He'd Probably Be Alive If He Had Chosen 69 Charger Over Benz. Yee Haw!

[Flopsweat]

He'd have been OK if he had Louise with him.

I was on a consulting gig in Maryland around 02 or so. Client had a 96 Mustang Cobra and we went to lunch in it. He told me to drive it back and we were going down some 4 lane highway outside Fedricksburg and he said run it up. I was doing about 130, headed up a hill and he said watch it, 5-0 sits on the top of the hill a lot.

Sure enough there was one there down the road a bit on a traffic stop. I thought, oh sh*t, how do I explain this. Fortunately there was an off ramp to the right that took us towards the clients office and shop, so I just keep it down, hit the off ramp about 100, the client called his office to have the secretary go out and open the shop door. Pulled in there, shut the door and went back to work.
I told him that his kid had been doing donuts in the car the night before in the parking lot across from my hotel the night before, so that car was going to be a bit hot for a while and he might want to park it for 3 weeks or so. We still laugh about it once a year or so on Facebook.

Same client who paused our work in his office when he saw a snapping turtle take a goose off his pond couple hundred yards away. Got out a .300 Win Mag and smoked that turtle out the office window next time he showed his head.

I loved my clients.

Another drive from Shreveport to Dallas, I packed up with a Vette and BMW in my rental Mustang and we ran 110 mph across east Texas for almost an hour and a half. Fastest trip I made for business. My business partners would have laughed at me if I got busted since they behaved pretty much the same way. My wife might have been displeased if I got jailed 2000 miles from home and got my rental car impounded. Didn't stop me though.

Many, many years ago I had a thermostat go out just before I was going to leave on about a 2 hour drive to a wedding. I was able to get a replacement and install it way faster than I expected, but I was still going to be really late. I set out anyway because, well you may as well try, right? I'm on the highway for about 10 minutes doing 70 - 80 (want to keep my license) when a Trans Am flies by me doing probably a buck ten. I pull out to follow, I guess a little too excited, and he slows right down. Dammit. So I decide I'll just pass him and let him see that I'm not a cop (very not-cop-car looking car, jeans and t-shirt). Worked like a charm and I followed him for about an hour until the next speed trap, where he got caught. Almost ran over the speed trap cop pulling out from the left on a blind turn. Check the watch, now I'm looking to only be about 10 minutes late! A mile down the road, an old station wagon that had joined us a little earlier gets tired of me putting along at 80, and pulls out and stands on it. I followed him until 3 miles from my girlfriend's house and made it with time to spare. We took her dad's shiny new Olds to the wedding.

 

[Caveman Jim]

Hold my beer Jethro, I used to hit a set of RR tracks doin 65 in Colorado Springs in my new 78 F-100 and launch it into the atmosphere!!!
It was fun to impress the local chicks...

 

[techieguy]

Stationed in Germany in the late 80's, was not uncommon to get passed in my Mercedes sedan as it would only do about 145mph...

 

[NCW_Robert]

When a kid I was a mad man behind the wheel. When I think about it all I feel lucky... lucky to be alive. 1st car was a "54" beater truck I bought from my dad. 2nd car was a 1969 dodge polara ex CHP pursuit car with a 440 magnum engine. It would do 140 - 150 mph all day long. Of course I had to make thing worse - read faster and better. lowered it down to about 3" off the ground via the adjustable torsion bars in front then made some lowering blocks for the rear.

Cut out the fenders front and rear and put on the widest tires and wheels I could get hold of. Treaded stock car specials 10" in front and 14" in the rear. Rolled the fenders out stock car style. HD stock car type shock all the way around. Good god that car was a monster and I was 16 and crazy. Yup lucky to be alive. I got my fill of going well over 100 every day for years.

Now I race cars and can tell you, don't bother driving fast on the street because a 30 minute race will give you the equivalent of 5 yrs of street racing thrills. It can be circle track or road racing, just don't do it on the street any more, not worth the trouble you can get in or the danger if you pile it up.

