His father died three years ago in January. He gave the car to Tim after he had moved to Augusta, Georgia. Tommy had been a drag racer all his life, and when he died, somebody pinstriped his casket with yellow paint and the Henry J mark emblazoned on one end. “My father said he had never been in a hearse in his life and he wasn’t going into one later in life, so he had a friend of his in a ’50 Chevy five-window pickup take his casket and put it in the bed. My family followed that car with the Henry J and about 30 or 40 other hot rods and street rods going to the cemetery. The first weekend I raced the J, I tore the transmission out of it, so I pulled it out at the funeral home that day. Then I went to the cemetery, did a burnout and tore out the rear end.  His best friend pulled up in his truck, hooked on a tow strap and I followed him down the interstate, towing to the grave site. “My old man told me the weekend we went to Tulsa to race and I tore up the transmission the first time, he came down to the top end to tow me back, and I was crying, and he said, ‘What are you crying for?’ I said, ‘I tore up the car,’ and he said, ‘To hell with it, it’s a drag car, that’s what they’re built for. You tear them up and you fix ‘em.’ I was fourteen at the time. When I got to his grave site, everybody said, ‘I can’t believe you did that,’ and I said, ‘You know what? It’s a drag car. That’s what they’re built for. You mess ‘em up and you put them back together.’ That’s what he told me, and I followed what he said,” Tim says.

Dad worked for an oil company in Columbia, Missouri, then went to GTE for 30-plus years. Tim took a job in Atlanta and moved to Augusta seven years ago. He is now married to wife Jennifer.

According to original AHRA rules, the car was a legal C/Altered. Larry McCubbin and Tommy McCray dad built the car as a C/Altered, with the required 25-percent engine setback. Since it had been started as a drag car, they only took a year to build. It had a three-speed transmission, and Tim still has the original 301 Chevy motor in the garage. Now it sports a 327 with Corvette fuelie heads, 11.5 pistons and a unique Offenhauser four-two intake with rebuilt Rochester carburetors that flow 270 cfm apiece, for a 1,100-cfm total. The engine is partially painted in John Deere Tractor green. A friend told Tommy not to --- bad luck for a race car. “So for dad, green it was. He even put John Deere stickers on the original valve covers and oil pan. My dad didn’t like to conform too well. He did everything the opposite of what everybody else said,” Tim says.