Please confirm that this is a bad headgasket.

[Slater]

Started when I was doing some spirited driving on a local highway, noticed it was accelerating slowly, and the temp guage shot up from normal temperature to over the biggest line on H in a total of about 2 minutes. Pulled over and I saw smoke come out of the coolant reservoir area, and coolant pouring out of overflow bottle. Also heard a constant gurgling sound coming from the engine bay. It overheats often when I drive it now, even if shifting normaly. I am losing coolant, and there are very big chunks of white smoke coming out of the tailpipe when the car is first started after a break. It was taken to emmisions testing and got almost double the allowed NOx reading (12xx vs. 22xx) , and passed every other test.

The car has 186,000 miles, and from what I was told by the previous owner (older guy), it is original everything. Will burp out the cooling system and confirm as soon as I get time.

Thanks for helping a n00b.