Roads Unraveled, Times Traveled
02/25/08 09:40 PM
| ProjectileI was once published in AutoWeek magazine. I had a subscription to Motor Trend before I had a license. I have been in two car clubs. Painted a race car, and worked on a sprint car crew for a few races. I actually used a tree and hoist to replace rear leaf springs on an old car once (a true shade tree mechanic).
I have driven econo-boxes, and $70,000 sports cars, giant engined maxivans, and four cylinder VW's that only hit on three cylinders until they were over 1500 rpms. I have had a brake line break at 40 mph and driven on a sidewalk around a corner until the vehicle ran out of momentum. I have bought cars for under $125.00 that I drove for two more years. I got so good at de-gunking a '62 Falcon fuel filter that I could pull over and disconnect, flush and reinstall it in under three minutes. I've owned VW's, Fords, Dodges, Chevys, Chryslers, Plymouths, Toyotas, Nissans (Datsuns) and BMWs. I've driven a 1965 Ford Ranchero with a Hi-Po 289 engine that my father, brother and I dropped in from a real race car I bought for $125.00 over 130 miles per hour with just one left front and one right rear brake. I short block rebuilt a R22 Toyota truck engine in two weekends. I have pushed, pulled and towed more cars than some people have owned in the thirty years I have been driving. I had a car stolen and abandoned less than a mile away because the thieves didn't know enough to release the parking brakes. I had that same car catch on fire and successfully called the fire-department as I drove it into a parking lot where they arrived to finish it off with their dasher bars and axes.
I totaled a 65 Chevy C10 when I slid into a car-carrier semi after a newer vehicle stopped in the middle of an interstate and made a 90° right turn to get to an exit they passed. I bounced off the rear wheels into the concrete center barrier than careened all the way across the highway to end perfectly in the breakdown lane with fire coming through the floorboard from the broken engine exhaust manifold. When I got out I saw that the 3/8 inch thick steel bumper was curled around and poking through my left front tire like a shovel blade.
I've bought two cars new off the show room floor, and one that never made it to the floor, the 14th 1993 Dodge Intrepid ever sold in Indiana (it took two months before the DMV had excise info and I could plate it), it was on a ramp in front of Western Dodge in Marion Indiana September 3rd 1992, they got it in that afternoon.
I've driven Penske and U-Haul and rental cube vans, Pontiac, Chevy, Hyundai, Toyota and Chrysler rental cars. At 15, with just a learners permit drove a 30 foot 12 speed delivery truck when my Uncle slipped a disk in has back while I was with him.
But I've never had to pay a deductable or had an insurance claim, or repair.
This is a new experience for me. I upgraded my rental Chevy Aveo (speck) offering this morning at Enterprise, Jenni thought I'd get a Nissan Versa after looking on the Enterprise web-site, instead I got a bigger speck or should I say Spec-tra. A smallish Kia Spectra four door with a lot of pep, side curtain airbags, bright vacu-florescent displays and three inch thick, barely padded, cloth seats that are hard. Harder than Chuck Norris after bitch-slapping a Kodiak Bear for half an hour hard. It will take about a week for my Mädchen to get out of her re-hab, about a week to fix what I did in less than five second lapse. About a week to make me whole again too. 'Til then I will ride in quiet psuedo-comfort instead of walking, and long for my baby and her handling, poise and power. I will long for my cruising and cruise-control my on board computers and my leather seats, my sun-roof and a car I can drive all day and not feel tired, cramped or unsafe in.
I guess I am spoiled even after all those trials and tribulations behind the wheel because I can not imagine a single drive of more than twenty or thirty miles in this tiny but efficient econo car.
Bis dahin bin ich nicht fahren Ich bin Reiten.
(Until then I'm not driving I'm riding.)
Chuck Pace © 2008 | |