[ponyakr]

i started around the truck in front of me & thats the last thing i remember til about 30 min later when i woke up in the er of a nearby hospital. they began asking me what had happened. but i didn't know any more about it than they did. i told them what i just told you. at 1st they thought i was drunk or on drugs & had just lost control of the truck. so they wrapped the rubber strap around my arm & drew some blood to check for that. i finally convinced them that i hadn't had any brew or drugs since 1976. so they started testing everything they could test. now folks, this is the 1st time i've been in a hospital for anything more than a few stitches, or to remove a metal splinter i got in my eye from grinding on pontiac heads without eye protection. they did every kind of x-ray, mri, brain scan & other stuff i can't remember. well, they finally found the problem on the brain scan. a brain surgeon came in to explain it to me. i had a very small brain hemorage about 1/2 inch in dia. or smaller. it had caused what he called an electrical short, that caused me to black out. he called it a seizure. he said it was to deep to operate on, but said he'd seen lots of these & they usually dry up after awhile & you generally have no more problems with them. so, here's what had happened. when i blacked out the truck had gradually left the road, crossed the ditch, climbed up onto a railroad track & continued down the track for over 200 yards, if i remember correctly. they had to stop train traffic for a day or 2 while they repaired the track. i even made the monroe newspaper & the evening news on a local t.v. station. i was a little bruised & banged up so i had to stay in area hospitals for about 2 weeks.( $50,000+ worth) during this period of time, i had lots of free time with nothing to do but think.

[ponyakr]

on the back of a cdl license it says that if you have a seizure while operating a commercial vehicle, that you may not operate a commercial vehicle for a period of 10 years thereafter. so now i had lots of stuff to think about. i'd driven trucks since i was 6 years old. i'd planned to do it till i retired. i loved it. now what? well, i'd just have to figure that out after i got out of the hospital. so i began thinkin back on the wreck. an eye witness said he was following me when i ran off the road & knew i was out when he never saw the brake lights come on. he may have called it in. but there are so many cell phones now, it was probably called in by several. then i thought, "it could've been a lot worse. instead of veering rite, it could have went left & killed me & others". that brought to my mind that T.J. & my mom always prayed for my saftey. & the scriptures say that the angels of God are sent forth & they encamp "round about us & bare us up in their hands, lest we should dash our foot against a stone. had to stop there & just thank God for being alive. then the thought came to me, "what if i had died?" at 1st that old creepy feeling of fear came on me. it sorta made my skin crawl & even shiver. then this warm peaceful feeling began to slowly flow over me & flood my mind. then, not an audible voice, but just a thought entered my mind. "yah, what if you had died?" so i began to think about the answer to that question. well, i'd heard the bible account of heaven all my life. i knew it had to be a better place than this. i remembered the account of the apostle paul, when he was caught up into heaven in the spirirt. he saw things so awesome, he could'nt even describe them, said they were unspeakable. after this, when he was being punished for preaching the Gospel, he told the people he would be much better off in heaven, but he decided to stay with them, to teach them more about God. there have even been some in modern times who have been allowed to visit heaven in the spirit & allowed to tell it. from all accounts its a much nicer place than earth. so in that hospital room that day, it was settled for me forevermore. since that day i have had absolutely no fear of death. "o death, where is thy sting? o grave, where is thy victory?" nobody wants to suffer pain & sickness, but for the child of God there should be no fear of death. if your not Gods child, you have plenty to fear! so i encourage you today, if your not, receive Jesus as your savior & rid yourself of the fear of death forevermore. PTL! 2 cor. 12:2-4, 2 cor. 5:6-8, phil. 1:21-25, phil. 4:6,7, john 3:16, roamans 10:9,10

