"Dash pad... right in front of me..."
:rofl:
Actually, there's 7(?) studs attached to the back of the pad's core.
You have to get up under and behind the dash frame (removing things like the instrument cluster, radio, glovebox and maybe the heater controls helps immensely) and using a combination of nut drivers, sockets with universal joints and extensions, and an abundance of four letter words; unfasten the nuts and the pad will pop off.