some people are amazingly UN-observant!

Grumpy

The Grumpy Grease Monkey mechanical engineer.
Staff member
Last night the wife decided that her brother and her needed to drag my butt over to some relatives social gathering
(I think it had something to do with planing a party or something for a cousins wife that is having a new child in a month or so)
(like most males these little affairs the wife's feel they arrange and drag their husbands too,
are only must attend deals too the females, and have almost no interest from the male members of the family)
well most the males retired to the home owners man cave/bar, and garage, and while the females discussed the details concerned, most of the male participants, sat around talking, cars, firearms ,home repairs etc.
but during that time, it lasted my B.I.L who had driven over, to the house under protest, like most of us, in his AC cobra replica, he purchased last year.
had reluctantly sat back and relaxed, while the gals discussed, what to us was nearly meaningless trivia, and over about the 6 hours this gathering, lasted,
he consumed about 6 shot glasses of tequila, so he was obviously not absolutely in top form to drive home alone in the car.
thus my wife (his sister) strongly suggested I drive him home ,
in his AC cobra replica while she followed me to his home.
Now if you've ever owned or driven an AC cobra replica,
you will almost instantly find they have a rather cramped interior if your my size.
and that many people, who see the car, roll down windows and give you a thumbs up,
and amazingly a huge percentage will pull up next to you in what ever they are driving,
(and it might be anything from a mustang ,VAN,, dodge dart, camaro, Lincoln, or a old, buick station wagon,)
and reve their engines and do short power brake type fake launches, trying to get you to put the hammer down and do a burn out , and run through the gears.
you,ll see this constantly, driving that car, its an attention magnet,when you pull in to get fuel, you almost always have some guy walk over to look at the car or talk to you!
cob2.jpg

well this social shindig breaks up at 3 A.M. and my B.I.L. is surprisingly in decent physical and mental condition,
but EVERYONE, is now his BEST BUDDY , and hes not feeling too much pain,
hes almost sobered up, but still not really & honestly in condition to drive.
I get him to get into the Cobras pass seat and I'm going to drive, ......
now I'm 6'3" and 280 lbs and the seats in the cobra are set up for my B.I.L, and hes about 5'10" and 180 lbs
so needless to say the seats a bit too high and a bit too far forward to have me drive the car comfortably and the foot room and clutch and gas petal are in what to me is a rather small almost claustrophobic foot well.
then because of the seat I'm looking over the wind shield frame, now I can easily operate the car safely and drive it with out any major problem, but its not really comfortable and there,s no roof on the cobra, and there's been and still is intermittent light rain, in scattered areas and its about a 30 mile trip.
the streets are basically empty , compared to normal conditions at 3 A.M.
At most stop lights , I coast too a stop, let the cobra idle in neutral and I am short shifting the 5 speed manual, trans to try to keep the exhaust noise at minimum levels as it seems much louder than it normally does during day time traffic, in the still night air with almost no traffic, so I rarely reach 3K rpm and I'm certainly not going to race the car or do stupid stuff on wet pavement at 3 A.M. because most of the traffic I do see, seems to be delivery trucks, and every other cross section seems to have a local L.E.O. either parked on the shoulder or slowly cruising, and the Cobra has side exhaust and it rumbles, fairly loudly in the fairly quite night as we drive.
I pull up to several traffic lights and the typical deal of windows down, thumbs up or guys strongly suggesting we do a smoke the tires launch , happens as usually when I do have traffic, next to me.....at this one traffic light I have three lanes on my side of the highway, the car directly behind me, but in the next lane, is a clearly marked local police car,
the car on the cross street also happens to be a highway patrol car.
....as I coast to a stop at the light, the cop behind me is kind of smiling, the wife slowly comes to a stop behind me a car length back, I guess the cops , admiring the car,
on the other side some guy pulls up in a 1980s something Buick, and he rolls down the window and he guns his engine several times......
I smile but obviously don,t do anything stupid,or in any other way acknowledge him, as its raining lightly and the last thing I want is to draw attention to myself or the car.
....... well the light turns green and before I can even start to slowly pull away this guy launches the Buick spinning the tires for a couple dozen feet on the wet asphalt........and fish tails across the intersection,
I can,t imagine what this idiot was thinking
Now I never even reved my engine or in any way suggested I wanted to race... the cop behind me changes lanes and all kinds of red & blue lights on BOTH of the cop cars light up, and I'm some how, starting too suspect I'm going to be involved, (WRONG PLACE WRONG TIME) but I slowly pull through the intersection and thankfully watch both cop cars, drive rapidly after the moron who seems to think he can out run them,
and thankfully they don,t seem to give me a second glance,
I make damn sure I never hit 2K on engine rpms and I pull into a gas station for fuel a couple hundred yards up the street, with the wife in my car following.
after I fill the A.C. Cobras fuel tank, and my cars tank, I drive the rest of the trip, to the B.I.L's , hoping I don,t see any more local cops.... and we make in to his house without further incident.
 
