I saw your piece on my twin Ford fuel dragster. Thanks for remembering. It was a great project. By the way, the car is still around and I am trying to find a pair of engines to restore it.

Contrary to your piece, that car was probably the least expensive top fueler built at the time. I purchased five complete 255 Ford Indy engines and a complete package of spare parts from three Indy car teams for $3500 (USAC had changed to a stock block formula and rendered them almost useless). Don Long and I had the idea to build a car with them, so we cut the front end of an old injected a fuel car that I had been running and fit the fords (total cost approximately $1200). Hank Westmoreland, my cousin Bob Burnand, and I did all the rest of the work and invested approximately another $1500.

After we ran the car the first time I received a call from Leonard Fass (King O Lawn Indy car guy) and he said that USAC had changed their minds about the stock block formula and he needed engines. When he offered me $30,000 for the engines I took it and threw in the injected 392 that came out of the car when we converted it.

When you do the math, we made a profit of $23,800. Not bad for a race car.

Your story has inspired me to think very seriously about restoring the twin Ford car. I'll keep you posted.

The car ran consistent 7.90s at 195 mph with a best of 202 mph when it was powered by the injected nitro 392. As you know it only made two runs with the twin Fords. One half-track run to shake it down and a fuel leak shut it down at the starting line on the second run so we didn't qualify. The next day I got the call from Leonard Fass and the rest is history.

I think I would like to get the car going again just to hear it run. You can't imagine the sound of 16 cylinders at 10,000 RPMs on 80% nitro through a 180-degree exhaust!

Thanks,

Jim Busby