For the Adventure – Michael Heston Tackles Sick Week 2024 with a Pair of Ford Gassers
“I ended up spending several days in the hospital feeling fine after they got my heartbeat into regular rhythm. During my stay in the hospital, I started to reevaluate my life choices.
I decided it was time for a job change and an ‘attitude towards’ living change. You know the saying? ‘Get busy living or get busy dying.’”
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This week’s “For the Adventure – Stories from the Road” comes from Michael Heston about his change of living, getting into drag-and-drives, and about his and his father Roger’s 2024 Sick Week Presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive adventure:
It was a Sunday in July. We spent the day at my parents’ house swimming, and I was on my way back home when I started feeling bad. I could feel twisting in my chest and as I drove home; I felt like I was going to pass out.
I decided to go to a volunteer fire department that was nearby to ask for help. Fortunately, even though it wasn't open that day, there was a sheriff's deputy sitting in the parking lot. They immediately called an ambulance, and I was taken to the hospital for a fast heartbeat. 250 plus beats per minute (BPM).
I was diagnosed with SVTs (not the Ford kind, although I also am infected with that…). I ended up spending several days in the hospital feeling fine after they got my heartbeat into regular rhythm.
During my stay in the hospital, I started to reevaluate my life choices. I decided it was time for a job change and an ‘attitude towards’ living change. You know the saying? ‘Get busy living or get busy dying.’
I had been a global manager for a tier 1 automotive company for several years, which required me to travel all over the world, and included a lot of time away from my three daughters.
While hospitalized, I thought about all the things that I wanted to accomplish. Realizing that I was nearing 50, and hadn't done most of them.
I ended up having an ablation procedure to burn the nerve that was short circuited. I likened it to being on an engine dyno. I was wide awake while they shocked my heart, and introduced synthetic adrenaline to ramp my heart up to 300 BPM. UNCOMFORTABLE to say the least.
As soon as I got out of the hospital, I took my daughters on a long vacation, and notified my friends that we were going to go to SEMA (an item on my bucket list). Whether they planned on going or not. We went to SEMA, and then we also went to Bonneville for Speedweek.
I changed jobs, and seriously put a plan together to finally build that drag-and-drive car that I always wanted. I had purchased a 1965 Fairlane out of Arizona a few years before my medical issue, and actually had already gathered a lot of the parts necessary.
We then rallied the troops to get to putting together the Fairlane for us to go to Hot Rod Drag Week in 2019. I registered the car, and we were off. We had a group chat that I then renamed “The Bucket List Mob”
Unfortunately for my friends, nothing I do is the smart or easy way, so the car was built with a 331 Ford small block with real mechanical injection, an AOD, hidden radiators, and an alternator on the rear end.
By the way, probably all the worst things you could do for a drag-and-drive car. But I wanted a certain look.
After a ton of long nights and too many credit card statements, we were able to get the car up and running. That day was literally the day we were supposed to leave to head to Virginia for the race.
We raced on the first day and headed out, only to immediately have a ton of small issues pop up during our drives the entire night. Bolts coming loose, air pockets in the cooling system, electrical gremlins all took their toll.
We got to the first checkpoint at 4:00 a.m., and the second checkpoint at 7:00 a.m. We got to our hotel at 9:00 a.m. to catch a couple hours of sleep, only to realize that the first day at Virginia was only longer because of a rain delay, and that we needed to get to the racetrack ASAP to get in our run. Thanks Jim Wade for saving us!
We all jumped up, and rushed to the track to get in a pass. I think we were literally the last car to run! We didn't even change to our slicks. We also loosened three rocker arms on the pass only to lose one of the rocker arm nuts on top of the header. We finally found said rocker arm two hours later. It was an abysmal ET again, but we made it.
We left with probably 10 cars in the parking lot to go back to our hotel and get all of the stuff we left behind in our flurry to get to the track.
We drove all night again fighting small issues and trying to find E85 stations on the course, only to realize that we needed to drive 100 miles off course to get E85, and then 100 miles back on course.
Of course, we fought charging issues, and lack of enough gas cans to get us from A to B. Why wouldn’t we? 6 MPG will do that.
Late night trip to Walmart for two more batteries and another battery charger and four more gas cans and we were off again. We got to our hotel this night at 4:00 a.m. Much better!
The third day we ran even slower ETs, with Freiburger saying the car was ‘devastatingly slow’ …and it was. What is going on? That drive on the third day was the first time we saw any other Drag Weekers. And the only problem we had was a leaky o-ring.
We talked to another Drag Weeker; he asked about our fuel filter. By the way…we knew nearly nothing about mechanical injection and neither did any other Drag Weeker. So, I inspected the filter to find out that we had been sold a paper filter when it was supposed to be a stainless filter. A big no no for mechanical injection.
