Ride of a lifetime fuels a bond with Dad.

Byline: WRITE ON By Linda Gould For The Register-Guard

My memories are like the patches in a quilt, my fondest being my Daddy Patches ...

I was always fascinated with cars and trucks and mimicked Dad when he worked on them. I was a 4-year-old, pig-tailed mini-mechanic, trying to be like Dad, stuffing my overall pockets with wrenches, sockets, whatever. Good, greasy garage stuff, and to me it was Daddyland. Dad wasn't very talkative, but sensing how awkward I felt as a youngster, he'd bring me on his errands and sometimes we'd wander through the junkyards looking for parts.

One of my fondest memories was when Dad and I went to an open house at the Ford dealership where he worked. I was a teenager then, and my favorite things were still my die-cast toy truck and my Breyer horse. I was a hot-rod crazy teen, and Dad didn't tell me about two of the featured cars. Shortly after our arrival, I caught sight of a Shelby Mustang GT350 - a specially designed, beefed-up Mustang.

Then I saw the Cobra. Royal Blue with two broad, white rally stripes down the hood and back. Roll bars. Pipes. It looked fast just sitting there. Dad knew it wouldn't take long for me to spy them. He let me drink in every curve, knowing I was fantasizing about riding in them at a hundred miles an hour.

He watched as I walked around them, scanning every inch, gingerly touching here and there, letting my hands slide over their sleek forms sensing the speed that was there; knowing that their engine compartments housed massive wall-to-wall engines. All those barely leashed ponies under their hoods.

Dad walked over with that gleam in his eye when he knew a secret you were dying to find out about. Nodding his head toward the cars he said, "Hey, wanna go for a ride?"

I stood there with my mouth aping a McChord Air Force Base hangar, wide maw gaping to receive a C5A Galaxy - the Air Force's behemoth cargo jet. I stood like a stone statue on Easter Island except for my head, which was vigorously bobbing up and down, eventually managing to shriek, "Yeah!"

We took the Mustang out first. The straight stretch of state Route 167 was several miles long and although completed, wasn't opened for traffic yet. We pulled onto the on-ramp and waited. Then we went from 0 to 60, tires squawking against the pavement at every gear, then 90 and more as the 'Stang streaked down the freeway like a cheetah.

Then we went back and parked her back in the line-up and wiped her down until she sparkled like glittering diamonds under the spotlights. Still breathless from excitement, I knew what ride was coming up next! We relinquished ourselves to the Cobra's close interior, slinking down into the firm seats. Repeating our earlier ride, we sat on the pavement as before.

Waiting ... the engine rumbling with the characteristic uncivilized roar that only a Cobra has. All that horsepower barely restrained. I felt like we were in California, waiting for our turn to drag race along the Los Angles riverbed. Someone would hold a scarf and the race would start when it was dropped.

Waiting for the scarf to drop ...

Dad looked at me with a wordless nod and I nodded back. The scarf dropped and off we went to write our piece of racing history. The car leaped ahead, going 0 to 60 in little more than four seconds, tires screeching with each gear change, slamming us back into our seats. We surpassed 100, then faster still!

The Cobra thundered down the freeway, the cool night air whipping us wildly, buffeting our hair like a thousand frantic hands. The lines on the freeway melted together as light standards blurred by. We approached the end of the freeway, but not before the speedometer could top out at 155 mph.

More thrilling than the Colossus roller coaster at Magic Mountain, it remains my fondest memory. Dad and I, screaming down the freeway in a car that was born for racing. Carroll Shelby's Cobra later proved a formidable opponent in international racing for many years to come.

That night, I saw a side of my Dad that few people, if any, have ever seen. He wore a look of pure ecstasy as he slammed through the gears. His expression bordered between glee and fright as we rode at 130-plus mph. We were two low-flying souls without a plane, and my face mirrored that same look a few years later at the drag strip when I drove my beefed-up, 440-cubic-inch, race-cammed, '72 Plymouth Roadrunner at the same breakneck speeds.

I'm still into horsepower, four-legged and otherwise, and my favorite things? Still trucks and horses.

Linda Gould of Eugene is a former trucker.

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