Riding to school with my older brother the day after he got his 69 roadrunner. Granted it only had the 383, but we lived on a dirt road. Lots of fishtails
1966, I'm 17 years old, just got my licenec and my first car, a 41 Willys fordor sedan. I'm down the south coast of NSW with a bunch of my surfing buddies, and we decide to go for a spin. No booze involved here by the way... We're flying along a dirt road, five up inside the car and another four OUTSIDE the car standing in the running boards and hanging on through the open windows and onto the board racks on the roof. We hit a twisty bit of road and I decide to plant it, well plant it as hard as the old 4 banger will go anyway. Suddenly she starts sliding, and then we're doing 360's down the gravel road, and I'm both too scared and too inexperienced to take my foot off the gas. Fortunatley no-one fell off and went under the wheels, and there wasn't any other traffic for me to slam into, or I couldd have easily killed a half dozen people that day. Cheers, Glen.
April 1973, in my '69 Malibu. I'd just transferred to Sawyer AFB (Marquette) MI from Shaw AFB SC & was making a weekend dash from Shaw to Sawyer with my belongings. Headed back Sunday night/Monday morning about 1:30, warm & rainy on US2 near Esky trying to get back for duty at 7:30. Last I looked the speedo was just over 90, when "DEER ALERT"!!! Two of 'em right along the road & like a bug, they headed for my lights. Next I know I'm sliding sideways down US2, deer shit/guts covering the windshield. Took nearly 1/4 mile to stop. No headlights & right fender, hood etc crunched bad but still driveable. Got one light to work and limped along till I found a payphone. Called stateboys, they wrote up the report & told me to go slow the rest of the way to Sawyer (40+ miles). Duh!! Got there in time for a cold shower & lots of coffee, made attendance call, hadn't slept for nearly 4 days. . .
To set the Stage: First semester of community college. Go to the local watering hole with four other friends. Leave the club around 2 am. '72 Plymouth Duster, owner/driver trying to show off how fast the car is, way too much adult beverage. I'm in the back seat yelling to slow down, police usually patrol that street. One of the guys says slow down or I am turning off the ignition, also too much adult beverage. He reaches over to turn off the key and the column shift is hit instead. Car is thrown into reverse at around 70 MPH. Car begins one of many 360's and proceeds to cross all lane, fortunately now other cars on the road. Car hits the curb on the other side of the road and bounces up onto the side walk. Engine of course is dead, we are somehow facing the way we were headed and about 2 feet from a telephone pole. No one hurt, except maybe our shorts. Start up the car, it runs, put it in gear and it starts to move. As soon as we get off the curb and onto the street, we find out the left front suspension is busted. Park the car and walk back to the buddy's apartment and call the police. By the time we see the responding officers, we have purged our systems and came up with a good story. Very scary ride and very lucky not to have wrapped around the telephone pole. When the police talk to us, they said they found the car and when they opened the door the alcohol smell nearly knocked them out. It turned out the driver/owner had a bottle of booze under his seat that got smashed. Two things came out of that, never ride with that guy again and no street racing on or off the alcohol.
Not taking your foot off the gas just might have saved you from a roll over!The spinning rear tires stopped the dirt from piling up against the outer tire creating a berm that could flip you!My dad raced sprints and midgets on dirt and he always said if you got into a broadslide situation you didn't lift or you would flip for sure
My scariest ride wasn't in a car- it was a boat. Takes alot to scare me (old X drag racer) Went over to Lake Mead one year w/ all our boats (yea- had that sickness for awhile) & met these guys that were prepping some kind of offshore boat (my guess) for a tune-up run. I know is it was big- probably 38 ft or so? Across the stern were 4- Merc V8 outboards. Boat was all black & brand new. We had lunch w/ them- had some brews & they asked if anyone there was stupid enough to want to go for a test spin. Well- Fuck! I'm stupid enough! Hands me a helmet & we walk to the outside of the dock where it's tied up. How fuckin fast could it be- it's only got outboards on it & it's so big. Off we go idling out on 2 motors till we are past the final bouys. Then he fires up all 4 & gets it up on plane. Then he nails it. WTF! Wasn't a long run but it felt like we were doing 250 mph! He estimates we probably hit 135 at peak but it felt alot faster than that!!!! Scared the shit out of me.
