5/5/99

Got the car back last Sunday. All Smith did after the enormous and lengthy tales was: strip the heads and manifold off the car, sell them, my roller rockers, and expensive MT cast valve cover, AND bag my $3000. That's it!! All else was pure unadulterated bullshit.

The BAR is coming Friday 5/7 to photograph the car, and is filing 3 criminal charges against Smith: operating without a licesne, embezzlement, and fraud.

They are going for jail time on this go ‘round.

I have spoken with Jerry Wolf of Shanon's Machine in Minnesota, and it looks like he'll bowl blend some Dart aluminum Windsor heads, put in the heavier duty competition springs and retainers, get some Lunati roller rockers. He's waiting for me to determine the deck height so as to properly calculate the compression ratio and combustion chamber size.

7/26/99

The above has been accomplished, along with getting Richard Iskenderian to grind a special cam per my spec for low end grunt. I have the manifold, pushrods, and cam. The heads will arrive next week. All is paid for, about $2500 worth.

I went to court on June 28 and got a default judgment against

Dave Smith for $5060. Next is trying to collect it. I don't know if the BAR has served him yet with their action.

I will be FAXing him today my first demand for full payment. The realistic steps now before me are: demand payment, get none. Waste no time begging for the money. Next step: serve him with ORAP summons, haul him into court, get all his pertinent info, and start attaching anything I can.

I'll probably have to do an asset search on him right away to discover if he own his truck, house, etc. So there is an unenviable amount of hasle STILL remaining to get past this horrible chapter in the history of my beloved Bird.