[ponyakr]

sometimes mistakes can be great teachers(if you live over 'em). lookin back over my racin mistakes, i can see several things i did wrong that resulted in fewer wins. i'll share this with you & it may help you avoid my failures. i'll lnclude the changes i'd make if i could go back & do it over. i'll include these ideas from 2 different approaches. (1) using the exsisting technology of that day & (2) using the technology of today. the #1 biggest mistake i made was switching to the 455 motor. had i stayed with the 400, we would've won many more races & thousands more in $. many a nite we loaded up early because of lost traction or broken parts. now, if i could go back, using the technology of that day, i could've avoided those 455 problems. 1st i'dve spent the extra $ to have a ladder bar system installed. it would've paid for itself many times over. next, of course, if i used a th400, i'd put a hd sprag in it. or i'd use a th350 with manual shift, forward pattern valve body, blocking out 1st gear at the shifter, & using only 2nd & 3rd. this would require more rear gear to compensate for the lower 2nd gear ratio of 1.50. next i would start with the biggest tires i could possibly fit on it. all these changes would have resulted in a quicker, but manageble, under control package, producing more wins & fewer broken parts. now, using todays technology, there may be other traction device options, cheaper & easier to install than ladder bars, which will work just as well. i'm not familiar with these, so i want discuss them further. now, there are other tranny options available today. the most popular, of course, is th pg. a look at a product list from most major racing tranny co will reveal pg models which are reliable to over 2000hp. that should cover the needs of most street/strip or footbrake class bracket racers. i still like the idea of the th350, using 2nd & 3rd only. & here's another wrinkle. buy a bulletproof th350 & use all 3 gears for the street, then for the occasional trip to the track, run 2nd & 3rd only. on a sticky track you may not even need slicks. but to cut a decent lite, you may need to take along a set of the shortest front tires you can find(22-23"). the early goats used a 2-speed tranny some called a super turbine 300. they worked great with the 389 motor. my pontiac tranny man thinks he can build 1 that will hold up to a 455. 2 other advantages--they have the bop bolt pattern & use the same converter as the th350 & th400. i'll say again, the advantages of a 2-speed are, less chance of traction problems & greater chance of consistent et. if given another chance i'd use a 2-speed of some sort in 2 of our cars. but not mine. if your like me & love to shift, then don't give it another thought. a th400 with a hd sprag is the safest way to fly. some say the th350 with modern technology is plenty strong. i've never used 1 of these new age creations, so i can't recommend them for hd bracket racing. if you'd rather use a th350, talk to someone who is using 1 sucsessfully in a setup similiar to yours & find out exactly what parts they are using to keep it together, or at least the builder of 1 that works. Good Luck!

[ponyakr]

1 nite in 1970, me & a couple of buddies had just come out of a tavern in monroe, where we'd had a few "cold ones". we jumped in the goat & drove across the river & down the main 4-lane drag. after stopping for a red lite, i popped the clutch & barked the tires a little, just for kicks, then shifted on up & eased on down the street. there was almost no traffic that late at night, but it just so happens that there was a city cop who had his cruiser hid behind a gas station & had seen the whole thing. when i noticed his lites flashing in my mirror, i immediatly down shifted, burning rubber, & said "hang on boys". why do guys do that? well i soon left the cruiser far in the distance, turned rite & headed south towards I-20. then about that time another cruiser came out from a side road & joined in the pursuit. so downshift again, here we go, to well over 100mph. now i was only a mile from I-20. the cops told me later that they didn't have any more cruisers that far south that nite & since they were city police, if i'd just got on the interstate the chase would've ended. but i didn't know that at the time. so i made a quick rite into a residentual section that i was not familiar with. by now there were 5 cruisers & 2 motorcycles in hot pursuit, with lites flashing. i took another quick rite & saw in my mirror that the cruiser who had been closest behind me had flew rite on buy the turn, so i thought maybe we'd lost 'em for good. how dumb can you get? being unfamiliar with the neighborhood, i'd driven down a street that went less than 1/4 mile, then made a u-turn back out to the road i'd just turned off of. so there ahead of me came about 3 cruisers & a cycle. i knew the chase was over, so i stopped, got out, then got my wallet out of my pocket. i assumed they would ask for my drivers license rite away. WRONG! they spread out & approached me slowly, with hands on firearms & 1 of them slapped the wallet from my hand, sending cash & cards flying in every direction. then they slammed me up against the car, frisked me down, cuffed me & stuffed me in the back of a cruiser. then i could hear 'em laughin & talkin. it had been a slow nite for them & they had enjoyed the hot pursuit thang. but i'm thinkin, "hey wait a minute, i'm not a criminal, why are ya'll doing this to me?" now when we got to the jail, if we'da had $125 between the 3 of us, we could've just jumped back in the goat & drove off into the moonlite. but we couldn't even come up with $100. so they locked me up in what i assumed was the drunk tank, while the boys went around town waking up people they knew to help raise the bail money. so here i am in the drunk tank. its late, so all these guys are asleep, most snoring loudly. i sat on my bunk & was real still & quiet, hoping the boys would be able to raise the $ & get me out before these guys woke up & tried to kill me. well, they finally got me out & we drove off down the street in the ole goat. we've had a lot of laffs about it since, but at the time it wasn't very funny. not proud of it, but thats part of where i came from.

