I will give you a little background. At the AHRA Labor Day Weekend Nationals in 1961, they had a field of over 32 cars qualifying for the 32 car "A" fuel class. They had three or four cars for the "AA" twin engine class. In eliminations, the twin cars made two runs and then waited for us to make five runs and use up our engines. The two classes met in the final. That didn't seem fair to me.

I decided in 1962 to run the AA class. I got a fuel go-cart engine from a friend, adapted it to the front of my 392 Hemi, and sat down with a rulebook to make it legal. I covered it up with a blanket so as not to cause a problem until qualifying started.

We made the first round of qualifying and my driver JL Payne ran a very good pass with both engines. We pulled back into the pits and in about six or eight minutes, Tice showed up and he was so mad. He said, "Take it OFF." I told him that his own tech people said it met every rule in the book. He said, "If you run "IT," your car will RED LIGHT!"

I took the engine off and won the race that year. This is one of my deals that worked out OK. I won the race and got my point across. After that, we didn't have to race a bunch of also-ran cars after the real race to get the money.

Early the next season, Tice brought me the new rulebook and told me that it was written for me -- on each page it said, "If it does not say you can do it, you can't."

This photo shows the car on the trailer after qualifying in 1962. When JL shut down after the run, the belt from the small engine to the blower came off.