Years ago, Goodyear developed a new type blower belt for Clay. It had a tractor tread type cogs, instead of the straight cogs. It had worked out well for him, as his blower belt breakage diminished drastically. He had worked with our engineers on this project. In thanks for this, he brought his car to the area right in front of our Goodyear plant. His crew unloaded and set it up like it would be in the pits. Everyone in the plant was invited out to see this dragster. It was right at 1st and 2nd shift change. He gave a nice presentation and had nice information cards that he autographed for those that wanted one. Then he turned it over to his crew chief, to tell about the car. He started out by giving Chrysler credit for the design of the Hemi. We had a lot of Nascar Chevy guys out there that day. One of them asked how much power these engines make. He replied-one cylinder on this Hemi makes more power than your Nascar engines. That shut the guy up. Then they told us, that they would start it up for us. Mind you, there were probably 400-500 people out there, The whole office was out there, most of them had never heard a top fueler run. They had warned everyone to use earplugs, but a lot of people didn't have them. Anyway, they cracked it off and let it run for a couple minutes, then they hit the nitro for a second. Most of the people were in awe. Everyone drifted off, I kind of hung back. Then Clay come around the corner, I told him I didn't get one of his autographed cards. He invited me into his trailer and rummaged through his drawers, he pulled out a used aluminum connecting rod that came out of one of his engines. He asked-will this work? He autographed it. I came out ahead that day!