quote=willz2155;3181815]since i have a picture i figured i would contribute. one of the duties my unit had in iraq was to escort eod (explosive ordnance disposal) on there call outs, since they did not roll with guns up on there trucks. its a real pain in the ass job since its a 24 hour a day gig and your platoon does it one week at a time, but we got to see some totally bitchin explosions. so one night we got called out to a suspected ied in the city, we get the information on the grid, and get the trucks rolling. we were in a pretty active area at the time so the only time we went out at night with our lights on was when we were on eod escort, and even then the only truck with its lights on was the lead .50 cal truck (the truck im a gunner on) and the eod truck. even with the lights on its hard to scan at night especially as the gunner, because there are lots of different things your always looking out for. so as my sergeant smacks me on the leg and tells me we are about 800 meters out from the ied, i start looking for the marking device the unit that found it dropped by it so i can call it out for eod. we slow down and start to creep when we get to about 600- 700 meters out from the grid, but i cant see anything. i got conformation on what side of the road i was looking for it on and the type of marking i was looking for, but still im seeing nothing. i can see the reporting unit securing the site so i flashed there lead gunner with my laser, and he starts flashing the side of the road about 400 meters in front of our truck. so i kick the driver, he tells me he sees the laser, and we start to pull up again. we get about 50 meters down the road and i see an amazingly bright light flash in front of our truck, so i try to make myself as small as possible. the next thing i remember is being dragged out of the back door of the truck by my helmet strap, and not being able to hear a damn thing. it took me a few min to shake the cobwebs out and get my bearing back but other then a concussion i was good to go, and so was the rest of my crew. eod took over the scene, checked for secondaries, and detonated the ied we went out there for in the first place. so we get a wrecker out there hooked up the truck, and rolled back to our base. we went with the wrecker to drop our truck off at the motor pool, and then picked up one of there extras so we had a truck to roll with in case we got called out again. the next day we went up to the motor pool for some photo opps with the truck, and for eod to check the truck out too. they said we rolled over an ied planted in the middle of the road that was hooked up to a pressure plate detonator, and that we were lucky that the ground absorbed a good amount of the blast. that was not the only time our truck got hit, but this was the worst hit we took over there. we played it off and made a lot of jokes about making eod's job easier that night by getting rid of an ied for them, but thats one of the four times i thought i was dead for sure. and here is our old truck... [/quote] haha hoho just another night on the ol' EOD PATROL! 'IRAQI NIGHTS' glad you got out ok, many thanx to you guys.
Curbspeed's roadster pick up ! and 88 BMW 535is(Dinan Turbo charged) 79 Euro 930 Porsche, white knuckle rides ! Whoa!!!!!!!!!
I was 15, my brother was 11. We had skunks digging big holes in our hay fields, they were digging for grubs. Dad didn't like the holes, so he said we should take the 69 Biscayne and the shotguns and drive through the fields and shoot skunks out the windows...cool, huh? Well, we weren't killing too many, so I decided we might do better by just speeding across the field and hitting them with the car. It worked! If we went fast enough...60 mph+, the skunk couldn't scent us. So we are out there just a rollin' those stinky little diggers. I was bearing down on one at about 70 and had to cross a back furrow (mound of dirt left by the plow), we flew throught the air, and upon landing, the frame of the rusty old Biscayne broke completely in two, just ahead of the driver's side rear tire. The back half of the frame dug into the dirt and we came to an abrupt halt. Damn near went through the windshield. Had to back the old girl about a mile to get home. Fun, but damn scarey.
When I was younger I had a volkswagen rabbit,( I know, don't say it.) and it had broken the timing belt. So I call my buddy up to come pull me home. Well he's not there, but his wife is and she says she'll come and give me a tow. She shows up in his full size ford bronco and pulls in front of me and I hook up the tow chain. I tell her to be careful at stop signs and let me stop the vehicles with my brakes. She says ok, and we both jump into our vehicles. Well this is were it all starts going very wrong. She starts taking off, but not straight ahead. instead she flips a bitch, at full speed no less and heads off like there's no tommorrow. Well I'm sitting there panicking watching the tow chain going the oppisite direction under the car thinking oh shit i'm going to die. Well I didn't, and the front end of the car somehow remained intact, but now we were going about 80 miles an hour. I was litrally panicking. I was standing on the brakes trying to stop her and she never even noticed. well long story short we make it back to my house in one piece, well I did, the car not so well. Pull in front of the house and stopped. Front brake on passenger side starts on fire, and blows tire. fire starts engine compartment on fire. by the time I get fire put out, most of left front of car is history. Oh yea buy the way she never got out of the bronco and actually never new any of this had gone on. She said she was sorry and left. I went inside and changed my shorts. car went to the scrapyard.
