By Israel Acosta
Let’s look at the story of a young hot rodder Scott Hayford and his 1973 Plymouth Duster. Hayford is a good friend of mine who has been known for his blue Duster while here at McPherson College and its period drag racing look.
Hayford’s story with the Duster is a classic love story of a person and their first car. He described it as “love at first sight” when he bought the car in 2015 in Salt Lake City where he proceeded to drive it three hours home with his dad. On their way home, Hayford decided it would be cool to take it out onto the salt flats, and while out there he got the car up to about 90 mph. Pretty bold for the drive home in a 40-year-old car at the time, but it is completely on-brand for someone like Hayford.
As soon as he could he started to modify the Duster to make a nice little street machine for days in high school where he was known for regularly doing burnouts while leaving school. While in high school, he painted the car in the same blue it is today and continued to daily drive the car for about two years until he decided to do a 4-speed manual transmission swap.
Driving the car throughout college has given Hayford a whole new set of experiences that he says he cherishes. Events with cars club and local events such as ‘Old Farts Drag Main’ where loads of classics get together for meets and cruises have embodied the passion that Hayford and the rest of us feel towards classic cars through the communal positivity at these events. Then of course, there is sometimes the late night drag racing that allowed Hayford to really test his machine.
Hayford’s ultimate goal with his Duster is to build it in commemoration of the 1970s Super Stock drag racing class, and he is dead set on period correctness. From finding the lightest factory seats to all the correct speed parts, Hayford is sure that his car wild be a blazing fast time capsule.
