boostbros

since i,m trying to do the secret Santa thing for shawna i have recieved many emails asking that question.........first off John was not a member here, he was hard core old school i don,t think he even had a computer he lived engines morning noon and all night if necessary .i knew him 20 years and never see him wear anything but blackjeans and a white t shirt. i really got to know him in the early 90s when doctor j decided to fly us all to the key west worlds (on 1 hours notice get to the airport by 1230 we are leaving for a week) my first jet trip. doc j rented a Lincoln at Miami and 5 of us squeezed in it was my first trip down to the keys we all were amazed seeing the keys ,when we arrived we went to the pits where Dirty Laundry was set up we all just stood there dumb founded like a kid in a candy store. there were racks of KE fuel injected engines(4 engines in the boat and 12 spare) john just stood there staring i asked him to check out the surface drives he says i can,t move i,ve got a woody i,m pretty sure he was not kidding,i remember how huge that boat was. The next day we went to the grocery store and doctorj and i went in and filled the cart with the 3 basic food groups ,beer, chips, and dip while i,m checking out i look out the window in front of us and john is doing a burnout like nascar does now with it on the revlimiter i was laughing so hard i could not count the money for the girl ,he never stopped till we were outside i remember the parking lot all smoke and covered with black tire marks like a kid with a crayon .John rolls the window down and blue smoke pours out like cheech and chong and says Doc we need to kick up this engine if we are going to be here a week ! little ladies had that horrifed look so we left before the cops came although we did get to meet the cops later after a boating incident doctor js brother had a 40 scarab (goldfinger) there so we borowed it till we were hungry again so we park at the gallion marina where it says No parking(docj says what are they going to do tow the boat? they wont bother us yup famous last words ,when we got back to the boat it was chained to the dock so John decides we can beat them by unbolting the hand rail and sliding there chain off witch we did .....it worked for a short while(thats where we got to meet the cops back at the condo.......i,ll add a few more post with more stories (will help get my post #s up so more will listen)

fund razor

good story. Tell us more.

boostbros

John loved to put the "juice" as he liked to call nitrous to everything rumor had it his push mower had a 2#bottle, we used to snowmobile race in the 80s and early 90s we raced a Skidoo 1978 ifs snopro we added nitrous to it and gained the ability to melt many pistons but we did win over 100 races ......many nighs we would show up late evening for refills he never complained. deciding we needed more we switched to Polaris turbos and quickly learned the Chernobyl effect (Meltdown) while we were learning and experimenting john built an Arcticcat wildcat to wup us. the turbo was way faster on the top end john was way faster out of the hole it was always close to see if we could run him down before the finish line or it melted(we had spare top ends and could change them between rounds)if john won he would lift his leg like a dog peeing...... alpha dog or top dog ....... lots of fun those days were

boostbros

Trouty what does TTT mean?

glassdave

TTT means to the top. it brings the thread back to the top of page on the mesage board.


great stories. keep'em coming

Nadey

I know this is an old thread. But I have not seen John in many years and just decided to "Google" him to see what came up. This thread did. I was like who "WAS" John Gossen? What do you mean was??? So I found another thread that he had died in a boating accident. Many years ago I used to spend a lot of time at his house. He used to test me to see if I could identify engine parts. I went to some drag races with him too. To me, John was just really cool. I would watch the process of him building a car from scratch. He didn't like cursing, at least not coming out of me. I remember riding around a track at a drag race because it had rained and we were helping to dry it. So I got in the truch with John and his girlfriend and I said the F word. He made me repeat myself until I didn't use it! Took a few times before I realized what he was doing. I didn't cuss around him after that. I had a lot of respect for him and he seemed to put up with me well. I was only 18 when I was hanging around with them. To give you perspective, I am now 37. I really liked John, he was fun to be around and he was a easy to like. I had always planned to stop by his house when I was in town but it looks like I won't be able to now.

JMJOHNSON7002

John has been gone for about 6 or 7 years, I wonder if anyone else ever thinks of him? Every once in a while something will catch my eye that reminds me of him. I too spent quite a bit of time at his "shack" when I was younger. He was always interested in what was going on in my life, we asked each other alot of questions. We went out to dinner at least 1 or 2 times a year, I was also fortunate enough to be invited to his 50th birthday surprise at Joey's restaurant. I will always remember that. Alot of people disliked him and I could never figure out why. Alot more loved him, just look at the turn out at the wake. He was a super nice guy always willing to lend a hand. On the other hand he told it as he saw it and if you did not agree with his point of view you were "out". If anyone has any video, photos, or stories they would like to share I would appreciate it. I have quite a few I would be willing to share as well. RIP N20

Chuck

I met him on the day he died. All morning long he wanted to race me, and tell me how he was going to whoop my ass. That was fine but I can see how some would not have liked him. If he wasn't asking me to race he was asking me about swapping girls for the night. Pretty weird for someone who didn't even know me. He did die doing what he loved. He was tagging along with the pokerrun (his boat didn't meet the length requirement) and stuffed off a large wave. RIP John

Audiofn

I saw the accident and we were I think the 2nd boat on scene. The boat went down so damn fast it went under just as we got there. 1st boat on scene had the girl just getting on their boat. When he went past us I told TopDJ I hope he knows there are huge boat wakes up there. I guess he missed them because that is what put him up in the air and stuffed. I think about that accident a lot.

green lightning

John was one of my best friends , the cat went down so fast because when he had the boat made he told the builder not to put the floation foam to save some weight