[Doug Hoven]

Well here's where things got a little "dicey" with my project. After pulling and reading my oil filter, there was an obvious bearing issue going on. The first thing that came to mind was I thought I was done for the season. Well, that didn't happen. As a matter of fact I was back at Numidia 3 days later ready to run the division race. That Wednesday night, my uncle and I had yanked the engine, and blew it apart to inspect the damage. It turns out that all of the bearings were junk, but the big issue was I spun number 6 rod bearing, ruining the connecting rod, and bending the crank .009 in the process. I was and still am very grateful to have been able to dig through some surplus small block parts my uncle had leftover, including a good crank, and some good (relatively speaking) stock connecting rods. So after running around finding bearings, having the rods honed for bearing clearance, and a lot of cleaning, we were back in business to begin assembly Friday morning. After a few hiccups Friday morning, it wasn't until noon that I was able to begin assembly. Well everything sort of just "fell together" and by 6pm, the car was back on the trailer, and I found myself back at Numidia late that evening. The car ran fairly well at the race, and I was very happy, even though I lost first round. Since then, I've been very happy with the progress I've made in picking the car up little by little. Even though it's only gone .50 under in NHRA competition, I'm quite happy with how the car has been running for me.