Rousing stories, great drives, amazing feats???

[masraum]

Come on guys. It's summertime, I drive a miata. Help me out here. I need some interesting stories, interesting street races (we used to get these occasionally, but I never see them anymore, we couldn't have gotten that mature as a group ).

Jack?! Jack!? Where is one of your great long creative posts. I'm beginning to think that if you haven't wrecked or you are rebuilding that we just don't get those stories. (not that I'm wishing either on anyone here!)

Thom F, 2100lbs and a 3.6. You must have something interesting to tell us.

Juan?

HP Junkies?

[masraum]

I've already checked out this board, OT, the miata board, the watch boards...

Apparently I need more to do at work.

[zymurgist]

A month or so ago, I was sitting at a traffic light next to a green Toyota MR-2 Spyder. Neat little car, IMO it's the closest thing you can buy to a 914 these days. Anyway, when the light turned green, he nailed it. I'm in my blue Neon with silver skunk stripes (factory rice), and I guess he wanted to race. He got the holeshot since I didn't know I was racing... but I never could reel him in, and the Neon's 2.0 with 3.94 gears (bone stock) usually has more than enough power for passing maneuvers and such.

OK, not really Porsche related, but I haven't been driving mine since the shift rod broke at the front end.

[Jack Olsen]

A video is worth a thousand words, right?

Here's a track, a street car, two guys with no helmets -- one of whom is a Formula 1 driver.

VIDEO CLIP

Right-click and download it before viewing for smoother play.

Discuss.

"Are you all right, man?"

[strother]

Was the F1 driver driving? Wow. I guess it goes to show that one needs to be familiar with one's equipment before putting it to the test. I am always the first to point out that I'm naive, but I've never considered that rolling my 911 in a turn like that is a possibility.

[JTO]

Steve,

Last night on the way home I executed a perfect heel-toe three to two downshift. Does that count?
Troy

[Tspringer]

Last fall in New Orleans.....

Around 8am on a friday morning, peak rush hour traffic and my wife and I are in the Daytona. We are heading out of town, and get on I10. The road is clear! I nail it. 2nd gear..... 7700rpm. 3d gear...... 7700rpm. 4th gear...... 7700rpm and into 5th gear. She is SCREAMING (the V12, not the wife!) I hit 6000 rpm in 5th gear, an indicated 260kph (!) before slowing for an approaching bridge overpass where I suspect the pavement may be uneven. Thats right around 160mph. The car was rock solid and still pulling like a freight train.

As I slow down a bit, a Ferrari Enzo followed about 4 feet behind by an F40 go by in a blur just to my left ! The noise is deafening as they pass, amazing! I am probably doing 125mph at this point and they go by like I am standing still. The Enzo driver later tells me that at the point they passed me he was indicating 205mph...

We continue on and eventually exit off on a two lane state highway. I feel we have fallen behind the group a bit, so I begin to push pretty hard. I take a very long left hand sweeper at around 120mph and entering onto the following long straight I spot a Police car! In an instant it seems I am right on his bumper. HIS ARM COMES OUT AND HE IS FRANTICALLY WAVING ME PAST!

I blow by the cop and he has a huge grin on his face. There are 2 more cop cars in front of him, the leader with his lights on. The straight must be 3 miles long and I see no oncoming traffic so I hold the loud pedal flat on the floor. As I pass the last cop his passenger is clapping and laughing out loud as is my wife! We blow by him doing 150mph or so. By the end of the straight, the cops are distants specs in the mirror.

It goes on like this for another 30 minutes. Finally we arrive at No Problems Raceway where we spend the day thrashing the Daytona around the track, watching others do the same in every Ferrari model you can imagine and generally having an amazing time. I actually got to run with and pass THE 1962 Ferrari 250TR/LM that won LeMans with Phil Hill at the wheel in 1962!

Ferrari French Quarter Classic in 2004. The cops closed the roads and gave us police escort everywhere we went. Yes... they even closed down I10 on a weekday morning during rush hour traffic so 100 insane guys driving Ferraris could skip the traffic jam and test top speeds on a 6 lane wide interstate highway!

It was the most fun I have ever had at ANY car focused event. Amazing cars, people, food, events.... this has been described as the best car nut 3 day long party on the face of the earth I do not question that for a second!

[jmz]

Anyone up for a little RICE hunting?

[JTO]

Terry! Amazing story. What fun.
Tory

[jmz]

Anyone up for a little RICE hunting?

[Tspringer]

uhhhhhhh one note on the above story.

