it doesn't count if you can't see the speedometer...

Driving back from the CART Indycar race in Toronto in the late 80's with a friend we stopped at the Whirlpool Golf course country club to burn off the last of our canadian money taking our time at lunch we walked out and got back to my Turbo Saab
in the parking lot at 3:30... I commented "well lets, go I want to be home by dark..."

My friend looks at his watch and says "never gonna happen"

NOTE: DO NOT tell me "Never" when I have a turbocharger and a full tank of CAM2 racing fuel... and the "fast" cam in the engine.

We covered the 405 mile distance in 4hours and 1minute. And that includes a fuel stop where we "had it our way" at Burger King In Ithica NY.

Where they got it WRONG three times.

I still managed to be in New Jersey before 6:50PM when they stopped selling lottery tickets for that nights drawing.

Yet my average speed for the entire trip averaged 101.2mph from the golf course to my driveway.

You may take it as a given I crossed most of NY state at an average of >135mph with my top speed tickling 150mph (Yeah, My Saab WAS "that fast")

Why did I do it?
See I knew a couple of things that were rather important, the first was that I had a state of the art radar detector.
the second was that I was driving a car that was easily 35mph faster than the NY State Patrol's Chevy Caprices (under ideal conditions
and much faster under the prevailing conditions at the time.)


I also knew that NY state police used K-band Radar

Most importantly?

K-band doppler Radar is great for measuring the speed of falling rain drops or the speed of
a scofflaw fogbank, but IN THE RAIN, the radar of that time was only good for providing a warm place for the officer to set his coffee cup down

Helicopters? In the Rain? Are you joking?


Yes, I was driving at speeds up to 145mph in the RAIN

I ran out from under the rainstorm on I-81 just as I passed through Conklin, NY and crossing the border in to Pennsylvania.

I never exceded 85 in Pennsylvania nor more than 65-ish once back in NJ.

There was definatly a "police presence" on I81, I-380 and I-80 in PA and in NJ on I-80, but I seriously doubt that had anything to do with little old me...

I had quite the "Dan Gurney Complex" back then.

I'd love to tell you about the night I drove from Montclair, NJ to the Mid-Ohio sports complex in Lexington, Ohio in just under 5-1/2 hours 495miles in 5:34 (it's easy when you manage to run the full length of I-80 in PA in just over 2hours (Hey, 3am on a thursday morning is not the time they are out looking for drunks!)

That trip was kind of a blur, because there were long single lane construction zones were I could only do 45mph...(where what few cop cars there were out & about were parked) and stretches between these zones where I would see just how tight I could stretch that throttle cable...

What was really funy was telling the truckers who asked how big an engine that car had...
and I got to tell them "121Cubic inches.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
AND a turbocharger bigger then theirs"

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quote:

Originally posted by Huvius:

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Way back in College, you know the time, you do not have a whole lot of fear...

I went to school, and lived 34 miles away from, my home town. I drove a 64 Chevelle SS 4 speed, that was pretty "peppy".

One Friday, classes were done for the day, I ate lunch, at the dorm cafeteria. I got into the Chevelle, fired her up, started the stop watch function on my wrist watch, and 15 minutes and 7 seconds later, I was setting in my parents driveway...

Lucky for me, I never saw any Police, well actually, I was Lucky for they never saw Me.

120mph average?
You sure about that?

Yes, I did have to slow down for some traffic that was in the way a time or three.

Lesse, I think the best time I had, not going incredibly fast, was with my 350z before I started going V8 on it. Before that, it was bored and stroked to 4.2 liters, twin turbocharged and running a pretty hot cam along with a bunch of cosworth goodies. I was supposed to take a buddy to the airport down in San Diego and I fell asleep. I awoke to his 6th call, and he was pissed! I got the Z warmed up, got him picked up and proceeded to demolish the I-5 going over 130mph at 10pm. It wasn't fully tuned and it was still governed to 155mph, plus I was currently at 2 speeding tickets that year, so we went "moderate." After a couple of months I braved 165mph on the 5.
My GTO has seen 171mph on the I-5 north up to Sacramento. It was 1am and while I was getting gas, there was a guy in a newer CTS-V that was struggling to stay awake too. We got to chatting about cars and we decided hey, he's got a supercharged LS-9 and mine is naturally aspirated, but we're running about the same horsepower / torque, let's see what happens. We both took off and under 100mph, he was pulling ahead but after I started to pull past. I decided in the same run to see how fast my car would go comfortably, as he stopped pulling after 110mph. I got up to 171 (the cars w/ hood scoops are limited to 183) and wussed out, especially seeing my temp gauge.
I did get an old Chevy Astro van up to 90mph and that was probably the most exhilarating drive ever! That thing was SCREAMING and the whole van was shaking like a damn drying machine! After about a minute of uncontrollable laughter I decided to back off of it.
Now my days are spent scooting around under 55mph because of the cops around here. Every once in a while I'll get risky and get to 65mph. Whoo!