Here is a link to a jay leno video where he interviews ex cops and presents some of the top cop cars of the last 40 yrs. My car, the 1969 Polara, far right in the video below was considered the fastest of them all. I set the video link to start where they talk about the car I had at the 10 minute mark. You can retart it at the begining if you want to see the entire video.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Going thru Yreka one night about 3 am at 135 mph in my LT-1 Z28 Camaro (a routine occurrence on Monday mornings due to romantic considerations) and I see headlights about 1 mile and a half behind me. I lifted off the gas and let her coast down to 65 mph without hitting the brakes. The CHP caught up to me after another mile or two and pulled me over. I was too far away to get on radar and he wasn't close enough to clock me before I hit a reasonable speed. Thought I was really screwed though, but I got off with a warning.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Now I race cars and can tell you, don't bother driving fast on the street because a 30 minute race will give you the equivalent of 5 yrs of street racing thrills. It can be circle track or road racing, just don't do it on the street any more, not worth the trouble you can get in or the danger if you pile it up.

Amen!

 

[CoastRange57]

2nd car was a 1969 dodge polara ex CHP pursuit car with a 440 magnum engine. It would do 140 - 150 mph all day long.

Friend of mine scored on of these at State of Oregon surplus sale in 1974 for $ 800. Holy sh*t......That car was unreal. He put recaps on it because he kept wasting the regular tires. Lots of dudes wanted to race him because that thing did not hook up for sh*t and would just toast the tires. But from a 40 mph float he could kill muscle cars.

I was with him one night and we raced some dude in a Charger from a 40 mph float. We just creamed the Charger, and kept his foot in it up to about 145 on a certified speedometer. We had a lot of road, but I was yelling at him..dude you have fing recaps on this thing...slow down.

He was doing a power brake burn out in a friends apartment parking lot one afternoon and there was so much smoke, somebody called in a house fire. There was a pile of rubber three inches tall where he did it.

He finally had to get rid of that car, he picked up a couple of high dollar tickets, the thing ate gas like crazy, he was putting them cheap azz recaps on it about every 3 weeks, more if we racing and drinking it it. One of the most powerful cars I ever rode in. Good times.

 

[CoastRange57]

Now I race cars and can tell you, don't bother driving fast on the street because a 30 minute race will give you the equivalent of 5 yrs of street racing thrills. It can be circle track or road racing, just don't do it on the street any more, not worth the trouble you can get in or the danger if you pile it up.

Back in my insane days, it was a simple "conducting a speed contest" ticket. Bit more expensive at $ 127 versus a $ 27 speeding ticket. I got one of those. It was excessive noise, either tire or exhaust of you ran open headers. I managed to get both of those one night when I ran to town to get a pack of cigarettes with open headers and drilled it, cop saw me, came after me and I had to pull over, to open and no where to go.

Of course there was always the attempt to elude ticket. I deserved a bunch of those, one of the local cops who dragged race like to lay traps for us to run from him. I blew through his radar zone 30 over one night,in my 64 Falcon Sprint 289 HiPro, he was a bit slow on the uptake and I got a decent jump on him enough to get to a filbert orchard where I could get to our farm yard and shop without getting back on the road. Killed the lights and got over 1/4 mile off the road. Home free baby.......I ran into him a few years back at Woodburn and told him that, we both laughed our azzes off about it. He said he was so pissed I got away from him, but that is what the game was about back in those days.

I crewed on a drag boat back in the late 70's, we were running a 19 foot Kona hull with a blown 454. I had wanted to add an additional skag and a bigger back pressure plate to it after we put the huffer on it. The other wrenchs and owner disagreed, so the owner and I took it out on the river at Red Bluff. I hit it, pushed it up about 105, some wind caught under the bow and lifted it up 45 degrees. I got off it looked over at the owner as he was looking up at the bow with eyes as big as dinner platters. Idled it back to shore shaking hard, stepped out of the boat and never drove it again. We added the skag and plate that afternoon.

Side note to that story is we had a motor home and keg of beer, and the driver broke out early in eliminations. We gave all the girls free beer if they gave us a peek and it worked out well. Turns out that one of the girls would end up being my second wife ten years later. She was there with her boyfriend and friends at the time from Northern California. Never knew it until I got old pictures out one time and she remembered the motor home and sign we had which I had pictures off. Spooky.

 

[ZigZagZeke]

Don't get me started on going supermodified racing at T-Car speedway in Carson City, NV during the late 60's. We were sponsored by the Nugget Casino, so free drinks after the races and only minutes from Moonlite Ranch.

 

[NCW_Robert]

Friend of mine scored on of these at State of Oregon surplus sale in 1974 for $ 800. Holy sh*t......That car was unreal. He put recaps on it because he kept wasting the regular tires. Lots of dudes wanted to race him because that thing did not hook up for sh*t and would just toast the tires. But from a 40 mph float he could kill muscle cars.

