At Drag Week 2006, when Mike and the Barracuda began their run, Ray Meyers (sixpackgut/Moparts) was riding shotgun in Eddie Miller's purple Duster when the nitroused, big block A-body claimed the overall win. The seeds were planted in Ray's brain during that week, that he would return to the event and claim a win of his own. To make that happen, he sold his purple big block Challenger and began constuction of a 67 Barracuda coupe he would nickname the Black Pearl. Ray and the big block, tunnel rammed, ladder barred Barracuda would burst onto the Drag Week scene in 2012, where they narrowly outran my Valiant to claim the Modified NA class win. By "narrowly", I mean a second and three tenths in average, so a more apt description may have been "dominated", but this is just a little tale among friends, right? The nine second machine was tech limited to ten flat, so Ray managed to turn in slips in the 10.0 range on three of the five days, finishing with a 10.18 average, and giving up the "Quickest Mopar" plaque to Mike and the Dart by a thousandth after turning in a lazy 10.55 on the final day. In short, it was a fantastic debut, which led one to believe with a chassis cert, the stroker big block, lightweight A-body could be a contender for several years to come.

So, when the black primered notch showed up in Bowling Green at Drag Week 2013 with a Gen III Hemi at small block legal displacement under the cowl scooped hood, everyone in the tech line looked at it with a shrug and a shake of their head. He was the butt of numerous jokes all week as his average was nearly 4 tenths slower than the previous year. Still, he finished 2nd in class, and was third in Quickest Mopar at the event, only behind Eddie Miller's Duster, and Mike's Dart once again. Ray maintained his smile and upbeat attitude throughout the hot and muggy week, explaining to everyone who would listen that he wanted a more complete and streetable car than the race bred big block could provide, steadfastly defending his position that this was a move in the right direction.

Like Jeff Sias and his 90 Mustang, Ray didn't attend Drag Week 2014, but when the Black Pearl rolled into the tech line for 2015, all the doubters who couldn't comprehend his engine switch began to understand Ray's vision. The ladder bars were gone, and with leafs under the rear, the A-body was allowed to drop out of Modified into Super Street Small Block NA.

Round 2

Jeff had also made a few changes, so his maroon Mustang moved up from Street Race to Super Street. Ray was hampered by the fact that he ran with the hood sealed, and still hadn't made the car or himself legal to go under ten flat. Jeff used four nine second time slips out of the five days to claim his second class win and defeat yet another hard running, low ten second Mopar. Ray's 10.20-132 average was only two hundredths off from the Pearl's debut numbers, but back to back class runner-ups left him with a desire to improve the Barracuda once again.

Round 3 2016 Super Street Small Block NA
For 2016, The Black Pearl shed over a hundred pounds, and the cage was certed to 8.50. The hood wasn't sealed, in fact Ray ran the car without the hood in competition all week. When the smoke cleared on the opening day at National Trail, the good news was that Ray's 9.960 had him leading the maroon Mustang by a full tenth, as Jeff could only muster a traction limited 10.06-139.9. The bad news was that those numbers left our two duelists at third and fifth in the class respectively! The battle really began to take shape the following day at Norwalk, when Ray's 9.86-135.6 and Jeff's 9.89-140.8 established them as the quickest cars in the class, a position they wouldn't relinquish for the rest of the way.