@MAXIM –
For John Hennessey, the moment he realized the esoteric power of torque was a seminal one. He does suggest his connection with petroleum-firing cylinders dates prenatal, when he swears remembering driving around Houston in his dad’s stick-shift 1964 GTO 389—while still in his mom’s womb. But the first time Hennessey credits being consciously smacked in the head with that indelible power was when, as a seventh grader, he’d ignored his mother’s orders to be home by curfew.
“I knew I was supposed to be home for something, but I was blowing it off,” Hennessey recalls, chuckling at the memory. “By then my dad had a ’68 Pontiac GTO and he comes ripping down the street, rolls down his window, and says, ‘You’re supposed to be home. Get your ass back there!’ And I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ So I go walk to get in the car, but he’s slams it into gear and does about a 200-foot burnout because he’s pissed off, and basically he’s telling me that I had to walk home. I looked at my friends and they look at me, and all of a sudden my social status with my junior high friends went up because now I’ve got this cool dad who does burnouts,” he laughs. “I thought, ‘Okay, well, maybe if I get some social status with my friends, maybe they’ll give me some status with the ladies.’ ”