[ponyakr]

now here's an unforgetable goat tail for ya'll. in early 1970, i enrolled in an ironworker apprenticeship program. we'd go to 3 nite classes a week, taking welding classes as well as some book learnin. i was still also taking a nite class at college. they let us work on construction jobs along with the real ironworkers, so we could learn from them. sort of O.J.T.. i remember my 2nd job. the foreman of my crew said to me, "punkin(thats what they called all apprentices) get 1 of those small choakers & get on the back off that cherrypicker, & go get a piece of iron. the operator will show you where it is". well i only had 2 problems with that. i had no idea what a choaker was, nor what a cherrypicker was. so, i had a lot to learn. from then on i drove the goat to work every day on thru part of '72 to construction sites in n la, s ark, & e tex. so even if the day was hard, at least i could enjoy the ride to & from work. 1 day in march of '71 me & a punkin buddy were workin on a big job at our local papermill, less than 10 miles from home. just after we got to work, it started to snow really hard, & did so for several hours. now for you folks who live up north this is no biggy. but here in the land of rednecks & bayous, cajuns & crawfish, snow is a rare treat. & especialy in march, what little we get is usually in jan or feb. but this day it was just cold enuff to stick to everything it touched. there was soon a nice blanket of snow covering everything, including the trees. it was beautiful. so they shut the job down & told everybody to go home. most did. but me & my punkin buddy didn't go straight home. we popped a top on a brew, which was always handy in the ice chest on the back seat. now folks, i'm not suggesting that you do this, but this is just where i came from, part of my life B.C.(before Christ). we rode slowly out of town & down some of our favorite drinkin roads. it was the strangest & one of the most beautiful scenes i've ever witnessed. it seemed we were the only folks on the road. every road was absolutely smooth & white, with no tire tracks of any kind. we rode rite down the middle of the road. & when we made a pit stop, i'd turn the motor off & there was absolute quiet. no sound of any vehicle anywhere. it was almost like we were the only people left on earth. it was just 1 of those special moments, captured in my memory forever. as we drove on we came to a familar 4-way intersection. i did a couple of do-nuts there just for kicks, then we headed down 1 of the other roads. the ole goat never maid a slip or a bobble. i had a posi (which i think pontiac called a safe-t-track limited slip or something similiar) rear end, & sears steel belted radial tires, which were just beginning to replace bias ply tires. so we drove straight & smooth rite down the middle of the road. when we got to town, we turned around & went back to the intersection & went down 1 of the other roads to its end, then continued the same procedure on each of the 4 roads. still never a sign of any other vehicle. this day made a real special memory which i wish i had captured on film.

