A crude green 1955 Chevrolet called the Night Stalker was the result of a conversation between two dudes, literally. 

Greenville, South Carolina's Greg Porter, who is known for his penchant to call his friends Dude, was at a cruise-in about seven years ago and befriended an old school drag racer named Dude Moore. 

Moore revealed to Porter that he still had an old original Gasser sitting out behind his shop in the South Carolina countryside, and if he could do a restoration on the classic machine justice, the car was his. Though he could have gotten the car for free, he still gave Moore $3,000 for the basket-case Gasser. 

Little did Porter know the classic Chevrolet would one day be the impetus for crossing off an item on his bucket list. 

Sunday afternoon in Bakersfield, California, Porter made the most of his 2,075-plus mile journey from Greenville to the California Hot Rod Reunion by scoring the Geezer Gassers crown in his first trip west of the Mississippi with the honest-to- goodness real Gasser. 

“At Bakersfield. Isn’t that amazing? At Bakersfield. you couldn’t ask for nothing no better. I mean, it’s amazing. This old car come from a Piedmont slab town, and it’s sitting in Bakersfield in the winner’s circle. Amazing. 

“It ain’t even sank in yet, really. I pulled this thing out of the bushes and it’s sitting in Bakersfield. The most prestigious place there are for Gassers.” 

Porter is no stranger to building hot rods and participated in a reality show pilot which aired on the Discovery Channel. He built a ’23 T roadster complete with a whiskey still. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/video/discovery-channels-rebel-road-sneak-698571

The fabricating experience came in handy as the car definitely needed some work. 

"It was in rough shape, and that's putting it mildly," Porter admitted.

The car was first prepared for the drag strip in 1963, with the only modification being the addition of wheel-wells. Four years later, the inside was gutted to make it a true purpose-built Gasser. 

Friday Porter's run look every bit like an original gasser with the bumper dragging the ground, and front wheels in the air with each shift of the clutch-assisted four-speed transmission. 

"I got up there, the burnout was perfect, made a lot of smoke," Porter said. "The damn track had so much grip. So I stood on the bumper in first gear, I got it out, then I pulled second, and it stood on the bumper again. It was a heck of a show, you should have seen it." 

All weekend Porter was beseiged by adoring drag racing fans who had nothing but praise for the all-steel shoebox which runs in the South East Gassers series, which holds the most stringent period correct rules in the Gasser realm. 

"It’s pretty exciting for everybody to come up, look at the car and just stand there in amazement that I have a real honest-to-goodness 1960s Gasser running out here," Porter said. "I never knew how much of a following this car had until I got here and the race fans were thanking me for being here."