auction rules on the Facebook page he’d been running for the build, the infamous Harry Haig stepped in almost immediately. He refused to bid, instead offering cash on the spot for the car. In a sense, the Week Wagon came full circle: Dan was inspired by the beater bonanza enjoyed by Harry and his gang of Aussies while they built their field-found 1969 Chevelle SS for 2015 and 2016, and Harry was paying it forward to his fellow countryman by not only helping out Scott’s family but saving the Malibu as something of a Drag Week loaner for his fellow mates to visit the U.S. with and race.
They bought the Week Wagon for $6,000 before the sun set on Friday’s competition, completing Dan’s mission and cementing the Week Wagon in Drag Week lore. It’ll stay in the U.S., sharing a corner with Stevo the Chevelle at Drag Weeker Dustin Gardner’s shop, King Hot Rod and Restoration in Leavenworth, Kansas. We hear it might return in 2018 huffing some nitrous, but we can’t wait for the match race between Stevo and the Week Wagon next year! Better yet, we can’t wait to see the new Spirit of Drag Week trophy. After 13 years, the first one—featuring the cam from inaugural winner Steve Atwells’s 1968 Dart—has ran out of space and Dan is building one that features Bob Guido’s (Richard’s brother) roadside-swapped cam out of his 1969 Ford Mustang (from the when he won the Spirit of Drag Week in 2013). Not only that, Dan’s planning to build carrying cases for them so that they can travel safely across the world to anyone who watches over them, because that’s the kind of good dude he is.
The post Dan Nissen and the Expat Forest Service “Week Wagon” take Spirit of Drag Week appeared first on Hot Rod Network.