I was with him one night and we raced some dude in a Charger from a 40 mph float. We just creamed the Charger, and kept his foot in it up to about 145 on a certified speedometer. We had a lot of road, but I was yelling at him..dude you have fing recaps on this thing...slow down.

He was doing a power brake burn out in a friends apartment parking lot one afternoon and there was so much smoke, somebody called in a house fire. There was a pile of rubber three inches tall where he did it.

He finally had to get rid of that car, he picked up a couple of high dollar tickets, the thing ate gas like crazy, he was putting them cheap azz recaps on it about every 3 weeks, more if we racing and drinking it it. One of the most powerful cars I ever rode in. Good times.

I could tell street racing and back road high speed blast stories for days and days. Just like you said, I raced so many muscle cars and beat them. The car was slow off the line because I had huge tires on it that I could not break lose so I would just power brake it and let her rip. The lighter cars would always get the jump then I'd catch up & pull away around 60 mph and that big 440 would start to breath and get up on the gearing and steam ahead passing the muscle cars and away I went up to well over 100 mph.

 

[CoastRange57]

and that big 440 would start to breath and get up on the gearing

The sound that engine made when it started pulling air like that was pure music. I often wondered what a turbo would be like on one when the boost kicked in about that point. Probably a good thing we never did it.

 

[Flopsweat]

Oh yeah, cops and railroad tracks. That reminds me. I was driving a government auction AMC Ambassador with that franken-chevy 350 in it with, what was it, Chrysler alternator and power steering? And crappy accessory brackets. For some reason it was really fast and had a halfway decent suspension. In light traffic in an industrial zone I decided to see how fast I could get it up to off of a light before I crossed the railroad tracks maybe 75 yards away. Right before the tracks there was a turnout with trees hiding it and wouldn't you know it, two cops in a cruiser parked facing out like they were running a speed trap. There was a rise for the tracks so heavy braking or even letting up quickly was not the best idea. So I just kept my foot in it and figured they'd have a rough time accelerating over the tracks. Got a little air and ran it up to about 115 before I had to slow for a turn or curve or whatever. I'm not sure they even tried to follow me because I never saw them.

About a month or two later I got pulled over in a residential neighborhood that bordered the industrial zone. I was doing maybe 30 in a 25, so it seemed a little odd to me. The cop (no offense, that's what we called them back then ) comes up and starts asking me about the car, what's in it, what's the deal with the shifter, that sort of thing. Honestly, the car was bone stock except for this silly handle that I put on the column shifter for laughs because I drive like an ahole. I tried explaining but he just cut me off and said "I've seen what this car can do". Ding, ding! Now I know why I'm pulled over. "Well I'm not going to argue with you Sir." "Just so you know, I'm in this neighborhood all the time and I'm not giving you a break on anything."

 

[The Heretic]

When a kid I was a mad man behind the wheel. When I think about it all I feel lucky... lucky to be alive. 1st car was a "54" beater truck I bought from my dad. 2nd car was a 1969 dodge polara ex CHP pursuit car with a 440 magnum engine. It would do 140 - 150 mph all day long. Of course I had to make thing worse - read faster and better. lowered it down to about 3" off the ground via the adjustable torsion bars in front then made some lowering blocks for the rear.

Cut out the fenders front and rear and put on the widest tires and wheels I could get hold of. Treaded stock car specials 10" in front and 14" in the rear. Rolled the fenders out stock car style. HD stock car type shock all the way around. Good god that car was a monster and I was 16 and crazy. Yup lucky to be alive. I got my fill of going well over 100 every day for years.

Now I race cars and can tell you, don't bother driving fast on the street because a 30 minute race will give you the equivalent of 5 yrs of street racing thrills. It can be circle track or road racing, just don't do it on the street any more, not worth the trouble you can get in or the danger if you pile it up.

Here is a link to a jay leno video where he interviews ex cops and presents some of the top cop cars of the last 40 yrs. My car, the 1969 Polara, far right in the video below was considered the fastest of them all. I set the video link to start where they talk about the car I had at the 10 minute mark. You can retart it at the begining if you want to see the entire video.

 

[JackFrost]

He just went sailing right out there.....! Good ol Milton Berle!