[ponyakr]

i'd heard about mardi gras all my life, so i decided i needed to go check it out. in feb of 1970 i loaded up all the boys & we drove in the ole goat to new orleans to hit mardi gras. let me say here, if you have been, you can probably relate, if not please don't go. well we checked into a hotel several miles from bourban street, then took a cab to the corner of bourbon & canal, where he let us out, each carrying a fifth of boones farm apple wine in each hand. anybody remember apple wine? then we strolled on down the street, takin in the sites. but there wasn't much to see. it looked like a slum section to me. there were carnival barkers outside the strip joints, trying to lure us in & occasionally 1 of the girls would come out to further entice us. but we kept walkin & suckin on our bottles til they were empty, then we'd stop by the way & buy some more which was iced down in tubs all around. we saw the big floats come thru with people throwing cheap beads off them to the drunks below. if a trinket was not caught, there would be a large pile-up of humanity scrappin to get the treasure. sometimes peoples hands would be bloody because they had gotten stepped on while reaching for the beads. there were cops on horseback patrolling the streets. when somebody got out of line or shouted obsenities at them, they would reach down, grab hold of them, & jerk them up over the iron railings & put them into paddywagons, which were parked on every corner. when the wagon got full they'd take 'em to jail, then bring 'em back empty, ready for another load. i could tell i was not in kansas any more. during the nite we got seperated & 1 guy got lost. when he finally found us you could tell he was extremely releived. me & 1 other guy decided we'd check out a strip joint, since we'd never had the pleasure(or whatever). it was'nt really a nude show, you know just little g-strings & such. i really felt sorry for the 1st few girls we saw. they were obviously on drugs & just doin it to get drug money. but then a beautiful, tall, dark eyed cajun girl came out. that got my attention. about that time i heard a thump. it was the sound of my friends head hitting the bar. he'd had all the wine he could stand. the bouncer quickly escourted us out & that was that. we survived the nite, then loaded back up into the ole goat & cruised back home, never to return to that h??? hole again!

[ponyakr]

how many of you have ever gone crawfishin in a new 4spd TA? i have! back about '74, T.J. & i were friends with 2 redheaded brothers & their families. so 1 day they decided we should have a big crawfish boil get together. now, for those of you who have never eaten crawfish, i feel i must give a little background info here. a crawfish looks just like a lobster, but is much smaller & lives in fresh water. when the cajun people of s La 1st settled there, they were very poor & didn't speak english. they spoke french, so many thought they were just poor ignorant people. but they had the good sense to use their new invironment to their advantage. the warm waters of the s La lakes, bayous & rivers were rich with fish & crawfish. so this became the staple of their diets. at the time, i assume most white folks didn't eat crawfish, at least not in public. they actually looked down on cajuns for doing so, saying they were just poor & ignorant & didn't know any better. so for years, cajuns got to enjoy these mudbugs(as they are called) without competition. things have really changed. now, most rednecks from the hill country of n La love mudbug boils. the crawfish industry is huge in La. in some years demand exceeds supply. but in '74 , if you wanted mudbugs, you couldn't just go out & buy a sackful like you can now. you had to go out & catch your own. this wasn't very hard, cause in La every body of water, including every mudhole on the side of the road has mudbugs in it. so in '74 me & the brothers started puttin out our crawfish nets in every mud hole along all our old drinkin roads. 1 brother, i'll call al, had a new '74 400, 4sp TA. when his brother was workin shift work at our local papermill, me & al would load up our ice chest & our nets, pop a top & head out down the old drinkin roads, lookin for a decent sized mudhole to put a net in. it was definately the most fun i ever had fishin. after a few days, we had plenty to have our boil. so out in the yard at al's mom's house, we got a big black iron washpot & filled it about 1/2 full of water. then we built a big fire under it using wood meant for al's mom's wood burning fireplace. we put in a pkg of shrimp & crawfish boil seasoning. then we cut up corn & potatoes & onions & thru it all in the pot. once this came to a boil, we added the bugs we'd caught & soon had a feast fit for a cajun king. so me & T.J. & al's family had a real s La style banquet, munchin on the bugs we'd caught in a '74 pontiac TA.