A Life Without Pacers

As a woman who doesn't even cry at sad movies, I couldn't help but wipe away a tear as my first car, that problem-ridden money-pit 1975 AMC Pacer, drove out of my life. I knew that it was going to a good home, but being Pacerless left a serious hole in my heart.

But... there was nothing I could do about it. I was starting my third year of college in the fall of 1997, and one car was enough to worry about. I chose to unsubscribe from the AMC mailing list due to high volume, but I continued working on The Pacer Page when I could find time. My efforts didn't go unnoticed; I received just as much email while Pacerless as I did when I owned Pacer #1. That feedback gave me the encouragement I needed to keep the site going and truly believe that I would, someday, fulfill my destiny as "Pacer Page Jeni" to find my next Pacer.

In May 1999, I graduated from Case Western Reserve University and started looking ahead to my new life in Portland, Oregon. Believing that the search for Pacer #2 could commence sometime in 1999, I re-subscribed to the AMC mailing list, reacquainting myself with the familiar "faces" I already knew, and meeting many more AMC folks.

Between a post-graduation trip overseas and a move across the country, I was notified that I was being selected as a Site of the Week on cars.com, the web home of NPR's CarTalk. I was interviewed for the story in late June, and The Pacer Page was featured August 2-8, 1999. Although the article read "sometime later this summer, Jeni Barovian [my maiden name] will be advertising her interest in buying a Pacer," no one, not even I, realized that the search would take even less effort than that.

Onto Part 3, "The Destiny Fulfilled -- Finding Pacer #2"...