Back in the early-80's at around 15 my 2nd Cousin worked all summer (Work, which is a rare occurence in his life) on the Golf Course in exchange for a Golf Cart. Blue with a auto transmission. Days before school started my uncle and him were taking it for a ride on a narrow gravel road when for some reason it lost traction and rolled over a 40-foot straight down embankment and into a creek. My uncle came-to laying on the hill side where was ejected and saw the mangled golf cart laying on top of Steve in the the creek. Two older ladies on their way to church had stopped to help and my uncle told them he thought his friend was laying down there dead, when somehow he freed himself from the wreck. Went to school with some interesting injuries. He later took a old motorcycle and combined it with the back half of the Golf Cart to make a 3-wheeler that he later sold for more than either was probably worth. He's a man that has been plagued by bad luck and ridiculous accidents which is only overcome by his shade-tree mechanic ingenuity.
when I first got my 54 fired up I took it for a few test drives around the block with my friend. on the last test drive I floored it for a quick second and then went to brake but the brake pedal was gone! in my excitement of finally being able to drive my car for the first time my dumbass had forgotten to tighten the nut and bolt holding the brake arm in place. it was flush with the floor! after a few panicked seconds my friend throws the tranny into low gear and shuts off the engine and we just coasted it to the side of the street. im glad he was with me cause I definitely panicked for a second there. lesson learned, make sure that ALL your nuts and bolts are tightened!!
Some people are good at things like fishing, hunting, football........My wife cant drive. When we first started going out she would drive every now and then. Crazy broad pulled out in front of three different cars within a freakin mile. I knew I was gona die that day. But dont ya know, It was my fault.
I used to have this crazy '88 Firebird (shut it), had a new model 6.0 out of a silverado, big nasty cam, buncha bolt ons, and a 6 speed. Well, upon putting the motor back in the car from blowing up a stock LS1, My ding-dong buddy smashed the damn thing into the wiper motor control board. Me: "F..kit. We'll rain-x it." Fast forward, six months later. I'm driving on I-74, probably doing 70 to keep the rain off the windshield. Things got some baloney skins on the back (never could keep tires on the thing, spun so damn easy), so it's all over the road. Next thing I know, I'm apinning down the eastbound lane, then in the median, then in the WESTBOUND lane. Me: "SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT." Car comes to a halt in the westbound lane, facing east. Me: "Ohhhhh shit." Start the car, dump clutch, and drive back through the median into the eastbound. All it managed to do was cover the car in grass and unplug one o2 sensor. Scared the everliving shit outta me. That and this time I was piloting a tin can on wheels, and passed my friend at triple digits in the media for kicks. But I won't go there....
Once racing my dragster and I noticed how my feet felt wet at 1000 ft, I was pretty confident it wasn't me peeing into my suite (not that time at least). Went through the traps at 160mph and noticed that there was like a gallon of 112 oct floating on the floor. All the electronics were under my seat... and watching that fuel splashing back and forth there between my legs... Longest moments in my life to wait the rail to stop on chutes and hoping it does not ignite. Front mount tanks haven't been my favourite since then, but I can guarantee guys I came out there quite fast after the stop
I had this 49 Anglia when I was younger, and immortal......It had all Buick running gear, but had the stock steering box, and no front brakes......I had a tiny steering wheel that you could drive wearing handcuffs, and there was about 6" of play.......I'd be sawing back and forth on the wheel just to go straight, and when I put on the brakes, the car would just take off in it's favorite direction......When I drove that car, I was DANGERMAN !....
Some of your stories are awesome. Mine isn’t as good, but was sure as heck scary for me. I’m heading to see my brother and his family the week before Christmas this past year, with my wife, our two year old son, and our newborn son in the car. We’re heading for a narrow bridge about 300 ft up, when all of a sudden we hit a patch of black ice at 55 mph and instantly turn sideways. I manage to get it straightened it out in the oncoming lane but over corrected and wind up sideways the other way just as we enter the bridge. I’m just saying over and over “Whoa! Whoa! Whoooooooaaaaaaaa!”, as I’m watching the guardrail out the windshield for what seemed like forever. We come out of the bridge and straighten out with no other problems. As we come to a stop sign about a half mile from the bridge I look at my self in the mirror and realize that my lips are about the same color of white as the rest of my face. We get to my brothers about ten minutes later and as I’m telling the story, I hold up my hand to mimic the car, and realize that my hand is shaking like a leaf. Now I’ve been in hairier spots in my life, and probably been a lot closer to killing myself than this time, but never with my kids in the car. That’s just plain scary.
A friend in High school had a 55 chevy....454 LS7 heads, 4sp trans, 4:11 gears 300hp Big Shot Nitrous plate otherwise ALL ORIGINAL...NO SEATBELTS...DRUM BRAKES...Cant believe we survived, every weekend of every summer we tempeted fate, dumb kids.
Back around 1985-86, I was a freshman at Georgia Tech. One of the guys in the dorm had a 75 Monza (or something like that) with a V8. He also had a small sailboat up at Lake Lanier (some 35-40 miles). He convinced me to go with him up to get the boat and bring it back down to GT. We ended up doing about 130MPH all the way up I-85. I couldn't believe that car would go that fast. But, did it ever. If we had had a wreck, I would've been OK, though, because my sphincter was grabbing the seat pretty well. But, the scarier part was when we came back. If you think 130MPH on an Atlanta interstate is scary, you should try doing 120MPH down the interstate in a small car pulling a boat. I was sure I was going to die.
