It was a 1980 KW conventional, special order, one of those new walk-in sleepers. 430 Detroit, respectable but not a genuine powerhouse. 355 rears, though, and that wasn't the clincher. Spicer resurrected the two-box transmission Browning made popular years earlier. A 6 X 4, not progressive. That gave it a reach beyond the numbers on the speedometer, and herein lies the prelude to my mortality.
A flashy rig like this one attracts competition, those who want to see what's under the hood. But it's a truck, you know, not a Maserati. Still, there's a lot of geography to put into your rear-view mirror in Wyoming, and one could grow old waiting behind the speed limit imposed by the Feds in the 1970's.
So late one night, after pinning the speedometer needle against the peg at the end of the gauge, I left the fellow in the adjoining lane dropping back further and further, as I explored the limits of the last 2 gears.
The Interstate gradually climbs the rolling hills of the Continental Divide, yawning 2 or 3 miles wide between crests. Collecting speed on the downslope, the rig alternately shuddered and smoothed out, the rhythm developing into a routine. Radio delta range ebbed as the headlights in my mirrors shrank to pinholes in the black night. Bottoming out, then sweeping up the next rise, I began to relax and marvel at the sheer velocity of this machine. That's when it happened.
Not abruptly, but more like a tiny voice at the back of my consciousness, suggested that nothing, absolutely nothing on this rig was designed to go this fast.
Every truck driver's worst nightmare is blowing out a steering tire. It's the single most vulnerable component on a moving truck, the mere thought of it guaranteed to bring a strong man to his knees.
That small voice kept at me, reasoning, reminding, as I was slowly compelled to recognize the logical outcome of such an event. And I did not want to go out under a load of of "garbage," slang for produce (given its perishability).
Ever so gradually I let up on the accelerator, just as gently downshifted, once, twice, three times, four, until I was crawling along at about half peak speed, hovering just over the original 70 mph speed limit from before the oil wars.
The engine ground on monotonously, mile after tedious mile, giving no indication of any overtaxing demand on the drive train, no newly-developed shuddering, wobbling or unusual noise, nothing unusual at all. My hands rested gently on the wheel, sheer will overcoming the desire to clamp onto it with a grip only death could loosen. My teeth clenched, I broke into a clammy sweat as mile upon mile of rolling landscape unfurled before me.
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Years later, I approached nearly the same speed, my riding buddy and I making the 2-day Lawman 1000 race along the Fraser River in British Columbia on our Hondas. Not actually a race, but he was the one motorcyclist I trusted enough to ride right on his flank - or he on mine, both of us trusting one another implicitly even in the triple-digit range.
Coming up on a piece of highway which stretched before us for miles, he passed me, his monstrous new Valkyrie V-6 1200cc rocketing by. But the original Valkyrie had only 4 gears, while my '77 Magna had 6.
It took me probably a minute or two to catch him as the power rise on the Magna kicked in well after 4000 RPMs. Dropping down a couple gears put the little 700cc into redline territory, where I began to gain on him.
Just as I drew even with him, handlebar to handlebar, I backed off the throttle, and fell back in behind him. We rode thus for the remainder of the trip, drifting across the finish line ahead of the pack. The ride home was made tersely, and when Monday rolled around, he showed up at the house on his brand new Nighthawk, a 1700cc race-worthy, barely street-legal missile.
Recalling that epiphany in Wyoming long ago, I determined immediately that those days were in my rearview mirror, to be revisited here and nowhere else.
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