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We needed to do more. We didn’t know where we were going with it. Then one fateful moment, the future was cast. Green knew a Georgia cat named Kenny Nichols (no relation to Ernie), an erstwhile drag racer who was out of work. He would do the entire project. Cool. Then Cook put out the word and we hooked up with painter Joe Anderson in Gardena. Anderson’s office was a windowless cinderblock hut dominated by a pool table. The walls were painted black and bled patches of Day-Glo. When he told us the “on the way back from Vegas everybody in the car was naked and FUBAR” story, I wasn’t scared any more.
So the ‘Cuda went to paint jail for many moons. When we got it back, it was pearl yellow. With root beer stripes. Smudges of gold leaf. Shiny Keystones. Following our ass-backwards build regime, we turned the car over to Nichols for the engine upgrades, AHRA style. Used a press photo of a front overhead view and had a lightning bolt arcing into the shaker hood in a story segment we called “On the Seventh Day, God Created the Hemi.”
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Nichols removed the Hemi without scratching the paint, did his blueprint job and cam installation, dropped the motor back in, and got me on the horn. “Hey man, I just cranked it up. Sounds effing cool, don’t it? Hey, hang on a minute. I’m gonna do a burnout in the parking lot. Stay on the line!” Sweaty minutes inched toward oblivion. K-Dog came back on sounding like he’d just slammed his fingers in a door. “Oh man, I effed up, effin’ bad. The throttle stuck open and I shut the key off. The steering locked (no shit) and I hit...three Ferraris! But don’t worry, they’se all parked!” No, I won’t worry, I thought, my brain suddenly convulsing like a burned potato chip. This was Sal Fish’s (he was the CC publisher) junk now. He made the problem go away for about ten large (imagine that in today’s money?). We put Kenny in indefinite Time Out. Anderson flipped out. All those freakin’ root beer stripes all over again.
Meanwhile, back east…Tritak and Morgan were on the national scene and running beyond expectation. I cringed at every reference to their fireball car. I was way behind. Since the ‘Cuda was no longer street legal, it had to be trailered to its various assignations. We didn’t have one at the magazine, so we had to beg one constantly. For the final segment, I needed a stout lead shot some stouter elapsed times to go with it.
The car was finally ready at Andersen’s. I called Big John Mazmanian to borrow the converted moving van he used for local logistics. We stuffed the ‘Cuda in, hooked the tie-downs to it, and boogied out the 10 freeway to Irwindale. We rolled up the big door on Mazmanian’s truck and cringed when we saw that the ‘Cuda had shifted, wantonly walked itself at an angle, left front and right rear fenders rubbing the walls of the box. Yeeooow! We thought it’d be better if we didn’t call Anderson right away. The blems weren’t big enough to sour the photography, but they were nearly down to the metal.
As Irwindale and the other five local tracks were accessible (especially so in the winter months), there could be several racers using the facility at the same time. The NHRA Winternationals hovered and Funny Car crews from the cold states were descending on the land like a nitromethane plague to figure out their tune-ups. One of the nastiest rides going was the Farkonas, Coil, and Minnick “Chi-Town Hustler.” Pat Minnick applied the smoky burnout unlike any other shoe in the biz, at a time when showmanship was just as important to the fans as running hard for the sponsor. As the Austin Coil-built Hemi produced great, roiling, eighth-mile long clouds and the fans always went nuts.