The fastest street cars I ever drove were two different Ford Panatera's.

They were in excellent shape, and had been slicked up a bit...

If I told you how fast they clocked on a certified radar gun, you would not believe it.

They were not comfortable to drive, but they were Fast.

I did have a couple of "work" cars that had BIG Engines. They were "take home cars", and thus I was issued them for a few years.
I had them slicked up a "little", and never lost a chase.

I almost got "called on the carpet" one time when there was a big "persuit", and the rest of the guys wondered why my "car" was passing them like they were sitting still...

And when you outrun a Bell Jet Ranger, you say to the pilot, You must have had a "Heck" of a head wind "upthere"...

N E 450 No2, I'd have to agree that the Panteras were pretty phenomenal cars in their own right.

I have to ask though, what's with all the quotations marks?

My car these days is a compromise between acceleration, ease of entry for us seniors and some off road ability.

The Chrysler 300C is available with AWD and the Hemi.

The car is superb to drive. I have had many cars over the last 55 years including Corvetes, Porsche and muscle cars.

The only negative to this 300C is that it's trunk could be larger.

350 hp and 390 lb-ft of torque

run home...

I left Illinois, across the bridge from St Louis in the old jag about 5am Idaho time Thursday.
Pulled in my driveway, 1688 miles later, at 4am this (Friday) morning. Averaged a decent 76 mph, but dang! there were a lot of troopers on the road.

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Way back in College, you know the time, you do not have a whole lot of fear...

I drove an SC/Rambler at the time, Brock Yates wrote that they rode like coal carts but it was quick. I got relatively few tickets, but was nailed in Kansas (fooling with an aftermarket cruise control to see if it had a governor) on I-70 by a policeman hidden somewhere I couldn't see, never did figure out where. My brother was sleeping at the time, woke up at a post office where I was mailing the fine to see a granny peering into his window. He rolled down the window and the granny looked at the police car, looked at the hood scoop, and said "...you didn't let him catch you...did you?"

178mph 2 weeks ago in my Viper on the 130 toll loop around Austin to San Antonio, TX where the speed limit is posted at 85mph. Hit a long open stretch and started to open her up. Chickened out at 178mph and climbing as she was a bit squirrelly jumping back and forth within the tire lane depressions in the asphalt. Had her just backed down to 90mph when I crested the hill and there sat a Texas State Trooper. Damn good thing I got scared as that wouldn't have been a mere ticket!!

One of my first speeding episodes occurred just before sundown in the fall of 1967.
I was whizzing down a long steep hill at 85 when a 66 Chevy Nova SS blew by followed at about 50 yards by a 65 Pontiac Gran Prix followed another 400 yards back by a Highway Patrol cruiser with his antenna bent way back.
15 minutes later I cruised into the city limits of the next town and the patrol man had the SS Nova pulled over. He walked into the traffic lane with his yellow coned flash light and waved the Pontiac over. With a nervous grin I drove right on by...

The last summer of college I bought myself a Plymouth Fury. This was 1956 and the Fury was actually a special car . Goodyear Bluestreaks and lowered and chopped. Mine had Hillborn fuel injection and was the first in the state. The head of the Highway Patrol was a family friend and the patrol was going to get Dodge D500 as Patrol cars so he asked me to run my Fury thru a radar check to see the speed. Made a twoway run and averaged 134mph which at that time was fairly decent. Had nothing but trouble with it fouling plugs which were a really special long plug. Finally got tired of it being in the shop all the time and got some stationary from the company I worked for and wrote a letter to the President of Plymouth registered and return slip so I would be sure it was delivered. In it I stated the problems I had and that if they couldn't resolve the problem please tell me and I would trade it in for a Corvette. Three days later I got a wire from the Head of engineering for Plymouth to not do anything they were flying an engineer in to solve the problem. He ariver and came to the plant where I worked and got my car and left a new Chrysler convertible for me to use. It took him about a week to fix. He found it was moisture collecting in the Distributor cap and causing cross firing. On the Fury the distributor had the tach drive in a unit in the distributor right under the cap and body. He tried oiled gaskets to no avail, the final solution was to drill a hole in the cap to let in outside air and eliminate the condensation. This worked and I was happy with it the rest of the time I had it. Shortly afterwards I was drafted and left it home with my mother. She let my brother have it to take to college and he was T-boned at an intersection by a guy who ran a red light and was totaled. I really did like that car. Actually handled pretty well and was comfortable.