Frito I forget the exact year, but I remember seeing Don and Bob testing at Edgewater with the '68 Cuda he had before the SS/AH car was built. It had previously been a Prostreet car with a pump gas Barton 528 Hemi, that day they had an Indy bathtub-style crossram intake on it and said they were going to run it in NSS. A few weeks later we were at C-Bus for the Classic and the Bales' were there. Back then the Hemi guys were very particular about the class rules, and we were pitted down by the tech shed and noticed that Don had drawn a crowd at the tech line. It seems that some of the purists did not like the intake, which was legal for NHRA SS but not specifically banned or accepted for NSS. I don't remember if JJ or the tech guys decided that he was legal, and we went on from there.

They used to run heads-up on Saturday in the Hemi classes, Bales car only ran 10.0 with the low compression motor, and I think OutlawSSAA had the field covered by about 1/2 a second and easily won that day. Then they called us up for the no-box gambler, back then at C-Bus they would get over 150 cars. I went out early, but Don was on a roll and made it down to the last few cars, only to find his battery was very weak when he went to the lanes. I ended up riding back to the Bales camp on the back of a Moped, then went back to the lanes riding backwards with one hand grasping a large wheeled generator and the other hand holding on for life onto the seat frame.

We got Don started well enough to make it thru the last rounds and into the final with 440Jim. Now Jim was running 9.70's and was killing the tree all day off the footbrake. They pull out for the final round and Don's car stalls after the burnout. It won't start at first but then he holds the pedal down and it slowly begins to fire. I was half wanting to run away, thinking the fuel in the intake might explode, but it came to life and they went to the starting line. 440Jim waited like a gentleman in the other lane until the Cuda came back to life. I remember Don won a close final, maybe Jim can chime in with the details about the RT's and MOV.

The next day the Hemi cars ran a dial-in eliminator, and Don won again. He was pretty pumped up about winning 2 races on the weekend after they argued about letting him run at all. If any of this is wrong I will gladly read any other details of what happened, post away.

Edit: It was the bathtub style intake, not the tunnel ram. The carbs are offset a very slight amount.