That's why I seldom drive my Vette on the highway 1. its a cop magnet & 2. every idiot wants to race me
 
its raining again today, I drive the 1996 corvette
176.jpg

over to pick up a pizza the wife purchased for the grand kids,
on the way back out of the strip mall parking lot, Im sitting at a stop light and this younger guy in a pontiac sunbird
sunfire2dr2dr-se.jpg

if you don,t know what they look like heres one,

he is in the next lane, next to my vette starts,reeving his engine and obviously wanting me to do a burn out..........I ignore him.
we hes obviously frustrated , so when the light turns green, and he nails his 4-or 6 cylinder on a soaking wet slick pavement ,
one wheel rear differential , his car kicks off sideways fish tails, possibly bumped the curb,
and it looks like the tire came loose on the rim, anyway it goes instantly flat.
all this about 30 feet in front of me on the other side of a lightly traversed exit to the shopping strip mall.
I simply drove slowly past, not acknowledging his existence... no drama, just a suppressed grin, at how stupid younger males can be....
now trust me I was young once, and "I did my full share of STUPID" but even at 19 when I owned a kick ass, pontiac lemans with a big block ,

my car could have been a clone of this picture, in the way it looked, I found posted else-ware
65gtoa.jpg

I would not have tried pulling out of a parking lot on a slick wet pavement and holding the throttle to the floor,
especially when you are forced to make a 90 degree turn within 60 feet to get onto what out here in my rural area passes for a main street, two lain asphalt road.

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Cops always make me cringe whenever I’m driving one of the vintage cars; they are cop magnets. That being said, to this day, they have only been very kindly and helpful. Neither have I ever done anything reckless on the road to call attention.

The above reminds me of a day the wife and I were contemplating buying a sporty BMW. We went down to the dealership for a test drive and quietly drove it around the neighborhood. It was a nice day if a tick rainy. (You can hear me coming.) :rolleyes:

At an on ramp of the highway, a couple of kids in a Nissan “whatever those blue things are called with a big wing on them” pulls up next to us and baits us, with revs and body language, to stoplight sprint.

A. I was driving a test loaner
B. I didn’t know the BMW
C. I’m quite sure the Missus was not in for such excitement
D. And most importantly, one glance at the bending, slightly damp pavement told me: danger.

I smile and quietly wave back.

So the boisterous kids rev a few times and when there is an opportunity to launch, they seize it as we quietly roll forward. Sure enough: rear brakes loose. Repeated and increasing over compensation amplifies the loss of traction and control. Then comes the nail in the coffin: panic and slamming hard on the breaks.

Now, they weren’t going all that fast. This entire erratic ballet was happening in slow motion right in front of us spanning across all the lanes.

My wife must have been thinking the same thing as me: oh shit, I hope he doesn’t hit this car !

Seconds later they come to rest in a shallow ditch on the side of the road. Nothing serious. No one was hurt. I pulled over right after them to offer a hand... but they frantically waved me on, too shocked and mostly embarrassed to deal with me.

Someone learned a lesson that day :rolleyes:
 
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I have had a few close calls the past few weeks driving my Corvette back & forth to work 140 miles + daily 6 days a week.
Getting cut off.
Those Semi Truck Drivers mainly.
Decent all around power & has been getting 27 MPG.

Been thinking of driving the 63 GP with its 425 Olds V8.
Way More Powerfull Passing all.
Runs with a c6 LS3 Corvette till 120 Mph can not shake me.
Really wanting to upgrade the Intake to a race Single plane.
Free up another 30-50 HP.
But then it uses more gas driving long distance.
 
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