Landing at Sparrevohn AFS, Alaska....on two engines out of four. Happened more than once in C-130 and C-124 (Old Shakey). What this pic fails to show is all the crashed aircraft that just got bulldozed off to the side.
Me and a buddy were hot to finish a 57 Nomad we were working on..I went to work and He was going to stay and "finish her up"..I get off of work go to the garage and He says "lets take her for a ride" I get in, get a little ways down the street and nail it..The un-bolted frontseat flies back and the un-bolted steering wheel comes off in my hand. I struggle back to the brake pedal and get it stopped but not after up and over some parking brakes over a small tree and to a stop in somebodys front yard...scary..maybe a pre-flight check would have been good...
1982...just out of high school my best friend had a 68 Cutlass..rusty POS..he and I were coming back from Ohio (we bought beer because they changed the michigan drinking age on us when we were already allowed to drink legally for 1 year) anyways..we had not partaken yet in any of the brew..we were in a hurry to get back to the party..doing 120 coming off the freeway..1st light turned red..he applied the brakes and after a few moments they faided...bad..we blew thru the light at 90. servived with no ticket or anyone else getting hurt.. 3 weeks later a friend of his borrowed the same cutlass to go pick up a pizza..the steering box came off the frame because it was so rusted out..car jumped the curb at 30..but didnt hit nothing..i never set foot back in that car..even after he jerry riged it to stay on the road for a while longer so he could sell it i got a few more about us jumping the car over back country RR track berms..but that was a few years earlier..fun but scarry shit now that i look back
Well my old school bud Rob had this homebuilt Tbucket type job with a 390FE that would jump up so hard when he nailed the gas that on the third stab of the loud pedal it would literally jump the whole car over a pop can! Always thought that was Cool! My story comes from a time when I would've lost my license for one more citation, so I ran from Every encounter. This particular evening my girlfriend (crazier than me) and I were in somewhat unfamiliar territory in my 76 Aspen RT. I'd picked up a staty and quickly turned onto a side road to head for more familiar areas and it turned to a gravel road. Pretty experienced at speeding on them I guess I'd been doing around 80 for a few minutes of dodging chuckholes when I noticed that there wasn't even a dim glow behind me. I'd broken the chase without hardly trying? WTF? That's when the wooden bridge came into my lights. It was ramped up a good foot from the road. So I immediately neutralled the pedal knowing our only chance at that speed would be to keep the tires at the same speed when landing. We sailed through that bridge without seeing anything at all ahead and the motor just kept droning on...and on. It was as if we'd fallen off the map! Then there were trees iluminated and suddenly stone roadway coming up fast! Bounced about three times I've never been sure, but just kept going. When we got to the next intersection I got out and checked for leaks and found none apparent, though the headers were absolutely crushed and it was steering a little hard. We made a beeline for her place 20mi away. When we went back to see what we'd done a few days later it turned out that we had gone over an old railroad bridge where the tracks ran at the base of a ridge and jumped the entire bridge and it's low side approach! It just amazes me to this day that we didn't bend that car up. Those rear spoilers are perfectly pitched to keep from nosing over, I never once landed on my bumper! But I never caught that kind of air before or after either! I'd taken it up to the Sunoco station after work the next afternoon and there were stones packed inot the collectors and some still sitting on top of the rear leaves!
Tried to teach myself how to ride a dirt bike at age 11. Fired it up, pulled in the clutch, dropped it in first, pinned it wide open, dumped the clutch and watched the bike do a backflip right out from under my ass. Rolled my clean '87 Toyota 4x4 two weeks after I got my license. Exploded a cast aluminum flywheel between my legs at 6000 rpm. Just about blew the motor completely out of the car. I learned to really appreciated hyrdo formed steel scatter shields that day. First time down the street in a '65 Beetle with a hot 2180. Found out old VW's had shitty brakes. Too many scary snow stories to remember. Drove my dad's '29 AA flatbed truck around the block. Found out old Model A's had shitty mechanical brakes. Was in a near head on collision in a M-113 APC that hit another M-113 going about 40 mph. Was the middle of the night and the drivers couldn't see very well even with NVGs and the IR lights on. Were headed right for each other and then turned away at the last second. Instead of being a head on it was more of a glancing hit down the side. Got bounced around pretty good while standing up out of the troop hatch. Later on on the same deployment (OIF 1) had numerous RPG close calls. In fact, was in a convoy when an RPG went right in between me and another M-113. Funny thing was was that we were moving along at 30 mph and maybe only 50 feet between us. Knew I was lucky after that one. Drove through an IED blast that was set off a split second too early. Was buried under the road surface and would have blown through the bottom of our APC. This would have been very bad because as Combat Engineers we always carried a good amount of C4 with us.
The Jalopy Journal
