Sunday morning, we headed north on I-17 to Flagstaff for breakfast, then east on I-40 to Winslow. It was exciting to be finally going to touch the body and chassis. I hoped to spend a concerted amount of time with Chris Stinson and really get a lot done.

But, I was also warned that it was possible that the entire town of Winslow had been invited to stop by and see the weirdo who was building a funny car.

In Emails, Chris was perplexed about the proper placement of the body on the chassis. While the wheelbase of both the body and the chassis were both approximately the same, it was obvious to him that things didn't line up the way they should.

Another thing about the early cars was that as horsepower and rear tires increased, the chassis had to get narrower to make room. An earlier wider chassis car was unable to handle the wider tires without modifications. Usually, the low buck teams that would have run the older cars just radiused the wheelwells and let the bigger tires stick out.

Another scenario was that a team rebodied an older chassis. This placed a narrow body on a wide chassis and forced the car to be jacked up to allow the tires to clear, radiused wheel wells or a combination of both. There were even several cars that had major fiberglass wheel bubbles to clear and cover ever-widening tires.

When we pulled in, there were already four or five folk hanging around Ron's. I was introduced, and immediately started circling the scene. Several of us grabbed hold and set the body on the chassis and I could immediately see the problem(s).

As you can see, the Nova body I have found was one that was raced until it was long in the tooth – past its prime. The rear wheelwells are radiused as if the body was originally run on a wider, 68 or 69 chassis; my thoughts are a Don Hardy. Another strange bit of evidence is an aluminum bubble in the back window, obviously to clear an addition on the early cage or the dragster-style hoop of a later chassis. I have no idea.

When the front wheels were reasonably close to their proper spot, the rears were way off. When the rear tires were centered up, the cage hit the body. We moved it back and forth until we were convinced nothing would work. We took the body back off and began checking things. We measured. We talked. We hashed things over. More people stopped by. We discussed modifications, various alterations.

I OK'd Chris to chop the original front "tree" out of the body in hopes of getting some clearance and indeed that helped some but not enough. With virtually every performance car oriented male from Winslow present, it was easy to lift and replace the body with any whims we happened to have. But try as we might, we couldn't force the two major pieces to fit.

The first thought was to shorten wheelbase of the chassis to match the body. Of course, there were a number of different ideas on how to successfully accomplish that. Chris made a couple suggestions figuring he could whittle and weld the chassis to match exactly what was necessary. Longer torsion bar arms were discussed to move the axle back and shorten the wheelbase. Stretching the body was considered, as were moving the wheelwells.

People came and went. There was even a fiberglass expert called in, a guy that unfortunately would be unable to tackle the extensive surgery for at least three months.

It was at least another hour of discussion, with almost everyone adding his or her personal ideas to the confusion – a scene Laurie would later describe as the "Winslow Sewing Circle." Don't get me wrong, there were some very good ideas exchanged.

Suddenly, Earl pulled me aside, a few feet from the unshakable dialogue. He basically said that since I was so confident that I could do the job, why not just haul it to his back yard and do it. Why not indeed. We could head for the house, get the little trailer that carried Laurie's dragster, come back and get the body the next day. Maybe we won't need to. I grabbed a tape measure and we checked his Ford dually. The body would fit inside the sides but was better if the rear wheelwells were set on the tailgate and the front bumper on the roof. With our goal set, we grabbed the body and had it on the truck while the discussers were still mid sentence. As we tied the body down, we had to answer a lot of "Whatchagonnado?"s, but between the time Earl and I said "Let's do it," and the time we merged onto westbound I-40, barely 15 minutes had transpired.

After a day of indecision and unknowing, just having done something felt positive. And other than one tie-strap that insisted on buzzing an eerie F#, the entire trip was full of what we planned to do the following morning.

The following morning, Earl and I headed to several spots around Camp Verde.

The first was to a guy we'd heard was an out of work body and fender man and races motorcycles on the side. He was home and was interested in the project and even said he could do it. However, he'd just accepted a job repairing cars for the school district. So, we checked out his bikes and listened to his ideas on how to stretch the body. He also tipped us to another person that might be able to help.

Less than a mile away lives one of the most colorful characters I met that weekend. We were told that "Kirk" Kirkendall had been around fiberglass since before it had been invented. Earl and I found him wandering around in a field checking out the beginnings of a crop, and hollering orders at a couple youngsters working there. After brief introductions, we explained why we'd come to visit.

"We're workin' on a funny car," we told him, "and need some advice."

I dared to ask, "So, would you be interested in doing this yourself?" at what I thought to be an opportune moment. I got the answer, that should this story ever get to the big screen, could not be written better.

In the movie, Kirkendall would be played by Jack Palance. My character, played by Tom Cruise, would listen intently to his stories, throwing in a few quips whenever the opportunity arose. Following the well-placed question, "So, would you be interested in doing this yourself?" the answer came, exactly the way "Kirk" had delivered it.

"I'm eighty-years old, son," Palance would say, following script and direction to the letter, "Why would I want to do that?"

What really happened was that I asked if he could help and advise as necessary and "Kirk" said he'd help out with anything we needed. In fact, he volunteered to help do the finish work after we got it roughed.

Earl drew a map so Mr. Kirkendall could find the Watts estate, and we headed for an 11am appointment at Quintus Marine.

According to the operations manager, Kevin, Quintus indeed once built boats of all types and sizes, and the nautical name had survived. They were fully spooled up on a government contract building helicopter fuel tanks. Kevin walked us through the place and after inspected the Nova body, told us that while he couldn't offer physical help, he volunteered his fiberglass mat and cloth scrap bin. He also shared that we were welcome to any resin that had gone past the government-mandated shelf life.

With that, we carried our precious cargo back to the house, unloaded it and while Earl bolted a new starter in the truck, I packed. We then discussed a little more plans for stretching the body. Laurie surprised me by coming home from work earlier than she'd originally planned and she and Earl took me cross-town to the shuttle stop. I rode it in silence to the Phoenix airport, deep in thought about the next step.