Who was Nitrous John Gossen?
 

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)

Re: Who was Nitrous John Gossen?
 

good story. Tell us more. :D

Re: Who was Nitrous John Gossen?
 

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

Re: Who was Nitrous John Gossen?
 

Trouty what does TTT mean?

Re: Who was Nitrous John Gossen?
 

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


great stories. keep'em coming :drink:

I spent a lot of time at John's house.
 

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.

Sound alot like me
 

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

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

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.

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

John always told me on every sunday at the track when he heard the announcer say "Nitrous Nolan" in the Ford Mustang... I'm the "Real Nitrous".

Cubic Inches I'm sure has a few GREAT stories about John, they were very good friends.

Honestly I dont think it would have made a damn bit of difference. The boat was floating nose high but had as I recall come apart a bit.

No, the boat came up in one piece except for some cracks . John was still stuck in the boat on the bottom when they found it ,I also know the guy who bought the boat with out the motor in it .

Yep, I thought about him tonight. Found this thread at the top of the google search for his name.

I met John years ago when he had his shop on West St. He was racing the 68 Camaro at the time. It was blue with primer and no nitrous for him back then.

I remember one day walking into his shop and seeing this motorcycle all apart with the bent frame sitting in the middle of the bay. I looked at it and said something about it being just like the bike John had. Turned out it was John's.. He had hit a car that had run a stop sign and flipped over the top. I said something about his was lucky he didn't get killed and John said that he had and I was looking at an angel. He started flapping his arms like they were wings. I think that's when I decided that John was indestructable.

I was at his shop late one Saturday night after a trip to Spencer Speedway. It was 2:00 AM or so and John asked if I wanted to go for a ride. His Camaro ran high 11's without "the spray" as he called it back then. With me in the passenger seat, he backed out onto the service road along West St and stood on it. We got to the end of the street and it had been a pretty impressive ride. My own car was just about as fast but I had never had been a passenger.

John turned the car around, flipped the switch for the NOS and the car turned into an animal! The rear danced all over the road as the phone poles flew by. I remember thinking I was either gonna die or go to jail... but then I realized I was with John and nothing could happen.

There's so many stories......

I hadn't seen John in a few years when I got the call that he was killed. I was down south at the time and couldn't get home in time for the funeral. I couldn't believe that he was gone... I still find it hard to believe.....John was always one of those guys that walked away... and he didn't this time.

These are awesome memories to a man who was a legacy. We used to race the street car shootout series with him in the mid 90's.

I remember one year racing with him maple grove raceway and insisting on riding my prostreet oil cooled gsxr to the track just so he could see it...the look on his face was priceless as he was into bikes...then he says so does it run as good as it looks.

We raced many events w John and Michelle, he would supervise us rebuilding tranny's and tuning our NOS and making adjustments on the chassis all while crusing around the pits clowning around.

years later i got into this boat stuff and remember John talking of his boat motors he built over the years and his boating expirences, so naturally I was excited as the day i insisted on riding the gsxr to the track to show him, to let him know i was into boats now and receive his admiration. Well it was one of the sadest days of my time when i found out he had a tragic accident none the less in a boat.

John Gossen was a man who we looked up to and admired, an unselfish person who always extended himself to others. He was a true FRIEND who touched many.

Rest in Peace our friend...we never stop thinking of you!

Your friends in Pottstown, Pennsylvainia.

Never met him, but he is a legend in and around the Central New York area! Anybody that has HP in there blood has heard of him.

This is absolutely not true...

The stories surrounding John and his death are many... and many of them get stretched as they are told over and over. Anyway, it's all irrelevant at this point.

I prefer to tell the stories of the great times we shared. He was a true friend... Not always the guy that told you what you wanted to hear, but always the truth... thats what real friends do. Every day I miss him. From time to time, I dig out a few of the photos, or some of the hours and hours of video that I have of racing, boating, or just doing stupid stuff with him. They still make me laugh, and remember him just like it was yesterday.

It's nice to hear stories from some of the other people whose lives he touched, as we approach the 7th anniversary of his death.

RIP Buddy...

Anniversary is today, hard to believe its been 8yrs, I think of you often Buddy

First time for Me to see this post. Sounds like He was full of life. RIP. Artie