Lamborghini Countach? If I was a kid, I'd hang a '74 Buick poster on my bedroom wall!

What is the car that most people lust after more than any other? Lamborghini? Ferrari? Cobra or Corvette? Well, for most car fanatics, the make and model that brings the fondest memories is often your first car.

That’s certainly the case for me, as my ’74 Buick Century is the only car that I still have dreams about. Apparently, I still have the old Buick at the back of the garage, and I drive it every once in awhile just to keep things oiled up. Actually, I sold it more than 15-years ago, but the sleep-induced fantasy that I still have it squirreled away makes me sleep better.

Crazy commute this morning!

So I’m driving my Impala to work, when I notice the brake pedal goes all the way to the floor. I immediately know the problem—some no account goon cut the rubber brake lines. I look down at the speedometer, and even though it says I’m going 43, I can tell I’m doing like a buck-twenty. Not good.

I look down at my shoe, and it is frantically pumping the brake pedal to no avail.

Then to make matters worse, there’s a 14-car pileup on the highway ahead of me, and the road is completely blocked. Luckily, there’s a rollback parked with the ramp down, so I aim for that and hang on. Thank goodness I was able to clear the entire accident! My car completely wadded up and collapsed upon impact, but when I opened my eyes it was OK again.

The difference between dad's and kids when it comes to choosing the family Corvette

Wednesday, we had a scheduling issue that left BHo with no one to watch him. I was rewarded with an all-too-rare opportunity to have a full day with just him and me, to go out and do things that dads and six-year-old kids do.

One thing we did was set up a new television stand so we could carve out a place for the Wii that has been sitting unopened in its box for several months now. Is it just me, or do other people get discouraged when they're an hour into assembling a giant piece of pressed wood furniture, and there's still so many panels and little screws that it doesn't look like they've made a dent? I also manage to put at least one piece together upside down and have to take out like 100 screws to make it right.

Anyway, we also made a field trip to Vintage Vettes, L.L.C. in North Kansas City. I had never been there before. I actually just learned it was there recently. But the website looked like something I needed to be a part of.

And I'll tell you what, the website was right. There was some awfully cool stuff in there if you love Corvettes. It was also a grim reminder of how little money I make, and how as I follow what seems to be my destiny, I will never own anything in that place.

The Devil's Semi: The CFI Red Racer, Pikes Peak, and bringing it to KC

Since my parents are from Colorado, we always made it a tradition to go to the Pikes Peak Hillclimb.  In the late '90s, they started an exhibition class for Semi trucks. CFI trucking was one of the first, and they built this truck called the Red Racer to tackle the mountain. Now, to traverse tight, narrow hairpin turns and huge drops, they came up with a full-length, ten-wheel, Conventional sleeper cab Kenworth T2000.

What these pictures don't show is how much the back of it slid sideways going around our spot at Brownbush Corner, how much dirt and thick black smoke it left behind, how much the body of the truck listed in the turn, or the fact that he never let off the throttle taking that turn.

I've been to a lot of different kinds of racing, and seeing and hearing that truck go around there was one of the top five moments I've ever seen. It was completely unexpected, and just heart-stopping. You should have heard everyone cheer and yell once he got by.

So anyway, I worked for the two local NASCAR circle tracks, Lakeside and I-70 Speedways in Kansas City, and one of the things I used to like to do was plan some kind of little sideshow at intermission. We didn't have any budget, so it had to be free.

Welcome to Hover Motor Company. Let's sit down, light a cigar, and talk some cars.

Hover Motor Company. What is that anyway?

Back in the 1930s, my granddad, Robert Hover, opened his first Hover Motor Company used car lot in Colorado Springs. He was in business through the 1970s, until he finally gave up to enjoy the sedentary life. And that's where I came in.

Our family used to visit my grandparents in Colorado pretty often when I was a kid, and the dominant conversation was stories my dad and granddad would tell about things that happened involving the car lots.

I vividly remember one story in particular about what kind of damage certain animals will do to a car when you hit them.

You see, the car lot was mostly run granddad, dad, maybe some of dad's friends, or a small cast of characters that worked for peanuts. They would go all over the middle of the country and buy cars they thought they could make a little money on. So they'd ride the bus, take the train, or drive out and find something, and either drive it back home or flat-tow it. They did this quite a bit, and spent a lot of time driving at night. So they had the opportunity to clobber their fair share of creatures.