1968 Pontiac GTO

The year was 1977. High school. I was a Junior. As usual my entire fleet of cars were in some manner of disrepair. I had four cars at the time and was lucky if one of them ran enough to get me to school and back. This was one of those times. After a valiant attempt to start my 68 Camaro, the battery was dead, (I forgot I only had 15 good starts left) I called my buddy Brad for a ride to school.Five minutes later I heard the roar of his car coming down the street. It was a very distinct roar, loud and throaty. Brad had a 1968 GTO with a 400 cubic inch motor with tri-power carburetors coupled with a racing transmission and a 513 rear end axle. This car was built for speed.

I hopped in and away we went turning left onto Market street making our way to Boardman high school. Being that we were a wee bit late, (We were always late) Brad decided to open the GTO up a little. Actually it was a lot. Brad dropped the GTO down a gear and stepped on the gas.

In an instant I was plastered to the back of my seat as the GTO roared up the road. In mere seconds we were exceeding well over 100 MPH and still accelerating with the school fast approaching.

Brad let his foot off the gas pedal to slow down but nothing happened. He looked over at me then back on the road. He nervously said that the gas pedal was stuck to the floor. A second later we blazed past the high school exceeding well over 120 MPH. Then the unthinkable. As Brad was driving, mind you at a 120 MPH, he reached down, while taking his eyes off the road, and tried to unstick the pedal. For seconds at a time his eyes are off the road. And we are continuing to increase speed.

Finally, in a last ditch effort, he leans down once again and rips the gas pedal off the floor and miraculously unhooks the linkage and the car starts to slow down. Relieved as the car coasted to a stop we started to laugh like idiots. We were inches from certain death, and we’re laughing like idiots thinking that the past event was so cool.

Brad flings the gas pedal to the back seat and gingerly presses on the metal rod sticking out of the floor boards and we slowly make our way back to school.

And of course we were late to class.

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