With the change of ownership on the Barnyard, we had to rectify the situation of the "borrowed converter", so Dad and Boone backed the 727 up, and Dad pulled out his JW billet 9", and they slid in an Ultimate 9" that I had picked up in a trade from Dale a few years earlier, so I guess you could say I picked up the Dodge "less converter". I also had to supply green accelerator pumps and blue bowl gaskets for the twin 750s as they were leaking fairly good when Boone fired it up after the converter swap.

We arrived at Bakersfield's Famoso Drag Strip Thursday to get pitted and tech in. Friday morning was our first shot at the track. The chip was at 3600, and the Valiant tossed the front end up fairly high on the leave, the 1.413 was the best 60' for the 428 to date, and the 1/8 mile was 6.582-102 compared to 6.596-103 on our gold standard 10.39 pass at Indy. In short she was on a good pass, I was looking over as we pulled past the big block Dart at 1000' when I heard a noise and saw a flash of white. I looked forward at my naked 950HP holley and hinges, the hood was gone! My reaction was to lift, and coast to a 10.52-114 while I wondered how my steel hood with stock latching mechanism had just left the car!