BY AL ANDERSON

     Paraphrasing from lines in Apocalypse Now, I love the smell of high test in the morning. Early on May 10, yep that was Mother’s Day; I met up with Hap Gooder at Cayuga (better known as Toronto Motorsports Park).
     On that overcast, cool and windy morning, with the sound of loping cams and high octane filling the air, Hap was there with his hemi-powered, 1965 A990, I muttered wow under my breath, as he and Al Murphy unloaded Thunder II.
     But let’s back the story up a bit. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away . . . Nope, that’s not how the story of Hap Gooder’s, Hemi-powered, A990 Coronet, and Thunder II starts.
     Even though this car is 44 years old, it’s only had five owners. The story began in 1965 when Jim Almeter, the first owner, ordered the Medium Irridescent Blue W051 car from a sub dealer of Funk and Hawley Chrysler in Batavia, New York.  Hap told me he first saw Thunder II at Ontario and New York dragstrips long before he ever dreamt one day he would own it.  The car Hap was running back then was a ’64 Dodge 2 door post with a 383 automatic. He ran in the B Stock Automatic class and Thunder II ran in Super Stock. As he watched it run, he remembers saying he would like to own one like it some day.
     “Back in the day, we did dry burnouts . . . the way it’s done now (using a water box) takes some getting used to.” At the ONDR event, Hap ran a 10:80 at 125 mph. Best times and speed to date are 10:70  seconds at 125 mph.   At the completion of 2009 Performance World, as displays were being quickly taken down, I watched and listened as he fired up Thunder II and moved it off to the side of Hall One. In an instant, I understood how appropriate the car’s name is . . . the hall was literally filled with thunder.
     I saw the car again at London’s Autorama. Shortly after that, I tracked Hap, his ‘C.E.O’ Al Murphy, and the car down.  In spite of the horsepower he controls every pass he makes with Thunder II, Hap is a down to earth guy. According Murphy, Hap’s car is number 48 of a mere 101/105 A990 Coronet’s that were built. Only three others that were painted the same blue.  Production numbers posted on Mopar Muscle magazines website for A990 cars refer to internal Chrysler paperwork in Anthony Young’s book HEMI.