Al Suggs' jaw dropped.  

The NSCA Pro Outlaw racer, a logger by trade, had a contract last fall with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to clean up debris from the four hurricanes that slammed Florida.  

From inland Florida to Mobile, Ala., Suggs worked from daylight to dark every day, seven days a week, and saw homes and buildings that looked like giant piles of Pickup Sticks and million-dollar yachts stacked like dominoes. What he didn't see shocked him, too: Pensacola's pristine, sugar-sand beaches were obliterated. Hurricane Ivan plowed through the Panhandle at 130 miles an hour, not quite but almost as fast as Suggs drives his twin-turbo Chevy S-10 race truck down a drag strip. 

"One of the wildest scenes I saw was a big yacht stuck into one of the big buildings downtown. A wave just picked the boat up and jabbed it into the building and it was still in the building," Suggs said. That certainly wasn't something he ever had seen in his hometown of Denham Springs, La. 

And then his heart sank.

Suggs had spent days upon days of dealing with the wreckage and ruin from hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne, but all of a sudden he felt his own personal loss.  

While he was cleaning up, someone cleaned him out. About 850 miles away in Taylor, Mich., where he had sent his misbehaving truck to diagnostic guru and fellow driver Mike Moran, somebody stole his computers, audio-video equipment, and specialty tools from his trailer - "just about everything it took to work on the truck," he said. It happened only two days before he was supposed to retrieve his hauler and race truck.  

At least the folks in the coastal Southeast knew the names of the thieves who robbed them of their homes, businesses, property, power, and independence. Suggs never knew who ripped him off. 

"It breaks your heart, man," he said. "You spend all your time and effort. I built all this from scratch, you know? I bought the trailer just as a shell. I built everything here.

"They got me for over $50,000," he said. "They got a $12,000 TV out the roof right there - all liquid crystal, the finest you can get.  They got everything. I had three sound systems - one for the lounge, one for the shop area and one for the outside. Just like the truck - I designed and built everything on it myself. It's one of a kind."

Suggs had backup computer disks for all the data regarding the truck, but it was all in the trailer. The burglar also broke into Mike Bowman's motorhome parked there, and Bowman lost about $18,000 worth of goods.

Suggs had sent his truck to Moran to correct an engine problem.

"It was just making too much power too quickly. We couldn't control it," he said. "Mike has a real nice waste-gate system. I could leave pretty much as good as anybody, but when I hit second gear we'd pretty much blow the tires off and we'd go into a tire shake. It was tearin' my truck up, tearing the wheelie bars off, just mutilating it. I finally decided I'd do something about it. I just shut everything down and sent it up to Mike." 

"I've just got to buy everything and start over," Suggs said last October. 

He had taken the bright green and blue S10 to Orlando, Fla., for the World Street Nationals open meet and tried gamely to figure out what it had in it and how to finesse it down the quarter-mile. 

He failed to qualify. However, he said, "It's coming around. I was super-satisfied with what we did. For what we were faced with, I'm well satisfied. Next year I'll be ready." 

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This rugged logger, who manhandles heavy equipment, unearths stubborn tree stumps, weathers outdoor conditions, and understands the dangers of harvesting timber, said, "If it isn't complicated you don't get anywhere." 

Suggs is a Master Logger in Mississippi and Louisiana, who said he has had a hand in the timber industry since he was 13. "My grandfather was William H. Suggs. He was one of the biggest loggers in the country. It kind of went from my grandfather to me," he said. 

With the FEMA contract, Suggs has had to deal with "total destruction. There are so many limbs down and so many trees blown over and stumps in the yard. We go in and clean it out and haul it off," he said. "The first pass we clean up what's called vegetative debris. The second pass [deals with] building materials, plastic, rubber, aluminum. The main thing is just to get it off the streets so people can get back in their houses and get functioning again." 

Those hurricane victims aren't the only ones depending on him. So are wife Stephanie and sons Steven, Spencer, and Stirling - and about 40 employees at Timberland Logging Contractors, Incorporated.  

"You get nervous sometimes when business ain't so good," he said. "Payroll comes on Friday. Them guys want their money on Friday. They don't care about the problems; they want to get paid. That's just business. The money's got to come from somewhere. You've got to make it." 

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So Suggs has felt pressure and known adversity. And he knows how to treat those two tormentors: not allow them any power over him  

"I've had a lot of challenges," he said. "You can't give up. You've got to keep on going. I started with nothin' - just myself. I've had a little sponsorship help. Other than that, I've had to struggle and get here myself." 

But, Suggs said, "Once I decide I want something, I don't give up until I get it. A lot of people are happy with where they're at. They live nice lives. But you got some people who just want a lot. I want a lot, and I don't mind doing what it takes to get it. If I got to work many hours, whatever. It doesn't matter what I've got to do, I'm going to get it, one way or another."  

One achievement he wants on his racing resume is ending five-time champion Marc Dantoni's dominance. He never got the chance March 12-13 in the Cajun Shootout at No Problem Raceway in Park Belle Rose, La. Pat Bennett's '66 Nova took him out in the first round. (IHRA and NHRA Pro Mod headliner Shannon Jenkins, debuting Mike Castellana's '68 Camaro, set both ends of the class record with a 6.395-second, 219.47-mph run. But even he couldn't tame Dantoni in the final.) 

Suggs is back with his "Kryptonite" logos on the truck, a message to Dantoni, whose nitrous-injected '41 Willys carries the "S" shield of Superman. 

"I've done fairly well in the NSCA, but I never have won. I haven't won any events," Suggs said. "I've been runner -up. I've been right there. But Marc's taken me out." 

Dantoni, the fast-talking New Yorker, isn't the only one Suggs, whose unhurried Louisiana accent is as thick as pine tar, wants to beat. He wants to beat everybody.  

"I finished in the top five in the country just about every year. I wanted to do better. I wanted to challenge more," he said.   

And at the moment, Suggs, 38 - who has been racing for over half his life, since he was 15 - said he wants to do it in a truck. He ran in NHRA's Super Comp class for awhile but has made his name running in the Modified Street class in NSCA and NMCA for years before moving to NSCA's Pro Outlaw Street category. 

"All my life I've heard trucks won't run. I'm here to prove 'em wrong," he said. "I just always liked the look of a truck. I fell in love with them early in my life. I've always had a truck. I ran Modified Street with a truck. My first race car was a little Vega. I had a blown small-block in it. Then I put a blown V-6 in it and did real well with it." 

He said heads-up racing is what intrigues him most. "Running Super Comp and all that stuff, you run off time - you're just running against the clock. So once they started the street-car deal where it was heads-up, that really caught me right there," he said. "I like drag racing. Everything comes into effect -- how well you tune, how well you can leave, how well you can drive -- everything matters. When you're up against that clock, it doesn't matter if you can make 10,000 horsepower. You don't use it. You've just got to run a time. With this racing here, everything matters." 

Suggs said he wasn't especially keen about trying NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series: "If you can turn, you ain't goin' fast enough." He said he always has loved driving fast: "Ain't nothin' like it." 

Al Suggs is quick and fast -- quick to jump in and take charge when circumstances go awry and fast to let his rivals know he's a fighter.
 
"I'll never give up," he said. "Everybody around here knows I'm not going to give up. I'll have my time."

This could be the year the Kryptonite works.   

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