Dedication
I’d like to dedicate this work to my friends who were part of these stories, to my parents who always said that I should write a book, to my wife who always knew that I could write a book and to my two daughters who will one day read these stories. God help them all.
Author’s Note
All of these stories are real. Many are presented in a stylized format but are nonetheless based on actual events that happened in my life. In developing my writing skills and sharing my stories with others I tried several types of styles over the many years.
All stories are presented in chronological order though some stories may overlap other stories or may occur during other stories as they are being told. Such is life and life, if it is anything then it is anything but linear.
Certain dates, characteristics, places and the names of certain individuals involved (other than me) have been changed to protect me (and subsequently the people involved) from criminal prosecution or civil liability … even after all of these years.
I hope that you enjoy reading these stories as much as I enjoyed both living, writing and sharing them.
Remember: life is too short to drive mediocre cars.
Thanks
I’d like to thank God for my talents and my skills as well as the wisdom to employ these gifts as I have done over these many years. I’d also like to thank God for letting me live as long as I have, to survive some truly horrific automobile and motorcycle wrecks and to have allowed me to walk away from so many bad situations and accidents without much more than a scratch. It’s a safe bet to say that without Him I wouldn’t be here today.
I’d like to thank my parents, Don and Pat, and my sister, Courtney, for being the best family a boy could ever have when growing up. I wasn’t the easiest son to raise or the nicest brother to have but in hindsight I think I turned out all right.
I’d like to thank my grandmother, Deloris Stubbe, for buying me my very first car, that wonderful 1978 Chevrolet Camaro Rally Sport, way back in the late spring of 1984, when I was still just 14 years old. My grandmother gave me the keys to my first, fast car and to the open road that would become such an important fixture in my life.
I’d like to thank my wife, Cynthia, for putting up with all of my eccentricities and idiosyncrasies since the spring of 1993, for believing in me and for being so supportive all these many years. Of all the adventures that I’ve been on in my life she’s still my favorite adventure of all.
I’d like to thank Cody and Flynn for being my more than capable partners in crime in a well spent youth. If we weren’t swinging wrenches, dancing on pedals, rowing through gears, burying needles on the far right side of the clocks, killing tires, wasting irreplaceable fossil fuel products, rolling bones or drinking then we weren’t having a good time.
I’d like to thank Samantha for showing me how it never should be, Claire for what we shared, Brenda for our time together, Joy because it really might could have been, Katrice because it wasn’t, Jessica because it almost was and Cynthia because it finally is.
I’d like to thank my best friend, Bill Adcox, for being the brother I never had and for sharing in some of my high speed adventures along the way, whether he wanted to or not.
I’d like to thank Mrs. Mauldin, my eleventh grade English teacher, for liking what she read of my budding stories way back in the spring of 1986 and for encouraging me to write more as well as more often.
I’d like to thank all of the readers of my stories over the last 25 years. Your words of praise and encouragement as well as your critiques and comments have made this volume of work finally possible.
And finally …
I’d like to thank the Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors for building excitement … or at least Pontiac used to build excitement and when Pontiac did build excitement it was glorious while it lasted. Gone but never forgotten … rest in peace and thanks for all the great memories, Pontiac Motor Division (1926 to 2010).