March 2013

PONTI-YAKKIN
Volume 13, Issue 3
March 2013
Official Newsletter of the Alamo Area Chapter of the Pontiac-Oakland Club International
CLUB OFFICERS
President:
Alfred Flores
(210) 435-6333
Vice President:
Thomas Rauschuber
Treasurer:
Mike Prescher
Secretary:
Penny San Marco
Newsletter Editor: Penny Bryant
Website Editor:
Thomas Rauschuber
Meeting Location
March 12, 2013
Meeting @
IHOP
14424 San Pedro (No. Hwy 281)
210 404 1699
A Note From the President
Submitted by: Alfred Flores
The purpose of the Alamo Area Chapter
(AAC) of the Pontiac-Oakland Club International (POCI) is assisting Pontiac and Oakland
Car owners with the restoration and enjoyment
of these great cars through sharing of knowledge, and promotion of social activities.
Membership in the international body is a prerequisite of chapter membership. Local chapter
dues are $20.00 per year. Membership entitles
you to receive our monthly newsletter “PontiYakkin”, free personal car/parts for sale/wanted
ads, inclusion in club-sponsored events, and
voting rights on chapter issues. Members are
encouraged to submit articles for use in the
newsletter. All materials are subject to approval, editing, and space limitations. Articles
used are the opinions of their author and not
ACC or POCI.
To submit ads, articles, or request information,
please call one of the above listed club members or contact us at:
Alamo Area Chapter-POCI
(Pontiac-Oakland Club International)
PO Box 34654
San Antonio TX 78265-4654
www.classicpontiac.org
What a turn out! Our February meeting had just over twenty
members in attendance. This left the IHOP waitresses very
busy that Tuesday evening. I talked with the management
that same evening and they were very apologetic about the
delay in food orders and for being short handed that evening.
I had given the management a courtesy reminder the day before about our meeting but they couldn’t help staff members
calling in sick. I will make it a note to remind them and the
management of our March meeting in advanced.
AutoRama is just days away and the place has been booked
to capacity for over a month. The organizer, Jay, has been
working very hard to situate vendors and participants this
year. I hope to see plenty of members come out to support
this great event. As mentioned last month, our club display
will have seven club cars on display this year. I will have
discount coupons available at this month’s meeting for anyone that will be coming to the show.
Penny San Marco has told me that her son, Greg San
Marco, will be giving a Tech talk on his latest project. If you
have not been to a recent meeting, Penny has talked about
Greg’s project for reproducing the early second generation
Trans Am stripes. The accuracy and attention to detail for
this project is really something. The stripe package are of
such high quality and detail that these are now available to
the public. I look forward to Greg’s talk and how this product is now available to everyone in the restoration market.
Our next meeting is this Tuesday March 12 at the
IHOP restaurant located at 14424 San Pedro Ave on the
frontage road of HWY 281 N just north of Bitters Rd. I hope
to have another great turnout this month and hope to see you
there!
PONTI-YAKKIN 1
Alamo Area Chapter of POCI
February 12, 2013
TEXAS BOWTIES SPRING OPEN CAR SHOW Sunday, April
14 8 – 4 Rain or Shine
Ancira Winton Chevrolet 6111 Bandera Rd Two Pontiac Classes
Submitted by Penny San Marco
Coffee & Rides last Saturday of month. Panera Bread Co. 1203 N.
Alfred called the meeting to order a little after 7 PM with 21 mem- 1604 @ Blanco Rd
bers and one guest present. Our guest is a “winter Texan” James 8 AM – 11 AM
“Mike” Reed. Our resident winter Texans, Jan & Lee Cramer were
also in attendance. The minutes as reported in the Newsletter were NEW CAR/PARTS NEEDED/ WANTED
approved as was the Treasurer’s report.
