Yup. It finally happened.
Took the 911 down to Frank's for it's annual exam and pap smear, and to fix a rocker shaft issue. Drove the VW bus down after work, drove the 911 home and left the bus there to retrieve later.
Enter ///Mink (another member of this board). I recruit Tom (without the 'h') to drive one of the cars home, and he elects to drive the 911.
Can you blame him?
It's fun watching my car from the outside - that baby can move when you want it to! And when I'm up high in the bus and it takes off from a light in front of me - the sound is undescribable.
And it's down to about 1/8th tank - of race gas. So it sounds good and smells good too.
So ///Mink is ripping along down Fair Oaks Blvd; he takes off and gets a lead, then slows down to let me catch up (remember, I'm in a 1960 VW panel bus) and then takes off again. It's a nice show.
Maybe now I understand why couples swing.
In the middle of one such cycle, I see a CHP pull out into traffic, in our direction. I motioned out the window for Tom to slow down, but he doesn't see it. He bolts around the car in front of him, runs it up to redline in 2nd, reaches for 3rd and... sees the cop.
Scheiße.
In a panic, Tom pulls the e-brake, thinking it would keep the nose from diving and maybe the cop wouldn't see him.
Yeah, right.
Instead, it locked up the rear end, making sure the cop
heard him instead.
Yeah, that's a lot better.
Now, I'm watching helplessly from a few car-lengths back. The CHP pulls into the suicide lane and slows down to let him get ahead, then cuts over 2 lanes directly in front of
me and hits the lights. I pull over as well; I figure I'm somehow obligated, if not outright responsible.
So the cop gets out and goes over to the driver's window and they chat. The 911's engine is still running, and continues to run for several seconds before he shuts it off. His brilliant plan now is to play blonde, telling the officer that it's not his car (true), and he doesn't know how to drive it (false) and doesn't know how to shut it off (false).
I get out - slowly - and - slowly - walk over. I tell the officer that it's my car and we're taking it home from the shop. Tom's babbling about how he doesn't know how to drive it; I chime in and explain to the officer that yes, it's
very difficult to drive, but I had let him drive it in exchange for helping me go retrieve it from the shop. The race seats, roll bar and 5-point harnesses seem to lend credence to our story. The cop asks me a few questions about the car, like how long I've had it, specs, etc. and then tells
me to drive it home before ///Mink wrecks it, and lets us go.
No ticket, but he followed me very carefully as I drove the rest of the way down F.O. I'm sure he was running numbers on his little computer the whole way. I gave him a
as I turned off.
Not often do you get to watch someone drive your car. Rarer still to socially engineer your way out of a ticket. Watching someone else get pulled over in
your car and then socially engineering
them out of a ticket has to be the result of bizarre planetary alignment.
FWIW, I'm sure this would have included a 23109A - Exhibition of speed, which, IIRC, is a misdemeanor.
Go ahead, ask me how I know, and why I know that veh code section off the top of my head.