Gets pretty expensive around here and get caught twice you can pretty much kiss your ride goodbye not to mention your license...well something like that anyways...I've mellowed alot in my old age and enjoy my cheap insurance...but stepping on the gas and getting up to speed feels good though when no ones around... Actually I haven't even come close to Al's newsmaking run...but I can get on the Highway and keep up with things and stay to the right as 70-75mph is not the sweet spot for my Hotrod 65-70 it's happier...and keeps me out of the spotlight in these crazy fast times we live in...
Yes it's too crowded down here now used to be alright my last one was in 1997 it was big ,TV , helicopters , shut down freeway I won't detail but I walked 12 miles home from the freeway on that one and left it all behind . My right foot twitches still and palms sweat when a patrol units behind me so I still get that magic rush just don't unleash it it's about all the enjoyment I allow myself satisfied with cruising the highways with wind filling the car and all that goes with it plus I got Erika now so she is my safety cushion good to have family ties in my life . May I add I am now in a Judicial Amnesty Program through Public Defender's Office to separate me from my Highway Rat adventures .
Bitchin' Man. Wish I was around when Al was a youngin' This is the stuff that started all of us on this journey today.
I've told this before but it's still a good one. I was driving my 29 roadster with the Buick nailhead engine and got pulled over by a Motorcycle Cop on Lankershiem Blvd right in front of The Palamino nightclub. I was sweating it because the car was very illegal, No fenders, Ebrake, wipers, turn signals, seat belts, loud straight pipes, slicks. He says "Do you know why I pulled you over? I said "No". He said "I really want to hear your Nailhead when you take off, would you punch it. I said if you don't give me a ticket I will, he said he wouldn't so I got on it, pedal to the metal, and he just stood there with a big grin and a thumbs up. JW
Middle of the night. On a country road. Running from the cops. In a hot rod roadster. At over 100 mph. Pure poetry. And a really good test run.
What a great story. I have a similar one. No cops, but late at night on a country road in n.e. Indiana I was gonna see if my 49' Merc powered 41' Ford convertible could do 100. Well the speedometer said so but I must have drove five mile to get it there! It was like the car was going to shake itself apart. I remember one windshield wiper just flying off the car. The things you do when you're 18 years old!
its weird thinking how fast 100 used to be, now that 100 is able to be reached in even the cheapest modern cars. 100 probably felt like 300 in a patched together car with no safety of any sort.
There are many stories like Al's but lucky for us his got documented. There were a lot of country roads in that area back then. About 15 years after Al's chase a guy I went to high school with was testing his nailhead powered A roadster on Morgan Territory Road between Clayton & Livermore just a few miles from where Al was. A CHP officer pulled him over and began writing him up. Excessive speed, open exhaust, no wipers, no windshield, all kinds of light issues, no plates, no registration.............When the cop asked his name he told him Tim Morgan and noted the name of the road. It turned out that the road went through the family ranch and had never been officially made a public road although the county paved & maintained it. The cop got on his radio and when he came back he told Tim he didn't want to see him on any other road. He should have stuck around because Tim had to use real roads to get back home to Clayton. That car with a later coupe body came close to the track record at Kingdon Drag strip near Lodi and with it's Himsl paint made an appearance in the Oakland Roadster show in the early '60s. I wish I had a picture of it. It was one of many cool cars in our high school parking lot in it's early stages. Every one of them had at least one similar story. Thanks for doing Al's story. It made us all smile.
The Jalopy Journal