You may have noticed –your secretary does a really poor job on this
important part of the Newsletter. If you have anything for sale or are
OLD BUSINESS
in need of a particular part you think a club member might have,
Reminder that the AutoRama Show is March 15-18 at Freeman Coli- PLEASE, write it up for me as well as bringing it up at the meeting
seum Expo Hall and our Chapter will have a group display with 6 and I promise to get it in the Newsletter. An email will work also.
members bringing their Pontiacs. Mark Jackley, Justin Rowland, Jim [email protected]
Boring, Frank SanMarco, Mike Prescher, & Alfred Flores.
Many thanks, Penny
Thomas Rauschuber has enlisted help with the web site from Brian
Yamanouchi, and Alfred Flores. It won’t be too long before the updates take place. This is a huge job and we are very lucky to have the
volunteers to do it. They do ask for all the help you can give in the
POCI News
way of articles, biographical story and pictures.
Wayne has set up an online site where you can order club t-shirts.
www.queensboro.com.
Look online for the shirt you want (logo already designed) and give
Wayne the info. He will order it for you. [email protected] .
NEW BUSINESS
Discussion opened for possibility of doing a club car show this year.
Some club members are very interested in picking up the show again
and the main problems of needing sponsors for shirts and awards
will be looked into by Alfred, Thomas & Brian. Immediate decision
needed for location. Any suggestions would be very helpful and
should be given to one of these members. One possibility would be a
VFW Hall.
Alfred opened up the idea of having Tech Talks at the meetings or
reviving our Tech Days if anyone has a project that they need assistance with. Anyone with helpful tech tips or demonstrations please
contact Alfred.
Brooks Burk brought a scale model out of his collection of Pontiac
model car kits that is a rare and interesting tribute. It is a model of
Challenger I powered by 4 Pontiac engines that also included a
model of the driver, Mickey Thompson.
RECENT EVENTS
Castroville Cruise Night Feb 8
UPCOMING EVENTS
Wonderland Mall Cruise March 9 6 PM – 9 PM 4522 Fredericksburg Rd near Hobby Lobby
Crusin for Christ March 9 8:15-8:45 gather up at Community Bible Church on 1604 and cruise to Dick’s Classic Garage in SanMarcos by way of Devil’s Backbone Rt.
San Antonio AutoRama
Expo Hall
March 15 – 18 at Freeman Coliseum
Goodguys Spring Nationals March 15 – 17 Texas Motor Speedway, Ft. Worth, TX
Our 41st Annual Convention will be a
"Co-Vention" with the GTOAA, held in
Dayton, Ohio on July 9-13, 2013. On-line
registration is now available. Special
invitations for 1938 Pontiacs and GMCs
and 1963 Pontiacs and GMCs
(celebrating 50th and 75th anniversaries).
For Co-Vention updates, visit
gtoaapocinationals.com Dayton Area
Attractions
Don’t forget...
Meeting Location
We will meet this Tuesday February 12
at 7:00 pm (some of us come at 6:30 and
eat before the meeting) at the IHOP
Restaurant located on HWY 281 frontage road just north of Bitters Rd.
14424 San Pedro (North Hwy 281).
Phone # 210 404 1699
PONTI-YAKKIN 2
COFFEE & CARS SCOTTSDALE, AZ STYLE
Submitted by Penny SanMarco
Vacations are really neat things and like our little get away to Arizona sometimes
the unexpected or unplanned things are just too good to be true. Frank & I
headed to Fountain Hills, AZ to meet up with our Grand Prix Chapter good
friends Steve & Kathy Fleury from Dayton, OH. We have known them for as long
as we have had our first Grand Prix – since 2004. It is hard to pass up an invitation to join them for a few days in the winter months at their condo in Arizona.
The tour guide (that would be me) always looks for fun things to see & do along
the way and this trip was no exception. Instead of flying thru El Paso as is our
habit, we stopped overnight and saw the two Missions and one Chapel on their
Mission Trail that runs between I-10 and the Mexico border in the oldest section of El Paso. (The part that used to be in Mexico before a flood in the 1800s
changed the course of the Rio Grande). And we made another planned stop at the War Eagles Air Museum, the
director of which just happens to be a previous AAC Chapter member, Bob Dockendorf. That story another
day.