All speeds listed are purely for "fun". Nothing is for the record factual. Its all a matter of conjecture. Nobody did anything remotely illegal. The organizers, police, participants and everyone else I saw obeyed all laws at all times.

Some wanker New Orleans newspaper reporters after the event were screaming bloody murder about the wanton destruction, chaos, disregard for human life and general mayhem of the event.

Oh the humanity!!!!!

These nanny state loving bed wetters would love nothing better than to see such events shut down. After all.... guys in Ferraris roaring around the streets with police esort while regulars Joes are forced to sit in traffic watching just isnt something that should be tolerated in polite society now is it?

So for the legal record.... I am like Schultz on Hogans Heros: I SAW NOTHING. I KNOW NOTHING.

Every spectator I saw, everywhere we went, thought the entire spectacle was the coolest thing they had ever seen. Also, no cars were damaged at all, nobody was hurt and everyone had a GREAT time.

[obrut]

Steve - what about a whole week of driving fun?

Targa Tasmania Tarmac Rally '05 - story and pic's! (longish)

[TRE Cup]

It's the first year at the Montery Historics where Ferrari is the featured marque of the weekend. I had imported a Daytona from yur'p and was in the midst of making a new carpet set for it. the dash mouse fur was all worn out and the upholstery shop had it- wires and guages dangling all over the place- Wednesday night before the weekend, we are shooting the breeze at the local Mulholland racers coffee shop- "hey when are the historics?" "This weekend". "Hmmm... If anyone can help me put the interior back together, they can ride with me and we can go to the event" Well, the first one that shot his hand up helped me over the next two days getting the dash back, gluing the carpet down properly, etc etc. Saturday morning 6 a.m. North Hollywood- we take off up the ramp on the 101. The car is running sweet, the V-12 is singing its sirens' song , big smiles on both our faces. Santa Barbara becomes our first gas stop- huge fumes of gasoline, lousy mileage- WTF? open the hood- my friend's face turns white as a sheet and he slowly backs away from the car. WTF?!?! The car had undergone mandatory testing in a lab a couple weeks before and the resulting dyno testing had vibrated loose a couple of fuel fittings. The entire right bank of cylinders between the cams was full of percolating gasoline OH MY GAWD!! what to do?? the gas station attendant is wide eyed at the site of a black daytona in his drive AND the fact that these two idiots are leaning over the motor , with percolating gas, mopping it up with a roll of paper towels. Once that was accomplished we found the loose fittings on the carbs- but the tool roll was missing that wrench. The station attendant offers the "junk box" to look for one and Hey! a correct George brand wrench in the right dimension is in there- unbelievable!! The carbs now tight, the tool roll all complete with its once missing wrench, we fill up the tank and off we go. Now we are on a mission- we've lost 45 minutes in Santa Barbara and want to get to the event. We are well into 5th around 6k rpm just sailing up 101. No San Marcos pass (a 20-30 minute savings) we zing by other sports cars on their way up. No one wants to play at these speeds....
A half hour goes by- we are out of Santa Maria now and just as we crest a hump, going the other way just about as fast is a CHP with his red light on- We could feel the laser beams from his eyes as we spot each other. OH Ch*t! we are going to really get it- we eyeball him pulling away the other direction- no brake lamps,no slow down- phew! he is on a emergency call. We slow down anyway for a while. 70 mph feels like we are crawling..... The speed creeps back up, pretty soon, emboldened by no more attention I am back up to 6k rpm. The gas mileage has vastly improved.... no more fumes- all is well with the world. At 10 am we pull up to the gates of Laguna Seca. We are totally thrilled- WHAT A RIDE! The races are fun and we can't get the grins off our faces. Sunday the concours is cool and we decide to take Highway 1 coming back to L.A.
Now the good thing about the Daytona is the torque- it can rip from 50 mph to passing speeds very well. The bad thing is the brakes- with calipers designed for a BMW Tii, the heavy car does not like to stop without LOTS of leg. So our passing opportunities were interesting, but never unsafe (really) With the ocean cliff to our ever mindful right, we gobbled up road. The shifting, blasting past cars, the howl of the motor off the mountain sides- sublime. One tank of premium and 3 1/2 hours after we left Carmel, we pulled back off the freeway from where we began in North Hollywood.
This is the kind of memory that will last with me till the end. A wonderful experience in GT motoring with (admittedly not a P car) a fabulous Italian machinna.
Next time ask me how we did it in 3 hours with our Porsches...

[masraum]

Excellent, thanks all. These have helped a ton.