Let’s give a huge shoutout to the two #teamtick members Taylor Hedrick and Steven Chvywolf, who survived Hot Rod Drag Week 2022! This year drivers took a 1,000-mile, week-long event road trip through the heartland of America that hit four tracks split between Indiana and Illinois. Both drivers banging gears and hauling groceries all week, hitting milestones with tenacity and some sleepless nights finished out the week that resulted in a rain-out Friday.

Probably with the more eventful week of the two, Taylor Hedrick in his tick-equipped mustang was running 8’s at 170 until they started running into issues that included messing up two valves and were running on 6 cylinders going into day 4.

“After a decent pass, I realized it was definitely hurt so we decided to do a compression check. No compression on cylinders 4 and 8. At this moment, we were dead in the water, the competition was over for us, and we were stranded. Ivan Ramirez stepped up and offered us his truck to haul it back to St. Louis. After contemplating, I looked at Andrew and said “I want to finish”, without thinking twice he said let’s do it. So I overnighted the parts to the hotel, made a call to Kevin Mullins and he told me just to unplug the injectors and run it on 6 cylinders. So that’s what we did, near 200-mile road trip on 6. I guess you could say we have the fastest stick shift, 6 cylinder 2-valve, grey in color, on Wednesday in Byron, IL.....”

They also had to deal with a messed-up reluctor wheel and a locating dowel that both had to be replaced, including a modified bolt via a grinding wheel for the dowel. They were up virtually all night to get the car ready to roll on the last day of the event, however, the bad weather prevented them from being able to make a pass. This does not however take away from their heroics and it has instilled a sense of confidence in them for next year!

Steven Chvywolf seemed to have a little easier time over the weekend however for them it was still the hardest drag week they have ever done. On day two the trailer decided to jump off the ball behind their stick shift firebird and while it stayed connected thanks to the safety chains (unlike tom bailey’s) it whacked the back of the car when they were trying to stop, it pushed the battery disconnect and broke the handle off. The next day they had to drive through high temperatures as well as driving through a hail storm and hit over a foot of standing water that hit the exhaust manifold and ripped two bolts out of the heads with the threads with them! The exhaust fell multiple times and at some point, the exhaust tips went on their own adventure somewhere along the freeway.

And through all of that nonsense, they still were able to hit personal bests in ET, and an overall average in the car that also had them run their first 11-second pass ever! Their goal is to get the car ready for Sick Week which will be in FebruaryOverall congratulations to all the drivers that went to drag week and survived the trip, we know a lot of big-name people weren’t able to stay in the competition including Mike Finnegan and many others like Tom Bailey (who won the event) and Alex Taylor who lived in more of a nightmarish week struggling to keep their hot rods together to finish the event and is a testament to the tenacity these racers have.

Are you willing to give up a week of sleep to have the time of your life racing with about a thousand of your newest friends from across the world? If you made the trip and are a #teamtick member be sure to drop a comment below! 

Taylor Hedrick's Mustang runs our level 4 tremec T56 Magnum that is faceplated in gears 1-4 but also has 5th and 6th gear

Taylor Hedrick Social Media accounts: 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/taylor.hedrick.58

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hedrick03/

Steven Chvywolf

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chvywolf89/