#14065 was delivered by road to Holman & Moody by Dave Olimpi in early 1972. He recounts, “During my trip to North Carolina I encountered a pack of Harley-Davidson riders. Back then Harleys weren't driven by accountants and lawyers. Just to be cautious I opened up the Daytona and got out ahead of the bikes as fast as I could accelerate. I remember that the Daytona just didn't feel right. (As someone once said "..wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding.."). I arrived at the H-M plant and delivered the car.…. Not long after that Kirk phoned me again, and asked me to drive his daily driver, the ex-Gurney/Yates Cannonball Baker Daytona, s.n. 14271, to Holman Moody. It seems H-M couldn't get any extra power to speak of out of the engine of 14065 (they racked it up to "poor metallurgy"), and Kirk knew that the motor in his car was pretty powerful. I dove Kirk's car down to H-M. As I was driving to North Carolina I thought "..now, this is more like it.."”  

The Engine for 14271 (internal #B1018) was removed and shipped to Traco to be upgraded and become main race engine in 14065, and this engine (the same block that had won the Cannonball run in 1971 with a record time of 35 hours 54 Mins) was fitted to #14065 ready for Sebring and would stay with the car indefinitely. Traco were, at that time, one of the finest engine shops in the entire world - something they had proved when uprating the already formidable performance figures of White's 512M. They worked their magic on his Daytona too, using high compression pistons, cylinder heads, improved oil system, reworked ignition timing, carburettor jetting and an aluminium radiator. In Christian Huet's seminal work on the Competition Daytona, there are only six cars listed as produced with 450 bhp engines - the final five Series 3 factory race cars, and this one. The standard car produced a very healthy 350 bhp, but these ultimate Daytona engines were in a league of their own.