Kickin' Rocks

with Don Pennington

Seeing What's at the End of the Road... It's the American Way

Contrary to our blasted in granite belief that we are the center of the car universe,  there is the very remote chance that we may not know enough to rule the infidels. Gathering suggestions, helpful hints or new ideas are the key, ID the cool stuff, scoop it up and make it yours. This is important, when stealing cool ideas from others you should wait a while before claiming it as yours, if you don't there may be one of those red faced moments in your future.  Using other people's ideas and taking credit for it, especially if it's good stuff, is a very important part of hot rodding.

In this new information age there are gadgets everywhere jerking info out of the air that can bankrupt you or slam the hoosgow door shut behind you. The technology level in every part of our lives is off the chart. The things they are coming up with are cool and scary. Recently a guy rented a car, at a gas stop his credit card was rejected due to $450 in recent "undisclosed" transactions. Turns out these were fees from the rental car company for speeding, the car was equipped with an information gathering module, satellite linked, that automatically issued charges if you use the car to make a pass or two at Bonneville. GM cars are equipped with similar devices, they can't suck your wallet dry but they can track everything the car is doing and what you are doing to it. Insurance companies are testing such items too, if you frequent a high crime area often your rates will go up, if you speed a lot, same deal. The On Star system offered by GM sounds like a great thing to help you unlock doors and get crash help, it can also track you. Maybe they should have named it Big Brother.

Used to be that if a hot rod project had you stumped, you just started digging through the old magazine  pile, and if you didn't get distracted by the odd Playboy, pretty soon you'd found an article that does the job. That was then, this is now and the new information world will soon eliminate the printed magazine. Hot rodders are a hearty lot, they are self reliant, have a "what do you mean I can't do that" attitude and sometimes don't mind the odd comment on how you do things. Tips offered on fixing your car or a cool way to do this or that, will be welcomed, but the Cardinal Sin of help and the one thing that hot rodders cannot deal with is co-pilot imput.  Of all the possible helpful hints that we could use, the one that never works is driving directions.  Ask any hot rodder on the planet we are never officially lost. There might be a time or two when we have decided to expand our geographic understanding of how some streets connect to other streets, which ones are dead ends and which are not, or not. Driving in circles works really good, it's just a matter of time before it comes to us that we have been here before and seen that before, grabbing second and spinning that baby around we are on our way once again. We roam the streets to be helpful to other directionally challenged soles we may come across in the future. We just want to see what's at the end of the road, it's the American way.  

I think hot rodders by choice like to be on the low end of the hi-tech scramble, the less wires there are in a hot rod the better. Junk the electronic ignitions and digital gauges, the old zapper distributors and an oil pressure gauge hanging under the dash is all we need.  And apparently our right seat doesn't need new-world gadgets either, "Wasn't that our street back there?" comes the tried and true high pitched voice. You white knuckle the steering wheel, ori-fi pucker and pupils constrict, it's the wife... helping. Where in "the vows" is traffic co-ordinator mentioned? There are certain things that are assumed when we take the walk, things like laundry, cooking, mopping, and after working my fingers to the bone with those chores I don't need a driving critic. On our first date, the co-pilot seat was a quiet place, after 30 years of marriage the suggestions start just before leaving the drive way and continue until some time after you arrive at Aunt Mabel's house. The vows may require us to have our driving helper but they are silent on the subject of asking for  directions. This is never done. Nowhere in the Great Book of Hot Rod Stuff does the word "asking" appear. We won't do it, no discussion, at least not where we can be seen. Go around the side of the gas station and ever so quietly... "psssst... psssst,  hey...Mr. Gas station man... where is Main Street?"

All hot rodders should belong to AAA, they will send you a free map to hide in the trunk. In the odd chance you feel "the lost thing" coming on, hammer the brakes, slide into the curb, jump out of the car while announcing you need to check... oh...  the air in the spare.  Find the map, write the directions on your hand because when your ear is being twisted by the traffic alert goddess, your brain can't remember much. This may not work if your wife knows hot rods don't have spares so you may need a back-up, something like counting the Frammel wrenches, or fixing something, that one is really believable since five or six trips to the trunk for the same reason may seem suspicious. Be creative, come up with something. What would solve this brain warping problem is to let her drive! Then you can just sit there and comment on  the finer points of handling your rod like "NO GRINDING NOISES!!!"  or "sweety...try that pedal on the left once in a while". Anyway you cut it, this driving assistant thing won't work. Gimmee my seat back, maybe I can get some kind of Map Quest brain implant and some ear plugs, that might work, or... go alone...that will work too! Not quite sure how to seel that, but we can work on it.

Keep Kickin'

DP