Our plans included meeting up with two other GP Chapter members that are
“winter Arizona residents”, Ron & Nancy Maurer, at a very interesting restaurant
about an hour out of Fountain Hills. You thought for sure you were in Texas with
all the cowboy décor, grilled steak menu, lone stars everywhere, and outside they
have open fire pits next to the tables that you fire up when the temperature dips
as soon as the sun does.
Without a doubt, the highlight of this little trip was serendipity indeed. Steve
just happened to call one of his car buddies who lives in Scottsdale to see what
was going on. Just so happened the next day was “Cars & Coffee” at a shopping
center in Scottsdale. This gathering was started three or four years ago by Ferrari Club and it was all Ferrari with about 6 -10 cars. It has morphed into an exotic car extravaganza the likes
of which we will never see again. At least 150 cars including Ferrari, Lotus, Corvette, Aston-Martin, Cobra,
Maserati, Mercedes, Lamborghini, Vipers, Porsche, Jaguars and a Rolls Royce Convertible; one each Mercury,
Pontiac Catalina, Chevy II, Cadillac and a 66 Ford Mustang converted to a modified station wagon with a lay
down tailgate. Two of the Corvettes (one is the yellow one pictured from the rear) have been widened to fit
over the modern frames. A Rolls Royce convertible??? Amazing to see. The hub cap on the wheels are ball
bearing mounted in order to keep the RR initials stationary when the car is moving. Breathtaking is a good way
to describe this little coffee & cars gathering.
(Continued on page 4
PONTI-YAKKIN 3
(Continued from page 3)
Regarding the Texas Bowtie Spring
Car Show for 2013, (see next page for
flyer), Ralph Gaines writes that they have
made a few changes this year. Registration
the day of the event has been reduced $5.
Second we are adding 4 cash awards; Best
Paint, Best Interior, Best Under Hood and
Long Distance. Finally, this year we are
awarding 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in each
class.
Hope too see a bunch of Pontiacs!
— Ralph
San Antonio AutoRAMA 2013
March 15th, 16th and 17th, 2013
Fri 3pm-8pm / Sat. 10am-7pm / 10am-6pm
The NEW Freeman Expo Hall .
San Antonio, TX
TICKETS On Sale Feb 9th, 2013
Advanced Tickets available at O'Reilly Autoparts
PONTI-YAKKIN 4
PONTI-YAKKIN 5
David Hahn’s Radioactive Pontiac
6000
Submitted by Penny SanMarco
Imagine my surprise when one of the many books I read
for pleasure or to follow many interests other than
Pontiacs, turned out to have a story about a Pontiac 6000.
And quite an intriguing story it is. First I had to find out
what a Pontiac 6000 is. It is a model introduced by PMD in
1981 for the 82 model year and it fits in the line between
the Phoenix and the Bonneville in size.
The high school student driving this particular car was
David Hahn, an Eagle Scout and chemistry nerd who had
begun experimenting with explosive chemicals in his bedroom. When he partially destroyed his carpet and walls his
chemistry lab was moved to the basement and then to his
mom’s potting shed in the back yard. All he wanted to do
was solve the world’s energy crisis and break it’s addiction
to oil. His work on the Eagle Scout atomic energy badge
led to his decision to build a “breeder reactor” whose
source of power would be pellets of uranium-233 which
readily fissions.
His early precautions included wearing a lead apron to protect his organs and he discarded his clothing and shoes after working on his project. He acquired thorium-233 by
ordering hundreds of replacement mantles for thorium
lamps used by miners and then melting them down and
treating it with $1,000 worth of lithium. The lithium was
obtained by cutting open batteries with wire cutters. A set
of cobalt drill bits were purchased at a local hardware
store and inserted between the thorium and uranium cubes.
