The following week we loaded the finished car on the trailer and headed to Irwindale Dragstrip to see how the car would perform. After the sweat of the NHRA Tech inspection we were allowed to run without a driveshaft hoop. Zak drove the car with an easy first pass 8.971 at 85.63 mph on the eighth mile. The rear end held up without using the trans brake on the Glide. Since we were still using a stock converter the day's best run was a 7.88 at 87.91 mph, but we were ready to head to Famoso the next week.

In the spare time before the Reunion a friend offered to paint the car in primer, so Monday it was time to take the body parts off and do some final patching. We managed to reassemble the primered car the day before leaving for Bakersfield. We enjoyed the party, running low 12's in the Exhibition class -- and the rear end still held up. The cheers from the crowd during the Twilight Cruise made the effort worth every hour spent.

The car now sports a Continental 3800 stall converter after "smoking" the stock one while doing repeated burnouts for an episode of "Junkyard Wars" where Snake Racing competed against two teams from Penske Racing.

With the new converter, refining the tune up, a set of Mickey Thompson ET Street slicks and a set of American Racing Torque Thrust wheels, the car has now run a best of 11.77 at 116 mph at last summer's Goodguys Pomona race and has run a best of 7.44 at 96 mph on the Irwindale eighth mile, still making single-tire burnouts with that original 3.07 10-bolt rear.

While at the recent PRI Show in Indy, I showed pictures of the car doing a peg-leg burnout to John Mazzarella at Strange Engineering who laughed and then offered to get a Strange Dana 60 and spool into our project for the upcoming season of drag racing.

Zak may soon be able to use the trans-brake on the Powerglide for the launch and get some real time slips reflective of the car's potential. With the addition of ladder bars he hopes to lift the front wheels just like Doug Thorley did in 1966 and arrange for his first Match Race with Steve Magnante's Hot Rod Magazine Nova.

Zak Hawthorne contributed to this story.