COEUR d'ALENE - Sam Travis and her father were driving by the junkyard when she saw it.

"Dad," she said, "we need to stop."

There, near some trash and pine needles and other "junky little cars," sat a two-door, blue 1985 Camaro. Oh, it was beat and busted and battered. The tires were flat. But Sam Travis, a self-proclaimed gearhead, wanted it. Had to have it. This was the car she had been hoping to find.

"It was a mess. It didn't run or anything," she said.

Perfect.

They managed to get it started and she bought it for $1,000.

The dark-eyed brunette would spend the next three years turning it into her own. Engine, interior, body, tires and wheels were replaced, restored and repaired. She added dual-exhaust. Replaced the transmission. Bought tires.

"A lot of parts went into it, a lot of time," Sam Travis said. "I worked on it every day. Every penny I made went into it."

Her restoration project was nearly complete.

"She had a couple more things, then it was going to be done," said her dad, Ken Travis.

Almost made it.

Wednesday night, it caught fire.

By the time the flames were doused, the cherished Camaro was destroyed.

"All I could do was just sit over there and watch it burn," she said. "There was nothing else I could do about it. I couldn't do anything to stop it."

Thursday afternoon, joined by her parents, brother and boyfriend, Sam Travis took a few last looks at the charred remains of her car resting on Webster Street before it was hauled back, this time for good, to the junkyard.

"I fixed it up to what that picture is," she said holding a copy of a photo that showed the shiny Camaro parked at an angle on a dirt road. "This is what I'm left with."

Disappointed, she's not sure she wants to do this again, to rebuild another classic. She's not sure if she can give her heart and soul once more to making an engine roar, wheels roll.

"I'm not going to get back into it. I'm just done with them," she said.

Her mom, Tina, says she can't be done, that she must push on.

"This car meant everything to her," she said. "This kid lived this car."

Sam listens and nods. Maybe she can. After all, her brother, Kenny, also has a Camaro.

"We're pretty much gearheads. He's not going to let me just give up on it," she said.

Her mom smiles at that comment.

"I can't let her give up," she said. "I'm very proud of her. She's an amazing young woman. I'm glad to say she's my daughter. I can't let her give up now. She's got to do it again."

Hot Wheels

for a little girl

Most little girls grow up playing with Barbie dolls. Not Sam Travis.

Her mom would buy them for her, but she wouldn't bother with them.

"No way," Tina Travis said. "She liked Hot Wheels. You should have seen her Hot Wheels collection when she was a kid."

Her mom competed in drag races in her younger days. Her father was no mechanic, but liked to work on motors when he could.

"They just got me into it," she said. "I've always been into cars since I was little."

"There were always cars since the time she could walk," her mom said.

Sam's interest grew stronger in her teenage years. She tinkered with cars when she could. She put together models of cars. She created a scrapbook filled with pictures and articles of cars. In the bedroom of her Coeur d'Alene home, pictures and drawings of her blue Camaro decorate the walls.

The Camaro was always her favorite.

"I know pretty much everything from when they started in '67 to today, pretty much everything about the Camaro, and how the Camaro and the Mustang were always rivals," Sam said.

Her father, a painter, laughs about how much more she knows than he does when it comes to being a mechanic. Sam's comfortable talking brakes and calipers and rotors and sparkplugs with the most grizzled grease monkey.

"There's not much help I can give her," he said.

Sam likes working on cars for one very simple reason.

"They're something you can change to make your own," she said, "just yours."

The fire

Sam picked up the Camaro from the mechanic shop where she had some work done on the transmission and carburetor. She drove to her boyfriend's house, and the two were sitting in the car ready to drive away when she started it about 8:20 p.m. Wednesday.

"I turned the key, the throttle got stuck," she said.

Kenny Debaene, in the passenger's seat, realized something was wrong.

"She started the car up and it was revving really high and I told her to turn it off," he said.

She did, and it was about then Debaene noticed flames in the reflection of the trailer parked in front of them. Both jumped out of the car as the fire on the ground spread from gas leaking in the engine compartment. Debaene ran for a fire extinguisher in the house.

"Whenever I put it out it would just start up again," he said.

While Debaene shouted they had to get back, Sam fought him.

"My boyfriend kept pulling me away from it because I wanted to go back and put the fire out," she said. "He kept pushing me away, telling me to get away from it. He was yelling at me to get out."

Even with flames flickering closer to the gas tank, Sam wanted to save the Camaro, her only car.

"It meant the world to me. A lot of people say it's just a car, but it wasn't to me. I put my heart into," she said. "I wasn't going to leave it."

As they both backed away, flames engulfed the car within minutes.

"It happened so fast," Tina Travis said. "It was horrible. I swear to God, it was awful."

Coeur d'Alene firefighters quickly put out the fire, but the Camaro, which was not insured, was a total loss. The cause remains under investigation.

Tina Travis credits Kenny Debaene with saving her daughter.

"Thank God she's OK," she said. "We can replace the car. We couldn't replace her."

Later, Sam thanked Debaene for his actions.

"If he wasn't there, I would have burned my hands trying to stop it," she said.

Ken Travis believes in his daughter, who assists with his painting business. He is certain she'll start over with another long-forgotten car, maybe a Dodge Charger this time, and make it rumble to life.

"Her heart definitely got crushed, but she'll get another one. She'll rebuild it. She'll work on it," Ken Travis said. "Just wait until she gets another wrench back in her hand."