(The steps he took to assemble his reactor are outlined in
more detail in the article and book mentioned at the end of
this story)
David needed uranium-235 for his project and mounted a
Geiger counter on the dashboard of his burgundy Pontiac
6000 to cruise rural Michigan looking for uranium. He did
actually get some uranium ore from a sketchy supplier in
the Czech Republic but it was un-enriched. He had been
working on this project for some time when his Geiger
counter picked up radiation five doors down from his
mother’s house. David began to disassemble his reactor.
The thorium pellets went in a shoebox in the house, the
radium and americium in the shed and the rest of his equipment in the trunk of his Pontiac.
In August of 1994 police
searched his car. He did
terial in the trunk but
trunk contained 50 foil
thought he was stealing tires and
warn them it had radioactive manever mentioned the shed. The
wrapped cubes of gray mystery
powder, cylindrical metal objects, lantern mantles, mercury
switches, ores, vacuum tubes and assorted chemical and
acids. The police feared the toolbox that was padlocked
shut and sealed with tape was an atomic bomb.
While the police were investigating and deciding a course
of action David’s mom took all that was in the shed to the
trash. The leftover tools and trash resulted in a radioactive reading 1000 times the surrounding area. Authorities
ended up dismantling the shed and loading the remains into
39 sealed barrels headed for a dump facility in the Great
Salt Lake Desert. A $60,000 cleanup.
Because there was no apparent damage from his
“experiment” and he meant no harm, no charges were ever
brought. The effects on David are visible in the pock marks
on his face to this day.
My search after internet search turned up no information
on the whereabouts of the burgundy Pontiac 6000.
Interesting side note: David’s father and step mother were
automotive engineers for GM. David’s step-father was a
forklift operator at GM.
The very interesting book that contains this story is: The
Disappearing Spoon and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from
PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS By Sam
Kean. The magazine article appeared in Harper’s Magazine
by Ken Silverstein: “The Radioactive Boy Scout” (Nov 1998)
1989–1991 Pontiac 6000 LE sedan
The Pontiac 6000 was a mid-size car introduced by
the Pontiac division of General Motors in 1981 for
the 1982 model year, positioned between the
smaller Phoenix and the slightly upscale Bonneville
(previously the LeMans). It shared its platform
with the Buick Century, Chevrolet Celebrity,
Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, and the Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser station wagon.
PONTI-YAKKIN 6
Texas Considers Taxing Cars for Miles Traveled
Legislation (H.B. 1309) to impose a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax on state motorists has been
introduced in Texas. Under the bill, the amount of the VMT tax would vary by vehicle type. Vehicles weighing 10,000 lbs or less would be taxed at a rate of 1 cent per mile, vehicles weighing more
than 10,000 lbs at 1.25 cents per mile and electric vehicles at .75 cents per mile. The tax would be
offset by a motor fuels tax credit which would be determined using the vehicle’s VMT and fuel
economy data such that as fuel economy goes up, the credit decreases to ensure vehicles paying less
in fuel taxes get a smaller credit and pay more in VMT. The actual VMT would be measured using
an annual odometer inspection.
We Urge You to Contact the House Ways and Means CommitteeMembers (List Below) Immediately To Request Their Opposition to H.B. 1309
H.B 1309 will limit consumer choice in purchasing vehicles by making some popular SUVs,
light trucks and minivans, substantially more expensive to own.

H.B. 1309 will potentially lead to more deaths on Texas highways as higher taxes on larger, safer
vehicles forces consumers into smaller cars with higher accident fatality rates.

H.B. 1309 will do little to improve air quality. Air quality has more to do with overall basic vehicle maintenance than it does with owning and operating any particular class of vehicle.

H.B. 1309 penalizes national efforts to create a more fuel efficient vehicle fleet. As gas tax revenues decrease due to hybrid and electric vehicle ownership, states are looking for new sources of
funding for pet projects.

DON’T DELAY! Please contact members of the Texas House Ways and Means Committee immediately by phone or e-mail to request their opposition to H.B. 1309.