We believed that we were fighting a rich condition, when actually we were actually fighting a lean condition. We ran out of time and hadn’t hooked up the O2 sensor to our gauge. I ordered the correct filter to be delivered to the hotel for the last day.
We ran the car without the filter for our pass, picking up nearly four seconds. That was it! The fourth day driving was amazing, driving with all the other Drag Weekers around, stopping and talking to other people, and seeing all the cool cars.
On the last day racing, we had our new filter and ran fairly well. We were making serious headway. Some enrichment changes and we picked up even more.
In the meantime, they had announced over the PA that because of racer fallout, we were actually third in B/Gas! No way! For a bunch of guys just trying to survive, we were ecstatic. Apparently, we were also the first mechanically injected car to survive Drag Week.
2019 was hard. But the bond between us friends along with my dad made us resolute in returning. I wouldn't call it a Cinderella story, but our car was chosen for the cover on Hot Rod’s website at the announcement for the 2020 tracks, and even Mike Galimi interviewed us for the Hot Rod tech/registration video. It really doesn't get any better than that!
This was about spending time together with friends and my dad. He was in his 70s. Immediately after getting home, we started planning for next year, with a more powerful SBF but of course we all know what happened.
And then 2021 I had fallen ill with it the week before Drag Week 2021. 2 missed years.
I then decided to put a big block in the car, and only through a friend's insistence (thanks Rich), keep the mechanical injection. As he said, ‘The car was known for that.’ Two years of different engine builders taking my money and not producing anything, and in fact one of them closing the doors, I finally had another engine.
C&C Motorsports built the bottom end as a 545 cubic inch big block Ford, and I sourced an intake manifold from eBay, as they are unobtanium for a 460 based Ford. I found one for a DRCE Olds and modified to fit the Trick Flow heads.
A beefier transmission was ordered out of Silver Fox performance. It’s an AOD with lockup rated for 950 HP! We cut the bell housing off, and a call to find that JW had one just one more bellhousing for an AOD to Big block Ford.
Unfortunately, one more time we were not able to work it out with yet another engine shop to get the engine dyno’d. It must be tuned not only for racing, but for the long drives.
Four days before Drag Week 2023, we had to throw in the towel as the car wouldn't even idle. So, we contacted another engine builder/dyno service 5 hours away in Eastern Pennsylvania. I took the engine there, and they changed a ton of things that were recommended by others.
This included different injectors and a smaller fuel pump. The engine made over 910 horsepower on E85 and idled beautifully. Thanks Belmit Development!
Unfortunately, with Drag Week 2023 in the rear view, it would be another year before we could get out with Hot Rod. We decided to register for Sick Week 2024. Who doesn’t want to get out of Ohio in February?
In the meantime, my dad had so much fun at Drag Week in 2019, that we started building a gasser for him afterwards. He had owned a ‘61 Ford truck when I was a teenager, we used for hauling wood etc.
So, I hunted one down and we tore it down to the frame and made this yard find unibody Ford f-100 into an even cooler gasser than the Fairlane. We punched holes in everything we possibly could, because I like them! Ask the guys!
We put in a small block Ford with a tunnel ram, and a different roller cam we had laying around, and new AFR 205 renegade heads. It even has a quick-change rear in it, just like the Fairlane.
He drove that truck all over creation in 2022 and 2023. Nearly as a daily driver. Taking it to shows and events but never drag strip with the truck. And really down any drag strip… ever!
He's always been a hot rodder at heart, that's where I get it, but was too busy providing for us kids. It's the least we could do for him.
Again, Sick Week was a Cinderella story. We ended up third in the Gassers, Hot Rods and Beetles class with the Fairlane, but Fastest B/Gas.
The truck gave us no problems, minus the loss of overdrive on the second day. But that's the beauty of a quick-change rear end.. we can just throw and rear gear in it at will.
The truck was a huge hit with everyone. Just mention that it's the truck with the boat trailer, and people know exactly who you're talking about. But the coup de gras was Sick Week choosing Dad's truck for the “I survived Sick Week” t-shirt, and taking formal pictures of it for the magazine.
I want to publicly thank my friends in The Bucket List Mob (aptly named after our chat group) for all the hard work and late nights they put in to get to this point. Mike Wiles, Matt Lewis, Patrick Plenge (Patrick’s Rod and Restoration), and Jack Rachel (A Plus Auto Transmission Services).
Next on our bucket list? A turbo small block Ford Pinto for drag-and-drives, and Geoff Bodine’s 2006 Roush Fenway Ford Fusion to go to Bonneville… We have a lot to check off our bucket list…
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