It took 12 years and three surgeries on his spine to get there, but at long last, Scott Tucker is getting to live his dream.
Monday, April 4 marked the first day of the Ben Lomond resident’s job teaching an automotive course in high-performance engine preparation at De Anza College.
For Tucker, who works by day to refurbish and restore classic cars at Canepa Designs in Scotts Valley, the teaching job wouldn’t have been possible five years ago.
When he was 23, Tucker hurt his neck, an injury that caused him so much pain over the next 12 years that, at times, he literally could not get out of bed.
He’s still not sure what happened, or how, except for a guess that something might have gone wrong while water skiing.
“The doctors kept saying, ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’” he said.
His health insurance provider was a source of even more headaches.
“I had so many problems with the insurance,” he said. “(Health insurance providers) want to do anything to avoid shelling out the big bucks.”
After several years, doctors finally discovered that Tucker had two herniated disks in his neck and scheduled an operation in 2000.
“My insurance told me they were only willing to pay for one (of the herniated disks to be repaired), and the other would heal itself,” Tucker said.
After what he described as a long and painful recovery from the operation, he began work for vehicle specialists Dinan Engineering — but the pain soon returned.
A second surgery in 2004 only made things worse.
“I could barely walk,” he said. “It was hell.”
Tucker was laid off from Dinan before a CT scan revealed the extent of the damage.
As he described it, his neck had healed in such a way that whenever he turned his head, his arm would go numb — essentially, bone rubbing on bone.
Finally, in 2006, a third operation proved to be the solution.
“The moment I woke up (from the operation), I knew that things would be better,” Tucker said.
Pain-free since then, Tucker has worked hard to get his life back on track, giving much of the credit to his wife, Lisa, whom he met during his recovery.
He finished a degree in information systems at the University of San Francisco’s Cupertino campus and began working at Canepa Designs this past fall.
And with his spine cooperating, Tucker has been able to dedicate himself to his work in a way he hadn’t in more than a decade, such as rebuilding a 1967 Shelby Cobra 427 — the last to roll out of the Shelby factory — from the ground up.
Tucker estimated that he spent thousands of hours in the past six months restoring the venerable vehicle, which included 16-hour days of tracking down the Cobra’s original owner and meticulously documenting where each part fit as he dismantled it.
“That’s something I couldn’t have done before, when my back was hurt,” he said.
Tucker said passing on his knowledge is something he had long considered but hadn’t pursued before now, due to his health.
“I was asked to teach, and they’d been after me for a while,” he said. “But it wasn’t until after my neck was fixed that I felt reliable enough to do it.”
The course, Tucker said, is a theory class, wherein he will lead discussions and lessons not only on the design of racing car engines, but also on ways to modify and upgrade stock engines to coax higher performance out of them.
The class was taught for 32 years by Dema Elgin, who recently retired after a long career of training such notable gearheads as Steve Dinan, Craig Watkins of Flying Lizard Motorsport and Tucker himself.
“I learned everything I know about camshafts from (Elgin),” Tucker said.
Tucker said he is delighted with the way his life has changed since his neck problems were resolved.
“Look at this place — it’s awesome,” he said, gesturing to the bustling Canepa workshop and the dozens of rare and classic cars surrounding him. “It’s a great place to work.”
“This is what I love doing.”
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