Bill Introduced in U.S. House of Representatives to Stop Sale of E15 Gas Pending Scientific
Analysis
SEMA-supported legislation (HR 875) has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives
directing the National Academies to conduct a scientific assessment on how gasoline blended with
15 to 20 percent ethanol (E15 and E20) may impact gasoline-powered engines, vehicles and related
equipment. The analysis would consider a variety of issues including tailpipe and evaporative emissions, impact on OBD systems, materials compatibility and fuel efficiency. The National Academies
would have 18 months to conduct its analysis, during which time sales of E15 blended gas would be
halted. HR 875 has been assigned to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology for
consideration. The Committee passed a similar bill last year but no further action took place. The
U.S. Senate is currently considering another SEMA-supported bill (S. 344) to ban sales of E15.
PONTI-YAKKIN 7
Upcoming events
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CBC Cruisers for Christ 3/9/13 Cruise to San Marcos, via Devils
Backbone and Dick’s Classic Garage car museum. 8:15 -8:45 AM in
the Community Bible Church South Parking Lot in the southwest cor- 
ner.
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Friday Night Cruisin’ Biff Buzby’s at IH 35 & Toepperwein
Rd. every Friday night.
Castroville Cruise Night 2nd Friday of every month at Wommack Chevrolet. Starts at 6:00 PM
Saturday Morning Cruise In. Starting in March and continuing, every
second Saturday from 8:00AM to 10:30 AM in the parking lot of
Lowes at the Rim.
Pig Stand Swap Meet on the last Sunday of each month.
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TJ Burgers in New Braunfels on Saturdays.
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Carson’s Car Corral, 1604 & Blanco - last Sat of month. 8
am to 10 am.
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Vineyards at Blanco & 1604 Breakfast at 8:00 am every 4th
Saturday. Coffee & Rides cruise last Sat month @ Panerea
Bread Co 1203 N. Loop 1604
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Soda Pop’s in Boerne Changes to various Saturday of the
month, (check their web site) monthly during the summer.
103 N. Main St.
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70 Tempest / LeMans chrome front bumper & mounting brackets $100 pair of grilles $50
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66 Ventura See Alfred for pics and contact # complete car
97 TA WS6 for sale Contact info is Roe Traugott, Cell 210685-0800, Office 210-924-4371
91 TA Convertible for sale Jay Lord, 830-438-2878, 210-3949438,
Wonderland of the Americas Mall (formerly Crossroads Mall)
Cruise In (2nd Saturday each month) 4522 Fredericksburg Rd.
San Antonio Police Dept Memorial Festival Car Show.
3/9/13. 12200 SE Loop 410 (at academy) Registration 9:00
AM.
AutoRama 2013 Freeman Expo Hall, San Antonio, TX .
3/15/13.
6th Annual Lester’s Automotive Open Car Show. 3/30/13.
32182A IH 10 W, Boerne, TX Registration 8:00 AM.
3rd Annual Texas Bowties Open Car Show, Ancira Winton
Chev. 4/14//13 611 Bandera Rd. Registration 8:00 AM.
New Cars/Parts wanted/for sale
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Recurring Events:
San Antonio Raceway For scheduled events. check out sanan- 
tonioraceway.com .
Valentine’s Hill Country Cruise. 2/16/13. Hillcrest Inn, 1506 
Sidney Baker, Kerrville, TX . Begins at 8:30 AM, arrive early
for coffee and donuts. Contact David Baxter 830 955 1506 for

info.
AAC Pontiac-Oakland Club
P.O. Box 34654
Fat Boy’s Cruise In every 1st Friday of the month 610 Hwy
16, Bandera, TX Starts at 5:00 PM
PLACE
POSTAGE
HERE
San Antonio, Texas 78265-4654
ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED
Join the Alamo Area
Chapter - POCI
on
FACEBOOK!
PONTI-YAKKIN 8