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This photo is circa 1978, after second-
owner Tim Goodner updated the car to
1976 appearance specs with big bumpers
and egg-crate grille. The NHRA required
Pro Stock cars to appear within five years
of manufacture.he purchased the Pinto for
$6,000 sans engine, and Gapp
himself gave him one particularly
sage tip: “Don’t mess with the
suspension.” Goodner proceeded
to race the car as “Genesis” in
C/G and C/MP with a Boss 302,
primarily in Division 5. He eventu-
ally concluded that just qualifying
for the Pro Stock field was a
better payout than winning a
Sportsman class outright, so
Goodner returned the Pinto to
the Pro Stock ranks. In 1978, he
updated the car to appear as a
’76, fitting a new grille and bigger
bumpers (among other things)
to comply with NHRA rules that
mandated Pro Stock cars to
appear within five years of manu-
facture. Goodner stopped racing
after the 1982 season, as the
debut of 500-inch engines effec-
tively ended the competitiveness
of his Genesis operation. His best
run in the 1981/1982 era is said
to have been an 8.89 e.t.
It’s at the end of the Goodner
era that the trail of the 1973
Championship Pinto goes a bit
cold. Goodner says he sold the
car at the end of 1982 to a racer
in New Orleans and heard that it
was sold again by the late-1980s
to someone in Ohio. About the
same time, fellow Pinto racer
Jim Evanuik was turned on to an
ex-G&R Pinto being sold in Ken-
tucky, believed to be the samecar, and alerted his friend Bob
Sharp. Sharp ended up purchasing
the Pinto and enthusiastically
bracket-raced it for a decade or so
around the Northeast, now lettered
as the “Gambler.” Evanuik built a
400M-derived engine for the car
and paired it with a Powerglide for
“easy 9.40s.”
When Sharp put the Pinto up for
sale in National Dragster in 2000,
Rob Holzman noticed the G&R lin-
eage and mentioned it to Ford col-
lector Brent Hajek of Ames,
Oklahoma. Says Hajek, “Rob and I
went out to buy the car, and right
away took it to the track to have
some fun. We probably made 25
passes one weekend, and I turned it
over to Rob for some freshening
and a return to its Gapp & Roush
appearance.”